How Far Have We Fallen?

Imagine the early days of the American republic, say just post-Revolutionary War. You’re among those who are charged with creating the system of government that will form the basis of law and custom for the new nation. Where do you start?

Besides a thorough review for comparative purposes of the plusses and minuses of the various types of governmental systems that had already been tried, e.g. democracy (ancient Greece), emperor worship (Rome), monarchy (medieval England), anarchy followed by autocracy (French Revolution), and theocracy (pick your Muslim nation), it seems reasonable that you’d list the values that are meaningful to you and your fellows. That would enable you to design a system of government which enables those values to flourish.

What are the values that were important to the early Americans? Here are a few:
1. Freedom to practice one’s religion without interference, and freedom from having a “state” religion imposed upon you.
2. Freedom of speech, providing you don’t cause material harm to others through libel or slander.
3. Freedom to pursue life, liberty, and happiness.
4. Freedom of the press.
5. The right to acquire and hold private property.
6. The right to bear arms to protect you, your family, and your property.
7. The right to pursue your own choice of economic gain, provided it doesn’t cause unfair harm to others.
8. An expectation that your government will protect the sovereignty of your nation, which includes defending its borders and its dignity.
9. An expectation that those whom you elect to govern you will adhere to the tenets and limitations of the governing documents which form the law of the land.
10. An expectation that your children will be kept reasonably safe from predators.

Are those values still relevant?

I suggest that they are for about two-thirds of the country and are definitely not for the remaining third.

For example, take freedom of religion. Our elected-by-the-sheeple leader, who calls himself a Christian for public consumption and then acts in a completely opposite manner much of the time, has stated that America is not a Christian nation, that we are a melting pot of religions. Yet this statement is denied by 62% (Barna poll, March 2009) of the American population, who claim to be Christians. Moreover, Obama says he will sign a bill which has passed the House and is pending in the Senate that denies the right of Christians and Jews (and presumably Muslims) to advocate against homosexuality for moral reasons. Calling such language “hate speech,” the bill would impose penalties up to and including prison time for pastors who preach Deuteronomy and the Book of Romans from the pulpit. A 24-year veteran teacher in Mount Vernon, Ohio was fired for having a Bible on his desk (AFA Journal, June ’09, page 6). The religion of the Bible and the Torah is not tolerated in any public arena in modern America. So much for “freedom of religion.”

Freedom of speech is similarly under fire. Talk radio, which is overwhelmingly conservative, has been shown by the use of PPM’s (portable people meters, which scientifically and unerringly measure the radio stations and time listening to each station among volunteers who wear the devices) to be far more popular than the Obama administration likes. Therefore he has directed his Federal Communications Commission to sue Arbitron, the company which measures radio usage. The old “kill the messenger” mentality is alive and well among Marxist liberals. Furthermore, talk radio, which embarrasses liberals by telling the truth, is the subject of an intense witchhunt by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. They want to kill talk radio by requiring “equal time” for liberal views to be presented. That’s like telling Macy’s that they have to dedicate half their floor space to Muslim burquas and veils. Just as America has only about 1% Muslims and Macy’s would soon go out of business with such a ridiculous offering, very few people listen to the blather that liberals spew over their (largely failed) radio waves. Talk radio would quickly become unprofitable and cease to exist if forced to broadcast Marxist political theory.

The right to life is….well, it has simply disappeared. Any mother can legally murder her pre-born child. In several states, a doctor can take the life of an elderly or infirm person. There is so little understanding of Who we are insulting here. Most Americans consider the idea that God creates each child in His image and likeness to be so much laughable biblical nonsense. Our society casts nearly four thousand of its most vulnerable citizens into the fires of Mollech every single day. How can we even use the word “moral” with a straight face any more?

Freedom of the press has become a laughingstock. Few print media are conservative (“Human Events” being an exception); most are screamingly liberal. Television is much the same, with only Fox News seriously claiming any degree of objectivity. Proof is Obama’s recent statement on the Tonight Show that his bowling prowess was “like the Special Olympics.” The reaction of the media to this incredibly crass, tasteless, and insulting gaffe? Dead silence. (You don’t call the Messiah to account, don’t you know!) Imagine if George Bush had made such a statement! Pelosi and Reed would have commissioned a special Congressional counsel to consider impeachment, and the media would have bemoaned the incident over and over for months, like a cow chewing her cud. A conservative cannot obtain a teaching position in most American colleges and universities because the “tolerance” crowd (which is hugely intolerant of any opinion that doesn’t conform with their own) doesn’t allow such heresy an audience.

The right to acquire and hold private property is now in serious jeopardy. The Supreme Court (Kelo vs. City of New London, CT, 2005) ruled by a 5-4 majority (all four conservative judges vigorously objecting) that government has the right to seize your property for uses it considers more appropriate. Liberals, who consider themselves just so much smarter and more sophisticated than the unwashed masses whom they govern, will likely employ this legal precedent aggressively in the future.

Microsoft is an example of the death of the right to pursue your choice of economic gain. Liberals don’t like corporate monopolies, so they determine reasons to find them guilty of some crime or another. Yo, liberals! This is America, land of the bright, talented, self-interested entrepreneur who can knock Microsoft off its rear just as Bill Gates wiped out his competitors years ago. Leave corporate America alone! The market always self-corrects if liberals will keep their foolish hands off it.

Value number eight is protection of America’s sovereignty. Obama has shamelessly groveled before foreign tinpots, apologizing for America’s “mistakes.” He and the previous President, George Bush, largely abandoned their responsibility to secure our borders. Both Bush and Obama are in favor of subjecting American law and sovereignty to an international body governing all nations. This is leadership? This is responsibility? Liberals think it is. The Founding Fathers would have such men shot and then hanged in the public square.

Value number nine is an expectation that the documents that form the government will be respected. Liberals see the Constitution as “evolving” and “dynamic,” meaning that it has no meaning. They appoint judges who are not subject to the will or election of the people and who presume to impose their private opinions upon the nation without respect to law. The Founding Fathers never intended for the third branch of government to make law. That concept is complete anathema to the principle of the separation and balance of powers.

Finally, as to value number ten, all that needs to be said is that the pending “hate speech” bill gives special protection to predophiles, those who would grab your child off the street and steal his or her virginity through a savage sex act. Yes, that act will still be illegal, but the official sanctioning of it will be enshrined in the law of the land.

What nation can survive such degradation? How far have we fallen from the noble, shining ideals of the founders? I shudder to think of how our Lord currently views this nation He so abundantly blessed at its founding.