4th Of July Rights And Wrongs
By James Bowden (07/03/04)
As we celebrate the Glorious 4th of July a new government is Iraq is standing up. What will be the Rights of its citizens – really? In the weeks after the 4th, our Congress will vote on our rights. Important episodes that build one on another to make major changes in the course of human events are happening around this appropriate date. Yet, most of our focus will be on our family, our jobs, our vacations, and our gorgeous summer. The irony is as delicious as it’s appropriate.
The particulars in Iraq are important to the participants living them. Yet, no matter what my Army buddies (Abizaid, Sanchez, Chiarelli) in command do over there, the outcome is likely to be the same. The people will be freer than they were under Saddam Hussein, but they won’t have a ‘democracy’ as we know it. Until they share the ideas of our Declaration of Independence, Iraq can’t be ‘democratic’ and allow individual freedoms like speech and religion. Rights are based on ideas. Consider the ideas and how Congress has to vote on them soon.
America is an idea enabled by the United States Army (1775). The Army allowed the creation of the Nation.
Our Declaration of Independence created the United States of America (1776). It was followed, first, by a failed framework for government and, second, by our present Constitution (1787). Clearly, all the governments (federal, state, local) are built from the Constitution. The Constitution is built on one foundation – the Declaration.
The ideas in the Declaration have origins. They existed nowhere else in the world in 1776. The ideas flowered elsewhere from our seeds alone. The following ideas are unique.
There are four references to God. It’s the Judeo-Christian God and none other.
All men are created equal. The Declaration had it right, while the Constitution got it wrong with legal slavery. The Constitution was amended (13th) to fix it.
Individuals, not groups, have God-Given (same God as mentioned before) unalienable rights. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are three of these rights.
It is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish government, and to institute new Government (the Northern states violently disputed this idea, 1861-1865).
When government is guilty of absolute Despotism, it is The People’s right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
A reason for throwing off government includes tyrants declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
And revolution against the greatest military power in the world was committed with a “firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor”.
The singular ideas above were Enlightenment, English, Protestant thinking. On July 4th, 1776 the ideas became American. Everyone, regardless of race, religion, creed, color, nation of origin, or sex, who claimed the ideas as their own, is an American. It took a couple more Constitutional amendments to include everybody – as individuals.
Soon, the U.S. House of Representatives will vote on Constitutionally-restricting judicial review for marriage and the U.S. Senate will vote on the Constitutional amendment to protect the family from homosexual marriage
Unfortunately, unless Congress acts with courage in the July votes, I am about to lose my rights of free speech and exercise of religion. If the Family Marriage Amendment fails, then the Courts, in acts of despotism, will make it lawful (not their Constitutional authority) for Homosexuals to marry. Then, it is a short, inevitable chain of events until reading the Bible verses on Homosexuality in public is illegal. Just as it is in Canada and Europe right now.
I got an email from a Norfolk homosexual activist (University of Virginia Law grad) declaring that if I say, “Homosexual behavior is immoral because the Bible says so,” it is ‘hate’ speech. Soon enough that will be ‘hate’ crime..
How wrong. The idea of group rights was considered and rejected from our Constitution. The concept of a group right based on behavior makes a wrong an anathema.
Yet, many Republican Senators voted for a bill to make homosexuals a protected group of persons from ‘hate’ crimes. Please contact Senators and let them know the error of their vote is egregious. And on this Glorious 4th cherish your rights while you still have them.
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