Filed under: liberty

Part I: Government

American Principle Seven (Part I)

 

The Moral Duties Of Civility Are Also a Predicate

For Interpreting Constitutional Meaning

 

"We hold these truths to be self-evident ..."

Declaration of Independence

 

"Tis substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.  Who that is a sincere friend to it, can look with Indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?"

George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796

 

 

"Laws of Nature and of Nature's God"* morality fits into the behavioral envelope that supports life, truthfulness and the Golden Rule, meaning treating others in ways that one would like to be treated and would like loved ones to be treated.  Immorality includes those traits called sin that fall outside the envelope of life.

 

Together, morality and work ethic is the engine that liberates mankind from the tyranny of aggressive government employees.  Liberty from intrusive government makes it possible for the people to market their skills to own property essential for maintaining independence and happiness.

 

"Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains on their own appetites.  Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere… men of intemperate minds cannot be free.  Their passions forget their fetters" (Edmund Burke, British supporter of the American Revolution, November 3, 1774, speech to the electors of Bristol, England, quoted by HIllsdale College, Imprimis, Vol. 20, No. 9).

 

The atheistic-secular philosophy for law identifies with what Solon of Athens described as "government by incalculable and changeable decrees" (Will and Ariel Durant, The Story of Civilization, Vol. II, The Life of Greece, Simon and Schuster, 1939, 118).  Secularism is an evil repudiation of the solid basis for prosperity and citizen self-government intended by Constitutional law.

 

Government potential for power as well as the lucrative public treasury attract politicians who are intent on self-aggrandizement and conquest.  Expressed by President Ronald Reagan: "Government is not the solution to our problems, it is the problem" (Inaugural Address, 1981).  "A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position.  The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositaries, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern; some of them in our country and under our own eyes.  To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them" (George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796).

 

*The phrase "Nature's God" used in the Declaration of Independence did not originate with Americans.  The Laws of Nature's God include the Biblical standards of morality.  When the bond between God and man was broken in the Garden of Eden, the forces of evil that seek to defy creation's nature were unleashed.  "The law of nature was a common term used by historic legal writers such as Grotius, Burlamaqui, Blackstone and others.  The law of nature's God, a lesser used term, was more commonly called the divine law, or the revealed law" (Lonang Historical Reference Works).

http://www.lonang.com/exlibris/index.html

 

 

 

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Part I: Government

American Principle Six (Part II)

 

The Written Constitution Established

By Americans Is a Tool For Governing

 

Governments derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed."

Declaration of Independence

 

 

The people as sovereigns have no right to delegate powers to government that are unjust.  Citizens have the right to the fruits of their labor from irrational and confiscatory taxes.  Those in the judiciary have the very serious responsibility to uphold lawsuits, finding that legislators or government administrators are violating the unalienable rights to equal treatment under the law intended by the Constitution.

 

The limited uses of government powers are addressed in the Preamble to the Constitution:  "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare [meaning common needs that do not conflict with or hamper the development of the work ethic and citizen self-reliance], and secure the Blessings of Liberty [from oppression] to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

 

In Abraham Lincoln's immortal speech, he emphasized that we, as a people, look to God's law for justice and liberty.  He dedicated the field where thousands gave their lives at Gettysburg, saying, "That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth" (The Gettysburg Address, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, November 19, 1863).

 

Some delegates to the Constitutional Convention believed these principles of the Declaration of Independence for guiding government action would prevail without amending the Constitution because many states had adopted a Bill of Rights.  Framers at the national level felt the Constitution was adequate because they just spent four months designing ways to expose and remove evil men from government and encourage honorable employees to stay.  Obviously the delegates did not anticipate the pervasiveness of the federal judiciary as it has since developed.  Ultimately the Founders at the state level made a most significant contribution by insisting that the nation's Constitution be amended by a Bill of Rights.

 

Regardless of the rank of those in government, they are the servants, and the citizens who established the Constitution are the sovereigns.  Having it any other way is a return to the long history of tyranny from the hands of evil men powered by government.

 

 

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Part I: Government

American Principle Five

 

Liberty--From Oppression By Big Government

and Nongovernment Authoritarians--Is Vital

 

"unalienable Rights, that among these are … liberty."

Declaration of Independence

 

 

"Liberty and life are the gratuitous gifts of heaven.  I shall certainly be excused from adducing any formal arguments to evince, that life, and whatever is necessary for the safest of life, are the natural rights of man.  Some things are so difficult; others are so plain, that they cannot be proved" (Supreme Court Justice James Wilson, Lectures, delivered in the College of Philadelphia, 1790-1791).

