Rights and Responsibilities

Each individual of the society has a right to be protected by it in the enjoyment of his life, liberty, and property, according to standing laws.  He is obliged, consequently, to contribute his share to the expense of this protection, and to give his personal service, or an equivalent, when necessary.

John Adams, cited by Clarence B. Carson, A Basic History of the United States, Vol. 3: The Sections and the Civil War, 1826-1877, pg. 47

The Best Government

The best government is that which governs least.  No human depositories [of power] can, with safety, be trusted with the power of legislation upon the general interests of society so as to operate directly or indirectly upon the industry and property of the community.

Democratic Review, first issue, 1837.  Cited, by Clarence B. Carson, A Basic History of the United States, Vol. 3: The Sections and the Civil War, 1826-1877, pg.28

Who Does SCOTUS Think They Are?!?

[T]he court invalidates the marriage laws of more than half the States and orders the transformation of a social institution that has formed the basis of human society for millennia, for the Kalahari Bushmen and the Han Chinese, the Carthaginians and the Aztecs.  Just who do we think we are?

Chief Justice John Roberts, in his dissent in Obergefell v. Hodges

Describing the Current American Culture

A family of little faith is doomed.  Children will be allowed to spend precious and unrecoverable hours before a television.  They will be allowed a virtually unrestricted diet of fats and sweets.  They will know little discipline, little postponement of gratification, because the convenience of the present is of far greater priority to their parents than the long-term health and social development of the children.  The pleasures and benefits of this indulgent policy are immediately felt; its price will be paid far off into the future.  Seeing that ultimate price demands faith the family does not possess.

A society of no faith is equally doomed.  They will demand goodies from their leaders who, lacking the faith to say no, gladly indulge the populace in exchange for the votes that keep them in power.  They know full well that the price will have to be paid on some future leader’s watch.  At least it won’t be paid on theirs.  Whether the issue is Social Security, socialized medicine, rent control, making married couples pay more tax than they would pay were they single, or any other fiscal policy, too many of us see only the immediate benefits. We have been indoctrinated with the propaganda of compassion. Feeling people’s pain sounds noble and good. In reality it serves the need of those who seek to benefit now by making future generations pay the price.

Rabbi Daniel Lapin, "America's Real War," pg.245

A Government Without God

Where theistic religion grows weak, that is where religion related to God grows weak, justice will weaken.  Crimes, then, are defined as antisocial activity which, in turn, then is merely what the majority says it is. Then punishments seem to be the result of the majority's ganging up on the minority. This, in turn, seems inconsistent with democratic feelings.

The result is a decline in uniform application of penalties for crime, resultant miscarriages of justice, trampling on the rights of law-abiding people, together with an increase in what ought to be called crime.

Robert D. Culver, Civil Government: A Biblical View, pg.78

H/T Doug Evans

The Church vs. the World

It is precisely the world’s mockery that will again and again be a sign that the Church is on the right road:  It is a surer sign than the world’s applause.  Where the Church retreats into invisibility, it despises the reality of the Spirit.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Sexual Revolution is War Against Family

The sexual revolution always has been a war waged against the ordinary family, against the ordinary ways of men and women and children. The moral law as regards sex is meant to protect that family from threats without and within: from the pseudo-marriage that is fornication, from the betrayal of marriage that is adultery, from the rickets and scurvy of impure habits, and from the mockery of the marital act that is sodomy. If a man’s home was his castle, then the walls round that castle were his people’s understanding of the moral law and the customs that gave the law vigor and force. Who then would benefit by riddling the walls with holes? All people who could not, because of their own failings and vices, enjoy the good of family life; all people who saw the family as the great opponent in the way of their statist ambitions; all rebels against Nature and Nature’s God, who would be happier to see a man leave his wife and children to take up with another man than to see a young woman turn away from the hothouse of a lesbian relationship to become a wife and mother after the ordinary way of nature.

