Self-Governing Individuals Are Necessary for a Self-Governing Society | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Much has been written in recent years to try to dismiss the fact that America was founded upon Judeo-Christian Biblical principles. But this is merely part of a larger attempt by progressives to revise our history and use it in the teaching (indoctrination) of our youth to engineer a "new" America - an America not defined by her founding principles and values.

    This is not to say that all of the Founding Fathers were Christians. Clearly, some were not. But what is most important is that even those who were not Christians were deeply influenced by the principles of Christianity. Those principles nevertheless helped to shape their political ideals. But without a doubt, there was a predominant Christian consensus in colonial America that shaped the Founders' thinking and their writing of our founding documents and laws and resulted in the republic that we have today. Atheists may complain about and seek to undermine our Christian heritage, but the right to think and express themselves as they do was granted to them by Christians. Atheists want "good without God" and work tirelessly to remove the spiritual underpinnings that form the framework for our rights, our republic, and our laws. But what they don't understand is that without the belief and social acknowledgement that our individual human rights are linked to our relationship with God (Creator), then our rights are not secure at all. If rights don't come from a Creator, then they must come from government. And if they come from government, then they are not inalienable and government is free to take them away when it suits their purposes. That's why atheists can't hope to establish a society of their own and are dependent upon the values that come from Christianity.

    Bringing the Message Home --

    When I was a young girl, I spent a lot of time in the Methodist Church across the street from me. My mother worked both a day and a night job and I didn't like to be home alone. When I saw the lights on in the church, I would pick up my books and go there. Aside from learning about our Savior's unconditional love and the power of His act of salvation upon the cross, one message that stood out from my time in the church was that we are to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Another message I took home from my early days in the church was this: "What you have (health, mind) is God's gift to you. What you do with them is your gift to God." In other words, there is some sort of personal obligation to invest in oneself, develop talents and gifts, become educated, and use them to contribute in some way in order to benefit society as a whole. And in contributing, one should hopefully be mindful to honor and glorify the Father. In my world, as a young girl, I not only saw religion as a code that established guidelines for conduct and behavior, but I also came to see it as a force that encouraged me to be the best human being possible and to contribute productively to my community.

    As I mentioned, my mother wasn't around much and certainly I didn't see much of my father as well. I didn't have an authoritarian figure to watch over me night and day. I barely had one for a few hours at the end of the day. Yet I did well in school, never missed a day, never got in trouble, never broke a law, and never caused my mother any grief. Why? Because I was able to govern myself successfully. I had an internal system of laws that restrained my conduct and helped me understand what was right and wrong.

    Isn't this what the Pilgrims had in mind? Isn't this what our Founders had in mind?

    Imagine if all children and young adults had the same kind of influence in their lives as I had.

    A few weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to listen to some remarks that Pitt County district court Judge Brian DeSoto delivered to a group of conservatives. He began by reading from 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." Brian emphasized that the Declaration only recognizes the right to pursue happiness; it doesn't recognize a right to happiness. As he explained, our Founders were wise enough to understand that the right to happiness was a recipe for disaster. That, in fact, was a government philosophy embraced in Europe but one that was explicitly rejected by our Founders.

    I got to thinking what these two messages - the Declaration's use of "pursuit" and the message I took from my church as a young girl - have in common. Both are based on Natural Law; that is, the natural basis of our humanity. They are both grounded on the notion that Man has free will and understands the consequences of his actions.

    Freedom, like life itself, is a gift. They are precious gifts indeed and ultimately provide us with the opportunity to reach our full human potential. But because they are based on the exercise of free will, we as individuals have to take responsibility. If we want to honor God with our life and our deeds, then we have to make the necessary choices. We have to develop the gifts we are given. If we want to enjoy property and happiness, we must first pursue them, which means we'll first need to invest some energy, hard work, sacrifice, and perhaps creativity and/or ingenuity. If we wish to preserve our rights as individuals for our posterity, we must take a good look at the government we have allowed to govern us.

