I had a dream the other night, I didn’t understand.
A figure walking through the mist, with flintlock in his hand.
His clothes were torn and dirty, as he stood there by my bed.
He took off his three-cornered hat, and speaking low, he said:

“We fought a revolution, to secure our liberty.
We wrote the Constitution, as a shield from tyranny.
For future generations, this legacy we gave.
In this, the land of the free and the home of the brave.

“The freedom we secured for you, we hoped you’d always keep.
But tyrants labored endlessly while your parents were asleep.
Your freedom gone, your courage lost, you’re no more than a slave.
In this, the land of the free and home of the brave.

“You buy permits to travel, and permits to own a gun,
Permits to start a business, or to build a place for one.
On land that you believe you own, you pay a yearly rent.
Although you have no voice in choosing, how the money’s spent.

“Your children must attend a school that doesn’t educate.
Your Christian values can’t be taught, according to the state.
You read about the current news, in a regulated press.
You pay a tax you do not owe, to please the I.R.S.

“Your money is no longer made of Silver or of Gold.
You trade your wealth for paper, so your life can be controlled.
You pay for crimes that make our Nation, turn from God in shame.
You’ve taken Satan’s number, as you’ve traded in your name.

“You’ve given government control, to those who do you harm,
So they can padlock churches, and steal the family farm,
And keep our country deep in debt, put men of God in jail,
Harass your fellow countrymen, while corrupted courts prevail.

“Your public servants don’t uphold the solemn oath they’ve sworn.
Your daughters visit doctors, so their children won’t be born.
Your leaders ship artillery, and guns to foreign shores,
And send your sons to slaughter, fighting other people’s wars.

“Can you regain the freedom for which we fought and died?
Or don’t you have the courage, or the faith to stand with pride?
Are there no more values for which you’ll fight to save?
Or do you wish your children, to live in fear and be a slave?

“People of the Republic, arise and take a stand!
Defend the Constitution, the Supreme Law of the Land!
Preserve our Great Republic, and GOD-Given Right!
And pray to GOD, to keep the torch of Freedom burning bright!”

As I awoke he vanished, in the mist from whence he came.
His words were true, we are not Free, we have ourselves to blame.
For even now as tyrants, trample each GOD-Given Right,
We only watch and tremble, too afraid to stand and fight.

If he stood by your bedside, in a dream, while you’re asleep,
And wonders what remains of our Rights he fought to keep,
What would be your answer, if he called out from the grave:
“IS THIS STILL THE LAND OF THE FREE AND HOME OF THE BRAVE???”

Technorati Tags: Constitution, freedom, government, Liberty

Here are the four major reasons I believe that we have school shootings:

1. No consequences
We have created a society in the United States that allows a ridiculous amount of irresponsible action before any consequences are felt, and even then they are reduced to a mere fraction of what ‘life’ would do to someone naturally. When you are raised in an environment where no correction is given regularly – in little ways – you don’t learn what you “should” and “should not” do. Our capability for deviance from reasonable action becomes larger as we get older and without this regular course correction, a child can end up with sloppy impulse control and a failure to mature.

2. No respect for life
We tell our kids that they evolved from a puddle of goo and that they are animals like any other. We tell them that nothing makes humans special save their ability to reason and that simple evolutionary processes over millions of years resulted in our intelligence and ability to seem like we have this thing some silly religious types call a “soul”. We call it “sentience” so that we can devalue it’s real import. We kill our children in the womb with regularity and tell each other this is somehow “more caring” than raising it. Our personal wants and desires are more important than a life. With this we prove that life is accidental, a mere happenstance of chance and that it is not precious; it is not something to revere or protect.

3. No right and wrong
Since religious people are a bunch of whackjobs that need something outside themselves (when there really IS nothing), we tell our kids that every belief in any “god” is the same crutch as every other and that anything you “choose to believe” is right. Morals change as society changes and the majority of people’s actions select what is “right”. “Right” is only a definition and it changes with the ebb and flow of human choice. Since there is no truth, and no “right”, the corollary is quickly figured by the child and nothing is viewed as “wrong”.

4. No Love
Many children today are raised by parents that have bought into points 1-3 above and that add a great deal of selfishness to the mix. These children have no “time” with mom or dad and therefore do not feel “loved” in any real way. There is no-one that cares for them, and this feeling is hyper-injected with hormone fuel at puberty, pushing many teens into a black depression. This results in young adults that know the world is cold and does not care what happens to them.

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So, we have a child that feels that no one cares, that places no value on life, that thinks everything is “fine” to do, and that has never practiced denying themselves anything. Add to this mixture a pile of racing thoughts and hormones, and I cannot believe that there are not MORE shootings!

