Archives for : Government

Liberal Hypocrisy – The Hollywood Ten and the Friends of Abe

Posted by :webmaster On : January 31, 2014
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Category: America, Archives, Government, Humanism

One would have thought that when the IRS (and the Obama administration) got their tail feathers burned in the scandal over targeting conservative groups (through harassment and denial of tax exempt status) the IRS would use a little more caution or at least subtlety in promoting the liberal agenda. Rather, they have taken their cue from President Obama who ignores the constitutional separation of powers in favor of illegal executive orders, bureaucratic bullying, and legitimization of incompetence. And now the IRS need not worry about little things like criminal charges. According to the Wall Street Journal as reported by the Chicago Tribune, the FBI investigation of the IRS “…did not uncover the type of political bias or ‘enemy hunting’ that would constitute a criminal violation. The evidence showed a mismanaged agency enforcing rules it did not understand on applications for tax exemptions…” [Reuters] So behind this shield the administration and the IRS have doubled-down on their attack on conservatives.

But subtlety is not the liberals’ strong suit in their rush to change society into the image of a humanistic worldview. Given recent cover granted by FBI investigators, the IRS continues its storm-trooper tactics when dealing with conservative organizations. Another example surfaced in recent weeks. Friends of Abe is a relatively small conservative-leaning organization of 1,500 people in the entertainment industry who hold conservative values within the enormous and blatantly liberal industry. To be conservative in Hollywood is to risk marginalization, loss of work, and eventual banishment. Therefore Friends of Abe tends to be a secretive organization except for a few who have chosen to come out of the conservative closet. Quoting the New York Times, Friends of Abe “…keeps a low profile and fiercely protects its membership list, to avoid what it presumes would result in a sort of 21st-century blacklist, albeit on the other side of the partisan spectrum.” [New York Times]

For two years Friends of Abe has sought tax-exempt status under IRS 503(c)(3) regulations. Last week the IRS requested detailed information about meetings with conservative-leaning politicians such as Paul D. Ryan, Thaddeus McCotter and Herman Cain, as well as other matters. Previous demands by the IRS included access to the organization’s security-protected website that included all members’ names, but the organization refused the IRS’s request. Tax experts said that giving the IRS enhanced access to the secured portions of its website would have meant access to the group’s members list. The experts stated that the IRS already had access to the site’s basic level which is usually all that is required. To demand access to Friends of Abe’s security-protected site and by default the names of its members was unusual. [New York Times]

Jeremy Boreing, executive director of Friends of Abe, said, “Friends of Abe has absolutely no political agenda. It exists to create fellowship among like-minded individuals.” But for every conservative organization like Friends of Abe, there are a multitude of liberal organizations in the entertainment industry such as People for the American Way that spend millions of dollars a year directly or through affiliates on issue advocacy in Washington and elsewhere. [New York Times]

Few Americans know the history of the late 1940s and early 1950s with regard to the extent of communist infiltration of American government and the rise of anticommunism. The political and cultural fallout of these events came to define the liberal-conservative riff in American life and foreshadowed the culture wars that began in the 1960s. One of the side-stories of that era was the investigation by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) of the influence of the Communist Party within the movie industry.

During the 1930s, the political preferences of people in the movie industry covered the entire spectrum, but there was a strong tendency to lean to the liberal and left. Within this liberal-left community was a strong and active Communist presence that contained several dozen screenwriters who were Communist Party members. Large amounts of money were raised by Hollywood Communists for Party approved political and social causes. Communist influence spread into various unions associated within the entertainment industry and Popular Front causes approved by the Communist Party. Numerous actors, screenwriters, and others in the movie industry were subpoenaed and called to testify before HUAC. Some were friendly and testified as to their observations and knowledge of Communist efforts in the industry. Others, upon advice of the Communist Party, were unfriendly and took a defiant stance toward HUAC. The hostile witnesses charged HUAC with preparing America for fascism and Nazi-styled concentration camps and claimed they had a First Amendment free-speech right to refuse to answer HUAC’s questions. However, federal courts later upheld the right of Congress to subpoena witnesses and compel testimony. [Haynes, pp. 70-73.]

