Essay on Personal Responsibilty and Over-reaching Laws

It has come to this: Americans are beginning to require the government to tell them how to act. By ceding decisions that ought to be guided by morality and personal responsibility to our elected officials and their employees, our moral compasses have apparently fallen into such disrepair that we now seem to need legislation to guide our actions. Though obvious, it bears mentioning that we created this mess ourselves by attempting to micro-manage the behavior of individuals in the first place, so we have no one but ourselves to blame when behavior requires micro-management. Inevitably though, the more behavior needs to be managed, the less personal freedom we all have.

For decades we have willingly allowed legislators to govern decisions that we as a free people were once able to make on our own, and the situation is getting worse at an alarming (to those people not writing the laws) rate. Already we apparently can't be trusted to drive safely without laws barring cell phone use. For years we have been told we were incapable of respecting other people without being legally bound to leave the building before lighting a cigarette. Don't forget that we also can't be trusted to own land without laws governing what we can and cannot do with it.

Want to swim in the ocean? Sorry, you might drown so you can't unless we watch you. Want to ride a motorcycle? Sorry, you might fall so you can't unless you wear a helmet. Want to exercise your right to defend yourself and your family? Sorry, you might shoot yourself, so that's a job to be undertaken by professionals only. The bottom line is that regardless of the relative merit of any of these regulations, we have allowed legislators to treat us like children and the result is that Americans are not only losing their right, but their ability to self-govern. We are becoming people that don't seem able to make decisions for ourselves about the most minor behavioral issues that fall outside pre-specified conditions. An entire nation that increasingly requires specific guidelines from the Official Arbiters of Behavior.

And oh we are paying for it, because a direct result of being given instruction in behavior down to the most minute detail is that a sense of responsibility is lost for those actions that are undertaken outside the bounds of those instructions. After all, if we continually ask to be guided, how can we be responsible when we receive no such guidance? So, the logic continues, if we ourselves are not responsible for our actions, then someone else must be.

The effects of this idea are as obvious as they are depressing. We are becoming a nation of finger pointers; blaming anyone convenient for anything less than pleasant that occurs in our lives, regardless of where the responsibility really lies. We are people that spill coffee in our own laps and sue the restaurant that sold it to us, who relinquish parental responsibilities and blame schools when our children behave badly, who encourage generations of Americans to become dependent on the government and then blame them for not knowing how to do for themselves. We abuse prescription drugs and blame the manufacturer, we go to theme park haunted houses and sue for emotional distress, we get drunk, injure ourselves then sue the bars where we bought the booze.

A legal profession with an apparently bottomless appetite for lawsuits clearly doesn't help, feeding as it does the sense that we are all victims of something. But frankly, had Americans not gradually lost their sense of personal responsibility between our declaration of independence from Great Britain and our passage into the 21st century, we wouldn't be living in a nation in which lawsuits run rampant and over-reaching regulations supposedly for the "greater good" are seen as necessary.

Another damaging effect is that as individuals relinquish their personal responsibilities, so also do they become under-achievers. By living more and more according to strict guidelines handed down by others and therefore being absolved from the responsibility for our own lives, we lose our ability to learn from our mistakes, gain from our victories, and ultimately are unable to believe that we can achieve anything that is not granted to us by others.

Which brings us back to the issue to individual self-government. In a society in which there is no necessity to conduct our behavior in a manner guided by morality and responsibility to our fellows, the very ability to do so falls by the wayside. Slowly but surely, generation by generation, we move farther along a path from a free and responsible people to a people who try to get away with whatever we can, because we can. If we haven't been told it's wrong, it must be ok. If there isn't a law against it, it must be moral. If we weren't prevented from doing it, it's just not our responsibility, no way, no how. This runs completely counter to the principals on which this country was founded and deeply damages our society.

So once again we turn away from ourselves and towards the government to fix it for us. We draft new laws and tighter regulations over behavior, laws that seek to rectify those problems which they themselves helped create. Laws which lead to a further loss of self-government, which leads to blame, which leads to.... you get the point.

