Filed under: liberty

Finding the Place of Personal Faith in Government

The two classifications of religion, civic and personal, can live openly side by side.  The fact that Americans are free to share their personal religious convictions in public is indispensable.  Different beliefs can then be known, evaluated and decided upon by individuals.  Citizens are to be trusted with this freedom to know and choose.  This is to be respected.

 

The morality in one's personal faith and beliefs about education, government, politics and law are inseparable.  Personal faith is primary, and the nonsectarian American civic religion which is so vital to public education is the composite result.  The purity of America's civic religion that advances individual liberty is totally dependent on religious freedom, which in turn requires freedom from intimidation by government-established ideologues (educators, clergy, etc.).

 

The Founding Fathers were not only avid Creationists; they were members of many different church denominations, and the vast majority of them were, in their personal faith, born-again Christians.*

 

"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature:

old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."

2 Corinthians 5:17

 

For you have been "born again, not of corruptible seed,

but of incorruptible, by the word of God,

which liveth and abideth for ever."

1 Peter 1:23

 

The Founding Fathers who adopted the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution came from eleven Christian groups that held different views about church ordinances, baptism, communion, church polity, discipline, worship and so on.  Alexander Hamilton said in an essay published soon after the Constitutional Convention adjourned: "For my own part, I sincerely esteem it a system, which, without the finger of God, never could have been suggested and agreed upon by such a diversity of interests."**  Madison expressed the same belief in The Federalist No. 37.

 

"Hast thou not known?  Hast thou not heard, [that] the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?  [There is] no searching of his understanding.  He giveth power to the faint; and to [them that have] no might he increaseth strength."

Isaiah 10:28-29

 

Colonial churches were clearly Biblical.  Schools such as Harvard and the local public grade schools were Bible-based and evangelical.  Noah Webster (1758-1843), a contributor to the Constitution and widely acknowledged as the most influential educator for over a hundred years, unabashedly proclaimed his conversion to Christ during a campus revival at Yale.***

 

Webster, who was skilled in six languages, published the American Dictionary of the English Language in 1828.  In 1833, he said, "It is extremely important to our nation, in a political as well as religious view, that all possible authority and influence should be given to the scriptures, for these furnish the best principles of civil liberty and the most effectual support of republican [meaning republic] government."

 

Public school students must be taught to understand and appreciate the importance of the all-encompassing concept of an impartial, nonsectarian God of creation's nature.  This is America's civic religion.  Inculcation, however, in the personal faith relating to worship and a denomination's specific religious doctrine must not be allowed to become a function of government education.

 

64167_338209979564091_133149703403454_1001074_1990975054_n

 

 

*http://www.adherents.com/gov/Founding_Fathers_Religion.html

**http://www.zeios.com/OurRepublic/Author/22

***http://www.yalestandard.com/tidbits/voices-of-yales-past/

Image from https://ioan17.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/where-you-ats/

 

Note:  In the Judeo-Christian Bible, we learn of the personal faith shared by many different Christian denominations:  "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved" (John 3:16-17).

 

Justice and grace meet at the cross of Calvary, where the price of sin was paid by Christ, Who loves us more than we love ourselves (see also Romans 5:8-9; 10:9-13 for more context of the phrase "born again").  When individuals acknowledge their need for forgiveness and humbly accept God's gift of salvation from the penalty of sin, a divine God-to-man cooperative becomes a reality.

 

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America's Civic Religion in Light of Its Judges

In times past, our nation's judges recognized that America has a civic religion.  In 1952, Justice William O. Douglas wrote, "We are a religious people and our institutions presuppose a Supreme Being."*  Civic religion is different than the personal faith of individuals--their manner of worship, fellowship and practice.