Following the hearings, Congress cited ten of the witnesses with contempt of Congress because of their refusal to answer questions (nine were members of the Communist Party USA and one a close ally). The ten could have avoided prosecution by invoking the Fifth Amendment and thereby refuse to give testimony that might be used against them in a criminal case. [Haynes, pp. 72-73.] The cited screenwriters became known as the Hollywood Ten and a cause célèbre for liberals to the present day.

As a result of the revelations about Communist infiltration and spying within the government and the emerging Communist threat worldwide, Americans were concerned. Mindful of public opinion and its effects on the box office, the major movie studios pledged to not employ Communists. Both Communist and non-Communist witnesses before HUAC who invoked the Fifth Amendment (estimated at 200 to 300) were swept up in the national backlash against Communism. Most of those witnesses who invoked the Fifth Amendment were or had been members of the Communist Party. However, others invoking the Fifth Amendment for whatever reasons became unwitting victims of the movie studios’ blacklist that lasted until the late 1950s. [Haynes, p. 73-74.]

Today, a great majority of the entertainment industry is fervently liberal but denies there is an informal but effective unwritten blacklist of conservatives in their industry just as the hierarchy of American universities will deny there is an omnipresent liberal bias that effectively operates as a blacklist of conservatives in academia.

However, we must not assume moral equivalence between the blacklist of Communists and fellow travelers in the entertainment industry of the 1940s and 1950s and the implicit blacklist of known entertainment industry conservatives of today. Nine of the Hollywood Ten were members of the Communist Party USA which was under the direct and dominating influence of the Comintern (Communist Party International) that trained and guided a network of Communist agents, party members, and spies bent on the overthrow of the American system of government. These were not heroes but traitors. Communism operating in America during the first half of the twentieth century was of the same political and social philosophy that was ultimately responsible for the enslavement of a third of humanity for three-fourths of the twentieth century, the consequences of which were the deaths of millions and misery unparalleled in the history of mankind. And of what are the Friends of Abe and other conservatives guilty? Their sin is to support traditional American values—those values prized by the Founders and woven into the Constitution. Liberals’ targeting of conservatives for their beliefs exposes their pervasive hypocrisy.

Liberalism dominates American culture and the leadership and institutions of American life. But, the end result of liberalism stands in stark contrast to the beliefs of a majority of Americans and the principles upon which the nation was founded. And it is in the end result of liberalism that we find the humanistic worldview and its undeniable linkage to totalitarianism.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Reuters, “FBI doesn’t plan charges over IRS scrutiny of Tea Party: WSJ,” Chicago Tribune, January 13, 2014. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-01-13/news/sns-rt-us-usa-tax-teaparty-20140113_1_fbi-director-james-comey-irs-cincinnati-irs-scrutiny (accessed January 28, 2014).

Michael Cipley and Nicholas Confessore, “Leaning Right in Hollywood, Under a Lens,” New York Times, January 22, 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/23/us/politics/leaning-right-in-hollywood-under-a-lens.html?_r=0 (accessed January 28, 2014).

John E. Haynes, Red Scare or Red Menace? American Communism and Anticommunism in the Cold War Era, (Chicago, Illinois: Ivan R. Dee, 1996), pp. 70-74.

Belief-free government? Let’s hope not.

Posted by :webmaster On : January 3, 2014
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Government

Brady Henderson (legal director of the ACLU of Oklahoma) would have us “keep beliefs free from government” and defends the work of the American Civil Liberties Union by claiming it must protect “…the simple but critical right of each to make his/her own choices in matters of faith or creed.” Henderson tells us that,

…we should be more wary than ever when local leaders now tell us that more government is the solution to what ails our churches, faith communities, or souls. Yet that is exactly what they are doing. The Ten Commandments monument at the state Capitol now literally and explicitly tells Oklahomans what is and is not to be worshiped and believed. The ‘Merry Christmas Bill’ seeks to enshrine government – not pastors, churches, or people of faith – as an exclusive protector of the spirit and meaning of Christmas. [Henderson, Tulsa World, p. A-19.]

