Filed under: limited government

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

 

American Principle Ten: Government Must Be Decentralized

"…repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny [British King] over these States."

Declaration of Independence

 

Officials who bypass the principles of limited government are suppressing the supreme right of the people to rule.  Such officials have violated their duties as trustees and are in effect usurpers, oppressors and tyrants.

 

The American system is "a Republic--a federation, or combination, of central and state republics--under which: the different governments will control each other…  Within each republic there are two safeguarding features: (a) a division of powers, as well as (b) a system of checks and balances between separate departments: hence a double security arises [essential] to the rights of the people."

(James Madison, Federalist, No. 51, 1788)

 

Regarding the federal government usurping essential citizen rights, "True barriers [for] of our liberty are our State governments."

(President Thomas Jefferson's First Inaugural Address, 1801, http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/founders/jefferson/thomas-jefferson-first-...

 

"The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositories, 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's Farewell Address, 1796, http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=15)

 

"Bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possesses their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate would be oppression."

(President Thomas Jefferson's First Inaugural Address, 1801, http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/founders/jefferson/thomas-jefferson-first-... 

For more information or to purchase the book:

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

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Image_jeffersonvstyranny

 

 

American Principle Nine: Authoritarians in Government Are a Parasitic and Ever-Present Danger

"Taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws,

and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments [constitutions]."

Declaration of Independence

 

"In questions of power then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution" (Thomas Jefferson:  Draft Kentucky Resolutions, 1798, ME 17:388).

 

Two notable efforts by power-hungry authoritarians occurred near the end of the war for independence.  First, army officers were conspiring to take control of Congress.  Second was an effort to make George Washington king.  He squashed both of them abruptly.  After all, Americans had just been through a bloody war with England to get rid of rule by authoritarians, religious and secular.

 

An axiom for detecting the corrupt and evil use of power is to follow the flow of money to politicians inside and outside of government.  Chief among tactics for overriding the will of the people at the state and local levels is bad election finance law.  The importation of millions of campaign dollars from homosexual- and abortion-rights advocates from outside a region to fund the campaigns of radicals in the region to be represented is destructive of representative government.  This should be prohibited.


"The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism.  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" (President Washington's Farewell Address, 1796, http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=15).

 

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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George_washington

George Washington

1732 - 1799

Commander-In-Chief of the Continental Army (1775 - 1783)

First President of the United States (1789 - 1797)

 

 

American Principle Five: Liberty Is Vital

"Unalienable Rights,

That among these are … liberty."

Declaration of Independence

 

Liberty--from oppression by big government and nongovernment authoritarians--is vital.  "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, volume II, part II, chapter 1, Lorenzo Press, 1804).

 

Liberty and self-reliance for independence are God's gifts for man to claim.  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.  Accepting promises of politicians who use the public treasury to provide things that replace personal responsibility is a trap. Helping those who are incapable for reasons beyond their control is, of course, man's duty and beneficial to all, but paternalistic government services attract and enlarge an irresponsible voting block. When reduced to dependence, this cannot be reversed.  

 

"And 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:  signer and principle author of the Declaration of Independence and third president of the United States, Notes on Virginia Q.XVIII, 1782, ME 2:227).

Jefferson_quote1

 

The Jefferson Memorial

Thomas Jefferson's Quote From the Northeast Interior Wall


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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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

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Belief in a Higher Authority also believes in the opposite side of the coin:  that man does not originate law, God does.  Legislators articulate this pre-existing law and give it particular applications to changing circumstances.

 

During the 1765 crisis caused by the king's Stamp Act, John Adams, when writing the Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, August 12, 1765, the Boston Gazette, pointed out that liberty was 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.

 

"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, pictured below, adopted on October 14, 1765, by the town meeting of Braintree, Massachusetts, and sent to their representatives in the Massachusetts state legislature).

 

Those who reject God's authority and proceed to fix the rights of others are, by definition, false gods and, in practice, become tyrants.  Alexander Hamilton, in The Federalist, No. 78, says:  "A constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges, as a fundamental law."  When a particular statute violates the meaning of the Constitution, it is the duty of judicial tribunals to disregard it and adhere to the Constitution.  

 

"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" (teachingamericanhistory.org, Alexander Hamilton, The Farmer Refuted, 1775).

 

Education in America today is energizing the enemies of the family, self-rule, prosperity and liberty because it does not emphasize that man’s unalienable rights are the gift of God.

Inalienable_rights

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:

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How Socialism Exploits Mankind

Socialism is a system of social organization that rejects the fact that goods are the fruits of the people’s labor.  The ownership of the means of producing goods provided by the people is claimed by secular authoritarians.  They then use the power of government for laws to control the distribution of goods.  The fact remains that it is the freedom of the people to choose and buy goods made useful by others that gives direction for a healthy economy (supply and demand).  Both the Webster and Random House dictionaries identify socialism as a “Marxist theory.”

The following was written in 1916 by the Rev. William J. H. Boetcker, a Presbyterian clergyman and influential spokesman for American values:

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.

You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.

You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.

You cannot build character and courage

by taking away man’s initiative and independence.

You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.

You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.

You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.

You cannot establish security on borrowed money.

You cannot help men permanently

by doing for them what they will not do for themselves.

www.qjotationspage.com/quotes/William_J._H._Boetcker/

 

Winston Churchill stated:  “Socialism is inseparably interwoven with totalitarianism and the object worship of the state.”  He also said, “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery” (Google, Winston Churchill quotes/w/winstonchurchill).

