Since the days of Clarence Darrow nearly a century ago, God has been systematically removed from the public eye. It began in the schools, where science curriculum adopted the theory of evolution as the basis for teaching human origin, while biblical Creationism was spurned. God would later be denied any and all access to schools, be it through curriculum, extra curriculum or even customs.
Today, public school students are not allowed to gather in prayer during school, at sporting events or assemblies. Praying around the school flag pole on the National Day of Prayer is discouraged, but it probably won’t be long before even this is prohibited.
As it is, God and His Word have not only been banned from public schools, but also the courtroom, public lands and public grounds in general.
How could this be? Who is God hurting? What is His Word offending?
The rationale behind this insanity is supposedly wrapped in the “separation of church and state” clause of the United States Constitution. The problem is that no such clause exists in America’s founding legal document.
Those whose agenda it has been to push God out of sight and mind have cited the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights, specifically the clause that begins, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” as the basis for their argument.
But this clause of the First Amendment is rather explicit in its meaning: “Congress” shall make no law. Where is the Congressional law that placed the Ten Commandments in our courtrooms, promoted prayer in schools, or even instituted the invocation held to open every session of Congress?
None exists.
Yet, the so-called “separation” clause is invoked whenever there’s an issue of God and religion—read that “Christian” religion—in public.
The truth about the “separation” clause lies in some obscure papers written by Thomas Jefferson on the subject of state-sanctioned religion. Jefferson was addressing the need to avoid what happened in Great Britain, where the Church of England controlled much of what went on in government. Jefferson argued that laws passed for the purpose of establishing a state religion were in fundamental contrast to basic human rights as well as the virtues of a free republic.
What he did not say is that God should be removed from government. On the contrary, Jefferson was a spiritual man with reverence for God, his Creator. After all, it was Jefferson who penned the following in our 1776 Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Clearly, Jefferson was no advocate of either a secular society or government. What he did espouse, though, was a neutral and impartial government that neither endorsed nor sanctioned nor denied the existence of any particular religion. What he envisioned was a land that embraced religious liberty to assemble and practice with a government standing at the ready to defend this freedom. He did not want religion telling government what to do any more than he wanted government telling religion what to do.
Unfortunately today, government is telling religion what it can and cannot do, and where it can and cannot do it. What’s lacking, though, is a valid explanation of why.
Simply invoking the “separation” clause is not enough to justify restricting the free exercise of religion, which, by the way, happens to come directly after the so-called “separation” clause in the First Amendment. Separationists conveniently ignore this very important, and in fact, most significant part of the First Amendment, because it is supposed to prevent them from eliminating the very existence of religion from public life. This has been the end goal of separationists for decades.
So, all of this leads me to ask just one very important question: Why are we allowing it to happen?
Indeed, if the Constitution is supposed to protect the rights of you and me to pray and worship wherever, whenever and however we wish, then why are we allowing the government to tell us when, where and how we must practice our religion? Why are we tolerating a government that tells us we can’t exercise our religion in public?
Why are so many people silent on this issue?
The answer is ignorance.
Many Americans don’t even know what the First Amendment says in its entirety, much less what it means. We have been dumbed down in our schools, yes, the very ones that have kicked God off their premises. We aren’t taught the U.S. Constitution in depth. We don’t study its meaning.
So, when a so-called legal expert cites the “separation” clause in defense of a law banning religion, people assume that the expert must be right with regard to what the law actually says.
But I wager that if even 51 percent of the people actually took the time to read, study and learn the U.S. Constitution, many of the laws suppressing religion and God, in particular, would not see the light of day, because such legislation would be stopped before it even reached the floor for a vote.
If God and His Word are to ever be restored back to prominence in America, then “We the People” must first begin to care. We must take an interest in the law, especially the Constitution, where so many of our freedoms are secured, yet come under assault every day by those seeking to change the framework from within.
Unless we are willing to be “within,” then we can continue to expect more of the same manipulation by our leaders and the interest groups and lobbyists who lead them.
Because we have not cared, the phrase “under God” is routinely being taken out of the Pledge of Allegiance; the Ten Commandments were yanked from an Alabama courthouse and an honorable judge lost his job because he felt God’s laws were worth defending; high school students can no longer pray outloud at football games or any other school event; the Gideons are not allowed to leave their complimentary pocket Bibles on classroom desks; our children can no longer be excused during the school day to attend weekly church schools; Creation is considered scientific heresy; and kids are not allowed to pray together while in school.