 

American courts and judges honored the benevolent providence of God unabashedly.  "On Monday last the Circuit Court [Portsmouth, NH, May 24, 1800] of the United States was opened in this town.  The Hon. Judge Paterson presided.  After the Jury was impaneled, the Judge delivered a most elegant and appropriate charge…  Religion and morality were pleasingly inculcated and enforced as being necessary to good government, good order, and good laws, for 'when the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice [Proverbs 29:2]'…  After the charge was delivered, the Rev. Mr. [Timothy] Alden addressed the Throne of Grace in an excellent, well adapted prayer."**

 

In 1892, the Supreme Court of the United States cited eighty-seven precedents and proclaimed:  "Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of Mankind.  It is impossible that it should be otherwise:  and in this sense and to the extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian…  This is a religious people.  This is historically true.  From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation… we find everywhere a clear recognition of the same truth."***

 

The Supreme Court had reviewed eighty-seven decisions for settling disputes by previous courts and they all followed Biblical principles of right and wrong.  Respect for this truth can be traced historically to the founders' Christian faith.  Human authoritarianism was rejected.  The principles of the nonsectarian God of creation, spoken of in the American Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights were viewed as supreme.

 

Legislation drafted by the United States Senate and House of Representatives adding the words "under God" to the American Pledge of Allegiance was signed by President Eisenhower in 1954.  In 1964, the Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the law.

 

The obligations that apply to theistic religions also apply to atheistic religions.  By refusing to admit that faith-dependent atheism is religious (concerned with beliefs about origin, meaning and purpose of life), secular militants hope to escape responsibility for civil standards of morality.  While demanding supremacy for their God-rejecting faith, they deny public freedom for the Creator-based civic creed in the soft sciences, most particularly in the study of biology, economics, American government, history and judicial foundations.  When secular militants succeed here, they then move to deny belief in God--period--even as the basis for personal faith.

 

Student understanding of American civic religion in taxpayer-funded schools is a foremost curriculum requirement.  By excluding the denominational creeds and biases that tend to be divisive, the people unify in support of governments that honor "In God We Trust" as a nonsectarian creed.

 

"Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine…  Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants.  Indeed, these two sciences run into each other."

James Wilson

Signer of the Constitution

U.S. Supreme Court Justice

 

Under_god

 

 

*Zorach v. Clauson, Docket 431, citation 343 US 306, 1952.

**Barton, Original Intent, 118-19.  See also The Documentary History of the Supreme Court, Vol. III, 436.

***Ibid.

Image from http://hartbrad.blogspot.com/2011/06/one-nation-under-godbut-when.html

 

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Old European Secular Philosophy vs Education

There are more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible

than in any profane history.*

Sir Isaac Newton

 

Backed by the 1947 Supreme Court decision Everson v. Board of Education, militant objectors to American principles and the American creed bullied their way into controlling the atmosphere of American public schools.  Instead of upholding their oath to abide by the Constitution, judges rule by "incalculable and changeable decrees."  Rule by men replaced government by established law.  The reasoning behind their decision reflects the old European secular doctrine of open-mindedness for dumbing the people down and transforming society.  Instead of being umpires, unelected judges are trampling on the sacred rights of the people by legislating superior rights for the enemies of responsible liberty.

 

A report by the nonpartisan Commission on Excellence in Education remains the premier American study of problems in public education.  It states:  "The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people… If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war."  The report laments "the deconstruct of the moral and spiritual strengths which knit together the very fabric of our society."**

 

Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores have declined, and today the United States ranks academically near the bottom of the world's industrialized nations.  College seniors have no better grasp of general cultural knowledge than did high school graduates in the 1950s.  The average correct responses for modern college seniors on a series of questions was 53.5 percent, compared to 54.5 percent of high school graduates in 1955 (survey by Zogby International, April 2002, for the Princeton, New Jersey-based National Association of Scholars, presented by NAS President Stephen H. Balch in December 2002).