Anthony Esolen, “Pronouns, Ordinary People, and the War over Reality”

Don't Force the Rosebud

Don’t have sex before you are married.  Remember, you’re like a rosebud.  If you force a rosebud open too early, it’s ugly.  If you let it open naturally, in its own time, it’s beautiful.

This statement is addressed to young ladies, and is one version of a teaching I’ve read in many sources and heard by many people.  I think it is a great analogy.

Good Question!

If gay apologists really believe homosexuality is not a biblically forbidden sin, why do they bother arguing, vehemently, that they cannot change?  If something is not a sin, after all, then it doesn’t matter if it’s inborn or chosen, immutable or changeable.

Joe Dallas, The Gay Gospel?, pg. 120

A Necessity for Both Mother and Father

When studies confirm that boys raised without fathers have higher rates of impulsivity and antisocial behavior; when children have a better chance of success when both mother and father are present in their homes; when a 1987 study of violent rapists shows that 60 percent of them came from single-parent homes; when 75 percent of teenage suicides come from broken homes; and when girls raised without fathers are shown to be sexually active sooner in life and at higher risks of having children out of wedlock; can we seriously deny the need children have for both a mother and a father?

Joe Dallas, The Gay Gospel?, pg. 56-57

Redefining the Family

Redefining [the family] to accommodate same-sex couples will never make such combinations a family in God’s sight.  It will, though, weaken the effectiveness of the family in general.  Standards such as monogamy and fidelity will have to change when the qualifications for “family” change, to make room for a whole new concept.

Joe Dallas, The Gay Gospel?, pg. 56

Controversy

Controversy for its own sake is a sin.  But controversy for the sake of the truth is a divine mandate.

Walter Martin.  Cited by Joe Dallas in The Gay Gospel?, pg. 37

The Nation In Which We Now Live

Don’t Look Too Much to Government

All communities are apt to look to government for too much. . . . But this ought not to be.  The framers of our excellent Constitution . . . acted at the time on a sounder principle.  They wisely judged that the less government interferes with private pursuits the better for the general prosperity.

Martin Van Buren, 1837, Cited, by Clarence B. Carson, A Basic History of the United States, Vol. 3: The Sections and the Civil War, 1826-1877, pg.21

THE Right of a Child

Children should be conceived within a relationship that will provide them with the love and care of the man and woman who gave them life.  The unborn child has a right to life, yes, and also deserves a mother and father, and where possible the mother and father who brought the child into being.  Because of human frailty, it isn’t always possible for a child to be raised in his natural family, but that should be the ideal to which our policy aspires.  And we should never intentionally deprive a child of such an upbringing.  And yet redefining marriage does precisely that.

Ryan T. Anderson, “Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom,” pg.53

The Results of Redefining Marriage and Family

It the church allows marriage and family to be redefined, then a circular deterioration will start:  There will be an increase in the sexual confusion and exploitation of children as a result of the redefinition of family, and there will be further redefinition of family as a result of the sexual confusion and exploitation of children.  Given enough time, the original concept of “family” could be driven right out of our consciousness. . . .

So long as the family is recognized for what it is and remains sanctioned as such, it can survive; its problems can be corrected.  Redefine it, though, and through redefinition it loses its very worth.

Joe Dallas, The Gay Gospel?, pg. 54

Sliding Toward Oblivion

When a president or group of legislators proudly announce plans to right something they perceive as a grave social problem, it usually involves someone else paying the bill. It may well be a monetary cost that will be paid by some large and unidentified group of taxpayers, or it may be a price paid by a future generation of Americans who will have to live in a slightly less benign world. Meanwhile, the benefited parties can be brought to the White House lawn for a public relations photo opportunity. The president tells the world about his compassion and concern for these unfortunate people. He waves the new legislation aloft and proudly declares the end of some injustice. Everyone smiles for the cameras. Everyone, that is, except those invisible people who are left holding the bag.

