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Points to Ponder

This Is Not Our Founding Fathers' Country




The United States of America is the greatest nation on this planet. It is the only essential nation that needs to exist in order for freedom to blossom anywhere else. If this nation were to disappear, things would be very bleak for mankind indeed.

Anyone that disagrees with the previous paragraph is someone that wants to enslave you – regardless of your nationality.

DA: Aren't you exaggerating things just a teensy weensy bit?

Not in the slightest. From the mountains of Pakistan to the union halls of France, anyone that perceives America as evil is someone who wants to enslave someone else; either directly as the jihadi's do, or indirectly through dependency as the socialists do. They all know that their biggest threat to their aspirations is America, and they'll say anything to disparage us.

Before I go any farther, I want to state that I don't consider this to be a perfect country. Even the characteristics that I admire most can be found better in other countries. Things like real personal liberty (not the phony crap that leads us to be free from the consequences of our actions) and entrepreneurship. It's just that these characteristics would not be possible in those countries if it were not for America.


Not Worth Fighting For

But it's not those from the outside that are the real threat to this country. It's those from within that are sealing the fate of our destruction. It's those of us that believe our country is an evil influence on the world that will ensure the liberties we have remaining will not last.

DA: You know, your one note diatribes are wearing very thin. How you can connect what we – liberals – want, to the destruction of our country is... predictable. Quite the opposite in fact. What we want will strengthen America.

Really? What do you suppose caused a great empire like Rome to fall?

DA: Everybody knows that. It was corrupt and evil.

Hah! It's your answer that is the predictable one.

Rome was always corrupt and evil. The more ruthless it was the more it expanded. But I'm not surprised by your response. Every book you'll read on the subject of why it fell could be summarized with your reply, but that doesn't really get to the heart it. The way I like to put it is that Rome fell because it became something that wasn't worth fighting for, which is what you liberals are doing to this country. You're making it something that isn't worth fighting for.

I remember when Diane Sawyer asked 'The One' whether he felt America was an exceptional country, and he replied that of course he thought it was exceptional. He then proceeded to list serveral other countries that he was sure the citizens of them believed their country was exceptional too. In other words, like all liberal thinking, all countries are exceptional, which actually means that no country is exceptional.

Now I don't believe President Obama actually has it in for this country. In the liberal mind, the only path to world peace is to make all countries not worth fighting for. They truly believe that if no one believed their country was exceptional, then there would be no wars. They then proceed to run down our country (rather than building the others up), but they are making a huge mistake. They believe that they are the ones that will be able to take control of a morally weakened America, but in fact, something else is going to swoop in and steal their prize from them.

The best analogy I can give you is what happened in the '08 elections. At the beginning of the year, I thought Hillary had a lock on the presidency. I'm sure she did too. I'm sure she felt free to run the Bush administration down to insure that the populace would be looking for a change come November. Yet I'll bet she was absolutely shocked when a more charismatic and passionate candidate swooped in and took the election from her.

Quite frankly, once it became clear that Barry was going to get the nomination, I just had to laugh. Here she was, with her sheep all lined up to deliver her a victory, never suspecting another shepherd would steal her flock. How fabulous was that or what?

Just as many liberals missed judged who would reap the presidency by berating the existing administration, they also are miscalculating who the true victors will be by convincing our citizens that this country is not exceptional – that this country is not worth fighting for. The true victors are the ones that do believe they have something worth fighting for. These people can't be reasoned with. They don't care how nice you are to them. In fact, offering concessions to them only feeds their self-rightiousness.

DA: You're not back on that demagoguery about Muslims are you? They're no real threat to us.

I'm sure the Romans felt the same way about the barbarians before they were run over by them. You need to understand that whether you're good or bad has nothing to do with whether you will win or lose. You can also be as smart as Einstein, but if you use that intelligence to stick your head in the sand, you will be defeated. The first step to victory requires that you must first be prepared to win, but when you refuse to recognize that you are even in a fight, then the only option is to lose.

The difference between winning and losing is often boiled down to what you are prepared to take versus what you are willing to accept. As counter intuitive as this may sound, the only life worth living is a life worth dying for, and there are others quite prepared to die to see what they believe prevail.

The only way we can retain the freedom we enjoy in this country is by first recognizing its exceptionalism. I don't care what country you live in, or how much you prefer to live in that country, if you don't recognize how important America is to keeping people free around the world, then your only destiny is slavery. America is what makes this world free, even if it is not the best example of it right now.


Our Country No Longer Exists

The first step towards retaining our freedom before it is too late is to recognize that the country our Founding Fathers established no longer exists.