 

In the fall of 2005, researchers at the University of Connecticut's National Civic Literacy Board conducted a survey of some 14,000 freshmen and seniors at fifty colleges and universities.  Students were asked sixty multiple-choice questions to measure their knowledge in four subject areas:  American history, government, international relations and market economy.  Seniors, on average, failed all four subjects and their overall average score was 53.2 percent.***

 

The abuse of academic freedom and teacher tenure guarantees is rooted in the old European secular philosophy.  John S. Brubacher and Willis Rudy point out that, when Darwinian advocates coupled their "origin and destiny of man" theory with the authoritarianism of "German graduate methods [faculty independence]… academic freedom became a cause celebre [highly controversial]."   According to Darwinian militants, "There is no fixed limit or perfect form of knowledge and, that on the contrary, truth is always tentative" (John S. Brubacher, and Willis Rudy, Higher Education Transition, New York:  Harper and Row, 1958, 296 and 306).

 

"I believe that religion is the only solid base of morals and that morals are the only possible support of free governments.  Therefore education should teach the precepts of religion and the duties of man towards God."

Gouverneur Morris

Signer of the Constitution

 

Claybennett

 

 

 

*Halley's Bible Handbook authored by Henry H. Halley and published by Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI (republished since 1924).

**A Nation at Risk, the National Commission on Excellence in Education, April 26, 1983, http://www2.ed.gov/pubs/NatAtRisk/risk.html

***The Coming Crisis in Citizenship:  Higher Education's Failure to Teach America's History and Institutions, 09/26/2006, Intercollegiate Studies Institute's National Civic Board Report.  See http://content.usatoday.com/community/tags/topic.aspx?req=tag&tag=Interco...

Image from:  http://pleated-jeans.com/2012/03/23/funny-pic-dump-3-23-12/

 

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Old European Secular Philosophy vs America

"We are a religious people and our institutions presuppose a Supreme Being."*

Justice William O. Douglas, 1952

 

"America has freed more human beings from the clutches of evil than any [other] nation on earth, and we are a relatively young country.  Even though continental Europe, in its posture of pseudo-sophistication, might consider us the country cousin of the family of nations, when these same Europeans needed to be rescued--often from themselves--we were there to rescue them.  We have done it many times and in many ways around the world.  At enormous costs to ourselves, we have gone into (and out of) dozens of nations in order to make the world a better place--even those nations that were our deadliest enemies, like Germany and Japan after World War II.  What MacArthur did in Japan, and what the Marshall Plan accomplished in Europe, are without historical equal, and they indicate what we think our high calling on the planet really is!  They also indicate the American penchant for forgiveness and generosity, which surpasses all others" (Dr. Jack Wheeler, The Ugly Liberal American, page 4, quoted by The Schwarz Report, May 2008, Vol 48, number 5).

 

It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.**

George Washington

 

George Weigel, highly respected author, said at a Seattle Pacific University symposium regarding the departure from representative citizen control over government policies:  "It not only seemed to me an act of infidelity toward the past, it seemed to imply a program for the future, namely, state-enforced secularism."  In an interview with Kathleen Braden, Weigel laments political decisions made bureaucratically rather than according to the popular will, and trumpets the need for spiritual revival in America and for citizen action as "salt and light" (George Weigel, author of The Cube and the Cathedral, "A Conversation With George Weigel," Response Magazine, Seattle Pacific University, Seattle, Washington, Autumn 2007, 18-20).

 

Supremacist judges, liberals (progressives) in education and their converts in the media have deceived millions of people into believing that privacy rights, social justice and diversity require public acceptance of evil life practices, homosexuality and baby genocide.  The loss of American values arises directly from unelected liberal judges-turned-legislators and the ensuing defilement of traditional American jurisprudence. (from p. 56).

 

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 the gift of God?**

Thomas Jefferson

 

"Truth [when communicated] is great and will prevail if left to herself … she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them" (Virginia Statute of Religious Liberty, 1786, cited by Hamilton Albert Long, The American Ideal of 1776, Philadelphia:  Heritage Books Inc., 1963. xxii).

 

Without a vibrant and vital Christianity, America is doomed, and without America, the west is doomed.  Which is why I, an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, devoted to Jewish survival, the Torah, and Israel am so terrified of Christianity caving in.***

Rabbi Daniel Lapin

Bible-american-flag1-300x199

 

*Zorach v. Clauson, Docket 431, citation 343 US 306, 1952.

**Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, (Philadelphia:  Matthew Carey, 1794), Query XVIII, 237, MS-176. 

***http://jpfo.org/articles-assd02/christian-nation.htm

 

Image from http://www.theculturewatch.com/why-christianity-lost-america

 

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Manipulation of the Constitution

Secular authoritarians insist upon what they call a "living constitution" that has an open-minded disconnect from moral absolutes.  As has been attributed to Dostoevsky among others, "If God is dead, then anything is permitted."  The colossal failure of secularized education flowing from teachers unions and tenure privileges, which subordinates citizen sovereignty, is the damning consequence of atheistic-secular politics.  The Constitution becomes a mere political document for manipulation by authoritarians who show themselves to be enemies of family, human dignity and limited government.

 

Regardless of the arguments advanced by those who reject the intent of the Constitution, the Rule of Law means that the government is limited in all of its actions by the rules fixed and ratified beforehand.  This is the context within which legislation, court decisions and administrative directives at all levels of government must fit.

 

For those who deny the important role of morality, here is its meaning from Merriam-Webster:  "a: of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior:  ETHICAL <moral judgments>; b: expressing or teaching a conception of right behavior <a moral poem>; c: conforming to a standard of right behavior; d: sanctioned by or operative on one's conscience or ethical judgment <a moral obligation>; e: capable of right and wrong action <a moral agent>.

 

Americans determined to protect liberty reject the "living constitution" because it leaves society vulnerable to political deception.  Constitutional government by "written and permanent law" requires an amendment that is acceptable to the people before a change in its provisions is acceptable.  Faithfulness to this process protects society from political deception and the convolution associated with government by incalculable and changeable decrees.

 

Those who reject the rule of law based upon moral absolutes are like ships without an anchor.

Illusion_of_reality_diagram

This drift is illustrated by judicial decisions that set precedents ignoring and overriding the meaning of the Constitution.  An example of the foolishness of the rule of man rather than the rule of law is the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit's ruling on November 2, 2005, that parents' fundamental right to control the upbringing of their children "does not extend beyond the threshold of the school door," and that a government school has the right to provide its students with "whatever information it wishes to provide, sexual or otherwise" (Fields v. School District, No. 03-56499, D.C. No. CV-03-00457-JVS).  This unconscionable judge-made law further strengthens the arms of union bosses, leftist teachers and radicals, if any, on school boards.

 

American conservatism transcends both the good and evil intentions of today’s adherents to the old European secular philosophy—the religious and political left.  Revisionist morality, supported by the Darwinian theory for life’s origin, meaning, and purpose, represents one of the greatest evils of our time.*  A focus upon the danger to American liberty can be narrowed to those who are at the seat of the problem—secular militarists.

 

American exceptionalism, the tradition of citizen self-reliance, and the liberty that comes with limited government CAN be restored.

 

 

 

*Charles Darwin published his theory for a God-rejecting worldview in the book The Origin of Species, published in 1859.  There is some adaptation within species, but the Herculean efforts of science pretenders to find evolution between species fail.  Sir Arthur Keith, a leading evolutionist has written:  “Evolution is unproved and unprovable.  We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation which is unthinkable” (Sir Arthur Keith, as citation in Wallie A. Criswell’s Did Man Just Happen? Grand Rapids MI:  Zondervan, 1972, p. 73; D. M. S. Watson acknowledged the same in Nature, vol. 124, August 10, 1929, pp. 231-234).

 

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The Paper Trail of Our Constitution II

In 1776, on February 28, George Washington acknowledged a poem written in his honor and sent to him by Phillis Wheatley.  "To His Excellency General Washington"   was the title.  This occurred before the Declaration of Independence was completed and accepted by the Continental Congress.  Who was Phillis Wheatley?  She had been captured in Senegal/Gambia at the age of seven or eight and sold in Boston to John and Susanna Wheatley.  They treated her lovingly as a daughter and taught her to read and write; she even learned Latin.  An accomplished poet, she was an admirer of the minister George Whitefield and a strong supporter of independence from Great Britain.

