Filed under: citizenship

Part I: Government/Chapter 2, P 37, 38

The Sovereignty Of Man

Under the Impartial God Of Creation Over Government

 

The following is a listing of the principal lessons to be learned from biblical guidelines about the several levels of government.

 

1.  God instituted civil government.

 

"For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil.  Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power?  Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:  for he is the minister of God to thee for good.  But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain:  for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil" (Rom. 13:3-4).

 

2.  Omnipotent God is sovereign--His authority is over all.

 

In the history recorded in 1 Samuel 8, the Israelites rejected citizenship responsibilities outlined in scripture and asked to be like other nations and have a king.  God gave them a king--an arrangement that was second best to His own authority alone, but better than anarchy.

 

"But God is the judge: He putteth down one, and setteth up another" (Ps. 75:7).  "Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, all whose works are truth, and His ways judgment: and those that walk in pride He is able to abase" (Dan. 4:37).

 

3.  Government servants are accountable to God.

 

"For this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing" (Rom. 13:6).

 

4.  As citizens, we have a moral responsibility to participate and improve civil government.

 

"Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers.  For there is no power but of God:  the powers that be are ordained of God.  Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.  For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil.  Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power?  Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:  for he is the minister of God to thee for good.  But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain:  for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil" (Rom. 13:1-4).

 

 

For more information or to purchase Restoring Education Central to American Greatness:

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...

 

For previous blog entries on similar topics, simply go to this site and scroll down:

http://davidanorris.posterous.com/

 

Like on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/restoringeducationcentraltoamericangreatness

Part I: Government

Conclusion (Part II)

 

Immortal Principles Central To Liberty and American Greatness

 

 

The tragic support for radical teacher privilege can be traced to changes in what many law students are being taught.  In the 1870s, Christopher C. Langdell, Dean of the Harvard Law School, discarded the foundational basis for law upon which greatness has been achieved in America: "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…"

 

Langdell's fellow travelers are themselves victims of bad education.  According to them, no lasting absolutes upon which laws can be framed exist.  Instruction that fortifies the enemies of William Blackstone's Commentaries on Common Law is BAD education.  Blackstone's Commentaries were used by law students up through Abraham Lincoln's time.  It took several decades for the secularized instruction in law schools to compromise American jurisprudence.  The Commission on Excellence in Education emphasizes what is happening, "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 de-construct of the moral and spiritual strengths which knit together the very fabric of our society" (A Nation At Risk, the National Commission on Excellence in Education, April 26, 1983).

 

"Human history records the ongoing effort by men to substitute man-made law for the [unrelenting] laws of God and creation's nature."  Laws contrived by men end in disaster because they reject the existence of moral absolutes.  The consequences of this are clearly apparent today in America.  Quoting Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who documented the extermination of tens of millions of innocent victims in order to create a socialistic utopia in his homeland, "man has forgotten God" (quotes in this paragraph are from Understanding the Times, an exceptional resource, by David A. Noebel, Harvest House Publishers).

 

Enslavement by authoritarians' regulations and excessive taxation could not occur if Americans were being taught American history.  Renewed exposure to the God-honoring principles of the American Declaration of Independence is our most powerful weapon.  The light of truth fortifies the minds of men and women, boys and girls.  We believe these principles because they reflect the unrelenting power of creation's God.

 

We serve God.  The most significant change that came from the American war for independence is that the people were recognized by law to be sovereigns under God, over government.  Citizen self-rule replaced self-anointed authoritarians.  Government officials were recognized for what they are--servants of the people.

 

The Spiritual Awakening of 1740 through 1780 drove the selfless dedication that brought the American Revolution to a successful conclusion.  We have this promise, "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land" (2 Chronicles 7:14).

 

 

For more information or to purchase Restoring Education Central to American Greatness:

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...

 

For previous blog entries on similar topics, simply go to this site and scroll down:

http://davidanorris.posterous.com/

 

Like on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/restoringeducationcentraltoamericangreatness

 

Part I: Government

American Principle Fourteen 

 

Life and Happiness are Humanity's Goals

 

"Unalienable rights, that among these are Life,

… and the pursuit of Happiness."