Religious freedom was guaranteed by the First Amendment. When the machinery of government is used to protect those Constitutionally given freedoms, Henderson and the ACLU cry foul and claim that government shouldn’t interfere in issues of faith. In reality, it is government through legislation and the courts that is undermining the very religious freedoms they claim to protect. Put another way, Henderson’s assertion that we must keep our religious beliefs free from government interference is in direct conflict with his and the ACLU’s use of government to constrain expression of those religious beliefs in the public square. Driving beliefs from the public square does not enhance but destroys religious freedom in the name of some rapacious and undefined egalitarian ideal.

Choice in matters of faith or creed is an important component of our nation’s founding, but it is the incorrect interpretation of the meaning of religious freedom and the enforcement of this false understanding that does the real violence to religious freedom in 21st century America. This misinterpretation of the meaning of religious freedom occurs with regard to both our founding principles and to the requirements necessary for American culture to survive.

The United States was founded on Christian principles and was not created as a belief-free government or a government of over-reach in attempting to equalize expressions of religious faith in the public square. The overarching moral suasion of Christian principles under which our nation was founded made possible religious freedom for all faiths. Such moral suasion of Christian principles in government is not coercive to religious freedom as the ACLU would have us believe. Rather, it provided the nation with a central vision and resulted in stability and unity by working through the individual as he voluntarily chooses the manner in which he orders his soul. [Johnson, p. 224.]

This was the attitude of the Founders as evidenced by the words of Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story (appointed by James Madison, fourth President and Father of the American Constitution).

The real object of the [First A]memdment was not to countenance, much less advance Mohometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects (denominations) and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment which should give to a hierarchy (a denominational council) the exclusive patronage of the national government.” [Federer, p. 575.]

To confirm the existence of this strong religious sanction that still held sway over the nation forty years after the Constitutional Convention, we look to the words of Alexis De Tocqueville’s 1831 Democracy in America, one of the most influential political texts ever written about America. “Americans so completely identify the spirit of Christianity with freedom in their minds that it is almost impossible to get them to conceive the one without the other…” [Tocqueville, p. 343.] Tocqueville went on to say that the peaceful influence exercised by religion over the nation was due to separation of church and state. [Tocqueville. P. 345.] But unlike the modernists’ definition of the separation of church and state, Tocqueville’s separation was a separation of the spheres of power and not a separation of government from ethics and moral guidance supplied by the moral suasion of Christianity.

Henderson’s second misinterpretation of religious freedom in America regards the requirements of an enduring culture. Rather than a culture whose government is made barren of religious influence, a sustainable culture requires unity that may be attained only by a single central cultural vision. The very foundation of the cultural concept is unity that assumes a general commonality of thought and action, that is, to be informed by ethics and moral guidance. John Quincy Adams unequivocally identified America’s source for that moral guidance.

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.” [Federer, p. 18.]

For a culture to survive, its government must not stand in opposition to its central cultural vision or to attempt to meld together or comingle multiple cultures into one culture with multiple centers of vision. To do so is to create a powerless culture with little influence and place it on the road to disintegration. [Johnson, p. 399.] The cultural vision of America at its founding was centered on the principles of Christianity. To believe otherwise is a matter of ignorance or denial of the massive weight of the history of the colonial and founding era.

Henderson and the ACLU’s perceived dangers of big government on religious freedom are correct but not in the way they describe. Their remedies effectively impose big government denial of religious freedom and stand in opposition to our nation’s history and the requirements for an enduring culture.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Brady Henderson, “Keep beliefs free from government,” Tulsa World, December 28, 2013, p. A-19; Brady Henderson, “Henderson – Keep beliefs free from government,” Tulsa World, December 28, 2013. http://www.tulsaworld.com/opinion/readersforum/henderson-keep-beliefs-free-from-government/article_60cf4f9f-2eee-517c-bbc6-9dc6051acb4e.html (accessed December 30, 2013).

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), pp. 224, 399.

William J. Federer, America’s God and Country, (Coppell, Texas: Fame Publishing, Inc., 1996), pp. 18, 575.

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Trans. Gerald E. Bevan, (London, England: Penguin Books, 2003), pp. 343, 345.

