Uncategorized – Page 2 – americasgrand.design

Standing with the Constitution

THE RELATIONSHIP OF FREEDOM AND TRUE KNOWLEDGE

Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature. –Benjamin Franklin

The deliberations of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 were held in strict secrecy. Consequently, anxious citizens gathered outside Independence Hall when the proceedings ended in order to learn what had been produced behind closed doors. The answer was provided immediately. A Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

What do you think Benjamin Franklin meant by those words?

The American government was created and established on the foundation of natural law. — The American government was established on the foundation of natural law.

Centrally involved in the process that resulted in The Declaration of Independence and the creation of The Constitution of the United States, Franklin understood natural law which is the belief which holds that rights exist in nature and are not granted to individuals by anyone or any government.

Our nation was established on the foundation of natural law. Expressed in the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights: that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness: that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

We live in a world where freedom is not guaranteed. Liberty is fragile and can be lost. A constitutional republic, like ours, can quite naturally become wicked and corrupted and evolve into tyranny and dictatorship.

By applying the conditional, “if you can keep it,” Franklin was saying that only individuals can secure and maintain their liberty. If we the people do not uphold natural law and remain “ever vigilant” in watching our government, the rule of law, society, and government itself will break down in the face of abusive practices.

The Constitution is an outgrowth, in practical terms, of man’s desire to protect the principle of freedom; our personal ability to choose. Constitutional, or higher, law undertakes to protect that principle by defining the role and limits of civil authority.

As to what kind of ideas the Founders subscribed to, Franklin noted, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.” Putting forth another idea on which our Republic was founded, James Madison wrote, “We have staked the whole future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, and to sustain ourselves, according to the Ten Commandments of God.” The Ten Commandments are the basis and fundamental principles of all law, just, and legal administration that should govern the human family.

Far from being an establishment of religion, this very practical approach to self-government places political power in the hands of the people through a system built on trust. Madison knew that reverence for God, regard for others, and respect for property inspires adherence to a high moral law that transcends the constraints of civil and criminal codes.

As a body, the Founding Fathers subscribed to the belief that “human passions unbridled by morality and religion” would lead people away from the voluntary fulfillment of responsibilities based upon morality to costly legal enforcement of rights compelled by legislation, litigation, and oppression because they understood that personal freedom yields to the power of government. They comprehended in the abstract what sports and music teach us about rules, out of bounds, and out of tune.

In 1987, an exhaustive study was conducted to determine the sources of the ideas that influenced the Founding Fathers. In a remarkable conclusion, it was determined that of the thousands of citations quoted to support their ideas, 34 percent came from one source–the Bible. Most of these were from the book of Deuteronomy, which is the Book of God’s law.

With the importance of the Bible’s influence on the Framers in mind, recommitting to the Ten Commandments is a good starting point in our quest to Stand with the Founding Fathers.

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Honor thy father and thy mother.

Thou shalt not kill.

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Thou shalt not steal.

Thou shalt not bear false witness.

Thou shalt not covet.

The Founders were highly qualified and educated men–the best and the brightest of their time. They were deeply read in the facts of history; they were learned in the forms and practices and systems of the governments of the world, past and present; they were, in matters political, equally at home in Rome, in Athens, in Paris, and in London; they had a long, varied, and intense experience in the work of governing their various Colonies.

With no known exception among them, they were united in their belief, as expressed by James Madison, “A well instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.”

As such, they should be our inspiration.

Stand with the Founding Fathers

A Worldwide Collision of Ideas

Let the Constitution be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges, let it be written in primers, in spelling books and in almanacs, let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation. –Abraham Lincoln

In the world we live in there is no question that government is preeminent:

from student loans to immigration,
from health insurance to how much money is left over from our labors,
from the establishment of justice to the assurance of domestic tranquility,
from the fear of our enemies to providing for the common defense,
and from the promotion of our general welfare to the securing of the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.

Government is very much at the center of our lives.

With so much money, power, and influence at stake it is essential that we educate ourselves and others regarding the proper role of government. We must do so in order to remain free.

