Samuel Adams "While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but once they lose their virtue they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader." ...Samuel Adams

Why Our Economy Failed, and Our Culture Is on a Downturn

"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

John Adams, 2nd President of the United States, Signer of the Declaration of Independence.

John Adams gave us the skeleton key to unlock all of the mysteries surrounding the maladies facing our nation and our culture. Men are born to be free. The bible says, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery" (Galatians 5:1 NIV). The key to this verse is that Paul is speaking directly to Christians, and the verse pertains only to those who have accepted Christ as their Savior.

In Genesis 9, God establishes the governmental covenant with mankind. From that point on Man was to govern himself. Throughout history this governance has played out in the form of a despot, monarch, or totalitarian regime. When our nation was founded, it was founded on the principle that "We The People" could effectively govern ourselves. We would be a nation ruled by law not by men. It was the most brilliant system ever devised, but it has one fatal flaw.

The flaw is that it can only work as long as the people collectively agree to follow the laws; which are nothing more than an agreed upon minimum set of morals. Our system cannot handle immorality. The occasion law breaker will assert himself, and when he does, the systems survival depends upon that person being brought to justice by others representatives of the people who are more upright and care about the system. But what happens when those law breakers are not brought to justice?

The answer, as it is playing out in our economy, is that more and more lawbreakers begin to find opportunity. Once this begins to happen, good and upright individuals must act swiftly, if they do not, then they will be over run.

The ultimate conclusion to all of this is morality, even a minimum morality, cannot be agreed upon because the hearts of man are wicked. With out a source of ultimate morality, morals become subjective and relative to the point where no one can agree on a set of conduct.

Our economy and our culture are both doomed for failure and civil war. It is a conclusion that is inevitable. Our leaders are either unable or unwilling to bring to justice those who have disenfranchised there very people they were elected to protect. We protest to deaf ears. Our calls and letter means nothing, and come election time, we are forced to try to discern the lesser of the evils.

When a culture deserts God's law and tries to make its own, it runs into the unchangeable problem of subjective morality. John Adams gave us a direct warning that we have not headed. The real tragedy is that WE are the government in this country. A government simply reflects the will of its people. If many of us are honest, we are upset that government did not protect us from ourselves. The answer to the question, "what is wrong with our country?" is in the mirror.

The Source of Rights and Privileges

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.

Declaration of Independence. July 4, 1776

Why is it important that this nation remain one nation "Under God?" Well I believe that the answer was provided by the founding fathers, and it is, inadvertently, the most brilliant part of the founding of this nation. I'll explain.

My parents never put many restrictions on me. I simply had to (1)have my homework done before I went outside to play, (2)finish my assigned chores, and (3)do whatever my dad told me. If there was ever any question, I was to refer to rule number 3. I never had any "rights" so to speak, but I did have privileges. For instance, I had a video game that I could play so long as the rules were followed. This brings up an important question. What exactly is a right and a privilege, and what is the difference.

An example of a privilege granted by our government is the ability to drive on public highways. The state gives that privilege and it can be taken away. Likewise, social security benefits and medicare are both privileges. The government created those things and so it can dissolve them as well. You may see a pattern forming here. Any benefit created by our government can technically be referred to as a privilege. It's something that can be taken away from us should a government decide we have not earned it in someway, or if they decide it has become detrimental to the state.

The key thing to remember is that any benefit insured by a granter is reliant upon that granter as its source. At anytime, the granter end the benefit. Ask anyone who worked for a company that went out of business whether that is true.

A right is technically unalienable; meaning that it cannot be taken away. By this time you may be seeing the logic problem. If rights are given by government then they can be taken away by it. They are therefor little more than privileges granted to "We the Children." It's no different than my video game privileges.

If however, a right is given by God, then only He can take it away. This is the brilliance of the founders. Even if a man doesn't believe in God, it is still to his benefit that rights be guaranteed by an invisible entity. In fact, if there is no God, the unbeliever has that much more guarantee that his rights are safe be being taken since the only thing that can take them away doesn't exist.

The difference between so-called democracies all over the world, and free societies, is that the citizens of free societies truly have rights that cannot legally be taken by government. That doesn't mean that one's rights can't be oppressed, but it will be quickly recognized as oppression.

