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“Please, may I…?” – Part II

Posted by :webmaster On : June 9, 2017
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Category: Archives, Capitalism, Constitution, Government, Socialism

In The Permission Society, Timothy Sandefur wrote that there are two ways for government to regulate the actions of people. The first is the nuisance system which states that people have a right to freely act however they choose unless it will harm someone else. This includes one’s free choice as what to do with their property unless it harms his neighbor. The drawback of this system is that it is reactive. On occasion the danger of harm may be of great magnitude, either immediately or cumulative over time. Under these circumstances, the nuisance system does not preemptively protect a neighbor. On these occasions it may not be possible for the harmed neighbor to be adequately and/or timely compensated for his loss.[1] Where the potential for this type of harm is present, the deficiency in a reactive nuisance system can be mitigated through prudent but infrequent intervention and prior restraint.

The second system to regulate actions of people is the permit system which forbids people from doing anything with his property unless approved by the appropriate authorities. The permit or “prior restraint” system is proactive and does not allow a person to act until he meets the requirements dictated by the governing authorities.[2] Sandefur lists six destructive consequences of the permit system.

1. “Rent-seeking” – Even under a permit system, the laws of supply and demand continue to operate. Permits become valuable because everyone cannot have one, and in a business environment time and money are spent to acquire and preserve the coveted permit. Since the 1930s, the power of government to redistribute wealth or opportunities has grown exponentially “either by transferring money from some people to others or by granting licenses to do profitable things that are otherwise illegal.” Payments to government in whatever form they take (fees, concessions, etc.) are a form of rent charged for the privileges dispensed by government, i.e., rent-seeking. The government uses these rents for purposes that may or may not be worthwhile, but it is the government that decides what those purposes will be, right or wrong, without consultation with the electorate. And the rent received by the government will ultimately be paid by the citizens themselves.[3]

2. Knowledge problem – The permit system is based on the faulty assumption that government officials and bureaucrats in charge of granting permits have the knowledge and information necessary to make the right choices when deciding what should and should not be permitted. If the regulators/permit issuers make wrong choices, they are seldom held accountable.[4]

3. Enforcement by unelected bureaucrats – Once issued, the privileges granted by permits must be monitored and their limitations enforced. Permit issuance decisions based on vague or confusing laws or criteria effectively delegate power to administrators and judges to enforce the terms of the permits even though their decisions may be arbitrary, irrational, unfair, and pose a conflict of interest. It is difficult and extremely expensive to challenge the decisions of unelected bureaucrats and their self-created fiefdoms which have become a hostile fourth branch of government unaccountable to the electorate and certainly not envisioned by the Constitution.[5]

4. Corruption and forced concessions – Officials with power to issue permits and regulate the execution of the services granted by those permits are in the position to demand something in return. The first amounts to blatant corruption when government officials solicit and receive innumerable forms of personal gain or favor in exchange for permits or regulatory approvals. The second type is the demand by government for concessions to the government to advance or accomplish some governmentally-determined general social need, e.g., the surrender of a portion of one’s property in exchange for permission to sell or develop the rest.[6]

5. Violation of illegal requirements – Some permit requirements may be illegal in themselves. When a permit holder violates the terms of the permit, he is considered to have violated the law. Yet, the terms violated may themselves be a violation of the law. Effectively, it is difficult for the permit holder to defend himself against violating the terms of the permit by challenging the illegality of those requirements.[7] In other words, the permit holder cannot get beyond being judged guilty of violating the illegal conditions of the permit.

6. Innovation is stifled – Sandefur believes that the most troubling aspect of the permit system is that it stifles innovation. He calls innovation a fragile and elusive quality, a potential, a chance for the future. It can’t be quantified, measured, qualified, or justified. Innovation is vital to a growing and robust society. But the permit system often wants people who want to “start a new business to prove to the satisfaction of the government regulators that there is a ‘public need’ for the business before the person may set up shop.”[8]

If the citizens of a society value their freedom above all else, then the drawbacks of a pervasive permit system are fatal to freedom and the survival of a society. Article V of the Bill of Rights states that men should not “…be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

This concern for the inalienable right of property is not just an academic exercise. The loss of this inalienable right impacts virtually every individual citizen in ways that are often lost in the daily information overload amidst the fast-paced buzz of life. The following example is just one of many well-intended actions of social engineers that erode the fundamental freedoms associated with one’s property and possessions.

Tulsa’s governmental fix for food deserts

A Tulsa City Counselor proposed that the City of Tulsa impose a moratorium on new grocery stores in council districts with food deserts, an area deemed to be deficient in full-service grocery stores. Counselor Vanessa Hall-Harper believes that a moratorium would solve what is believed to a problem of too many small grocery stores which prevent developers and larger full-service grocery stores from building in areas of the city considered to be food deserts. She claims that a lack of full-service stores is contributing to the decline of general health conditions in these areas.[9]

Hall-Harper cites one example in which a few of her constituents protested the issuance of a permit for a new Dollar General store in North Tulsa which they feel is inadequate. She believes this type of store discourages the building of full-service stores in so-called food deserts.[10] It would appear that for Hall-Harper and the protesters, investment of private funds in the City of Tulsa are to be dictated by political concerns and agendas as opposed to free-market forces.

But this is not government over-reach according to Hall-Harper. She says that the moratorium would be temporary and that it wouldn’t target any specific store or chains. “In my opinion, developers should work with communities.”[11]

The larger concern is that proposals of this nature have become typical of the thinking of elected government officials and especially bureaucrats who have become virtually independent and unanswerable to the electorate. Instead of a free society, we have become a “Please, may I…?” society. In a free society, a mom-and-pop grocer or a Dollar General are free to survey an area, determine if there is a need, and find an economically viable way to meet that need. These entrepreneurs must still consult local authorities about zoning matters, building permits, and the like. But, in a “Please, may I…?” society, they must also consult the local social engineers to determine if the individual or business owners’ plans fit in with the social agenda for the betterment of the community (as determined by the permission givers), even if the supposed betterment infringes on the rights and bank accounts of certain classes of citizens.

Who will be hurt by the City of Tulsa social planners’ scheme to address the lack of supermarkets in certain parts of Tulsa? The real victims will be the mom-and-pop grocers who have dreams of owning their own business, a grocery store that may one day grow into supermarket. Another victim will be the Dollar Generals of the world who research an area and determine that there are sufficient potential customers who desire what they have to offer. The local community will suffer because it will be deprived of another business to supply them with what they want and need and who will also benefit from jobs created for the area’s residents. The land owner who wants to sell his property to Dollar General will suffer because he will lose the proceeds from the sale of his land, and the contractor who would have built or remodeled the building for Dollar General will suffer of a loss of revenue because the project is prohibited.

Such arbitrary actions of government (city, state, and federal) stand in opposition to the inalienable right of property which transcends even the Constitution’s documentation of those rights. These actions have a chilling effect on developers who may be disinclined to begin future projects for fear of payments that will be extracted by government officials in the form of concessions and fees to meet some unrelated social need identified by social planners in exchange for permission to do business. This is little more than a legalized form of extortion, i.e., protection money paid to government. But the greatest damage among both the populace and government officials is the loss of the simple concept of freedom upon which the nation was founded.
______

This article has very briefly dealt with matters pertaining to the loss of freedom to do what one wishes with one’s property and possessions. This loss of freedom has occurred because the emergent permission society is dominated by a government and its bureaucracies that have intruded into the private and business affairs of the citizenry.

As discussed in Part I, the permission society began with the massive intrusion of government into the lives of its citizens during the 1930s under new, liberalized interpretations of the general welfare clause of the Constitution. Concurrently, government expansion began in Roosevelt’s New Deal years and accelerated with Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society of the 1960s. However, the exponential growth of government intrusion into the minutest details of the daily lives of American citizens has become suffocating over the last two decades.

Perhaps the best summation of the outcome of massive governmental intrusion comes from Alexis De Tocqueville in his 1835 Democracy in America. He had a prophet’s foresight into the reasons for America’s loss of freedom as it slides into the permission society whose destination is socialism and inevitably totalitarianism.

We forget that it is, above all, in the details that we run the risk of enslaving men…Subjection in the minor things of life is obvious every day and is experienced indiscriminately by all citizens. It does not cause them to lose hope but it constantly irks them until they give up the exercise of their will. It gradually blots out their mind and enfeebles their spirit …

I may add that they will soon lose the capacity to exercise the great and only privilege open to them. The democratic nations which introduced freedom into politics at the same time that they were increasing despotism in the administrative sphere have been led into the strangest paradoxes. Faced with the need to manage small affairs where common sense can be enough, they reckon citizens are incompetent. When it comes to governing the whole state, they give these citizens immense prerogatives. They turn them by degrees into playthings of the ruler or his masters, higher than kings or lower than men. Having exhausted all the various electoral systems without finding one which suited them, they look surprised and continue to search, as if the effects they see had far more to do with the country’s constitution than with that of the electorate.[12] [emphasis added]

As noted in Part I, the intent of the Founders in proposing the addition of the Bill of Rights to the Constitution was to foster greater trust in government by adding language to limit or restrict the ability of government to abuse its powers by infringing on the inalienable rights of its citizens. But the leaders of American government over the last century have so eroded the meaning of the Constitution and the intent of the Founders that trust in government is at an all time low. Once we trusted in God from whom those inalienable rights flow. We are now told that we must trust in the leaders of the permission society from whom all privileges are dispensed to the greatest number for the greatest good.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Timothy Sandefur, The Permission Society, (New York, London: Encounter Books, 2016), pp. 28-29.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid., p. 29.
[4[ Ibid., p. 30-31.
[5] Ibid., p. 32-34.
[6] Ibid., pp. 34-35.
[7] Ibid., p. 35.
[8] Ibid., p 36.
[9] Jarrel Wade, “Grocery store proposal on tap,” Tulsa World, May 9, 2017, A-1
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Gerald E. Bevan, Trans., (London, England: Penguin Books, 2003), pp. 807-808.

“Please, may I…?” – Part I

Posted by :webmaster On : June 2, 2017
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Category: Archives, Capitalism, Constitution, Government, Socialism

The word inalienable (a.k.a. unalienable) has numerous synonyms: unchallengeable, absolute, immutable, unassailable, incontrovertible, indisputable, and undeniable are just a few. This is the word Thomas Jefferson chose to describe the rights of all mankind in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence.

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, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Because this phrase has become so familiar to many of us who have read and revered these truths for a lifetime, they tend to become somewhat of a cliché devoid of the rich meaning and implications that are still applicable in measuring the degree to which modern government accomplishes its purpose. First, men have certain rights which are absolute. Second, these absolute rights are not bestowed by government but endowed by their Creator. Third, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are just three among other inalienable rights. And fourth, these inalienable rights are incapable of being alienated, surrendered, transferred, or altered.