 

The Northwest Ordinance passed in 1787 by the Continental Congress was helpful as the new constitution was drafted.  It specified the requirements of territories seeking statehood.  The ordinance declared:  "The fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty, which form the basis whereon these republics, their laws, and constitutions are erected; to fix and establish those principles as the basis of all laws, constitutions, and governments, which forever hereafter shall be formed in the said territory: to provide also for the establishment of States, and permanent government therein, and for their admission to a share in the federal councils on an equal footing with the original States, at as early periods as may be consistent with the general interest."*

 

Also known as the Freedom Ordinance, the Northwest Ordinance is a rock-solid example of the nonsectarian religious predicate embraced as constitutional law.  When the Articles of Confederation was replaced by a new constitution, the Northwest Ordinance was passed again and became effective under the Constitution.  George Washington signed the Northwest Ordinance back into law on August 7, 1789.  The ordinance also prohibited slavery in any new state, and Article III specified that "Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education, shall forever be encouraged."**

 

"During this same period of time (July 17 to August 7, 1789), the same men who had implemented the Northwest Ordinance were writing the First Amendment to the Constitution [prohibiting government officials from interfering with religious freedom, printing press and education competition]."***

 

In 1792, James Madison, in his Essay, Who Are the Keepers of the People's Liberties?, said, "Although all men are born free, and all nations might be so, yet too true it is, that slavery has been the general lot of the human race.  Ignorant--they have been cheated; asleep--they have been surprised; divided--the yoke has been forced upon them.  But what is the lesson?  That because the people may betray themselves, they ought to give themselves up, blindfold, to those who have an interest in betraying them?  Rather conclude that the people ought to be enlightened, to be awakened, to be united."  Madison served as the fourth president of the United States and is considered to be the principal author of the United States Constitution.  In 1788, he wrote over a third of the Federalist Papers, still the most influential commentary on the Constitution.  James Madison wrote the first ten amendments to the Constitution, also known as the Bill of Rights.  

 

The Declaration of Independence condemned slavery, but it took a war to make it enforceable.  On January 1, 1863, near the end of that war, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation that reversed its momentum.

 

"The consequence is, that happiness of society is the first law of every government.  The people have a right to insist that this rule be observed; and are entitled to demand a moral security that the legislature will observe it.  If they have not the first right, they are slaves; if they have not the second right [moral security], they are, every moment, exposed to slavery" (U.S. Supreme Court Justice James Wilson, Lectures, 1790-91).


Phillis_wheatley

Phillis Wheatley

1753? - 1784

 

*Education Resources Information Center website, ED285786.  Teaching about the US Constitution and the Northwest Ordinance.

**http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Daniel_Webster

***David Barton, Education and the Founding Fathers (Aledo, Texas: Wallbuilder Press, 1993), 4.

****http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/emancipation_proclamation...

 

Image from http://evolutionofpaper.blogspot.com/2010/02/african-american-literary-firsts...

 

NOTE ~ more information on Wheatley at http://www.enotes.com/his-excellency and http://www.lkwdpl.org/wihohio/whea-phi.htm

 

The Paper Trail of Liberty

There is a rich orthodoxy that brought the universal principles of the Declaration to the American mind.  That the nation was founded upon the principles of God's Word is well documented by the founding compacts, covenants and constitutions.

In 1620, the Pilgrims drafted our nation's first self-governing document, the Mayflower Compact:  "We… having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, do… solemnly and mutually in ye presence of God, and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politic…  And by Virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions and Offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the General good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience."*

Signing_the_mayflower_compact_large

The King of England left the colonists alone for 150 years.  Without the albatross of paternalistic authoritarianism, the colonists experienced the benefits of personal responsibility and hard work.  People would come together with their pastor or a prominent student of the Bible as moderator and search the Scriptures for principles of government that would uphold civility in the community.

