Can America Survive in a World Without G0d?

There has been a slowly rising crescendo for half a century from a growing group of conservatives who are religious and hold their faith in the L0rd as dearly as they hold to the rights as delineated in the founding documents, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and increasingly the Declaration of Independence. It is in the Declaration of Independence that these religious conservatives find their strongest arguments that they are uniquely positioned to more fully understand the ideas and ideals behind the founders and what they viewed as the origins of the nation they wished to found. They also take to heart many of the arguments made between the different founders which many were fortunately preserved in the letters of correspondence. The likely most famous coming from John Adams who wrote, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” But even this quote falls short of the delineation of the manners for power distribution which was the backbone of the Declaration of Independence. Despite the watering down of the reference in order to pacify a select group of founders who feared placing too strong a reference to things religious as they feared relating too close an interdependence between the Almighty and the governance of the country they were to found. Still, the distribution of power is given a direct flow from the Creator to the individual people and from them to government. The government was relinquished to accepting only those powers permitted by the people and the people retained all other powers and rights not relegated to government. And taking things one step further, the power which was relinquished to the purview of government was to be most powerful at the most local level and from their powers would be relented upwards until the Federal Government would receive the least power and only those powers which were furthest from the citizens as those powers were to be retained at the governance closest to the people and most readily monitored and corralled by the citizens. The Constitution went even further in limiting the powers of the Federal Government in that it spent more words forbidding powers to the Federal Government than granting it powers.

 

It would be an impossible argument to try and claim that as time has passed that the Americans as a peoples have strayed from their strict religious beliefs and are now at best evenly divided between religiously observant and largely secular. If one were to query a plurality of Americans as to where their rights originate, they would likely say they were granted by the government and likely the Federal Government. This is exactly the opposite of the ideas that were the underpinning of the intentions and inspirations of the Founding Fathers. This belief has become so widespread that the Federal Government does not even pretend to follow the restriction on their powers as delineated in the Constitution. This has been a growing problem which found its origins in the humanist movement which really gained steam at the turn of the twentieth century. The prominence of the humanist, secular humanist in particular, was given a huge impetus with the writings of two men of science, the first being Charles Darwin and the second Sigmund Freud. Between these two gentlemen much of what had been wonder and the purview of the Creator were now reassigned to the purviews of science and given Earthly explanations. This drove the movement that culminated in <a href=http://www.usconstitution.net/xconst_Am17.html?ModPagespeed=noscript>Amendment 17</a> to the Constitution which stripped the States of their representation at the Federal Level thus removing the power to limit the powers stolen from the States by the Federal Government which over time allowed the Federal Government to gather far superior power over that of the States and other local governances. This inverted the power curve from G0d – People – Local Governments – State Governments – Federal Government to the new divisions of power which now appears to closely resemble Federal Government – State Governments – Local Governments – People. When the followers of secular humanism rearranged the structures of power in the governance of the United States they not only inverted the entire power curve, they removed the Creator from the picture completely and placed the Federal Government as the originator of all powers, rights, and grantor of all privilege. The same year that Amendment 17 was ratified there was another, namely Amendment 16. This permitted the Federal Government to collect an income tax from the people which further placed the peoples under the thumb of the Federal Government as the governance now had a direct access to one’s wealth.

 

Once the Federal Government inverted the entire power structure which had been implemented under the system designed by the Founding Fathers it began to take over those areas which had been relegated to religion and seen as the place where religion and thus G0d was responsible. Such areas included assisting those who were in need, those unable to care for themselves, feeding the hungry, assisting those who were unemployed, the homeless, providing for the education of the people, providing health care, childcare of orphans, and all distribution of charity. One by one the government took control of these areas with the concept that the government would provide such care without subjecting those who were in need with sermons and other pressures which religious institutions were presumably guilty of forcing upon those they helped. The fact that a church run soup kitchen might impinge upon those receiving their food that they say a prayer and listen to hymns while they ate was cast as being an unnecessary victimization on those who were needy. Why should anybody have to put up with such an imposition of their sensibilities just to receive a meal. Government was going to save these needy people from such an imposition. Government took over the care for children in orphanages with the reasoning that the government would be more suitable and particular when choosing adoptive parents and this would free those seeking to adopt from the possibility for meeting unnecessary religious requirements. The result was that the main determination for adopting a child became more aligned with wealth or who one knows than more humanistic qualities. Unemployment, charity, you name it and the government crept in and usurped responsibility replacing religion in every sector of our society. By the end of this year the government will be well on their way to replacing religion in its last bastion, hospital and health care. The death knell for religious provided health care is known as Obama Care which will slowly morph health care in ways that will wrest it from the hands of religious institutions eventually making government the sole provider for health care just as they have taken over every other area in society which once was provided by religious institutions. This was not done by accident as government was seeking to replace religion and replace G0d as the originator and guarantor of rights and freedoms. Let us pray that when we find that we the people can no longer suffer the overreach and domination of government over the individual that we can find the strength of character and the power of faith and trusting in our Creator take back from government those rights and privileges it has stolen from us the people and return the balance of power such that the people are under the protection of G0d and not the vassals under government.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