Winston_churchill

Winston Churchill

1874-1965

Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1940-1945 and 1951-1955)

According to Alexis de Tocqueville in 1848:  “democracy [democratic republic] extends the sphere of individual freedom; socialism restricts it.  Democracy [democratic republic] attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number.  [The two] have nothing in common but one word:  equality.  But notice the difference:  while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude” (Google, Alexis de Tocqueville Quotations/Quotations).

Alexis_de_tocqueville

Alexis de Tocqueville

1805-1859

French political thinker and historian

 

 

As Justice Brandeis said, “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

The American states did not become united until the constitutional delegates agreed to amendments that were specific about religious and educational freedom from government and nongovernment dictation.  The first ten amendments included the codification of the principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence (separation from authoritarian rule).  Far from being secular, all aspects of human endeavor, including government, fall under the purview of creation’s God.  The value system for determining the proper role of laws and the use of government power is clear.  We ought to obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29).  Adoption of this morally-specific, nonsectarian, God-honoring predicate has served as a marvelous unifier for our diverse immigrant nation.

Congress-large1

We no longer have public education.  In the behavioral and political sciences it has become government education comparable to the monopoly state doctrine that decimated Medieval Europe.

The secular militants claim to be patriots because, as they say, dissent is American.  What they mean is evident from how they have gutted traditional American values in public education.  They demand freedom for themselves but reject the American concept of academic freedom (the freedom to be honestly informed) and the freedom of others to make their own choices.  The soft underbelly of the secular left is the fact that they cannot withstand the competition of ideas.  For them, it is intolerable to allow students to learn of the God of creation alongside their atheistic lifeview.

An elaboration of “In God We Trust” is found in Proverbs 3:5-6:  “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.  In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

The “In God We Trust” worldview has been the foundation for public education, beginning in the original thirteen colonies and continuing for over 250 years.  Tragically, the Supreme Court ruling in the Everson v. Board of Education decision of 1947 began a dramatic shift away from “In God We Trust.” 

Stay tuned for more discussion about socialism, civic religion and a strategy for restoring competition in education and choice by the people …

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanksgiving and the First Amendment

On September 25, 1789, Congress requested unanimously that President Washington proclaim a national day of thanksgiving and prayer. This is the same Congress that on the same day approved the final draft of the First Amendment to protect the people’s rights to religious freedom from suppression by government administrators, judges, or legislators.

Image_tgiving_proc_title

President Washington proclaimed on October 3, 1798: “Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor …  Now, therefore, I do recommend … that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country ... for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed  ...

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations.”

Image_thanksgiving_proc

The President’s proclamation included,

 “ ... and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions ... to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue.”

 

(Jared Sparks, ed., The Writings of George Washington, vol. 12, Boston:  Ferdinand Andrews, 1838, p. 119-20, www.forbes.house.gov/uploadedfiles/Footnoted397.pdf) 

 

A Conservative's Tribute to Mikhail Gorbachev

That the God of creation is man’s benefactor is so foundational it cannot be arrived at by any other proposition.  It is the basic principle upon which all other principles follow.  When man chooses to walk according to God’s benevolent law, he learns of the power that is God’s alone and by which God grants him victory over evil.

Those who persist in the fantasy of revisionist morality (moral relativism) and a central government that compromises the people’s right to be fully informed have, in fact, ignored the irreversible laws of creation’s nature.  When liberal majorities on the Supreme Court and secular educators fail to uphold the God-honoring predicate of the US Constitution, they are, in effect, empowering atheistic revisionism that preys on societies.

At a United Nations forum, December 7, 1988, Mikhail Gorbachev, atheist leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991, repudiated the atheistic dogma shared by Karl Marx and Charles Darwin.  Reflecting upon the disintegration of the secular (progressive) system, Gorbachev said:  “The compelling necessity of the principle of freedom of choice is … clear to us.  The failure to recognize this … is fraught with very dire consequences ... Freedom of choice is a universal principle to which there should be no exceptions.  We have not come to the conclusion of the immutability of this principle simply through good motives.  We have been led to it through impartial analysis of the objective processes of our time.  This objective fact presupposes respect for other people’s views“ (George P. Schultz, Secretary of State under President Ronald Reagan, Turmoil and Triumph, New York:  Macmillan, 1993, p. 1107).

Failure to acknowledge the benevolent laws of God and conform to moral truth guarantees harmful consequences.  Gorbachev tried to prevent its collapse by relaxing socialistic rule.  To do this, he adopted perestroika and glasnost (which allowed the people to be informed and free to communicate) and property rights, but socialism had gone too far.  Beginning in 1989, the puppet Communist governments in captive countries controlled by the Soviets were overthrown by the people.  The Soviet Union fell apart when captive countries quit sending them the revenue required to keep the socialist economy afloat.

Gorbechev

Writing of perestroika, Gorbachev’s wife Raisa said:  “Our society has set out on the path of renewal and of demolishing totalitarianism and the obsolete command system of administering the country” (Raisa Gorbachev, Reminiscences and Reflections, Harper Collins, 1991, p. 174).

Whether or not Gorbachev realized it, the Soviet empire was being forced to acknowledge that those who reject the “sovereignty of man under God over government” run into the immutable laws of creation’s nature.  Those laws support life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  In contrast, the vacillating laws of man lead to exploitation, cultural decay, poverty, and tyranny.  When God’s benevolent provision is rejected in any particular, the rejecter bears the price of that sin against himself and the will of God.  

 

Posterous theme by Cory Watilo