WHY OUR CONTSTITUTION ISN'T WORKING

 

2020 has been a year for which millions of people would like to get a "do-over." Turn on the TV or radio news, read newspapers, examine the magazines and there’s civil upheaval. Riots. As of September 2020, estimates show the financial cost of the rioting in this one year is on its way to $2 billion, making it the most expensive in history. There have been riots in 140 U.S. cities in 20 states and Minneapolis could become the costliest civil disorder of all time in the United States. The destruction at the hands of rioting mobs has left business owners destitute, people injured, and some people dead. This is what accompanies anarchy.

A lament goes up to heaven that the destroyers are left unpunished, unjudged, and uncondemned by constituted authorities who seem to give their approval by their silence and inaction. To compound the problem, the academic world gives its sanction and the wealthy contribute to provide funds to get the few who are arrested back out on the streets to let loose their dogs of war once again.

In all of this, where is the United States Constitution, one of the greatest documents to come from the quill of man? Thomas E. Woods and Kevin R. C. Gutzman seek to answer that question in a book they wrote called, "Who Killed the Constitution?"

Many will jump to the conclusion (always a dangerous athletic event) by answering, "Those Democrats!" Wait a minute. The authors say, "No." The answer is, "The Republicans and the Democrats." Both are guilty, and, as they point out, their assault on the document began over a hundred years ago.

But let's view another answer concerning why our Constitution isn't working. This answer is one given by two men far wiser than you or I and they were there at the creation of the American Republic: John Adams and George Washington. Their answer has biblical roots so it goes beyond the answer of "Who Killed the Constitution?"

John Adams, that most prolific writer, stated the answer which has come down from the hallowed halls, fresh out of the Constitutional Convention: "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion (read "Christianity"). Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." (From: "John Adams to Massachusetts Militia," October 11, 1798).

George Washington agreed with Adams' assessment as pointed out by Susan Hanssen: "Adams, like George Washington, believed that no polity could eradicate the sinfulness of man, so any man who disparaged the place of morality and religion in public life was a traitor.

"In the twilight of his life, James Madison [the "Father of the Constitution] wrote,"Belief in a God all powerful wise and good, is so essential to the moral order of the World and to the happiness of man, that arguments which enforce it cannot be drawn from too many sources." Only in a culture that 'bristles with hostility to all things religious' could such a common-sense view fall into controversy--or neglect." (Ibid.) [If anyone should know, it's he.]

"A culture that bristles with hostility to [Christianity]?" How's this for "bristle?" In Portland, Oregon, in August 2020, rioters burned a stack of Bibles.  In a report by Dan Dupee we learn that: "The entire California State University system stopped recognizing Christian fellowships on campus whose only fault is to insist that their leaders actually be Christians." Those are two big "bristles."

The basic reason that our Constitution has ceased to work is a spiritual, not a political, one: Ephesians 2:3: Men are by nature the children of wrath. The American Constitution "has no power capable of contending with human passions [the inherent sin nature] unbridled by morality and religion."

 

INSULTING OF THE PRESIDENT

 Pride, that sin that God hates, prevents us from saying, “I was wrong and I apologize; please, will you forgive me?” We saw this pride firsthand, live, and in living color on national television during the heated presidential race between Gore and Bush.

That was a contested election that wasn’t decided until December because of the infamous hanging chads, and who knows what else went on in those equally infamous smoke-filled rooms.

There was one man a cable news network chose to interview, a choice which turned out to be wrong, wrong, wrong. They say that politics makes strange bedfellows and it does. But politics in the heat and passion of the moment makes people say pure nonsense. And that’s what this passionate fellow spouted for one and all to hear.

He was in a white-hot heat about his belief that votes in FL were being suppressed and, he said that the votes of a particular minority group were not being recorded by the voting machines in the Sunshine State.

And then it happened, the newsman interviewing him asked, “How does a voting machine know when a member of a minority casting his or her vote?” The speaker quickly realized that what he’d just said was both nonsensical and impossible; he'd been caught.

What did he do? He looked to his right. He looked to his left as if pleading for help for whoever of his party might be standing there off camera. No cavalry was coming to his rescue. All the viewer heard and all the speaker heard was nothing . . .  pure cold marble silence. He had no answer.

What did he do? He looked at the camera and, instead of admitting he was wrong, he said, “I stand by my statement.” The interview was over. He left never to be heard of again. That was a good thing.

Humility involves admission of wrongdoing, confession of sin, letting people know we make mistakes. There was one man who was known as a humble man. He made a serious blunder which haunted him for the rest of his life: he did something that one is never to do with the president in office. He talked about and physically demonstrated what they talked about. That's a no-no. He admitted he was wrong, apologized, but his error haunted him for the rest of his life.* He never got completely over it and the president said, "I never want to see that man again."

He admitted another wrongdoing--he would, at times, fall into the perils of political partisanship, taking sides that alienated millions from his message. He apologized for that late in his life. Then there was the time during which he thought no one would hear his remarks, he said some denigrating things about the Jews that, unbeknownst to him, were recorded and later the world heard them. "I was wrong," he said. Upon retiring, he admitted he’d neglected his family and that he watched too much television.

It’s good to remember his humility in our day of leaders and the well-known who are always right in their own eyes. 

Billy Graham set us a good example of humility.
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*For what Billy Graham did in regard to President Truman on that day, go to: https://www.presidentialcrossroads.com/harry-s-truman-meets-billy-graham/

THREE THINGS NEEDED TO OVERTHROW AMERICA

 There are three things every revolution needs to succeed. All three are now in place for the overthrow of America. The three things are:

1. An ideology to drive the revolution. An ideology is in place: it is right to judge people as a collective not as individuals; it is right to force people to violate their conscience; it is right to force people to violate their faith; it is right for feelings take priority over facts; it is right to limit diversity of thought; it is right to punish people if they say what they think; it is proper to hate one's country.

2.  Foot soldiers to push the ideology. These include educators, journalists, college graduates, and college students, celebrities, TV news reporters, social media, entertainment which includes motion pictures, sports, and television programs. This would include foot soldiers politicize everything from funerals to entertainment. These are the venues of the foot soldiers. The foot soldiers are ubiquitous.

3. The suppression of any expression verbal or written of ideas contrary to the ideology of the revolution. This suppression would include invasion of one's private life, invasion of or destruction of one's private property, lawsuits, fines, public ridicule, interruption of a person's daily life, intimidation, threats, fear, loss of job, and forced resignations. 

All three were in place in Israel 2,000 years ago: the ideology of the Pharisees (legalism); the foot soldiers to push the ideology such as the mob that chanted before Pilate, "We have no king but Caesar;" those who picked up stones to put Jesus to death; those who loved darkness rather than light. The suppression of a contrary idea as seen in John 9 with the threat of excommunication from the synagogue to anyone who expressed their belief that Jesus was the Messiah. Excommunication meant the loss of one's job and social isolation. In Acts 4 which records the mention of Jesus' name as being forbidden (hate speech) by the religious authorities.

All three are now ingrained in the American culture. The ship has sailed. There is no turning back.