Part three of an essay inspired by George Washington’s Farewell Address:

Faction… they are likely in the course of time and things to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of the government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

We are at a crossroads in America. This is a choosing time. Are we going to choose Republicanism or Marxism? Free Enterprise or Socialism? Are we going to choose ignorance or reason, reality or denial? Are we going to be a nation divided or a nation united? Are we going to crumble or crawl through the fire? Do we have enough knowledge as a nation to know the demons that we face? Do we care?

I know one thing. We will care. We will care, when we see the ashes of America carried on the winds of CHANGE.

The political agenda of the cultural elite has slyly and insidiously captured the essence of America and shaped it into their vision and their desires. All of which are built on sand. They are not built on reason. It is built on an ideology that sells a mirage to the people and leaves the architect a hypocrite. Ignorance has let this happen.

One of the greatest mysteries of all times is how so many Americans could not see the change Barrack Hussein Obama sought to bring to America. Like all great leaders who manage to seduce a majority, he mastered the slick and slippery ways of doublespeak. Obama voters deliberately chose not to peer inside the looking glass that yielded focus on his true intentions. They chose denial instead. They chose to believe, mistakenly, that America could sustain herself on change. Others knowing exactly what Obama’s mission was, believed in the seduction of big government with feel good economics.

Yet, big Government cannot possibly be sustained and it cannot provide for every American. It was never the intention of our founding fathers and it is not the intention of our United States Constitution. The American debt will drown the economy and American ingenuity and free enterprise will be continually strangled by invasive federal mandates. Governmental intrusions will eventually suck the life out of the American Spirit.

This is not just random thought and fear mongering. This has been proven by the collapse of the Communist societies abroad and even in Europe today, who is moving away from socialism because it simply does not work. These are facts. These are lessons from history. These are warnings that are based on reason. Our founding fathers did not construct a Declaration of Independence and a United States Constitution on visions of utopia. They built the foundations for future generations on education, history and reason.

Where is reason? It’s as if the liberal elite and those gullible enough to follow suit, want to act like a child who plucks the dandelion and while blowing out all of the seeds with eyes closed, wishes,  “Oh, I wish for a perfect society where there is no pain or poverty and I will always be taken care of by my nanny.”

A government simply cannot be everything to everybody. The people have to sustain themselves. The government is to lay the platform to give them that opportunity and then let go. Let go and let God. Modern day liberals want the government to micromanage our lives. Do children ever really find their way if parents never let them go? The liberal elite wants us to believe that we can do nothing without “Big Daddy,” or “Big Brother” as George Orwell predicted.

Another haunting prediction of what America would be like in Socialist hands, is found in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. It is a powerful example of the crisis at hand and the insidiousness of propaganda. In Atlas Shrugged, the social realms of all levels are eventually led to believe that people who work hard, and reap from their labors, are bad people. They are led to believe that government is the answer to all the problems. The talented, the wise, the brilliant are despised by the populace and run off to exile. The ones who are left behind, the leaders of the socialist movement, watch the economy dissolve around them; the very economy they had possessed and controlled. Debt, depression, starvation and lack of spirit eventually crush America.

Sound familiar? All these events happened because people were led to believe that the government was the power, government was the answer, government would provide. Yet, incompetent and based on ideology instead of reason, the government stifled and manipulated individual, social, corporate and industrial liberties – liberties that included the ability to succeed or fail. Government promised what it couldn’t deliver.

The engine of America stopped because the soul of the American people was seduced by a bill of goods that had no bill of rights. Americans had sold their soul to the devil. They had turned away from God as their provider and instead turned to Government as their provider.

This is why our founding fathers based our fundamental principles on the solid, brilliant and inspired reason that our rights are given to us by God – life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Our declaration does not guarantee happiness. It gives us the right to pursue it, and the desire to pursue it, with liberty. Our founding fathers were motivated by God and logic, history and education.

Today, we are a nation divided. We are divided in a fundamental perspective of who gives us our rights and liberties, God or Government. The dilemma is that we will not be able to sustain our republic or rise from the mire of debt, deficit and demise, unless we unite in the primary principles of our country’s origin. Government is not the answer. Government is the problem.

The divide is perpetuated by denying our children an education in the principles of our country and the wisdom behind them. The liberal elite has infiltrated every aspect of our culture and has laid the groundwork for a takeover – like dynamite in a glass castle. Our courts, our primary schools, our movies, our television, our music, our colleges have all been slowly usurped – usurped like a slow poisoning with a propaganda that had no antidote – reason. Where is reason?

An awakening must occur. There must be a unification that defies party and unifies Americans. America has done it before but it has been in times when America still believed in, and taught their children about, the goodness of America, the basic principles of the Constitution and the fact that God has given them their right to succeed and fail and that it was up to them to decide. America was built with immigrants who yearned for such freedoms – Let me be and let me see what I am capable of doing. I will not know until I try to fly – And fly we did.

Today our children are taught to deny God in school and that loving their country is passé, that it is stingy and selfish to succeed and that the government owes them happiness. Sound familiar? Where is reason? Can we pull ourselves out of another slump if our spirit is broken – if our mantra is give me instead of let me?