In 1789, the first ten Amendments to the Constitution of the new republic memorialized several of these inalienable rights. The purpose of the Bill of Rights (the Amendments) is found in its Preamble. Congress wished to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers by proposing a Bill of Rights that would add “further declaratory and restrictive clauses” to the Constitution to improve public confidence in government. In other words, the Congress was asking the various states to ratify these Amendments to further restrict governmental abuse and thereby increase confidence in government. The Amendments described several of these rights and their associated freedoms.

Freedom or privilege?

Timothy Sandefur’s book The Permission Society describes how the ruling class has turned America’s constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms into privileges. Sandefur says that to be free means that one is able to make his own decisions, but Sandefur emphasized that such freedom did not mean that one had a right to do whatever he pleases regardless of the harm caused others. Rather, freedom meant that a person was able to follow his own will and choices with regard to his person, actions, possessions, and property without having to obey the arbitrary and rapacious will of others.[1]

To the degree that we must ask someone else to let us act, we do not have rights but privileges – licenses that are granted, on limited term, from someone who stands above us.[2] [emphasis added]

When the citizens of a free society reach a point (or a degree) that their right to act according to their own will and choices is outweighed by the privileges granted by their government and its complicit bureaucracies, then it is no longer a free society but a permission society. In such a society the citizen no longer boldly proclaims “I will…” but with hat in hand and eyes downcast, he shuffles up to his betters and mumbles “Please, may I…?”

This change of condition does not happen all at once in a free society. Rather, it occurs much the same way as a cancer attacks the body. The symptoms are minor at first but grow to the point of consciousness that something is not right in the body. In the early stages of moving from a free society to a permission society, the social planners provide soothing promises and placebos to soften the minor discomforts and inconveniences of life in a permission society. But in time as a society surrenders ever greater amounts of its freedom, the will to act by citizens holding the cherished but distant memory of freedom becomes too weak to resist their ever growing bondage to the rulers of the permission society. A free society can be saved only by radical surgery to remove the spreading cancer of the social planners and their bag of privileges to be bestowed to the inmates of the permission society.

Government fails when it does not accomplish the purpose for which it was instituted—to secure the inalienable rights of its citizens. In this two part series, we shall look at how the American government over the last century has eroded this confidence in government by not only failing to secure these inalienable rights but which has aggressively abused those rights for its own purposes. Specifically, we shall look at those inalienable rights associated with property which have been greatly abused by a heavy-handed, oppressive government and its supporting bureaucracy.

The inalienable right of property

We begin with a quote from an address by Abraham Lincoln to the New York Workingmen’s Democratic Republican Association.

Property is the fruit of labor. Property is desirable, is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence…I take it that it is best for all to leave each man free to acquire property as fast as he can. Some will get wealthy. I don’t believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good.[3]

Lincoln’s short homily on the value of property as a positive good and an encourager to industry and enterprise is important. Lincoln’s words regarding property are admirable but utilitarian by nature. Those words do not rise to the status of an inalienable right as defined by the Constitution. The inalienable right to have and use one’s property as he desires is more than something with a calculable valuable that can be weighed in the balances against some competing thing.

Richard M. Weaver wrote that, “Almost every trend of the day points to an identification of right with the purpose of the state and that, in turn, with the utilitarian greatest material happiness for the greatest number.” Weaver argues that private property is the last metaphysical right remaining because it does not depend on some measure of social usefulness that can be bent to the greatest good for the greatest number. State control of the material elements of a society positions it to allow the denial of freedom, but private property and personal income stand as a bulwark and provides a “…sanctuary against pagan statism.”[4] The biblical worldview which was the foundation of Western civilization led to boundaries on the power of the state. As a result the power of government to dictate or interfere with private transactions was limited which supported and encouraged economic freedom.[5]

Beginning of the permission society

Prior to 1936, the U.S. Supreme Court held that:

The preservation of property…is a primary object of the social compact…The legislature, therefore, had no authority to make an act divesting one citizen of his freehold, and vesting it in another, without a just compensation. It is inconsistent with the principles of reason, justice and moral rectitude; it is incompatible with the comfort, peace and happiness of mankind; it is contrary to the principles of social alliance in every free government; and lastly, it is contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution.[6]

Beginning in 1936, the Supreme Court’s liberal interpretations of the “general welfare” clause of the Constitution have dramatically enlarged the powers of the federal government and encroached on fundamental property rights through its welfare programs.[7] This liberal interpretation significantly expanded what the legislature could do with regard to providing for the “general welfare” of the United States.

The debate as to the meaning of the “general welfare” clause began with Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton and continues until the present day. Rather than continue the argument, let us evaluate the outcome of the distortion of the meaning of the “general welfare” clause which began in the 1930s. The results of this new liberal interpretation have caused an unprecedented assault on right of private property through:

• Eminent domain laws
• Diminution of the right of contract and obligations thereunder
• Oppressive income and property tax systems
• Onerous limitations on the possession and use of property through regulation[8]

It is in this last area of limitations on the possession and use of private property that the “Please, may I…?” society has evolved and replaced freedom with privileges. This assault on private property occurs through excessive governmental regulation which is fostered by a pervasive humanistic worldview. Humanism is intrinsically socialistic. A socialistic government allows its humanist elite to level society by their attempts to parcel out the greatest material happiness for the greatest number. This is accomplished through an onerous regulatory process which is the skeletal structure of all socialistic governments.[9] One example of this monolithic regulatory umbrella is found in Humanist Manifesto II as it proposes to create an international authority to control the environment and population growth.

…the door is open to alternative economic systems…The world community must engage in cooperative planning concerning the use of rapidly depleting resources. The planet earth must be considered a single ecosystem. Ecological damage, resource depletion, and excessive population growth must be checked by international concord.[10] [emphasis in original]

Yet, at the same time, the Manifesto self-righteously states that, “…bureaucratic structures should be held to a minimum. People are more important than…regulations.” In spite of these platitudes, calls for minimal regulations are disingenuous for humanists know that cooperative planning is code for regulation, and socialistically-oriented societies require massive amounts of regulation.[11]

In both Part I and II of these articles, our discussion is limited to loss of the inalienable right of private property through regulation in which one’s ownership and use of his or her property is no longer an inalienable right but a privilege to be dispensed by government. Such regulation has allowed unjust confiscation of private property without due compensation, limitations on the use of one’s property (which is in effect a taking of private property), and devaluation of private property through regulatory excesses. In Part II, we shall look at the two principal means by which government may regulate the actions of people and the consequences of each. One supports freedom and the other champions privilege.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1]Timothy Sandefur, The Permission Society, (New York, London: Encounter Books, 2016), p. ix.
[2] Ibid.
[3] W. Cleon Skousen, The 5000 Year Leap, (www.nccs.net: National Center for Constitutional Studies, 1981), p. 173.
[4] Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences, (Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 1948), pp. 131, 134-135.
[5] M. Stanton Evans, The Theme Is Freedom, (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 1994), pp. 299-300.
[6] Skousen, The 5000 Year Leap, pp. 173-176.
[7] Ibid., p. 173.
[8] Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism & Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 249.
[9] Ibid., p. 254.
[10] Paul Kurtz, ed., Humanist Manifestos I & II, (Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books, 1973), p. 21.
[11] Johnson, Ye shall be as gods, p. 255.

The Founders’ limitation on direct democracy – Part II – Checks and balances

Posted by :webmaster On : January 13, 2017
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Category: Archives, Constitution, Government

As discussed in Part I, the Founders wished to establish a form of government that would address the abuses inherent in various other forms of government. They chose a democratic republic which they believed would insure the continuing preservation of the new nation. The first great challenge in writing a Constitution for the democratic republic was to create a system of checks and balances between the three branches of government, between the large and small states, and between the national government and the states. In the legislative arena this was accomplished by establishing a bicameral legislature to insure that individual state voices and diverse regional interests would not be overwhelmed, ignored, or trampled upon by larger states and/or coalitions of states. The Founders believed that it was necessary to balance the will of the majority of the population (guarded by the House) with the will of the majority as determined by the states (guarded by the Senate).[1] The creation of a bicameral legislature was an overt action of the Founders to impose a Constitutional limitation on direct democracy. Without such a balancing of power it is doubtful that the Convention would have produced a document acceptable to the representatives of the former colonies. A second overt action of the Founders to impose a Constitutional limitation on democracy was establishment of the Electoral College. The remainder of this article will address this subject.

Why did the Founders establish the Electoral College?

The concern for a system of checks and balances in electing the head of the executive branch of government was also on the minds of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention. When debating the procedure for selecting the president, three methods were proposed and subsequently rejected.

1. Congress would select the President – This proposal was rejected for three reasons. First, it was felt that this method would engender rancorous partisanship that would inhibit future legislative efforts. Second, because Congress was such a small body, there was concern that foreign governments could more easily influence the outcome of an election through bribery and corruption. Lastly, the election of the head of the executive branch of government by the legislative branch would compromise the president’s independence from the legislative branch.
2. State legislatures would select the President – This proposal was rejected because of the fear that the federal republic would be undermined through erosion of federal authority by a president that was too indebted to the states.
3. The President would be elected by a popular national vote – This was rejected “not because the framers distrusted the people but rather because the larger populous states would have much greater influence than the smaller states and therefore the interests of those smaller states could be disregarded or trampled.” A further concern was that a national popular election would encourage regionalism through creation of coalitions among the more populous states which would damage lasting national unity.[2]

To solve the dilemma, the Convention delegates appointed a “Committee of Eleven” to study the problem and propose a viable alternative which resulted in establishment of the Electoral College.[3] Again, this action was the Founders’ second explicit action to impose a Constitutional limitation on direct democracy.

James Madison, a signor of the Constitution and often referred to as its father, wrote:

The Constitution is nicely balanced with the federative and popular principles; the Senate are guardians of the former, and the House of Representatives of the latter; and any attempts to destroy this balance, under whatever specious names or pretenses that may be presented, should be watched with a jealous eye.[4] [emphasis added]

In the election of a president under the Electoral College system, the smaller states receive a slightly greater voice, proportionally speaking, than the larger states. In other words, the Electoral College system tends to slightly over-represent voters in the smaller states, but at the same time adds a measure of protection to those states without the clout to defend their interests from those of much larger states.

