Historical Facts Concerning Democracy and the US

What are we as a nation, relatively young as nations go, to understand from history?

In 1887 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the
University of Edinburgh , had this to say about the fall of the
Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior: "A democracy is always
temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent
form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until
the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous
gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority
always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from
the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally
collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a
dictatorship."

"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the
beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200
years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy

From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage."

The Obituary follows:

Born 1776, Died 2012

Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law in
St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning
the last Presidential election:

Number of States won by:         Obama: 19               Romney: 29

Square miles of land won by:    Obama: 580,000      Romney: 2,427,000

Population of counties won by: Obama: 127 million  Romney: 143 million

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:                                            

Obama: 13.2             Romney: 2.1

Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory
Romney won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of the country.

Obama territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in low
income tenements and living off various forms of government
welfare..."

Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the
"complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of
democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population
already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.

This need not become the fact so long as the populace understand and adhere to the truth.

Reclaim America as the Land of Free

The time has come for all good men (and women) to come to the aid of their country.

We are witnessing the repeat of history, a pattern as old as civilization.

"Yea, well did he say that if the time should come that the voice of this people should choose iniquity, that is, if the time should come that this people should fall into transgression, they would be ripe for destruction." (82 B.C.)

"For as their laws and their governments were established by the voice of the people, and they who chose evil were more numerous than they who chose good, therefore they were ripening for destruction, for the laws had become corrupted." (30 B.C.)

Historian Edward Gibbon on the fall of Athenian democracy said, ‘In the end, more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all — security, comfort and freedom... When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society, but for society to give to them... When the freedom they wished for most — was freedom from responsibility... Then, Athens ceased to be free.’ (D. Ray, The Four Freedoms, 2010,) (600 A.D)

We must unite, not only amongst ourselves but preach the truth of American independence from the rooftops. This is a call for an embargo against our own complacency and quiet tolerance of entertainment, media and education.

On Religious Freedom by Ronald Reagan

No truth more misunderstood has been better explained by one who knew it better.  There can be no political freedom without spiritually enlightened political leaders.

What's in a name?

Whether they are called communists, socialist, fascist, imperialist, liberals, progressive or what ever, it makes no difference.  What matters is that in the end the object is the same: the subversion of freedom and independence.

They may take a different tact and woo people to their cause with platitudes of noble purpose.  It must be understood that the ends do not justify the means.  For the means are what determine the ends.  The ends are not the the objective that is so earnestly being sought.  That is just a way-point.  The ends are what the endeavor makes of us along the way.  That is where the true devastation lay.

Freedom can only be had by a moral and responsible people.  An amoral people cannot be free.  A dependent population can not be free.  Any movement, no matter the name, that replaces responsibility with security, that exchanges amorality for standards of civility, will go the way of all civilizations who have attempted to do so in in the past.

We as a nation must set and maintain standards by which to live.  Do not mistake tolerance for promoting.  Do not mistake freedom for irresponsibility. Do not forget for one moment that, while you can do what ever you want, you cannot be absolved the responsibility for your choices.  No, America is free because enterprise and morality promotes freedom.  Any endeavor to the contrary undermines it, no matter what the name.

Announcing The Four Freedoms!

In commemoration of Independence Day, I am delighted to announce the publication of The Four Freedoms available at Amazon.com.

The Four Freedoms is a story about a man who discovered the wisdom of the ages and applied it in his life to create success beyond his imagination.

It was written for those that have a yearning for freedom--freedom from bad habits, freedom that prosperity brings, freedom from misery, and the freedom to be happy in relationships and in life--for those who have an innate sense that there is something more but just cannot figure out what it is.

I hope you enjoy it.

The Threat of Socialism Then as Now

Education and the "Whole Man"

Here is a disturbing quote upon which I only just stumbled.

"Two respected German historians looked out on the carnage after 1945 in search for meaning, one from within the country, where he had spent his entire life of eighty years, the other from the safer refuge of the America to which he had been driven. Both had token pride in their native culture and its achievements; both now stood in horror at the sight. The older man, Friedrich Meinecke, called the sight before him "The German Catastrophe" and in Gordon Craig's felicitous phrase offered the following explanation: "the emphasis upon power at the expense of spirit has corrupted the values of the people and stunted their political growth." 1 The younger historian, Hajo Holborn, later Sterling Professor of History at Yale, allowed more time to pass before offering a more expansive but similar analysis. While paying attention to the role social conflict had played in paving the way for Hitler. Holborn placed a major portion of the blame elsewhere:

The actual decline of German education goes far to explain not only why so many Germans voted the Nazis into power but also why they were willing to condone so many of their subsequent crimes. German education hardly dealt with the "whole man"; it chiefly produced men proficient in special skills or special knowledge but lacking not only in the most primitive preparation for civic responsibility but also in a canon of absolute ethical commitments. Although the churches provided this for a good many people, and to a greater extent within the Roman Catholic Church than within the Protestant Churches, the number of Germans who looked to the church for guidance was limited. The higher philosophy and the humanities of the period were largely formalistic or relativistic and did not produce a firm faith. In these circumstances it was inevitable that so many people fell for cheap and simple interpretations of life and history, as offered by the racists. To young people in particular this proved an irresistible temptation. 2 "(excerpted from Education, Moral Values, and Democracy: Lessons from the German Experience by Douglas F. Tobler Fn, BYU Studies, vol. 28 (1988), Number 2 - Spring 1988 .)

