Filed under: Thomas Jefferson

Part I: Government

American Principle Fifteen 

 

The Benevolent Provision and Heart Of God For Mankind

Are Recognized By Our Founding Fathers

 

"And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."

Declaration of Independence

 

 

It is the deeply felt expression of faith in the God who gave us life and the respect for unchanging laws of creation's nature that reversed the historic tide of oppression by government officials.

 

Our duty is to be public about the fact that reliable standards for law come with knowledge of the non-sectarian Creator-based meaning of the Declaration of Independence and the First Amendment.  In 1835, the significance of this connection was observed by Alexis de Tocqueville, "… in America religion is the road to knowledge, and the observance of the divine laws leads man to civil freedom…"

 

We must be honest.  There is an imperative need to restore American law that upheld the impartial life-enhancing morality, known then as Common Law and will always be known as the Laws of Nature.  The Declaration of Independence reads "… the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind…"  This is not only the basis for our nation's charters, it is also the unifier of our immigrant nation for the greatness that has been achieved.  

 

The wisdom of leaders who drafted the American charters is illustrated by the recommendation made for the American Seal.  Originally Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and John Adams proposed that the Seal pay tribute to the benevolent provision and heart of God for mankind.  Their design depicted the Old Testament journey of the Israelites who were guided by God through the wilderness.  The other side displayed Anglo-Saxons from Germanic tribes who descended to England and influenced the making of laws.  The Anglo-Saxons introduced morality for law comparable to the values of right and wrong identified by the human conscience at birth.  Undoubtedly, the most significant guide for law chosen by Americans was the Ten Commandments presented by God to Moses at Mount Sinai.

 

Secular authoritarians who abuse citizen sovereignty in practice and the Constitutional concept of unalienable God-given human rights have always menaced society.  "I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations" (James Madison, Speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 16, 1788).  The quest for power is reflected in their tax and spend authoritarian militancy.  While claiming patriotism, they promote fear and employ every conceivable means to remove any knowledge of America's Judeo-Christian heritage and the principles of the Declaration of Independence that gave birth to the United States of America.

 

The Declaration of Independence concludes: "We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.  And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor" (the final paragraph from the Declaration of Independence unanimously adopted by the thirteen United States of America, CONGRESS, July 4, 1776).

 

The Constitution concludes: "Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present on the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the independence [Declaration of Independence] of the United States of America the Twelfth [adopted earlier] In witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our names."

 

 

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Part I: Government

American Principle Eleven (Part I)

 

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.'"

First Amendment, Constitution of the United States

 

 

The delegates to the Constitutional Convention were concerned about the use of government power by what Thomas Jefferson called "Tyrants of the Mind."  Instead of government being the servant of the people, tyrants override the people's authority and gradually take control of what schools teach.  The family and the teaching of American history become early victims.  Students are dumbed down.  Secular open-minded morality and class envy divide families and communities.  Fellow travelers in the judiciary reject the historical application of First Amendment law.  In later chapters we document the inroads of harmful law.

 

Government-sanctioned teacher tenure guarantees are a violation of the First Amendment.  Privileged government teachers lead toward the same devastating consequences as the government-sanctioned church imposed on medieval Europe.  Experience with tyrants of the mind is the reason for the First Amendment.

 

Tyrants of the mind are bullies.  The creation of fear enables the few to overpower school administrators hired by the people to run schools in the public interest.  The weapons used include bad-mouthing and the ruin of the reputations of good administrators and teachers who dare to challenge leftist "politically correct" militants.

 

Editors of the book Speeches That Changed the World started with the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17) and Christ's Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7).  These editors recognized the good that believers have contributed to society and the superior quality of the Bible as literature.  Speeches That Changed the World included speeches by two Darwinian evolutionists, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.  Their leadership did influence the world.  The murder of millions of innocent people demonstrates the depths to which the open-mindedness of Darwin's God-rejecting Origin of the Species dogma can take men.