Sadly, in each cycle we give up a bit more personal freedom, we shirk a bit more personal responsibility, and our moral compasses that are so necessary to the existence of a free and open society are forgotten - surrendering to entropy, slowly rusting away, becoming unable to function when we need them.

"Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand. John Adams

"The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People in a greater Measure, than they have it now, they may change their Rulers and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting liberty." John Adams

"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 to the government of any other." John Adams

"Religion and virtue are the only foundations, not only of all free government, but of social felicity under all governments and in all the combinations of human society." John Adams

"The highest glory of the American Revolution was this; it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity. John Quincy Adams

"From the day of the Declaration...they (the American people) were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of The Gospel, which they nearly all, acknowledge as the rules of their conduct." John Quincy Adams

"Man, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the laws of his Creator, for he is entirely a dependent being....And, consequently, as man depends absolutely upon his Maker for everything, it is necessary that he should in all points conform to his Maker's will...this will of his Maker is called the law of nature. These laws laid down by God are the eternal immutable laws of good and evil...This law of nature dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times: no human laws are of any validity if contrary to this... Sir William Blackstone

"Blasphemy against the Almighty is denying his being or providence, or uttering contumelious reproaches on our Savior Christ. It is punished, at common law by fine and imprisonment, for Christianity is part of the laws of the land. Sir William Blackstone

"The preservation of Christianity as a national religion is abstracted from its own intrinsic truth, of the utmost consequence to the civil state, which a single instance will sufficiently demonstrate. Sir William Blackstone

"I have carefully examined the evidences of the Christian religion, and if I was sitting as a juror upon its authenticity I would unhesitatingly give my verdict in its favor. I can prove its truth as clearly as any proposition ever submitted to the mind of man. Alexander Hamilton

"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here." Patrick Henry

"The Bible is worth all other books which have ever been printed." Patrick Henry

"Bad men cannot make good citizens. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience are incompatible with freedom." Patrick Henry

"It is when people forget God that tyrants forge their chains." Patrick Henry

"Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers. John Jay

"Religion is the only solid basis of good morals; therefore education should teach the precepts of religion, and the duties of man toward God." Gouverneur Morris

"If thou wouldst rule well, thou must rule for God, and to do that, thou must be ruled by him....Those who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants." William Penn

"By removing the Bible from schools we would be wasting so much time and money in punishing criminals and so little pains to prevent crime. Take the Bible out of our schools and there would be an explosion in crime." Benjamin Rush

As we can see here, our founders did not endorse or embrace libertarianism in the least. Our Founders understood that laws must reflect Almighty God's Moral Precepts.

Libertarianism is a religion of self indulgence and hedonism. It teaches that the person can decide for himself what is right and wrong, and has to answer to no one.

It is humanistic to the core.

Libertarians believe abortion, homosexuality, fornication, adultery, sexual perversions, prostitution, drug use, gambling ect... are all things that should be practiced and enjoyed.

They hate and despise authority, and they blame government and laws for their problems.

GOD MAKES LAW. MAN's LAW MUST REFLECT GOD'S LAW.

Our Founders understood this principle. They had laws that protected the moral fabric of our nation, because they understood that a good nation must have morality. They took it for granted that the people were moral, that is why the constitution worked.

The hippies of the 1960's were not moral, their immoral/ammoral lifestyle is incompatable with the constitution.

If our founders had only known what we have become, they would have drafted a much different constitution.

Way back in 1815, The Pennsylvania Supreme Court decided an important case, here are excerpts from that case: It reflects the case law of the day, and the attitude on which our nation was founded.)

This court is...invested with power to punish not only open violations of decency and morality, but also whatever secretly tends to undermine the principles of society... Whatever tends to the destruction of morality, in general, may be punishable criminally. Crimes are public offenses, not because they are perpetrated publically, but because their effect is to injure the public. Buglary, though done in secret, is a public offense; and secretly destroying fences is indictable.