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So, faced with this dire situation, we ask, “What shall we do”? In short, we must reverse each point above. My personal opinion on how to do this appears below. Please understand that I know that both the problem and the solution are not four simple steps, but I do believe that these four things are fundamental to our success.

A. Parents should give their children consequences for incorrect action on a consistent and age-appropriate basis from a very young age. As a child matures, so do the consequences and as the child’s capacity to understand increases, so do the explanations of what these actions might bring in the world outside the home and why, “we don’t do that”. Society should then change to allow all citizens to feel the consequences of their own actions. If you don’t want to work, you don’t eat. If you want to live off of others and thieve to do that, you’ll end up working anyway; on a chain gang.

B. We should teach respect for life from a young age as well, by putting each other above ourselves and teaching that life is a gift from God, given to both the animals and man by God Himself. We should teach children that we are above the animals and are to care for them, but that God made us in His image and therefore we each have infinite significance as children of the King. Christ would have died for any ONE of us, and that makes our lives significant! We must then change society to reflect the view that life is important by protecting each other from those that would take life. This would come in the form of protecting life and limb and extending that basic right to children yet in the womb. We cannot tell children to put another before themselves and then put our convenience ahead of the lives of the unborn.

C. There is truth, and we should teach that to our children. Our God lives today and is active in our lives and on this earth. Children should be taught about faith, God, and how best to glorify Him; and then watch as their parents model that behavior. As Americans, we need to get over this misplaced and hyper-extended notion of a separation between church and state and begin to teach the truths that our forefathers recognized, that all rights come from God Himself and that He has given us the definition between “right” and “wrong”. Truth exists, and we should recognize it, teach it, and live it.

D. Does it not go without saying that if there is love that there will be less violence? We should love our children. I don’t mean that we should have “warm feelings” inside toward them, but we should LOVE, as a choice and as a verb. Place yourself aside as a parent and spend time with your children. Work alongside them, talk to them, listen to them, and give them a home in which they can emote and still be safe and protected. Teach them then to love as they have been loved. Explain to them what love is and means, don’t assume they “just know”. Explain what it takes to make interpersonal relationships work. Ensure that they understand that they can control only themselves and that they should love without expecting emotion in return. Tell them how they can do this because God does this with each of us, and as children of the King, we can do this for each other.

Will these things stop school shootings? Perhaps not entirely, but children that have been raised as I describe in an America as I describe will very likely be innoculated against that type of behavior from a young age.

Technorati Tags: children, ethics, gun, morals, parenting, school shootings, teaching

In 1962, SCOTUS heard Engel v. Vitale and ruled that a simple voluntary prayer could not be a part of a student’s day. So, should I yet believe the Supreme Court of the United States in 1962 when they tell me that the Fathers didn’t want prayer in governmental institutions? Or should I believe the words of the Founding Fathers themselves?

Let’s get back to the phrase, “separation of church and state”. It appears nowhere in either founding document and also does not appear in four months of notes from the floor of the Constitutional Convention. Now, I’ve heard people say, “But I KNOW that’s around the time the phrase came about”, and they are generally correct. The phrase was coined – as far as we know – in a letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association that was very specific and involved a query on whether or not the United States would ever mandate a state religion such as the Church of England in Britain. This letter was written fourteen (14) years after the Constitution was signed and responded to a very specific condition, not the general state of affairs. Also, since I am being “picky” about listening first to the men that were there and created our founding documents, I must reveal to you that Thomas Jefferson – from his own letters – can be shown to be in France during the formation of the Constitution and readily admitted that it was complete and penned before his return. He wasn’t even there!

In NewDow v. U.S. Congress, 2002 it was argued that reciting the pledge would establish a religion and that the state was “backing” a God-based form of religion. This case was dismissed, but only because SCOTUS determined that the parent who brought the suit was a non-custodial parent of the student required to recite the pledge and therefore had no standing before the court on her behalf. Jefferson himself would disagree, “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 the gift of God”? Jefferson used the word “conviction” because he knew that this was something that had to be taught to children and bred in them from a young age. The concept of “melting pot” used to be that if you came to America, at age 18 when you left school that you would know what our American values were and you were willing to participate in that system and defend it. Jefferson knew, even then, that we were straying and said, “That they (liberties/values) 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”.

What is the effect on a nation when morals are blown by the wind and ethics are based on what is right each in our own mind? What happens when we remove God from schools, from science, and from all teaching? Univ. of Texas at Austin, Kent State, Fullerton Library, Stockton, Lindhurst, Richland, Bethel, Pearl, Jonesboro, Parker, Thurston, Columbine, Heritage, Buell, Red Lake, Amish school in Lancaster County, and a Louisiana Technical college three days ago. This is not an exhaustive list of school shootings, and I don’t pretend to say that removing God from school is the sole cause of events like these, but I think it is no coincidence that the earliest recorded shooting is 1966, and God was “officially removed” in 1962.

