Friday, April 13, 2012

Where Do Your Rights Come From?

The Founders believed our rights came from our Creator not from a government. They believed natural rights are NOT given by government, governments are created to secure these natural rights for it's citizens. Abraham Lincoln believed the principle of "Liberty to all--the one principle that clears the the path for all--gives hope to all--and by consequence, enterprise, and industry, to all."

What are natural rights? In order for the Founders to put their lives, and the lives of their families, at risk by declaring their independence from, and committing to a war with perhaps the World's most powerful nation of the time they must have had some really good reasons. We have all heard about tea parties and taxation, but were these really enough to take this drastic action? If you read the Declaration of Independence you will find the primary reasons, which I believe, finally brought about the breakup.

The Declaration is divided into three main parts. First, the authors put forward their beliefs: second, they provided a pretty extensive list of the ways they saw these beliefs being violated by the King of England; and third, they put forward the specific action they would take. What fundamental beliefs could have been so inviolate to cause such a drastic action? These brave men claimed to "hold the following truths to be self-evident-that all me 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,-". The Founders saw the British King taking away these liberties without the consent of the governed and acted accordingly.

Many people today, calling themselves progressives, do not believe there is any such thing as God given rights and even if there are they were only used in the Declaration to free themselves from England. They point out if these so-called Liberties are not even mentioned in the Constitution how  can they apply to us more than two hundred years later?

If these men believed strongly enough in these Liberties to put themselves at risk of hanging or being drawn and quartered wouldn't it logically follow they would build a Constitution and a government that would insure these liberties would be preserved for all? Many people, including Abraham Lincoln believed the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution were completely entwined. Lincoln used a King James bible verse to illustrate the point; in Proverbs 25:11 we find: "a word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver"-to describe the relationship between the principles of the Declaration and the Constitution. The gold apples being the Declaration of Independence surrounded by a frame of silver, the Constitution.

The progressives of today are working to take these liberties away through lawsuits and regulations all the while re-inventing history to make their case. I would be willing to bet the kids of today are not even required to read either of these documents. In grade school we memorized the Gettysburg address, perhaps the most famous speech in history. Since I doubt kids see it today you will find it on my blog. The only way the progressives will succeed is to convince you that you are not guaranteed only the pursuit of happiness, by our Constitution but total happiness by your government. The weakness in government by progressive is their belief in their ability to change human nature. Government can't guarantee you will be happy because everyone's happiness is different.

These two documents are the foundation for your government, make it your business to know what is in them. Take some time to pay attention when you hear about a new "rule or regulation" and ask yourself how it effects one of your God-given liberties. Then remember it was written by some en-elected bureaucrat. How is that working for you?


























Wednesday, April 11, 2012

"a house divided........"

Several years ago part of the Brown family sat around a table having breakfast and talking about a number of things including politics. The younger members of the family had questions and asked me, as the senior member of the family, to begin writing my thoughts on our Country, our political system as I understood it, and growing up when I did. My initial thought was no one would read it, since it would simply be my opinion, and the younger people of the day seemed to have little interest in politics and the structure of our country. Several said they would indeed read it and pass it on to their freinds. Still, I felt I didn't have the right skills to put my thoughts in writing. Thus I did nothing.

Here we are a few years later and a number of things have changed my mind. As a man who was just entering school as World War II was winding down, I grew up in a country far different than the one we live in today. With each passing day I find myself concerned for the kind of country it will be for my grand children and great grand children who will be entering school in the next few years. I read two online newspapers every day follow a number of different people on Twitter. In fact a number of my tweets have appeared in the editorial comment section of USA Today. I have taken the Hillsdale College online Constitutional Course, and am now reading the writings of Abraham Lincoln, all 3000+ pages of it. In other words, I pay attention and I am terribly concerned about what is going on in our country today. I am concerned we seem unable to get the truth from either our elected officials or the media we count on. I am concerned we have a system where politicians continually run for office, worrying only about the next election while the country is being run by a bunch of un-elected bureaucrats! That is not government wth the consent of the governed. MOST OF ALL I AM WORRIED YOU DON"T SEEM CONCERNED!

All of these concerns might not have pushed me to change my mind until I heard the President of the United States, a former law professor say "it would be unprecedented for the Supreme Court to overturn, as unconstitutional, a law passed by a majority of Congress"! I thought, what are they teaching these kids in school today? We learned, in grade school, the concept of separation of powers, and the responsibility of each branch of the government.

The fact a President would make a statement he knows is wrong to further his own agenda and that Lincoln's words "a house divided against itself can not stand" seem almost as much in play today as they were before the Civil War made up my mind. Therefore, I will try and explain my view of our country,our political system, and some of the differences between today and yesterday. Although I am doing this for my daughters and grand children, I would hope it might ignite some ideas in otherrs as well.