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Once Upon a Time the U.S. Was a Constitutional Republic.....
The first prayer ever held by the U.S. Congress was three hours long, according to Shirley Whitlock, a renowned Constitutional scholar who was one of the speakers at the Freedom Conference held in Heber (Arizona) on October 18. The term "separation of church and state" is not found in any of the founding documents, Whitlock said. Avowed faith in the providence of a Divine Creator permeated every step and every decision that went into the making of this country.
"Congress shall make NO LAW respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
The motto for the Revolutionary War was : "There is no king but JESUS."
The Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson, recorded for posterity that certain individual rights come from God, not from the state. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America began: "When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and Nature's GOD entitle them.... they are endowed by their CREATOR with certain inalienable rights....."
The Declaration concludes: "And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of DIVINE PROVIDENCE, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."
Today, said Whitlock, our children are taught little about our founders, the hardships they endured, the sacrifices they made to give us this country. "Our kids have no idea what these people sacrificed." Nine signers of the Declaration of Independence died in the war. Most of the signers were wealthy men who lost their fortunes and health during the creation of the United States as it separated from what was then the most powerful nation on earth. John Hancock bombarded his own cherished home to prevent the king's men from occupying it.
When George Washington was prevailed upon to become the new nation's first President, he was racked by rheumatism and going blind from the privations he suffered, along with his men during the war. When he made the long ride to the Capital, Whitlock said his arm was strapped to his chest so he could endure the pain.
With fire in her eyes, Whitlock stressed what has been forgotten or never known by most Americans: The founders did not create a democracy. They created a Constitutional Republic. They despised democracies, which always deteriorate into mob rule and the sacrifice of God-given rights and liberties. "Most of the laws we are governed by today are legalized plunder," Whitlock said. "We have turned our backs on the principles upon which this country was founded." Those principles were designed to comprise a carefully constructed system of checks and balances and prevent the deterioration of the Republic into the form of democracy we have become today. By the 21st century, those checks and balances had been all but obliterated, Whitlock told her audience.
As an example, the ONLY Constitutional lawmaking powers were to be the responsibility of the Legislature. Today, most of the laws that affect the lives of Americans come from the "ABC bureaucracies," judges and other outside forces.
Senators were not to be popularly elected, but selected by the states' legislatures to guard states' rights against infringement by the federal government. The 17th Amendment erased this check so that the selection of senators also became part of the mass political process.
The ongoing abandonment of the concept of "a nation under God" and the checks and balances of our Constitutional principles, has been accompanied by the deterioration of every measure of a just and civilized nation, Whitlock said. ³Rape, murder, divorce, incarceration (we have a larger percentage of incarcerated population than any country in the world), suicide, dishonesty, academic performance (we spend more per capita than any country in the world yet fare poorly in academic competition).
Whitlock said that historically, the rise and fall of the eighty great civilizations of the world took an average of about 200 years. She showed a graph to her fascinated audience known as "Tytler's Cycle," which shows the rise and fall of great nations. At the top of the circle is Bondage.
Following the arrow around, Great Spiritual Faith is inherent in those breaking from bondage. Next comes Great Courage, the fruit of which is eventually Liberty. The arrows proceed around the circle and out of Liberty comes Abundance. Out of Abundance comes Selfishness.... followed by Complacency. Now the arrows are proceeding up the other side of the circle.
Apathy follows Complacency. After Apathy comes Dependence. Now the circle is almost complete. There is only one place to go after Dependency top of the circle to Bondage.
During the following break, members of the audience discussed among themselves whether the U.S. is in the Apathy stage or the Dependency stage, and whether the Tytler's Cycle is destined to be unbroken in America, as it has been in every other great civilization.
Payson.cc © 2004 Carrol Cox
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