How the Electoral College Works

The Electoral College is a process whereby once each four years Americans voting in the Presidential election cast ballots to select which persons that will serve as electors to select the President of the United States. In each state, a candidate for the Presidency has his or her own set of electors that appear on the ballot. These electors are generally chosen by the candidate’s political party within that state. Even though a candidate’s name appears above the list of his or her electors on the election ballot, the voter is actually voting for those electors. The candidate whose electors receive the most votes in a state receive all of that state’s electoral votes except for Nebraska and Maine which award an electoral vote to the winner of the popular vote in each Congressional district within those states.[5]

The number of electoral votes each state has is determined by the number of senators and members of the House Representatives in that state. For example, Oklahoma has seven electors because it has two senators and five representatives. There are 435 members of the House of Representatives and 100 Senators which total 535 electors. The 23rd Amendment to the Constitution gave three electoral votes to the District of Columbia, an amount equal to the least number of electors a state may have. Thus, there are 538 electors. To become the President, a candidate must receive an absolute majority of the electoral votes which is 270.[6] If there is a tie of 269 votes for each candidate, the House of Representatives selects the President from among the top three candidates.[7]

Subsequent to the casting of votes by each state’s electors in December following the election, the governor of each state submits a Certificate of Ascertainment which declares the winning presidential candidate based on the electors’ votes. That Certificate along with each elector’s Certificate of Vote is forwarded to Congress and the National Archives. Each state’s electoral votes are counted in a joint session of Congress on the 6th of January.[8] The newly elected president is sworn in and takes office on January 20.

2016 Presidential Election and the Electoral College

Columnist E. J. Dionne, a member of the Washington Post Writers Group, believes the majority of Americans will be disempowered in 2017 because Hilary Clinton won the popular vote by approximate 2.6 million. However, Donald Trump won the Electoral College vote by a relatively wide margin of 306 to 232 and became the President-Elect. Dionne writes:

The inherent illogic of our practices, and the fact that they have nothing to do with the Founders’ intentions, is underscored by this contradiction: We are supposed to ignore the national popular vote, but deeply respect Trump’s narrow 77,000 popular-vote advantage in three states that will tip the Electoral College his way.[9]

But Dionne is wrong on all three counts. The practices of the Electoral College are very logical when considering that the Founder’s reasons behind it are based on the principles of a republican form of government. Those practices have everything to do with the Founders’ intentions for they specifically rejected the election of the president by popular vote. And we must respect the outworking of the Electoral College, even when it contradicts the popular vote because it balances the federative and popular principles of a republican form of government about which Madison spoke.

Dionne calls the workings of the Electoral College an “outdated system” which will allow the current government to pursue “quite radical policies destined to arouse considerable resistance from the disempowered majority.”[10] But disempowerment has been the protocol of liberals for decades through wrongful interpretation of the Constitution in ways contrary to its plain language and intent of the Founders, through decisions of unelected judges that effectively legislate through their decrees, and a federal bureaucracy that misinterprets and corrupts the laws passed by Congress and thereby undermines the will of the people while pursuing the liberal agenda. Two major examples of this judicial and bureaucratic over-reach are the so-called public “bathroom policies” pushed by the LGBT lobby and the pro-abortion policies of the left which the majority of Americans oppose.

So are both the supposed unfairness of the Electoral College and the wrongdoings of the unelected judiciary and bureaucracy morally equivalent? Absolutely not! The Electoral College is working as the Founders intended. Without the restraining force of the Electoral College, the heavily populated liberal strongholds clinging to the east and west coasts would steamroll the interests of the citizens of a vast majority of states which eventually will become little more than administrative districts used by the federal government to impose the will of the concentrated majority on a powerless minority located in what many consider to be merely “fly over” country. The potential power of these concentrated and growing majorities without the restraining influence of the Electoral College becomes alarmingly clear when examining the following statistics.

• In 2015, nine states accounted for over half the population of the United States (meaning that the remaining forty-one states accounted for the other half).[11] Six of these nine states border the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Ocean, or the Pacific Ocean. The remaining three border the Great Lakes.
• California is the most populous state with slightly over 39,000,000 residents. It requires the populations of twenty-two states having the lowest populations plus the District of Columbia to equal or slightly exceed the population of California.[12]
• The eleven most populous states have 270 electoral votes, enough to elect the president without the need for even one vote from the remaining thirty-nine states and the District of Columbia.[13]
• In the 2016 presidential election, 2,622 counties with mostly smaller populations voted for the Republican nominee while 490 counties with mostly larger populations voted for the Democratic nominee.[14] This large-versus-small county voting split is apparent even in those Democratic states with large population counties that vote Democratic and counties with relatively small populations that vote Republican.

Dionne’s principal argument against the Electoral College process is that it is unfair and inherently antidemocratic because some votes do not have the same proportional impact as other votes which violates the so-called “one-man-one vote” proposition. They contend that one man ought to have one vote proportional to all other votes. But proportional equality in the vote of each citizen was not the intent of the Founders for reasons which we have previously discussed, i.e., balancing both federative and popular principles as opposed to a direct democracy in electing the president which was specifically rejected by the Founders.

Should the nation abandon the Electoral College process for electing the president in favor of a popular vote, several undesirable consequences will occur. Campaigns would tend to ignore individual voters and the important interests of their state and region. Rather, the candidates would conduct an almost continual media campaign aimed at voters in the most populous regions of the country (e.g., the nine states comprising over half the population of the United States). Candidates would heavily invest in electronic media advertising and have little interest in mobilizing constituencies, addressing the interests of specific groups, or voter registration and education. Since the population centers are largely urban which tend to be more liberal, presidential campaigns would focus on and become substantially beholden to liberal interests and brush aside the beliefs and interests of the remainder of the country. Rather than being an illogical, outdated practice as claimed by Dionne, the Electoral College in light of the growing power of the more populous states is more than ever a critical component in preserving the republican form of government and balancing federative and popular principles by which it operates.

Kathleen Parker is also a member of the Washington Post Writers Group. Unlike Dionne who wishes to scrap the Electoral College altogether, Parker wanted to use the Electoral College to deprive Donald Trump of the presidency. In a recent editorial column, Parker encouraged Republican electors to ignore the rules and wishes of the voters in their respective states and not cast their 306 Electoral vote for Donald Trump. Parker hoped that a defection of 37 electors will reduce Trump’s electoral votes to 269, deprive him of the presidency, and send someone else to the Oval Office.[15] Parker wrote:

If there are 37 Republicans among them with the courage to perform their moral duty and protect the nation from a talented but dangerous president-elect, a new history of heroism will have to be written. Please be brave.[16]

In an attempt to support her case, Parker quoted Alexander Hamilton who wrote that the Electoral College

“…affords a moral certainty that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.” Electors would prevent the “tumult and disorder” that would result from the candidate’s exploiting “talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity.”[17]

It’s interesting to note that Parker’s own low intrigue readily ignores over sixty-one million voters who judged Donald Trump as having been endowed with the requisite qualifications for the presidency (at least when compared with Clinton) in favor of a few “brave” Electoral voters who must “perform their moral duty and protect the nation from a talented but dangerous president elect.”

We should not be surprised at Ms. Parker’s audacity for this is the typical mindset of our liberal betters. In their minds they think they know what’s good for the country far better than the voters, and if they could just get rid of that pesky Electoral College thing they would really show the electorate what’s best for them.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] David Barton, “Electoral College: Preserve or Abolish?” Wallbuilder.com. January 2001,
http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=95 (accessed December 12, 2016).
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] “What is the Electoral College?” U.S. Electoral College, National Archives and Records Administration, https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/about.html (accessed December 12, 2016).
[6] Ibid.
[7] David Barton, “Electoral College: Preserve or Abolish?” Wallbuilder.com, January 2001.
[8] “What is the Electoral College?” U.S. Electoral College, National Archives and Records Administration.
[9] E. J. Dionne, “The disempowered majority of 2017,” Tulsa World, December 9, 2016, A-10,
[10] Ibid.
[11] State Population by Rank, 2015, Infoplease.com. http://www.infoplease.com/us/states/population-by-rank.html (accessed December 13, 2016).
[12] Ibid.
[13] “What is the Electoral College?” U.S. Electoral College, National Archives and Records Administration.
[14] Zeke J. Miller and Chris Wilson, “See a Map That Shows Exactly How Donald Trump Won,” Time, December 1, 2016. http://time.com/4587866/donald-trump-election-map/ (accessed December 13, 2016).
[15] Kathleen Parker, “Or will the electors revolt?” Tulsa World, December 10, 2016. A-15
[16] Ibid.
[17] Ibid.

The Founders’ limitation on direct democracy – Part I – Republicanism

Posted by :webmaster On : January 6, 2017
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Category: Archives, Constitution, Government

Republicanism refers to the principles or theory of the republican form of government. It can also mean the principles, practices, or policies of the Republican Party of the United States, but that is not the meaning which will be discussed herein.

When American colonists won independence from the British, the Founding leaders deliberately set about to establish a form of government that would address the deficiencies found in other forms of government and to curb the excesses thereof. After considerable thought, debate, and deliberation, they chose to become a democratic republic. “Republic” refers to public concerns, that is, the general welfare of the public expressed in political terms. A democratic republic is not a totalitarian democracy controlled by one or a few or a direct democracy which is absolutely controlled by the populace.[1] Because the Founders had experienced the excesses of a capricious and excessive use of power by their former rulers, they were particularly interested in a form of government that would limit the use of power by its various components. This limitation was accomplished by a relatively complex system of checks and balances on each component of government at the federal level (Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary) and balancing the needs of a national government with the rights of its member states in their areas of self-governance.

The America form of government was to be a constitutional democracy based on laws as opposed to an absolute democracy based on the direct will of the people. The intricacies and workings of the Americans’ republican form of government are spelled out in the Constitution and Amendments thereto. Russell Kirk in his brilliant description of the American Republic wrote that the Constitution guiding the American political state is but an expression of the “…laws, customs, habits, and popular beliefs that existed before the Constitutional Convention met at Philadelphia.” These laws, customs, habits, and beliefs were derived from and molded by their political experience under colonial rule, the legacy of English law, efforts at governance under the Articles of Confederation, and perhaps most important the general consensus regarding certain moral and social concerns.[2] These moral and social concerns were substantially formed by a Judeo-Christian view of the world and how it worked.

In every age and people group men desire two things: freedom and order. These are inherently conflicting needs which are found within the operation of governments as well as in the personal affairs of men. The task of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention was to create a government which would harness these conflicting needs.

The Convention delegates had a great aversion to direct democracies which they saw as resting on the shifting sands of feelings and passions of the moment. Instead they chose the firm foundation of a democratic republic built upon laws created by elected representatives.

