Generally Specific

I find the complete overthrow of our constitution largely laughable; it is hard to imagine how such a detailed and exhaustive document could so easily be taken out of context. At the focal point of this pure irony is the  “general welfare” clause of Article one, Section eight. Ever since the 1930’s, under the federal courts of the New Deal,  these clauses have been so blatantly taken out of context that they deserve a bit of discussion. Despite the “misinterpretation” in this case, it will be shown that the founders not only predicted such a thing occurring, but a means to remedy it and what the clause actually meant.

Article one, Section eight defines and delineates the powers of Congress. Clause one states, “The Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises: to pay for the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States: but all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.” After this, an exhaustive list of powers  are provided, such as the power to coin money, regulate foreign commerce, declare war, etc. This list is very specific; it lists exactly the powers that Congress has, which will be noted in a moment.

Regarding “general welfare”, many people consider it a grant of power to Congress so that it may pass laws that provide well…welfare in a general sense. They use this to apply to national healthcare, federal student aid, and even in some cases foreign aid. And this would be the case-if that was what was intended. Unfortunately, the founding fathers never intended this. James Madison, in regards to the general welfare clause, stated, “With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.” Essentially, he said that the general welfare clause was not an independent grant of power. It was a statement of how Congress would carry out its duty as a branch of the federal government. In order for it to be carried out, he said, the other powers must be used.

As further proof, Madison also states, in Federalist no. 46, that, “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which remain to the state governments are numerous and indefinite.” How, if this is the case, is the word “general” specific? Is “general” specific? Of course not! Common sense tells us this.

There are even literary rules of interpretation that apply in this case. David L. Cooper, an infamous biblical scholar, produced a guideline for how to interpret the Bible in 1947, but the rules apply just as well to the constitution. The first rule is to “Discover the Author, the people addressed,  and the life and times of the people involved in a given case.”According to this rule we must understand the author and the people of the time.

Around the time of the Revolutionary War, American colonists were angry at the British Parliament inconspicuously ignoring their constitutional right of “No taxation without representation.” They had a legal right to this, but since Parliament was considered above the law, Parliament changed this to provide financial relief from the debts accrued from the French and Indian War. Eventually, to fix this problem, the colonists foug ht and won a war of independence to secure these long-held constitutional rights. After this, they proposed the federal system of government under the Constitution, in which all governmental bodies were under the law, and could not alter it without the approval of the other half holding amendment rights, state or federal. In Article one, Section eight, they listed specific and defined powers by which Congress could operate. They wanted to avoid allowing the new Congress to pass any law not specifically delegated to it by providing an exhaustive list of powers.

The Second rule is, “Discover the facts and truths presented in a given passage and note the exact wording of the text.”

According to M. Stanton Evans in the book, “The Theme is Freedom”,

“No one familiar with our current federal government would dream of calling its powers “few and defined”-or describing the boundaries of its authority as “unalterable” and “fixed”. The situation, as everyone knows, is the reverse. How has it been possible to deduce a system of unlimited national power from these arrangements, and still maintain that we are living under the federal constitution? The answer to this question, as provided by liberal scholars and the courts, is most ingenious yet.

The favored approach in this regard, already noted, has been to take particular phrases in the Constitution-“general welfare”, “necessary and proper”, “commerce”- and construe these as independent grants of power, affecting all kinds of things that were not confided to the national jurisdiction. Since these phrases might be made to mean anything whatever, there is little in this doctrine that is exempt from federal preemption, subsidy, or regulation. What may notbe done, for instance, that doesn’t affect the “general welfare”, or “commerce”, in some fashion? Thus has our system of supposedly limited government, under a binding constitution, become a regime of dominant power.

As it happens, such arguments were fully anticipated in the ratification struggle, since opponents of the constitution had said these phrases might be interpreted this way and the supporters categorically denied it. This discussion makes clear that the phrases had no such meaning, and could not conceivably had done so-precisely because the system was one of limited powers. Hamilton said, for instance,  that “necessary and proper was a “tautology”, not an independent grant of power. Madison called the protest over “general welfare” a measure of anti-federalist desperation-“stooping to such a misconstruction.”