DA: Now your just speaking gibberish. Of all the incomprehensible things you have said so far, this is truly a huge leap into la-la land.

Let me explain. President Reagan is famous for once saying I didn't leave the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left me. That’s my attitude about this country. I believe that what it is now, was something never intended by our Founding Fathers. I would have accepted this transformation if those that caused the change had the courage to say so, but they didn't. They want to pretend that there is a smooth lineage from 1776 to today, but there isn't. Our Founding Fathers would never have condoned what has happened to the country they began.

DA: Still just gibberish.

You don't fool me. I know full well that you liberals look back at our Founding Fathers and see nothing but a bunch of rich white guys whom most were slave owners. To be a liberal means to look upon them with disdain and revulsion. The mere idea that you revere what they established is preposterous.

Of course you won't come out and say that you don't revere what they did. That's not how liberals work. Actually expecting people to understand what you believe is not possible as far as you're concerned. The only way you know how to accomplish your goals is to redefine our past, particularly the meaning of what is found in our Constitution. Many would say that it is our Constitution that defines our country, but it’s not. The Constitution is only a collection of words, and as such, they only have the meaning that we believe them to have, and liberals elites in particular, know this to be true.

They are the ones that talk about our Constitution as a 'living document.' What they claim this means is that the Constitution must be viewed through the prism of our ever changing society. What they really mean is that they want to change the meaning of the words, without having to acknowledge that they are changing the Constitution itself.

DA: Again. Still gibberish.

The best way I know how to put it is what I heard a law described as. It is nothing but a football put into play by politicians, so that lawyers and judges can toss around and derive whatever meaning they can get away with – the original intention of the law be damned. Yet what no liberal can ever grasp is that for our Constitution to protect the rights of our citizens, we must pay attention to what the meaning of it was when it was made into law.

It is impossible to understand the real meaning of any words all by themselves. To understand them you must look at the context that they were written in. A wonderful source that offers context for the Constitution is the Declaration of Independence. A lot of people like to dismiss it because it was never considered a ruling document, which is true, but everyone that voted on the Constitution – and the first ten amendments – believed they were putting the spirit of that declaration into law with the Constitution. Any close examination of the declaration would shine a powerful light on how we no longer view the Constitution the way our Founding Fathers did.

One sentence above all others is the most important. It goes, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men 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.’


The Right To Life

Let’s look at those rights one by one, beginning with Life. Liberals emphatically state that the Constitution protects a woman's right to an abortion. Really?

Do you believe that our Founding Fathers would believe that the Constitution they wrote granted anyone the right to an abortion? Argue what you want about whether abortion should be legal, no one who voted on the Constitution, or voted on any of the subsequent amendments, believed they were securing the right for anyone to kill the unborn. Do we really need to debate this point?

DA: At least we have it established now that you believe men should tell women what to do with their bodies. Furthermore, you conservatives don't give a damn what happens to the child after it's born, so don't pretend that you care what happens to it before then.

Considering there are far more women than men that are Pro-Life, I really don't know where you get off saying this is about men telling women what to do.

DA: No there's not!

Yes there is, and it's not hard to understand why. Women, and only women, feel the pressure society places on them to have abortions. That pressure comes from the father of the child that doesn't want to be one, and the friends who think she would be an idiot to throw away her freedom by keeping it.

Let's face it. Abortion is great for men, because it lets them off the hook of fatherhood. Besides, I've never quite grasped this concept that men are trying to control women by keeping them pregnant. How does that work, exactly? I thought the big feminist theme was that women didn't need men, and that a single mother is just as capable of raising a child as one that is married.

And as for your charge that we don't care what happens to children after they're born, the way I see it, if you don't care about it before it's born, there is no point in caring about it afterwards.

Before I continue I want it known that while I am Pro-Life that doesn't mean I want to outlaw abortion. There is much more that I need to explain to properly clarify this, but for now, I want it known that I am more concerned with the mother that thinks there is nothing wrong with killing her child than I am concerned with the fate of the child. As with all cases of murder, it's not the life that ends that is the real problem to our society. It is the life that continues after the murder that is the real horror, and outlawing abortions does nothing to address this.

More to the point, if you save the mother then you will save the child. If you forget the mother then the child is probably damned anyway.


Execution Is Not Murder

DA: You conservatives are hypocrites when you talk about respecting life, because you have no problems supporting the death penalty. It is you that supports murder.

So you believe that respecting the life of those that kill innocent life demonstrates a respect for life in general? Hah!