Hence it follows, that an offense may be punishable, if in it's nature and by it's example, it tends to the corruption or morals; although it not be committed in public.

Although every immoral act, such as lying, ect... is not indictable, yet where the offense charged is destructive of morality in general...it is punishable at common law. The destruction of morality renders the power of government invalid...

No man is permitted to corrupt the morals of the people, secret poision cannot be thus desseminated.

Remember:

"It is when people forget God that tyrants forge their chains."

ALL LAWS Legislate morality.

This morality cannot be legislated garbage is a product of the humanistic hippies who have beat that lie into the heads of our youth since the 1960's.

Every Single Law legislates morality.

Are you familar with Sir William Blackstone? His commentaries on the law were the recognized authority for well over a century after 1776. Many colonial and early state and federal laws come right out of his commentaries, WORD for WORD. Do you know his position on legislating morality??? Let me give you some quotes.

"The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to be found only in the holy scriptures...[and] are found upon comparison to be really part of the original law of nature. Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws; that is to say, no human laws should be suffered to contradict these.

"If [the legislature] will positively enact a thing to be done, the judges are not at liberty to reject it, for that were to set the judicial power above that of the legislature, which should be subversive of all government."

"The belief of a future state of rewards and punishments, the entertaining just ideas of the main attributes ofthe Supreme Being, and a firm persuasion that He superintends and will finally compensate every action in human life (all which are revealed in the doctrines of our Savior, Christ), these are the grand foundations of all judicial oaths, which call God to witness the truth of those facts which perhaps may be only known to Him and the party attesting; all moral evidences, therefore, all confidence in human veracity, must be weakened by apostasy, and overthrown by total infidelity.

"Wherefore, all affronts to Christianity, or endeavors to depreciate its efficacy, in those who have once professed it, are highly deserving of censure."

The quotes that I listed to you from the founders show that they understood and recognized that laws must reflect moral precepts, specifically Christian Morality.

Case law in our nation established Christianity as part of the Common Law. Here are some examples:

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Supreme Court of New York 1811, in the Case of the People V Ruggles, 8 Johns 545-547, Chief Justice Chancellor Kent Stated:

The defendant was indicted ... in December, 1810, for that he did, on the 2nd day of September, 1810 ... wickedly, maliciously, and blasphemously, utter, and with a loud voice publish, in the presence and hearing of divers good and Christian people, of and concerning the Christian religion, and of and concerning Jesus Christ, the false, scandalous, malicious, wicked and blasphemous words following: "Jesus Christ was a bastard, and his mother must be a whore," in contempt of the Christian religion. .. . The defendant was tried and found guilty, and was sentenced by the court to be imprisoned for three months, and to pay a fine of $500.

The Prosecuting Attorney argued:

While the constitution of the State has saved the rights of conscience, and allowed a free and fair discussion of all points of controversy among religious sects, it has left the principal engrafted on the body of our common law, that Christianity is part of the laws of the State, untouched and unimpaired.

The Chief Justice delivered the opinion of the Court:

Such words uttered with such a disposition were an offense at common law. In Taylor's case the defendant was convicted upon information of speaking similar words, and the Court . . . said that Christianity was parcel of the law, and to cast contumelious reproaches upon it, tended to weaken the foundation of moral obligation, and the efficacy of oaths. And in the case of Rex v. Woolston, on a like conviction, the Court said . . . that whatever strikes at the root of Christianity tends manifestly to the dissolution of civil government. . . . The authorities show that blasphemy against God and . . . profane ridicule of Christ or the Holy Scriptures (which are equally treated as blasphemy), are offenses punishable at common law, whether uttered by words or writings . . . because it tends to corrupt the morals of the people, and to destroy good order. Such offenses have always been considered independent of any religious establishment or the rights of the Church. They are treated as affecting the essential interests of civil society. . . .

We stand equally in need, now as formerly, of all the moral discipline, and of those principles of virtue, which help to bind society together. The people of this State, in common with the people of this country, profess the general doctrines of Christianity, as the rule of their faith and practice; and to scandalize the author of these doctrines is not only ... impious, but . . . is a gross violation of decency and good order. Nothing could be more offensive to the virtuous part of the community, or more injurious to the tender morals of the young, than to declare such profanity lawful.. ..

