Independence from Bondage

We return once again to the concept of freedom on this our nation’s birthday. Two hundred and thirty-two years ago today, the thirteen colonies declared themselves free. Many of our great-great-great-great-grandfathers subsequently served as Minutemen to back up that declaration with force. That’s a mere seven generations back from us.

While there were many Tories and Loyalists, the desire to be free predominated and they declared:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Liberty was conceived to belong to the individual, not classes of men, but one class—all men—composed of individuals each of whom are equal and therefore cannot be put into distinguishing classes.

The Founding Fathers did not think like modern liberals who conceive of classes, not individuals. The "all men" are differentiated into groups. There are the bashable males and the favored females—the homosexuals and the homophobes—the GLBT and the straight—the rich and the poor—the guilty white and the downtrodden black—the haves and have nots—and endlessly more. Some classes have more rights than others. Some have entitlements. Some classes must dole out limited wealth, limited power and limited position to other classes. And there is definitely the ruling class who approach the realm of royalty to govern the serfs who must remain a subservient class with ever-outstretched, receiving hands which also vote to keep the ruling class in power.

That was not the conception of Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration. The revolutionaries said all men are created equal. Station in life was not considered. The titles of Lords and Ladies and Earls and Kings and Queens were deliberately excluded from American thought. In fact, they intended to declare that they themselves, and all colonists, were equal with King George before God as human beings.

Now this was taken as an audacious claim by Loyalists who still thrived on the divine right of kings. The top down approach engenders snobbery which is propped up with the idea that they are created more equal than others. The bottom up approach embraces the dignity of man derived from the creative hand of God and then out of humility before God dares tell a king that he is no different before God than they, all the while respecting his power to destroy them, though not the right.

Living out the principles of individual endowed freedom is attempting to live the way the Creator intended his creatures to live. It is a mission not to insult our Creator by living less than he designed for us. It is a conscious recognition and acknowledgment that God endowed me with certain unalienable rights. But further, that God endowed everyone else with those same rights.

Our Founding Fathers did not view themselves as a class of victims when they confronted the King with his ". . . repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States." No, they put themselves into the same class as the King. King or not, he was a man among equally created men who failed to recognize he was a mere man among equal men.

The Founders conceived of one class composed of all individuals, each of whom was endowed with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They were not attempting to do away with distinctions such as station in life, male or female, the governors and the governed, the teacher and student, the judge and the criminal, which are all incidental to being equal before God. Being governed by a king was not odious to them. They took great pause before throwing off familiar government (". . . Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient cause. . ."). However, being governed by a king unjustly was insulting to their God-given rights of self-determination.

The principles found in this one sentence in the Declaration of Independence, have been abandoned by the very party which the Democrats claim Thomas Jefferson founded. Today, Democrat thinking creates class warfare and an entitlement mentality that Jefferson hated. Sad to say, many Republicans are not much better. When we remove the endowing Creator from our thinking, we will keep moving away from divinely created equality into governmentally created egalitarianism, which the Founders hated with a passion. The one brings freedom; the other creates bondage.

War Never Accomplishes Anything

This sentiment is expressed on bumper stickers and heard all too frequently. Of course this sentiment does not comport with history, but those touting it generally do not know or respect history.

On Memorial Day we remember our US veterans who died in war. Any view that claims war is pointless discredits veterans and their service.

The US is young, recent in time and an extension of European history. Consider that we would not have Memorial Day to celebrate if world events had gone a different way than they have.

Look at this animated map to see the spread of the world’s 5 major religions. It takes only 90 seconds to view it. World history must never be divorced from an understanding of religion.

Roman Europe was influenced by Christianity as it gradually spread across Europe from the Middle East in the first six centuries A.D.

Islamic statism, beginning in the Middle East after 570 A.D. when Mohammad was born, had invaded the Iberian Peninsula (Spain), gaining a foothold in Europe. Islam was turned back at the Battle of Tours in 732 by Charles Martel of the Franks. This battle stopped the march of Islamic statism and Sharia law into Europe from the west and preserved Europe for Christianity.

If the Franks had not defeated the Islamists then, Europe may have been much different than it became. This battle alone destroys the idea that war never accomplishes anything. Europe and its American descendant may have become Islamic.

Another watershed battle occurred in 1588 when Protestant England defeated the Catholic statist Spanish Armada. After the Reformation of 1517, England was in the early stages of breaking with old Roman Catholic Europe. England became a firmly Protestant, Anglican statist nation and spawned the American Colonies. The Reformation, begun in Europe, came to fruition in America, bringing religious freedom unknown anywhere in the world prior to the formation of the US Constitution.

