In my last article I commented that I thought I may have subconsciously known the cause of all our nation’s problems all along. Allow me to expand upon that for a few moments.

As I would read through the various blogs and articles the general consensus was that all our nation’s problems can be attributed to our elected officials in Washington D.C.

I got the impression that people felt that if we could just get those crooks out of office, that things would be just fine in America again. It’s a nice dream, but that’s all it is, a dream.

You see, the problem is that we put these crooks there to begin with. We sat back and did nothing when they passed all these unconstitutional laws. And we sat back while they took aim upon our individual rights.

So, whenever I heard people say that, there was this little voice in the back of my head which would ask, “What good is that going to do, seriously? There are over 300 million people living in this country. Say ten percent of them have actually read and understand the Constitution. That leaves roughly 270 million people who don’t.

These are the people who continually believe the promises, fall for the lies, or stand behind their political party, no matter what. Even if we did manage to get rid of every single incumbent, the people would soon be crying for their government subsidies and entitlements.

Far too many people have come to rely upon government programs because they are incapable, or unwilling to fend for themselves. They would soon be asking the government to regulate their lives because they do not want to accept the consequences that come when people are held responsible for their own actions.

So, once the government gave them what they wanted, they would be fat, dumb, happy, and apathetic again, and government would quickly be back to where it is now.”

Americans are like cattle on a large ranch, free to roam about, within limits, but still fenced in. Have you heard about what happens when a caged animal is released in the wild? They usually do not survive. That is America, we would not know how to act without our governments guidance and assistance. Most people living in America today would not recognize freedom if it came up and introduced itself to them.

It was these thoughts that kept nagging at me. I admit, I was just as guilty as the rest in believing that if I could just educate enough people about the Constitution, that maybe we could turn things around. I no longer feel that way. Not that I would not fight to preserve what few rights I still have, but I do not think that anything I, or anyone else does, will make a bit of difference until the people in this country understand where all our rights come from.
America is no longer the republic which Ben Franklin spoke of as he left the Philadelphia Convention. I find it fitting that the Constitution is currently housed in the National Archives, like some sort of historical relic. Because actually, that’s all the Constitution is, a relic. It has been a very long time since it has been upheld by anyone who has sworn an oath to support and defend it.

One has only to read the preamble to the Constitution to understand its intent, “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.”

The founders knew that rights were not something that were granted us by any form of government, they were something that were ours from birth. They held to the principles espoused by John Locke concerning natural law.

The theory of natural law declares that rights, and any laws concerning them, are set by nature, and therefore trump any man made, (positive law) put into effect by society, particularly governments.

From Locke’s Second Treatise of Civil Government, Chapter 4 we read, “THE natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of nature for his rule.”

He continues by saying, “Freedom then is not what Sir Robert Filmer tells us, Observations, A. 55. a liberty for every one to do what he lists, to live as he pleases, and not to be tied by any laws: but freedom of men under government is, to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power erected in it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things, where the rule prescribes not; and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of another man: as freedom of nature is, to be under no other restraint but the law of nature.”

Now, if you consider yourself a religious person, allow me to ask of you a simple question. Who created nature? Does not the Bible say that God created the heavens and the earth, and all things in them?

Our founders believed that. Prior to any talk of drafting a Constitution, Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson states, “When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them...” (emphasis added)

Jefferson continued by saying, “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. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men…”

Notice Jefferson did not use the word grant these rights, he said secure. It is the purpose of government to ensure that no one infringed upon our rights. Yet that is exactly what they have been doing, and we have allowed the to do it without hardly a whimper.

Yet did not Jefferson also say, “That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”

He tells us that “…when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.”

Upon leaving his second term as President, George Washington delivered a farewell address that should be required reading for all Americans. To quote a portion of that address, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice ? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.”

For our country to continue to exist as was envisioned by our founders the people would have to hold true to the principles upon which it was founded, which included the belief that was shared by Jefferson, who said, “God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure if we have removed their only firm basis: a conviction in the minds of men that these liberties are the gift of God? That they 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.”

Just as we claim to be citizens of this great nation without knowing the principles upon which it was founded, many claim to be Christian without knowing what it is that God asks of them.

There are those who have never cracked open a Bible, yet claim to be Christian. We have TV Idols, like Oprah Winfrey, who when asked by someone in her audience about Jesus, and a person being able to enter into heaven, “What about Jesus? There couldn’t possibly be one way.” However John 14:6 says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”

Then we have the mega-Churches whose sole purpose, it seems, is to draw in the gullible to fill their coffers with donations. I had always had doubts about these mega-Churches, and televangelists, going back to the PTL Club with Jim and Tammy Bakker.

Now we have the likes of Rick Warren and Joel Osteens. Their feel good, do as you wish Churches pervert the Scriptures, and millions flock to hear them because they feel they are absolved of all responsibility for their actions. Yet how many of these organizations have been rocked by scandals that exposed their fraud?

Also, ever since I was a kid I have always had my questions about organized religion but I could never pinpoint why. Now that I am older I understand why. I am of the belief that Thomas Jefferson was right when he said, “Nothing can be more exactly and seriously true than what is there [the very words only of Jesus] stated; that but a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind .”

America is a completely different country than the one that existed at the time of our founders. Over time, people have come to take for granted the things that make this land so special. They have also neglected their duties as citizens of this great land to hold to the principles that made it great in the first place.

Getting back to his farewell address, Washington said, “With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together; the independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.”

That is no longer the case. Our nation is divided, no more noticeably than along the lines of race. We have cultures existing within this land whose beliefs are far different than those upon which our nation was founded.

In that case we are very similar to Rome at the end of their existence as an empire. Historian Victor Hanson wrote the following, “The difference over six centuries, the dissimilarity that led to the end, was a result not of imperial overstretch on the outside but something happening within that was not unlike what we ourselves are now witnessing. Earlier Romans knew what it was to be Roman, why it was at least better than the alternative, and why their culture had to be defended. Later in ignorance they forgot what they knew, in pride mocked who they were, and in consequence disappeared.”

Americans today seek all their answers to their countries problems from the very people who created them, their government. However, Scripture tells us what we should be doing in 2 Chronicles, 7, “If my people, which are called by my name shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

However, that idea does not seem to go over too well, as stated by a reader of my last article, who said, Good lord. you’re about as stupid and narrow minded as all those bigots that wrote their word and called it Gods way back when.

While I don’t doubt we’re in a battle for the soul of the nation — it’s a battle to take it way from the arrogant, deluded, shit-for-brains people, like you, who take some hand me down religion as their truth and use it to kill or condem those that don’t fit their idea God’s choosen.”

With people like that running around in this country, all I can say is that our goose is cooked. So long America, it’s been nice while it lasted.

“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?“

~ The Author ~
Neal Ross can be reached for comments at bonsai@syix.com. Visit Neal’s Blog at http://www.zombie-slayer.com/neal