I suppose we ought to count our blessings that “In God We Trust” still exists on our currency; the bailiff still requires us to swear on a Bible before taking the witness stand in a court of law; and the United States Congress opens every session with a prayer invocation.
But mark my words: Unless we begin to care, then even these things will soon disappear. Last to be touched will be worship in our own homes. Who’s to stop the separationists from going that far if they think they can get away with it? Hmmm?
Monday, March 24, 2008
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Where is the choice?
I know why abortion opponents call themselves “pro-life,” which makes sense because abortion takes life.
But I do not understand the reasoning behind why abortion supporters consider their movement “pro choice.” They say it is because they support a woman’s right to choose whether to go through with her pregnancy or terminate it.
Unfortunately, pro-choicers fail to explain why they support such “choice” that denies the unborn the right to choose whether or not to be born.
The pro-choice movement considers an unborn child as belonging to a woman as though he or she was property or an organ of the body essential for function.
Well, it’s evident that a baby is neither property nor an organ. But the abortion lobby rationalizes that a fetus is not really human while in the womb, but rather a mass or ball of flesh incapable of thought, being or realization of self. Forget the fact that a fetus develops into and becomes a human baby that eventually realizes itself, thinks and is. What matters to the pro-choicer is that here and now, a fetus does not look human. Therefore, it is not human and cannot be counted as human life.
But the bare truth is that a fetus is entirely human; perhaps not yet in form, but certainly in function and biology. The fetus is an unrealized individual with a beating heart and developing brain that will soon become just like the ones we have. It is flesh, blood and bone just like us. It feels and hurts just like us. In fact, a fetus is entirely autonomous and sentient in its ability to feel, perceive and think. A developing fetus is entirely conscious of itself and its needs. That's why it kicks in the womb when it's happy or excited; it moves around when uncomfortable in order to get comfortable; and it communicates to the mother through the umbilical cord when it is hungry.
Again, I ask, what choice does an unborn individual have with regard to his or her life? What say do they have in choosing whether to live or die?
The answer is none. Pro-choice, while an advocate for a woman’s “right” to choose, denies the right of choice to the unborn.
Furthermore, pro-choice denies the right of the people to choose.
The abortion lobby has manipulated the law and used the courts—including the United States Supreme Court, the nation’s highest court—to rule in its favor and establish abortion as the law of the land.
If being pro-choice really means favoring the individual’s rights to choose, then why don’t pro-choicers support the right of individual states to choose whether or not to allow abortion? The answer is because pro-choice isn’t really about choice at all. It’s about abortion and nothing else.
Why was the will of the people, through democratic process, subverted on the way to the Supreme Court in 1973? The reason is that pro-choicers knew then as they know now that the vast majority of the people support neither abortion nor the agenda of its lobby.
If the issue of abortion was left up to the people in each state, then most states would likely limit or restrict its practice. Then again, this is why the pro-choice movement went straight for the jugular. The abortion lobby appealed its case not to the American people, but before a panel of nine judges, the majority of whom have been sympathetic to the so-called “right to choose.”
Pro-choicers argue that abortion is a right by virtue of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which begins with “The right of the people to be secure in their persons…”
In return, we got Roe v. Wade and 35 years of taxpayer-funded abortion on demand in spite of what the majority may or may not have wanted.
Two hundred and thirty years ago, American colonists cried out against taxation without representation and called that tyranny.
If tyranny is measured by the lack of representation in the decisions of government, then abortion is oppression in its most fundamental form.
Roe v. Wade is not only an unjust law, but also an unconstitutional one that denies the rights of states to pass their own laws concerning abortion.
The Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the last of the Bill of Rights dictates, “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.”
This is written to mean that the people of individual states have the right to govern independently of the federal government. Congress is supposed to function within the bounds of the Constitution and let the people determine the course of their respective states.
I say, let’s put 35 years of ferocious debate over abortion finally to rest by bringing it up to a vote of the people. Let each state decide whether or not to legalize the practice and under what terms within its own borders.