If We Save Only One Child’s Life

If We Save Only One Child’s Life

 

Senator Dianne Feinstein, President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the rest of the legions of gun-grabbers all have a love affair with the phrase, “If we save only one child’s life our efforts will be worth the time and trouble we spend fighting those Neanderthal gun-nuts.” There is the false claim that nobody needs these so-called “assault weapons” to hunt deer. There are two problems with this argument. First, no soldier in their right mind would take one of these so-called “assault weapons” into a combat situation when real assault weapons capable of sustained fire or burst mode are available thus the weapons in question are nothing like real assault weapons. Second, the Second Amendment is not about hunting or target shooting or any other recreational pursuit requiring firearms and these spiteful politicians know this full well but persist in lying hoping that we the people are ignorant enough to take their words for everything. Fortunately, many people have begun to wake to the real meaning behind the designs of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Most are also relearning the justifications and revolutionary concepts behind the Declaration of Independence. Some have even traced the ideas and ideals back through the political philosophers whose ideas were the inspirations behind much of the forming of the United States and have even traced the concept that man is a noble creature capable of self-rule all the way back to the Magna Carta. There are those who have also traced the concepts of individual liberty and that government is formed to serve the people and that those who rule, even kings and other nobility, are forbid to take treasure of any sort, not gold, silver, gems, horses, cattle or other excesses greater than any normal subject possesses which is contained in the Bible in Deuteronomy and other books. These people also have become aware that the Second Amendment was written to allow the people to restrict government whenever it became unwieldy and broke the original promises made to the people and instead began to be an oppressive burden. To this end the Second Amendment was written to allow the common people to own the same weaponry as was utilized by any who were in the service of the government including the military or any form of law enforcement. This little truth puts the lie to the myth of legal gun control in the United States.

 

Unfortunately, far too many citizens in the great lands of the United States have settled into a comfort where they prefer to allow the government to usurp many of the responsibilities which the Founding Fathers took great care in assuring that such power would remain with the people to the extent that the United States Constitution forbade the government these powers. But as the people came to live in great concentrations in large cities, even megalopolises, they no longer provided for themselves in the same manner as the founding generation. No longer do most Americans ever meet the farmers and herders who raise their food. They often do not even know the people who live on their block, let alone most of those who reside in their community and definitely not the entire city. They have become cogs in a large machine. With this change the people no longer know the people who represent them in the government, not even the city government who are supposed to be the closest government to the people and the one that most affects their lives. Reading the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights and one realizes exactly what President Obama meant when he described the Constitution as a document of negative rights. He did not mean it denied the people of rights but that it forbid the government from growing or performing beyond strict limitations. The most striking evidence of this concept is contained in the Bill of Rights with the Tenth Amendment being the most glaring evidence of limiting the Federal Government. It reads, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” You probably could not find a better or more forceful way to state that the Federal Government is prohibited from exercising powers or jurisdictions beyond some strict limitations. The exceptions to the limitations are spelled out within the constitution and anything not listed there as a power permitted to the Federal Government or strictly forbidden for the States to perform, then the Federal Government may not exercise such powers. When reading the Bill of Rights you see that there are distinct rights listed which are granted to the people and the Federal Government is forbidden to curtail or limit these freedoms. Adding to the Tenth Amendment is the Ninth Amendment which reads, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” This plainly grants that the rights of the people are limitless and beyond the power of the Federal Government to constrain, limit, or otherwise deny the innumerable rights which are granted to the people by the right of personhood. Such a powerful statement is one that was intended to warn politicians and public servants that they only held power at the permission of the peoples and the peoples did not have to turn to government for their freedom as it was theirs independent of the government and guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