George Washington warned that division and blind, ignorant allegiance to party would ruin America and give rise to dictatorship.

The alternate faction of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism…Sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able and more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation on the ruins of public liberty.

It’s in the books for us to read. The writing is on the wall. But do Americans want to face the challenge? Do we as a nation have the stamina? Our muscles are weak and our minds mush. Just the way the left, socialist agenda wants it. Do not be fooled, their goal is not a perfect state of well being for all. It is power. Americans will be snapped into the snare of ruin by the dangling carrot  – free care for life. Like a donkey with blinders on, we will walk in vain, if we cannot see the truth.

Where is reason?

The effort ought to be by force of public opinion to mitigate and assuage it (Parties). A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.

Previous chapters can be found here.

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Where is reason?

But the constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people is sacredly obligatory to all.

George Washington, in his Farewell Address, speaks to us about the obligation we have, as citizens, to the United States Constitution. Obligation. Americans, we the people, who live in America, we the people, who reap from her spirit, her resources, her goodness, her history of independence and equality, should be obliged to live by and honor our Constitution.

But do we? How can we, if we do not know it?

Americans love football. How would we ever expect a football player to play the game, if he did not know the rules? Similarly, how do we expect to maintain our republic if we do not know the rules, the laws, of our intended government?

Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty.

George Washington states that we should respect the Constitution’s authority, comply with its laws, acquiesce to its measures.

How can America’s citizens sacredly oblige, respect, comply and acquiesce to the measures in the Constitution, if we do not know it? How can we sustain our Republic, a form of government where the people rule through their representatives by electing leaders, congressmen and women and selecting judges to protect our liberties, if we know not from where these liberties are borne and maintained?

Is this not reasonable? Where is reason?

Reason, a caveat in all things brilliant and everlasting, a mental attribute our founding fathers understood, leads us to a fundamental conclusion.

Is it not reasonable, that we as adults fully comprehend the foundation of our government? Is it not reasonable that we dedicate as much time educating our children about the founding principles of our country as we do taking them to soccer practice and ballet school, the science fair and math labs?

But, where is reason in America?

I will never forget a recent experience I had when I was a guest on someone’s radio show. As we were discussing the importance of the Constitution, he said, “I don’t agree with it.” I was awestruck. He didn’t “agree with it?” What was his reasoning for such a blatantly, broad and ignorant statement?”

It reminded me of the great line in the movie Amadeus. After a beautiful, sumptuous Opera, the king walks up to Mozart and comments, prompted by his faction, that there were “Simply, too many notes.” A flabbergasted Mozart asked the king to describe to him exactly which notes. The king was at a loss for words.

The same applies to a broad comment regarding the Constitution such as, “I don’t agree with it.” I wondered to myself, which part? Reason led me to question whether this person had ever read the Constitution or studied it. If he didn’t agree with it, which implies the whole of it, then was I to suppose that he didn’t agree with the separation of powers, the checks and balances, the genius of Articles 1, 2 and 3?

Did he not agree with the bicameral Congress – one for the people, one for the states? Did he not agree that the President’s Cabinet has to be approved by the Senate? Did he not agree that the President is prohibited from declaring war without the consent of the Congress? Did he not agree that the House of Representatives, the people’s house, holds the purse strings for the war thus empowering the people, through their vote, to end the war at any time? Did he not agree that the President cannot appoint a Supreme Court Justice but can only nominate one, and that the nominee has to be confirmed by the Senate? Did he not agree that a bill vetoed by the President can be overridden by a two thirds majority of the Congress?

Did he not agree with the 13th Amendment, that gave slaves freedom, the 19th Amendment that gave women the right to vote, or the Bill of Rights, the first ten Amendments, which includes freedom of speech – the freedom of speech which gave him his right to voice his blasphemous opinion – that he didn’t agree with the Constitution?

Where is reason?

It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachments tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism.

Is this not happening today? The executive branch is encroaching on the legislative branch by appointing unelected officials and Czars thus blatantly disregarding the Constitution. This encroachment has a residual effect on the liberties of the people, the resiliency of industry and the inspiration of free enterprise. This can only happen if we the people are ignorant to the proceedings, the true intent of our government.
Thus, the bias against the Constitution and against the people who revere it, propels the purpose of the perpetrator – to intimidate the desire of a civic yearning and learning which thus allows the government to insidiously overstep its bounds.

All obstructions to the executions of the laws are ….. of fatal tendency.

Where is Reason?

Well, I reasoned, if this gentleman didn’t agree with the Constitution of the United States, then he could move to another country, a, or b, if he could ever define the part with which he didn’t agree, he could start a movement for an amendment.

If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it corrected by an amendment in the way the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation… it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.

Broad and unsubstantiated statements such as, “ I don’t agree with it” are by products of the proponents of faction. Faction is like a wildfire that rips through an innocent land. It breeds contempt, discord, division distrust and eventually the demise of our Republic, but more on faction next week.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetuated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. …sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation on the ruins of liberty.

Part one can be read here.

Does morality really matter? George Washington adresses the issue:

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens.  