First of all, I don't view an execution as punishment. Punishment is what you do when you want to correct someone's behavior, and murderers are people who don't even deserve that. Through their actions, the only thing they deserve is to be dismissed – literally. They deserve no consideration at all. Yet every breath they take after their conviction of murder, is our society's slap in the face of any respect for life.

Yet my advocacy for the death penalty has nothing to do with making sure murderers get what they deserve, it's about protecting the innocent life that would-be murderers will prey upon. Every murderer that continues to live sends a message that their life is just as valuable as anyone else's, and their crime is no different than any other crime – only by a matter of degree.

Wrong, wrong, wrong; a thousand times wrong! A murder is not just about breaking a law. It's about taking away someone's unalienable right to life, and society must respond to it differently – not just in a matter of degree.

You can dismiss all of the studies that have shown that a swift and sure execution dissuades others from committing murder, but you do so at your own peril. Nothing – absolutely nothing – protects human life better than sending a clear and unambiguous message that murder is a special crime that will not be tolerated. Conversely, nothing ensures our demise as a nation not worth fighting for than sending a message that everyone, regardless of their actions, deserves to live.

DA: Don't all of the people who were found guilty of murder, only to be later found innocent through DNA testing, trouble you in the slightest?

Actually, quite the opposite. Because of DNA testing, we can now be very certain of the guilt of those we convict.


The Right To Liberty

Liberty is a right that is a bit more obscure to understand, particularly in our society where freedom is defined as being free of the consequences of our actions. Also, a lot of people like to criticize our Founding Fathers because they didn't abolish slavery, but this is nothing but a distraction. Slavery was a legacy of our previous culture, and was never established by this country. If those who wanted slavery abolished – and there were many back then – had stuck to their convictions to have it put in the Constitution, then there would not have been the United States of America as we know it today, where in ‘Four Score and Seven Years’ later we finally had the moral authority to abolish slavery.

Keep in mind that until 1750 – just twenty-six years before our country’s birth – every single nation on this planet had slavery in one form or another. America had nothing to do with creating slavery, but it had a lot to do with seeing it end all across the world.

The best way to understand our Founding Fathers view of Liberty is in the following sentence from the Declaration where they state ‘That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.’

Let me restate that. Their idea was that the only way to have a just government was to have it govern at the consent of the governed. They did not believe that the government should tell its people what to do and what not to do. They believed that the people should tell it what to do and what not do. They didn't want ruling elites of any kind – derived by any manner.

And as for democracy, that was nothing but the tyranny of the majority to them. They wanted a constitutional republic, not a democracy. They wanted a constitution that protected the rights of its citizens from the absolute power of the government. They thought our constitution would do that, but they never factored in the ability of succeeding generations to change the very meaning of what they were putting down on paper.


What Is A Slave?

Before moving on to the last right mentioned, let’s take a closer look at the word consent. Do you believe that it is possible for someone to consent to be a slave? That is, to consent to no longer being able to consent? Do you believe that if someone agrees to be a slave then he should have the right to do so? And as such, would that make that particular slavery all right?

So what exactly constitutes a slave? Is it evil just because it occurred against their will? Any rational mind would say no. Also, anyone who has been addicted to a drug will tell you that he is a slave to it. So anything you are addicted to – or dependant on – makes you a slave to it.

In this day and age there is a new type of slave, one that never existed at the time of our Independence. In our Founding Fathers day, only private citizens owned slaves, but now it is the government that owns them through the dependency that they foster in many of its citizens. This is proven by the number of people who feel they can't survive without special treatment from Big Brother. In other words, they believe they need to be treated differently by government than others are treated. They believe that the government should take from others to give to them.

I say that if you are dependant on the government, then you are no longer consenting to it. To have consent you must believe you have another choice. If you do not believe you have another choice, then consent ends, and slavery begins.

DA: Nonsense. We live in a democracy. That means we choose our leaders. We're not slaves.

Wrong. Only free people choose leaders. All others choose masters, and just because you get to choose your master that doesn't make you any less a slave.


The Pursuit of Happiness

So how did we arrive where we are with so many slaves in this country? It came about by not understanding the last right mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, and that is the right to pursue happiness. This was never meant as a right to happiness. Any such belief in a right to happiness will make you a slave. Our Founding Fathers could never even dream of a right to happiness. They only saw – and rightly so – that government could only interfere with your right to pursue happiness. It could never give it to you.

It's not hard to understand how our politicians enslave people. They concoct all manner of social programs geared at correcting every unfairness they perceive, and in the process, make far too many people believe that they have a right to happiness – that they have a right to take from others things they did not earn themselves. These slaves don't understand the seductive power of a government that guarantees their right to happiness. They don't understand that the more things they convince themselves they need the government for, the more things they will believe that government should provide for them later on.