I cite two examples:

In recent years, we have allowed the government to ignore one of the most fundamental stipulations of the Constitution–namely, the separation of powers–by allowing Congress to fund numerous federal agencies that encroach significantly on our constitutional rights. These agencies grow continually to regulate and control the lives of millions.

Most of these federal agencies are unconstitutional because they concentrate the functions of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches under one head. They have power to make rulings, enforce rulings, and adjudicate penalties when rulings are violated. They are also unconstitutional because we the people have no power to recall administrative agency personnel through our vote. These agencies form a shadow government that operates contrary to the principle of consent of the governed.

The abandonment of fundamental governing principles places our nation in great jeopardy. Pondering what kind of a government they wanted to establish, the Founders learned that civilizations of old had “been destroyed by convulsions and upheavals, by vice and decadence.” By the love of money and power.

With these lessons in mind, and with great foresight, the Founders championed religious freedom and education as a means to “cultivate the piety and virtue necessary for the success of self-government.” To safeguard their efforts and secure the republic, they nurtured an environment in keeping with George Washington’s warning, that “of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.”

Through a series of essays entitled STAND WITH THE FOUNDING FATHERS, I would like to give expression to certain principles that are so basic to human nature as to be applicable to different times and cultures as well as to our own. In other words, to principles that are universal, and even eternal. I do so with the hope that our freedoms, both individual and collective, will be better understood and more anxiously safeguarded.

We are witnessing a collision of ideas that is worldwide. I urge all Americans to Stand with the Founding Fathers; against those who are seeking to destroy their work.

The Declaration of Independence, The U. S. Constitution, and The Bill of Rights

Established on Just and Holy Principles

What I Believe

America’s founding documents: The Declaration of Independence, The United States Constitution, and The Bill of Rights are the culmination of centuries of progress. Paving the way for freedom, they express the ideals that define “We the People of the United States” and inspire free people around the world. They represent the consolidation of eternal truths for the universal blessing of the human family, the common connection through which all the inhabitants of Earth will be blessed.

Envisioning an empire of liberty traveling westward, the Founding Fathers looked forward with eager expectation to the destined moment when America would give the “law” to the rest of the world in fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah: “Out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”

Reflecting this sentiment, Thomas Jefferson wrote in his initial rough draft: “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable.” Preferring a phrase which characterized the truths as grounded in rationality and reason–truths that could be understood by basic, original evidence and man’s innate moral common sense–not in the dictates or dogma of any particular religion, Benjamin Franklin changed the wording to “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” In both cases, these statesmen were declaring that in its design and intent what they were proposing was to be established “according to just and holy principles” (Doctrine and Covenants 101:77).

It was this appeal of America’s values, through a willingness to engage in a war of ideas, that won us independence. Likewise, it has been the continued appeal of America’s values that has assured victory over totalitarianism and communism in modern times. Both generations realized that ideas had power which would prove stronger than weapons.

Now being challenged by those who are willing to undermine our founding principles through the advancement of progressive policies and increasing governmental power, we, as citizens who believe we are entitled to liberty and that our rights should be respected by a government whose legitimacy comes from our consent, are seeing unfold before our eyes what lawyer and diplomat James Russell Lowell may have had in mind when he said, “Our American republic will endure only as long as the ideas of the men who founded it continue dominant.”

In like manner, we are witnessing the deteriorating conditions in our culture and social environment which call attention to the words of John Adams, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Little by little, day by day, in a failure that would dismay the Founders, who knew the power of those truths they proclaimed nearly 250 years ago, we are losing the war in defense of self-evident truths–the war of ideas, ideals, and eternal verities–in America and around the world. A caution to each of us, we must awaken to the truth that the ideals which inspired the Founding Fathers remain inspiring today.