The Reasons for Governmental Abuse of Power

Posted by :webmaster On : June 21, 2013
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Category: Archives, Constitution, Government

We are a nation ruled by laws that exist under the Constitutional umbrella. 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. This abuse of power has increased significantly as a result of the rejection of the biblical worldview and the adoption of a humanistic, secular worldview by many of the leaders of American institutions and especially leaders of government and related bureaucracies.

Numerous scandals have erupted in recent weeks because of widespread abuse of power in the Obama administration and many departments of the federal government. Although scandals in government punctuate every time period in our nation’s history, the recent scandals in various segments of government appear systemic in nature and go beyond anything in memory, at least as to frequency and pervasiveness but possibly of magnitude as well (which is yet to be determined).

Typically, government scandals are primarily about isolated abuses of power by governmental officials and bureaucrats which are related to financial gain and/or waste which appear to be endemic to a sprawling government filled with faceless bureaucrats insulated from accountability and punishment for wrongdoing. The more serious and systemic abuses of power go beyond theft or malfeasance and revolve around intimidation, coercion, injustice, loss of freedom, and a general and pervasive attitude of lawlessness. More than greed and waste, these abuses of power cut as the heart of protections afforded by the Constitution and our laws.

For all of its failings, the one for which the Obama administration will be remembered most is the widespread lawlessness at all levels of government during his administration. Regardless of President Obama’s involvement, knowledge, or lack thereof in the various scandals rocking his administration, his arrogant example sent the message that his decrees and agenda were superior to the laws of the land, especially if those laws were based on a biblical worldview as held by the Founders.

Because of the President’s arrogant attitude and actions in pursuit of his ideological agenda that disregard Constitutional limits and many laws passed by Congress, his administration and much of the governmental bureaucracy have followed his example. The President’s “above-the-law” attitude and actions include many instances of his unilateral violation of the Constitutional separation of powers between the executive branch and the legislative and judicial branches which were meant to limit government authority and thereby protect individual liberty; abuse of the power of executive privilege; non-enforcement of laws passed by Congress; and vocal denigration of the judiciary and its decisions with consequent promotion of disrespect of the law.

Following the President’s lead, various agencies and departments have become a law unto themselves through imposition of draconian regulations (many which are far removed from the original intent of the laws permitting those regulations) and selective enforcement of laws and regulations for the purpose of furthering the administration’s ideological agenda through the power of their position. Examples include:

• The federal government’s refusal to continue enforcement of the Clinton-era welfare reform that required aid recipients (all who were able) to work.
• Rewriting of immigration laws without Congressional approval.
• Implementation of elements of the President’s Dream Act which Congress refused to adopt.
• Imposition of environmental rules (e.g., cap-and-trade carbon rules) which the Congress refused to adopt.
[Samuel E. Burns, “Blatant disregard of laws passed by Congress violates separation of powers.”]

The most recent scandals at the IRS and Departments of State, Justice, and Health and Human Services have exposed the dark underbelly of the monster created by the consistent public flaunting by the President and his minions of the Constitution, its protections and processes, and the laws of the land.

The media, investigators, and the public dissect, discuss, and demand retribution for the transgressions of government, but few talk of the underlying structural/systemic reasons that provide fertile ground for the abuse of power to occur. Only when those structural/systemic deficiencies are addressed and corrected will we see a decline in the abuse of power by the government.

The governmental structure upon which the nation was founded rested on the biblical worldview of the Founders and was reflected in the Constitution. Fundamental to this governmental structure were the limitations placed upon it. The retreat from the biblical worldview as the basis for our laws and policy making began accelerating in the 1930s. At the same time there began a vast increase in the scope and authority of government over society and its institutions in a manner not intended by the Founders or God’s design for the social order. Again, the government abuses its power when its reach usurps the power and authority of other spheres of the social structure designed by God. Here we speak of the family, church, labor, community, and relationship between man and God. This intrusion is so omnipresent and complex, even the most ardent socialist cannot deny it.