With unambiguous language, the Convention delegates and other Founders expressed their deep distrust of direct democracy. The following examples were assembled by David Barton in “Republic v. Democracy.”[3]

[D]emocracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. [James Madison]

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. [John Adams]

A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption and carry desolation in their way…The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness (excessive license) which the ambitious call, and ignorant believe to be liberty. [Fisher Ames, Author of the House Language for the First Amendment]

We have seen the tumult of democracy terminate . . . as [it has] everywhere terminated, in despotism…Democracy! savage and wild. Thou who wouldst bring down the virtuous and wise to thy level of folly and guilt. [Gouverneur Morris, Signer and Penman of the Constitution]

[T]he experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived. [John Quincy Adams]

A simple democracy…is one of the greatest of evils. [Benjamin Rush, Signer of the Declaration]

In democracy…there are commonly tumults and disorders…Therefore a pure democracy is generally a very bad government. It is often the most tyrannical government on earth. [Noah Webster]

Pure democracy cannot subsist long nor be carried far into the departments of state; it is very subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage. [John Witherspoon, Signer of the Declaration]

It may generally be remarked that the more a government resembles a pure democracy the more they abound with disorder and confusion. [Zephaniah Swift, Author of America’s First Legal Text]

Unfortunately, many Americans today seem to be unable to distinguish the significant differences between a republic and a democracy. The principal difference is found in the source of authority to which each defers. A pure democracy operates by a majority vote and reflects the immediate will of the majority whereas a republic operates under the rule of law. The first reflects the majority of popular feelings of the moment (sometimes called a “mobocracy” by the Founders) and the second rests on the laws discussed and passed after thoughtful deliberation by the elected representatives of the people. In a republic, a constitution protects certain inalienable rights that cannot be taken away by the government even it was elected by a majority of voters. In a direct or pure or direct democracy, the majority is not restrained and can force its will on the minority.

However, it would be wrong to suppose that all laws passed by a republican form of government are just. There is one additional requirement necessary to create an enduring republic attentive to the general welfare of the people. The laws passed by a republic’s elected representatives are only as good as the sources upon which they based the laws. Here we transcend into the realm of truth, and it is the conflict about what constitutes truth that we find the root cause of the culture wars in modern America. The importance of this issue is of the first magnitude for laws based on untruths and false views of the world and the nature of man will eventually cause any system of government to fail including both republics and democracies.

John Adams was just one of many Founders and first generation of Americans who identified the singular source of truth for the principles of civil government.

The highest glory of the American Revolution was this; it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity…From the day of the Declaration…they (the American people), were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of their Gospel, which they nearly all, acknowledge as the rules of conduct.[4] [emphasis added]

Likewise, Noah Webster unequivocally identified the source of truth for the republican principles upon which the nation was founded.

The brief exposition of the constitution of the United States will unfold to young persons the principles of republican government; and it is the sincere desire of the writer that our citizens should early understand that the genuine source of correct republican principles is the Bible, particularly the New Testament, or the Christian religion.[5] [emphasis added]

However, the acid of Enlightenment egalitarianism promoted by a liberal, progressive, relativistic, materialist society is ever eating away Adams’ indissoluble bond between the principles of civil government and the principles of Christianity.

One such acid promoted by the liberals is the notion that the Constitution is a “living document.” Beginning in the early twentieth century, liberals contended that the Constitution must be modified or bent to address the modern age and problems never foreseen by the Founders. If, as liberals believe, the Constitution is a living document, then its meaning and intent is pliable which allows it to become an instrument for enlightened social change to meet the needs of the hour.

A second liberal acid that threatens republican principles is decades of significant judicial activism by liberal judges usurping the role of the legislature by making law as opposed to a thoughtful judicial interpretation of the law in light of the plain language of the Constitution. Such judicial law making tosses aside republican principles of creating law by elected representatives in favor of laws made by unelected and unaccountable judges to further the goals of an elite cadre of social engineers who “know best” what’s good for America.

A third acid that undermines republican principles is an abusive and adversarial bureaucracy largely insulated and unaccountable to the legislative bodies. Regulatory oversight is a necessary and proper function of government. However, under the expansive interpretation of the Constitution’s general welfare clause beginning in 1936, much of regulatory oversight has become an autocratic function of a nanny-state bureaucracy intruding into the lives of a free people capable of making rational decisions without government interference.[6]

In summary, republican principles of government as implanted in the Constitution by the Founders have been muted, ignored, or misinterpreted by liberal maneuverings and intrigues. We have become a nation guided by feelings relative only to the moment. Therefore, human nature, through its passions, appetites, and desires of the moment, is released from the prescriptions of history, custom, convention, and tradition. This was not the intent of the Founders. Their true intent mirrored the beliefs of Thomas Jefferson who Sherwood Eddy described as being one who “… stood for a strict interpretation of the conservative Constitution to prevent ever-threatened encroachments upon the rights of the people, the legislature, and the states.”[7] In other words, Jefferson was an “originalist” and would have only contempt for the concept of a “living Constitution.”

Because of the unrelenting assault on the biblical worldview for three generations and a lack of truthful teaching in our schools about America’s founding republican principles, America is seeing a shift by a growing segment of its citizens to a humanistic worldview devoid of belief in a transcendent God, objective truth, and the fallen nature of man. The consequences of such a shift in the America cultural vision were foreseen by our Founding fathers.

The only foundation for…a republic is to be laid in religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.[8] [Benjamin Rush – Signor of the Declaration of Independence, attendee at the Continental Congress, physician and first Surgeon General]

Without morals, a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion…are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments.[9] [Charles Carroll – Signor of the Declaration of Independence, lawyer, member of the Continental Congress and first U.S. Senate]

We have no government armed in power capable of contending in human passions unbridled by morality and religion…Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.[10] [John Adams – One of the drafters and a signor of the Declaration of Independence, 2nd President of the United States]

In summary, the Constitution won’t save America if its citizens abandon republican principles of government which must be inseparably entwined with virtue, morality, and Christian principles. Such abandonment leaves the Constitution powerless to guide the nation as it enters the turbulent waters of the humanistic moral relativism of Enlightenment egalitarianism. And the ultimate consequence of this abandonment is a loss of liberty.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Russell Kirk, The Roots of American Order, (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway, 1991), p. 415.
[2] Ibid., p. 416.
[3] David Barton, “Republic v. Democracy,” Wallbuilders.com. January 2001.
http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=111 (accessed December 13, 2016).
[4] William J. Federer, America’s God and Country, (Coppell, Texas: FAME Publishing, Inc., 1996, 1994), p. 18.
[5] Ibid., p. 678.
[6] Larry G. Johnson, “The fragility of free speech in America,” culturewarrior.net, March 21, 2014. http://www.culturewarrior.net/2014/03/21/the-fragility-of-free-speech-in-america/
[7] Sherwood Eddy, The Kingdom of God and the American Dream, (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1941), p. 124
[8] Benjamin Rush, Essays, Literary, Moral & Philosophical, (Philadelphia: Thomas and Samuel F. Bradford, 1798), 93. Online source: http://fromthisconservativesviewpoint.blogspot.Com /2013/01/the-only-foundation-for-republic.html (accessed May 9, 2013).
[9] “Letter of Charles Carroll to James McHenry,” dated November 4, 1800. Bernard C. Steiner, The Life and Correspondence of James McHenry, (Cleveland: The Burrows Brothers, 1907, 475.
Online source: Quoted by Dave Miller, Ph.D., Apologetics Press. http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=7&article=1508 (accessed May 9, 2013).
[10] Federer, America’s God and Country, pp. 10-11.

America’s “Gray-suited bureaucrats”- Part II

Posted by :webmaster On : October 28, 2016
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Category: America, Archives, Constitution, Government

As described in Part I, most Americans believe they have been stripped of most of their Constitutionally-mandated freedoms and are being controlled by a vast army of gray-suited governmental officials and bureaucrats who are no longer responsive to the will and wishes of the people.

Three principal culprits were identified in the marginalization of the American electorate in the governing process. First, the modern judiciary has crossed the line of its Constitutionally-mandated powers by creating legislation as opposed to interpreting the law. These court-created laws are wrongly assumed to be the law of the land. Second, overreach of the Executive branch has ignored or violated the Constitution through disregard of Constitutional limits on executive powers, selective enforcement and/or bureaucratic changes to laws enacted by Congress, and circumvention of the powers of the legislative branch through issuance of illegitimate executive orders. Third, there has developed an autocratic, rapacious nanny-state bureaucracy whose regulatory oversight intrudes into minutest areas of the lives of a free people capable of making rational decisions without government interference. This massive, heavy-handed, and adversarial bureaucracy has become largely unaccountable to Congress and the American people.

The Road to Serfdom

F. A. Hayek in his seminal work titled The Road to Serfdom written during World War II addresses the question of how democracies that begin with limitations on the power of their elected officials can succumb to the exercise of arbitrary power of the few.

There is no justification for the belief that, so long as power is conferred by democratic procedure, it cannot be arbitrary…it is not the source but the limitation of power which prevents it from being arbitrary…If democracy resolves on a task which necessarily involves the use of power which cannot be guided by fixed rules, it must become arbitrary power.[1] [emphasis added]

The American Founders’ Constitution fixed the rules by which the Republic was to be governed. However, in spite of the intent of the Founders when writing the Constitution, the popular liberal mantra for most of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century is that the Constitution is a “living document” that must be modified or bent to address the modern age and problems never foreseen by the Founders. By living document, the Constitutional liberals believe that its meaning and intent should be an instrument for enlightened social change to meet the needs of the hour. The liberals’ living document has become an arbitrary document in which the few impose their will on the majority. But Thomas Jefferson cautioned against such liberalism regarding the Constitution.

On every question of construction [let us] carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.[2]

On June 23, 2016, the British people cast off forty-plus years of rule by the European Union, a super-state conglomeration of twenty eight nations that had surrendered much of their sovereignty to an unelected bureaucracy headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. Ignoring the advice, warnings, and propaganda of politicians, cultural elites, and others with a vested interest in the status quo, the British voters asked themselves one fundamental but simple question, “Do we want an undemocratic authority ruling our lives, or would we rather regain control over our destiny?” The question the Brits asked is the question Americans must also ask and answer quickly before the loss of freedom is irreversible.

Hillary Clinton has given her answer, and it is on the side of an undemocratic authority to rule American lives. In a May 2013 paid speech allegedly delivered to Banco Itau, a large Brazilian bank, Clinton said:

My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders, some time in the future with energy that is as green and sustainable as we can get it, powering growth and opportunity for every person in the hemisphere.[3] [emphasis added]

For Americans, the process of repairing nearly two centuries of humanistic erosion of the biblical foundations upon which the nation was built is far more difficult than the single ballot box victory achieved by the British people. The unelected and unresponsive British task masters operated from the outside—from the headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, and its various outposts throughout the EU. America’s wayward overseers are home-grown humanistic oligarchs entrenched in the nation’s governing fabric and headed by the likes of Hilary Clinton.

That America’s governing elite would eventually succumb to lure of power and position to the detriment of the people being governed would be no surprise to the Founders. Daniel Webster recognized the love of power within the hearts of men was a constant threat to liberty.

Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of power. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions…There are men, in all ages…who mean to govern well; but they mean to govern. They promise to be kind masters; but they mean to be masters…They think that there need be but little restraint upon themselves. Their notion of the public interest is apt to be quite closely connected with their own exercise of authority…The love of power may sink too deep in their own hearts even for their own scrutiny…[4] [emphasis added]

How can Americans recover their freedoms when their leaders ignore or pervert the original meaning of the Constitution?

