The Outsider: February 2014

Sunday, February 16, 2014

It's "Time" to Live by the Compass

Ever since I started doing my own personal vetting of candidates for any political office, I look to see if they live by the clock or the compass. Those who live by the clock are always interested in just how much time they have before the next election and how much money they have accrued in their "war chests" to defeat their opponent. Those who live by the compass, don't worry about when the next election is or whether they will win, they are more concerned with the direction the country is headed.

Even though they don't agree on some things, Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, and Rand Paul agree on one major point, the Constitution is the law of the land and must be followed. It seems to me that those who are aspiring to be either Representatives of the people or Senators, would do very well to look at the character of these individuals to see why they are so stalwart in maintaining principles that reflect a deep understanding of the intent of the Constitution.

Living by the compass, they have seen through the smoke screen of false ideology that seems to have permeated the philosophy espoused by both major political parties. I have heard so many times that the Constitution was a "living" document, that it has to change to keep up with the times. This is the same kind of philosophy that doomed ancient Rome and Greece.

These individuals espouse the fact that the Constitution was written to address human nature. The Founders were well aware, and often expressed their feelings about what they were seeing in the person of King George III. They knew that, "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." If you are a student of history, you will recognize this concept in both the secular leadership throughout history as well as ecclesiastical leadership during the times of the Inquisition and many other religious leaders, Christian and non-Christian alike.

As students of the Constitution; Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, and Rand Paul recognize that the Founders were not all of the same religion nor were they all of the same political ideology. Many were anti-federalists in opposition to the federalists. However, all recognized that government was to be the servant and not the master. The Constitution was written in such a way as to bridle government and rein it in when it became overbearing. The Constitution loans the Federal Government enumerated powers so it could perform tasks that would be difficult for each state to perform independently. Having said that, it is important to point out some of the powers that were not delegated to the Federal Government. These three Senators have expressed concerns about these two areas of concern.

There is no provision in the Constitution to grant the Federal Government the power to regulate education. The states and local governments were to be in charge of the education. They would be in competition with each other to provide the best education for their citizens in order to attract people to their states. Once the Federal Government took over the responsibility of educating all "citizens of the United States", this competition disappeared. The Federal Government then bribed the states (with money that came from the states) to put in place programs like "No Child Left Behind" and "Common Core" which serve to indoctrinate and "entitle" students more than educate them. (An aside, it is impossible to not leave those who don't want to learn behind without slowing those who want to learn down and bore them to death.)

General Welfare as used in the Preamble didn't mean that the Federal Government was responsible to respond to every natural disaster or calamity that happens throughout the country. As a history teacher, I pointed out to the students that the Federal Government didn't step in to assist Chicago after the Great Fire in 1871. Neither did it step in to rebuild San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake and fire that left that town devastated. In both cases the residents of the cities, citizens of the state, and volunteers from around the country came together to rebuild each without federal assistance.

These three statesmen continually point out two things from the Progressive Era of President Wilson that came together to extract more power from the states and place it on the shoulders of the Federal Government. First, income tax was instituted by the 16th amendment to give the Federal Government power over each individual's purse strings, and second, the in-statement of Senators was changed from the legislative bodies of the various states to popular election by the people by the 17th amendment.

You might ask how these two "progressive" ideas have served to undo the vertical checks and balances placed in the Constitution by the Founders. In the first place, the Federal Government was to provide for its needs with impost and excise taxes. For more than a century, this method of taxing kept the Federal Government from growing out of proportion to what was necessary to accomplish its purposes. With the imposition of individual income tax by amendment, government could collect more than it needed. That gave rise to the manufacturing of "needs" to which the excess money was to be applied.

Secondly, no longer were the Senators responsible to the states they represented, but to the people of the states. On the surface this seems fine, but the Founders knew that a popular vote for both houses would hamstring states because they would not be represented in Congress, that is why there was such a debate over the composition of the Senate and how they would be selected in the Constitutional Convention. They were to represent the states, not the people, therefore they were selected by the state legislatures.