As to what we can do, we must understand that people and principles are superior to the governments they form. Thomas Jefferson emphasized principles in the Declaration of Independence by advancing the claim that all persons are entitled to equal rights and privileges before the law, that certain rights come from the Creator, and in themselves are divine and eternal in nature, and that these sacred rights pertain in part to the enjoyment of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Also focusing on correct principles, the Prophet Joseph Smith taught that both governmental and personal leadership are successful when rooted in principle rather than expediency.

In the Great Declaration of Belief regarding governments and laws in general, members of the Restored Church in 1835 sustained the principle of a “higher law,” designed to protect the free agency of man. “We do not believe that human law has a right to interfere in prescribing rules of worship to bind the consciences of men, nor dictate forms for public or private devotion; that the civil magistrate should restrain crime, but never control conscience; should punish guilt, but never suppress the freedom of the soul” (DC 134:4). The doctrine of higher law is an ancient idea. It runs to the most basic considerations in religion. It is found in cultures throughout history.

For example, Aristotle distinguished between written laws, which are man-made, and the “law,” which he felt was in accordance with nature and therefore immutable. In Roman law, distinctions were made between the summa lex, or the highest law, and the lex scripta, or man-made law. Catholic philosophers from Augustine to Aquinas discussed the idea of an overruling law of nature, and other fundamental laws which were not capable of being changed by any civil authority. Anglo-Saxon political and legal tradition, including the philosophical method of John Locke and the scientific method of Isaac Newton, were also part of the “establishment” process which resulted in the formation of America’s founding documents and their assertion that people are created equal and have certain inalienable rights.

The Framers not only understood the significance of the legacy which history and tradition had bequeathed them but coupled that knowledge to their own colonial experience so when it came to political questions, they were at home not only in Virginia, Maryland, or New York, but also equally at home in Rome, in Athens, in Paris, and in London. “The Constitution was born, not only of the wisdom and experience of the generation that wrought it, but also out of the wisdom of the long generations that had gone before, and which had been transmitted to them through tradition and the pages of history” (J. Reuben Clark).

In 1842, Joseph Smith declared, “The Constitution of the United States is a glorious standard; it is founded in the wisdom of God.” Providing deep insight into the religious basis of our founding documents, members of the Church sustain several underlying principles which represent a practical guarantee in the political arena that individual freedom will not perish.

First, the basic elements of constitutional government, as embodied in our founding documents, “should be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh” (DC 101:77). Each individual, whatever their race, color, or creed, is equally entitled to the protection of law in the exercise of personal rights.

Second, America’s government should be maintained “according to just and holy principles” (DC 101:77). The Framers, by divine inspiration, embedded within our founding documents certain eternal principles–self-evident truths. “Just and holy” in nature, these principles prove themselves without the need of further validation. They are the eternal, irrevocable, and inalienable “endowment” of all mankind.

Third, the purpose for which these “just and holy principles” exist is to assure that “every man may act in doctrine and principles pertaining to futurity, according to the moral agency which I have given unto him, that every man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment” (DC 101:78.) This pronouncement suggests that principled limitations upon the government are ordained to provide the maximum possible range of freedom of choice as people engage in the pursuit of happiness and the creation of a more perfect union.

Fourth, “It is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another. And for this purpose have I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose,” (DC 101:79-80). The most common charge leveled against the Founders, and hence against our country itself, is that they were hypocrites who did not believe in their stated principles, and therefore the country they built rests on a lie. This charge is false!

Even so, “Many Americans labor under the illusion that slavery was somehow a uniquely American evil” (1776 Report). In truth, “It was the Western world’s repudiation of slavery, only just beginning to build at the time of the American Revolution, which marked a dramatic sea change in moral sensibilities. The American Founders were living on the cusp of this change, in a manner that straddled two worlds” (Ibid). Our Founding Fathers knew that slavery was incompatible with the idea that “all men are created equal.” Yet, in the formative years of the United States, there was insurmountable social, cultural, and political opposition in the fight to end human bondage in America.

Following the loss of over 600,000 lives, the clashes in the halls of Congress and on the battlefields of America were finally resolved by amendments that abolished slavery. However, amplified by the machinations of politics and selfish human interests, the damage done by the denial of core American principles proved widespread and long-lasting. Continuing to this day, they form the basis of some of the destructive theories that continue to divide us and tear at the fabric of our country.