For Americans to recover their freedoms from the reigning government by the few (i.e., oligarchy), they must revisit the Constitution to once again fix the rules by which their representatives are to govern. Fortunately, the Founders held the biblical understanding of the fallen nature of man and wisely made provision in the Constitution to rein in a wayward government led by wayward men and women who have strayed from the meaning of Constitution as intended by the Founders. That provision was made in Article V.

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress…[5]

The Convention of States Project was founded by Citizens for Self Governance for the purpose of stopping the increasing abuse of power by the federal government. They believe the governing process in Washington, D.C. is broken because of the growing massive debt incurred by the government and the seizing of power from the states.[6] The following is the stated goal of the Convention of States Project:

…to urge and empower state legislators to call a convention of states. The delegates at such a convention would have the power to propose amendments to the Constitution that would curb the abuses of the federal government. Article V of the Constitution gives them this power; the COS Project will give them an avenue through which they can use it.[7]

Rather than proposing a specific amendment, the COS Project is calling for a convention under Article V of the Constitution for a specific subject which is the limitation of the power and jurisdiction of the federal government.[8] [emphasis added] The COS Project has identified four major areas of abuse by the federal government which are the subjects to be addressed by a Convention of States.

• The Spending and Debt Crisis
• The Regulatory Crisis
• Congressional Attacks on State Sovereignty
• Federal Takeover of the Decision-Making Process[9]

To call a Convention of States under Article V of the Constitution, the legislatures of two-thirds of the states (34) must pass a resolution called an “application” calling for a Convention of States. The applications must request a Convention of the States for the same subject matter. In the COS Project, the subject matter is the limitation of the power and jurisdiction of the federal government. The applications are delivered to Congress. The business of the convention is to propose amendments to the Constitution related to the specific subjects agreed upon by the states.[10]

Commissioners from each state propose, discuss, and vote on amendments to the Constitution. All amendments at the convention must pass by a simple majority of those states at the convention. The approved amendments will be sent back to the states for ratification. Each state has one vote at the Convention regardless of the number of commissioners sent by that state. A state’s vote is on the amendment to be sent to the states will be determined by a majority of the voting commissioners in a state’s caucus. Three-fourths of the states (38) must ratify any proposed amendments. Once states ratify, the amendments become part of the Constitution.[11]

Generally, Congress designates the state legislatures as the ratifying body. However, Congress may choose to have the states call ratifying conventions whereby an election would be held in each state to allow the electorate to choose delegates to the ratifying conventions.[12]

A Constitutional purist, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was one of the most articulate and clear thinking justices of modern times. Scalia was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1986 by President Reagan and served on the Court until his death in February 2016. In 1979 Scalia was a law professor at the University of Chicago when he participated in panel discussion on Article V conducted by the American Enterprise Institute. His remarks at the panel discussion captured the heart of the importance of and need for a Convention of States.

We have come a long way. We have gotten over many problems. But the fact remains that a widespread and deep feeling of powerlessness in the country is apparent with respect to many issues, not just the budget issue. The people do not feel that their wishes are observed. They are heard but they are not heeded, particularly at the federal level. The Congress has come up with a lot of palliatives—the legislative veto, for example-which do not solve the problem at all. Part of the problem as I have noted is simply that the Congress has become professionalized; its members have a greater interest than ever before in remaining in office; and it is served by a bureaucracy and is much more subject to the power of individualized pressure groups than to the unorganized feelings of the majority of the citizens. This and other factors have created a real feeling of disenfranchisement that I think has a proper basis. The one remedy specifically provided for in the Constitution is the amendment process that bypasses the Congress.[13]

These feelings of powerlessness and disenfranchisement arise because the processes of a huge and complex government have usurped the power of the people to govern themselves. Thomas Jefferson recognized the inability of man to restrain his innate lust for power. His solution was also found in the Constitution. “The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.”[14] Article V is an integral link in that chain.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, Bruce Caldwell, ed., (Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1944, 2007), p. 111.
[2] David Barton, Original Intent – The Courts, the Constitution, & Religion, (Aledo, Texas: Wallbuilder Press, 2008), p. 28.
[3] Frank Camp, “WikiLeaks strikes again: Clinton Allegedly Praised ‘Open Borders’ in Paid Speech to Foreign Bank,” The Daily Caller, October 8, 2016. http://www.dailywire.com/news/9802/wikileaks-strikes-again-clinton-allegedly-praised-frank-camp (accessed October 12, 2016).
[4] Daniel Webster, Speech delivered at Niblo’s Saloon in New York, March 15, 1837, (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1837), p. 17 from Archives.org. https://archive.org/details/speechdeliveredb01webs (accessed October 25, 2016).
[5] Article V, The Constitution of the United States.
[6] Media/About/News, Convention of States. http://www.conventionofstates.com/about (accessed October 12, 2016).
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Learn – The Problem, Convention of States. http://www.conventionofstates.com/faq (accessed October 12, 2016).
[10] Learn – The Solution, Convention of States. http://www.conventionofstates.com/faq (accessed October 12, 2016).
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Learn – Frequently Asked Questions, Convention of States. http://www.conventionofstates.com/faq (accessed October 12, 2016).
[14] Thomas Jefferson, “Two enemies of the people are criminals and government…” Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Inc. (US), https://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/two-enemies-people-are-criminals-and-governmentquotation (accessed October 25, 2016).
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America’s “Gray-suited bureaucrats”- Part I

Posted by :webmaster On : October 21, 2016
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Category: America, Archives, Constitution, Government

On June 23, 2016, the British People throughout the United Kingdom voted to end forty plus years of membership in the European Union. As one writer put it, many Britons felt forsaken by the country’s political and cultural leadership. Many believed that their lives were controlled by “gray-suited Brussels bureaucrats” at the EU’s headquarters.”[1]

Many Americans and possibly a large majority feel they, too, are being controlled by a vast army of gray-suited governmental officials and bureaucrats who are no longer responsive to the will and wishes of a majority of the people. There are three principal culprits in the marginalization of the American electorate in the governing process.

Judiciary

The problem with the modern judiciary is that it has crossed the line of its Constitutionally-mandated powers by creating legislation as opposed to interpreting the law. In the first eight decades following the writing of the Constitution in 1787, the Supreme Court ruled only twice that a law created by Congress was unconstitutional, and both times the ruling was ignored by Congress and the President.

In Marbury v. Madison, President Jefferson rejected the belief that the Judiciary was the final voice and described the damage to the Constitution of a contrary opinion.

[O]ur Constitution…has given – according to this opinion – to one of them alone the right to prescribe rules for the government of the others; and to that one, too, which is unelected by and independent of the nation…The Constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the Judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please.[2] [emphasis added]

Sixty-two years later, Abraham Lincoln and the Congress ignored the ruling of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case. Not only was the ruling ignored but directly disobeyed. On June 9, 1862, Congress prohibited the extension of slavery into free territories and in 1863 Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation ending slavery throughout the nation.[3] Several of Abraham Lincoln’s remarks in his first Inaugural Address were prompted by the Dred Scott decision.

I do not forget the position assumed by some that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court…At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made…the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having…resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.[4] [emphasis added]

Contrary to popular belief, the Supreme Court does not make its ruling the “law of the land.” In defending his veto of legislation passed by Congress and deemed Constitutional by the Supreme Court, President Andrew Jackson made a noteworthy description of the duties of the three branches of government with regard to interpreting the Constitution.

The Congress, the Executive, and the Court must each for itself be guided by its own opinion of the Constitution. Each public officer who takes an oath to support the Constitution swears that he will support it as he understands it, and not as it is understood by others…The opinion of the judges has no more authority over Congress than the opinion of Congress has over the judges, and on that point the President is independent of both.[5]

Irrespective of words of Jefferson, Jackson, and Lincoln, the modern judiciary in the age of the “living” Constitution has made it increasingly pliable in order to accommodate the humanistic worldview and philosophies of society’s elites and overseers in order to impose their socially-engineered laws and regulations which stand in opposition to the popular will and wishes of the people and their mores, norms, traditions, and voices of the past.

Executive Branch

The rule of law implies that governmental authority (power) is limited and may only be exercised in accordance with written laws adopted through an established procedure. When elected or appointed officials and bureaucrats exercise power beyond the limits established by the law, it is called abuse.

The brazen overreach of the Executive Branch under the Obama administration has occurred through the disregard of Constitutional limits on executive powers and may be unparalleled in American history. In addition to scorning the rebukes by the Supreme Court for his un-Constitutional executive actions, the President has violated his Constitutional duty to faithfully execute the laws through his selective enforcement and/or changes to laws enacted by Congress. Additionally, the administration has regularly circumvented the powers of the legislative branch through the issuance of illegitimate executive orders to accomplish what Congress would not approve and to frustrate implementation of legislation that Congress has approved.[6]

The two pillars of Barack Obama’s crumbling legacy are Obamacare and the American foreign policy of disengagement marked by diplomacy and multilateralism.[7] But perhaps Barack Obama’s presidency will be most remembered for his above-the-law actions in the Executive Branch and the attendant widespread lawlessness at all levels of the federal government under his administration.

Unelected bureaucracy

Regardless of President Obama’s involvement in or prior knowledge of the various scandals that have been endemic throughout his administration, his arrogant example sent the message that his decrees and agenda were superior to the laws of the land. Although an abusive bureaucracy was not the invention of President Obama, he has dramatically accelerated the level of abuse.

Regulatory oversight is a necessary and proper function of government. However, under the expansive interpretation of the Constitution’s general welfare clause beginning in 1936, much of regulatory oversight has become an autocratic function of a nanny-state bureaucracy intruding into the lives of a free people capable of making rational decisions without government interference.[8] The burden and cost of regulations on average Americans and businesses is staggering. To give insight into the massive size of the federal bureaucracy we look to Title 27 of the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations. This is the U.S. Tax Code which contains 16,845 pages including the part written by Congress. It is available for purchase from the U.S. Government Printing office for $1,153. However, the U.S. Tax Code is just one of 50 titles found in the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, each of which contains one or more individual volumes, which are updated once each calendar year, on a staggered basis.[9] To these we add a multitude of state, county, city, and other regulatory entities’ rules and regulations.

In recent years there has been a frightening new adversarial mutation to the once overbearing but benign American governmental bureaucracy. The most recent scandals at the IRS and Departments of State, Justice, and Health and Human Services have exposed the dark underbelly of the rapacious bureaucratic monster. The goal of these agencies and bureaucracies is self-perpetuation which is accomplished by aiding those in power that are most friendly to their continued existence, financial health, and growth. A recent op-ed piece written by John Brock reveals how this symbiotic system works.

Government agencies are extorting billions of dollars from companies they regulate to the extent they are becoming independent of congressional appropriations and congressional oversight. For example, a Tulsa manufacturing firm was recently notified by the Environmental protection agency that a report was late. The company’s government consultant informed the company that previously such an error would have resulted in a $10,000 fine. The fine this time was $300,000. However, if the company would agree not to appeal through courts, the EPA would reduce the fine to $200,000. That is about the legal cost of an appeal. The delinquent report was that “there is nothing to report.” Early on regulators required a report only if there was a rule violation.

