Principles of Liberty (Two)

Principle Number Two
By William L. Pressgrove

“A free people cannot survive under a republican constitution unless they remain virtuous and morally strong.”

You don’t have to look very far to find evidence of the truthfulness of this principle. There are so many laws on the books that even the district attorneys can’t keep up with them all. The courts are so packed with cases that it takes several years for them to come to trial. Students go to school with the attitude that if they don’t get “caught” they haven’t broken any rules. When they do get caught, instead of accepting the consequences, they try to run so that they can get away from those enforcing the rules. Of course they get that idea from watching high speed chases on the nightly news. These symptoms show that today’s society is just the opposite of what the principle says needs to be maintained to “survive under a republican constitution.”

The Founding Fathers knew that the only way that the rule of law would work was if the citizens were willing to obey those rules. There always have been people in our society that have been disobedient to the laws, local, state, and national, but they have always been a very small minority, now the number of perpetrators of lawlessness is increasing and the degree of seriousness of the violations is on the rise as well.

What did the Founding Fathers have in mind to maintain a virtuous and morally strong people? At the time the diversity of religions wasn’t as great. Most people in the country were Christian. Although the Founding Fathers were forward looking individuals, it is hard to conceive that they would have been able to see the religious and ethnic diversity that exists in this country today. However, in their other writings they confirmed a strong hope that this nation would remain primarily a Christian nation. Although there is a fundamental foundation in morality in most religions, some religion's understanding of morality is different from that of Christianity. Even with those differences the country would remain stronger if all would live by the moral codes of their respective religions.

The problem that has arisen is that religious morals from all religions have come under fire by those who don’t share the same ideology about a Supreme Being. This trend has placed the country in a situation where the basic foundation for law and order, the fundamental Christian religion, is under attack by those who hold no religious beliefs. The courts and government have succumbed to the insistence of the very few that “religious” morals and virtue cannot be reinforced in the public schools through religious friendly instruction. By some stretch of the imagination the court has concluded that the classroom is an extension of the hallowed halls of Congress. Because school systems receive federal funds the courts have justified their position that the first amendment applies to schools as well. David Barton author of The Myth of Separation established a connection between the social deviance, lower SAT scores and the separation of church and state ruling effecting prayer in schools. Barton's research states that ever since organized prayer was banned from schools, crime and sexual misbehavior have increased significantly as well as SAT scores have experienced a marked declined.

To resolve the problem, expose the secularist ideology for the detrimental influence it is. Students must be taught that they are responsible for their own actions. Returning the religious component to the school system would cause students to think about their actions. Helping the student understand that the Constitution was written for a moral and religious people and is wholly inadequate to govern a lawless people would prick their social consciences in a way that hasn't been done in 40 years. Without returning to the morality and virtue that the Supreme Law of the Land represents, this country cannot return to its former greatness.