If the consequences to the public liberty wasn’t so serious I could almost laugh at how today’s so-called conservatives and liberals are constantly at each other’s throats in the political arena. However, as the effects of the laws passed by the people these conservatives and liberals elect unfortunately reach down and touch my life; therefore I am forced to consider them as enemies to be opposed.
When our fledgling young nation first sought its independence from England the delegates to the Second Continental Congress voted in favor of a document which, not only stated their intent to sever the ties which had bound them to English rule for over a century and a half, they also agreed to the principle that their rights were a gift from their God, and the government should be instituted to preserve those rights.
Therefore, any government, and it doesn’t matter if it is being run by Democrats or Republicans, which seeks to limit my rights is a government to be opposed. Furthermore, any individual who supports a government that seeks to limit my rights, simply because they belong to the same political party, is also to be opposed.
People today have not been taught the purpose for which their government was originally established; nor have they ever lived in a time when their government ever cared about supporting and defending the Constitution. But the truth is easily obtainable if only they had the desire to seek it out.
Our Constitution is, above all else, a law which was written that, when ratified by the required number of States, became binding upon both our government, and upon the voters who select those to fill the seats of power within our government. If you do not know what the Constitution says, what those who argued over its structure and the powers it would give our government intended, then that is upon you; for the truth can be found if you had the desire to go looking for it.
What is wrong with America today is not a conservative versus liberal problem, it is a problem which sees America being taken over by the belief that individual rights, and the concept of universal liberty for all, is under attack from all sides. You cannot tell me that the Republicans are any less guilty of violating our rights than the Democrats are; not if you have an ounce of integrity in you. Both Republican and Democratic administrations have enacted laws which restrict the liberty our government was instituted to protect, so don’t tell me the Republicans are actually as conservative as they claim–they aren’t.
Prior to Lexington and Concord, prior to the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson would write his Summary View of the Rights of British America. In it Jefferson would state, “God who gave us life gave us liberty.”
I think people today are of the belief that any rights they enjoy are there because their government allows them to exercise those rights. That’s simply not true; our rights were in existence long before our system of government was even a consideration for the Founders. God gave us our rights and government is only established to ensure that those rights are protected; and when government seeks to limit those rights it, not only commits a crime against us, it is an affront to God Himself.
I constantly hear, with all these shootings, that the world has gone crazy. I don’t believe that; I don’t think it is a matter of actual insanity. What I believe is that what is wrong is a lack of spirituality and morals which has led us to having all these crimes; and that our government, being spiritually blind as well, seeks to use these events to further restrict the liberty that is God’s gift to us all. It’s as Rahm Emmanuel said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that is that it gives you the opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”
Would we have tolerated all our invasions of privacy without the fear of terrorist attack? Would we have tolerated all these laws restricting ownership of certain categories of guns if we did not fear crime?
Recently, the current occupant of the Oval Office declared that he intends to impose tariffs upon other countries to stimulate economic growth and balance out the trade deficit between the U.S. and other countries who export more goods into our country than they import from us into their countries. Yet in 1788 Patrick Henry gave a stern warning to his fellow Virginians, “You are not to inquire how your trade may be increased, nor how you are to become a great and powerful people, but how your liberties can be secured; for liberty ought to be the direct end of your Government.”
You see, behind every law there is FEAR; fear that if we don’t somehow limit liberty something bad will happen. If we don’t violate people’s privacy there will be another terrorist attack; if we don’t ban this type of gun there will be another shooting; if we don’t enact these tariffs or subsidize American businesses our economy will suffer.
Every single loss of liberty can be attributed to the fear that if we do not surrender a portion of that liberty something bad is going to happen…EVERY SINGLE ONE!!!
What we are doing is seeking to control the symptoms of a disease without actually addressing the disease itself; that disease being a lack of spirituality and morals where the lives and liberty of people are respected by all. That cannot be fixed by any law, any regulation, and the only way this ends is either America has a sudden spiritual awakening, or we lose all the liberty our government was established to secure and we live our remaining days as slaves to despots and tyrants.