Most think that fines and penalties assessed by regulators go into the Treasury. Not so. The agency gets to keep the money, which it uses for bonuses to employees, employee parties, hiring more employees and buying equipment. For example, in the last eight years most agencies, using funds acquired from fines, have created their own police departments in lieu of using federal marshals. There are now more agency police than there are Marines in the U.S. Marine Corp. This extortion happens every day and all over the country and is increasing.[10]

In a 2008 speech, presidential candidate Barack Obama said that, “We cannot continue to rely only on our military. “We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.” Where is this civilian national security force? It is housed in over seventy agencies according to a 2012 report and includes such agencies as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration which has an enforcement division manned by 191 employees and a budget of $65 million. Also, these agencies are often called on to conduct joint enforcement operations. And to whom do these seventy agencies ultimately report? That’s right, the president.[11]
______

It is time for the states, Congress, and the American people to reign in the excesses of the Judiciary and Executive branch of government that has undermined Constitutional balanced of powers as designed by Madison and the Founders during the Constitutional Convention. Can there be a Brexit for America to shut down these gray-suited bureaucrats who are threatening the freedom of ordinary Americans? No, but there is a Constitutional solution. More on that in Part II.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Amanda Taub, “Brexit, explained: 7 Questions About What It Means and Why It Matters,” The New York Times, June 23, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/21/world/europe/brexit-britain-eu-explained.html?_r=0 (accessed October 5, 2016).
[2] David Barton, Original Intent, (Alledo, Texas: Wallbuider Press, 2008), p. 271. Quoting: Thomas Jefferson, Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Albert Ellery Bergh, ed., (Washington, DC: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), Vol. XV, p. 213, to Spencer Roane, September 6, 1819.
[3] Ibid. p. 272.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Larry G. Johnson, “The end of sustainable government,” CultureWarrior.net, August 15, 2014. http://www.culturewarrior.net/2014/08/15/the-end-of-sustainable-government/
[7] Charles Krauthammer, “The Stillborn Legacy of Barak Obama,” The Patriot Post, October 7, 2016. https://patriotpost.us/opinion/45242 (accessed October 10, 2016).
[8] Larry G. Johnson, “The fragility of free speech in America,” CultureWarrior.net, March 21,2014. http://www.culturewarrior.net/2014/03/21/the-fragility-of-free-speech-in-america/
[9] “What is the Real Size of the U.S. Federal Tax Code,” Isaac Brock Society, February 12, 2012. http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2012/02/12/what-is-the-real-size-of-the-u-s-federal-tax-code/ (accessed April 9, 2014).
[10] John Brock, “Citizens deliver a vote of no confidence,” Tulsa World, July 15, 2016, A-9.
[11] “Beware the increasing militarization of government,” Investor’s Business Daily, April 16, 2014. http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/many-federal-agencies-have-armed-divisions/ (accessed October 10, 2016).

No war on Christianity? Count the casualties and read history.

Posted by :webmaster On : July 3, 2015
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Constitution

On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler became the democratically elected chancellor of Germany. Almost immediately Herman Goring began reordering society along National Socialists (Nazi) lines. By fall of that year the Jewish community would understand the full scope of what Goring called “merely an administrative change.” Jewish businesses were boycotted. Jews could not hold civil service jobs or be patent lawyers, and doctors, dentists, and dental technicians were not allowed to practice in hospitals or offices connected with state-run insurance. Anti-Jewish laws were expanded to include university professors and lecturers. By October Jews were banned from journalism and all entertainment and cultural activities including literature, the arts, theater, and film.[1]

Given hindsight, Tulsa World associate editor Mike Jones (“War talk”)[2] would probably consider these actions a war on Judaism. However, Jones insists there is not a war on Christianity in spite of a vast amount of media coverage reporting similar restrictions on Christians throughout America because their beliefs and practices of their faith.

Christian-owned business are being boycotted, fined, and/or driven out of business because of their owners’ faith. Because of their Christian beliefs, university students have been expelled or blocked from entering certain professions, professors have been denied jobs or promotions, health care professionals are being fired, public employees are being fired, media professionals have been fired or denied jobs, and military chaplains are being demoted or dismissed from the armed services. Pastors have been threatened with criminal prosecution because of the content of their sermons. The political and cultural parallels of the assault on Judaism in 1933 Germany and Christianity in 2015 America are exact and undeniable. And these attacks on Christians and their faith are not just isolated incidents but are occurring by the thousands in every sphere of American life.

Jones labels the alleged war on Christianity as merely a vote-getting ploy and that “those who insist on the Founders’ Christianity are sorely unaware of history or have simply chosen to ignore it.” According to Jones, only a handful of the Founders were really followers of the Christian faith and only one of the seven key Founders was an orthodox Christian. Jones claims the others were deists who did not believed in a providential God but a God that did not meddle in the affairs of men.[3] Were they really deists? The Founders’ own words expose the falseness of the allegations of their deism.

George Washington: “The hand of providence has been so conspicuous in all this (the course of the war) that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith…”[4] James Madison: “It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of revolution.”[5] Benjamin Franklin speaking during the Continental Convention: “…the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth—that God Governs in the affairs of men.”[6] Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence: “And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”[7] John Adams proclaiming a national day of fasting spoke of, “…of a deep sense and due acknowledgement of the growing providence of a Supreme Being…”[8]

What “providence” meant to the Founders was “Foresight, timely care; particularly active foresight…the care and superintendence which God exercises over his creatures.”[9]

Jones implies that the war on Christianity is nothing more than standing up for the rights of all Americans and quotes Washington to justify his views.

If I could conceive that the general government might ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you will be persuaded that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution.[10]

Rather than supporting Jones’ contention that there is no war on Christianity in America, Washington’s words condemn those whom Jones’ attempts to defend and are a perfect descriptor of a government in league with the spiritual tyranny of the religion of humanism which seeks to render the Christians’ liberty of conscience insecure. Humanism has become the de facto official religion of the nation at whose altar all other faiths must bow.

Jones’ article fails on two counts. There is a fanatical war on Christianity in America, and no amount of historical revisionism will demolish the indisputable Christian foundations of this nation.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer, (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2010), pp. 156, 160.
[2] Mike Jones, “War talk,” Tulsa World, May 31, 2015, G-1.
[3] Ibid.
[4] William J. Federer, America’s God and Country, (Coppell, Texas: Fame Publishing, Inc., 1996), p. 643.
[5] W. Cleon Skousen, The 5000 Year Leap, www.nccs.net: National Center for Constitutional Studies, 1981, p. iii.
[6] Federer, p. 248.
[7] Ibid., p. 200.
[8] Sherwood Eddy, The Kingdom of God and the American Dream, (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1941), p. 77.
[9] Noah Webster, “providence,” American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828, Facsimile Edition, (San Francisco, California: Foundation for American Christian Education, 1995).
[10] Jones.

Would Jefferson label the modern Judiciary as the “Despotic Branch”?

Posted by :webmaster On : May 22, 2015
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Category: America, Archives, Constitution, Government

George Will is one of the brightest and most articulate columnists on the national scene (Washington Post Writers Group). I normally savor every one of his appearances on the opinion page. This is why I am disturbed by Will’s false and malicious criticism of presidential candidate Mike Huckabee (“Huckabee’s ‘appalling’ crusade for nullification”).[1] Will is a huge fan and student of baseball and occasionally writes a column on the subject. Using a baseball analogy, Will must know that his column’s pitches at Huckabee were not only far outside the strike zone but that they were intended as bean balls meant to injure and harm Huckabee. This disappoints because Will has not lowered himself to such levels in past columns that I have read.

Will claims to be “appalled” by Huckabee’s recent remarks that deal with the question of judicial error and overreach with regard to the Constitution, an issue that also concerns a great number of Americans. Will takes Huckabee to task for rejecting “judicial supremacy” and suggesting that a ruling by the Supreme Court does not make its ruling the “law of the land.” In doing so, Will incorrectly links Huckabee’s remarks with the pre-Civil War doctrine of nullification which arose in 1830 during Andrew Jackson’s presidency.

The doctrine of nullification evolved from resolutions initially adopted by the South Carolina legislature in December 1828 and which opposed certain tariffs imposed by the federal government. In opposition to President Jackson with regard to the tariffs, Vice President John Calhoun authored a lengthy essay on state government which supported the Southern position of state sovereignty and minority rights. According to the doctrine of nullification, individual states did not have to follow a federal law and in effect could “nullify” the law. By 1830, the nullification debate had evolved to the larger questions of origin and nature of the Constitution. Massachusetts senator Daniel Webster defended the federal position by “…attempting to show that the Constitution was not the result of a compact, but was established as a popular government with a distribution of powers binding upon the national government and the states.”[2]

It is misleading for Will to accuse Huckabee of crusading for nullification of federal laws at will because the Constitution was merely the product of a compact. Huckabee’s concern is with modern judicial efforts to create legislation as opposed to interpreting the law. What is interesting and lends authority to Huckabee’s position on interpreting the Constitution is Andrew Jackson’s response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s view of the constitutionality of a re-charter of the 2nd Bank of the U.S. Although the Supreme Court viewed the legislation passed by Congress as constitutional, Jackson did not and vetoed the legislation. The bank charter debate became the major issue of the 1832 presidential campaign.[3] In defending his veto, Jackson made a noteworthy description of the duties of the three branches of government with regard to interpreting the Constitution.

The Congress, the Executive, and the Court must each for itself be guided by its own opinion of the Constitution. Each public officer who takes an oath to support the Constitution swears that he will support it as he understands it, and not as it is understood by others…The opinion of the judges has no more authority over Congress than the opinion of Congress has over the judges, and on that point the President is independent of both.[4]

In the first seven decades following the writing of the Constitution in 1787, the Supreme Court ruled only twice that a law created by Congress was unconstitutional, and both times the ruling was ignored by Congress and the President.

Marbury v. Madison

In the last hours of the presidency of John Adams, he made several Federalist judicial appointments in the District of Columbia in an attempt to further load the bench with Federalist appointees. Under President Adams, John Marshall was both Adams’ Secretary of State and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. As Secretary of State, it was Marshall’s duty to deliver President Adams’ legally executed appointments, but he failed to do so. When James Madison became Secretary of State under newly elected President Thomas Jefferson, the president refused to have the appointments delivered. The disappointed appointees sued, and in Marbury v. Madison (1803), Chief Justice Marshall and the Supreme Court at first ruled that the Court had no judicial authority over the case. Then with a surprisingly contradictory action, the Chief Justice ruled that President Jefferson should deliver the appointments. Jefferson and Madison ignored the ruling and received virtually no condemnation voiced by Congress, the Supreme Court, or the public. Jefferson called the Court’s attempt to interfere with the business of the Executive decision a “perversion of the law” by attempting to strike down the Judiciary Act of 1789 in which on two occasions the Supreme Court had found no objection or fault.[5]

Nineteen years later, Jefferson affirmed the general view of the Founders that any of the three branches could interpret the Constitution.

