Ron Paul on the Passage of the Bailout Bill
October 6, 2008 by Stephen Palmer · Leave a Comment
The Constitution: A Rallying Point
August 31, 2008 by Aspen Eggimann · Leave a Comment
“Where are we going from here?”
I’ve been wondering this a lot lately, in regards to America. I hear and read theories about the Information Age and what it will bring, I learn about historical cycles predicting what to expect in the future, and observe the numerous political agendas proposed for the nation, yet still this question remains in a large part unanswered.
It may be difficult or nearly impossible to answer with clarity exactly where we are going, or to make a prediction that would quiet the concerns for the future. While pondering the question I read the following quote from Thomas Jefferson:
“Though written constitutions may be violated in moments of passion or delusion, yet they furnish a text to which those who are watchful may again rally and recall the people.” –Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Priestley, 1802
A written document that immortalizes principles and provides ongoing direction for generations is essential to maintain a strong and free nation.
“The Constitution is a written instrument. As such, its meaning does not alter. That which it meant when it was adopted, it means now.”
– South Carolina v. United States, 199 U.S. 437, 448 (1905)
The principles remain fast in the document, though the actions of men may not follow those principles. The violation of a constitution was foreseen by the Founders as inevitable; men would lose their perspective and deviate from the Constitution in moments of passion — no matter how much the “chains of the Constitution” bound them down. Having a written constitution does more than bind men for a time, however; its real strength is that it provides a rallying point for the People to turn to when the nation flounders and when guidance is needed.
It’s clear that we have deviated from the Constitution in many ways throughout our history, and recent years have been no different. From the repeal of habeas corpus for specified “enemy combatants” to the Patriot Act, we can see the distance we have come from the founding.
The governments’ disregard of our founding document was brought home to me when I read the following story from Ron Paul:
“In 2002, as war with Iraq loomed, I proposed that congress officially declare war against Iraq, making clear that I intended to oppose my own measure. The point was to underscore our constitutional responsibility to declare war before commencing major military operations, rather than leaving the decision to the president or passing resolutions that delegate to the president the decision-making power over war. The chairman of the International Relations Committee responded by saying, ‘There are things in the Constitution that have been overtaken by events, by time. Declaration of war is one of them. There are things no longer relevant to a modern society. We are saying to the president, use your judgment. [What you have proposed is] inappropriate, anachronistic; it isn’t done any more.’
What a relief that we have people in our government who will keep us posted on which constitution provisions they have decided are no longer ‘relevant!’” [Ron Paul; The Revolution: A Manifesto, pg 53]
As a nation that has disregarded its constitution and now strongly questions its stability and future freedom the question, “Where are we going from here?” demands our attention. We have, through fear and passion, given up much of our freedoms. But it need not continue. For we will decide what is next. By using the Constitution as a rallying point to recall a people we will regain the freedom and prosperity that the Founders fought for.
In the end our freedom and our future lie with those that are watchful, those that will take initiative in restoring the Constitution. As Thomas Edison said, “The strength of the Constitution, lies in the will of the people to defend it.”
If the question remains, “Where are we going from here?”, the answer is “Exactly where we take ourselves.” If Jefferson is right, if moments of passion will pass and those who are watching can rally the people, then let it be back to the Constitution.
Have YOU read and do you understand the Constitution? Will you become a constitutional scholar and help restore the American Republic?
Move the Cause of Liberty by (1) subscribing to the Sentinel, a free weekly newsletter boldly illuminating the principles of freedom in a darkening nation, and (2) pledging your Life, Liberty, and Sacred Honor to the Cause by signing the Declaration of Dependence.
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Copyright © 2008 by The Cause of Liberty. All rights reserved.
Changing Lanes
August 7, 2008 by James Ure · 2 Comments
How to Get Around the Individualism Roadblock With A Minor Turn in Jurisprudential Policy
The National Platform of the Libertarian Party[i] defends the view that “all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose.”
The platform opposes any regulation of obscenity, including pornography, “despite claims that it instigates rape or assault, or demeans and slanders women,” as well as any speech codes at tax-funded schools, claiming that “[l]anguage that is deemed offensive to certain groups is not a cause for legal action.” It opposes eminent domain, zoning laws, building codes, property taxes, resource management, public health legislation, and all regulation of abortion.
Finally, it holds that “consenting adults should be free to choose their own sexual practices and personal relationships” and that the state does not have the authority to define the terms of marriage because marriage is simply a private contract.