If a woman wants an abortion that is prohibited in her state, then she can move to or cross the border into a state that allows the practice.
Why should an entire nation—a republic no less—be forced to suffer the foibles of a few zealots who have used abortion as a means of securing power for themselves?
When you get right down to where the rubber meets the road, that is exactly what pro-choice is all about: Giving power to those few with an agenda they want to push onto everyone else—including those of us who don’t want what they are selling.
Indeed, pro-choice offers perhaps the greatest contradiction in terms and action. While the choice of some is championed, the choice of many others—most notably the unborn—is scorned.
So to the pro-choicers, I ask, what exactly is the choice? It seems like we have no other choice but to accept theirs.
But I do not understand the reasoning behind why abortion supporters consider their movement “pro choice.” They say it is because they support a woman’s right to choose whether to go through with her pregnancy or terminate it.
Unfortunately, pro-choicers fail to explain why they support such “choice” that denies the unborn the right to choose whether or not to be born.
The pro-choice movement considers an unborn child as belonging to a woman as though he or she was property or an organ of the body essential for function.
Well, it’s evident that a baby is neither property nor an organ. But the abortion lobby rationalizes that a fetus is not really human while in the womb, but rather a mass or ball of flesh incapable of thought, being or realization of self. Forget the fact that a fetus develops into and becomes a human baby that eventually realizes itself, thinks and is. What matters to the pro-choicer is that here and now, a fetus does not look human. Therefore, it is not human and cannot be counted as human life.
But the bare truth is that a fetus is entirely human; perhaps not yet in form, but certainly in function and biology. The fetus is an unrealized individual with a beating heart and developing brain that will soon become just like the ones we have. It is flesh, blood and bone just like us. It feels and hurts just like us. In fact, a fetus is entirely autonomous and sentient in its ability to feel, perceive and think. A developing fetus is entirely conscious of itself and its needs. That's why it kicks in the womb when it's happy or excited; it moves around when uncomfortable in order to get comfortable; and it communicates to the mother through the umbilical cord when it is hungry.
Again, I ask, what choice does an unborn individual have with regard to his or her life? What say do they have in choosing whether to live or die?
The answer is none. Pro-choice, while an advocate for a woman’s “right” to choose, denies the right of choice to the unborn.
Furthermore, pro-choice denies the right of the people to choose.
The abortion lobby has manipulated the law and used the courts—including the United States Supreme Court, the nation’s highest court—to rule in its favor and establish abortion as the law of the land.
If being pro-choice really means favoring the individual’s rights to choose, then why don’t pro-choicers support the right of individual states to choose whether or not to allow abortion? The answer is because pro-choice isn’t really about choice at all. It’s about abortion and nothing else.
Why was the will of the people, through democratic process, subverted on the way to the Supreme Court in 1973? The reason is that pro-choicers knew then as they know now that the vast majority of the people support neither abortion nor the agenda of its lobby.
If the issue of abortion was left up to the people in each state, then most states would likely limit or restrict its practice. Then again, this is why the pro-choice movement went straight for the jugular. The abortion lobby appealed its case not to the American people, but before a panel of nine judges, the majority of whom have been sympathetic to the so-called “right to choose.”
Pro-choicers argue that abortion is a right by virtue of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which begins with “The right of the people to be secure in their persons…”
In return, we got Roe v. Wade and 35 years of taxpayer-funded abortion on demand in spite of what the majority may or may not have wanted.
Two hundred and thirty years ago, American colonists cried out against taxation without representation and called that tyranny.
If tyranny is measured by the lack of representation in the decisions of government, then abortion is oppression in its most fundamental form.
Roe v. Wade is not only an unjust law, but also an unconstitutional one that denies the rights of states to pass their own laws concerning abortion.
The Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the last of the Bill of Rights dictates, “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.”
This is written to mean that the people of individual states have the right to govern independently of the federal government. Congress is supposed to function within the bounds of the Constitution and let the people determine the course of their respective states.
I say, let’s put 35 years of ferocious debate over abortion finally to rest by bringing it up to a vote of the people. Let each state decide whether or not to legalize the practice and under what terms within its own borders.
If a woman wants an abortion that is prohibited in her state, then she can move to or cross the border into a state that allows the practice.