[E]ach of the three departments has equally the right to decide for itself what is its duty under the Constitution without any regard to what the others may have decided for themselves under a similar question.[6]

Jefferson specifically rejected the belief that the Judiciary was the final voice and described the damage to the Constitution of a contrary opinion.

[O]ur Constitution…has given – according to this opinion – to one of them alone the right to prescribe rules for the government of the others; and to that one, too, which is unelected by and independent of the nation…The Constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the Judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please.[7] [emphasis added]

Jefferson and the other Founders would be greatly alarmed with the modern view of the Judiciary that it may prescribe rules for the other branches of Government.

Dred Scott v. Sanford

Dred Scott was a Negro slave, a household servant for Dr. John Emerson who had taken Scott to various areas in the North where slavery was prohibited. Scott eventually sued for his liberty in Missouri courts and maintained that he was free because of his stays in a free state and a free territory. In March 1857, the Supreme Court ruled (Dred Scott v. Sanford) that Scott (and all other slaves) was not a citizen of the U.S. or the state of Missouri and therefore not entitled to sue in the federal courts. For Scott and all other slaves, the effect of the ruling reinforced the status quo of slavery and made it impossible for slaves to gain their freedom through the courts or legislation.[8] Effectively, the Supreme Court had declared that Congress could not outlaw slavery and that slaves were not citizens but property.

Several of Abraham Lincoln’s remarks in his first Inaugural Address were prompted by the Dred Scott decision.

I do not forget the position assumed by some that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court…At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made…the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having…resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.[9] [emphasis added]

Like Jefferson’s response to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Marbury v. Madison sixty two years earlier, both Lincoln and the Congress ignored the ruling of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case. Not only was the ruling ignored but directly disobeyed. On June 9, 1862, Congress prohibited the extension of slavery into free territories and in 1863 Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation ending slavery.[10]

Jefferson, writing to Abigail Adams in 1804, said of the Supreme Court, “[T]he opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action, but for the Legislature and executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch.”[11] [emphasis added] But this is what the Supreme Court has become in 2015 America. Thoughtful judicial interpretation of laws in light of the Constitution is the courts’ proper role. But through judicial activism by liberal judges usurping the role of the legislature in making laws, the courts have appropriated unto themselves a law-making role never intended by the Founders and breaches the coveted separation of powers.

Will is not only incorrect in his spurious charge that Huckabee was crusading for nullification, he crudely disparages Huckabee’s Christian faith because of his call for prayer for the Supreme Court justices considering the fate of same-sex marriage (See: 1 Timothy 2:1-2). He also belittles Huckabee’s well-founded concern that the nation is moving toward the criminalization of Christianity which is amply demonstrated by the growing trend of the judiciary and bureaucracy to punish Christians for practicing their faith.

In the age of the “living” Constitution, the Judiciary has made it pliable in order to accommodate the whims of a humanistic society unhooked from mores, norms, traditions, and voices of the past. In Jefferson’s words such a Constitution becomes, “…a mere thing of wax in the hands of the Judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please.” Combining the words of Jefferson and Lincoln, such a Judiciary would become a “despotic branch” and “the people will have ceased to be their own rulers.”

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] George Will, Huckabee’s ‘appalling’ crusade for nullification,” Tulsa World, May 15, 2015, A-15.
[2] Richard B. Morris, ed., Encyclopedia of American History, (New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1953), pp.167-168.
[3] Ibid., p. 173.
[4] Ibid.
[5] David Barton, Original Intent, (Aledo, Texas: Wallbuilder Press, 2008), pp. 275-176.
[6] Barton, p. 271. Quoting: Thomas Jefferson, Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Albert Ellery Bergh, ed., (Washington, DC: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), Vol. XV, p. 213, to Spencer Roane, September 6, 1819.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Morris, pp. 221-222.
[9] Barton, p. 272.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Barton, pp. 271-272. Quoting: Thomas Jefferson, Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, ed., (Boston: Gray and Bowen, 1830), Vol. IV, p. 27, to Abigail Adams, September 11, 1804.

Criminalizing Christian beliefs and behavior

Posted by :webmaster On : April 10, 2015
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Constitution, Equality, Government

As Liberals see it, some people are just more equal than others.

Barronelle Stutzman is a florist and owner of Arlene’s Flowers in the State of Washington who is in peril of losing her business, personal assets, and retirement. Because of her religious beliefs and her faithfulness to those beliefs, she was sued by the State of Washington and the ACLU in 2013. Her crime was telling Rob Ingersoll that she would not provide her services as a florist for his upcoming marriage to his same-sex partner because it was a violation of her belief that marriage was to be between a man and woman. In February 2015, a Washington judge ruled that Ms. Stutzman had broken the law by discriminating against Ingersoll. The court said that while recognizing her religious beliefs are protected by the Constitution, her discriminatory actions were not.[1]

On March 13, 2014 William Jack went to Denver’s Azucar Bakery and requested two Bible-shaped cakes that were to be decorated and inscribed with Bible verses. Marjorie Silva refused to accept his order but agreed to bake the cakes and supply Jack with the necessary icing and decorations so that he could decorate the cake as he pleased. Jack’s requested design offended Ms. Silva because one cake was to have the image of two groomsmen holding hands in front of a cross with a red “X” over them. The cake was to be inscribed with a Bible verse: “God hates sin. Psalm 45:7.” On the second cake, Jack requested the image of the same two groomsmen with the red “X” but inscribed with the verses: “God loves sinners” and “While we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Romans 5:8.” Following a complaint against Silva for discrimination, the Colorado Civil Rights Division ruled in March 2015 that Silva did not discriminate against Jack by refusing to make the cakes because the customer’s requests included “derogatory language and imagery.”[2]

Ms. Stutzman and Ms. Silva withheld their personal services because the provision of those services would have been in direct violation of their beliefs. Ms. Stutzman’s beliefs were based on her religious convictions protected by the First Amendment. Ms. Silva’s beliefs were based on her personal opinion as to what constituted “derogatory language and imagery.” The Colorado Civil Rights commission ignored Silva’s overt discrimination against Jack while the Washington State judge convicted Stutzman of exercising her First Amendment freedom of religion.

By judicial and bureaucratic edicts across the nation, the First Amendment protection of religious freedom is being dismantled by separating religious belief from actions in support of those beliefs in order to achieve humanistic definitions of equality and political correctness. Without the ability to exercise one’s religious beliefs, the First Amendment protections of religious freedom are rendered meaningless.

Religious Freedom Restoration Act

Because of legislative, judicial, and bureaucratic actions that compromised the First Amendment protection of religious freedom, the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 was unanimously passed by the House, and the Senate overwhelmingly approved the bill by a 97-3 vote. On November 16, 1993, President Clinton spoke to those gathered on the south lawn of the White House on the day of the signing of the bill. One particular statement from his speech is significantly applicable to today’s debate on the government’s efforts to curtail religious freedom.

The free exercise of religion has been called the first freedom, that which originally sparked the development of the full range of the Bill of Rights. Our Founders cared a lot about religion…They knew that religion helps to give our people the character without which a democracy cannot survive. They knew that there needed to be a space of freedom between Government and people of faith that otherwise Government might usurp.[3] [emphasis added]

In 1997, the Supreme Court struck down the federal RFRA not because of the “compelling interest test” but because it ruled that Congress could not require the test be used by states in cases involving religious freedom.[4] This was followed by new federal legislation that reinstated protections of religious freedom from governmental interference.

Subsequently, a number of states passed RFRA legislation that closely followed the original federal law and its successors. On March 26, 2015, Governor Mike Pence signed into law a Religious Freedom and Restoration Act passed by the Indiana legislature. The heart of Indiana’s protection of religious freedom act is found in Section 8.

Sec. 8. (a) Except as provided in subsection (b), a governmental entity may not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion, even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability. (b) A governmental entity may substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion only if the governmental entity demonstrates that application of the burden to the person: (1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.[5]

Irrespective of the approval the President and almost universal approval of Congress in 1993, as well as most Americans twenty-two years earlier. These eighty words have created a blistering firestorm of protests, threats, economic blackmail, and character assassination against states, legislators, and other RFRA supporters across America by the homosexual lobby and other supporters of the homosexual agenda. These supporters include the media and cultural elites, CEOs of major corporations, and liberal politicians and bureaucrats.

Is religious freedom decided by the First Amendment or the Chamber of Commerce?

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, has called RFRA legislation in the various states as very dangerous and would allow people to discriminate against their neighbors. Cook lambasted the various RFRA supporters and linked them to segregation and discrimination in the south of the 1960s and 1970s.

America’s business community recognized a long time ago that discrimination, in all forms, is bad for business…These bills rationalize injustice by pretending to defend something many of us hold dear. They go against the very principles our nation was founded on…This isn’t a political issue. It isn’t a religious issue. This is about how we treat each other as human beings.[6] [emphasis added]

In spite of Tim Cook’s assertions to the contrary, restrictions on the practice of one’s religious beliefs is a religious issue and protection of religious freedom is a political issue. Although Cook believes RFRA laws go against the very principles upon which the nation was founded, the real violation of those principles occurs when the full meaning and protections of the First Amendment are ignored and/or violated by a government that forces people to disobey their religious beliefs in order to achieve some arbitrary standard of equality.

Even pop star Miley Cyrus, not known as a paragon of moral virtue or for her intellectual gifts, vilified Indiana’s RFRA supporters while giving an interview to Time magazine about the future of music and youth culture.

They are dinosaurs, and they are dying off. We are the new generation, and with that will come so much…People are trying now to make the Indiana law look like something that it’s not. They’re trying to make it look like it’s not discriminatory. It’s confusing for my fans, so I’m happy to [speak up about it]. They won’t listen to Tim Cook, maybe. But they’ll listen to me, you know? And people are starting to listen, I think.[7]

To help alleviate the confusion of Ms. Cyrus and her fans, RFRA laws are not discriminatory because they apply to everyone.

Interdependence of the Constitution and moral virtue of the people

The primary reason for the loss of religious freedoms in America is not to be found in any supposed defects of the Constitution’s plain wording or the Founders’ clear meaning and intent. Rather, the reason for loss of religious freedom can be discovered in the words of two of America’s most illustrious Founders.