In wake of the Congressman Weiner scandal, questions are being asked if morality really matters. After all, “Weiner didn’t break the laws of the Constitution,” said the casual observer on the street, as did Weiner himself. Others, however, beg to question, for one who holds the public trust, where do matters of deceit draw its confines? 

The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity.  

Washington’s words, from over two hundred years ago, some would argue, are dull and mundane. Yet, actually, they are sharp and solid, resonating relevancy and reason. Reason transcends time and reason sees the connections between “private and public felicity.”  

But are we a country of reason anymore? A country who props up politicians who don’t seem to have a clarity of moral boundaries and/or an understanding or acknowledgement, for that matter, of simple words such as “budget.” Private citizens deal with these concepts every day in their households, and private citizens know that they can’t spend more than they make.  

Reason is being ransomed and morality, like reason, is being stripped from our society, as if it does not really matter.  

In our nation’s schools, any nod to God is ground for being expelled or maybe even a required visit to the psychiatrist’s office. Our founding documents state freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. George Washington, in his farewell address does not specify a religion. Yet, he most definitely states that religion and morality play a vital part in the survival of a republic and a society as a whole.  

And let us with caution indulge the supposition 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. 

History proves that without morality, life and civilizations crumble. Why then is a politician impervious to these same principles? 

What would Washington think of our present generation of kids who are being taught by our nation’s schools that one should be dumb, deaf and blind to the call of God, country, duty, civics and morality? How will they cope? They are being taught that morality and religious principle is not a mainstay to sustain one through life. They are not being taught that morality and religious principle are necessities to sustain a republic – a republic that embodies liberty and justice for all.  

But, how would they know about liberty and justice for all? They cannot, or are not encouraged to say the Pledge of Allegiance to their Republic. They are not taught to revere it – the very republic that gives them their liberties to speak their minds – but wait, they can’t speak their minds.  

If our children do not know their rights, they will not know when their rights are being insidiously usurped from them. 

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 courts of justice? 

Where do justice and morality meet? They meet in the hearts and minds of a populace who, as “the genius of the people” maintain their Republic. What do we expect of our politicians? We expect of them what we expect of ourselves and what Washington expected of us: dignity, integrity, morality - based on religious principle.

“The Rebels” starts with the landing of John Rolfe at Jamestown and takes the viewer through the Revolution and The Battle of Yorktown. Featuring a mixture of reenactments, CGI and commentary by Americans from politics, media, business and academia the series is compelling and informative. Even the introduction by President Obama was palatable and free from references to himself.

There were several historical facts that took me by surprise and I always thought of myself as a bit of an expert on “Us.” I learned that the first African-Americans came to the future United States as contract workers in Jamestown, not as slaves. I was also unaware of the heroic experiment by George Washington at Valley Forge to inoculate his army against smallpox.

I could not find any information on the writers and producers of this excellent series on the History Channel’s website and the credits whizzed by pretty quick at the end of the show, but they are to be congratulated. In a brilliant marketing move, The History Channel’s also offering the series free on DVD to any school who would like one. The details for this offer are available here.

If nothing I have said convinces you that this is a great series, the fact that The Christian Scientist Monitor praised it and famed liberal TV reviewer Tom Shales panned it should have you setting your DVR.

It would not be the last time the founders appealed to the Almighty God.

James Madison acknowledged God’s favor in our founding in Federalist 37 referring to “a finger of that almighty hand, which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution.”  I dare say that men like Madison and Cushing would not recognize the America of today, filled with politicians afraid to confess their faith or educators fearful of offending the sensibilities of their students with any mention of God.

Math teacher Brad Johnson of Westview High School of the Poway School District in San Diego, California, is a case in point.

In 2007, Westview Principal Dawn Kastner ordered Johnson to remove banners hanging in his classroom because they contained the words “God” and “Creator.”  According to media reports the banners, which had hung in his classroom for 25 years, measured approximately 7 feet long by 2 feet wide and carried the phrases: “In God We Trust,” “One Nation Under God,” “God Bless America,” “God Shed His Grace on Thee” and “All Men Are Created Equal, They are Endowed by Their Creator.”

Kastner objected to the banners, claiming that they promoted a Judeo-Christian viewpoint and might make some students feel uncomfortable. The school district agreed.  Oddly enough neither Kastner nor school district officials were concerned with posters hanging in other classrooms containing Buddhist, Islamic, and Tibetan prayers or those containing anti-religious messages that might make Christians uncomfortable.  What remains unclear is why those that preach diversity and tolerance seem incapable of practicing those same virtues when it comes to Christians and the role of Christian faith in our American history.

Kastner and Poway district officials might argue that they are simply enforcing the Constitution’s wall of separation between church and state.  The U.S. Constitution, of course, recognizes no such wall.  There are roughly 4,500 words in the original unamended document and not one of them was written to imply that God – specifically the God of Abraham – should be hidden from school children.

The Bible – Old and New Testament – was the most common piece of household literature of the time; it was the primary textbook from which children and adults learned reading, writing, and morality.  The first American dictionary contains biblical references on just about every page.