    Success (as embodied in the term "Happiness") is not always easily achievable. It demands sacrifice. The person who sets out to find success understands that he may also fail. But it is in the "pursuit" that we find the greatest exercise of freedom. And freedom is always worth the risk. Once freedom is gone, people rarely get it back. Going back to Judge DeSoto's remarks, if our government takes away the right to fail, as it has been doing with its growing entitlement programs, individuals cease exercising their free will. If individuals cease to exercise their free will, government will fill the gap and take away fundamental individual rights.

    John Calhoun, the controversial Senator from South Carolina who wrote exquisite expositions on America's founding principles yet openly supported slavery, perhaps explained it best:

    "To make equality of condition essential to liberty would be to destroy both liberty and progress. The reason is, that inequality of condition, while it is a necessary consequence of liberty, is, at the same time, indispensable to progress. In order to understand why this is so, it is necessary to bear in mind, that the main spring to progress is, the desire of individuals to better their condition; and that the strongest impulse which can be given to it is, to leave individuals free to exert themselves in the manner they may deem best for that purpose, as far at least as it can be done consistently with the ends for which government is ordained,--and to secure to all the fruits of their exertions. Now, as individuals differ greatly from each other, in intelligence, sagacity, energy, perseverance, skill, habits of industry and economy, physical power, position and opportunity,--the necessary effect of leaving all free to exert themselves to better their condition, must be a corresponding inequality between those who may possess these qualities and advantages in a high degree, and those who may be deficient in them. The only means by which this result can be prevented are, either to impose such restrictions on the exertions of those who may possess them in a high degree, as will place them on a level with those who do not; or to deprive them of the fruits of their exertions. But to impose such restrictions on the exertions on them would be destructive of liberty,--while, to deprive them of the fruits of their exertions, would be to destroy the desire of bettering their condition. It is, indeed, this inequality of condition between the front and rear ranks, in the march of progress, which gives so strong an impulse to the former to maintain their position, and to the latter to press forward into their files. This gives to progress its greatest impulse. To force the front rank back to the rear, or attempt to push forward the rear into line with the front, by the interposition of the government, would put an end to the impulse, and effectually arrest the march of progress."

    It's true that our Bill of Rights do not necessarily encompass all the rights that individuals today believe they are entitled to. What they do is define a minimum moral standard. What we do with our freedom after meeting that minimum moral character is what determines the type of society we live in and the moral character of the nation. For example, welfare rights are not morally justified. To allow people to live and procreate on other people's money is simply immoral. Taking money away from one family for another is unethical. As Thomas Jefferson once said: "To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical."

    It was the exercise of free will that enabled our 236-year-old country, conceived in freedom and liberty, into the wealthiest, the most productive, the most creative, the most industrious and the most generous nation on Earth. Likewise, it will be the exercise of free will that will determine whether people will live their lives to honor God and help to restore the values upon which our nation was grounded.

    In Conclusion --

    The results are in..... Everywhere Christianity has been able to penetrate culture and society, it has been successful. It has been so successful that others, such as atheists and extremists, have flocked to Christian empires to enjoy its freedom and prosperity. The humanization that derives from Christianity has touched the heart of civilization and civilization will never be the same again.

    Here in the United States, our Christian heritage explains our notions of ordered Liberty and government. The preservation of that liberty has always depended on two things: a constitution that limits the amount of government in people's lives and a citizenry that requires little government. We still have our Constitution to protect us from the reaches of government, although the government has jumped into warp speed to redefine the scope of its own powers and to audaciously exceed the power that was originally granted to it by the States and the People - the true sovereigns. What we don't have is a citizenry that is disciplined enough and moral enough to require as little government as possible. They have not been using their free will wisely or responsibly. When laws are too numerous, they are just as dangerous to the exercise of liberty as having no law at all.