Removing God from a free society effectively removes the immutable source of the rights of its people; at which point, the government will gladly step in as the guarantor of said rights. The thing that most either cannot see, or willingly accept, is that government then becomes god.

Why Conservatives Oppose Homosexual Marriage

During most election cycles, the issue of homosexual marriage becomes one that is hotly debated. I wanted to briefly discuss issues that I feel are hardly ever raised.

First homosexual marriage is and will always be legal provided this country remains free. It is currently legal for two individuals, who happen to be the same sex, to marry under the dictates of their moral and religious dictates. This debate is simply about state recognition of those vows. I think it is easy to confuse the issue and create imagery of homosexuals being physically prevented to march down the aisle at the Unitarian Universalists church and say vows to one another.

The issue is state sanctioning of marriage. This brings us to the issue of why states get involved in the sanctioning of marriage anyway. The sole reason is that the ultimate fruit of said marriage is the creation of more tax payers. It is, quite simply, an investment. I think we can debate the fact that homosexuals aren’t allowed to see their loved one in the hospital. I would support that bill in one second.

There are many marriage restrictions in this country and around the world. For instance, brother and sister cannot marry in this country. Some more examples of marriage restrictions are polygamists, under aged, close relation, and severely mentally disabled individuals.

This brings us to the most important question of this whole topic. Should love become the only qualification a state uses in recognizing a marriage, then what would be the logical explanation for denying father and daughter from marrying; or, for that matter, father, daughter, cousin, and friends from all marrying one another and forming a commune?

I think the better question to ask is why do states sponsor marriage at all? This would be the more logical, non-emotional question to ponder. As long as they do, then there will have to be restrictions. There is no better question, from a state sponsorship point of view, than whether the consummation of said marriage happens between two rational humans who are of age to make a responsible decision, and whether said union has the potential to create more tax payers.

Mechanistic Materialism: The Religion of Science

As much as "science-minded" evolutionists would seek to have you and I believe otherwise, everyone sees the world through the filter of their own private beliefs and presuppositions. For instance, I begin all study and learning with the presupposition that there is a God who created the heavens and the earth in six literal days, thousands of years ago. I believe that the universe is created with order and design thus making scientific study possible. This is my world view. It's the filter through which I process all other information.

The statement I just made is illegal in the county I live in. A teacher would be fired for saying it in the classroom, or even publicly outside of the classroom. So why, given the supposed freedom of ideas in this country, could a teacher not be able to even question the theory of evolution in a classroom? The answer is the ideological world view known as materialism; and, more specifically, mechanistic materialism. And believe it or not, it has major implications on your personal freedoms.

The conservative believes that our Bill of Rights, enumerated in our United States Constitution, are not given to us by our government. We do not have these rights because a government says we do. These rights are inalienable, and given to us by God Almighty. Our government's job is not to give us these rights; it's job is to protect our God-given rights from being tread upon. If God gives us these rights, then they can only be taken away by him.

If, however, our government is the granter of these rights, then they can also take them away. This is the reason why many other democracies fail, and it is also the reason why mechanistic materialism is so dangerous to our democracy.

The materialists' world view believes that only those things which are verifiable by scientific testing and empirical evidence are real. The mechanistic materialists take it one step further and say that only those things made of atoms, and can be tested scientifically and empirically are real. For this reason they deny the possibility of the existence of God or anything supernatural. They have led a campaign since the 1940s to have everything God-related discredited and thrown out of the classroom. Our children only learn Godless science and other fields of study in public schools and universities now.

First, I must say, the hypocrisy and lack of logic of this worldview is amazing. First, the assumption that everything that exists must have empirical evidence is itself something for which no evidence can be provided. We who practice philosophy call this a logical fallacy. For instance, there could potentially exist a god and there still be no evidence. With this said, the most dangerous problem of this ideology is its desire to remove God from our education system, courts, government, and eventually from our democracy.

A democracy cannot survive without God for many reasons, but for this discussion we will say because its citizens' rights and freedoms would then be granted by the government. If this is so, then your rights would become the subjective whimsy of whichever fragmented group managed to seize power that week. Government would first become nanny, then eventually daddy, and finally, god.

Determinism and Victim Mentalities

While this is not a topic that will come up in most presidential debates, this ideology is core to the worldviews that shape the leaders who shape the direction of our nation.