Moreover, the founders believed religion and religious teaching to be essential to the maintenance of a free society.  The great patriot Benjamin Rush of Pennsylvania wrote, “All its [Christian revelation] doctrines and precepts are calculated to promote the happiness of society, and the safety and well being of civil government.”  Therefore, reasoned Rush, “the only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion.  Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.”  In short the founders recognized not only the nexus between virtue and happiness, but also virtue and liberty.

We should not be surprised when those that endeavor to erase God from our history also seek to shackle us to the administrative state.  Man will “either be governed by a power from within or controlled by a power from without.”

In his farewell address, George Washington said, “Let us with caution indulge the supposition 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.”

The founders would find the mushy multi-cultural political correctness of the 21^st century to be outrageous.

The first round of the legal battle was won by Johnson.  U.S. District Court Judge Roger T. Benitez delivered a scathing rebuke to the Poway School District, correctly reasoning that “recognizing that God places prominently in our nation’s history does not create an Establishment Clause violation requiring curettage and disinfectant for Johnson’s public high school classroom walls. It is a matter of historical fact that our institutions and government actors have in past and present times given place to a supreme God.”

Not content to leave well-enough alone, the Poway School District has appealed the decision, which will be heard by the liberal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.  Heaven help us!

We [Americans] see America, from the Pilgrims who signed the Mayflower Compact to the Biblical scholars… who birthed the nation, to the spirit of sacrifice and charity that thrives to this very day, not as a nation of Christians (for that freedom is at the deepest core of our common philosophy) but as a Christian nation.

It seems that there is a growing belief that because our Founders were stalwart advocates for religious liberty, and because some of them had very nuanced and sometimes cynical views about organized religion, the United States was somehow conceived to be a secular nation. This belief is not only untrue, but detrimental to an adequate understanding of the underlying political philosophy of the founding, not least of all because it envisions the government as the nation instead of merely the organization through which the nation conducts its civil affairs, and more importantly because it betrays the singular belief that undergirds the entire American experiment: That the rights of man come not from government but from God.

When the Founders crafted the Constitution of the United States, they were not setting about to create a nation; they were setting about to create a system of government. The people of the United States had successfully waged war against Great Britain, formed alliances with foreign powers, brokered trade, and secured national debt before the current system of government was ever established. The Constitution merely created a system of administrative and judicial structures meant to represent the nation and to conduct the affairs of the people of that nation. This is perhaps best evidenced by the opening words to the document itself: “We the people of the United States… establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” The United States already existed. Its people created the Constitution to “form a more perfect Union… and to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

The birth of the nation occurred in 1776 when the second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence. It was this document that “dissolved the political bands” which connected the people of America to the people of Great Britain and assumed for them “the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” entitled them. It was also in this document that the Founders outlined the uniquely American philosophy of the legitimate rights of the governed. “Self-evident” truths, they called them: that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator (not afforded by their government) with certain un-alienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

Governments, says the Declaration, are formed to help man secure these rights and derive their power only from the consent of the people themselves. If government should exceed the people’s authority, or encroach upon the rights man received from his Creator (also called, in official documents by the same congress, “Providence,” “Almighty God,” “the Common Father,” “Nature’s God,” “God,” “Supreme Being,” “Holy Ghost,” and, wait for it, “Jesus Christ”), it was “the Right of the People to alter or abolish it.” The Founders then go on to cite, as the moral authority from which their philosophy is derived (rectitude as they called it), the “Supreme Judge” of the world, and call upon “Divine Providence” for their protection in carrying out their God-given rights.

It was hardly a secular origin then for these United States. Instead, a founding document that proposes a theory, really a theology of government, never enacted before. The people of this country are entitled by God to independent statehood. They were created by God with rights that no government can legitimately take away. Their philosophy was deemed morally correct because it has been judged so by God, and God will protect them in the execution of war against those that would subjugated them in violation of that philosophy. This is how the Founders viewed rightful governance, and this is the sort of government that they sought to give life when, a decade later, they drafted the Constitution of the United States.

Of the four claims about God and Americans outlined in the Declaration, it was the idea that man was made by God to be free that was the most radical, and which was so pivotal. The British press mocked it openly. It is, however, at the very heart of the founding ideology. If it is God who made men free, then Liberty is not a pragmatic imperative; it is a moral one. Governments that encroach on that liberty are not only violating the preferences of the governed, they are violating the very intention of God for government. For the Founders, this idea would fundamentally redefine the relationship between government and citizen. Man does not exist to be governed; governments exist to protect man’s freedom. Man does not owe government anything, other than what is necessary to aid that government in securing his basic rights. Likewise, government does not owe man anything other than protection from those who would intrude upon his freedom, be it his fellow citizen, foreign enemies, or the government itself.

It is this idea, above all others, that marked this country as unique among the nations of the world. It is an idea so deeply held by our Founders that many actually feared making references to the rights of man in the Constitution itself. They didn’t think they needed to. They also knew that to do so might one day be interpreted to mean that those rights were not natural at all, but rather were gifts from a benevolent master called the state. When the Bill of Rights was finally added, the Congress selected the language very carefully to make clear that the document was not bestowing rights on the people, but limiting the rights of government: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people to peaceably assemble…,” “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,” “The right of the people to be secure… shall not be violated…” The Constitution doesn’t grant man rights; God does. The Constitution only protects those rights from the government. The idea that the Founders believed government must exist independent of God is thereby false since their own view of the rightful place of government was in the protection of the rights granted to man by his Creator.