 

As always happens, those who reject the envelope of the life-enhancing "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" eventually self-destruct.  The problem now in America is the damage being done to the minds of millions of our youth who will soon be leaders.

 

"Educators have recognized the processes by which thought and behavioral patterns acquired in youth become the basis for adult motivation.  In modern times thoughtful observers have become progressively aware that moral, social, and political concepts implanted during the time of mental immaturity not only participate in the conduct of later life, but, once acquired, such concepts become dominant and often unalterable in the adult" (Grand Jury study of problems in higher education for the Eleventh Judicial District of Iowa, chaired by David A. Norris).

 

"The first national study of four common sexually transmitted diseases among girls and young women has found that one in four [is] infected with at least one of the diseases, U.S. health officials reported Tuesday" (Lawrence K. Altman, New York Times, March 11, 2008).  One in four U.S. teenage girls have STDs.  The diseases, which are infections caused by bacteria, viruses and parasites, can produce acute symptoms… and potentially fatal pregnancy… and cervical cancer.  The two most common sexually transmitted diseases, or STDs, among all the participants tested were HPB at 18 percent, and chlamydia at 4 percent, according to the analysis portion of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

 

An honest evolutionist: "Evolution is unproved and unprovable.  We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation which is unthinkable" (Sir Arthur Keith, citation in Wallie A. Criswell's Did Man Just Happen?, Grand Rapids MI: Zondervan, 1973).

 

Education worthy of the name will emphasize that the president, congress and the judiciary are servants of, by and for the people who are the sovereigns under creation's God.

 

 

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Part I: Government

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" (The Federalist No. 51, by James Madison).

 

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).

 

"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" (President George Washington's Farewell Address, 1796).

 

"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).

 

 

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Part I: Government

American Principle Seven (Part II)

 

The Moral Duties Of Civility Are Also a Predicate

For Interpreting Constitutional Meaning

 

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

Declaration of Independence

 

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

George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796

 

 

The Bill of Rights of Massachusetts provides, with clarity, truth learned from Scripture and the laboratory of history: "The happiness of a people and the good order and preservation of civil government essentially depend upon piety, religion, and morality…"  Citizens in four additional states agreed to ratify the Constitution by adopting the same wording for their state's Bill of Rights.

 

Jefferson emphasized justification for taxpayer-funded education: "The first elements of morality too may be instilled in their minds; such as, when further developed as their judgments advance in strength, may teach them how to work out their own greatest happiness, by shewing them that it does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed them, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits" (Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1782).

 

The Grand Jury for the 11th Judicial District of Iowa investigated problems in higher education.  Their Presentment was adopted unanimously December 23, 1968: "In the field of morality all basic truths have been apprehended.  All the changing conditions we hear so much about [the charm of immoral practices] do not affect [negate] the validity or applicability of the central directives of human conduct.  These truths are demonstrable in terms of benefits and as to how it is that those who disregard them fall easily into alien pitfalls of Fascism, lawlessness, drug addiction, etc.  There is no greater contribution a teaching institution can make to human progress and purpose than to endow students at all levels with this knowledge."

 

The few teachers who are militantly opposed to the "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" and limited government, present their dogma with godly charm and the promises of an easier life.  Why is secular Political Correctness so dangerous?  Those who disagree, the good teacher majority and students, dare not present data that disproves what is being taught.  Those who do so are victimized by any number of charges… bigotry, unconcern for the destitute, diversity-hating, whatever.  Consequently, students are not taught about the standards of morality that make self-government, prosperity and liberty possible.

 

What is the price?  Alexander Solzhenitsyn, in his Templeton Address, said: "More than a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of older people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: 'Men have forgotten God: that's why all this has happened.' Since then I have spent well-nigh fifty years working on the history of our Revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by upheaval.  But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous Revolution that swallowed up some sixty million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: 'Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened'" (Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Men Have Forgotten God, The Templeton Address, 1983, in National Review, July 22, 1983, 873, quote from David A. Noebel, Understanding the Times, 247-8).