Good people, we tell our children that they came from a primordial pile of ooze, that this “evolved” into monkeys, and then into people. We further reinforce this idea of “existence irrelevance” by treating the unborn as cosmic accidents and as problems to be solved. This is a recipe for creating people that do not respect life; their own or anyone else’s. Add a teenager that is insecure with their body, their mind, feels unloved, and has been raised to have no base for a “soul”, and it all adds up to social violence. We’ve created the environment that molds people into beings with no self-respect and no respect for others.

So, what then shall we do?

John Francis Mercer said, “It is a great mistake to suppose that the paper we are to propose will govern the United States. It is the men whom it will bring into the government, and the interest they have in maintaining it, that is to govern them. The paper will only mark out the mode and the form; men are the substance and must do the business”.

Reverend Mathias Burnett: “Finally, ye.. whose power it is to save or destroy your country, consider well the important trust.. which God .. [has] put into your hands. To God and posterity you are accountable for them. Let not your children have reason to curse you for giving up those rights and prostrating those institutions which your fathers delivered to you”.

John Hancock: “I urge you, by all that is dear, by all that is honorable, by all that is sacred, not only to pray but to act”.

All of these quotes sum up the concept that we must act. Evil triumphs by default if we sit by and do nothing. Make no mistake folks, we are already on a slippery slope. The slope is human nature, and it is base and ever-downward. The slippery stuff, it’s called sin, and there is only one thing that can cleanse it and right our down-turned lives. John Adams knew what that force was and when he was asked if we would triumph in the war over Great Britain, he answered not with a military strategy, numbers, or any other measure of human strength, but with the phrase, “Yes, if we fear God and repent of our sins“.

Folks, I pray that we will follow Adams’ advice, fear God by honoring Him as the King of our lives; repent of our sins to an Almighty God and turn away from those sins; and finally, I pray that we will act.

Technorati Tags: church and state, danbury, ethics, government, morals, religion, vitale

In this nation today, we hear a great deal about a “separation of church and state”. When I ask people where that appears in our founding documents, most people hem and haw and the bolder ones cite “the 1st Amendment”. But neither the word “state” nor the word “separation” are in that Amendment. When I give this reasoning, the answer I get is, “But that’s what they meant“. Isn’t it? How do we know that?

The question – though some still have it – is not whether or not the Founding Fathers were predominantly Christian in their outlook (they were), the question is, “What did they intend when penning the Constitution?”

Today we have a concept called “legislative intent “. This means that the lawmaker puts his or her bill to the assembly and that notes are taken while the lawmaker speaks, rebuts, and answers questions on the bill. In this way, the record (journal) can be referred to and we can discern his or her intent with that bill. Much in the same way, we can look at the record of the constitutional convention (May 14, 1787 – Sep 17, 1787) and find the same thing. Rather than continue to have nine deity-like justices do that for me, I’ve dug through those documents and would like to share what I’ve found in the hopes that you’ll do some digging too.

Isaac Potts relates a story that is common among those who knew George Washington. One day Isaac, a Tory in a family of Tories, came upon Mr. Washington on his knees in the woods giving heartfelt prayer to his Maker. Potts was so touched by what he observed, that he went home and called a family meeting. He said that if a man prayed like that, his prayers would be answered and that he and his family had chosen the wrong side in the conflict. An artist (Brueckner) then painted a picture that we have seen many times, a picture of President Washington in prayer in the woods, with a man peeking ’round a tree at him. The man pictured behind the tree is Mr. Potts’.

Governor Morris was a signer of the Constitution and was the most prolific speaker at the Constitution (he spoke 173 times). He also penned the document, thus he could be considered the “Thomas Jefferson” of this document. Do you think that this man might have a good idea where religion was “intended” to fit in the creation of this new country? Gov. Morris stated, “Religion is the only solid basis of good morals. Therefore education should teach the precepts of religion and the duties of man toward God”. This sounds much like our system of education and religion working together, not the opposite situation we see now.

James Wilson, signer of the Constitution, spoke 168 times at the convention, first appointee to the Supreme Court said, “Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine. Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other”. In this country a murder conviction was overturned on a technicality. The offense? The prosecuting attorney read a Bible verse in the courtroom. If you mix law and religion today, convicted murders might walk free, but the first appointee to the Supreme Court in this nation, present at the signing, stated that, “these two sciences run into each other”.

