Principles of Liberty, Principle 26: the core unit which determines the strength of any society is the family; therefore, the government should foster and protect its integrity.

In this day of shifting morality and increasing pressure on society to accept as “normal” behavior and relationships that are opposed to natural law (see previous articles in this series), we do well to remember the role of family in society:

1. The family unit is the basic building block of society. It is within the context of family that values and beliefs are passed from one generation to another. It was said of the ancient Israelites that Moses and his generation knew the ways of God, but the generation that followed only knew the works of God. In other words, the children saw the works (the effects) but they did not understand the ways (principles). Without the principles, the effects could not be maintained, and the nation of Israel was lost. Similarly, when we fail to pass on to the next generation the principles of freedom and sound government, those ideals we cherish will soon pass away.

2. The family unit is the well spring of self-government. The core principles mentioned above include self-control, delayed gratification, the concept of teamwork and sacrificing for “the good of the order.” When these concepts are lost, society as a whole suffers.

The way it’s “supposed to work”:

1. The family is the basic building block of society, and the well spring of self-government.

2. Families form alliances (neighborhoods, villages, towns, etc.) and elect representatives to govern the geographical area.

3. Communities make up counties, counties make up states, and states make up the nation.

Today a significant portion of the “transfer process” in which knowledge and values are passed from one generation to another has been eroded. Yes, we still have young people progressing from kindergarten to graduate and post graduate studies; but often the knowledge is being formed in a vacuum; too much of the young person’s formation is left to the state, with only peripheral parental involvement. The very structure of the family itself is being warped and changed by outside pressures, divorce, etc. to such an extent that the founding fathers would hardly recognize the unit we call “family.” The result is a weakening of the freedom of the individual.

To understand how this works one need look no further than the socialist and communist nations of the world. The press in these nations is always to remove children from their parents at an ever earlier age. The goal is to have the state, rather than the parent, raise the child so that the child is properly indoctrinated and compliant with the will of the state. The child sees the state as their benefactor and protector. The interruption of the normal relationship with parents often means the child never has an opportunity to form a meaningful relationship with God; the result is that the concept of personal freedom and liberty becomes foreign to the child, and the new generation passively accepts and even welcomes the yoke of state. Individual drive and innovation begins to fail and the level of creativity declines. As the state attempts to be all things to all people, and provide cradle to grave care and protection for the population, the consumers begin to outnumber the producers. Generally the state will at some point attempt to force productivity from the population, but these efforts usually are only partially successful. The overall standard of living declines. Eventually the society collapses and the cycle starts over again.

We need to study history and understand that very often, the decline of civilization begins with the decline of the family; and often that decline is aided and abetted by a state that wants to be worshipped by the citizens; that wants to be the “beneficent dictator.” But as we have seen throughout history, the state is incapable of occupying the role of god for very long. We must see and understand what is happening to the family today, and we must understand the impact of the family on society. If we do not preserve the traditional family unit, we will ultimately lose our nation.

In a previous post I pointed out that the resistance to voter ID laws is grounded in specious and untenable arguments. We provide identification for everything from cashing checks to renting videos, but some segments of our society argue that requiring positive identification to vote is “demeaning” and “disenfranchising.”

Well, the video below clearly demonstrates one reason the protesters don’t want voter ID laws.

As this video proves, “stuffing the ballot box” is a very, very easy thing to do. In close elections, this could make the difference in the outcome of an election.

One popular ballot stuffing tactic, which was used in the last presidential election, is to  bus groups of people (often homeless people etc.) to polling places and encourage them to vote for a particular candidate in exchange for a meal, etc. Technically these people have a “right” to vote, although obviously the circumstances are fraudulent.

As this video demonstrates, another popular tactic is “help” dead people vote. Of course, this is why there is such a hue and cry from the “liberals” against voter ID laws – voter ID laws remove a prime method of stuffing the ballot box.

Voter roles are freely available to the general public for the asking. All you have to do is get a current voter list, compare it with records of deceased persons in the precinct (easier than you might think) and then show up to vote using the dead person’s information.

Not only does “every vote count” – some votes count twice, some votes are easy to “buy”, and some votes count whether the voter is living or dead.