“For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, he asked, “if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power?” The identical phrases had been included, more than once, in the Articles of Confederation: “Construe either of these articles by the rules which would justify the construction put on the new constitution, and they vest in the existing Congress a power to legislate in a cases whatsoever.” Viewing “general welfare” as an independent grant of power, he concluded, was “an absurdity.”

So it was-and is. Yet this absurdity has long since become the ruling theory of our courts, and the premises for a boundless exercise of federal power. It is in consequence of such reasoning that the national government today involves itself in welfare spending of all types, extensive regulation of the economy, employment training, health care programs, education, criminal justice, care of children, and countless other functions that were, by the repeated witness of the Founders, to have been the jurisdiction of the states, and were understood that way by the people who ratified the Constitution.”

Madison also states in Federalist no. 41 , “Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, is an absurdity, which, as we are reduced to the dilemma of charging either on the authors of the objection or the authors of the Constitution, we must take the liberty of supposing, had not its origin with the latter.”

The Constitution is clear. Congress shall provide the general welfare by the particular powers provided succeeding it. The “general welfare” clause is not an independent grant of power. All the evidence from the founders prove this, and common sense and literary rules also back this supposition. If we held our representatives accountable, and actually did our part to uphold our republic, this blatant disregard for liberty and the rule of law would not occur. No national healthcare, no federal student aid, and no other subsidies. Conservatives and libertarians, especially, NEED to know this. it is as Benjamin Franklin once said after arriving home from the Constitutional Convention of 1787, “It’s a republic-if you can keep it.”  Will you?

The educational deathmatch of the powers…

America is no longer the leader in world technology, business, or education. India and China are outpacing us.

While I don’t intend to get political about it, we need innovation. Our schools, while decent, are not on par with the rest of the world’s. Our students are technologically adept, but not willing to do much to offer to our future. The most they do usually is get a job and stay there for job security, as machines doing the work to profit the ones who really innovate.

Yet in other countries, take for example India, they school year round and regularly outpace us in many areas, especially the STEM areas (Science, Technology, Engineering ,Math). Our students, on the other hand, waste much of their time for a quarter of the year for summer break! In the time that they play video games, text, and surf the internet, they could be learning so much more! We may have the nice titles and doctorates, But are we really still the lead?

We DO need to teach globalization from the start in America, yet we must hold on to the things we hold dear. But it is of absolute neccessity that we stop keeping our heads in the old days where America was ahead of the curve and was the leader of industry, and start to realize that other countries have finally managed to make it to that point.

Our jobs are being outsourced to these places because the people in these countries aren’t as worried about being super-comfortable. They are unique because they operate the machines, not act like one.

In America, most people usually has a similar life plan, even if they do not realize it. They plan to go to college, get a degree, get married, buy a cookie-cutter house, and then spend the rest of their lives trying to stay afloat financially and hopefully get good job bonuses. People, in China, on the other hand, are more generational minded than we are. Most of their elderly rely upon their children and grandchildren for support.

The biggest thing that should be a problem is that America is China’s biggest source of income. We are 54 trillion dollars in debt to mainly China for loans that they have provided and we are paying WITH INTEREST!

America has failed to innovate to the grand extent like India and China and is now falling behind. DID YOU KNOW that India and China are right behind America in purchasing power? How long will it be until that is reversed? It is because of our inability to face the future and stay on the the track to innovation that we need to change.

America can do this, if 1-we instill personal responsibility in our children, and 2-if we face globalization as something beneficial, instead of negative. We still have the time to do so, and can make a worldwide difference if we do. What is your choice?

America’s State of the Union

George Washington has said, “It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible”. I strongly believe that this quotation is true, yet many today believe that America was founded upon secular principles, and that God has no place in a free society. The secular theorists of today believe that to govern America according to biblical standards,  Our government is violating the First Amendment of the Constitution which states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

Do Judeo-Christian values and the Bible have any place in US government? Yes, I believe that America was founded on these absolute principles. America in essence, was Christian; founded upon Christian principles and the existence of a “provident God”, A “Supreme Judge”.  Those who misinterpret the First Amendment think that America should have not allow any reference to God in government or politics.

