“Congress shall make no
law…”
Colonel Dan, SASS Life #24025
“I
tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot
sleep forever.” ~ Thomas Jefferson ~
The
legislative and judicial branches of our government are systematically
destroying
Religion
was so critically important to the Founders, that effective December 15, 1791,
America ratified its position on the relationship between religion and
government and summed it up very clearly and simply in the very first section
of the First Amendment of our Constitution.
Religion was the ‘first of the first’ so to speak in the eyes of our
Founding Fathers:
"Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof..." ~ First Amendment ~
To
contrast the position of our modern day courts and say that the founders
intended to prohibit people from mentioning God, the church or religion in and
around the American state is a perversion of the facts. On the contrary, the First Amendment very clearly
says that it is the state, in the form of Congress, who cannot prohibit the free exercise of religion by
the people; it doesn’t restrict or prohibit the people from freely expressing
their religion in any way! Free
exercise thereof means exactly that to my simple way of interpreting this
and I have to believe the founders knew exactly what they were writing when
they put pen to parchment—it’s the people that are the free element here and
congress the restricted element. Congress
shall make no law
prohibiting that freedom of the people, no mention or restriction of where,
when or how as I read it. In fact,
everything the founders did in the first 10 Amendments was designed to
specifically protect individual rights.
Keep in
mind also that the founders witnessed the real danger to individual freedom of
a state established church as exemplified in
If we
look deeper into the founder’s views of religion via their own words, separate
from the Constitution, it’s unmistakably clear what they thought…
“Religion
[is] the basis and Foundation of Government.”
~
James Madison ~
“No
power over the freedom of religion…[is] delegated to
the
“While
just government protects all in their religious rights, true religion afforded
to government is its surest support.” ~ George Washington ~
Does this
sound like men who intended to go where the judiciary has taken us over the
past 40 years? Presidents Washington,
Jefferson and Madison would have been hauled away for publicly making such
statements today given our modern courts.
Over the past 40 years however, there’s been a concentrated effort to
contort this concept of religious freedom and generally exterminate religion
from the public sector by placing the prohibition referred to in the First
Amendment on the people instead of the government!
Starting
in the early 60’s when Madelyn Murray O’Haire
convinced the Supreme Court that school prayer was some kind of national
threat, we’ve been running God out of town on a rail of pandering atheism ever
since. We went to moments of silence in
order to compromise with an uncompromising left and from displaying the Ten
Commandments to a taxpayer funded display of the Virgin Mary covered with
elephant dung—all in the name of separation of church and state and
constitutional freedom? People can’t
even pray at public events now according to some courts…even if the majority of
the people at that event want to pray.
Now how in the world does prohibiting prayer at football games for
example square with the concept “…free exercise thereof.” Our courts have simply declared war on public
religious expression and have used the First Amendment as the justification to
do so!
But my
next question is this, ‘why attack and destroy religion?’
Whether
you are an atheist or follow a religion of some nature doesn’t matter in this
case. The point is religion has always
been a foundation upon which people heavily depend—a foundation independent of
the state. The current trend in this and
other areas of our society, as we’ve all seen in our lifetime, has clearly been
to create greater dependency on government.
Therefore any foundation, religion or otherwise that isn’t government
centric must be removed and the state put in its place to fill the vacuum. It clearly comes down to this: Governments have always wanted to dictate and
control ever increasing aspects of people’s lives, forcing them to rely on and
look solely to government for everything.
Anything, like religion, that provides a foundation independent of
government must be replaced…and therein lies the common danger—atheist or
believer—government control is a threat to all.
Like it
or not, agree with religion or not, this country was founded on Judeo-Christian
principles and they are inconsistent with the move toward the Godless state we
have seen coming over the last 4 decades.
Wouldn’t
it be interesting if we could bring back George Washington and ask him what he
thought about all this? Well, in a way
we can, so let’s ask him.
“President
Washington, what do you think about this trend of interpreting the Constitution
to actually restrict free and public expression of religion?”
“If
I could have entertained the slightest apprehension that the Constitution
framed by the Convention, where I had the honor to preside, might possibly
endanger the religious rights of any ecclesiastical Society, certainly I would
have never placed my signature to it.” ~ George Washington ~
Thank you
Mr. President. That’s what I thought
you’d say.
As I’ve
contended in past columns, I know some legally trained folk will object to my
views of the Constitution but I’m just reading the words as written under a
light of what I think is simply common sense.
Post
Script for Thomas Jefferson. Sir, I too
tremble for my country at the thought of a just God but in my own way, I
welcome Him to stop by and sit a spell, but again, that’s just the view from my
saddle…
Contact
Colonel Dan: