"In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate, look to his character. The scriptures teach that rulers should be men who rule in the fear of God, able men, men of truth, hating covetousness. It is to the neglect of this rule that we must ascribe the multified frauds, breaches of trust, and embezzlement of public property which tarnish the character of our country and disgrace government. When a citizen gives his vote to a man of known immorality, he abuses his civic responsibility, he sacrifices not only his interest, but that of his neighbor; he betrays the interest of his country." Noah Webster, 1823 (Thank you to freeper epow for finding this quote.)
History of how the polygamy issue was handled in the United States
Proverbs 17:15 He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the just, Both of them alike are an abomination to the LORD.
...inasmuch as we know that by His Divine law, nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people?... - Abraham Lincoln -
"There is no virtue in a tame acquiescence in evil. To protest against cruelty and wrong, and to strive to end them, is the mark of a man," -- Winston Churchill
If you have a right to respect, that means other people don't have a right to their own opinions. --Thomas Sowell
Ezekiel 33
33:8
"When I say to the wicked, 'O wicked man, you will surely die,' and you do not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require from your hand.
33:9
"But if you on your part warn a wicked man to turn from his way and he does not turn from his way, he will die in his iniquity, but you have delivered your life.
"We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount... The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants." —Omar Bradley
Albert Mohler: Now, the central thrust of a genuinely Christian pulpit is the Gospel itself. Nevertheless, the Gospel is also political, if for no other reason than that the Gospel declares that Jesus Christ (and not Caesar, or anyone else) is Lord.
Cursed be any love or unity for whose sake the Word of God must be put at stake. -- Martin Luther
Excerpt from Hard To Believe by John MacArthur:
Christianity, in the hands of some seeker-sensitive church leaders, has become a "get what you want" rather than a "give up everything" movement. These leaders have prostituted the divine intention of the gospel. They have replaced the glory of God with the satisfaction of man. They have traded the concept of abandoning our lives to the honor of Christ for Christ honoring us. As such, our submission to His will is replaced by His submission to our will. Since people usually reject the real gospel, modern evangelicals have simply changed the message.
A Saint of many centuries ago got it right with this prayer: Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly, let me learn by paradox that the way down is the way up, that to be low is to be high, that the broken heart is the healed heart, that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit, that the repenting soul is the victorious soul, that to have nothing is to posses everyting, that to bear the cross is to wear the crown, that to give is to receive. Let me find thy light in my darkness, thy joy in my sorrow, thy grace in my sin, thy riches in my poverty, thy glory in my valley, thy life in my death.
Thy life in my death"? That's the true gospel. Jesus said it unmistakably and inescapably, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it." (Matt. 16:24-25). It's not about exalting me, it's about slaying me. It's the death of self. You win by losing, you live by dying. And that is the heart message of the gospel. That is the essence of discipleship.
"I have disposed of all my property to my family. There is one thing more I wish I could give to them, and that is the Christian religion. If they had that and I had not given them one cent, they would be rich. If they have not that, and I had given them the world, they would be poor." -- Patrick Henry
When society tries to bless sin they are not helping the sinner. It is a very sad time for gays and lesbians. We have made their bondage to sin even harder for them to break. We have failed them. -- posted on 04/24/2005 5:08:09 PM CDT by Raycpa
Cathy Young: "As applied in this case so far, the First Amendment seems to be less a guarantee of religious freedom than a speech code guaranteeing that no one's feelings are hurt."
Benjamin Franklin: “The longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?”
Thomas Jefferson (author of our nation’s founding document) “To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions (is) a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.”
Justice Scalia: I think, I didn’t say that if there is to be an evolution of standards under the Eighth Amendment, it’s up to the legislature. No, the legislature can’t change the Eighth Amendment. I’m saying the Eighth Amendment means what was cruel and unusual and unconstitutional in 1791 remains that today. The death penalty wasn’t, and hence it isn’t, despite the fact that I sat with three colleagues that thought it had become unconstitutional. Executing someone under eighteen was not unconstitutional in 1791, so it is not unconstitutional today. Now, it may be very stupid. It may be a very bad idea, just as notching ears, which was a punishment in 1791, is a very bad idea. But the people can change, the people can eliminate those stupidities if and when they want. To evolve, you don’t need a constitution. All you need is a legislature a ballot box. Things will evolve as much as you want. They can create a right to abortion. They can abolish the death penalty. They can legitimize homosexual sodomy. All of these things, all of these changes can come about democratically. You don’t need a constitution to do that. And it’s not the function of a constitution to do that.