Declaration of Independence

 

 

"Kings or parliaments could not give the rights essential to happiness…  We claim them from a higher source--from the King of kings, and Lord of all the earth.  They are not annexed to us by parchments and seals. They are created in us by the decrees of Providence…  It would be an insult on the Divine Majesty to say that He has given or allowed any man or body of men a right to make me miserable.  If no man or body of men has such a right, I have a right to be happy.  If there can be no happiness without freedom, I have a right to be thus secured" (John Dickinson, reply to a Committee in Barbados, 1766).

 

An American principle: "What then is the American, this new man?  He is an American, who leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds [citizens are sovereigns under God, government officials are the servants]…  What is an American?  The American is a new man, who acts upon new principles; he must therefore entertain new ideas, and form new opinions.  From involuntary idleness, servile dependence, penury [extreme poverty], and useless labor, he has passed to toils of a very different nature, rewarded by ample subsistence.  This is an American" (one of several essays, in Letters From an American Farmer, 1782, by J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, a French immigrant who became a New York state farmer).

 

Regarding the establishment of a representative Republic, Alexander Hamilton declared, "…the people surrender nothing.  The people simply delegate to government servants as trustees the powers to protect and uphold the values, which the people believe to be inside the envelope of life and liberty for the 'pursuit of Happiness.'  Governments must be prohibited from doing things that undermine the citizens' right to life and self-rule.  The means that are helpful to governance and those which are harmful are countless in number, therefore," Hamilton added, "they have no need of particular reservations [spelled out in the Bill of Rights]."

 

"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, 1790-1791).

 

 

For more information or to purchase Restoring Education Central to American Greatness:

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...

 

For previous blog entries on similar topics, simply go to this site and scroll down:

http://davidanorris.posterous.com/

 

Like on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/restoringeducationcentraltoamericangreatness

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.

 

 

For more information or to purchase Restoring Education Central to American Greatness:

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...

 

For previous blog entries on similar topics, simply go to this site and scroll down:

http://davidanorris.posterous.com/

 

Like on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/restoringeducationcentraltoamericangreatness

 

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.

 

 

For more information or to purchase Restoring Education Central to American Greatness:

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...

 

For previous blog entries on similar topics, simply go to this site and scroll down:

http://davidanorris.posterous.com/

 

Like on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/restoringeducationcentraltoamericangreatness

Introduction VII

There are three achievements of secular progressives that have enabled leftist radicals to control behavioral instruction in public schools (see Chapters 7 and 9).  Their first big achievement came when Supreme Court majorities began to impose mandates for law that rejected the unique God-honoring basis for law advanced by the Magna Carta and the American Declaration of Independence.  When secular mandates by the court for future laws are allowed to stand, the historic absolutes resident in the "rule of law" and moral priorities are no longer binding.  Consequently, our Constitution becomes a mere political document.  The center of power shifted foolishly from the people and Congress subject to the Constitution, to the political preferences of judges.  Among the first of many twists away from our Constitution and the First Amendment was the Everson v. Board of Education decision.  The second achievement of leftist radicals was the takeover, beginning in the 1960s, of the then-conservative National Education Association (see Chapters 7 through 10).  Also in the 1960s, secular progressives, committed to the elimination of self-government and liberty, reached their third achievement--the unionization of government teachers.

A government-established union monopoly, like an established state church, undermines the people's right to choose between providers that must compete for a following.  Union monopolies have always been power-corrupting institutions. Whatever their agenda by subject or region, accountability to competition is removed and evil prevails.  Union monopolies are in diametrical opposition to government of, by and for the people.  It is the collective political power foolishly granted to autoworker unions that brought the American auto industry to its knees.  It is the collective political advantage of unionism that makes it possible for radicals to impose their atheistic worldview over the objections to both the vast majority of parents and the millions of excellent teachers caught in the union web.  Violation of citizen authority (government of, by and for the people) is the radical politics of fascism--authoritarian hierarchical government.