A short time ago I posted a brief commentary on a local event that is becoming oh so common – the fight over closing aged and no longer needed schools.

Having thought more about this, I have another idea; or, more precisely, a different flavor of the original idea. I wonder if perhaps the time has come to take a giant step backwards while leveraging modern technology. If local churches would form educational “co-ops”, manned by volunteer parents, kids could come to the local church building and use the facilities, plus their own laptops, for school; the kids would “attend” cyber charter schools of the parent’s choice. Parents could take turns serving as school “monitors” while kids completed their school work on their computers. The kids could have lunches and recesses together for “socialization” (although I’ve never been convinced what that means, or the value of it.) Age would not matter, since each student would be doing his/her own grade appropriate work on his/her own laptop and using his/her own study materials. This might even be a way for churches to develop education programs with very little to no overhead; if they only offered the service for their own memberships, it’s unlikely (at least for a while) that anyone could police them if their “extracurricular activities” were spiritually themed. The churches could include before and after school programs as appropriate, so that students could be dropped off by a parent on the way to/from work, and picked up the same.

• Churches would benefit from an additional membership/family building activity, and provide a valuable service to their congregation.
• Kids would be spared the frustration (and sometimes the trauma) of an unnecessarily long bus ride.
• Parents would have the peace of mind knowing that their children were in a reasonably safe place being monitored and assisted by people who not only love and care for their children, but also who could presumably be supporting the parent’s values as they answer question, provide direction, and otherwise engage with the students.
• If enough churches participated, local school costs could be significantly reduced. Maybe the answer isn’t closing less local schools; maybe the answer is to close more local schools – maybe even all of them! Church buildings, which often stand mostly empty and unused during the week, could be put to good use, the education system in general could benefit from increased use of, and leverage of, current technology, reducing costs and (one would hope) taxes, and children could receive a high quality “home school” education with a truly local and empowered school board.

“Back in the day” the church was the center of the community, not the school. Maybe it’s time for the church to step up to the plate and reclaim some lost ground. This may be one way to do it.

Principles of Liberty, Principle 25: “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations: entangling alliances with none.”

This quote, from Thomas Jefferson’s first inaugural address, is the product of a careful study of scripture and history. The founding fathers recognized that many strong and brave nations had been brought to ruin by forming unhealthy alliances.

The modern history of the United States is riddled with examples of our own failed alliances, and failed foreign policy. Many people do not realize that the United States was instrumental in bringing both the Shah of Iran and Saddam Hussein to power – only to end up, in the former case, abandoning a faithful ally, and in the latter case finding ourselves in the unsavory position of removing the one we had helped to install. There are many other examples of failed attempts on our part to manipulate the politics and history of the world.

The United States, as a nation, is in a unique position among the world powers. We are blessed with geography and resources that would allow us to be entirely self-sufficient. Yet our own political shenanigans have left us unable to leverage these blessings to our own advantage. Often the wall that blocks our progress is the wall of “foreign policy.”

How peaceful might our sovereignty be if it were not for the constant “wheeling and dealing” we insist on pursuing with other nations? This is not to say that military action is never necessary. Certainly, however, the way we utilize our military strength, and the places and situations for which we are willing to expend the blood and lives of our young men and women, could be more carefully and thoughtfully chosen. And When we choose to “engage”, the objective should be clear and achievable, and we should “play to win.”

What if the United States conducted itself according to Thomas Jefferson’s quote? What if we had never allowed ourselves to become so dependent on foreign oil? What if we had not chosen to intervene in Iraq, or if national security demanded such action, what if we had truly made it our objective to WIN THE WAR? What if we returned to a time when national interests took precedence over political correctness? Israel actively engages in racial and political profiling at every point of entry to their country; and although they are surrounded by enemies who want to see their nation destroyed, they are very effective at “keeping the wolves at bay” while still enjoying relative freedom for their citizens.

The citizens of the United States should pause and take stock of our situation, our resources, and our national ideals; and then we should actively press our government to pursue policies that are consistent with those ideals. We should always be willing to be friends with those who are willing. We should be willing to pursue commerce with other nations where fair trade is possible and supported. We should avoid “entangling alliances” that place our national sovereignty, and the lives of our military, at unnecessary risk, or threaten national embarrassment. We should at all times pursue and attempt to maintain peace with all nations. And when we find it necessary to pursue a military solution, we should let our military experts determine what is necessary, and the world should know that we will “play to win” and that our national interests will come before “entangling alliances.”

“Principles of Liberty” adapted from The 5,000 Year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen © 1991, 2007

Principles of Liberty, Principle 24: A free people will not survive unless they stay strong.

There are a number of levels on which a free people can stay strong. We can stay strong physically, by caring for our bodies, engaging in honest labor, and developing healthy habits. We can stay strong morally by training ourselves to resist “instant gratification”, observing the Golden Rule, and exercising self-control and restraint. We can stay strong as a society by upholding and defending the foundations of our society – faith, family, self-reliance, civic pride, and mutual responsibility.

Just a glance at the above list will reveal that on many fronts today America is failing. The nation is weakening because her people are weakening.

Weakening spiritually: We’ve traded “live free or die” for the cradle to grave nanny state. We’ve traded “One nation under God” for “whatever is right in your own eyes.” We’ve abandoned the concept that there is an ultimate system of reward and punishment, and this has “freed” us to live as animals, with no thought of consequence.

Weakening morally: Few people, it seems, even make a token attempt to subdue their lusts or overcome the “I want it now” syndrome. Our government has moved from encouraging thrift as a foundational economic principle to encouraging debt for the citizenry, and like sheep we follow along. We have “cast off restraint” and even if we do not participate in immoral activity, we refuse to confront and debate those who do.

Weakening Physically: Many of us are overweight and out of shape. Most 30 year old males today could not do half the daily labor a lad of 12 or 14 was capable of in 1800. We take no care for our bodies, and then we expect the government to care for us when we are weak, fat, diseased, and frail. Society ultimately pays the price for our overindulgence and sloth.

Weakening Families: We have related in previous articles in this series the immutable fact, the natural law, that family is the foundation of society and right government. Yet in the United States today enemies of the people and the state are attempting to redefine family in a way that will ultimately destroy the very fabric of a free society and subvert our ability to raise another generation capable of self-government and the preservation of freedom.

Weakening self-reliance: Benjamin Franklin once said that “When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” It would appear he was prophetic. John F. Kennedy once said “Ask not what your country can do for you, as what you can do for your country.” The quote seems trite to us today, when nearly half of all American households include a member who receives some form of government “entitlement” benefit, and half of all households pay no federal income tax. We live in an age of “what’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is mine” thinking; and it is bankrupting our nation. Rather than rely on ingenuity, determination and hard work to elevate our economic status or provide for our needs, we expect to be richly rewarded for the minimum amount of effort, demanding from the government and our employer what we would not otherwise receive in a free and open, self-adjusting economy.

Weakening Civic pride: A recent post on Facebook noted that a certain actor has been all over our news outlets because of his unsavory and anti-social behavior. In the same time frame a number of men and women have lost their lives in defense of our country and our freedoms, and they are not even mentioned. Few outside of their families and friends can name them. Our government, of course, with constant revelations of corruption, abuse of power, and waste, gives us little to feel proud about. The sense of America as a nation with a destiny is waning, and few of us have the heart to try to save her against such long odds.

Weakening responsibility: Few of us are responsible anymore; nothing is ever “my fault” or “my responsibility” and I will sue my own mother and father to prove it. The United States has many lawyers that “specialize” in helping people “get what is theirs” – from the government and from each other. They have become a class unto themselves, despised by the populace on the surface and yet clung to because we all want to prove our “rights”, prove we are “entitled” and prove it isn’t our fault or our responsibility. Other nations look in astonishment at our litigious ways. Our courts are clogged with frivolous lawsuits, and there is no sign of relief.

All of these burdens and weaknesses are, of course, surmountable; but is it not interesting that the fate of the nation, ultimately, rests on the decisions, proclivities, and activities that each of us, as individuals, engage in? If “we the people” cannot reign in our appetites, control our lusts, strengthen ourselves physically, morally, spiritually, and mentally, and accept less from our government in order to preserve our freedom, then “we the people” will certainly become the servants of tyrants.