In 1630, the famous sermon by John Winthrop, governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, reflected the great sense of purpose that has prevailed since the arrival of the Pilgrims.  Later quoted repeatedly by Ronald Reagan, Winthrop declared:  "We are to be 'a City upon a hill,' a beacon of light for the world to follow."  He continued, "The eyes of all people are upon us.  So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword throughout the world" (Robert C. Winthrop, "A Model of Christian Charity," discourse written aboard the Arbella during the voyage to Massachusetts, 1630, in Life and Letters of John Winthrop, 1867, 19).

 

In 1638, the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut stated:  "[We] enter into a combination and confederation together to maintain and preserve the liberty and purity of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ which we now profess" (Text Version, Liberty Library, rendered into HTML by Jon Roland of the Constitution Society).

 

In 1772, Samuel Adams stated:  "The right to freedom being a gift from God Almighty… the rights of Christians may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the institutions of the great Law Giver which are to be found clearly written and promulgated in the New Testament."  Being under authority is not being under control.  It is being under God's protection.  The help provided by God-ordained authorities can be illustrated by the protective wall or "breakwater" that shields boats in a harbor from devastation.  Getting the craft into a harbor may be inconvenient, but the barrier tames the waves and keeps boats safe.  Similarly, parents, employers and police may be an inconvenience at times but they play an important role in our progress.  God's benevolent instruction is evident at several levels of responsibility and authority for government (Romans 13:1-3).

 

This is, of course, not an exhaustive list, but the truth about the impartial and non-sectarian God-honoring foundations so highly treasured by immigrants is what causes the atheistic frenzy.  They must revise history and then control what is taught as history!

 

*http://www.mayflowerhistory.com/PrimarySources/MayflowerCompact.php

 

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Natural Law vs. Secular Law

The natural-law philosophy, foundational to the American constitution, is in direct conflict with secular law.

 

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).  No ~ a solid basis is necessary for prosperity and the self-government enablements of man, for which the Constitution was written.  Secular law leads to political adventurism, exploitation, death and slavery.

 

Separation of the three branches of government (checks and balances) is vital, but what about the Declaration of Independence pattern for separation from hierarchical rule?  This is outlined in the Bill of [citizen] Rights and intended to prevent government servants from perverting established law to grant rights that are harmful to the public.  They are also intended to prevent government servants from using the public's treasury to subsidize slothful citizens and thereby attract an irresponsible voting block.  

"Liberty and security in government depend not on the limits, which the rulers may please to assign to the exercise of their own powers, but on the boundaries, within which their powers are circumscribed by the Constitution.  With us, the powers of magistrates, call them by whatever name you please, are the grants of the people…  The supreme power is in them [the people]; and in them, even when the Constitution is formed, and government is in operation, the supreme power still remains.  A portion of their authority they, indeed, delegate; but they delegate that portion in whatever manner, in whatever measure, for whatever time, to whatever persons, and on whatever conditions they choose to fix" (Supreme Court Justice James Wilson, Lectures, 1790-1791).

 

The limited purpose for judicial independence is to enable judges to settle disputes without being pressured by special interests.  When judges establish policies by legislating or administrating, they have seriously violated their jurisdiction and become fascistic.  That is, they are overriding and preventing the people as sovereigns whose exclusive authority it is to elect like-minded representatives to do the legislating and serve as administrators. 

 

"The great object of my fear is the federal judiciary.  That body, like gravity, ever acting, with noiseless foot, and unalarming advance, gaining ground step by step, and holding what it gains, is engulfing insidiously the special governments into the jaws of that which feeds them."*  Upholding the intent and meaning of "certain unalienable [supreme] rights" of the people, outlined in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, is indispensable.  Laws that protect sodomy, same-sex marriage, abortion, and the privileges of teacher tenure are a violation of essential American principles that protect the public from exposure to unsavory and virulent evil practices.  On the other hand, laws that protect a strong, responsible citizen majority are crucial to the survival of self-government and liberty from tyrannical government rule.  

 

As long as judges do not use their independence to twist the meaning of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to mask an authoritarian secular agenda, the American principles for life and liberty are not impaired or diminished.  All citizens, including judges, have the duty to protect the unalienable God-given rights to life and responsible use of liberty for others.