Detailed in Chapter 7, the loss of citizen control over what our nation's youth are taught in the behavioral studies hinges on two teachers' tenure contract paragraphs demanded by union bosses when negotiating with local school boards.  The first devastating paragraph provides teacher tenure guarantees that supersede the authority of school administrators to replace employees.  The second harmful paragraph makes it a crime to disclose bad teacher performance to the public or to other schools that are considering hiring the teacher until costly and lengthy legal proceedings have approved such disclosure.

 

Professionals like medical doctors, engineers, plumbers and airline pilots--vital to our society--do NOT have tenure guarantees.  Yet what is being taught to America's youth is of even greater importance.

Some repetition has been used for emphasis and to tie the chapters together.

 

Benjamin_franklin_4

Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin, a delegate from Pennsylvania to the second Continental Congress and signer of the Constitution of the United States, wrote about the First Principle in his Articles of Belief:  "I believe there is one supreme, most perfect Being … Also when I stretch my imagination through and beyond our system of planets, beyond the visible fixed stars themselves, into that space that is [in] every way infinite, and conceive it filled with suns like ours, each with a chorus of worlds forever moving around him; then this little ball on which we move, seems, even in my narrow imagination, to be almost nothing, and myself less than nothing, and of no sort of consequence … That I may be preserved from atheism … Help me, O Father! … For all thy innumerable benefits; for life, and reason … My good God, I thank thee!" (Benjamin Franklin, "Articles of Belief," in The American Ideal of 1776, ed. Hamilton Albert Long {Philadelphia: Heritage Books, 1963}, 5).

Is it too late for America?  Not at all.

 

Image from http://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/tdgh-jun/jun01.htm

For more information or to purchase Restoring Education Central to American Greatness:

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...

 

For previous blog entries on similar topics, simply go to this site and scroll down:

http://davidanorris.posterous.com/

 

Like on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/restoringeducationcentraltoamericangreatness

Introduction VI

"Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants," Justice Brandeis

http://www.law.louisville.edu/library/collections/brandeis/node/196

 

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 be taught about the non-sectarian and impartial  God of creation upon which inalienable rights, citizen self-government and liberty depend.

 

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.  The Supreme Court's ruling in the Everson v. Board of Education decision of 1947 began a dramatic shift away from “In God We Trust.”  See Chapter 6 for details about this Supreme Court ruling.  We review the civic religion adopted by immigrants from around the world in Chapters 1 through 4 and Part IV, Appendix B, Iowa's Bill of Rights, taken in part from the Declaration of Independence.  The strategy for restoring competition in education and choice by the people is outlined in Chapters 11 and 12.

 

The unionization of teachers and accompanying tenure law have enabled a small cadre of radicals to take God out of citizen-funded government schools. Newt Gingrich stated:  “Those who want absolute proof you cannot teach American history honestly and accurately without reference to God, go to the Lincoln Memorial and read where in Lincoln’s second inaugural, March 1865, he referred to God fourteen times and used two quotes from the Bible.”*

 

*http://www.c-spanvideo.org/clip/3597743

 

 

Lincoln_memorial_lincoln_contrasty

Lincoln Memorial Statue

 

 

 

There are millions of honest, hardworking teachers, but they have no more control over the lifeview being taught in the soft sciences than do parents.  An entirely different system for educating American youth is needed that would bypass the leftist teachers' union monopoly.  Funds for education provided by Americans must be routed through the parents, similar to the G.I. Bill following World War II.  This bill provided that education sought by veterans be paid from taxpayer revenues, and the veterans had the freedom to use the tuition grant in a public or private institution of their choice.

 

 

Image from http://washingtonvirtualtrip.wikispaces.com/Abraham+Lincoln+Memorial

For more information or to purchase Restoring Education Central to American Greatness:

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...