A Venango County school district is closing schools again – this time it’s Polk and Utica in the Franklin School District. Of course, there are the usual “mandatory” public meetings where moms wring their hands and dads rant about how the schools are needed. Once the meetings are over and the hoopla dies down, the schools will close anyway. It’s inevitable.

Here’s a little reality check: the schools are not needed – that’s why the district wants to close them. The population of Venango County is declining, and there just aren’t enough kids in the area to justify the number of schools we have. That, plus the ever-tightening budget in the slumping economy, is forcing the demise of the “local” school.

So, what’s a parent to do? Well, here’s a thought – SCHOOL CHOICE. It already exists – Make it your own. I think it’s time we started leveraging today’s technology in the educational arena. I think it would be great if we went back to the days when dad went to work, mom stayed home and took care of the kids, and now the kids don’t even have to go to school – we can cyber school them! Imagine how much money we would save if we didn’t have any expensive school buildings, with all the inherent overhead. Imagine a world where parents actually took care of their own kids and accepted responsibility for raising them – including choosing and monitoring their educational experiences!

A recent article in the The Progressive  (carried by the Franklin, PA News-Herald) decried the increase in “Voter ID” laws. These laws require voters to produce some authorized form of identification, generally a photo ID, when they enter a polling place to vote.

David A. Love of the Progressive Media Project states in the article that voter ID laws will “sabotage” the right of some people to vote. Love states “as many as 5 million people” across the country could be affected, and “low income voters, the young, people of color and those with disabilities” will be disproportionately affected.

 Well, here’s another perspective: There are over 200 million people who are eligible to vote in the United States; in the last Presidential election 131 million did so. Affecting 5 million voters is almost statistically insignificant – 2% or less of the eligible population, and 3% or less of the total actual voting public. Furthermore, most of the voter ID laws simply require presentation of a valid photo ID or voter Registration card at the time of casting your ballot. Since nearly all states make photo IDs available to citizens, even if you do not drive,  It is not hard to surmise that there is probably a reason why those 5 million people cannot produce a valid photo ID or voter registration card, and the reason they cannot produce the ID would, in most cases, disqualify them from voting anyway.

The real reason that Mr. Love and others of his liberal persuasion are crying “foul” is simple: it is a lot harder to stuff the ballot box if you have to produce a picture of every person voting, or prove the person’s eligibility to vote. All those busloads of homeless folk that were paid to vote in Chicago and its environs (and other places) in the last presidential election, all those dead people who were amazingly resurrected to vote, will suddenly disappear, leaving only legitimate, law abiding, tax paying citizens to cast ballots.

 That’s what Mr. Love is really complaining about. That’s why liberals fear Voter ID laws.

Principles of Liberty, Principle 23: A free society cannot survive as a republic without a broad program of general education.

Unfortunately many in the United States assume this principle is fulfilled by our compulsory public education laws. Yet recent events in the financial and government sectors have helped to highlight the glaring inadequacies of America’s public education system.

In order to understand the founding fathers’ expectations concerning education, we should look back to the system they knew: a cooperative system of public and private education controlled entirely at the local level with virtually no federal involvement.
Consider these facts:

In 1850 Alexis de Tocqueville observed that “In New England every citizen is instructed in the elements of human knowledge; he is also taught the doctrine and the evidences of his religion; he must know the history of his country and the main features of its Constitution. In Connecticut and Massachusetts you will very seldom find a man whose knowledge of all these things is only superficial, and anybody completely unaware of them is quite an oddity.” While it is true that New England pioneered the development of public and compulsory education, the state government had little direct involvement. Schools were established, curriculums created, teachers paid, and discipline maintained, not by the government, but by the parents in the context of the local community. The state and federal governments neither provided nor interfered with the educational process, but merely informed the citizenry that education must be provided. And the general population understood so well the value of education to the health of the republic that providing for education was considered virtually a religious duty; the poorest village or hamlet in the nation was not without a church and a school in some form.

Fast forward to today. In the United States of America, compulsory public education is now demanded and dictated by the federal government, and all but controlled by the state; but it may not truly qualify as education. The founding fathers would surely be aghast to know that, in 21st century America, 70% of high school students in Oklahoma could not name the first president. Only 41% of teenagers can name the 3 branches of the federal government. The United States is lagging educationally in the areas of mathematics, science, and literacy. Concerned parents turn in increasing numbers to home schooling and private education, only to find their efforts thwarted by a government bureaucracy more intent on self-preservation than on the welfare of the students – or the republic.

