Back to the Basics

by Nora Kay Knight Golay

I’ve been reading the “5000 Year Leap, A Miracle That Changed the World,” by Cleon W. Skousen (Principals of Freedom 101). Here Skousen refers to that miracle as the Constitution of the United States. Many Americans in the early years of the Republic truly regarded our Constitution as a miracle and praised those who served in the federal convention of 1787 for their competence, wisdom, and motivational effort and declared that the formation and adoption of our new system of federal government represented a political achievement unprecedented in human history. They looked upon it as an event that was actually (influenced, guided and governed) by the hand of God as is truly evident in this quote from James Madison:

“The real wonder is that so many difficulties should have been surmounted [in the federal convention], and surmounted with the unanimity almost as unprecedented as it must have been unexpected. It is impossible for any man of candor to reflect on the circumstance without partaking of the astonishment. It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it 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 firmly believe that we as Americans living in these United States today need to pull ourselves away from our TV sets and past times and make the concerted effort to read, study, and familiarize ourselves with our own Constitution of the United States that made this country great for over 200 years. I dare say many of us have no idea the magnitude of greatness contained in these lines of concerted effort by our Founding Fathers to structure a Government with all the Power in the People.

The main goal for most of us in life is simply to be happy and for those we love and those around us to be happy. Human happiness thrives only in a certain kind of environment. Today more than ever before, the prerequisites for that environment are being destroyed. Many millions of Americans today don’t understand what is happening around us, but we can see the decay of our freedoms and the stability of the moral fabric and integrity of our country crumbling before our eyes. Many of those we entrusted to uphold our Constitution have virtually sodomized and enslaved our future generations due to habitual, appetite-spending and their own a-moral personal agendas. The daily outpouring of monetary promises by our current administration in their first 60 days is to me unfathomable to put it mildly and Americans as a whole are genuinely concerned for our future.

Skousen states the answer to most of the problems we’re being confronted with today is comparatively simple. Return to fundamentals. Get back to the basics. I am inclined to believe him. We are living in a society today teetering on the brink of socialism due to the fact that over the years we have traded more and more of our freedoms in exchange for more government control. Nothing in this life is ever going to be perfect, but it can be much more gratifying and a lot less dangerous if we get back to the fundamentals and the principles that this country was founded on. It was here in America that the founding fathers assembled the following 28 great ideas that produced the dynamic success formula which proved such a sensational blessing to modern man.

I encourage everyone to read these, memorize them if you will so as not to forget. See if you can pin-point the obvious.

Principals of Liberty

1. The only reliable basis for sound government and just human relations is Natural Law.

2. A free people cannot survive under a Republican constitution unless they remain virtuous and morally strong.

3. The most promising method of securing a virtuous and morally stable people is to elect virtuous leaders.

4. Without religion the government of a free people cannot be maintained.

5. All things were created by God, therefore upon Him all mankind are equally dependent, and to Him they are equally responsible.

6. All men are created equal.

7. The proper role of government is to protect equal rights, not provide equal things.

8. Men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.

9. To protect man’s rights, God has revealed certain principles of divine law.

10. The God-given right to govern is vested in the sovereign authority of the whole people.

11. The majority of the people may alter or abolish a government which has become tyrannical.

12. The United States of America shall be a republic.

13. A constitution should be structured to permanently protect the people from the human frailties of their rulers.

14. Life and liberty are secure only so long as the right of property is secure.

15. The highest level of prosperity occurs when there is a free-market economy and a minimum of government regulations.

16. The government should be separated into three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial.

17. A system of checks and balances should be adopted to prevent the abuse of power.

18. The unalienable rights of the people are most likely to be preserved if the principles of government are set forth in a written constitution.

19. Only limited and carefully defined powers should be delegated to government, all others being retained in the people.

20. Efficiency and dispatch require government to operate according to the will of the majority, but constitutional provisions must be made to protect the rights of the minority.

21. Strong local self-government is the keystone to preserving human freedom.

22. A free people should be governed by law and not by the whims of men.

23. A free society cannot survive as a republic without a broad program of general education.

24. A free people will not survive unless they stay strong.

25. “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations: entangling alliances with none. “

26. The core unit which determines the strength of any society is the family; therefore, the government should foster and protect its integrity.

27. The burden of debt is as destructive to freedom as subjugation by conquest.

28. The United States has a manifest destiny to be an example and a blessing to the entire human race.

Of course the founders would understand exactly what this generation is doing to itself Skousen tell us. It is the very essence of human nature to pursue this disastrous course once the appetite has been created to demand it.

As a result, American taxpayers now discover themselves playing a role almost identical to that of an addict on hard drugs. The addict denounces his habit and despises the pusher who got him into it, but when he is confronted with the crisis of needing a fix, he will plead with tears of anguish for the narcotic remedy. The fix of course is not a remedy at all. The real remedy is withdrawal. The addict must escape from the torturous cycle of vicious repetition which is not solving his problem but compounding it. If withdrawal is painful, at least it is not prolonged. The problem is primarily a matter of will power and the determination to change.

The very circumstances we find ourselves in today has awakened millions of Americans to recognize the fiscal bottomless pit into which this nation is sinking, the shock of which is precisely what is needed to arouse the majority of people to the point where they are willing to go through fiscal withdrawal and kick the habit of splurge spending.

Returning to the fundamental principles espoused by the founding fathers I feel is a giant step forward but I would be way off coarse if I didn’t mention we also need to check our spiritual compass and turn our hearts back to our God. Through Him all things are possible.

Zeb has provided a means by which we as a community can come together as one and move forward into our future by working together to restore the blessings of living under our great Constitution. Granted we are as diverse, if not more so, than our founding fathers but not one of them could have come up with this much-needed Constitutional formula alone. It is my prayer that we can put aside our differences, to make a difference that will not only help us but those who will most assuredly be following us 200 years into the future.

I respectfully welcome you to share and grow with us in thought and deed.

One of Zeb’s Rebs,

Nora Kay Knight Golay