Why should an entire nation—a republic no less—be forced to suffer the foibles of a few zealots who have used abortion as a means of securing power for themselves?
When you get right down to where the rubber meets the road, that is exactly what pro-choice is all about: Giving power to those few with an agenda they want to push onto everyone else—including those of us who don’t want what they are selling.
Indeed, pro-choice offers perhaps the greatest contradiction in terms and action. While the choice of some is championed, the choice of many others—most notably the unborn—is scorned.
So to the pro-choicers, I ask, what exactly is the choice? It seems like we have no other choice but to accept theirs.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Is abortion really murder?
For more than three decades, opponents of abortion have called its practice murder. Abortion supporters consider this notion extreme. Well, is it or isn’t it?
Let’s take a closer look.
Webster’s dictionary defines murder as killing a person with “malice aforethought.” This means that the taking of life is 1) deliberate (aforethought) and 2) with intention to cause harm (malice). This is consistent with the legal definition of murder.
Both definitions, however, leave a loophole for the abortion lobby. A person who commits murder does so with “intent to commit an unlawful act or cause harm without legal justification or excuse.”
The Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973 gave pro-abortionists the legal justification and excuse needed to subvert the legal definition of murder.
The same can be said for statutes on capital punishment, part of a state’s criminal code. The legality of capital punishment is wrapped in the “legal justification or excuse” clause.
But there’s a grievous difference between abortion and capital punishment, one that transcends legal definitions and framework.
Abortion is the deliberate taking of an innocent human life with intent to cause harm to that life. Capital punishment, on the other hand, is the deliberate taking of life that has been adjudicated, convicted and condemned by the rule of law; with intent to cause harm to that life.
Individuals facing capital punishment have been found guilty of usually heinous and violent acts against humanity. They’ve been Constitutionally served with a fair and impartial trial by peers. They’ve been tried, convicted, sentenced and otherwise processed in a court of law. They’ve been remanded to the criminal justice system for punishment and execution of sentence.
Condemned persons have committed crimes against others worthy of the penalty of death. These include murder, rape, molestation and other acts of a cruel, violent nature.
The bottom line is that capital punishment is about dispensing justice to those who have acted unjustly toward others. It is also about protecting the public against violent individuals who are at risk of re-offending.
In stark contrast, abortion is the taking of life that’s guilty of nothing but being conceived. Unborn children are the consequential by-products of selfish human choices. They are innocent victims of self-serving intentions to deny life.
Likewise, murder victims are also the by-products of self-serving and deliberate choices. Their lives were unjustly taken by another, whose intent was to deny life.
Abortion is about as close to murder as any act can get without actually meeting the legal standard.
Yet, leave law books and dictionaries out of the discussion and the only things separating abortion from murder are just words.
But actions can neither be distinguished by definitions, nor aptly described by words how they are similar or different. Rather, action must be compared and contrasted against itself.
If the only distinction between murder and abortion is the insertion of a single legal clause, then I see no difference between the two actions themselves.
I’d say anti-abortionists have a pretty strong case for calling abortion murder, because, the legal definition notwithstanding, it really is.
Consider that for any abortion to happen, there must first be a plan: by the individual seeking the abortion, the clinician at intake, the nurse in surgery prep and, of course, the physician performing the procedure. This is aforethought.
Abortion is not merely a medical procedure; the result is termination of a human life always full flesh and blood with a beating heart and developing brain. The intent of the abortion is to cause harm to the life inside the womb. This is malice—or the intent to cause harm.
Put the two together, and you have the fundamental elements of murder.
Action by action, there’s no practical difference between abortion and murder—just what is written by lawyers.
What a strange ethical paradox abortion is to the medical profession: The Hippocratic Oath dictates that a doctor’s first duty is to DO NO HARM and save life. Yet, hypocritically, that very oath is violated with every abortion performed. While some tools of the trade are being used to protect the life of the woman for whom the procedure is done, others are destroying the unborn human life insider of her. The irony here so plain and the conflictions so thick, one couldn’t cut it with a scalpel.
But in spite of the obvious medical contradictions, thousands of abortions are performed on demand each year simply because the pregnancy was unplanned and is unwanted. Precious few abortions are performed to save the mother’s life or are the result of a sexual crime. The woman, empowered by laws pushed by social advocacy groups, is granted ownership of the unborn life just because it grows within her body.