 

Liberty, in the context of the Declaration of Independence and Preamble to the Constitution, means freedom from government activity that would undermine the development of citizen self-reliance.  Not only must those in the judicial branch of government support the meaning and intent of the Constitution for God-honoring education curriculum, the people's money should not be used to buy political advantage.  When politicians continually manage to have welfare payments given to healthy people when jobs remain available, they are promoting a growing block of dependent citizens within the population.  Once reduced to dependence on government, the fiscal and sociological consequences to society become permanent.  These people soon figure out that by electing liberals, they can become work-free.  Helping those who are incapable for reasons beyond their control is, of course, man's duty and beneficial to all.

 

"Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift of God?  That they are not violated but with His wrath?  Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just:  that His justice cannot sleep forever" (Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia Q.XVIII, 1782. ME 2:227).  Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and third President of the United States.

 

The Constitution, starting with We the people, was designed to identify and remove authoritarian cheats from power in government.  Many of those cheats remain unpunished, but, in the recent past, one president of the United States was forced to resign because of dishonest claims.  Another president was required to testify before a citizen grand jury and later found to be guilty of perjury (telling lies under oath) and obstruction of justice, and was impeached by the House of Representatives.  This only works when all men are equal in the sight of God and the law, and when the laws reflect justice.

 

Leaders are important, but leaders must be held accountable to the judgment of the people.

 

 

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Part I: Government

American Principle Four (Part II)

 

All Men Are Equal

In the Sight Of God and the Law

 

"that all men are created equal ..."

Declaration of Independence

 

 

The Bible's Priesthood of Believers doctrine points to the direct God-to-man relationship that has liberated countless millions of people from exploitation by truth trashers.  People cherish a system that defines the truth as a gift from God, unchanging and always applicable.  They appreciate a system that respects the right to enjoy the fruit of one's labor and freedom to exchange enhanced products for prosperity.  Recognized anew during the Great Reformation (1500-1570), it is part of the American Judeo-Christian heritage.  The God-to-man relationship is a protective covenant.  People may choose to avoid deception imposed by authoritarians by going directly to God's Word and, when interpreted as such, learn the TRUTH.  Protected by the religious liberty amendment, until twisted by judges, the First Amendment freed the people from the tyranny of ideological truth trashers.

 

When adopted both religiously and educationally, Priesthood of Believers diminished the ability of truth and knowledge trashers and generated the greatest expanse of human ingenuity and prosperity in history.

 

The Judeo-Christian faith is not a religion that is forcefully imposed on the people.  Acceptance is a personal choice.  Paralleling Biblical morality, the Creator-based Declaration of Independence serves as America's impartial Civic Religion for public life.  Immigrants come to America by the millions because they can be free from the inequality of authoritarian rule.  For some readers, this may seem beside the point, but the Judeo-Christian Bible, though thousands of years old, has been the most popular book throughout history, by far.  Pilgrim's Progress, a book composed of Christian allegory by John Bunyan, was published in February, 1678.  Written almost 350 years ago, Pilgrim's Progress is thought to be second only to the Bible in existent numbers today.

 

Only when public alarm leads to changes in the judicial branch, and the meaning of the First Amendment again becomes law, can education become free from the enemies of religious liberty and citizen self-government.  This would put an end to the use of government-powered lawsuits by men intent on defiling society.  "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press …" (from the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America).

 

 

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Part I: Government

American Principle Three

 

Upholding the Traditional Family Is Paramount

 

"laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

Declaration of Independence

 

 

Protecting the traditional family as a distinct institution is among the highest priorities for a nation's laws.  This historic arrangement has proven overwhelmingly to be the best setting for raising children to live healthy, responsible and productive lives (Genesis 2:23,24).

 

"That government is instituted and ought to be exercised for the benefit of the people; which consists in the enjoyment of life and liberty, and generally of pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety" (James Madison in the first session of the US Congress, proposing the "Bill of Rights" amendments be added to the Constitution of the United States).

 

It is interesting to note that Genesis chapter 2 of the Bible reads, "… a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh" (Genesis 2:24).  In the New Testament, Ephesians 5:25 says, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for it."

 

"The most important consequence of marriage is, that the husband and the wife become in law only one person" (James Wilson, Natural Rights of Marriage, 1792). 

 

 

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Part I: Government

American Principle Two

 

God Is the Source Of Unalienable Rights

 

"All men are … endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

Declaration of Independence

 

"We The People Of The State Of Iowa, grateful to the Supreme Being for the blessings hitherto enjoyed, and feeling our dependence on Him for a continuation of those blessings, do ordain and establish a free and independent government,

by the name of the State of Iowa ..."

Preamble, Constitution of Iowa, adopted in 1846--seventy years

after the Declaration of Independence

 

 

Education that does not emphasize that man's unalienable rights are the gift of God is energizing the secular enemies of the family, self-rule, prosperity and liberty.  Liberty is not man's creation or something radically new to the world, but rights "derived from our Maker," rights "indisputable, unalienable," "inherent," "essential," "divine," and even acknowledged since the Middle Ages by British law (from John Adams' Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law, published in the Boston Gazette, August 12, 1765).