Now more than ever the political scene is one of competition to see who can promise more money from the non-existent coffers of the Federal Government than their competitor. Both Senators and Representatives use the wholesale quid pro quo use of earmarks and pork barrel projects to buy votes and remain in office. This is human nature at its worst. Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, and Rand Paul are the exceptions to this kind of politics and live by their moral compasses instead of the political clock of iron triangle.

The Tapestry

The Tapestry
By William L. Pressgrove
Written in 1992, edited Nov 2009

Once upon a time, there was a land far, far away full of beauty. There was lush vegetation like tall trees, colorful flowers, winding rivers, snowy mountains, and grassy plains. The land was exceedingly rich in natural resources because the ruler of the land had blessed it with all things he had the power with which to bless it. The ruler of the land was a jealous ruler so anyone who came to live on this land had to make a covenant to worship him only. If the people ever forgot, or would not worship the ruler of the land, they would be swept off of the land because the ruler of the land would not be mocked.

As the story begins, there is evidence that the land had been peopled several times. Artifacts found in the land indicated that each group had broken their covenant with the ruler of the land and had been destroyed or they had destroyed themselves.

Another people in a distant land heard about this strange and beautiful land and desired to move to it. They made arrangements to move, many having to take great losses as they sold their goods and possessions, but to them the promise of the new land and freedom were worth all their sacrifices. These people became known as "Freemen" because of their love for freedom.

When the Freemen arrived in the new land, they found people already living there. These people were called "Landers" because they were a people who lived off the land and used it to their benefit, somewhat wisely, but the Landers had forgotten the ruler who had blessed the land, thus they had fallen out of favor with him. Therefore, the Landers lived without his protection. The Freemen learned of the ruler of the land and made a covenant with him to worship him and him alone. So, whenever there was a problem between the Freemen and the Landers, the ruler would favor the Freemen. There were several wars between the two groups because the Landers didn’t want the Freemen taking their land and gaining a foot hold in it. The Freemen prevailed and became established in the land. They prospered and began to fill the land, because they remembered their covenant with the ruler of the land.

The Freemen continued honoring the covenant they had made with the ruler, but the mother country from which the Freemen had come didn’t want them to become independent. The Freemen had to break away from the mother country’s hold on them before they could fully live the covenant they had made with the ruler of the land. They knew if they would break with the old country, the ruler of the land would assist them to become secure in the covenant they made with him.

The old country didn’t want to lose control of their colony in the new land because of its exceeding riches, so it began to exercise more control over the colony and make unreasonable demands on the Freemen. The Freemen had to pay more and more taxes for the goods they received from the mother land. The mother country taxed the Freemen without allowing them to be represented in government.

Even with the help of the ruler of the land, there was a great war between the old country and the colonists in which many of the Freemen paid the ultimate price for freedom. The greatest men of that generation spilt their blood to gain the independence they were seeking.

The people, having won their freedom began to live all the terms of the covenant they had made with the ruler of the land. They set about to fix laws by which they could remain free in this new land. They hadn’t forgotten the help they received from the ruler of the land, so they incorporated rules and regulations that allowed the people to have the freedom of choice in their new nation. This freedom of choice was a right they fought so valiantly to gain, and they recognized that it was the only way they could truly worship the ruler of the land.

The leaders of the country of Freemen made a tapestry into which was woven the rules of the government they had formed. This tapestry displayed to all the world the freedom the new nation of Freemen stood for. The tapestry was held high and was revered by all who had taken part in obtaining freedom for the new nation and had worked so hard to set up a sound government.

As time went on the Freemen, who had made the covenant with the ruler of the land and had fought beside those who died for it, passed away. Their children remembered the covenant and the tremendous sacrifice their fathers had made by holding the tapestry high and reverencing those who had made their freedom possible as well as the ruler who had help secure it.