In the fight against tyrannical practices, we need to remember that our history is one of common struggle and great achievement. Our ancestors won independence, created a government, and tamed a wilderness. Interpreting the Declaration of Independence, Abraham Lincoln noted, “They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all, and revered by all . . . and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere.”

Having based our political legitimacy on the eternal principles of liberty, justice, and consent of the governed, Jefferson was singled out by Lincoln, who wrote, “All honor to Jefferson–the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce in a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, . . . a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression.”

Hence, in their appeal to both reason and revelation, our founding documents speak to “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” to the principle of freedom, and to the will of “We the People.” Working together, they are “an outgrowth, in practical terms, of man’s desire to protect the principle of free agency by defining the role and limits of civil authority” (G. Homer Durham). In other words, “just and holy principles,” championed by the hands of wise men who were raised up for that very purpose, provide the foundation and legitimacy of our nation.

In a recent address on the Constitution, Dallin H. Oaks told of an experience in the 1960s when he began teaching law at the University of Chicago. An older professor, who had taught at the University of Utah’s College of Law early in his career related that he met many students who were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “They all seemed to believe that the Constitution was divinely inspired,” he said, “but none of them could ever tell me what this meant or how it affected their interpretation of the Constitution.”

President Oaks went on to say that he believes the Constitution is divinely inspired because it contains principles and rights that bless not only this nation but also the world. To him, the attribution of sovereign power to the people, the Bill of Rights, the separation of powers, and the balancing of powers between the federal government and the states is the foundation for a well-ordered government of laws, and not of men.

Respecting the divine nature of human relations, Friedrich A. Hayek declared, “If old truths are to retain their hold on men’s minds, they must be restated in the language and concepts of successive generations.” In other words, every generation needs someone to interpret the wisdom of the past for the present, for every generation must rediscover true history and the gospel anew.

This is especially true in our day “because error is preached all the time.” As a result, “Truth has to be repeated constantly” (Goethe). Our collective task is both exhilarating and foreboding: “We must stop the mindless destruction of historical America” (David McCullough).

Think about it! As Americans, the story we have to tell is exciting beyond measure! As one of 56 delegates who gathered in Carpenters’ Hall in 1774, John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail, that “he thought he had come to one of the greatest conclaves of the greatest minds of all time. He was amazed by the range and variety of talents on display” (McCullough). Two years later, this group of patriots would pledge their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to the cause of freedom.

Years later, having again finished their work in Independence Hall, James Madison wrote of his colleagues: “Whatever may be the judgment pronounced on the competency of the architects of the Constitution, or whatever may be the destiny of the edifice prepared by them, I feel it a duty to express my profound and solemn conviction, derived from my intimate opportunity of observing and appreciating the views of the Convention, collectively and individually, that there never was an assembly of men, charged with a great and arduous trust, who were more pure in their motives, or more exclusively or anxiously devoted to the object committed to them, than were the members of the Federal Convention of 1787.”

As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in our desire to champion civic awareness and the common good, it is our privilege and responsibility to affirm that, “History is not an accident. Events are foreknown to God. Long before America was even discovered, the Lord was moving and shaping events that would lead to the coming forth of the remarkable form of government established by the Constitution” (Benson). It was not by chance that the Puritans and others who followed later left their native land and sailed to New England where they were inspired to establish the God-given system of government under which we live. Laying the foundation for the 1820 vision of the Prophet Joseph Smith and the unfolding Restoration, this series of historical events is described by the biblical prophet Isaiah as “a marvelous work and a wonder.”

We need not pretend to a divine commission and a sacred destiny. America is a part of redemptive history, of divine prophecy fulfilled, of God’s grand design. Established for the rights and protection of all flesh, America’s founding documents represent the practical guarantee in the political arena that adherence to natural law and Christian teachings will protect freedom, that liberty of conscience and individual moral agency will not perish from the Earth.