Justice Scalia: Oh, substantive due process does. I thought I made it clear I don’t believe in substantive due process. The basis of Lawrence, of the Lawrence opinion was that the government has no business making moral decisions regarding sex. I predict that that rational will not survive. Because there are just a whole bunch of laws from the very beginning of the world, that every society I know of has enforced. You can start with bigamy. This is simply a moral disapprobation of sexual activity deeply felt by the society. And it has never been unconstitutional for the society, for the majority, to impose that judgment. Now maybe it should be, but don’t tell me that that’s what the American Constitution has required. It might be a good idea. Persuade your fellow citizens that government should make no moral judgments. It’s simply not our history.
Thomas Jefferson: “Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.”
Churchill: “The art of diplomacy is telling plain truths without giving offense.”
"Self-government relies, in the end, on the governing of the self." -- George W. Bush
"Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites--in proportion as their love of justice is above their rapacity;--in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption;--in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon the will and appetite is placed somewhere: and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds can not be free. Their passions forge their fetters." -- Edmund Burke
"The Constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please. It should be remembered, as an axiom of eternal truth in politics, that whatever power in any government is independent, is absolute also; in theory only, at first, while the spirit of the people is up, but in practice, as fast as that relaxes. Independence can be trusted nowhere but with the people in mass. They are inherently independent of all but moral law." -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Judge Spencer Roane, 1819.
"Without the consent of the governed, those who govern have no moral or legal authority. And that's just what we're on the verge of creating in this country: Unelected, unaccountable judges are making laws the people would never pass." -- Park Gillespie, winner of the Showtime reality series "American Candidate," in his speech to the nation Sunday
"The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness which the ambitious call, and ignorant believe to be liberty." --Fisher Ames
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Attacking Western values
Walter E. Williams (back to web version) | 
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December 29, 2004
School boards have recently banned songs and music containing references to Santa Claus, Jesus and other religious Christmas symbols. The New York City school system permits displays of Jewish menorahs and the Muslim star and crescent but not the Christian nativity scene.
According to an Associated Press story (Nov. 26, 2004), "A public school teacher is suing his district and principal for barring him from using excerpts from historical documents in his classroom because they contain references to God and Christianity." The historical documents in question are: the Declaration of Independence and "The Rights of the Colonists" by John Adams.
Then there's Kandice Smith, an Alabama sixth-grader who was threatened with discipline for exhibiting a cross necklace. Just a few years ago, the city manager of Eugene, Ore., Jim Johnson, banned Christmas trees and holiday decorations with religious themes from public spaces, giving as his reason the need to "put a neutral face on a religious holiday in the workplace." This year, a float proclaiming "Merry Christmas" was banned from Denver's Parade of Lights.
Under the pretense of the First Amendment's prohibitions against "establishment of religion" and the court's bogus "separation of church and state" interpretation of the same, we're witnessing a part of the ongoing attack on American values. The Constitution's "establishment of religion" clause was written to prevent the formation of anything similar to the official Church of England in the United States.
So why the attack on religion? Read the Declaration of Independence. You'll read phrases such as: "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights," "Laws of Nature and Nature's God," and "appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world." The vision held by the framers is that our rights come not from government but from a "Creator" or "the laws of nature and of nature's God." That means the purpose and power of government is rightfully limited to protecting our natural God-given rights.
The idea that government doesn't grant rights is offensive to those who wish to control our lives. Therefore, to gain greater control, the idea of natural rights, God-given rights and Christian values must be suppressed. The idea that rights precede government was John Locke's natural law philosophy, which had a significant influence on our nation's founders, but they chose to refer to natural law as rights endowed by the Creator.
The attack on Christian ideas and Christian public displays is part and parcel of the leftist control agenda in another way. Certain components of the leftist agenda require that our primary allegiance be with government. As such, there must be an attack on allegiances to the teachings of the church and family. After all, for example, if you want popular acceptance of homosexual marriages, there must be a campaign against church teachings that condemn such practices.
Emboldened by their successes in the courts and intimidation of public officials, leftists will no doubt make other demands; there's no logical end point except complete Christian capitulation. There are Christian symbols and exhibits in many Washington, D.C., government buildings that will come down, such as: Moses with the Ten Commandments inside the U.S. Supreme Court, George Washington praying in the Capitol Building, Abraham Lincoln's speech mentioning God carved inside the Lincoln Memorial.
Religious programming on the radio and television will come under attack. After all, there's Federal Communications Commission permission to use the "public airwaves." If leftists say they have no such intention to go after television, radio and other public expressions of Christianity, what they really mean is that they haven't softened us up enough yet. I'm not quite sure of just how we should respond to the ongoing attack on Christianity and American values, but we'd better do something quickly.
