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Showing posts from 2012

Tragedies in LIfe

Twenty children were killed at a school in  Connecticut last week.  It is devastating beyond reason to those affected directly and  various emotions and reactions are brought to bear by those of us affected indirectly.    Learning by proxy is one of life's great teachers no matter how sad the lesson.   We all like to think that we  can be a force for justice in the world. We somehow think that our sense of justice is the right one. After all it is wrong for someone to kill innocent children and unarmed adults, right?  Do we realize that in order for justice to exist, injustice must likewise be a present given option? Many years ago when I had a two year old son, a family of our fellow church members also had a two year old son.  Their son found his way to a nearby canal, fell in and drowned.  The call had previously gone out that he was missing. I remember the anguish we all felt in not knowing what had happened.  When his little body was discovered we were all extreme

The Pursuit of Equality

The founder’s declaration of all men being created equal, while recognized at the time, was not achieved at the establishment of the constitution.  Even their vision had limitations on it as absolute equality in every phase of existence would be an impossible accomplishment without an extreme amount of force on a population.   Equality in l iberty  however was a primary objective and largely achieved with some limitations. It would be illusionary to think that a perfectly equitable system would be set up in the first government experiment of its kind by human beings.  Through the methods and freedom they established however, continuous progress has been made.  Through the freedom of speech and assembly, and unfortunately a civil war, slavery was abolished, and women’s rights have overcome much of the suppression put in place by the culture of misguided monarchs through the ages. In our society today the pursuit of equality revolves around various philosophies of redistributin

The Moral Basis of a Free Society

The intent of my blog is to organize my own thoughts but I have discovered one thing.  Study leads to further knowledge expressed by more diligent students and thinkers.  Here is one those excerpts with a link to the page. This is the introduction to the book which can be read at the link below. H. Verlan. Anderson The Moral Basis of a Free Society http://www.inspiredconstitution.org/index.php?content=mbfs/introduction.html Why Men Establish Governments One fundamental political truth which will be considered is that men establish governments for the purpose of compelling the citizens to obey a code of private morality. This code is contained in a set of laws which govern human conduct. Such laws may be classified into these two types: (1) Those which condemn and punish certain conduct as evil and harmful; (2) Those which compel the performance of other conduct considered good and beneficial.        When men make laws, and thus determine which conduct is so evil it sh

Abortion

The newspaper reports this week that abortions are up 25% in Arizona this year. The Arizona Health Services department statistics show that total is 13,606 or 16 out of 100 live births. The number of abortions annually in the world consistently reach 40 million.  What do these statistics indicate. Do they indicate an environment of affection and respect in the relationships that brought the pregnancy about? What are the unintended consequences of tampering with the processes of life with such impunity as abortion does?   In my post on Two Moral Codes and Social Challenges I point out as others have in the past, that certain events, topics, and situations that we talk about on a regular basis as issues are not usually the actual problem, but a symptom of an underlying moral condition at its core or root. Politicians like to treat symptoms because they can justify their misguided notions of solving something by ongoing rhetoric that sounds good to uninformed minds and simplis

James Madison, Essay on Property

Property James Madison, National Gazette March 29, 1792 This term in its particular application means "that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual. In its larger and juster meaning, it embraces every thing to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and  which leaves to every one else the like advantage.   In the former sense, a man's land, or  merchandise , or money is called his property. In the latter sense, a man has property in his opinions and the free communication of them. He has a property of peculiar value in his religious opinions, and in the profession and practice dictated by them.  He has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person. He has an equal property in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them. In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equ

Freedom, Capitalism, Caring For The Poor

No nation that is based on the principles of socialism ever established itself or came into existence on that ideology.  Socialist governments have always been built on the wealth established by capitalism or the enslaving of people to build infrastructure and build wealth for the government officials.   Socialism is the corruption of capitalism and free markets when citizens who think they are of a more elevated status gain control of governments for their own purposes.  The transition is from wealth of citizens created through the free market to government officials that usurp the same wealth from the citizens to grow government and create for themselves positions of wealth and power. There is no freedom of the individual or inalienable rights from God as socialism is based on a godless ideology.  Those that rule do so for the sole purpose of maintaining order for the purpose of their ambitions and position at the top of the social structure.  There is no creation of wealt

The Free Market is the best way to prosperity and the way out of poverty

Protecting and establishing economic freedom is the precursor to all freedoms and rights. This is how we acquire property and this along with the protecting of our inalienable rights is the foundational reason for creating government. In the days when all had some necessity to provide their own food, each person faced the challenge of providing for their families.  Each had property and protected it for their ongoing benefit.  As we have shifted from the agrarian culture, the basic premise is still the same except that our labors usually benefit us as we serve someone else either as a laborer or a provider of a service or product.   We produce wealth as we seek more efficient ways to provide for our needs and wants.  While the equation of millions of people producing millions of things can seem quite complex it is really a mostly simple observation.  There is a natural current to it that ebbs and flows according to demands and the subsequent supplying of those demands.  As ambitious

Morality and Society

Do we as citizens and our leaders in government ask ourselves what would really make a difference in our society to make it better? Don't so many politicians think they want to make the world a better place?  Don't many individuals as well say that they want to change the world and fix the problems we face?   The fact is, the course we are on will change very little until our leaders have the moral authority to invite others to a higher standard without legislation and compulsion.  A pertinent question is if we want our society led by people that have shown discipline in all areas of their life or by the undisciplined? If we are to solve problems we have to look at root causes and stop focusing on symptoms.  We need to look at the powers that move us in the world and see if we can make changes to move us in the direction of peace. We must understand natural law and how it works in our universe.   The automobile is not designed with man made traffic laws in mind.  It is ma

Individual Rights, Liberty and Inalienable Rights

Government is the power given to a group or individual to act on the behalf of its citizens.  It is the people employing representatives and others to carry out their wishes.   As soon as the people stop paying attention to what their representatives are doing they will begin to lose their freedom and their rights.  That is the natural progression of human nature and freedom.  This is what the founding fathers sought to stop with the Constitution and the recognition and need to preserve our unalienable rights as expressed in the Declaration of Independence. Oppression and tyranny has been the direction of almost any government or kingdom for the fact that there will always be those that seek for power and authority over their fellow citizens.  To think that the founders of this nation came together at all in the period that they did and established a form of government that has withstood the internal attacks on freedom longer than any existing constitution at the present time is

The Declaration of Independence

The first two paragraphs of the "The Declaration of Independence" contain some of the most succinct declarations of the purposes and principles of freedom ever written.   In those declarations Thomas Jefferson outlines the self evident truths of man's rights and that the source of those rights being the Creator.  The God of nature and of all creation.  It is in essence a mission statement for a new nation. The political philosophies in today's world pretty much revolve around whether one believes that rights come from God according to eternal principles of freedom, or from man governing over other men at their whims and discretion by political position or dominance. What is the difference?  There are really only two kinds of governments.  Self governance and government by rulers.  Self governance implies that people will have a voice and appoint representatives with some limited authority to look after the affairs of a nation and create just laws enforced with fai