This is the most significant difference between what our Founding Fathers believed about government, and what so many do now. They saw government as only an impediment to happiness, while too many now see it as the only viable source of it. This makes them slaves, and thus are unfit to offer consent to be governed.


Don't Blame The Judges

So how did our country start off as one whose core principles were to set men free, but wound up as one that seeks to make them slaves? Most of the people who call themselves conservatives like to blame judges. They are, after all, the ones that state the Constitution says that abortion is a protected right. Yet far more damaging is what judges have done to religion. They are the ones that keep moving us from a country founded on freedom of religion to one that is more about freedom from religion.

DA: Don't you know that you can't have freedom of religion without having freedom from it?

Just you wait. I have an entire page dedicated to dismissing that fallacy. Getting back on topic...

Yet I don't blame the judges for what’s happening. Not one bit. They are nothing but a bunch of sanctimonious elites in silly robes, with really no power at all. No, I don't blame them. I blame the politicians. They are the ones that have allowed the judges to usurp their power. These judges could be impeached, but are they? Have you ever seen any impeached?

Either we have the most intelligent and ethical people being appointed by our politicians, or more likely, politicians appoint judges to do their dirty work. Rather than taking a stand on what they believe, politicians would rather see judges do what they are too cowardly to do on their own.

Let me explain something. There is only one valid role for a judge to play in our government, and that is to insure that the laws passed by the legislators are interpreted properly at any trial. It’s not practical to have the politicians who passed the law be present and verify that the court is using it properly. That is the role of the judge. He or she should look closely at the context of a law to ensure that the will of the people, as determined by the representatives of the people, is expressed at the trial, providing the law in question is not in conflict with the Constitution.

Is that what you see happening by our judges in their courts? I don't. I see them acting like we are the great unwashed who need to be told what to do and when to do it. I see them not caring one bit what the intent of any law is as long as they can dictate how they please. Things like religious symbols on public property is seen by them as the government imposing a religion, rather than what it really is, which is nothing more than the expression of religion.

DA: You've got this all wrong. Our constitution establishes checks and balances, and it is the roll of judges to check the power of the legislature. It is the roll of the judges to protect our rights from being abridged.

Wrong. It is the roll of government to protect our rights, not any particular branch. And the checks and balances are meant to be two-way. So if the legislature is not checking the judiciary, then the judiciary must be doing the legislature's bidding. When judges legislate from the bench, they are only doing what politicians are too cowardly to do on their own.


A Tale Of Two Countries

Getting back to religion and the courts roll in stamping out the expression of it in our country, this leads directly to another profound difference between what our Founding Fathers intended for this nation, which is one where religion would flourish and not be suppressed. Probably the greatest lie told about them was that they wanted to establish a secular country.

The atheists who spread these lies like to believe that the reason our country turned out as great as it did was because of an ‘Age of Enlightenment’ that was occurring at this time. I would agree that there was some influence from it, but to credit it is preposterous. It takes a complete dive into self-deception to not see that our Founding Fathers believed that what they were setting up with our government would not work unless the citizens of it were religious. And they had good reason to believe so too.

Allow me tell you a tale of two countries. Both underwent a violent revolution at the end of the eighteenth century, and both were influenced by this ‘age of enlightenment.’ The differences included one was a great power on the world’s stage, while the other was quite insignificant. The most important difference between them was that the insignificant one credited God as the source of their inspiration, while the great power credited man … which means they didn't really credit anyone.

What happened to those two countries? Well, the great power immediately plunged into a bloodbath and within no time ran willingly into the arms of an emperor, while the insignificant one went on to be the only true world power that has ever existed, and be directly responsible for the freedom of more people than any other source that has ever been known by man.

It’s not to hard to see why this happened. If you believe your rights are handed to you by God, you're not likely to hand them over to another man. When you believe your rights are really nothing but what other men say they are, then your rights will always be bent to the will of man whenever it appears expedient to do so.

DA: So I take it you think all of us atheists are evil.

Not at all. I'm willing to accept that atheists can lead moral and decent lives. I just don't believe they know how to make a moral and decent society. They're kind of like the pacifists who desperately want to live in a peaceful society, but there is nothing that they do that can bring it about. Pacifists believe that if they act peacefully, then others will be peaceful with them. Nonsense, and the same is true for atheists. Moral and decent atheists can only exist in a moral and decent society – just as pacifists can only exist in a society that is willing to be peaceful to them. There is nothing about either group that brings about what they claim to want.