©2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
Contact Walter E. Williams | Read Williams's biography
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"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. ... The only foundation of a free Constitution, is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People, in a great 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
"That wise Men have in all Ages thought Government necessary for the Good of Mankind; and, that wise Governments have always thought Religion necessary for the well ordering and well-being of Society, and accordingly have been ever careful to encourage and protect the Ministers of it, paying them the highest publick Honours, that their Doctrines might thereby meet with the greater Respect among the common People." --Benjamin Franklin
Let it simply be asked where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in the Courts of Justice? And let us with caution indulge the opposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle." --George Washington
"Can the liberties of a nation be sure when we remove their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people, that these liberties are the gift of God?" -- Thomas Jefferson.
"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
"Star Parker: "[A]s we enjoy the unprecedented prosperity that our freedom has made possible, we are losing a sense that every benefit has a cost, and that the other side of the coin of increased freedom is increased responsibility."
Thomas Sowell: People who cannot make hard choices often talk about complexity and nuance, about gray areas and twilight issues. There are of course gray areas. But not all areas are gray. And not all 24 hours of the day are twilight. There is of course complexity. But trying to square the circle is not complex. It is impossible. A President of the United States should know all sides of an issue. But he cannot be on all sides of an issue.
George Orwell: Men sleep peacefully in their beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.
"The republic will survive until Congress discovers that it can bribe the people with their own money" - A. de Tocqueville
"Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness." -- President George Washington, 1753
Patrick Henry, "Power is the great evil with which we are contending. We have divided power between three branches of government and erected checks and balances to prevent abuse of power. However, where is the check on the power of the judiciary? If we fail to check the power of the judiciary, I predict that we will eventually live under judicial tyranny."
"The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working under ground to undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric. They are construing our constitution from a co-ordination of a general and special government to a general and supreme one alone." --Thomas Jefferson
"The Constitution on which our Union rests, shall be administered by me [as President] according to the safe and honest meaning contemplated by the plain understanding of the people of the United States at the time of its adoption -- a meaning to be found in the explanations of those who advocated, not those who opposed it, and who opposed it merely lest the construction should be applied which they denounced as possible." --Thomas Jefferson
"[A] good moral character is the first essential in a man... and your conduct here may stamp your character through life. It is therefore highly important that you should endeavor not only to be learned but virtuous." --George Washington
"The men who wrote the First Amendment religion clause did not view paid legislative chaplains and opening prayers as a violation of that amendment." -- U.S. Supreme Court, in the case of Chambers v. Marsh, 1983
"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, writer of much of the U.S. Constitution, 1752-1816
Common Sense by Thomas Paine: "But where says some is the king of America? I'll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal of Britain. Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honors, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be brought forth placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America the law is king. For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other. But lest any ill use should afterwards arise, let the crown at the conclusion of the ceremony be demolished, and scattered among the people whose right it is. "
"The Declaration of Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal. There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man." --G.K. Chesterton, from "What I Saw in America", 1922
"Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them." --Joseph Story
1856 - The new Republican party selected for its national platform a call to abolish the “Twin Relics of Barbarism, Slavery and Polygamy.”
"The real question today is not when human life begins, but, 'What is the value of human life?' The abortionist who reassembles the arms and legs of a tiny baby to make sure all its parts have been torn from its mother's body can hardly doubt whether it is a human being." -- President Ronald Reagan, 1983
"Society has always regarded marital love as a sacred expression of the bond between a man and a woman. It is the means by which families are created and society itself is extended into the future. In the Judeo-Christian tradition it is the means by which husband and wife participate with God in the creation of a new human life. It is for these reasons, among others, that our society has always sought to protect this unique relationship. In part the erosion of these values has given way to a celebration of forms of expression most reject. We will resist the efforts of some to obtain government endorsement of homosexuality." -- President Ronald Reagan, July 12, 1984
“We will have no more of those candidates who are pledged to the same goals as our opposition and who seek our support. Turning the Party over to the so-called moderates wouldn’t make any sense at all.” — Ronald Reagan, 1965
Mike Adams: “I do not believe that surgically applying a breast to a man’s chest can make him a woman any more than surgically applying a horn to a man’s forehead can make him a unicorn.”
Ann Coulter: We don't have to adopt all the Democrats' traits – incessant lying, utter shamelessness, criminal behavior and lots of crying – but Republicans need to tattoo this truism on their arms: It's never a good idea to take advice from your enemies.
Kathleen Parker: There's something kind of adorable, in an odd way, about the elite media trying to decide if they're elitist. It's sort of like inmates in an insane asylum considering their circumstances and concluding: "You don't look crazy to me."
Benjamin Franklin: "Make yourself sheep and the wolves will eat you."
"We have this day restored the Sovereign to Whom all men ought to be obedient. He reigns in Heaven and from the rising to the setting of the sun, let His Kingdom come." -- Samuel Adams, statement made after all delegates signed the Declaration of Independence, 1776
The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
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. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.