The free, equal, and undisturbed enjoyment of religious' opinion, whatever it may be, and free and decent discussions on any religious subject, is granted and secured; but to revile ... the religion professed by almost the whole community, is an abuse of that right. . . . We are a Christian people, and the morality of the country is deeply engrafted upon Christianity, and not upon the doctrines or worship of those impostors [other religions].. .. [We are] people whose manners ... and whose morals have been elevated and inspired . . . by means of the Christian religion.

Though the constitution has discarded religious establishments, it does not forbid judicial cognizance of those offenses against religion and morality which have no reference to any such establishment. . . . This [constitutional] declaration (noble and magnanimous as it is, when duly understood) never meant to withdraw religion in general, and with it the best sanctions of moral and social obligation from all consideration and notice of the law. . . . To construe it as breaking down the common law barriers against licentious, wanton, and impious attacks upon Christianity itself, would be an enormous perversion of its meaning. . . . Christianity, in its enlarged sense, as a religion revealed and taught in the Bible, is not unknown to our law. . . . The Court are accordingly of opinion that the judgment below must be affirmed: [that blasphemy against God, and contumelious reproaches, and profane ridicule of Christ or the Holy Scriptures, are offenses punishable at the common law, whether uttered by words or writings].

The Supreme Court in the case of Lidenmuller V The People, 33 Barbour, 561 Stated:

Christianity...is in fact, and ever has been, the religion of the people. The fact is everwhere prominent in all our civil and political history, and has been, from the first, recognized and acted upon by the people, and well as by constitutional conventions, by legislatures and by courts of justice.

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania 1817, in the Case of The Commonwealth V Wolf stated the courts opinion as follows:

Laws cannot be administered in any civilized government unless the people are taught to revere the sanctity of an oath, and look to a future state of rewards and punishments for the deeds of this life, It is of the utmost moment, therefore, that they should be reminded of their religious duties at stated periods.... A wise policy would naturally lead to the formation of laws calculated to subserve those salutary purposes. The invaluable privilege of the rights of conscience secured to us by the constitution of the commonwealth, was never intended to shelter those persons, who, out of mere caprice, would directly oppose those laws for the pleasure of showing their contempt and abhorrence of the religious opinions of the great mass of the citizens.

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania 1824, in the Case of Updegraph V The Commonwealth 11 Serg. & R. 393-394, 398-399, 402, 507 (1824) recorded the Courts Declaration that:

Abner Updegraph . . . on the 12th day of December [1821] . . .not having the fear of God before his eyes . . . contriving and intending to scandalize, and bring into disrepute, and vilify the Christian religion and the scriptures of truth, in the Presence and hearing of several persons ... did unlawfully, wickedly and premeditatively, despitefully and blasphemously say . . . : "That the Holy Scriptures were a mere fable: that they were a contradiction, and that although they contained a number of good things, yet they contained a great many lies." To the great dishonor of Almighty God, to the great scandal of the profession of the Christian religion.

The jury . . . finds a malicious intention in the speaker to vilify the Christian religion and the scriptures, and this court cannot look beyond the record, nor take any notice of the allegation, that the words were uttered by the defendant, a member of a debating association, which convened weekly for discussion and mutual information... . That there is an association in which so serious a subject is treated with so much levity, indecency and scurrility ... I am sorry to hear, for it would prove a nursery of vice, a school of preparation to qualify young men for the gallows, and young women for the brothel, and there is not a skeptic of decent manners and good morals, who would not consider such debating clubs as a common nuisance and disgrace to the city. .. . It was the out-pouring of an invective, so vulgarly shocking and insulting, that the lowest grade of civil authority ought not to be subject to it, but when spoken in a Christian land, and to a Christian audience, the highest offence conna bones mores; and even if Christianity was not part of the law of the land, it is the popular religion of the country, an insult on which would be indictable.