Tellingly, the word individual appears fifteen times in the first twenty sentences in the platform, but the words family and school only appear once each, the words church or religion only appear a few times, and the words community and neighborhood do not appear at all. Clearly, in libertarian thought, “respect for individuals, apart from family and other associations, is paramount to a just and virtuous society.”[ii]
This individualistic view of society is spreading through our government and our homes like wildfire. It has already caused a steep decline in national unity and promises to continue tearing societal fabric apart until nothing but individual, atomistic, autonomous shreds remain. Although there are many causes at the root of this individualism, I will only treat one in this article: the harm modern Supreme Court jurisprudence has inflicted on various societal associations that have previously been sources of societal unity.
The Truth About the Road Less Traveled
August 3, 2008 by Stephen Palmer · Leave a Comment
I recently took the road less traveled…
…and ended up getting lost and hundreds of pesky stickers in my clothes and socks.
I was on my regular run the other day, exploring a few streets I hadn’t been on. I passed a heavily wooded area and noticed a faint trail disappearing into the underbrush. In the mood for adventure, I headed down the path, not sure where it would lead to. A half hour later, I finally emerged onto a street that I recognized, my lower half adorned in a thick layer of tenacious stickers, and thinking of how my experience was a fitting analogy for other life pursuits.
As romantic as Robert Frost makes it sound, taking the road less traveled is never easy. It’s far easier to go along with the crowd and never make waves than it is to take a stand, go against the grain of popular culture, and make a lasting difference.
Martin Luther King, Jr. took the road less traveled and was murdered for it, as was Gandhi. George Washington, wanting nothing more than to be a quiet farmer, suffered through years of toil and hardship as a General, then stayed in the trenches during two terms as President. Joan of Arc was burned at the stake for attempting to free France from the rule of England and claiming that she saw visions. Corrie ten Boom endured the horrors of Nazi concentration camps for hiding Jews. Jesus Christ was crucified for speaking truth.
The people who rock the status quo boat are usually kicked off the boat and are often drowned. But because of their courage and sacrifice, the rest of us enjoy smooth sailing.
We can complain today about slow traffic lights, while sitting in our air-conditioned cars listening to the radio and talking on our cell phones, because of the thousands of soldiers who suffered and died of frostbite, starvation, and disease at Valley Forge.
Is the road less traveled romantic and easy? No. Inspiring and worth it? Yes. Will it make a difference? Absolutely.
“That which we obtain too cheaply we esteem too lightly.” -Thomas Paine
The Road Less Traveled in an Age of Comfort
Ironically, in America today most are far less likely to take the road less traveled, not because it is more difficult than it was in the past, but precisely because it’s easier. Accustomed to comfort, material abundance, and political freedom we often fail to see how simple it is, yet also how critically important.
We won’t be burned at the stake for speaking our mind, so few of us put anything into our minds worth speaking. We’re not engaged in a bloody war with the political establishment, so we become soft and fail to fight the good, peaceful fight of striving for virtue and obtaining a world-class education. We’re not faced with concentration camps, yet we often build ourselves personal prisons of complacence and selfishness.
“The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.” -Gandhi
Our enemies and hardships are not murderous tyrants, starvation, disease, filth and poverty, and violent discrimination. Instead, they are ease and comfort leading to apathy, ignorance because we’ve delegated our political responsibilities, greed from valuing our privileges above our principles, and societal decay from failing to care for the institution of family.
How To Find the Path and Make a Difference
We can and we must take the road less traveled for the benefit of our nation and our posterity. Yet how we do that today, in an age of comfort and relative freedom, takes on a different, less grueling form than one might think.
Our Valley Forge consists of, among others, reading and discussing classics; being politically active; choosing to not to consume inappropriate media, no matter how popular or even if no one else will know; studying the Constitution, no matter how difficult it may be to understand; choosing to follow our dreams by becoming entrepreneurs, rather than selling out to false security and corporate benefits; and maintaining strong marriages and raising productive, self-reliant children.
Relative to being tortured, burned at the stake, dying of starvation, and being martyred, these seem easy, yet that is exactly why so few will actually do them. But those who do will leave a legacy. They are those who will save the Constitution and preserve freedom for future generations. They are those who will discover more efficient and powerful methods of alleviating suffering in the world.
Be among them. Choose to take the road less traveled.