To remedy the structural or systemic failings that have led to abuse of power in the government, four actions must be taken. First, we must hold all branches and departments of government strictly accountable to the Constitution and laws of the land. Second, we must remove (by vote or action of law) and/or prosecute those who violate the Constitution and/or laws of the land. Third, we must limit the size of government. And fourth, we must limit the reach of government into the various spheres of the social order for which government was never intended to intrude.

We gain an appreciation of the importance of these four actions when we turn to F. A. Hayek’s words written during World War II in his seminal work titled The Road to Serfdom.

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. (emphasis added)

The President and his administration have refused to be guided by fixed rules and as a result have arbitrarily used government power to further the President’s ideological agenda and purposes. The shield of democracy will not hide the abuses of that power. Prevention of abuse comes only with limitation of the power of government. Those limitations must be guided by the fixed rules of the biblical worldview which the Founders held and not the humanistic perversions of moral relativism.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Samuel E. Burns, “Blatant disregard of laws passed by Congress violates separation of powers,” The Last Chance for Freedom, August 6, 2012. http://thelastchanceoffreedom.blogspot.com/2012/08/blatant-disregard-of-laws-passed-by.html (accessed June 4, 2013).

F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, Bruce Caldwell, ed., (Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1944, 2007), p. 111.

The Christian’s role in politics and government

Posted by :webmaster On : June 7, 2013
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Government

In the last article (Government is not the problem…however) we discussed the Founders’ beliefs with regard to politics and government which are radically different from what most people believe today. Noah Webster’s 1828 dictionary defined politics as:

The science of government; that part of ethics which consists in the regulation and government of a nation or state, for the preservation of its safety, peace, and prosperity; comprehending the defense of its existence and rights against foreign control or conquest … and the protection of its citizens in their rights, with the preservation and improvement of their morals.

Politics in the founding era included a belief that regulation and government of a nation had a moral component and that its responsibilities included the preservation and improvement of the morals of the citizenry. Contrast the Founders’ beliefs with modern antiseptic attitudes and the resultant cleansing of any hint of religion or moral absolutes not only from politics and government but from all institutions of American life.

This attitude is prevalent throughout America including a large segment of Christianity. The attitude has grown from decades of misapplication of the First Amendment and an erroneous understanding of Thomas Jefferson’s wall of separation between church and state. The First Amendment is an “establishment” clause, not a “separation” clause. It was meant to prohibit the government from establishing one specific sect as the official church of the nation. The Establishment clause was not meant to banish religion and its influence from the public arena, politics, government, and the institutions of American life.

Jefferson’s words with regard to a wall of separation between church and state were merely to assure the Danbury Baptists of Connecticut that no one church would be established as the official church of the United States. Effectively, it was meant to protect the church from the state, not the state’s protection of the people from religion. Who better to explain the Founders’ intent than a Supreme Court Justice of the era? Joseph Story was appointed to the Supreme Court by James Madison, regarded as the father of the Constitution. Story wrote of the Establishment clause:

The real object of the [First A]mendment was not to countenance, much less advance Mohometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment which should give to a hierarchy (a denominational council) the exclusive patronage of the national government.

This meaning was clearly understood by the vast majority of Americans and the courts until Jefferson’s words were taken out of context by the Supreme Court in 1947. In the Everson case the Supreme Court extracted eight words (“a wall of separation between church and state”) from Jefferson’s speech with total disregard for its original meaning and context. This was the beginning of the systematic removal of religion from the public square and the nation’s various institutions.

From this misunderstanding of religion’s rightful place in government, many Christians have generally shied away from any significant involvement in politics and government over the last three decades. To dispel this notion, Wayne Gruden published a pamphlet titled, “Why Christians should seek to influence the government for good.” Gruden presents a strong biblical basis for Christian involvement to significantly influence law, politics, and government …according to God’s moral standards and God’s purposes for government as revealed in the Bible.” At the same time Gruden cautions that Christians “…must simultaneously insist on maintaining freedom of religion for all citizens.” How is this balance achieved?

…the overarching moral suasion (influence or persuasion) of Christian principles under which our nation was founded made possible religious freedom for all faiths. Such moral suasion of Christian principles is not coercive as humanists would have us believe. The moral suasion of Christian principles provided the nation with a central vision and resulted in stability and unity by working through the individual as he voluntarily chooses the manner in which he orders his soul. [Johnson, Ye shall be as gods, p. 224.]