Lee v. Weisman states that there may be no prayer at a public school graduation. William Samuel Johnson, signer of the Constitution gave a graduation speech and contained within were these words, “You this day ..have.. received a public education, the purpose whereof has been to qualify you to better serve your Creator and your country.. your first great duties, if you are sensible, are those you owe to heaven, to your Creator and Redeemer”. Then, speaking straight from Acts, he closes with, “Let those be ever present to your minds and exemplified in your lives and conduct.. Students, in Him we live and move and have our being”.

In the group of 56 men that attended the convention there were some interesting stories. Of this group, twenty-four (24) had seminary degrees. Aside from Thomas Jefferson (present at the end of the proceedings) and Benjamin Franklin, all 56 men were actively involved in the faith in some form. Eight (8) years after the convention men from this group were responsible for starting 121 Bible societies. Several exist yet today. Here are some specific notes on several attendees:

• Rev. Dr. John Witherspoon, he was considered the “Billy Graham” of his day
• Sec. Charles Thompson. translated the Thompson version of the Bible
• Benjamin Rush, started the first Bible society in America
• Francis Hopkinson, made a songbook in which all 150 Psalms were set to music
• Abraham Baldwin, a major theologian of his day, was offered a professorship at Yale at age 23, chaplain in the Revolutionary War for 7 years, and founded the Univ. of Georgia
• Charles Cotesworth Pinkney and John Langdon, started the American Bible Society
• James McHenry, started the Baltimore Bible society

As mentioned before, Benjamin Franklin was not involved in religion as much as the rest, in fact, both sides of this debate can agree that he was the least religious of the bunch. In an age where the average age of death was 35, this 81 year-old statesman rose and addressed the convention at a critical point in the proceedings with this short treatise, “In the beginning of the contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room for Divine protection. Our prayers were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor. And have we now forgotten this powerful friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need His assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth – that God governs the affairs of men. If a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured in the Sacred Writings that ‘except the Lord build the house. they labor in vain that build it.’ I firmly believe this; and I also believe without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel. I therefore beg leave to move that, henceforth, prayers imploring the assistance of heaven and its blessing on our deliberation be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business”. This from the least religious of the Founding Fathers.

I hope that these anecdotes and notes have proven helpful to you in your search for the truth where the intent and inception of our nation is concerned. Soon I’ll post a second and final post on these notes, and I welcome your comments.

Technorati Tags: church and state, government

Simple sentence and we’ve even messed this one up. Read it again. Which powers? The ones contained herein! And no more!

So, back to high school Civics (I’m fumbling through some old books myself on this one)… what’s “Legislative Branch” mean? Basically, it means “branch that creates laws”. There’s not a pile of information in this short sentence to discuss, but there IS a story to the creation of ‘two sides’ of the Legislative Branch, and it goes a little like this…

Once upon a time, there was a federation of states; – some small, and some large – that desired to make a more formal union and become a country. The larger states were concerned that the smaller states would have too large a voice, and the smaller states were concerned that they would have none. Two solutions to this ‘split’ were proposed, and the Connecticut representatives to the Philadelphia Convention in 1787 (Ellsworth and Sherman) proposed the bicameral legislature that was voted in.

In favor of the larger states, state representatives would be apportioned to the states by state population. All spending and tax bills would be brought by this “House of Representatives”. Membership in the upper house, however, would consist of two senators per state, regardless the size of the state and this “Senate” would approve / reject treaties and would bring presidential nominations for governmental office.

In this way, the smaller states would have equal representation in the matters where their voices were most likely to be pushed down, but the larger states would have the power they needed to handle the larger voting electorate.

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, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

In this newly organized country everyone was intended to have a voice, and though it would be some time before ‘everyone’ had a voice, the vision provided for that. I am unsure that lobbyists were foreseen, but ‘even and fair’ representation was intended. The union that the States had was a good one, and formal, but it was not strong enough to guarantee a common defense and to build a country. While having peace on earth is a wonderful goal, this organization was intended to protect our interests and borders so that we could reap tranquility here at home and such that we could pass that peace on to our children. A final note on this opening and that is the term ‘welfare’. Here it is used directly after the word ‘general’ indicating that the condition of the entire region is to be improved, not that people should support others who desire not to labor.

So,  the document says, “Let us formally organize into something stronger than we are alone. Let us come together in even a more perfect way have already, and let us do so to accomplish these things; first, so that we can guarantee justice to our citizens, second, so that we can create peace and calm here at home, third, so that we can defend ourselves against invaders from outside the U.S., fourth, so that we can improve the general condition of all citizens, and fifth, so that we gather and preserve these blessings and hand them to our children”.

Much more important than what this beautiful beginning says, is what it does not say. This document clearly outlines a country that will defend itself but was incorporated to guarantee its blessings to its own citizens and to their descendants. How far are we from that view today?