This is why I believe.

A Heritage of Freedom

WHY I BELIEVE

America’s founding documents are the culmination of centuries of progress. In their formation, they represent the consolidation of eternal truths for the universal blessing of the human family. Paving the way for civil and religious liberties, they are the common connection through which all the inhabitants of Earth will be blessed.

At the heart of the American system are two vital principles: liberty and justice. In support of these ideals, in an idea that was revolutionary at the time, the Founding Fathers insisted that the new government put the welfare of the population before their own. To accomplish this aim, they established specific economic policies and governing standards. They firmly believed that the key ingredient in wealth creation, the pursuit of happiness, and maintaining moral virtue was man’s creative or productive power, made possible by his being made in the image of the Creator.

Flowing from the vision of our Founding Fathers, the American identity is built around a constellation of ideas–namely, education, equality, love of God and neighbor, hard work, the Golden Rule, the rule of law, individualism, and teamwork. Springing from these values, each of us have something deep within, the big idea of freedom!

Encouraged by the Founding Fathers, Americans internalized the lofty idea that freedom is best served as we learn to master our emotions and actions. Right behavior results from harmony and control of our reason, passion, and appetites. The habits we develop make all the difference. Practice brings self-control. Unhappiness and personal distress come into our lives when we fail to control our tempers, appetites, and passions.

Emphasizing the importance of true knowledge, the Framers saw moral education as training the heart and mind toward that which is good. Stated by Emerson, “If a man’s eye is on the eternal, his intellect will grow.”

In today’s world, where much has been pushed out of our lives, or lost, we may wonder: where do we find the materials, the moral literacy, that will aid us in our quest to live and teach the virtues of self-discipline, compassion, responsibility, friendship, work, courage, perseverance, honesty, loyalty, and faith? How do we discover the ideals by which we wish our children and grandchildren to live out their lives? How do we create and maintain the kind of nation we hope to be?

Certainly, the Bible, the Classics, intellectual pursuits, worship services, and the historical narrative provide a rich quarry of information. In their pages and themes, we find a moral anchor for ourselves, our children and grandchildren, our culture, our history, and our traditions.

Across this nation we have had, and continue to have, men and women committed to the proposition of teaching moral literacy as it relates to personal conduct and the formation of character. Without hesitation, equivocation, or embarrassment, parents, teachers, neighbors, friends, visionary leaders, and a host of others speak to the inner part of the individual, to the moral sense. We better understand the great purposes of Earth and the potential of individuals and nations when we link classical literacy, world history, American history, and commonsense principles. Reminding us of eternal truths and moral verities, they counter the distortions of the times in which we live.

Education, knowledge, and literacy are the foundations for intellectual and moral development. Freedom is not a license to ignore the requirements of moral integrity. We do not progress by making our own rules, by turning our backs on the Almighty, or by creating a golden calf of our egos. It is impossible to build a sustainable society in this manner.

Moral education teaches good habits; it involves rules, precepts, standards, and discipline. It teaches that life has purpose, that it is a necessary thing to be honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, to do good to all men and women, to have a country to love, and to be willing to seek after that which is praiseworthy and of good report. God will patiently and tenderly lead His children in their pursuit of truth, beauty, and goodness.

Benjamin Franklin declared, “To pour forth benefits for the common good is divine. Every thought which genius and piety throws into the world alters the world.” Americans are blessed with a heritage of freedom and the opportunity to chase away darkness, to enlighten nations, and to renovate the world and cover it with light, truth, unity, peace, and love.

This is why I believe.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Brent Russell’s book, America’s Grand Design (2022), retraces the history of American heritage and humanity’s Constitutional liberties, grounded in the hope of universal goodwill.

Holistically outlining the interconnectedness of the historical events which caused and then overcame the Dark and Middle Ages, leading to the development and establishment of America’s civil and religious liberties, this treatise is a timely reminder that God governs in the affairs of men.

Developed through centuries of struggle, freedom of conscience and expression are woven into the very soul of our nation. Yet, there is danger lurking, for those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.