This road, while excruciating for heroes and heroines in the past and simple for us today, is never easy. The easy, well-worn path is watching TV instead of reading Democracy in America. Easy is abdicating to the government your responsibility to make sure your children are educated. The popular path is to constantly eat unhealthy food and rarely exercise, then expect doctors and pills to take care of your health problems. Easy is staying in a job with benefits that you dislike, rather than risking change in order to find a career path more conducive to living your passions. Easy is seeing problems in society and waiting for the government to solve them, rather than rolling up your sleeves and going to work.
The hard and unpopular path isn’t easy, but it’s worth it. Take the road less traveled — you might get lost for a time and you might attract stickers and experience other trials, but enduring hardship is the price of greatness. As Helen Keller said, “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”
Recommended Reading:
The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom
Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl
Becoming One Who Goes Before by Stephen Palmer
Move the Cause of Liberty by (1) subscribing to the Sentinel, a free weekly newsletter boldly illuminating the principles of freedom in a darkening nation, and (2) pledging your Life, Liberty, and Sacred Honor to the Cause by signing the Declaration of Dependence.
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Copyright © 2008 by The Cause of Liberty. All rights reserved.
Question #9: What are the seven major societal forms, or institutions, and what are the roles of each?
July 7, 2008 by Stephen Palmer · Leave a Comment
| 10 Foundational Questions | Introduction | Question #1 | Question #2 | Question #3 | Question #4 | Question #5 | Question #6 | Question #7 | Question #8 |
The seven major societal institutions are family, community, religion, academia, business, media, and government.
Family
The role of the family is to ensure responsible citizens, preserve society, and balance the desires of individual liberty with the demands of community responsibility. As James C. Ure, professor at George Wythe College, has written, “The family is the bubble in which a child…feels safe enough to explore his individuality. It is also the first place a child learns to make personal sacrifices for the good of the whole. In the family, it is natural for a parent to expose a child to various activities or ideas to determine what unique interests the child may have and to give the child an enhanced sense of self. It is also natural for a parent to ask a child to sacrifice personal interests to benefit the family, such as to provide help with cooking or cleaning. In the end, this is not very different from what makes free societies tick…It is in the family that children are expected to learn the core values and beliefs that democratic institutions later draw on to perpetuate themselves.”
Community
The original concept of federalism meant that as many decisions as possible were made at the lowest level possible. As Cleon Skousen taught, strong, local self-government was the keystone to the original American system. Understanding that power centralizes and expands, the Founders knew that the bulk of our political decisions should be made on the community level. The role of the community, therefore, is to prevent the centralization of power by keeping responsibility and decision-making close to the people.
Religion
John Adams wrote that, “Religion and virtue are are the only foundations, not of republicanism and of all free government, but of social felicity under all government and in all the combinations of human society.” George Washington affirmed, “Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure…reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” The role of religion is to remind republican citizens of their duties to and reliance upon God. Virtue is the bedrock of free society, and religion provides a constant reminder of that fact. Furthermore, religion serves as a venue where citizens serve God by serving their fellowman; philanthropy is enacted in large part through religion.
Academia
Academia advances culture through knowledge, helps to prevent socio-economic inequities, breaks through boundaries of human ignorance and fear, helps societies to avoid repeated historical mistakes, and serves as a check on the government by keeping citizens informed of civic affairs. As John Adams said, “Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people…They have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge–I mean, of the characters and conducts of their rulers.”
Business
The role of business is to provide exchange, commerce, and ultimately widespread prosperity. In a free market economy prices tend to decrease through competition and innovation, the ultimate benefactors being end consumers of products and services. In a free market economy poverty decreases, the standard of living rises, and people are able to find self-fulfillment as their subsistence needs are met. In The 5,000 Year Leap, Cleon Skousen wrote that, “By 1905 the U.S. had become the richest industrial nation in the world. With only five percent of the earth’s continental area and merely six percent of the world’s population, the American people were producing over half of almost everything–clothes, food, houses, transportation, communications, even luxuries.” The occurred because of our free market economy, where business was left free to fulfill its role.
Media
The role of the media is to disseminate information, highlight important current events, and to essentially stand as a witness, an observer of cultural, political, community, and educational events. A healthy media provides a check on the government and increases the political astuteness of republican citizens.
Government
The role of government is to protect unalienable rights. Government is the institutionalization of force, and as such should not do anything that would not be right for an individual to do (such as steal). As Thomas Jefferson said, “…a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.”
Why It Matters
Freedom occurs when all seven of these societal institutions are Read more
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