Whose Rights Are They and Where Are We Heading?
I want my rights! I want them now! I don't care who it bothers or hurts! Grease my squeaky wheel or I'll take you to court! The Supreme Court!
Oh, wait. The Declaration of Independence guarantees life, liberty, and the PURSUIT of happiness. It does NOT guarantee actual happiness; only that we can pursue it individually. Nobody can legislate happiness. And no court can guarantee it. It's within each of us to reach for it ourselves.
The US Constitution enumerates many of our rights as set forth in the Declaration. Note especially: Amendment IX
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
It guarantees us the right to life, even when we are past usefulness in the eyes of others or when we are too underdeveloped to demand it for ourselves, through due process (Amendment VI). It guarantees us liberty, which is not to be confused with license (Amendments I through IV). Liberty was bought with a high price of the lives of others, and signed in their blood. Liberty is the right not to run over the rights of others, but to freely pursue those things which strengthen us morally, spiritually, ethically, and physically without undue interference from either government or our next door neighbor.
This phrase is insurance against tyranny from within or without our borders. Remember? It says they are inalienable. But it doesn't say that mine override yours. Nor do yours override mine. And while these are rights which are endowed by our Creator to us all, they are absolutely not a justification to consider each other as the enemy. Indeed, the enemy is anyone who seeks to squelch those rights.
Embodied within those rights are really all we need to inhabit this country in peace with our neighbors, if we just understand they have them, too. The problem lies not with the Constitution, but with its interpretation. We don't need legislation from the bench to safeguard rights. We don't need the courts to strike down law as much as we need them to interpret them in the spirit in which they were written. We don't need the courts to add to the law according to their personal agendas; we need well-studied interpretation of the law as it is already written.
During our history, the courts have actually made some very bad decisions in interpreting the law. They have upheld the rights of slave owners. They have upheld separate, but equal facilities for the races. What makes us think for one moment that more recent judges are any smarter or any more right?
They have guaranteed unborn life can be snuffed out at the whim of the mother, saying her reproductive rights are stepped on otherwise. Her reproductive rights end when life begins within her. Then it becomes another person's rights that are not honored - the right to be born and to live. The child growing within her is not part of her body. It's another person's body. So now, we have a national budget that is going downhill. Why? Because approximately 40 million prospective working citizens have been murdered in their mothers' wombs. Add to that the low birth rate and you have a formula for financial disaster. Population growth isn't a menace and it never was. The lie was produced in the early 70s, believed by the masses in this country, and acted upon in the most ruthless ways. Now, those of us who were allowed to be born are supporting an ever-increasing older generation because those parents cut off their lifelines by refusing to have sufficient numbers of children to support them.
Other nations around the world have also followed this lie, and many of them risk annihilation not from foreign powers or disease, but from their own dwindling citizenry.
Poverty isn't caused by children being born or by large families. It's caused by politics, by war, and by natural catastrophes.
The courts have guaranteed freedom FROM religion in the public arena, when the First Amendment makes no such statement at all either for the public arena or the private arena. What it guarantees is that there'll be no state religion. This ruling was unique in that it is the only time in our history that a SC ruling was based one phrase from the personal correspondence of an individual to another individual. It is actually an unconstitutional decree, since it's not in our Constitution anywhere. Even the least religious men of our founding fathers recognized the real need for religious freedom in every arena in this country, and even recognized the real need to acknowledge God in all matters.
So, look at us now. Law upon law is enacted. Courts bang the gavel with ever fiercer determination to thwart those laws. We have a public school system bereft of moral teachings, accountability teachings, and ethical teachings which are producing our so-called future leaders. We have an ever dwindling population with the working people overburdened with taxes to pay for implementation of laws the majority of them don't agree with. (By the way, isn't that what the Boston Tea Party was all about? Taxation without representation.) We have the death squads (othewise called circuit courts and district courts) sentencing people to death without due process based on the most flimsy evidence - evidence that would be thrown out in a criminal prosecution.
More recently, the greatest proponent of life was taken from us. I shudder to think what's coming or who's coming next. I can only pray the Cardinals will look at his life and select someone who walks as closely to the truth of God (that stable, neverending truth) as Pope John Paul the Great did. Perhaps God took him home so he wouldn't see what's coming next?