Because error is preached all the time, truth must be repeated constantly. We must stop the mindless destruction of historical America.

The American experiment was foreordained. America is a part of redemptive history, of divine prophecy fulfilled, of God’s grand design. As a society of free-born people, we must reawaken to the truth that “righteousness exalts a nation.”

Third in a trilogy of Constitutional enlightenment and awareness, the author supports the Utah State Legislature’s designation of September as Founders and Constitution Month. In an effort to champion civic awareness and the common good, he reaffirms that it was not by chance that the Puritans and others who followed later left their native land and sailed to New England where they were inspired to establish the God-given system of government under which we live.

Laying the foundation for the 1820 vision of the Prophet Joseph Smith and the unfolding Restoration, this series of historical events is described by the biblical prophet Isaiah as “a marvelous work and a wonder.” In an acknowledgement of our responsibility to teach the true greatness of our founding and nation, may we reenergize a spirit of patriotism in recognition of God’s hand in the origin and destiny of America, that we will be a nation under God, not without God.

Website: www.americasgranddesign.com BLOG: americasgrand.design

Courage and Resolve

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed, is more important than any other one thing. –Abraham Lincoln

On a recent Sunday, as we sat down with our wives for a spontaneous brunch, a friend and I had one of those conversations that seem to come out of nowhere. Our topics covered a lot of ground. However, the part that touched me deeply was his personal story.

Speaking freely, we discussed the meaning and purpose of life. Why we are here (on earth) and what we are supposed to be doing with our lives.

He grew up in Chicago in a very dysfunctional situation. There was divorce, alcoholism, drug use, abuse, early separation from his siblings and parents, suicide, and poverty. His reaction was anger, bitterness, loneliness, and hopelessness, a teenager with a horrible temper and poor self-esteem.

At 18, traveling to California with his girlfriend, they stopped at Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah. He felt something. Shortly thereafter he joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons).

A year later, sitting in a speed-reading class at BYU, he gazed out the window, thinking how much he hated being there. Standing directly in front of him, the professor asked a couple of questions about the assignment, and then surprised him by asking, “How do you feel about things?”

“You want to know how I feel?” asked my friend.

“Yes,” responded the teacher.

Facing one of those moments requiring courage, he was tempted to ease his way out of the situation. But not today! He spoke his mind, and it all came out.

“I think you and the others are just a bunch of posers. You say things to impress people, but you don’t mean them, and you don’t care about us. It’s all for show.”

Realizing a teaching moment was at hand, the instructor responded with kindness, “My challenge to you, young man, is to get an education and then go out and confront the hypocrisy you so readily see in the world and change things for the better.”

This was the turning point of his life! He began pursuing his education with a higher purpose in mind. With degrees in hand and happily married, he has been teaching philosophy, critical thinking, and creative writing at the university level for the past 30 years.

Knowing my friend as I do, I can say with great confidence that he has been changing things and making a positive difference in the lives of students, associates, and his family since that day.

In this account we find a universal truth: when you educate a man, you liberate a man. The most important key to a proper education is to read to the point that words become precious. As you learn, you will begin to see that you are the person who has the most to do with you and what happens in your life.

This matters because our country needs you! You need to understand that the men who founded this nation believed that our system of government was designed for a well-informed and educated people. They understood that each of us needs to play our very important part in maintaining liberty.

While it’s true we need smart people to understand and correct our problems, what we need even more is people who care. People who are willing to love God, to love their neighbors, and to live by the Golden Rule. Like the teacher at BYU, our nation’s greatest need is people with common sense who care about others and the future of our country.

There is a great deal riding on the education of our young people. Misunderstanding freedom, many great and powerful nations have destroyed themselves from within through moral decay, fiscal irresponsibility, and selfishness. A proper education will instill these lessons because they matter, for the same fate could happen to us.