From the denunciation of the religious right, to the removal of prayer from schools, and even further, to the limitation of parental rights, our so-called “inalienable rights” are being eroded. These United States of America are going from God to Godless!

We will be looking at three points: the origin and nature of our foundational cornerstone; what has, and currently is, eroding our foundation; and lastly, what can be done to stop it.

America had no beginning, one may say, as the philosophy that led to American independence came about from centuries of British political thinking. However, the words, “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” leads people to think that these words were influenced by Renaissance enlightenment leaders such as John Locke and a large list of secular theorists. The secularists think that the roots of America were not theistic, but instead were completely secular and were an evolved form of Roman and Greek government.

If one looks at the historical record, this was anything but the case. David Barton in his book, To Pray or not to Pray, said, “In 1892 the US Supreme Court made an exhaustive study of the supposed connection between Christianity and the government of the United States. After reviewing hundreds of volumes of historical documents, the Court asserted, “These references…add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a religious people…A Christian nation.” Likewise, in 1931 Supreme Court Justice George Sutherland reviewed the 1892 decision in reference to another case and reiterated that Americans are a “Christian people.” And in 1952 Justice William O. Douglas affirmed that “we are a religious people and our institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.”

So, America was never a secularly influenced government, but was a declaration of the inherent rights of man, granted by a just God. All the rights in question come from God, as stated in the Declaration of Independence.  Why and how could those rights exist if God was not present in US government?

John Adams also believed in the importance of Judeo-Christian values in the foundation of America. He said, “The Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist, and believed blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations.” He saw the importance of the Hebrews in government, and made sure that their ideals and beliefs were the very system that America was founded upon.

Now we have examined the origins of the foundational cornerstone of America which is Christianity, let’s look at how our God-given liberties are being removed, slowly but surely eroded.

In 1962, the first memorable attack on religious liberty began. The US Supreme Court decided in the case Engel vs. Vitale that because of the First Amendment’s first clause, voluntary prayer in schools was to be rendered unconstitutional. They said that promoting and funding prayer in schools was unconstitutional by the fact that it was favoring Christianity over other religions. But, that did not favor Christianity at all. It was the right of the people according to the very same amendment that they had every right to say the prayer as long as it was not made requisite for all.

The government beforehand had always defined the First Amendment differently. David Barton said, “The sudden and dramatic restructuring of educational policies was precipitated by the Court’s reinterpretation of the phrase “separation of Church and State.” The First Amendment does not contain that phrase; it simply states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” This had always meant that Congress was prohibited from establishing a national religious denomination-that Congress could not pass a law requiring Americans to become Catholics, Anglicans, or members of any other denomination.”

This 1962 misinterpretation of the First Amendment has led to many class action lawsuits and the downward scale of morality and quality of the US as a whole. The effects of this case are substantial particularly, because if you instill a certain mindset in the youth through education, you ultimately affect the behavior of an individual greatly. Even the Great Socialist Adolf Hitler knew the importance of controlling the school curricula. He said, “If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.” He was right, as is evident from the immorality of the last half century. Murders, thefts, abortions, the rise of the homosexuality movement. They all have resulted largely from the lack of the Bible in schools. People who are taught no morality grow up without any morality.

In 1963, the school religion issue got even worse. In the case Abington School District vs. Schempp, it was decided that not only was school sponsored prayer unconstitutional; but so was school sponsored Bible reading. A Pennsylvania law required that at least ten verses from the Bible be read every morning without comment. This was regarded by Schempp and his children that it violated their constitutional rights granted in the first and fourteenth amendments. However, one often forgotten fact was that the students had no obligation to stay in the room when the verses were being read. It was the right of the Schempp children to leave the room; their rights were not being violated in any way, as they still could worship and tend to their religious beliefs as they chose.

These were some of the most important attacks on religious liberty within the public school system. But the importance of these attacks worsened when, in 1980, President Jimmy Carter created the Department of Education. This was a federal education branch that controlled policy on US education. Republicans and the conservative right deluded this happening, saying that the federal government has no right to interfere with public school curricula and the way that students are taught. This was supposed to be left to the States and the local communities.