Several generations passed away reverencing the tapestry and enjoying the freedom it represented. Eventually, those who were placed into government positions decided that they could improve the laws that the tapestry represented. They began to make these changes and told the people they were for the betterment of the country. As a symbol of each change they removed one thread from the fabric of the tapestry, one thread for every change.

All the changes made the Freemen feel that the government was caring for them and that the changes were making the country better. The tapestry didn’t appear to have suffered from the changes either. The threads that were removed were hardly, if at all noticeable.

As the years passed the Freemen became less self-sufficient and more dependent on the government to sustain them. Politicians began to realize that by making promises of more aid to special interest groups they could garner more votes from the people in exchange for more money from the government coffers. Sadly, the people began to expect more and more support from the government without ever thinking about where the government was getting money.

Before they were aware of it, the people had become so dependent of the government that they began to forget about the covenant their fathers had made with the ruler of the land. The government became more important to them than the ruler of the land. Historians began removing all references to the ruler of the land from the history books used to teach the children about the Founding Fathers of the country. Those in power also began passing laws that prohibited the mention of the ruler of the land in public places. As these changes were being made, the politicians and now even the historians took more threads from the tapestry to make it conform to their new way of thinking.

Even though so many changes were being made to the tapestry, the people still revered it and considered it to be the fabric of the country and said that it was so strong that no one or nothing could ever tear it apart. They held it high on every Independence Day to display to the world how proud they were of it. They would boast of being the greatest nation in the world. They were proud of the strength of their military. They would occasionally show their strength by defending "freedom" by supporting international causes supposedly to keep the peace.

One day, a dispute began among the leaders of the country as to whether the laws the tapestry represented were still valid because times had changed and technology had become so advanced. Some thought that the laws the tapestry contained were outdated and needed to be scrapped and a new one drafted. Others thought that with just a few more changes, that the old tapestry would be just fine. As a graphic representation of this argument, a verbal tug-of-war ensued each side being on opposite sides of the tapestry. As they began the tug-of-war it was plain to see that the tapestry would be torn apart by the argument. Those who wanted the Constitution to remain quickly made some serious concessions to the opposing party with the understanding that they would keep the "old" tapestry as the countries symbols of freedom.

The tapestry was changed so much that it was just a shell of what it had been and so many threads had been removed from the tapestry that it began to look like an old shredded cloth. As the government was discussing more changes to the tapestry, an enemy came into the land and began to take possession of it, killing and enslaving the people as they went. The mighty army was sent out to fight this intruder, but found that it was so weakened by the lack of discipline that it was no match for the invasion. You see, they had become weak because of the lasciviousness that had been allowed by their leaders, that they didn’t have the moral fiber to hold them together as a fighting unit.

Finally citizens, who had been weary of the actions of the politicians, took up their arms and the tapestry as a banner in defense of their country. They were seriously hampered in their efforts because some of the new laws that were passed made it difficult for them to retain their firearms, so they were fighting with whatever they could get their hands on. These citizens were those who had believed in and kept the covenant with the ruler of the land and were sustained by their faith that he would help them to rid their country of the invaders. Joined by those of the military who had recognized the lasciviousness that had overtaken their forces and had maintained themselves apart from those activities, these citizens prevailed and began to repel the invaders.

After much bloodshed this new army prevailed and defeated the invaders, but not before the capital city and those who were in it was destroyed. When peace was restored, the original tapestry was found almost totally shredded into pieces. It was held together by one brittle thread. It was taken to a laboratory to be restored.

The threads that had been removed were found in the archives and were brought out and laid down side by side so they could be restored to the tapestry. As this process began, the workers noticed that the threads had tiny strands of gold woven in them at various places. When they were all laid down together they discovered a word had been woven into the threads, a word that when embedded in the cloth held the tapestry together tightly but was imperceptible to the naked eye. A word that when removed bit by bit over time had allowed not only the tapestry, but the fabric of the nation to fall apart as well. That word?–God.

The Outsider

Sunday, February 16, 2014

It's "Time" to Live by the Compass

It's "Time" to Live by the Compass

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