 

For previous blog entries on similar topics, simply go to this site and scroll down:

http://davidanorris.posterous.com/

 

Like on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/restoringeducationcentraltoamericangreatness

Introduction III

Historically, public schools salvaged many students from homes where parenting was failing. Now students from good homes are abandoning the values that made America such a great nation.  This problem is ongoing even though most teachers are doing their best to counter the incursion of secular absolutism (atheism) in the soft sciences of our schools.

 

John Adams' quote:  "But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.  And liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers.  Rulers are no more than attorneys, agents, and trustees for the people; and if the cause, the interest and trust, is insidiously betrayed, or wantonly trifled away, the people have a right to revoke the authority that they themselves have deputed, and to constitute abler and better agents, attorneys, and trustees. And the preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks, is of more importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men in the country."  John Adams was a direct descendant of Puritan colonists from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.  A Harvard graduate, he served on the First Continental Congress and helped to draft the Declaration of Independence.  John Adams was vice-president under George Washington and the second president of the United States  (A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1766 from The Works of John Adams, …by his grandson, Charles F. Adams, Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 10 volumes).


 

Truth or Consequences

 

Knowledge of and acceptance of the Bible, the Great Reformation (1500-1570) and American history empower conscientious individuals to be self-governing and, on a broader scale, inspire communities and the nation as a whole to overcome the tyranny of moral confusion.  Identifying with the first principle (God of Creation is Man's Benefactor) enables believers to avoid the deception and confusion advanced by truth-trashers.

 

Strangely, even the German atheist, Friedrich Nietzsche, accepted the message from human history and understood the source of freedom for his way of life.  He wrote:  "Remove Christianity and the ideas fall too."*

 

*http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis/archive/issue.asp?year=2008&month=11

 

The American Founding Fathers understood human history and identified the distinction of good as self-evident Laws of Nature and of Nature's God.  It is the governing character of these principles (laws), such as humility, the Golden Rule, and the Ten Commandments, that leads to lasting success.  This is the sure foundation upon which man's right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" rests.  Called "virtue" by America's Founding Fathers, the impartial and divine element frees man to do what is right.  "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (2 Corinthians 3:17).

 

 

 

For more information or to purchase Restoring Education Central to American Greatness:

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...

 

For previous blog entries on similar topics, simply go to this site and scroll down:

http://davidanorris.posterous.com/

 

Like on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/restoringeducationcentraltoamericangreatness

Introduction II

Ideas for decision making have one of two origins—either materialistic and mortal or based upon the reality of everlasting truth, according to the design of Creation's God.  From the beginning, Americans reached beyond the failed practices of man to immortal values that make stability, liberty and prosperity possible.  Judeo-Christian principles have been the foundation for public dialogue and government policy.  Truth from the Hebrew Christian Bible has enabled citizen self-government and individual liberty.

 

William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England were used by Abraham Lincoln and were continued to be used by students of law into the 1920s.  Blackstone said: “Man, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the laws [principles] of his Creator …  These laws laid down by God are the eternal immutable laws of good and evil … This law of nature dictated by God Himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other.  It is binding over the entire globe, in all countries, and at all times:  no human laws are of any validity if contrary to this.”*

 

*http://www.constitution.org/tb/tb-1102.htm

 

First Principle

The God of Creation is Man's Benefactor

 

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.  This reality about creation's nature reveals God's protection.

 

"Patriotism is as much a virtue as justice, and is as necessary for support of societies as the natural affection is for the support of families.  The Amor Patriae is both moral and a religious duty.  It comprehends not only the love of our neighbors but millions of our fellow creatures, not only the present but of future generations.  This virtue we find constitutes a part of the first character of history."**

 

--Dr. Benjamin Rush, essay on patriotism published in 1773.  He was a delegate to the Continental Congress from Pennsylvania and signed the Declaration of Independence.  A devout Christian, Rush established Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and served as professor of medical theory and clinical practice at the University of Pennsylvania from 1791 to 1813.

 

**http://www.whatwouldthefoundersdo.org/showQuote.aspx?q=403

 

In fact, the American colonies did not become united until the constitutional delegates agreed to amendments that were specific about religious and educational freedom from government and non-government 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 values for determining the proper role of laws and the use of government power are clear.  We ought to obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29).  Adoption of this impartial, nonsectarian, God-honoring predicate for society has served as a marvelous unifier for our diverse immigrant nation.