Since home-schooling first became popular in the late ’80s, many people have wanted to take these rights of the parents to educate their children as they wish away. Many people want the government to educate our children without any involvement on our part, since it is said to be the only “stable” way of ensuring that they grow up to be productive citizens. Currently, in California, a court of appeals is deciding whether or not parents who do not have a bachelor’s degree have the right to educate their children at home. The right of non-bachelor degree holding parents is that they can home educate their children, despite any attempts to remove it.

One of the reasons that home-schooling became popular was because of the lack of the Bible instruction in public schools. But the federal government, as tyrannical as always, makes sure that it has control over every part of our lives. that it can. The largest branch to take this blame is the Judiciary. Interestingly enough, it was created as the weakest of the three branches. But, as Thomas Jefferson has said, “The Constitution…is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please.”

If we allow the judges in our judiciary to go unaccounted act without any restraints, they soon will hold almost unlimited power in our government. This is why all the rulings in these cases have been for the worse. The judges used bad or corrupt judgment in deciding each case. In Engel vs. Vitale, 7 of the 8 judges went against the substantial amount of evidence for the right of prayer in schools. Only one stayed with it. But, not surprisingly, those seven judges had no previous judicial experience, only political experience! The other had many years of judicial experience under his belt! We must hold them accountable!

This is much of the situation that has happened to the religious right since that fateful day in 1962. But, we can change it! There is hope!

It is in each person’s jurisdiction to protect his or her own their rights. Lack of participation will lead to your personal wants being treated as irrelevant. We need to not only participate in Presidential elections, we NEED to MAKE the government conform to the voters’ wishes. do what we want them to do by voting and keeping our hand in the game. Our rights are our rights as long as we value them. And as you probably value your life, you go to great measures to keep it. Why not do the same with your inherent rights?

As Patrick Henry has said, “Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”

George Washington has said, “It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible”. I strongly believe that this quotation is true, yet many today believe that America was founded upon secular principles, and that God has no place in a free society. The secular theorists of today believe that to govern America according to biblical standards,  Our government is violating the First Amendment of the Constitution which states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

Do Judeo-Christian values and the Bible have any place in US government? Yes, I believe that America was founded on these absolute principles. America in essence, was Christian; founded upon Christian principles and the existence of a “provident God”, A “Supreme Judge”.  Those who misinterpret the First Amendment think that America should have not allow any reference to God in government or politics.

From the denunciation of the religious right, to the removal of prayer from schools, and even further, to the limitation of parental rights, our so-called “inalienable rights” are being eroded. These United States of America are going from God to Godless!

We will be looking at three points: the origin and nature of our foundational cornerstone; what has, and currently is, eroding our foundation; and lastly, what can be done to stop it.

America had no beginning, one may say, as the philosophy that led to American independence came about from centuries of British political thinking. However, the words, “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” leads people to think that these words were influenced by Renaissance enlightenment leaders such as John Locke and a large list of secular theorists. The secularists think that the roots of America were not theistic, but instead were completely secular and were an evolved form of Roman and Greek government.

If one looks at the historical record, this was anything but the case. David Barton in his book, To Pray or not to Pray, said, “In 1892 the US Supreme Court made an exhaustive study of the supposed connection between Christianity and the government of the United States. After reviewing hundreds of volumes of historical documents, the Court asserted, “These references…add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a religious people…A Christian nation.” Likewise, in 1931 Supreme Court Justice George Sutherland reviewed the 1892 decision in reference to another case and reiterated that Americans are a “Christian people.” And in 1952 Justice William O. Douglas affirmed that “we are a religious people and our institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.”

So, America was never a secularly influenced government, but was a declaration of the inherent rights of man, granted by a just God. All the rights in question come from God, as stated in the Declaration of Independence.  Why and how could those rights exist if God was not present in US government?

John Adams also believed in the importance of Judeo-Christian values in the foundation of America. He said, “The Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist, and believed blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations.” He saw the importance of the Hebrews in government, and made sure that their ideals and beliefs were the very system that America was founded upon.

Now we have examined the origins of the foundational cornerstone of America which is Christianity, let’s look at how our God-given liberties are being removed, slowly but surely eroded.