The American Colonists declared themselves free from Anglican statist England and fought the War of Rebellion to back up their declaration. Then we went back to Europe to free them from anti-God Nazi statism in World War II and then under President Reagan brought about the collapse of atheistic Communist statism in Eastern Europe. It cannot be denied that the Revolutionary War accomplished great things.

Ideas alone did not set people free. Those ideas lead to war to throw off the shackles of tyrannies which did not want to relinquish control of their masses or lead to war to turn back foreigners who desired to shackle them with unwanted bondage.

If we are of European descent, our very ancestors were living the Reformation a mere 20 generations ago. About 8 generations ago, our ancestors declared their independence from Anglican statism. Our fathers and grandfathers took back Europe from Nazi statism. These are not distant battles of ideas, words and swords. They are as close to us as our ancestors who shaped the world in which their descendants could live in freedom. In many cases, our very ancestors were on the opposite sides of the heated battles, not yet having learned the principles of individual freedom. We have it because some of our ancestors would accept nothing less than freedom. War indeed can be worthy. Let us be grateful. Now it’s our turn to propagate freedom.

Let Me Help You

The do-gooders are at it again.

Kentucky Representative Tim Couch has introduced a bill to prohibit anonymous blogging. To the embarrassment of Republicans, this elected official has an "R" by his name.

He aims to stop online harassment and bullying. How will he do that? He aims to require all bloggers to register with the blog administrators and then fine the administrators if the bloggers violate the rules.

This is typical leftist thinking, making someone else accountable for the perpetrator’s sins. How does that change the behavior of the perpetrator? Why is that fair to the blog administrators? It never deals with the heart of the matter. Of course, do-gooders never deal with the heart of the issue. They just want everyone to get along and "we (by using others) will make you get along if we have to!"

Bullies never change their behavior by this approach. Bullies must be dealt a blow (physical or metaphysical) equal to or more powerful than the one they administered.

It also does not teach the downtrodden how to overcome harassment. In person, bullies harass certain people and not others. They know who will knuckle to their harassment. The downtrodden must be taught not to capitulate to it, but to retaliate by standing up for themselves. The bully might learn or move on to the next easy target.

If you are truly picked on, the bully does not respect you. You must earn the respect of the bully. Do that by exercising your freedom to knock the bully down a couple of notches. One well placed punch will frequently end the bully’s career in harassment. One or several stinging rebukes online will do far more to get the message across to the online bully than a do-gooder’s good-for-nothing law. Capitulation is not an option because you will be capitulating the rest of your life to bullies.

On another note, some bullies love to play the victim. They have an endless supply of victim cards in their wallet. But that’s for another blog.

Thank God on this Thanksgiving Day

World should give thanks for America
By Mark Steyn

Speaking as a misfit unassimilated foreigner, I think of Thanksgiving as the most American of holidays.

Read the rest of this nice piece by an outsider who knows America well. Steyn concludes:

Americans should, as always, be thankful this Thanksgiving, but they should also understand just how rare in human history their blessings are.

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It is good to reflect, as does Steyn, how different America is from other countries. Our European ancestors and immigrants said no to the concept of kings and queens of European monarchies. They said no to the class of lords and ladies of the governing aristocracy. They repudiated the concept of a state church which bound the conscience in forced worship. They adopted the rule of law, a republic, as their form of government in which no one is above the law.

The American experiment has not been perfect because it truly was an experiment, shaping a society, nation and government that had never existed previously in the world. And of course it could not be perfect because human beings are not perfect. However, our ancestors created, through dependence upon God, a marvelous, unique place to exercise our God-given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

But we are letting this greatness slip away from us quickly. We look for utopia in this world instead of the modest and realistic goal of living out our God-given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

In the utopia moderns are pandering for, God is excluded. Pandering after that utopia, we hanker to create rights that God does not give us. So we ourselves desire to give them to ourselves. Collectively, we look to government to create and grant those rights to us. We twist and torture our Constitution to grant us those selfishly desired rights.

In the American experiment we have returned to looking to government to meet all our needs, which our predecessors rejected. Rule of law is fast becoming the rule of lawyers–a new class, which inherently creates a ruled class. Judges play God, creating law rather than applying law. Too many presidential candidates cannot wait for their coronation. Senators all too eagerly have become lords and ladies. And we are satisfied to conceive of ourselves as commoners who must appeal to lords and ladies, kings and queens.

My fellow Americans, it is time we back up at least 75 years in our American experiment and start afresh. We have freedom when we recognize that each of us stands equal before God in this world and are accountable to him for all our actions toward all others who should enjoy that same God-given right to freedom. Thank God today for what we have remaining in the American experiment. And work to keep America free.