The tired argument that the Founders were not Christians but Deists is not only false (there were more overtly Christian men among the Founders than even supposed Deists by orders of magnitude), but more importantly, it is irrelevant. Whatever the nuances of their personal faiths, the Founders were to-a-man theists, believers in God, and in the Christian tradition. While some of them, men like Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson, were skeptical of many of the miraculous claims of the Bible, they were none-the-less scholarly about and reverent toward what they saw as its philosophy, and its God. They may not have been Christians by the standards of the church, but they were certainly Christians by the standards of atheists. They believed in the God of the Bible and believed faith was critical to the workings of a free society. Not only that, but they made clear what they thought about the relationship between God and government in both word and deed. Franklin called for prayer at the Constitutional Convention and suggested spending government revenue on chaplains. Adams declared the Constitution was “made only for a moral and religious people…” and wrote the Massachusetts State Constitution, which required that its governors pledge their Christian faith in order to serve (This was considered a legitimate state law under the original reading of the First and Tenth Amendment). Jefferson spent federal revenue on Bibles, declared that the Bible should be taught in public schools, and approved of the use of federal buildings for church gatherings – including the capital building where he personally attended services during his presidency. Oh, and he wrote the Declaration of Independence.

Of course Jefferson also, in a letter to the Danbury Baptists, first coined the popular phrase, “Separation of Church and State,” which has been used for so long to inform a reading of the ‘Establishment Clause’ which seeks to excise all religious expression from public institutions. So how could he approve of the innumerable expressions of faith by himself and the government under his watch? It is important here to bear in mind the context of Jefferson’s thinking.

The Danbury Baptists were concerned that the First Amendment’s very existence might one day be taken to imply that it was the government who gave men religious freedom, not God, and therefore imply government could also take that freedom away (a possibility Alexander Hamilton had also raised in Federalist No. 84). The Baptists feared that this left open the possibility that at some point in the future the government might claim for itself the power to enforce religious edicts through civil coercion. This fear was not without historical precedent.

The original European settlers of what would become the United States of the Revolution were almost exclusively British. They were also immensely religious. That’s why they were here. After a millennia of state-religion mandated by Rome, Henry VIII had rejected the authority of the Pope in Britain and created a state-religion of his own. The Church of England made the king not only the ultimate political power in the land, but the ultimate religious authority as well. A violation of Henry’s religious positions was a violation of the law, and a violation of the law was heresy. The punishment was severe: Beheading, hanging, burning at the stake… Terrible things happen when civil and religious authority are mingled together.

The problem for Henry, and for Rome, was that a Reformation was also taking place. Men like Martin Luther and William Tyndale (who Henry had strangled and burned) had begun translating the Bible into common languages, giving the people the opportunity to explore God for themselves. What they discovered surprised them. In the Book of Exodus, God establishes a civil leader for his people in Moses. He also establishes a religious leader in Aaron. Then he does something really interesting: He commands that they remain separate forever. If the king tries to supersede the religious authority of the priesthood, God will destroy him, as he does in 2 Chronicles, cursing a king named Uzziah for conducting a religious rite in the temple. Of course, God was God of the state, as well as the religion. He gave guidance to Moses just as surely as he did to Aaron. He just precluded the civil leader from also being the religious leader. Undoubtedly, God understood that without that distinction, all kings would be like Henry VIII. Separation of church and state, then, is actually a Biblical principle.

When Jefferson’s own American forefathers, the Pilgrims, took sanctuary from religious persecution in this new world, they sought to be true to the Biblical teachings that their former rulers had violated. In America, as in Israel thousands of years before, government and religious authority would be forever separated, though just as in Israel, God would be God of both. God and religion, after all, are not the same thing. One is the Supreme Being over all, and the other is the institution by which he is taught and worshiped. Jefferson understood this distinction, which is why he could assure the Danbury Baptists that there was a “wall of separation between church and state,” ensuring that the government would never dictate or enforce religious decrees, while at the same time he also recognized God though the government, and based the legitimacy of both on him.