 

The solution requires restoring the intent and meaning of the Bill of Rights that will restore the parents' freedom to choose from among schools that must compete for students.

 

 

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Part I: Government

American Principle Five

 

Liberty--From Oppression By Big Government

and Nongovernment Authoritarians--Is Vital

 

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

Declaration of Independence

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

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Part I: Government

American Principle Four (Part I)

 

All Men Are Equal

In the Sight Of God and the Law

 

"that all men are created equal ..."

Declaration of Independence

 

 

All persons, regardless of their religious, racial, and cultural backgrounds, have human rights that are equal in value.  These rights, which include the right to life, start with the inception of life and the God-given right to equal treatment by the civil and criminal justice systems.

 

"The multitude I am speaking of is the body of people--no contemptible multitude--for whose sake government is instituted; or rather, who have themselves erected it, solely for their own good--to whom even kings and all in subordination to them, are strictly speaking, servants and not masters" (Samuel Adams, essay in the Boston Gazette, 1771).

 

The Creator-based Declaration of Independence is a monumental reversal of the idea that leaders as a class have divine rights, are superior to and entitled to rule others.  The constitutional Fathers believed the Bible, which is a history book, and they recognized how respect for the values of Creation's God supported the work ethic and self-government.  The Founders were students of historic experiments in governments that led to tyranny.  Although they themselves were leaders, they wisely concluded that the people are more trustworthy and discerning in matters of government than are leaders.  Thomas Jefferson wrote, "Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights" (Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Richard Price, January 8, 1789).

 

As has been the case throughout history, determined enemies of citizen self-government are now fighting day and night to achieve unequal and superior standing by law for control over education.  Removing respect for Creation's God from curriculum and de-emphasizing the fact that immoral practices lead to harmful consequences are not education.  The consequence of taking Creation's God out of education is apparent from the huge increase in births by unwed teenage girls, infectious diseases and violent crime (even in homes and on school campuses).  Also, S.A.T. scores have declined and the God-honoring family values upon which American greatness was achieved are brought into question, Chapters 7-10.  Pointed instruction for reliance upon the divine nature and breadth of God-given human equality would also reverse support for baby genocide and the appetite for racial prejudice.


 

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Curriculum That Is Profoundly American

The proposal for education advanced by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and adopted by the University of Virginia provides an excellent formula for teaching American history and government.  It provides indisputable evidence of the American principles that are imperative for education in the taxpayer-funded classroom.

 

The resolution stated that "all students shall be inculcated with the basic American principles of government…  None should be inculcated [taught] which are incompatible with those on which the Constitution of this State, and of the United States were genuinely based, in the common opinion."  The resolution also stated that the faculty had a standard of responsibility and were required to teach affirmatively these unique American principles.  Only after they had done so were they to teach the conflicting principles as such, judging them by the soundness of the American principles that served as a basis.  The resolution then specified six writings that, in the board's opinion, reflected the unanimously supported principles unique to America that youth should be taught.  "These documents were John Locke's Essay Concerning the True Original Extent and End of Civil Government (1690), Algernon Sidney's Discourses Concerning Government (1698), the Declaration of Independence, Washington's Farewell Address, the Virginia Resolutions of 1799 (adopted by the Virginia legislature), and the Federalist Papers."*

 

The character-building curriculum now taught by homeschool parents and many Christian private schools is comparable to the curriculum taught in common schools and one-room neighborhood schools in early America.  At that time, such schools often had, say, thirty students, some at nearly every grade level, with one teacher.

 

Noah Webster's textbooks, including the Webster's Blue-Back Speller, were standard for American schools until early 1930.  Conversant in many languages, he spent several years writing the Webster's Dictionary that preceded the dictionary used in America today.  His definitions were often supported by Scripture.

 

Webster taught school in West Hartford, Connecticut, and later served as a soldier during the American Revolution.  He spent nine terms in the Connecticut legislature and three terms in the Massachusetts legislature.  A strong proponent for convening the Constitutional Convention, he wrote what became Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.