I know this is beginning to sound more and more like a sermon than a political rant, but I have come to the conclusion that I will NEVER reach those who truly need to hear my messages because their eyes have been shut, and their hearts hardened to the truth because they live not in the knowledge that there is a God, and that to violate the rights he has given us is as much a crime against Him as it is against those whose rights you seek to violate.
You do not have to believe in God for our system of government to operate as it was intended it operate; although it does not hurt that you do. What you do have to do is acknowledge that those who established our system of government did believe in the existence of God, and that our government has at its core, the preservation of God’s gift of liberty to us as its motive for enacting legislation.
Although he does not specifically mention God, in 1749 Samuel Adams warned, “[N]either the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt.” (Source: Essay in the Public Adviser)
However, years later his cousin John would say, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Noah Webster, the father of American Dictionaries, also is quoted as saying, “When you become entitled to exercise the right of voting for public officers, let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers, ‘just men who will rule in the fear of God.’ The preservation of [our] government depends on the faithful discharge of this Duty; if the citizens neglect their Duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted; laws will be made, not for the public good so much as for selfish or local purposes; corrupt or incompetent men will be appointed to execute the Laws; the public revenues will be squandered on unworthy men; and the rights of the citizen will be violated or disregarded. If [our] government fails to secure public prosperity and happiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the Divine Commands, and elect bad men to make and administer the Laws.”
Then in 1951, in the middle of what history calls the Red Scare, or the era of McCarthyism, author Fulton Sheen would write, “There remains the one standard that has not yet been universally used, namely, the choosing of candidates on moral grounds. A nation always gets the kind of politicians it deserves. When our moral standards are different, our legislation will be different. As long as the decent people refuse to believe that morality must manifest itself in every sphere of human activity, including the political, they will not meet the challenge of Marxism (communism).”
While that quote is specifically addressed towards the threat posed by Marxism, or communism, it can also be applied towards how our liberty has slowly been eroded because we have chosen bad men, or the lesser of two evils, to make and enact laws on our behalves.
Before our Constitution ever went into effect James Madison would write, “But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?” If our government is bad or corrupt, it is because we as voters are corrupt in our understanding of why our government was instituted. We are the watchers who watch over our government to ensure that it obeys the law we wrote to govern IT’S actions. What do people think is going to happen if we neglect our duty, or intentionally vote for immoral or unprincipled people to sit in office; do they think that our government has an auto correct function that will prevent these bad people from enacting laws that restricts our liberty?
Again, going back to Patrick Henry, he warned his fellow Virginians, (to no avail I might add) of the dangers posed to our liberty by the government outlined in the constitution, “Where is the responsibility — that leading principle in the British government? In that government a punishment, certain and inevitable, is provided: But in this, there is no real actual punishment for the grossest maladministration. They may go without punishment, though they commit the most outrageous violation on our immunities. That paper may tell me they will be punished. I ask, by what law? They must make the law — for there is no existing law to do it. What — will they make a law to punish themselves? This, Sir, is my great objection to the Constitution, that there is no true responsibility — and that the preservation of our liberty depends on the single chance of men being virtuous enough to make laws to punish themselves.”
You can vote until you are blue in the face and your fingers fall off from marking ballots, but if the preservation of God’s gift of liberty is not your first and foremost consideration when making your selections at the voting booth, nothing is going to change in this country; in fact, it will just continue to get worse.
In 2nd Chronicles there is a verse which all should read and give great heed to, “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 I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
Now Chronicles may have been addressed directly towards those living in sin just a short time before the birth of Jesus Christ, and it may have meant that God would heal the land of drought and other calamities, but I think it may also be taken to mean that God would heal the land of all the evils it suffered under as well and that the people would prosper and flourish.
The problems that this country faces are due solely to the fact that we have forsaken our God and we believe in the power of man, and that laws passed by man to force the will of others down our throats and restrict our liberty will make America prosper. A spiritual blindness has overtaken this country, and nothing will change until we remember Jefferson’s words, “God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure if we have removed their only firm basis: a conviction in the minds of men that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.”
So you see, maybe it isn’t a problem of too many Republicans or too many Democrats; maybe the problem is that there are too few who have God in their hearts and the preservation of His gift of liberty to us as their first priority in life.
There, I’ve said it. Let the hate mail begin…