As a result of the over-arching Christian worldview, the nation exhibited an exceptionally strong religious sanction at its founding. This religious sanction was the power of Christian teaching over private conscience that made possible American democratic society. The religious sanction resulted because colonial and founding-era Americans held the biblical worldview and were significantly involved in government and politics. To confirm the existence of this strong religious sanction that still held sway over the nation forty years after the Constitutional Convention, we look to the words of Alexis De Tocqueville’s 1831 Democracy in America, one of the most influential political texts ever written about America.

Americans so completely identify the spirit of Christianity with freedom in their minds that it is almost impossible to get them to conceive the one without the other…

On my arrival in the United States, it was the religious atmosphere which first struck me. As I extended my stay, I could observe the political consequences which flowed from this novel situation.

In France I had seen the spirit of religion moving in the opposite direction to that of the spirit of freedom. In America, I found them intimately linked together in joint reign over the same land.

Tocqueville went on to say that the peaceful influence exercised by religion over the nation was due to separation of church and state. Unlike the modernists’ separation of church and state, Tocqueville’s separation was a separation of the spheres of power and not a separation of government from ethics and moral guidance supplied by the moral suasion of Christianity.

In twenty-first century America, the Christians’ role in politics and government should be the same as the role played by Christians in the founding of America. They were significantly involved in government, politics, and law such that the power of Christian teaching over private conscience made possible American democratic society. To restore the biblical worldview as the basis for governing the nation, Christians must become significantly more involved in government and politics, and it must happen now before it is too late.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:
Noah Webster, “Politics,” American Dictionary of the English Language 1828, Facsimile Edition, (San Francisco, California: Foundation for American Christian Education, 1995).
Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, (Boston: Hilliard, Gray, & Co., 1833). Vol. III, p. 728, paragraph 1871.

Wayne Gruden, “Why Christians should seek to influence the government for good.” Booklet adapted from Wayne Gruden, Politics – According to the Bible – A Comprehensive Resource for Understanding Modern Political Issues in Light of Scripture, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2010).

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. 224.

Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Gerald E. Bevan, Trans., (London, England: Penguin Books, 2003), pp. 343, 345.

Government is not the problem, however…

Posted by :webmaster On : May 31, 2013
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Category: Archives, Government

Recently, President Obama addressed the graduating class of Ohio State University. During his address he said:

Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems; some of these same voices also doing their best to gum up the works. They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave and creative and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can’t be trusted.

In this politically-charged national debate, we have President Obama and much of the left arguing for a greater role of government in the lives of people, and on the right the Tea Party and others are arguing for a smaller government. But, government is merely a framework for governing and not the actual science of government which determines its size and reach. We call the science of government politics.

Look in any modern dictionary and you will find the definition of politics given in a half-dozen or more explanations, many with unfavorable connotations. One pushes the dictionary aside with the thought that the soup contains the ingredients but not the flavor. To find the flavor, particularly to understand what the founding Americans thought of politics, we need to go back to Noah Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language of 1828:

The science of government; that part of ethics which consists in the regulation and government of a nation or state, for the preservation of its safety, peace, and prosperity; comprehending the defense of its existence and rights against foreign control or conquest … and the protection of its citizens in their rights, with the preservation and improvement of their morals. (emphasis added)

We see that the early Americans believed that politics dealt with ethics (the moral code) and was to be concerned with the preservation and improvement of the morals of the citizenry. So politics is not the “heavy” as it is so often portrayed in modern times. Politics are necessary to govern a people, but that governance can range between being very good and very bad. And bad politics can result in a bloated, socialistic government or an austere, aloof, uncaring government. This distinction between government and politics is important and not just an exercise in academic hair-splitting.

With this understanding, two observations are necessary: government is ordained by God and man has a fallen nature. The problem is not bad government but bad politics caused by corruptible man who is not guided by the North Star of a biblical worldview resting on objective truth. Therefore, it is not government that is the issue as portrayed by President Obama. Rather, it is bad politics that is that separate, sinister entity that is the root of our problems. Bad politics is the tyranny that constantly lurks around the corner.