 

Webster was concerned that the youth of our nation would learn to check their emotions and avoid the fears and pitfalls of foolish imaginations.  Karl Marx stirred up the emotions of heady intellectuals.  With promises of a utopia, he captured millions who, to the great loss of their families and even nations, embraced secular popularism.  The Webster dictionary defined emotions as the "strong impression, or vivid sensation that immediately produces a reaction.  The nature of the reaction is to either 'appropriate and enjoy, or avoid and repel' the cause for the impression."**

 

Abraham Lincoln's strong foundation in language was a result of his stepmother's curriculum--the Bible and Shakespeare (The Encyclopaedia Britannica: a Dictionary of Arts, Sciences…, Vol. 16, by Hugh Chisholm, p 703).

Albert Einstein and Bill Gates were university dropouts but not learning dropouts.  They were challenged to learn about the unvarying reliability and order of creation's design.

 

American_schools

 

*Nathaniel F. Cabell, Early History of the University of Virginia, as contained in the "Letters of Thomas Jefferson and Joseph B. Cabell," (n.p.: Richmond, Virginia, 1856), 339.  Repeated in Hamilton Albert Long, The American Ideal of 1776, Your American Heritage Books, 141-44, 147.

**Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language, G. and C. Merriam Company, 1828; cited by David A. Norris, Lasting Success (Ames, IA Alpha Heartland Press, 2003), 7.

 

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Revisionism In the Soft Sciences

The collective political power of teacher unions, established by legislative and judicial acceptance, has enabled them to prevent curriculum control by elected school boards and superintendents hired to administer the system.  

 

Even though tenure laws enable teachers in the hard sciences (math, engineering, chemistry, physics, and so forth) to get by with dumbed down approaches to learning, the harm done is less than in the soft sciences.  Whether or not the researcher or teacher is a Bible-believer, the conclusions drawn in the hard sciences tend to be the same because proof is determined by observing consistently repeatable and immutable laws of creation's nature.  Misrepresentations are typically exposed and rejected as a result of our free enterprise system, which thrives on competition and the consumer's right to choose from products that come from the hard sciences.

 

In contrast, conclusions drawn in the soft sciences--such as literature, news editing, education strategies, political science, life-origins biology, history, law, social studies, arts, and ecology--differ starkly between creationist and evolutionist instructors.  The differences include the acceptance or rejection of moral certainties, an honest or dishonest rendition of history, and respect or disregard for parental authority and for the Constitution itself.  When an evolutionist instructs a student year after year, the student's ability to separate truth from non-truth and to appreciate the value of moral law and the traditional family becomes seriously impaired.

 

Not surprising, an Ames, Iowa, public school board member complained:  "I know the Legislature likes to talk about local control, but what I am getting [at] is that … we really don't have local control."*

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*Teresa Kay Albertson, "School District Cuts Not as Bad as Feared," The Tribune(Ames, IA), January 18, 2009, A3.

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American Education Philosophy Corrupted

Those who champion the atheistic-secular concept of open-mindedness use it to justify exclusivity for imposing their God-rejecting life view upon captive classroom students.  "Not only must school teachers and principles be 'exemplars of open-mindedness and free inquiry, but severally and collectively, they must be prepared to proclaim their faith in that open-mindedness and free inquiry.'"  Here we must hearken to Dewey:  "The administrator will… realize that public education is essentially education of the public: directly, through teachers and students… in the transformation of society [into a God-rejecting, socialistic society]."*

 

Atheistic-secular demands that "school teachers and principals be exemplars of open-mindedness [in] the transformation of society" undermine the moral foundations of civil society.  The justification for a tax on the people for education, in a representative republic, requires that the curriculum promote foundational moral boundaries.  The constitutions of the Soviet Union, China and Cuba proclaimed liberty.  But in the absence of a moral predicate providing certainties for Constitutional law--such as provided in the American Declaration of Independence and Northwest Ordinance, they rule by what Solon of Athens called "incalculable and changeable decrees."**

 

Prior to the leftist takeover, the National Education Association published God-honoring, character-building booklets for students and parents as recently as 1950.  For example, A Golden Treasury from the Bible, contained twenty-four Bible verses, including Psalm 1; Proverbs 20:1; Exodus 20 (the Ten Commandments); Romans 12; John 3:16, 6:23, 14:1-4 and 15:1-4; 1 Corinthians 13; and Ecclesiastes 12:1, "remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth."