There is far more to say on this subject than could possibly be explored in one sitting: The fact that the opening lines of the most important state law concerning religious freedom discuss how God made the mind free though it was within his Almighty power not to as Lord of both and Author of our religion (Jefferson). There is Washington’s Presidential warning that no man can call himself a patriot and oppose religion, since it is intrinsically linked to free government. There is Congress authorizing an official translation of the Bible and Thanksgiving Proclamations calling upon Jesus Christ to forgive of our national sins. For nearly two centuries government was separated from religious authority by Jefferson’s wall, but there was simply no separation of the government and God. The Bible was read in schools, there were prayers at most public functions, churches continued to meet in federal buildings, and America’s rich Christian heritage was taught and celebrated, not denied, suppressed, and scorned. To be sure, there were always Americans of diverse faiths, but as the nation was settled by Christians, founded on the principles of Christianity, and peopled by an overwhelming majority of Christian citizens, it didn’t seem a terrible thing to consider her a Christian Nation. It was not until 1947, when the Supreme Court heard a case called Everson vs Board of Education, that the modern understanding of America as a secular nation was first introduced. In a stunning act of judicial activism, the court declared that Jefferson, in his Danbury Letter, in contradiction to earlier court rulings on the subject and to everything Jefferson himself had ever written including the Declaration and the actual letter itself, must have intended that the government be legally bound to secularism. This effectively turned two centuries of American history on its head. In the sixty years since, generations of Americans have been fed a radical reinterpretation of the Founders’ intent. Government, we are now taught, must protect the people from public expressions of, or support for, religion. God must be stripped from the public square, which is in large part why the true history of our founding has been so stripped from our schools. In this newly interpreted separation, the chief concern of our Founders seems to have been preventing anyone from encountering religion at all. That they often argued publicly that the republic could not survive without religion is ignored entirely, as is their own reliance on God for their authority to create the government in the first place. Like so many other issues in post-New Deal America, if the courts disagree with the Founders, they simply re-invent them, avoiding the sticky democratic practices of debate and legislation all together.

Since God no longer exists in government, and his history there is no longer taught, is it any wonder that millions upon millions of Americans believe, in utter opposition to the founding philosophy, that our rights come from the government? Where else would they come from? And should it be any surprise if those same Americans desire that the government give them other things as well? After all, if our rights are not by the grace of God but by the grace of government, then whoever controls the government has the ultimate authority over man. Government by definition can do no wrong. This is precisely the kind of thinking our Founders literally warred against. It is also precisely why Americans of all faiths should be proud to own America’s Christian Heritage, and why without it, America is lost.

“God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.” – Thomas Jefferson, “Deist”

“Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian Nation…” - Barack Obama, “Christian”

God-kings are not new on the stage of human history, nor do they exclusively occupy the dusty corners of the distant past. One need only look to the Japanese worship of Emperor Hirohito during World War II to see that an industrialized, modern country can still vest in its leaders supernatural authority. And there are far more subtle ways of making divinity out of men as well.

The Apostle Paul was warned two-thousand years ago that, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Certainly his intention was to illuminate to the self-righteous that they do not live up to an actual standard of perfection, but perhaps there is more. For as surely as a man might be blind to his own failings, there seems to be some propensity in man to be selectively blind to the failings of others as well. This selective blindness may have many causes and find many expressions.  Some in our society carry cultural guilt and fear of accusations of bigotry that cause them to hold entire social, racial, and religious groups to different standards of judgment than others.  Still, it is the elevation of individuals above common scrutiny that creates idols of men. Whether it is a rock-star or actor, sportsman or elected leader, holding any man above reproach is folly, for in ceding to anyone our power to critique them, we grant them power man was not meant to have.

Now, to some, this double standard of generosity may seem harmless enough.  After all it might be argued that most people are far too judgmental as it is.  However it is no less sinister to apply a positive double-standard than it is a negative one. Both of these biases have the same result on the individual making the unfair judgment – by limiting the individual’s ability to accurately see the humanity of the judged, they falsely color that individual’s understanding of the human condition in general. Just as the thoughtless demonization of any person renders them sub-human to the person making the judgment, and therefore their choices, actions, and motives are no longer subject to the same thoughtful consideration as those of others, Hero-Worship creates a blindness in which it is not necessary to consider the fundamental humanity of the so-called hero, nor is it necessary to emulate their actual virtues or accomplishments. After all, if Hitler is simply the most evil creature to ever live, why question the motives, politics, or persuasions by which his actual, human evil was allowed to thrive? Similarly, if a Martin Luther King, Jr. was simply better than everyone else by design, what point is there in attempting to follow his virtuous lead?

This power that hero-worship imbues in its champions is also a narcotic that dulls the mind of the worshiper, and allows and even promotes abuses by the worshiped.

Clearly, this is the case with the current President of the United States. With so many people seeing President Obama as a super-human, almost religious figure, and placing so many of their hopes on his shoulders, they blind themselves to the reality of the man, both his better qualities as well as his more troubling ones. Any accusation of wrong-doing or hubris is instantly and angrily rejected by the faithful as an attack on a man who is simply above petty criticism. He can do no wrong, and further, no one else can do the good that he might. He is, as Evan Thomas so aptly and honestly put it, “standing above the country, above the world, he’s sort of a God.” There is nothing more dangerous than this kind of isolation of a man from the restraining power of common criticism, especially one who by his office already has so much power over so many and so much. After all, if criticism is suppressed and virtues are seen as intrinsic and not attained or attainable, an elected leader doesn’t actually answer to the will of the people at all, rather, the people exist to validate his will.

For man to truly be free, he must reject elevating any human to super-human stations, reserving such worship exclusively for the truly divine. Christ may be perfect, but President Obama is only a man. A compelling case can be made that George Washington was one of the best men who has ever lived. The Indispensable Man, he twice surrendered his sword, and almost absolute power, to the new country he had bled to create when frankly most people would have preferred he kept it. But this same great man had great failings, not least of which were his somewhat nuanced views on human slavery.