We have no government armed in power capable of contending in human passions unbridled by morality and religion…Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.[8] [John Adams, signer of the Constitution and second president of the United States] [emphasis added]

Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they more need of masters.[9] [Benjamin Franklin, signer of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution] [emphasis added]

The assault on religious freedom is occurring because there is a shortage of virtuous, moral, and religious leadership at the helms of the institutions of American life. Like Esau, Tim Cook and many other Chamber of Commerce types have despised their heritage and sold their birthright of religious freedom for a pot of stew. [Genesis 25:29-34] Ignoring the wishes of the people and the safeguards designed by the Founders, the liberal bullies and their cultural lackeys are now the masters—the new experts at determining what constitutes religious liberty but who are not to be bothered with the First Amendment’s plain language.

Unlike the CEOs of mega-corporations and their humanistic colleagues, the Founders were far more concerned with religious liberty than their bank balances, the egalitarian notions of equality, the humanistic doctrines of French intellectuals, or the ridicule of cultural royalists. The Constitution continues to be unequivocal evidence of the Founders’ strong concern for religious freedom because “… they knew that there needed to be a space of freedom between Government and people of faith that otherwise Government might usurp.”

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Courtney Coren, “Washington Florist: State, ACLU ‘Trying to bully me’,” Newsmax, February 24, 2015. http://www.newsmax.com/Newsmax-Tv/Washington-state-florist-gay-marriage-ACLU/2015/02/24/id/626583/ (accessed April 6, 2015).
[2] Alan Gathright and Eric Lupher, “Denver’s Azucar Bakery wins right to refuse to make anti-gay cakes,” 7NewsDenver, April 4, 2015. http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/denvers-azucar-bakery-wins-right-to-refuse-to-make-anti-gay-cake (accessed April 7, 2015).
[3] “William J. Clinton – Remarks on Signing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993,” The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=46124 (Accessed April 3, 2015).
[4] “State Religious Freedom Acts,” Home School Legal Defense Association, January 28, 2015.
http://www.hslda.org/docs/nche/000000/00000083.asp (accessed April 3, 2015).
[5] TEXT: Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act: SENATE ENROLLED ACT No. 101, Senate of the State of Indiana ^ | March 27, 2015 | Government of the State of Indiana. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3272850/posts (accessed April 6, 2015).
[6] Tim Cook, “Opposing ‘religious’ bills requires courage,” Tulsa World, April 3, 2015, A-17.
[7] Eliana Dockterman, “Miley Cyrus: Indiana Religious Freedom Law Supporters ‘Are dinosaurs, and they are dying off’,” Time, March 31, 2015. http://time.com/3766436/miley-cyrus-on-indiana-law/ (accessed April 6, 2015).
[8] William J. Federer, America’s God and Country, (Coppell, Texas: FAME Publishing, Inc., 1996), pp. 10-11.
[9] Ibid., p. 247.

The REAL separation of church and state – Part III

Posted by :webmaster On : March 6, 2015
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Constitution, God's Law v. Man's Law, Government, Humanism, Progressivism

We ended Part II with the thoughts of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison as to the importance of interpreting the Constitution according to its plain meaning and intent of the authors. George Washington also wrote of the importance of adhering to the prescribed methods for changing the Constitution.

If, in the opinion of the people…the constitutional powers be at any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; though this in one instance be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.”[1] [emphasis added]

Joseph Story was the leading Constitutional scholar of the nineteenth century and in 1833 wrote in Commentaries on the Constitution that the Constitution “…was to be understood in terms of its plain, commonsense meaning” and must not be changed by the caprice of men.

The reader must not expect to find in these pages any novel construction of the Constitution. I have not the ambition to be the author of any new plan of interpreting the theory of the Constitution, or enlarging or narrowing its powers, by ingenious subtleties and learned doubts…”[2]

For 150 years original intent was the courts’ coin of the realm when interpreting the Constitution. But that dramatically changed in 1947. The beginning of that change occurred seventy-seven years earlier when Christopher Columbus Langdell became president of Harvard Law School in 1870 and developed the theory of legal positivism which was adopted and applied by other leading lawyers and jurists that followed him including Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.[3] Since 1947, legal positivism has replaced original intent as the standard for interpreting the Constitution. The essence of the theory is summarized as follows:

1. There are no objective, God-given standards of law, or if there are, they are irrelevant to the modern legal system.

2. Since God is not the author of law, the author of law must be man; in other words, the law is law simply because the highest human authority, the state, has said it is law and is able to back it up by force.

3. Since man and society evolve, therefore law must evolve as well.

4. Judges, through their decisions, guide the evolution of law (Note again: Judges “make law).

5. To study law, get the original sources of law – the decision of judges; hence most law schools today use the “case law” method of teaching law.[4]

The Founding fathers including those who drafted the Constitution held a biblical worldview. In this worldview, eternal truths were revealed to man by God through his creation and His revelation to the ancient Hebrews and first century Christians. In the Christian worldview, the Supreme Being (God) created matter out of nothing and formed the universe. He impressed certain principles upon that matter, laws of nature from which it can never depart. However, man was His special creation and was allowed to choose to follow or depart from those principles as they relate to human nature. Those principles are truths that are intrinsic and timeless, and are essential elements needed to provide a coherent and rational way to live in the world. These truths are called by various names: permanent things, universals, first principles, eternal truths, and norms.[5]

These absolutes became the basis for American law and were expounded upon by men such as William Blackstone in his Commentaries on the Law of England. Blackstone wrote:

This law of nature…directed by God Himself…is binding in all the globe, in all countries, and at all times: no human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this; and such of them as are valid derive all their force and all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original.[6] [emphasis added]

The American Constitution’s biblical origins and the Founders’ unbending devotion to original intent in its interpretation were hindrances to the proponents of legal positivism. In his book The New Freedom, Woodrow Wilson disparaged the Founders’ notions of original intent and argued that progressives should be allowed to apply the Darwinian principle in interpreting the Constitution.

And they [the authors of the Constitution] constructed a government…to display the laws of Nature…The government was to exist and move by virtue of the efficacy of “checks and balances.” The trouble with this theory is that government is not a machine, but a living thing. It falls not under the theory of the universe, but under the theory of organic life. It is accountable to Darwin…Government is not a body of blind forces; it is a body of men…Living political constitutions must be Darwinian in structure and in practice. Society is a living organism and must obey the laws of Life, not of mechanics, it must develop. All that progressives ask or desire is permission—in an era when “development,” “evolution,” “is the scientific word—to interpret the Constitution according to the Darwinian principle; all they ask is recognition of the fact that a nation is a living thing and not a machine.[7]

Wilson’s profoundly humanistic understanding of man jettison’s the Founders’ concern for the universal wickedness of fallen man and therefore dispenses with the need for those pesky “checks and balances” so important to the Founders. The Darwinian understanding of man is that he basically good and ever progressing. Therefore, as men and society evolve, so must their constitutions and laws.

Not content with a fluid interpretation of the Constitution to meet the needs of an evolving society, there is a new breed of activist judges that have gone beyond legal positivism to legal realism. Such realists are using the legal system to promote their own ends while using positivism as the “basis for denying divine law and/or natural law.” Judicial realism is another name for judicial usurpation of legislative power. Legal realists such as Charles Evans Hughes, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court during most of Franklin Roosevelt’s administration, believe that, “We are under a constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is.”[8] Put another way, judges don’t just interpret the meaning of the Constitution; they decide what they believe the Constitution ought to say. They become social policy makers who craft decisions based on what they think as opposed the wishes of the people and their elected representatives. Prophetically, Thomas Jefferson warned of such an activist judiciary, “The Constitution… is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please.”[9]

The basis for liberals’ plea for separation of church and state rest only on eight words taken out of context in 1947, but they are now used to blast any hint of America’s Godly heritage from every facet of American society. Theirs is not a true separation of church and state but creation of an invisible church subservient to the state. However, the history and importance of separation of church and state is far longer and greater than its misapplication to the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The separation of the spiritual realm from the secular was instituted by Christ. The separate but complementary roles of church and state were designed and ordained by God. Therefore, the battle is not merely between church and state but just one battle on the far larger battleground of humanism versus Christianity. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the renowned German theologian who was martyred for his stand against Nazism, called humanism “the most severe enemy” that Christianity ever had.[10]

The sad state of American jurisprudence with regard to a real separation of the dual realms of church and state occurred because of two major failures by the Christian church in America. We shall call the first failure an abandonment of the public arena which occurred in the late 1800s and early 1900s with the rise of the “social gospel.” The social gospel movement started within the church but was used by secularists for left-wing social reform. Fearing a gospel of “salvation by works,” many conservative and evangelical churches developed a “ghetto mentality,” backing away from society and burying themselves in prayer, Bible study, converting the lost, and personal morality and holiness.[11] But in doing so, they also became the silent church that also buried its responsibility to be salt and light to the government and culture at large. [See: Matthew 5:13]

The second failure of the church in maintaining the dual realms of church and state we shall label as acceptance. Contemporaneous with the abandonment of the public arena by conservative and evangelical churches in the late 1800s and early 1900s, many mainline churches felt the effects of a loss of cultural authority as secular humanism advanced on the coattails of science and rationalism. In order to retain a measure of cultural authority and acceptance in the face of humanism’s onslaught, mainline Protestant leaders began embracing secular human sciences to lend credibility and cultural relevance to the tenets of their religion.[12] But such acceptance brought compromise of its creedal doctrines which resulted in a profane and powerless church that had lost its saltiness, “…no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden under foot by men.” [Matthew 5:13b. RSV] And because of the church’s abandonment of society or the compromise of its message, the humanistic worldview reigned supreme and subsequently spread into every facet of culture.

The leaders and many of their bureaucratic subordinates in the institutions of American life now present what appears to be the face of an almost invincible monolithic humanism. In the presence of such a daunting challenge, Christians and others in America may ask how society can return its laws and Constitution to reliance on the original intent of the Founders when the rules for interpreting and enforcing those laws and the Constitution are made up by judges as they see fit to protect and promote their humanistic worldview. Our first priority is to correctly identify our adversary. The Apostle Paul paints a vivid picture of the enemy and his lair. “For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places.” [Ephesians 6:12. RSV]

Even though it is a spiritual battle in this life and the heavenlies, we are not meant to be mere uninvolved spectators banished to the sidelines by a hostile society. In this earthly life, Christians are His “boots on the ground,” and our marching orders are to actively spread salt and light into all arenas habited by a lost and dying world.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] John Eidsmoe, Christianity and the Constitution-The Faith of Our Founding Fathers, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1987), pp. 392-393.
[2] Ibid., p. 393.
[3] Ibid., p. 394
[4] Ibid.
[5] Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 392.
[6] William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, Vol. 1-Book I & II. (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1910) p. 27.
[7] Eidsmoe, p. 390. Quoting: Woodrow Wilson, The New Freedom, (New York: 1914), pp. 44-48.
[8] Ibid., pp. 395-397.
[9] David Barton, Original Intent – The Courts, the Constitution, & Religion, (Aledo, Texas: Wallbuilder Press, 2008), p. 195.
[10] Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer, (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2010), p. 85.
[1] Eidsmoe, p. 407.
[12] Johnson, p. 252.