Ivan Pavlov is know for his ground breaking work on Classical Conditioning. He also won the Nobel prize in 1904. Pavlov observed that the actual physiology of a dog's digestive system could be altered by associating the noise from ringing a bell with feedings.

Later, B.F. Skinner revolutionized the world of behavioral science by applying Pavlov's conditioning model to behavioral studies. He noted that behavior is programmed mostly by environment and positive or negative reinforcements. Skinner is the champion of the modern Liberal mind.

Skinner is considered history's foremost thinker when it comes to behavioralism which gives birth to determinism.

Determinism, like behavioralism, asserts that all human behavior is a product of environmental factors. If a person commits a gratuitous and violent murder, he did so because of the negative influences in his life. There is no such thing as good and evil according to this ideology, only "sick" and "healthy." There is no personal accountability, only "environmental factors."

Determinists mostly see environmental causes in societal ills. If a woman has six kids by five fathers, and is pregnant with the seventh, the determinist sees the culprit of her predicament as learned behavior instead of solely poor decision making.

As many understand, this type of thinking completely diminishes the idea of personal accountability. It only follows that if a person cannot reasonably be held accountable for their actions, and their actions can be harmful to themselves and others, then someone/something needs to step in as caretaker and nanny. Given this natural pattern of logic, and given the liberals belief that the government is the best vehicle for societal advancement, then it only makes sense to a liberal that the government fulfill that role as guardian/caretaker/nanny; who, with lots of our money, can help improve environmental conditions so people will be less likely to exhibit destructive behavior .

Noted liberal philosopher and linguistics professor at MIT, Noam Chomsky, with whom I very seldom agree, correctly noted in his critique of Skinner's work, that the natural progression of the Determinists/Naturalists thinking is a totalitarian state.

Conservatives instinctively see the power of human potential. We are strong proponents of personal accountability. We believe that Humans are created in the image of God and are more than just the sum of their experiences. We revere people who rise from circumstances that provide for a poor environment, and achieve greatness.

We don't tell people they are victims. We encourage people to take control of their own life. We believe the first step to doing this is learning to become personally accountable for the missteps and poor decisions we've made, and learn that if we controlled our failure, we can also control our success.

Humanistic-Collectivism

The Greek philosopher Protagoras coined the defining humanist Mantra. He said "Man is the measure of all things." The humanist believes that all truth and morality can and should only be investigated by, and in relation to, man. In other words, Truth and morality cannot come from God or any religion, but man should set his own rules. The humanist believes that mankind's experience on this earth is all their is; therefor, our collective effort should be in the here and now.

Collectivism can be viewed as the idea that the greatest common good can be achieved through shared effort. While this may sound good on the surface, one must ask himself whose idea of "the greatest good" are we trying to achieve. Collectivism also depends upon the cooperation of a community. Their can be no collective effort with total participation, because without total participation, resources are limited. Oh yeah, collectivism feeds on resources. They are the first thing required of its participants. The problem is that most collectivists see participation as mandatory.

To understand the issue of humanistic collectivism, one must only refer to scripture. Genesis 11:1-9 describes the first attempt at the phenomenon. God told Noah, after the flood, to spread all over the earth and multiply and be fruitful. However, under the leadership of the mighty Nimrod the people united into a humanist society dedicated to a collective effort to make the name of their city great, and to minimize and eventually phase out the need for God. They built the tower of Babel. It didn't turn out so good.

As I will discuss in later articles, the heart of this issue (and every political issue) lies in one's belief in God, or the lack thereof. Humanistic collectivism leaves no room for serving God or following the mandates of any religious system. For the humanistic collectivist, the collective (or state) is the highest power one must serve for the greatest benefit in the here and now.

To be fair, their are humanists who oppose collectivism. .

What is strange about the liberal mentality is that most liberal thinkers are fiercely independent. They strive for the individualists ideal. Liberal authors and thinkers like Ayn Rand and George Orwell railed against the collective mentality. With this said, liberals almost always call for more collectivism in government.

The chink in the liberal armor in any philosophical debate is the question, "If you believe so strongly in the individual, why do you believe governmental (collective) powers should be expanded by..." Fill in the blank with any liberal "universal plan" or "social program."

Look at the issues in this campaign. Health care, taxes, immigration, war, terror, etc. Which candidates have collectivist ideas about the solutions to these issues.