If even a man with the moral fortitude of Washington did not escape the human condition, then what man could? I can say without shame that there is no public figure alive who I hold in higher esteem than I hold George W. Bush. I realize the cultural-correctness barons who have demonized him for the last eight years will recoil at the fact, but I would rather have some BBQ or sit on a fishing boat with 43 than meet a Beatle. He was true to his convictions, and he exuded a grace and good-will to his enemies even when beset on all sides by a recklessly hostile, slandering, hate-filled media and opposition.  President Bush is as close as I have to a hero. But I am not fooled by my affection into believing he was superior to his mold. Despite the public claims of exuding calm, I have little doubt what was going through the president’s mind during those excruciating seven minutes in the school-house in Florida in 2001. Fear. We’re being attacked? Confusion. If we’re being attacked, why aren’t they pulling me out of here? Uncertainty. Am I supposed to be doing something or did I misunderstand? The sort of very human things any of us might have felt in that sort of situation. Would I have preferred that he sprung to his feet, strode to his jet, and took command of the war we did not yet know we were in? Sure. I would rather he hadn’t passed TARP, articulated conservative principles like Reagan, and defended himself against his hate-drunk critics too, but I don’t look for God-like perfection in human beings. Even Presidents. Especially Presidents. I have an actual God for that, so my admiration for Mr. Bush can survive exposure to his actual humanity expressly because it isn’t built on the false premise that he has none. It is respect, not worship, and it is a deep respect.

Because in application, worship is all a man requires to reign as a God. Hold one man to a more generous standard, bind him by a less restrictive set of rules than you do other men, and you give to him transcendent powers no matter what secular name you might call him by. If you make that man-God the leader of a country, then he is a God-King as surely as any who has gone before, and making a God-King of a man only makes slaves of the rest, no matter how he uses his authority or for what. This is what the idea of separation of Church and State was actually meant to protect us from, un-checked executives consolidating personal-religious powers. Let us direct our prayers elsewhere that we might have eyes to see this man as man.

Gently walking through the hallway, the angular man traded his curiosity about his peculiar situation, (that of being back in his old home), for purpose. The purpose was containment of a problem. The problem was that of a young president gone astray.

The charge of his visit was given to him by Washington, who was not feeling very confident about a recent visit of his own. (See: “The Ghost of George Washington.”)

Mr. Lincoln was never one to forgo the instruction of the Founding Father, as Washington had visited him in spirit, and was always close to his heart in troubled times. So, like a soldier – on he walked. 

He saw the rooms that are now filled with new-fangled boxes and cords, and wondered what purpose those glowing boxes could possibly serve. He stopped to view a room where once long ago, his dear sweet son played. His mouth opened slightly with emotion as he viewed the now silent room – and he had to fight back tears.

He thought to himself; why dear George did you send me here?   I have found real peace, please let me go back.

However, being no stranger to persevering through adversity – Lincoln knew he could not linger; he needed to complete his job and get back to the angels. This ghost business, although not for him, had been put to him twice before; once during the Cuban missile crisis, and once right after September 11th, 2001.

On he walked until he reached the new young President’s bedroom. He hoped he would not scare the man or his wife, but knew that since Mr. Kennedy all presidents since have been made aware of the possibility of “the visits.” Explanation of “the visits” is part of their final security briefing, and certainly the part that brings the most surprise.

He tried the President’s bedroom door but it was locked. Locks are nothing to ghosts he thought, but still he could not penetrate the door or even simply open it. He tried and tried but the doorknob would not turn. Strange, he thought – and he let out a little chuckle.

With that, a more sinister laugh leaked out from a dark mouth behind him in the hallway. Then words followed.

“Going somewhere Abraham?  - He’s not there.”

The man with the wild hair and beard chuckled again, as he stepped out of a shadow.

“He’s in Europe, meeting with the rest of my new prospects.”

“What the devil are you doing here?” Lincoln calmly declared, righting himself from jiggling the door.

“What the devil, or whom the devil indeed, comrade Lincoln. As I recall, the devil himself almost had you at one point. Then, you cowardly caved-in to that whole freedom nonsense. And for whom … slaves? You fool.”

Lincoln stood tall and said; “You enslaved millions with your ruse of the poor workers. You really cared for your people eh?” Lincoln smiled and added; “And it worked out so very well, didn’t it?”

Karl Marx seethed, though he quickly squashed it and went back to his all too familiar verbal shell game.

“Washington is so stupid, he didn’t even realize that Obama was in Europe, sending a poor old wretch like you on a fools run.”

“Mr. Marx, his eminence President George Washington, never did or does anything he doesn’t mean to, and now I know, that he knew, that you’d be here.”

Lincoln bellied a rare laugh.