There is no autonomy for the unborn; only for the born.
So, why don’t pro-abortionists just stop dancing around the issue of whether or not abortion is murder and admit that they support the intentional taking of human life? I mean, all legality aside, that’s exactly what abortion is.
If unborn life is not as important to us as life already born, then let’s just be forthright about it and not make any excuses.
No rationale, no legal clause, and no definition can change what abortion is or what it isn’t.
It is what it is.
Can you handle it?
Let’s take a closer look.
Webster’s dictionary defines murder as killing a person with “malice aforethought.” This means that the taking of life is 1) deliberate (aforethought) and 2) with intention to cause harm (malice). This is consistent with the legal definition of murder.
Both definitions, however, leave a loophole for the abortion lobby. A person who commits murder does so with “intent to commit an unlawful act or cause harm without legal justification or excuse.”
The Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973 gave pro-abortionists the legal justification and excuse needed to subvert the legal definition of murder.
The same can be said for statutes on capital punishment, part of a state’s criminal code. The legality of capital punishment is wrapped in the “legal justification or excuse” clause.
But there’s a grievous difference between abortion and capital punishment, one that transcends legal definitions and framework.
Abortion is the deliberate taking of an innocent human life with intent to cause harm to that life. Capital punishment, on the other hand, is the deliberate taking of life that has been adjudicated, convicted and condemned by the rule of law; with intent to cause harm to that life.
Individuals facing capital punishment have been found guilty of usually heinous and violent acts against humanity. They’ve been Constitutionally served with a fair and impartial trial by peers. They’ve been tried, convicted, sentenced and otherwise processed in a court of law. They’ve been remanded to the criminal justice system for punishment and execution of sentence.
Condemned persons have committed crimes against others worthy of the penalty of death. These include murder, rape, molestation and other acts of a cruel, violent nature.
The bottom line is that capital punishment is about dispensing justice to those who have acted unjustly toward others. It is also about protecting the public against violent individuals who are at risk of re-offending.
In stark contrast, abortion is the taking of life that’s guilty of nothing but being conceived. Unborn children are the consequential by-products of selfish human choices. They are innocent victims of self-serving intentions to deny life.
Likewise, murder victims are also the by-products of self-serving and deliberate choices. Their lives were unjustly taken by another, whose intent was to deny life.
Abortion is about as close to murder as any act can get without actually meeting the legal standard.
Yet, leave law books and dictionaries out of the discussion and the only things separating abortion from murder are just words.
But actions can neither be distinguished by definitions, nor aptly described by words how they are similar or different. Rather, action must be compared and contrasted against itself.
If the only distinction between murder and abortion is the insertion of a single legal clause, then I see no difference between the two actions themselves.
I’d say anti-abortionists have a pretty strong case for calling abortion murder, because, the legal definition notwithstanding, it really is.
Consider that for any abortion to happen, there must first be a plan: by the individual seeking the abortion, the clinician at intake, the nurse in surgery prep and, of course, the physician performing the procedure. This is aforethought.
Abortion is not merely a medical procedure; the result is termination of a human life always full flesh and blood with a beating heart and developing brain. The intent of the abortion is to cause harm to the life inside the womb. This is malice—or the intent to cause harm.
Put the two together, and you have the fundamental elements of murder.
Action by action, there’s no practical difference between abortion and murder—just what is written by lawyers.
What a strange ethical paradox abortion is to the medical profession: The Hippocratic Oath dictates that a doctor’s first duty is to DO NO HARM and save life. Yet, hypocritically, that very oath is violated with every abortion performed. While some tools of the trade are being used to protect the life of the woman for whom the procedure is done, others are destroying the unborn human life insider of her. The irony here so plain and the conflictions so thick, one couldn’t cut it with a scalpel.
But in spite of the obvious medical contradictions, thousands of abortions are performed on demand each year simply because the pregnancy was unplanned and is unwanted. Precious few abortions are performed to save the mother’s life or are the result of a sexual crime. The woman, empowered by laws pushed by social advocacy groups, is granted ownership of the unborn life just because it grows within her body.
There is no autonomy for the unborn; only for the born.