 

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."

 

For more information or to purchase Restoring Education Central to American Greatness:

State of Iowa Bill of Rights II

This law follows the right to life and liberty from government oppression, principles of the Declaration of Independence.

 

Protection of the citizens from authoritarian judges depends upon preserving the intent of the law in the matter of unalienable citizen rights.  This depends upon discontinuation of fascistic tenure guarantees that empower leftist law professors to prevent the school administrators from controlling what is taught to those who may later become judges.

 

Twice tried--bail. SECTION 12. No person shall after acquittal, be tried for the same offense.  All persons shall, before conviction, be bailable, by sufficient sureties, except for capital offenses where the proof is evident, or the presumption great.

Habeas corpus. SECTION 13. The writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, or refused when application is made as required by law, unless in case of rebellion, or invasion the public safety may require it.

Military. SECTION 14. The military shall be subordinate to the civil power.  No standing army shall be kept up by the state in time of peace; and in time of war, no appropriation for a standing army shall be for a longer time than two years.

Quartering soldiers. SECTION 15. No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war except in the manner prescribed by law.

Treason. SECTION 16. Treason against the state shall consist only in levying war against it, adhering to its enemies, or giving them aid and comfort.  No person shall be convicted of treason, unless on the evidence of two witnesses to the same overt act, or confession in an open court.

Bail--punishments. SECTION 17. Excessive bail shall not be required; excessive fines shall not be imposed, and cruel and unusual punishment shall not be inflicted.

Eminent domain--drainage ditches and levees. SECTION 18. Private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation first being made, or secured to be made to the owner thereof, as soon as the damages shall be assessed by a jury, who shall not take into consideration any advantages that may result to said owner on account of the improvement for which it is taken.

The general assembly, however, may pass laws permitting the owners of lands to construct drains, ditches, and levees for agricultural, sanitary or mining purposes across the lands of others, and provide for the organization of drainage districts, vest the proper authorities with power to construct and maintain levees, drains and ditches and to keep in repair all drains, ditches, and levees heretofore constructed under the laws of the state, by special assessments upon the property benefited thereby.   The general assembly may provide by law for the condemnation of such real estate as shall be necessary for the construction and maintenance of such drains, ditches and levees, and prescribe the method of making such condemnation.  Paragraph 2 added 1908, Amendment [13].

Imprisonment for debt. SECTION 19.  No person shall be imprisoned for debt in any civil action, on mesne or final process, unless in case of fraud; and no person shall be imprisoned for a militia fine in time of peace.

Right of assemblage--petition. SECTION 20.  The people have the right freely to assemble together to counsel for the common good; to make known their opinions to their representatives and to petition for a redress of grievances.

Attainder--ex post facto law--obligation of contract. SECTION 21.  No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, shall ever be passed.  Referred to in S12E.11, 16.2 of the Code.

Resident aliens. SECTION 22.  Foreigners who are, or may hereafter become residents of this state, shall enjoy the same rights in respect to the possession, enjoyment and descent of property, as native born citizens.

Slavery--penal servitude. SECTION 23.  There shall be no slavery in this state; nor shall there be involuntary servitude, unless for the punishment of crime.

Agricultural leases. SECTION 24.  No lease or grant of agricultural lands, reserving any rent, or service of any kind, shall be valid for a longer period than twenty years.  Referred to in S461A.25 of the Code.

Rights reserved. SECTION 25.  This enumeration of rights shall not be construed to impair or deny others, retained by the people.

 

Iowa-state-flag

Image from http://www.elcivics.com/state-lessons/iowa-lesson-1.html

 

For more information or to purchase Restoring Education Central to American Greatness:

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...

 

For previous blog entries on similar topics, simply go to this site and scroll down:

http://davidanorris.posterous.com/

 

Like on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/restoringeducationcentraltoamericangreatness

Posterous theme by Cory Watilo