DA: So then what you want is a theocracy.

I want no such thing. Freedom of religion is essential to make religion strong. Mandating it, only makes it weak. The use of governmental force corrupts and weakens every thing it touches, so a theocracy is the last thing I want. Again, more on this on another page.


What Are Rights?

The last point about rights that I want to talk about is how even the concept of what a right is has changed from our Founding Fathers time. They viewed rights as limitations placed on the government. To them, rights were a check on the expansion of government power. But not today; not for those on the left anyway.

For them, a right is anything they believe they deserve. A right is now seen as a vehicle for the expansion of governmental powers. A whole new host of rights spring forth almost daily from something as sweeping as a right to universal health care to something deceptively simple as gay marriage. Whatever your heart desires, or more exactly, whatever you no longer wish to demean yourself to convince others that you deserve, has now been transformed into a right.

I will admit that not everything the left wants can be lumped into this category. Their desire for a right to abortion can be defined as a check on government powers, so that can plausibly be argued as a right; the rest can't be. They are about seeking dependency on the government, and so, are about enslavement, not freedom.

I recently read something that I think puts it quite succinctly. A right can only be a right when it is applied the same to all of us equally.

DA: I want us all to have Universal Health Care, so by your own standard, this can now be a right.

Wrong. The government can't give anything to anyone without first taking it from someone else. Every so-called 'right' that liberals champion can only be brought about by taking from others. Even the right to an abortion is about taking the life of one person so that another won't be inconvenienced.

Your statement also demonstrates how pathetic your concept of rights are, because a right is not something that is granted by the government. Rights are only protected by the government. Anything granted by the government is a privilege – nothing more. Calling government provided health care a right is an act of self-deception in its most purest form.


A Nation Worth Fighting For

DA: Pardon me for wanting something better for everyone in this country. As Robert Kennedy stated 'There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?'

Of course you do. It's what makes you a liberal. You will always dream of utopias, and how to create them, without ever considering the consequences of making them come true. And why, because it is only your intentions that you will judge yourself by. Just like your concern over global warming. You're so focused on solving that problem that you don't see the larger damage you're causing.

DA: What is so terrible about not wanting to see Miami under 10 feet of water?

If it's above water, but in the control of a government that does not protect my unalienable rights – either liberal or the next Muslim caliphate – it may as well be under water.

You believe that what is important is to make our country good, but there are no examples in the history of mankind that shows that this is required for survival. Evil has triumphed over good countless times. What difference does it make to be good when you're gone or enslaved. No matter how important you think it is to make this country good, you first must make sure it is right, and if it is not worth fighting and dying for, then it's not right.

That is why I have focused on what our Founding Fathers intended for our country on this page. But don't mistake my real message. It's not about bringing back what they intended for us. The liberals who are undermining our Founding Fathers' intentions are not fighting fair. They are not challenging what our Founding Fathers wanted; they are redefining it. What follows is what Speaker of the House Nancy Polosi said after the passage of the government take over of health care.

We will honor the vows of our Founders, who in the Declaration of Independence, said that we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This legislation will lead to healthier lives, more liberty to pursue hopes and dreams and happiness for the American people. This is an American proposal that honors the traditions of our country.

It doesn't take a college history major to know what a bald-faced lie this is. I think Benjamin Franklin put it best when he stated, 'Anyone willing to trade their liberty for security deserves neither.' But the truth doesn't matter to liberals, or better put, the truth will be what ever it needs to be to accomplish what they deem necessary.

The liberal elites know the American people will never buy into their dream, so they hijack our Founding Father's credibility to convince the people that what they want is really no different than them. Nancy and her ilk serve up the required sound bites, and then their co-conspirators in the MSM disseminates them. What this means is that the liberals would love for us to get into a debate over what our Founding Fathers intended, because they know that most of the people in this nation will see this as a 'He Said, She Said' debate.

Instead, we need to perform a flanking maneuver, and come at them from an angle they can't defend by stating that the liberals are turning this country into a nation not worth fighting for. No one, and I mean absolutely no one, fights for the common place. No one would consider risking their lives for the ordinary. Since an anathema to everything liberals hold dear is that any nation should be exceptional, there is no defense they can raise against this charge.

Yet there can be no doubt that what our Founding Fathers believed they were fighting for was something exceptional. They weren't fighting to trade one set of ruling elites for another. Nor were they risking their lives because someone threatened theirs, which is the only reason to fight that liberals who at least aren't pacifists consider to be valid.

As Patrick Henry put it – a man who knew what it really meant to speak truth to power – Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains or slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take but as for me; give me liberty or give me death!



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