The assertion is once more made, that Christianity never was received as part of the common law of this Christian land; and it is added, that if it was, it was virtually repealed by the constitution of the United States, and of this state. . . . If the argument be worth anything, all the laws which have Christianity for their object--all would be carried away at one fell swoop-the act against cursing and swearing, and breach of the Lord's day; the act forbidding incestuous marriages, perjury by taking a false oath upon the book, fornication and adultery ...for all these are founded on Christianity--- for all these are restraints upon civil liberty. ...

We will first dispose of what is considered the grand objection--the constitutionality of Christianity--for, in effect, that is the question. Christianity, general Christianity, is and always has been a part of the common law . . . not Christianity founded on any particular religious tenets; not Christianity with an established church ... but Christianity with liberty of conscience to all men.

Thus this wise legislature framed this great body of laws, for a Christian country and Christian people. This is the Christianity of the common law . . . and thus, it is irrefragably proved, that the laws and institutions of this state are built on the foundation of reverence for Christianity. . . . In this the constitution of the United States has made no alteration, nor in the great body of the laws which was an incorporation of the common-law doctrine of Christianity . . . without which no free government can long exist.

To prohibit the open, public and explicit denial of the popular religion of a country is a necessary measure to preserve the tranquillity of a government. Of this, no person in a Christian country can complain. . . . In the Supreme Court of New York it was solemnly determined, that Christianity was part of the law of the land, and that to revile the Holy Scriptures was an indictable offence. The case assumes, says Chief Justice Kent, that we are a Christian people, and the morality of the country is deeply engrafted on Christianity. The People v. Ruggles.

No society can tolerate a willful and despiteful attempt to subvert its religion, no more than it would to break down its laws--a general, malicious and deliberate intent to overthrow Christianity, general Christianity. Without these restraints no free government could long exist. It is liberty run mad to declaim against the punishment of these offences, or to assert that the punishment is hostile to the spirit and genius of our government. They are far from being true friends to liberty who support this doctrine, and the promulgation of such opinions, and general receipt of them among the people, would be the sure forerunners of anarchy, and finally, of despotism. No free government now exists in the world unless where Christianity is acknowledged, and is the religion of the country.... Its foundations are broad and strong, and deep. .. it is the purest system of morality, the firmest auxiliary, and only stable support of all human laws. . . .

Christianity is part of the common law; the act against blasphemy is neither obsolete nor virtually repealed; nor is Christianity inconsistent with our free governments or the genius of the people.

While our own free constitution secures liberty of conscience and freedom of religious worship to all, it is not necessary to maintain that any man should have the right publicly to vilify the religion of his neighbors and of the country; these two privileges are directly opposed.

The Supreme Court of the State of South Carolina in 1846 in the case of City of Charleston V S.A. Benjamin cites an individual who broke the Ordinance that stated: "No Person or persons whatsoever shall publicly expose to sale, or sell... any goods, wares or merchandise whatsoever upon the Lord's day." The court convicted the man and came to the conclusion: "I agree fully to what is beautifully and appropriately said in Updengraph V The Commonwealth.... Christianity, general Christianity, is an always has been, a part of the common law; "not Christianity with an established church... but Christianity with liberty of conscience to all men."

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Our founders undeerstood that law must come from the principles that Almighty God ordained. Common law throughout civilized History was drawn directly from moral principles pulled from the Bible.

Our nation had laws against Fornication, Adultery, Blasphemy, Pornography, and Homosexuality. All of these laws were in effect well after the Constitution was established, so our founders did not find the libertarian principles that these things are okay to be true.

Do you deny that libertarians don't want any laws against adultery, fornication, homosexuality, abortion, blasphemy, prostitution, drug use, gambling, pornography ect...

If you agree that libertarians support the above, you cannot say that they hold the same ideals as the founders who legislated morality laws against the above.

One of the First Supreme Court Justices said it best:

"Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine....Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other."James Wilson, a signer of the Constitution and an original Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court

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