Why does the future become less important, and immediate gratification more important, as societies slide toward oblivion?

Rabbi Daniel Lapin, "America's Real War," pg.244-245

The Coveting of the Poor

There is a constant tendency . . .  in the poor to covet a share in the plunder of the rich . . .; in the indolent and profligate to cast the whole burthens of society upon the industrious and virtuous; and there is a tendency in ambitious and wicked men to inflame these combustible materials.

New York Chancellor James Kent, 1821.  Cited by Clarence B. Carson, A Basic History of the United States, Vol. 3: The Sections and the Civil War 1825-1877, pg.5

Don’t Read the Newspaper!

The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them, inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.

Thomas Jefferson, 1807, cited by Clarence B. Carson, A Basic History of the United States, Vol. 2: The Beginning of the Republic 1775-1825, pg.150

And You Thought It Was About Equality?

Leading lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) advocates admit that redefining marriage changes its meaning.  E.J. Graff cheerfully acknowledges that redefining marriage changes the “institution’s message,” which will “ever after stand for sexual choice, for cutting the link between sex and diapers.”  Same-sex marriage, she argues, “does more than just fit; it announces that marriage has changed shape.”  … Andrew Sullivan says that marriage has become “primarily a way in which two adults affirm their emotional commitment to one another.”

Some advocates of redefining marriage embrace the goal of weakening the institution of marriage in these very terms.  “[Former President George W.] Bush is correct,” says Victoria Brownworth, “when he states that allowing same-sex couples to marry will weaken the institution of marriage. . . .  It most certainly will do so, and that will make marriage a far better concept than it previously has been.”  Professor Ellen Willis is delighted that “conferring the legitimacy of marriage on homosexual relations will introduce an implicit revolt against the institution into its very heart.”

Michelangelo Signorile urges same-sex couples to “demand the right to marry not as a way of adhering to society’s moral codes but rather to debunk a myth and radically alter an archaic institution.”  Same-sex couples should “fight for same-sex marriage and its benefits and then, once granted, redefine the institution of marriage completely, because the most subversive action lesbians and gay men can undertake…is to transform the notion of ‘family’ entirely.”

Ryan T. Anderson, “Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom,” pg.41-41.

Governments Do Not Produce Money

When Christopher Reeve suffered a spinal cord injury, it pushed that area into prominence. But in all the calls for increased funding, I did not see anyone saying, “Since we need more research on spinal cord injuries, shall we reduce funding for diabetes or for cystic fibrosis? Or perhaps we should spend less on the arts.” The assumption seems to be that money is just sitting there and we simply need to withdraw it. Too many citizens fail to understand the simple reality that governments do not produce money, although they may well print it. Only hard-working people, who produce more than they need, actually produce wealth and money.

Rabbi Daniel Lapin, "America's Real War," p.244

Freedom and Obligation

Our era is one in which different treatment or different outcomes are inherently suspect. It is all too commonly thought that we all deserve the same reward or the same status, notwithstanding the differences in our efforts or in our abilities. This is why we hear so often about what is deserved or who is entitled. By this way of thinking, the student who treats spring break like a seven-day bacchanalia is entitled to the same success as the conscientious classmate who works and studies while he plays. And isn’t this same sense of entitlement often applied today to freedom? . . .

Today, when it seems that grievance rather than responsibility is the main means of elevation, my grandfather’s beliefs may sound odd or discordant. But he and others like him at the time resolved to conduct themselves in a way consistent with America’s ideals. They were law-abiding, hardworking, and disciplined. They discharged their responsibilities to their families and neighbors as best they could. They taught us that despite unfair treatment, we were to be good citizens and good people. If we were to have a functioning neighborhood, we first had to be good neighbors. If we were to have a good city, state, and country, we first had to be good citizens. The same went for our school and our church. We were to keep in mind the corporal works of mercy and the great commandment: “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Being wronged by others did not justify reciprocal conduct. Right was right, and two wrongs did not make a right. What we wanted to do did not define what was right—nor, I might add, did our capacious litany of wants define liberty. Rather, what was right defined what we were required to do and what we were permitted to do. It defined our duties and our responsibilities. Whether those duties meant cutting our neighbor’s lawn, visiting the sick, feeding the hungry, or going off to war as my brother did, we were to discharge them honorably. . . .