 

In contrast to the old European secular philosophy, the American philosophy of education requires that all prominent views, including the atheistic-secular view, be introduced, but that they are taught in the context of the history of their outcomes.  This is seen in the resolution proposed by both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and adopted by the newly founded University of Virginia (see Chapter 10 of Restoring Education Central to American Greatness).  Their resolution identifies the great need of our day, stressing citizen responsibility and the need for a thorough knowledge of historic American foundations.

 

The education guidelines set forth for the University of Virginia emphasize that "all students shall be 'inculcated' with the basic American principles for government," and, "None should be inculcated which are incompatible with those on which the Constitution of this States, and of the United States were genuinely based, in the common opinion."  The resolution also stated that the faculty had a standard of responsibility and were required to teach affirmatively these unique American principles.  Only after they had done so were they to teach the conflicting principles as such, judging them by the soundness of the American principles that served as a basis.***  These principles are detailed in Chapter 10 of Restoring Education Central to American Greatness.

 

Faithful school boards and administrators take seriously the fact that youthful trust, inexperience and vulnerability to exploitation by the enemies of the family and self-government require that the learning environment be protected.  God has given mankind a wonderful mind to use and explore the universe, with but one exception:  we are not to use our minds to absorb the details and wiles (deceptive snares) of evil (Genesis 3:13; Isaiah 5:15-16, 20; Romans 16:19; and James 1:12-17).

 

Image_nea_booklet

 

*James Allen Johnson, "A Note on Academic Freedom: Schoolmen Must Declare Their Faith," Phi Delta Kappan, 44:185-88 (January, 1963), in Robert Hoffman, Foundations of American Education (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1970), 192.

**Will and Ariel Durant, The Story of Civilization, vol. 2, The Life of Greece (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1939), 118.

***Nathaniel F. Cabell, Early History of the University of Virginia as contained in the "Letters of Thomas Jefferson and Joseph B. Cabell" (n.p.: Richmond, Virginia, 1856), 339.  Repeated in Hamilton Albert Long, The American Ideal of 1776, Your American Heritage Books, 141-44, 147.

 

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Exegesis of the Constitution

 

The importance of firmness in retaining the original meaning of the Constitution for judiciary, legislative and administrative separation merits repeated emphasis.  The duty of unelected judges is to settle disputes based upon the Constitution and Precedents consistent with the Constitution.  Responding to the question, "Is there a role for politics in our judicial system?" Atonin Scalia, who has now served for over twenty years on the Supreme Court, said:  "The absolute worst violation of a judge's oath is to decide a case based on a partisan principle or philosophical basis, rather than what the law [states]."*

 

Prior to the Everson v. Board of Education decision in 1947, the First Amendment protected religious liberty.  Liberals going to court to get the Ten Commandments removed from public property would have been wasting their time.  A disruptive student who objects to the statement "Jesus is the reason for the season" on t-shirts in the public school would not have threatened a lawsuit.  The force of government was on the side of the people's civic right to use their institutions, including public education, to proclaim belief in the nonsectarian God of creation.

 

The First Amendment upholds the unalienable right of the people to share their religious beliefs and make comparisons.  With this knowledge they can then choose what appears to be best.  This competition between the religions strengthens the Higher Authority "government of laws, and not of men" consensus among voters.

 

"On every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed" (June 12, 1823, Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography Notes on the State of Virginia, Public and Private Papers, Addresses and Letters, New York: The Library of American, 1984).

 

Modern_judge

*V.P. Price "Are There Too Many Lawyers?" Parade, September 14, 2008, 9.

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