Add to that the following:

"The purpose of the foundation [the General Board of Education] was to use the power of money, not to raise the level of education in America, as was widely believed at the time, but to influence the direction of that education....The object was to use the classroom to teach attitudes that encourage people to be passive and submissive to their rulers. The goal was--and is---to create citizens who were educated enough for productive work under supervision but not enough to question authority or seek to rise above their class. True education was to be restricted to the son and daughters of the elite. For the rest, it would be better to produce skilled workers with no particular aspirations other than to enjoy life." (G. Edward Griffin in The Creature from Jekyll Island, (copy write 1994. Thirteenth printing: June 2002) on Rockefeller's General Education Board, founded in 1903.)

Even if Griffin were wrong is his assertions of motive, we must look long and hard at the current result. The recent financial collapse can in good measure be laid squarely on the shoulders of a populace as described in that last sentence. We are the product of our own making. The question should be what are we becoming and is that okay? History shows us where the present course will lead.

If we cannot manage to rally behind a unifying force, we will have only ourselves to blame for the inevitable.

1. Gordon Craig, Germany, 1866-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 763. See also Friedrich Meinecke, Die Deutsche Katastrophe: Betrachtungen und Erinnerungen, Dritte Auflage (Wiesbaden: Eberhard Brockhaus Verlag, 1945), 161 and passim.

2. Hajo Holborn, A History of Modern Germany, 3 vols. (New York: Knopf, 1969), 3: 813.

A New Civil Religion

The following is an excerpt from "A New Civil Religion" delivered in 1992 by James Faust, formerly of President John F. Kennedy's Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights.

"There seems to be developing a new civil religion. The civil religion I refer to is a secular religion. It has no moral absolutes. It is nondenominational. It is nontheistic. It is politically focused. It is antagonistic to religion. It rejects the historic religious traditions of America. It feels strange. If this trend continues, nonbelief will be more honored than belief. While all beliefs must be protected, are atheism, agnosticism, cynicism, and moral relativism to be more safeguarded and valued than Christianity, Judaism, and the tenets of Islam, which hold that there is a Supreme Being and that mortals are accountable to him? If so, this would, in my opinion, place America in great moral jeopardy.

For those who believe in God, this new civil religion fosters some of the same concerns as the state religions that prompted our forefathers to escape to the New World. Nonbelief is becoming more sponsored in the body politic than belief. History teaches well the lesson that there must be a unity in some moral absolutes in all societies for them to endure and progress. Indeed, without a national morality they disintegrate. In Proverbs, we are reminded that “righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.” (Prov. 14:34.) The long history and tradition of America, which had its roots in petitions for divine guidance, is being challenged.

The new civil religion is different from that envisioned by Benjamin Franklin, who seems to have first used the term “civil religion.” (M. Marty, Pilgrims in Their Own Land, 1984, pp. 155–66.) Franklin’s “civil religion,” as I understand it, was envisioned to replace the state religions of Europe, with their forced taxation and oppression. Franklin no doubt envisioned that this vacuum would be filled with a patriotism reflected by national symbolism, pride, ethics, values, and purpose. His eloquent statement concerning divine intervention in the Constitutional Convention clearly indicated he was not opposed to religiosity.

The new civil religion isn’t really a religion as you and I would use that term to describe a faith or a church or a synagogue of people that worship Almighty God and espouse a code of moral conduct. This new civil religion teaches a sectarian philosophy that is hostile to traditional religion. It has its own orthodoxy. It could even end up in an ironic violation of the U.S. Constitution that says that there shall be no religious basis for office. (Article IV, U.S. Constitution.) Will irreligion become a test for office?"

What are your thoughts?

Faust graduated from the University of Utah in 1948 with a B.A. and Jurist Doctor. In 1962, he was elected president of the Utah Bar Association, in which office he served for one year. The same association awarded him its Distinguished Lawyer Emeritus Award in 1996. During the 1960s, Faust was named to the Utah Legislative Study Committee and later to the Utah Constitutional Revision Commission. Faust served in the House of Representatives for the 28th Utah State Legislature (1949) as a Democrat for Utah's eighth district. Faust also served as chairperson of the Utah State Democratic Party and helped manage a campaign for Senator Frank Moss. In 1996, he was awarded with the Minuteman Award by the Utah National Guard.

Faust was appointed by President John F. Kennedy to the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights. He was also an adviser to the American Bar Journal.

"News"week Nonsence

In response to the December 15, 2008 cover story and the conjoining editorial, we wish to go on record as saying:

Never in modern history have we beheld such irresponsible reporting and dissemination of swill and tripe as this lead essay and follow-up drivel of an editorial. Congratulations to Newsweek and its plebeian editor for acceding to the ranks of the supermarket tabloid.

For an intelligent expose we recommend to the readers this article by Albert Mohler.