 

Some claim that the most powerful of the Amendments in the Bill of Rights is the First Amendment which contains five freedoms placed beyond the reach of government. The First Amendment reads “ 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.” These rights allow the individual great amounts of personal power over their life and to express their beliefs and opinions free of government influences or limitations; express grievance with the government and expect the government to respond and correct or repair damages or other infringements; report news and political opinions without restrictions or censorship by the government; and lastly to assemble in pursuit of goals or activities free of government limitations. The rest of the Bill of Rights has more restrictions limiting the government from injecting itself or its limitations and restrictions over the individual or group of individuals. The problem which people had always faced in restraining government came about as the government always had held all the power over the people and the people were unarmed. The government having all of the arms could even act beyond limitations which were supposedly established on them by founding documents or other legal writings. This was the entire concept behind the Second Amendment, to arm the people as well and as powerfully as was the government thus making the people the equal and not the subjects. The phrase that has found favor with many supporters of the Second Amendment is a quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson which reads, “ When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.” Now tell Senator Dianne Feinstein and President Barack Obama to leave our guns alone and simply inquire as to what part of “shall not be infringed” they do not understand.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

President Obama Inadvertently Identifies Historic Economic Ailment

President Obama continued his assault on Congress threatening that they could be responsible for a murder. The victims of this Congressional threat are, according to President Obama, thousands of jobs and the continued improvement we have supposedly been enjoying in the economy. The method with which Congress will bludgeon the economy and jobs to death is the death by thousands, nay, millions of cuts via sequestration. According to President Obama, if the Congress does not accept his proposal to match any spending cuts with equal measure of tax increases through the removal of loopholes and credits, then uncountable numbers of jobs will be lost or never filled as without government subsidies sectors of the economy will relapse into a recession-like collapse. This is the fate the Congress will force on a hapless country where its people are thirsting for the continued supply of government milk to suckle and care for them supplying them with jobs and seeing to their every need. Well, at least this would be reality if those who believe in big government as the solution for everything were to have their way. What President Obama has managed to do with his threats is to point to one of the most dire situations confronting the United States today. Actually, this has been a growing problem since Franklin Delano Roosevelt and greatly enhanced by Lyndon Baines Johnson and numerous other assists along the way to the present. The pinnacle of this monster which has been built one bad idea after another was the farce that some companies, banks, investment, insurance, and other chosen favorites of those in power being sold as too big to fail and thus deserving of millions upon millions of taxpayer’s money. Since the too big to fail was not an Obama original but was inspired by the original bailout which was committed with the approval and blessings of President George W. Bush.

The problem is that such a large percentage of the economy and way too many of our major companies rely almost entirely on government largess, tax allowances, contracts, and in a surprising number of cases, their entire margin of profit. That is one of the problems which rarely is discussed when the entitlement debate comes under scrutiny. There are always numerous pundits willing to blame it on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, Food Stamps, and any of the other programs which assist individuals. When was the last time the evening news covered the amount of farm aid that goes to ADM, a huge agricultural conglomerate, or timber allotments granted to Weyerhaeuser and Georgia Pacific, or the any of the numerous generous funding of other industries or the customs, tariffs, and other regulations which are used to give advantages to the chosen few? No, the only government funding which is ever challenged are those which go to people, which many will claim are bad enough, and never those given to industrial giants and other large firms who often hold numerous politicians hostage to the funding these firms can put together come campaign time. The story about whose funding pig gets gored when the government decides to take austerity measures to avert fiscal crisis will almost always end with the piggy with the least cash affords the least protection. It is the same game as local, city, county and state governments take when they face times of economic hardship. The first cuts that are threatened are always police, firefighters, libraries, teachers, and the closing of parks and other recreational facilities. They never discuss ending their personal Lear Jet used to fly around the state, the limousines used to take them to dinners and other functions, the helicopter used to make grand entrance at public gatherings, or any of the myriad of perks many of which we regular people would never ever dream exist but are what makes their positions so prized that they make careers out of “public service”. I have always defined their “public service” as the elected potentates allowing the peasants to pay above and beyond the necessary so that they may feel their privileges to which they have become accustom.