Marx moved quickly almost treating Lincoln as a friend; ”AMERICA CAN BE SAVED UNDER THIS LATEST CRISIS, ABRAHAM! She will surely see that the big corporations are stealing from the poor workers, and that the United States government must centralize its power and shut down evil free enterprise before it is too late! They must seize the gold barons; they must take from the wealthy and spread it on the fields of the dear workers. Lincoln, even China is instructing your precious Democracy to toughen up. And wait ’till my European friends work him over.  I will teach him to do two things: kill the big companies, then overtax and kill the little companies until the only place you be able to get a job is with the state. Yes, and what a glorious state it will be. I’ve always said the biggest prize will be America but I did expect it to happen sooner. Well, good things come to those who wait,… isn’t that what you say?” he chuckled.  

Marx then stopped realizing that Lincoln’s long sleep had not dulled his sense of purpose, and that he should save his pitch for his third and final visit to Pelosi.

He then tried to get under Lincoln’s skin;

“I am winning him over, Lincoln… I am gaining his confidence… he sees the way to Socialism, and is so very clever as to disguise it in this moment of financial crisis.”

“I know not what is in his heart, Mr. Marx, but I do know that if he truly prays to the God that I do,… that if he truly loves his children as I love mine, that somewhere along the way, he will see your game and right the ship. I’ve plowed a bit too in my day, Mr. Marx… and your plowshares… well, here they just won’t scour.”

Marx eyes glowed almost red with anger. This one he could never ever hope to reach. Marx turned quickly, stepped to his left, and then slowly faded away. 

With Marx gone, Lincoln smiled slyly – adjusted his hat, and then of course – easily turned the doorknob and walked into the bedroom to wait.

“Mr. Washington….  President Washington…” said a nervous Obama, “things are different now; I inherited a crisis… we need government to provide for the people, we need government for our banking system, and we need government to protect the quality of life for citizens all around the country.”

The elder tapped his chest with the lightest of touch, gripped his mouth and raised his chin slightly as if holding back an angry torrent of knowledge, his mind seemed to be sifting that knowledge as to politely address the younger man. Then, speaking slowly, he said softly:

“President Obama, I repeat this, not out of rudeness, deafness or ignorance; …it says: ‘We The People’.” He continued to stare away, then metering his words he added:

“Young man you can’t inherit what you yourself are worsening.  You are feeding a beast that is and will be the worst of your problems.  The Federal Government was not created to serve itself, nor was it created to fix every possible problem citizens and businesses shall encounter. You’re creating a massive bureaucracy, and in that state, how weak will the individual become? How will that national crop of free men grow when they are over tilled, over watered, and trampled by a gaggle of farmers with hands squeezing every young leaf? Individuals forged this nation, down to the my unheralded and blessed man. We created it for the people - that they be unshackled and free, responsible for themselves, so as to not have to give all to a beast that rules. You sir are building a massive beast that must be fed, and it’s very feedings will dismantle the true progress of the people.”

Obama answered; “Yes, but when you guys in Philly created the Articles Of Confederation, you had it all wrong. That was mighty close to anarchy there. Governments can’t run like that.” Then the smiling young president approached the noble apparition as if he were going to slap him on the shoulder.

With a quick turn towards Obama, and with his awesome presence and a piercing gaze, the founding father halted the young leader in his tracks. His eyes had raw power, battle hardened wisdom and true character behind them.  He paused, softened - then began:

“And may I ask, where you are taking us now? Our experiment erred at first on the side of freedom. However, you and your brethren are getting mighty close to that failed experiment created by those misguided godless ones from the other side of the globe. The Articles of Confederation sir, were amended and superseded in kind by the incredible document that bears the words that bring me to haunt you on this very night. Our reluctance at seizing federal power illustrates how much we wanted to be unfettered by any notion of tyranny. Then,‘We the People’ led off a document so very carefully thought out, with a mechanism so brilliant, it anticipated even the incredible future that I see here. No crisis you speak of can ever be more caustic or important than the crisis of lost individualism and freedom. The ’we’ in the paper Mister Jefferson drew, was the word that shook kings and rulers the world over. Mr. Obama, this audacity of hope you speak of needn’t encompass the awful audacity of bureaucracy. This Republic serves the people, and your ‘hope’ is but a mere word if you don’t protect true freedom.”

Then for the first time, he raised his voice slightly, not in volume, but in the halting passionate timbre of true emotion;

“And may I add that I know something of crisis sir. Every day away from my wife – men bleeding, dieing, freezing, running and starving. It is not a fictional fuzzy event you just might have read about in a textbook. It was all too damned real. The blood, smell and horror was very real and quite sickening. Those men gave you their all to create what you and your congress seem to ignore here sir. I was rich, as were most of us. We could have laid back and been proper gentry. It could have been easy, …but we chose to be free.

You wondered before you slept why my portrait was haunting you. That crisis, and this nation dear sir were born out of the meaning in those three little words – the words that bring me here to see you.”

Obama was speechless. He was paralyzed with a religious witness to a hard truth in the presence of this living monument and statue. 

“I will leave you now,” the great man said. “You have a choice; govern for the people, or govern for the bureaucrats. Feed your people the nourishing bounty of truth and freedom, and they will be given the dignity to learn how to prosper. Feed them the metered bureaucratic sugar of entitlement and you will at best be postponing their doom. Look to your children, look to your freedom, stave off the power mongers and the ones who are nibbling at your ears and pockets.  Remember sir; not ‘We the Government’ – ‘We The People’.”