So, why don’t pro-abortionists just stop dancing around the issue of whether or not abortion is murder and admit that they support the intentional taking of human life? I mean, all legality aside, that’s exactly what abortion is.
If unborn life is not as important to us as life already born, then let’s just be forthright about it and not make any excuses.
No rationale, no legal clause, and no definition can change what abortion is or what it isn’t.
It is what it is.
Can you handle it?
Think twice about trading liberty for rights
When the founders framed the U.S. Constitution with the Bill of Rights, their purpose was to put in writing the limits of government. They were less concerned with what individuals should be allowed to do and more concerned with what the government should or should not be allowed to do.
These rights that we claim as ours aren’t really rights at all, but rather guarantees of what the government is not allowed to do to us.
When the United States Constitution was ratified in 1787, the meaning and purpose of its “rights” were understood. But somewhere along the way, the Bill of Rights became less about what the government cannot do and more about what “We the People” should be able to do.
Lost now is the notion that a limited government equates to individual freedom. Missing is a sense of liberty from government restraint.
Somehow, “We the People” have come to want our cake and eat it, too.
We want our rights, but we also want government to do more and more things for us. Essentially, what we are saying is that we want an unrestrained government that also respects our rights.
Only in a perfect world.
In reality, we can have one or the other, but not both.
No government can ever just give away liberty the way a philanthropist gives away money. Freedom is not a commodity. It cannot be bought. It cannot be given. It is not bestowed upon or granted out of patriarchal good graces. Rather, liberty must be earned through restraint and a willingness not to do.
When we are not willing to restrain ourselves, then we can expect more laws passed under the guise of protecting us from ourselves.
Freedom is not a selfish endeavor. Yet, today we cling to it the way a miser does his money. We regard our liberties as our “rights” to do or have things, when they are really supposed to be freedoms from something called government oppression.
Today we have groups of people demanding their “rights,” as though they are entitled to the freedom secured by the Bill of Rights. Nobody is entitled to freedom; not even Americans, who take it for granted every day. Liberty is not to be gained, but rather received. It must be contested, fought for, preserved and protected before we can claim it as our own. And even then liberty belongs to no one person, but rather to everyone graced by its touch.
But threatening liberty are rights groups invoking its very namesake. Gay rights, women’s rights, ethnic minority rights—knowingly or not, all have been squeezing liberty dry with their demands.
What rights are they seeking that they do not already have? The right to speech, assembly and worship; the right to keep and bear arms; protection against military quarter; the right to privacy and property; the right to due process of law; the right to a fair and speedy trial; protection against cruel and unusual punishment; the right to have our rights protected; and the right to participate in the making of laws independent of the government.
These essentially are the Bill of Rights, and they are the only rights I have. Besides the added amendments, such as the Fourteenth, they are the only rights any American citizen has.
Which of these rights do women, ethnic minorities and gays not have? If they are American citizens, then they already have the full compliment of Constitutional rights; no more and no less.
But apparently the Bill of Rights is not good enough.
No, we want the “right” to health care, education, a job, benefits, insurance, a house, a car, toys and even money. Gays want the “right” to be legally married under law. Women want the “right” to receive equal pay for equal work. So-called ethnic minorities want the “right” to be regarded as human equals to the so-called ethnic majority.
Equality is not a “right” at all, but rather an obligation and a courtesy extended by one person to another. It is charity of the heart, and no amount of laws or government mandates can make it happen.
In fact, none of the so-called “rights” we demand today exist or are even implied in the Bill of Rights. Yet, we insist on them. Furthermore, we demand the government secures these “rights” with more laws, more legislation, and more regulation—in short, more government.
What we don’t understand is that by empowering government to make more laws, enact more legislation and enforce more regulations, we are allowing government to act and grow unrestrained. In the end, the only thing being restrained is freedom.
Once upon a time, men believed that men—not government—were capable of righting wrongs. Those men crafted the Bill of Rights, so that men of today could operate under the assumption that man cannot be trusted to solve his own problems and instead needs government to do it for him.
Just bear in mind that each teeny, tiny little insignificant right we insist upon means one more law, one more regulation and one less freedom than we had before.
Liberty is as fragile as a sand castle on the beach. Each wave of the tide, every gust of wind and every blowing breeze takes with it a little bit of the castle until eventually nothing but trodden sand is left.
