Posted on 12/12/2009 7:25:54 PM PST by Jeff Head
That is why America has prospered and been free, because this principle has been lived and because the source for the fundamental values that make it possible has been recognized and openly and freely professed. That source is God in Heaven, the Almighty Creator. Our Declaration of Independence, and then our Constitution and Bill of Rights are rooted in these facts...in this principle.
When peoples from other lands, from all over the world and different cultures come together in America and adopt these fundamental principles...it makes us strong, and perpetuates our liberty. That's because these principles encourage and produce self-reliance, independence, self-worth, respect for others who live accordingly, and individual responsibility.
But when people come here with no willingness to either learn or adopt these foundational principles, or when our own citizens depart from them and pass laws at the federal, state, and local levels that work against these principles, or when our constitutional interpretation is so wrested as to accomplish the same...it is then that we are weakened from within and it is then that we are on the path to losing our God-granted and cherished liberty and republic.
Therefore, if we fail, it will because we failed in these principles first and foremost.
But if we are to retain our liberty, it will because we remember these critical principles and rise up as a people and apply it ourselves, and insist that it be applied by anyone who represents us at any level of government.
Jeff Head, December, 12, 2009.
The founders of this nation, the UNited States of America, knew these principles, staked their all upon them, founded our nation and laws in them, and spoke of them often:
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other."- John Adams, Oct. 11, 1798
"We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God."- James Madison
"[N]either the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. He therefore is the truest friend of the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen onto any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man." Samuel Adams
"Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles." Patrick Henry
"God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure if we have removed their only firm basis: a conviction in the minds of men that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever."- Thomas Jefferson
"Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private virtue, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics." John Adams
"A general dissolution of the principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy.... While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but once they lose their virtue, they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.... If virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great security." - Samuel Adams
“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.” Patrick Henry
"No country upon earth ever had it more in its power to attain blessings. Much to be regretted indeed would it be, were we to depart from the road which Providence has pointed us to, so plainly; I cannot believe it will ever come to pass. The Great Governor of the Universe has led us too long and too far to forsake us in the midst of it. We may, now and then, get bewildered; but I hope and trust that there is good sense and virtue enough left to recover the right path. " - George Washington
"I know here that you will agree with me that standing up for America also means standing up for the God who has so blessed our land. I believe this country hungers for a spiritual revival. I believe it longs to see traditional values reflected in public policy again. To those who cite the first amendment as reason for excluding God from more and more of our institutions and everyday life, may I just say: The first amendment of the Constitution was not written to protect the people of this country from religious values; it was written to protect religious values from government tyranny." - Ronald Reagan
"Let it be said of us that we, too, did not fail; that we, too, worked together to bring America through difficult times. Let us so conduct ourselves that two centuries from now, another Congress and another President, meeting in this Chamber as we are meeting, will speak of us with pride, saying that we met the test and preserved for them in their day the sacred flame of liberty -- this last, best hope of man on Earth." - Ronald Reagan
The twelve principles of the RESTORE THE CONSTITUTION effort are dedicated to and rooted in these same principles.
FYI...latest article/essay.
Well done, Jeff. God bless you!
ping
Thank you...and His blessings to you and yours, multiplied ten fold. Please feel free to pass this essay around.
First and Second amendments comes to mind.
Thoughs become words,
Words become actions,
Actions become habits,
Habits become character,
And your character becomes your destiny.
Amen...but without the underlying moral values and personal moral constraint to guide them...even those two pillars would degenerate into a mob and chaos.
Absolutely Correct. Wonderfully expressed.
—
“May they bear in mind that it is neither gold nor even a multitude of arms that sustains a state but its morals”
Denis Diderot
Line From: Apostrophe to the Insurgents, 1782
THX
Considering the brain washing our children go through in public school each and every day, not to mention the PC propaganda endured my most TV watchers … our moral guidelines are disappearing quickly.
Marking to re-read in the morning...
Thanks for the great essay and quotes as well as your graphics.
“Men must be governed by God or they will be ruled by tyrants.” William Penn
because america believed it was possible
Thanks!
Because it was founded on the Gospel of Jesus Christ!
Amen and amen! Without the underlying moral foundation and constraint...all that money and arms will only ultimately fuel a despot. Free men of conscience and moral principle though, when they stand and choose right and liberty for themselves and their own, they bring down despots.
You are welcome.
Precisely...He is the source of the moral foundation, He is the great Creator our founders spoke of.
Exactly, they believed it was possible, they chose to do something about it...and, they professed the truth that God in HEaven is the source of our unalienable rights and the moral foundation that supports them.
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