 

"The sacred Rights of mankind are not to be rummaged from among old parchments or musty records.  They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the Hand of the Divinity itself, and can never be erased or voided or obscured by mortal power" (Alexander Hamilton in his essay, The Farmer Refuted, 1775).

 

"We further recommend the most clear and explicit assertion and vindication of our rights and liberties to be entered on the public records, that the world may know, in present and all future generations, that we have a clear knowledge and a just sense of them, and, with submission to Divine Providence that we never can be slaves" (John Adams, adopted on October 14, 1765, by the town meeting of Braintree, Massachusetts, and sent to their representatives in the Massachusetts state legislature).

 

 

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Part I: Government

 

American Principle One

 

The Spiritual Nature Of Man Is Supreme

 

"All men are created … endowed by their Creator …"

Declaration of Independence

 

Foundational to liberty and the American approach to government is the fact that man is of divine origin.  His spiritual or God-honoring nature is held as being of supreme importance.  Upholding man’s God-given “rights” from abuses sanctioned by governments makes liberty possible.  The divine quality of these rights calls for the unequivocal rejection of the authoritarian entitlements claimed by elitists of all stripes—kings, authoritarian politicians, clergy, educators and militarists.  This principle enshrines certain limits that must, for the sake of liberty, be placed upon the use of the law and government power.

 

Humble support for the sovereignty of man under God over government is the guarantor of freedom for family wholeness, self-reliance and prosperity.  People who know the truth can reject, without fear, the alarming chatter of atheistic sectarians.

 

 

 

 

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Part I: Government

John_adams_pic

On July 3, 1776, John Adams, a delegate to the Continental Congress from Massachusetts who later served as the second president of the United States, wrote the following to his wife, Abigail:  “The second day of July 1776 will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America.  I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival.  It ought to be commemorated as the Day of Deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.  It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more” (cited by David McCullough, John Adams, New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2001, 130).

 

On July 8, 1776, the Declaration was read in public for the first time, outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia, accompanied by the ringing of the Liberty Bell.  On August 2, 1776, the members of Congress signed the parchment copy.  It provides the logic and justification for the chain of authority described by Hamilton Albert Long as “man under God over government.”*

 

 *www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_history.html

 

 

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Part I: Government

A Definite, Unique, American Belief

Translated Into Specific Principles

For Governments Does Exist

 

James_wilson_pic

James Wilson was one of six men who signed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.  His contribution to the deliberations of the Constitution was second only to James Madison's.  Addressing the Pennsylvania Ratifying Convention for the new constitution, Wilson stated:  "I beg to read a few words from the Declaration of Independence made by the representatives of the United States and recognized by the whole Union:

 

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. -- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

 

Wilson concluded, "This [Declaration] is the broad basis on which our independence [from authoritarian rule] was placed; on the same certain and solid foundation this [the Constitution of the United States] system is erected" (cited in John Elliot, Elliot's Debates, The Debates In the Several State Conventions Adoption Of the Federal Constitution, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 11-20-1787, Book I, published 1836, 457).

 

The American Principles rest on the First Principle (emphasized in the Introduction).  Compromise of any of the following principles leads to very harmful consequences.

 

 

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Part I: Government

Part I

Government

Chapters 1 to 6

 

Chapter 1

 

Immortal Principles Central

to Liberty and American Greatness I

 

What is the common bond that enabled Americans to establish the greatest nation on earth?  The USA Today/Gallup Poll published May 6, 2010 reports that 92 percent of Americans believe in God and only 5 percent said they oppose the National Day of Prayer.  The problem is that public schools stopped teaching how the basic American belief “In God We Trust” translates into principles for political decisions that made America the overwhelming choice of immigrants from around the world.  

 

Having confronted the barriers to success imposed by the British Crown at the First Continental Congress, the Founding Fathers needed to address the following questions:


  1. How do we bring into focus the justification for independence that can, in fact, support the life, liberty and happiness that the colonists found possible?
  2. How do we declare the sovereignty of man under God over government, upon which respect for impartial law, citizen self-rule and liberty are justified?
  3. How do we emphasize the need for strict separation from the British king and other pretender gods, who have managed to betray and exploit mankind down through history?
  4. What must we proclaim that will convince other nations to have confidence in the United States as a sovereign entity?

 

The answers to these questions became the basis for the unique principles for government in America.  The Declaration of Independence provided a moral and just basis for law as no other document before or since.  These principles were adopted unanimously by the Second Continental Congress on July 2, 1776.  On July 4, 1776, the delegates signed their names to the Declaration, and the new nation—independent from Great Britain—was born.

 

The people of England were not the issue.  Americans were fond of the people and valued their trade relationships.  At issue was limiting the oppressive ways of British government and the need for tough-minded rejection of practices that violated liberty and citizen incentive to be self-governing.

 

 

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