In 1962, the first memorable attack on religious liberty began. The US Supreme Court decided in the case Engel vs. Vitale that because of the First Amendment’s first clause, voluntary prayer in schools was to be rendered unconstitutional. They said that promoting and funding prayer in schools was unconstitutional by the fact that it was favoring Christianity over other religions. But, that did not favor Christianity at all. It was the right of the people according to the very same amendment that they had every right to say the prayer as long as it was not made requisite for all.

The government beforehand had always defined the First Amendment differently. David Barton said, “The sudden and dramatic restructuring of educational policies was precipitated by the Court’s reinterpretation of the phrase “separation of Church and State.” The First Amendment does not contain that phrase; it simply states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” This had always meant that Congress was prohibited from establishing a national religious denomination-that Congress could not pass a law requiring Americans to become Catholics, Anglicans, or members of any other denomination.”

This 1962 misinterpretation of the First Amendment has led to many class action lawsuits and the downward scale of morality and quality of the US as a whole. The effects of this case are substantial particularly, because if you instill a certain mindset in the youth through education, you ultimately affect the behavior of an individual greatly. Even the Great Socialist Adolf Hitler knew the importance of controlling the school curricula. He said, “If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.” He was right, as is evident from the immorality of the last half century. Murders, thefts, abortions, the rise of the homosexuality movement. They all have resulted largely from the lack of the Bible in schools. People who are taught no morality grow up without any morality.

In 1963, the school religion issue got even worse. In the case Abington School District vs. Schempp, it was decided that not only was school sponsored prayer unconstitutional; but so was school sponsored Bible reading. A Pennsylvania law required that at least ten verses from the Bible be read every morning without comment. This was regarded by Schempp and his children that it violated their constitutional rights granted in the first and fourteenth amendments. However, one often forgotten fact was that the students had no obligation to stay in the room when the verses were being read. It was the right of the Schempp children to leave the room; their rights were not being violated in any way, as they still could worship and tend to their religious beliefs as they chose.

These were some of the most important attacks on religious liberty within the public school system. But the importance of these attacks worsened when, in 1980, President Jimmy Carter created the Department of Education. This was a federal education branch that controlled policy on US education. Republicans and the conservative right deluded this happening, saying that the federal government has no right to interfere with public school curricula and the way that students are taught. This was supposed to be left to the States and the local communities.

Since home-schooling first became popular in the late ’80s, many people have wanted to take these rights of the parents to educate their children as they wish away. Many people want the government to educate our children without any involvement on our part, since it is said to be the only “stable” way of ensuring that they grow up to be productive citizens. Currently, in California, a court of appeals is deciding whether or not parents who do not have a bachelor’s degree have the right to educate their children at home. The right of non-bachelor degree holding parents is that they can home educate their children, despite any attempts to remove it.

One of the reasons that home-schooling became popular was because of the lack of the Bible instruction in public schools. But the federal government, as tyrannical as always, makes sure that it has control over every part of our lives. that it can. The largest branch to take this blame is the Judiciary. Interestingly enough, it was created as the weakest of the three branches. But, as Thomas Jefferson has said, “The Constitution…is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please.”

If we allow the judges in our judiciary to go unaccounted act without any restraints, they soon will hold almost unlimited power in our government. This is why all the rulings in these cases have been for the worse. The judges used bad or corrupt judgment in deciding each case. In Engel vs. Vitale, 7 of the 8 judges went against the substantial amount of evidence for the right of prayer in schools. Only one stayed with it. But, not surprisingly, those seven judges had no previous judicial experience, only political experience! The other had many years of judicial experience under his belt! We must hold them accountable!

This is much of the situation that has happened to the religious right since that fateful day in 1962. But, we can change it! There is hope!

It is in each person’s jurisdiction to protect his or her own their rights. Lack of participation will lead to your personal wants being treated as irrelevant. We need to not only participate in Presidential elections, we NEED to MAKE the government conform to the voters’ wishes. do what we want them to do by voting and keeping our hand in the game. Our rights are our rights as long as we value them. And as you probably value your life, you go to great measures to keep it. Why not do the same with your inherent rights?

As Patrick Henry has said, “Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”