The developing nations of the world have wholeheartedly embraced the concept of public/private cooperation in which small, private schools which operate more cheaply and more efficiently than their government run counterparts are an integral part of the educational structure. Yet the United States has not yet discovered this secret.

In the current milieu of financial uncertainty it is more important than ever to get “the most bang for our buck” in every endeavor, and no less so in the area of education; yet our government answers every perceived educational shortfall by throwing money at it, with little to no evidence that there is any significant return on the investment.

There is no doubt that a free society requires a broad program of general education, and it is time for the citizens of the United States to demand just that – not a social engineering program, but a genuine program of education, leveraging free market principles to deliver high quality at the lowest possible cost – something a government bureaucracy will never achieve.

In order to revitalize our educational system, the following steps should be taken:

1. Return all responsibility for educational systems to the state level; eliminate the federal oversight of education, which is outside the constitutional mandate of the federal government.
2. Embrace a cooperative public/private educational model, with school voucher and school choice programs supported, and with tax breaks for parents who choose alternatives to public education.
3. Place the burden of performance equally on the student and the teacher. Powerful unions should not be permitted to keep poor quality, underperforming teachers in their jobs; and students should be expected to perform in school rather than just “feel good about themselves.”
4. Make education results oriented, and let education dollars follow success, whether in the public or the private sector. Allow competition in the school system, and the best schools will win. Ultimately, that would be a win for the republic.

The 28 Principles of Freedom are adapted from The 5,000 Year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen, published by the National Center for Constitutional Studies. © 1991, 2007.

Principles of Liberty, principle 22: A free people should be governed by law and not by the whims of men.

As we have stated in previous articles in this series, the will of the majority is essential to a representative republican form of government. Those in power are elected as the voice and hands of the majority, to accomplish the will of the majority, while respecting the basic rights of the minority. This, in a nutshell, is how free men should be governed.

The recent case of Obamacare is an example of what happens when the rule of law is usurped by the whims of men. In this day and age with all of our communication tools, polling, etc. it is fairly easy to keep a finger on the pulse of the citizenry. When 70% of the people say they don’t want something, it is fairly obvious there is not majority support for it. When the government enacts such legislation anyway, the people have clearly lost control of the government, and we are no longer ruled by law but by the whims of men.

One thing that is essential to the rule of law is the acknowledgement of immutable, self-evident Truth as outlined in the preamble to the Declaration of Independence. Another critical element is a common vehicle for making and enforcing law – hence the need for parliamentary procedure. In a republican form of government the processes themselves become an integral part of the system of checks and balances that are intended to keep government “chained and fettered” and not allow it to leave its proper course.

When the governing powers alter, on a whim, the procedures of government, or when they create new and novel processes at their discretion and for their own benefit, the citizens ultimately suffer. Such is the case with many of the underhanded and inherently “illegal” (i.e. “against the rule of law”) processes we see used today by our own congress. Earmarks, amendments, “deem and pass”, and other legislative slights of hand, are all examples of the rule of law being circumvented in favor of rule by the whims of men.

This deeper underlying principle is why we should oppose the legislation that results from such law making circus fair. We the people must be willing to suffer some sacrifices to return our nation to a true rule of law, and we must force our elected representatives to uphold the rule of law in each decision they make on our behalf.

Returning to the issue of Obamacare, we should favor the overturn of this legislation on the grounds of legal impropriety alone. The bill clearly did not represent the will of the majority of Americans; it was passed through the use of several extremely questionable procedural tactics; it was not properly funded; and it places an illegal and unconstitutional burden on the citizens to engage in commerce against their will (forcing the purchase of a commodity by legal fiat.)

Do not be fooled by the silver tongue of the politicians, or the inept and often false reporting of the liberal media. These types of congressional power plays must be stopped if we are to maintain maximum personal freedom in a true representative republic.

The 28 Principles of Liberty based on The 5,000 Year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen, © 1991, 2006, National Center for Constitutional Studies.