Actually, there is a very cozy relationship between big business and big government, something which we were warned would be the end of the American experiment by, of all people, President Dwight David Eisenhower. Yep, Dwight D Eisenhower, the President who gave us such Constitutional projects as the Defense Highway Bill establishing the Interstate Road System for emergencies where it would allow the transport of any and all military transport and fast response by government and which in such times the public would be barred from utilizing, and the Defense College Scholarship Act which gave promising students scholarships in order to assure that we would have sufficient numbers of well-educated youth for use in an ever more advanced weapons and other systems which would be necessary for the competent operation of the military. President Eisenhower claimed to care about the Constitution and sold these programs not as being giveaways to the public for their private betterment or any such nonsense, these were purely programs which would supply necessary and desirable results for the competent and efficient utilization of the United States Military. So, the man who warned us about the, his words, “Military-Industrial Complex” also used the military in order to fund the interstate highway system and give student grants and scholarships because such investments were necessary for an adequate military of the future. Talk about your self-fulfilling prophesies.

The problem with a coupling of big government with big business is that such an arrangement discourages inventiveness, competition, efficiency, and eventually economic growth. If certain companies have an arrangement with government, nothing formal or written, just an understanding between the leadership of both parties and the ownership of the companies, sometimes the two are one and the same as many of our Congressional leaders are heavily invested in the same companies, then it becomes much more difficult if not impossible for a smaller company to come along and compete. As soon as a small company gets a foothold and gives the slightest of hints that they might pose a challenge, a threat to the larger established company, if that company can utilize government to change the playing field making it more difficult on the smaller company, then innovation and other possible benefits of competition are snuffed out. Imagine if the carriage industry of the horse and carriage era had an undue influence on government such that laws could be passed which made it impossible to operate motor vehicles on public roads, we would still be watching carefully where we stepped when crossing the street. Companies such as Ford, Packard, Studebaker, and others would never have been allowed to replace the horse drawn vehicles as government could have enacted laws preventing such progress. This sounds ridiculous but there were such laws implemented in some places. Motor carriages were required to have a man walk ahead of them with a flag by day and a lantern by night warning any people who were riding in their horse drawn carriages that a noisy, smelly, frightening motor vehicle was coming.

So, thank you President Obama for pointing out one of the difficulties plaguing our economy, namely that too much of our economy and too many companies are completely addicted and dependent on government monies which damages the competitiveness and equality of opportunity which damages economic progress. With your plea to the Congress, you have, likely inadvertently, made likely the strongest argument in favor of allowing sequestration to strike government spending thus cutting the effect of government on everything back in size. Perhaps, once we find we can survive just fine with less government across the boards, then we might enact planned sequestrations for the future and continue to make cuts with such abandon until government has been shrunk down to a more manageable size. Who knows, if we allow this to go far enough we might even actually return to Constitutional governance and thus return the real American dream. In case you have lost sight of the real American dream, allow us to remind you. The Founding Fathers had a new and previously unimagined idea which had never before been attempted in the history of mankind. Their revolutionary idea was that man; regular, everyday, run-of-the-mill man was capable of governing themselves. Mankind did not need a King or an oligarchy of his betters to lord over him and direct his life because without their higher wisdom and abilities the common man would be lost and all would fall to pieces in ruination. Instead, the Founding Fathers saw mankind as being fully capable of knowing what was best for him and through self-government they would be able to provide adequate, nay, superior governance than that or any potentate or collection of self-righteous individuals who placed themselves above the common man. Simply put, they did not find the simple man to be that simple. Today we are faced with a megalomaniacal governance that had run afoul of the Constitution and no longer believes in the common man but does believe that the common man must be ruled over by his superiors. We do not need superiors and anyways, you in government are supposed to be working at our pleasure, not the other way around. Read the Declaration of Independence, it is also a founding document if not the founding document. Right there it explains the place of government, to serve at the pleasure of the people having only those powers delegated to it by the people. Perhaps it is time to have a vote of the public and let the people once again decide how much government we need. That is our right and someday soon we just may exercise that right.

Beyond the Cusp