Once again, bad politics comes from ignoring the corruptible nature of man in the governance of a people. The Founders held a biblical worldview. They understood the truth of the fallen, corrupt nature of man, and designed the Constitution with separation of powers and other devices to control or mitigate that corrupt nature. But the modern liberals believe that man is inherently good, not fallen and in need of redemption.

The contrast between the beliefs of the Founders and those of President Obama and the humanist-liberal-progressive establishment could not be clearer. James Wilson, a signor of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and an original Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, said, “Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine… Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other.”

However, President Obama in a speech titled “Our Future and Vision for America”, said,

At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It’s the art of the impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God’s edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one’s life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime, but to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing.

For President Obama, it appears that human law must exclude divine law in the nation’s policy making. President Obama also says that we should reject those voices who say that “…our brave and creative and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can’t be trusted.” I would submit that self-rule without the restraints of God’s law is the truly dangerous thing which can’t be trusted. Ultimately, self-rule without God is the source of bad politics.

Although the state has a proper role in God’s design of social systems, bad politics have allowed the state to dramatically usurp the authority of other spheres within God’s social system: family, church, labor and economics, education, man, and God Himself. In America, God and Christianity are being driven from the public square. As the social order is swept clean of God’s presence and influence, the lines between the spheres have blurred and opened the way for the state to appropriate to itself a presumed authority over all aspects of life. Such state authority ends in the tyranny of socialism or one of its various mutations which have been responsible for the greatest death, destruction, and misery in the history of the world. This is the sinister tyranny that Americans fear and which President Obama so blithely dismisses.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Washington Wire, “Transcript: Obama speech at Ohio State University,” The Wall Street Journal, May 16, 2013. http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/05/06/transcript-obamas-commencement-speech-at-ohio-state/ (accessed May 16, 2013).

Noah Webster, “Politics,” American Dictionary of the English Language, Facsimile Edition, (San Francisco, California: Foundation for American Christian Education, 1995).

The Works of James Wilson, Bird Wilson, editor (Philadelphia: Bronson and Chauncey, 1804), Vol. I, pp. 104-106 as quoted from online source: http://www.partyof1776.net/p1776/fathers/WilsonJames/quotes.html (accessed May 16, 2013).

Illinois State Senator Barak Obama, “Our Future and Vision for America”, About.com US Liberal Politics, June 28, 2006. http://usliberals.about.com/od/faithinpubliclife/a/ObamaReligion_4.htm (accessed May 16, 2013).

Postcard – Help for the low information voter

Posted by :webmaster On : March 6, 2013
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Category: Archives, Government

Although there is an information explosion in the modern world, much of the information needed to be a well-informed voter is missing, irrelevant, or misleading. The low information voter is inundated with media sound bites, tweets, twitters, talking heads, etc. which may produce much heat but little light. So what is the low information voter to do? A good start would be to go back to the basics. Read books and other documents free from the clutches of revisionist historians with worldviews and agendas different from those of the Founders. A good acquaintance with much of the content of the books and documents listed below will move you to the head of the class, and you will no longer be a low information voter.

Our political foundation: The Constitution of the United States

America’s founding principles: The Roots of American Order, Russell Kirk

Founder’s beliefs in their own words: America’s God and Country – Encyclopedia of Quotations, William J. Federer

Democracy in America: Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville

General history of America since Columbus: A Patriot’s History of the United States, Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen

Prerequisites for Culture: Visions of Order and Ideas Have Consequences, Russell M. Weaver

Our modern malaise: Slouching Towards Gomorrah, Robert Bork

Marriage and Family: The Broken Hearth, William J. Bennett

Heart of the culture wars: Witness, Whitaker Chambers

Socialism: The Road to Serfdom, F. A. Hayek

Worldview: How Now Shall We Live? Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcey

Humanism: Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, Larry G. Johnson

WARNING! Reading this material will dramatically change your life and way of thinking. Proceed at your own risk, but do it anyway for the good of America.

Larry G. Johnson