Dear Lord, please send us faithful men and women who will take up the banner of life and faith and righteousness. Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus.
Oh, wait. The Declaration of Independence guarantees life, liberty, and the PURSUIT of happiness. It does NOT guarantee actual happiness; only that we can pursue it individually. Nobody can legislate happiness. And no court can guarantee it. It's within each of us to reach for it ourselves.
The US Constitution enumerates many of our rights as set forth in the Declaration. Note especially: Amendment IX
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
It guarantees us the right to life, even when we are past usefulness in the eyes of others or when we are too underdeveloped to demand it for ourselves, through due process (Amendment VI). It guarantees us liberty, which is not to be confused with license (Amendments I through IV). Liberty was bought with a high price of the lives of others, and signed in their blood. Liberty is the right not to run over the rights of others, but to freely pursue those things which strengthen us morally, spiritually, ethically, and physically without undue interference from either government or our next door neighbor.
This phrase is insurance against tyranny from within or without our borders. Remember? It says they are inalienable. But it doesn't say that mine override yours. Nor do yours override mine. And while these are rights which are endowed by our Creator to us all, they are absolutely not a justification to consider each other as the enemy. Indeed, the enemy is anyone who seeks to squelch those rights.
Embodied within those rights are really all we need to inhabit this country in peace with our neighbors, if we just understand they have them, too. The problem lies not with the Constitution, but with its interpretation. We don't need legislation from the bench to safeguard rights. We don't need the courts to strike down law as much as we need them to interpret them in the spirit in which they were written. We don't need the courts to add to the law according to their personal agendas; we need well-studied interpretation of the law as it is already written.
During our history, the courts have actually made some very bad decisions in interpreting the law. They have upheld the rights of slave owners. They have upheld separate, but equal facilities for the races. What makes us think for one moment that more recent judges are any smarter or any more right?
They have guaranteed unborn life can be snuffed out at the whim of the mother, saying her reproductive rights are stepped on otherwise. Her reproductive rights end when life begins within her. Then it becomes another person's rights that are not honored - the right to be born and to live. The child growing within her is not part of her body. It's another person's body. So now, we have a national budget that is going downhill. Why? Because approximately 40 million prospective working citizens have been murdered in their mothers' wombs. Add to that the low birth rate and you have a formula for financial disaster. Population growth isn't a menace and it never was. The lie was produced in the early 70s, believed by the masses in this country, and acted upon in the most ruthless ways. Now, those of us who were allowed to be born are supporting an ever-increasing older generation because those parents cut off their lifelines by refusing to have sufficient numbers of children to support them.
Other nations around the world have also followed this lie, and many of them risk annihilation not from foreign powers or disease, but from their own dwindling citizenry.
Poverty isn't caused by children being born or by large families. It's caused by politics, by war, and by natural catastrophes.
The courts have guaranteed freedom FROM religion in the public arena, when the First Amendment makes no such statement at all either for the public arena or the private arena. What it guarantees is that there'll be no state religion. This ruling was unique in that it is the only time in our history that a SC ruling was based one phrase from the personal correspondence of an individual to another individual. It is actually an unconstitutional decree, since it's not in our Constitution anywhere. Even the least religious men of our founding fathers recognized the real need for religious freedom in every arena in this country, and even recognized the real need to acknowledge God in all matters.
So, look at us now. Law upon law is enacted. Courts bang the gavel with ever fiercer determination to thwart those laws. We have a public school system bereft of moral teachings, accountability teachings, and ethical teachings which are producing our so-called future leaders. We have an ever dwindling population with the working people overburdened with taxes to pay for implementation of laws the majority of them don't agree with. (By the way, isn't that what the Boston Tea Party was all about? Taxation without representation.) We have the death squads (othewise called circuit courts and district courts) sentencing people to death without due process based on the most flimsy evidence - evidence that would be thrown out in a criminal prosecution.
More recently, the greatest proponent of life was taken from us. I shudder to think what's coming or who's coming next. I can only pray the Cardinals will look at his life and select someone who walks as closely to the truth of God (that stable, neverending truth) as Pope John Paul the Great did. Perhaps God took him home so he wouldn't see what's coming next?
Dear Lord, please send us faithful men and women who will take up the banner of life and faith and righteousness. Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus.
Labels: Opinion
posted by Ann crum @ 3:23 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home