Today there is much more focus on our rights and on what we are owed, and much less on our obligations and duties—unless, of course, it is about our duty to submit to some new proposed policy. . . .

My grandfather often reminded us that if we didn’t work, we didn’t eat, and that if we didn’t plant, we couldn’t harvest. There is always a relationship between responsibilities and benefits. In agrarian societies, that is more obvious. As society becomes more complex and specialized, it is more difficult to discern. But it is equally true. If you continue to run up charges on your credit card, at some point you reach your credit limit. If you continue to make withdrawals from your savings account, you eventually deplete your funds. Likewise, if we continue to consume the benefits of a free society without replenishing or nourishing that society, we will eventually deplete that as well.  If we are content to let others do the  work of replenishing and defending liberty while we consume the benefits, we will someday run out of other people’s willingness to sacrifice—or even out of courageous people willing to make the sacrifice.

Clarence Thomas, “Freedom and Obligation,” 2016 Hillsdale College Commencement Address.

What is Liberty?

Liberty, in its genuine sense, is security to enjoy the effects of our honest industry and labors, in a free and mild government, and personal security from all illegal restraints.

Richard Henry Lee, 1787, cited by Clarence B. Carson, A Basic History of the United States, Vol. 2: The Beginning of the Republic 1775-1825, pg.105

The Constitution Is Against Welfare

We ARE On the Slippery Slope

Now that the law has changed to teach that marriage is whatever consensual relationship you find most emotionally fulfilling, people will start to believe it, and then they’ll start to live accordingly.  They will be more receptive to sexually open relationships, or temporary ones, or multiple-partner ones, as their appetites and fancies dictate.  You don’t have to take my word for it.  Many proponents of same-sex marriage are gleefully predicting just that.  The result will be less family stability, which hurts children and women, and especially the poor.

Ryan T. Anderson, “Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom,” pg.41

The Bad Ideology of Public Schools

School trains children to be employees and consumers; teach your own to be leaders and adventurers.  School trains children to obey reflexively; teach your own to think critically and independently.  Well-schooled kids have a low threshold for boredom; help your own to develop an inner life so that they’ll never be bored.  Urge them to take on the serious material, the grown-up material, in history, literature, philosophy, music, art, economics, theology — all the stuff schoolteachers know well enough to avoid.  Challenge your kids with plenty of solitude so that they can learn to enjoy their own company, to conduct inner dialogues.  Well-schooled people are conditioned to dread being alone, and they seek constant companionship through the TV, the computer, the cell phone, and through shallow friendships quickly acquired and quickly abandoned.  Your children should have a more meaningful life, and they can.

First, though, we must wake up to what our schools really are: laboratories of experimentation on young minds, drill centers for the habits and attitudes that corporate society demands.  Mandatory education serves children only incidentally; its real purpose is to turn them into servants.  Don’t let your own have their childhoods extended, not even for a day.  If David Farragut could take command of a captured British warship as  pre-teen, if Thomas Edison could publish a broadsheet at the age of twelve, if Ben Franklin could apprentice himself to a printer at the same age (then put himself through a course of study that would choke a Yale senior today), there’s no telling what your own kids could do.  After a long life, and thirty years in the public school trenches, I’ve concluded that genius is as common as dirt.  We suppress our genius only because we haven’t yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women.  The solution, I think, is simple and glorious.  Let them manage themselves.

John Taylor Gatto, “Against School: How public education cripples our kids, and why.”  Harper’s Magazine, September 2003.