Every time government makes a law in the name of a “right,” we lose a little bit of liberty.
There’s a reason why our revolutionary ancestors adopted the phrase, “Don’t Tread On Me.” This is it.
Are more rights than what we already have really worth the price of less freedom?
Think about it. Hard.
These rights that we claim as ours aren’t really rights at all, but rather guarantees of what the government is not allowed to do to us.
When the United States Constitution was ratified in 1787, the meaning and purpose of its “rights” were understood. But somewhere along the way, the Bill of Rights became less about what the government cannot do and more about what “We the People” should be able to do.
Lost now is the notion that a limited government equates to individual freedom. Missing is a sense of liberty from government restraint.
Somehow, “We the People” have come to want our cake and eat it, too.
We want our rights, but we also want government to do more and more things for us. Essentially, what we are saying is that we want an unrestrained government that also respects our rights.
Only in a perfect world.
In reality, we can have one or the other, but not both.
No government can ever just give away liberty the way a philanthropist gives away money. Freedom is not a commodity. It cannot be bought. It cannot be given. It is not bestowed upon or granted out of patriarchal good graces. Rather, liberty must be earned through restraint and a willingness not to do.
When we are not willing to restrain ourselves, then we can expect more laws passed under the guise of protecting us from ourselves.
Freedom is not a selfish endeavor. Yet, today we cling to it the way a miser does his money. We regard our liberties as our “rights” to do or have things, when they are really supposed to be freedoms from something called government oppression.
Today we have groups of people demanding their “rights,” as though they are entitled to the freedom secured by the Bill of Rights. Nobody is entitled to freedom; not even Americans, who take it for granted every day. Liberty is not to be gained, but rather received. It must be contested, fought for, preserved and protected before we can claim it as our own. And even then liberty belongs to no one person, but rather to everyone graced by its touch.
But threatening liberty are rights groups invoking its very namesake. Gay rights, women’s rights, ethnic minority rights—knowingly or not, all have been squeezing liberty dry with their demands.
What rights are they seeking that they do not already have? The right to speech, assembly and worship; the right to keep and bear arms; protection against military quarter; the right to privacy and property; the right to due process of law; the right to a fair and speedy trial; protection against cruel and unusual punishment; the right to have our rights protected; and the right to participate in the making of laws independent of the government.
These essentially are the Bill of Rights, and they are the only rights I have. Besides the added amendments, such as the Fourteenth, they are the only rights any American citizen has.
Which of these rights do women, ethnic minorities and gays not have? If they are American citizens, then they already have the full compliment of Constitutional rights; no more and no less.
But apparently the Bill of Rights is not good enough.
No, we want the “right” to health care, education, a job, benefits, insurance, a house, a car, toys and even money. Gays want the “right” to be legally married under law. Women want the “right” to receive equal pay for equal work. So-called ethnic minorities want the “right” to be regarded as human equals to the so-called ethnic majority.
Equality is not a “right” at all, but rather an obligation and a courtesy extended by one person to another. It is charity of the heart, and no amount of laws or government mandates can make it happen.
In fact, none of the so-called “rights” we demand today exist or are even implied in the Bill of Rights. Yet, we insist on them. Furthermore, we demand the government secures these “rights” with more laws, more legislation, and more regulation—in short, more government.
What we don’t understand is that by empowering government to make more laws, enact more legislation and enforce more regulations, we are allowing government to act and grow unrestrained. In the end, the only thing being restrained is freedom.
Once upon a time, men believed that men—not government—were capable of righting wrongs. Those men crafted the Bill of Rights, so that men of today could operate under the assumption that man cannot be trusted to solve his own problems and instead needs government to do it for him.
Just bear in mind that each teeny, tiny little insignificant right we insist upon means one more law, one more regulation and one less freedom than we had before.
Liberty is as fragile as a sand castle on the beach. Each wave of the tide, every gust of wind and every blowing breeze takes with it a little bit of the castle until eventually nothing but trodden sand is left.
Every time government makes a law in the name of a “right,” we lose a little bit of liberty.
There’s a reason why our revolutionary ancestors adopted the phrase, “Don’t Tread On Me.” This is it.
Are more rights than what we already have really worth the price of less freedom?
Think about it. Hard.
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