    When government and law replace individual manners and morals as the basis for social order, government and the law will fail, and so will society. The task before us is to exercise free will responsibly and in line with certain traditional values so that we can be self-governing citizens capable of preserving liberty and passing that American legacy onto our children and grandchildren. The task is to limit government and recommit ourselves to a decent civil society. If we wish to energize the moral state of the union, government will have to return to the principles of freedom and justice that stand behind the Constitution, and people will have to return to moral principles. They will need to demand that government get out of the way and allow religion to permeate their societies in order to establish moral codes and enable individuals to better govern themselves (so that government doesn't have to). Only when people can govern themselves successfully can we ever hope of scaling back government and getting it out of our lives and within constitutional bounds.

    This won't happen by itself. People will have to stand up and do their part.

    As Ron Paul warned in his final address to Congress (2012), the American people must return to virtue before the government will trust them with freedom. This statement alone, from a man who liberty-conscious as Dr. Paul, should serve as a wake-up call. He talks about a government "who will trust the people with freedom." A good and decent, moral people would have the opposite concern. They would question whether they could trust their government with THEIR freedom.

    Raghavan Iyer commented on what he believes to be the current path of the United States: "There has been a dangerous transition from the idea of a government of limited powers over citizens with inalienable rights to the idea of the unlimited sovereignty and the material welfare of the majority. It is an easy step from here to the perilous position reached by most democracies today, in which individual liberties are violated in the name of national security and prestige at home and abroad, in which the mute and meek are often sacrificed at the alters of public utility and political necessity."

    I hope Americans can return to good.


    References:

    Diane Rufino, "Kirk Cameron's Film 'Monumental' Reminds Us of Our Christian Heritage," September 13, 2012. Referenced at: www.forloveofgodandcountry.com

    Maurice Bisheff, Ph.D., "The Moral and Political Thought of Thomas Paine," The Institute of World Culture, October 14, 2006. Referenced at: http://www.religionpaine.org/article_bisheff01.html

    Message from John Adams to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massacusetts, October 11, 1798. Referenced at: http://www.beliefnet.com/resourcelib/docs/115/Message_from_John_Adams_to_the_Officers_of_the_First_Brigade_1.html

    Joseph Ashby, "Is Religion Necessary," American Thinker, January 3, 2009. Referenced at: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/01/is_religion_necessary.html

    Benjamin Franklin's Letter to Thomas Paine. Referenced at: http://www.wallbuilders.com/libissuesarticles.asp?id=58

    John Fea, "Religion and Early Politics: Benjamin Franklin and His Religious Beliefs," Pennsylvania Heritage Magazine, Volume XXXVII, Number 4 - Fall 2011. Referenced at: http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/history/20018/benjamin_franklin_and_his_religious_beliefs/1014592

    "Franklin's Appeal for Prayer at the Constitutional Convention" - http://www.wallbuilders.com/libissuesarticles.asp?id=98

    Murray Rothbard, "What Really Happened at Plymouth?," Lew Rockwell. Referenced at: http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard130.html

    "'The City Upon a Hill,' by John Winthrop: What's It All About?," The Historic Present, June 28, 2010. Referenced at: http://thehistoricpresent.wordpress.com/2010/06/28/the-city-upon-a-hill-and-puritan-hubris/

    Robert P. George, "Law and Moral Purpose," First Things, January 2008. Referenced at: http://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/12/001-law-and-moral-purpose-16

    Rep. Ron Paul's Farewell Remarks to Congress - http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/11/ron-paul-departs-with-our-constitution-has-failed/

    Michael and Jana Novak, "Washington's Providence," Alliance Defending Freedom. Referenced at: http://www.alliancedefendingfreedom.org/Faith-and-Justice/5-3/Opinion

    "Southern Heritage Quotes: John C. Calhoun on Liberty," The Occidental Dissident, December 12, 2011. Referenced at: http://www.occidentaldissent.com/2011/12/07/southern-heritage-quotes-john-c-calhoun-on-liberty/

    Raghavan Iyer, Parapolitics: Toward the City of Man, Concord Grove Press, Oxford (1979).

    Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot, Regnery Publishing (2001).

    Publisher's note: Diane Rufino has her own blog, For Love of God and Country. Come and visit her. She'd love your company.