Judicial-activism

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* (Thomas Jefferson, letter to Judge Spencer Roane, March 9, 1821, www.marksquotes.com/Founding-Fathers/Jefferson/index7.htm)

 

American Principle Thirteen: Government Power and Taxes Must Be Limited For Liberty's Sake

 

"… imposing Taxes on us without our Consent …"

Declaration of Independence

 

Low taxes and limited government are indispensable supports for property ownership and liberty.  "He [the King] has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance" (Declaration of Independence).

 

Alexander Hamilton, in the Federalist No. 17* emphasizes that taxes should not be imposed at the federal level that enable the federal government to do things that go beyond their enumerated powers. That would take money from the people that should be available for state and local government needs (in effect, enabling federal usurpers to prevent the function of government that is closest to the people). 

 

Government debt that exceeds income cripples nations in the same devastating way that it cripples individuals, families and corporations.  "Indeed, we cannot too often inculcate upon you our desires, that all extraordinary grants and expensive measures may, upon all occasions, as much as possible, be avoided.  The public money of this country is the toil and labor of the people …" (written by representatives of the town of Braintree, Massachusetts, to their legislative representative, Braintree Records, 1765-66).

Image_tax_revenue

A full discussion of these vital American Principles can be found in my book, Restoring Education Central to American Greatness.

 

For more information or to purchase the book:

http://bookstore.iuniverse.com/Products/SKU-000185969/Restoring-Education-Cen...

http://www.amazon.com/Restoring-Education-Greatness-Principles-Liberated/dp/1...

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/restoring-education-david-a-norris/1103308053...

 

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*http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/fed/blfed17.htm

 

American Principle Eleven: Government and Union Monopolies Involving Education or Religion Are Prohibited--For Liberty's Sake

"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; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a 'redress of grievances.'"

Constitution of the United States

 

Education that does not teach the timeless principles recorded in the Declaration of Independence empowers the enemies of life and liberty for the pursuit of happiness.  The delegates to the Constitutional Convention understood this, and they focused upon the fact that governments are by nature a nesting place for tyrants of the mind.

 

It is the collective political power granted to monopoly teacher unions and the establishment of tenure laws that empower the enemies of the family, human dignity, and self-government.  Tenured secular authoritarians have achieved control of curriculum used in the soft sciences and the study of law taught in government schools.  The weapons they use to enforce what must be taught include the ridicule and denigration of the reputation of anyone who dares to challenge leftist political correctness.  The use of the word "science" is code for their atheistic human origins, meaning, and purpose; "diversity" is code for demanding the approval of evil life practices; and "social justice" is code for using government power to force the transfer of wealth from the thrifty to their own block of voters. 

 

It is the competition of education suppliers that reduces inefficiencies in  government-run schools and helps restrain moral pollution by tenured government radicals.  The debasement of morality evident in the tragic church-state monopoly of Medieval Europe compares with the moral decline that started with government establishment of teacher unions.  First-amendment law intended to prevent the suppression of the right of parents to choose between competing education suppliers for their children's education are superior to all other laws--national, state, and local.

 

The indispensable role of education and religious liberty in the preservation of American principles for government is "self-evident."  Education that leaves new generations viewing government as some vague entity leaves them confused about truth.  They are then easy prey for manipulation by what Jefferson called "tyrants of the mind."  Definite and specific American principles for government of a responsible nature do exist.  Fifteen of them are my current focus of this blog.  

 

Education worthy of the name will emphasize that government is the servant of and for the people, the sovereigns under creation's God.

 

A full discussion of these vital American Principles can be found in my book, Restoring Education Central to American Greatness.

 

For more information or to purchase the book:

http://bookstore.iuniverse.com/Products/SKU-000185969/Restoring-Education-Cen...

http://www.amazon.com/Restoring-Education-Greatness-Principles-Liberated/dp/1...

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/restoring-education-david-a-norris/1103308053...

 

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Tyranny

 

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