You can make a difference! Be inspired by men like Abraham Lincoln who carried a book with him everywhere he went; and often that book was the Bible. Be motivated by women like Emily Dickinson, who wrote, “There is no Frigate like a Book, to take us Lands away.” Be anxiously engaged in self-improvement. Discover a steadfast purpose to sustain you.

Like my friend, you were sent to earth to make a difference. Improve yourself, gain experience, help others along the way. As encouragement, I offer this poem:

The more you read, the more you know;

The more you know, the smarter you grow;

The smarter you grow, the stronger your voice;

When speaking your mind, or making your choice.

America is the only country founded on the principle that men and women should and could govern themselves. Seek true knowledge and govern yourself accordingly. Have confidence that the goodness of your life will lead to success and happiness.

Please see: http://www.americasgranddesign.com

Blog: americasgrand.design

Oppenheimer: an appeal to the academic left

The Vital Importance of Limited Government, Religious Influence, and Economic Freedom

The secret of education lies in respecting the pupil. –Emerson

When J. Robert Oppenheimer, a physics professor at Berkeley, was approached by General Leslie R. Groves to head the Manhattan Project there was the “snag” of Oppenheimer’s left-wing background, which, in the words of General Groves, “included much that was not to our liking by any means.” The general wanted Oppenheimer anyway, because none of the other men suggested for the position appeared to be his equal. “He’s a genius,” declared Groves.

For his part, Oppenheimer thought himself “a most improbable appointment. I was astonished.” At thirty-eight years of age in 1942 when he accepted the assignment, he listed three reasons on how he had changed in recent years from one who “had no understanding of the relations of man to his society.”

First, “I had a continuing, smoldering fury about the treatment of the Jews in Germany.”

Second, says Oppenheimer, “I saw what the Depression was doing to my students. And through them I began to understand how deeply political and economic events could affect men’s lives. I began to feel the need to participate more fully in the life of the community.”

Third, a few years prior to 1942, as he began to move among what he called “leftwing friends,” he wrote, “I liked the new sense of companionship, and at the time felt that I was coming to be part of the life of my time and country.” However, after reading Engels and Feuerbach and all of Marx and finding their dialectics less rigorous than his taste, Oppenheimer declared, “I never accepted Communist dogma or theory; in fact, it never made sense to me.”

Appealing to all members of academia, I would like to ask you to consider how deeply political and economic events are affecting the lives of your students. In hundreds of thousands of cases, year after year, young people are leaving our institutions of higher learning saddled not only with debt but unable to find suitable employment in an economy that has been reduced in many respects to a manifestation of leftwing politics. To address this very basic and systemic problem, your students need each of you–like Oppenheimer’s students needed him–to feel the need to participate more fully in the life of the community by promoting an economic environment that allows them to fulfill their potential and actualize their dreams.

How can this be done? Sadly, with leftwing politics so ingrained within our society, rather than moving into an economy built on meritocracy and free-market values, the talents and gifts of hundreds of thousands of students are being denied expression. With an emphasis on undermining the values of Western civilization, as well as a full-throated endorsement of a green agenda–which, in turn, leads to censorship, the curtailment of free expression, and mob rule–powerful interests are scuttling human potential by promoting a limited kind of diversity. This is no surprise, for as the data demonstrates, at many institutions of higher learning, those with the highest levels of education (including administrators and educators) are the first to dismiss those with conflicting points of view. In one of the great paradoxes of our time, many of those who prize academic freedom for themselves above all else are denying the very essence of academic freedom to those they teach. This is not the education standard our young people have been promised. The resulting impoverishment of intellect is a great loss to them and a tragic loss for our country.

There needs to be a major change in how we approach education. Instead of the politics of coercion, which are grounded in sensitivity, diversity, multiculturalism, and environmentalism (as defined by liberals), we need classrooms where traditional and theoretical ideas can find expression. We need laboratories where students can come to grips with how best to unleash their talents and potential in pursuit of their highest aspirations. Unfortunately, however, to the collective detriment of all Americans, an iron curtain of censorship has descended upon many of our institutions of higher learning. Rather than promoting academic freedom of speech and the free exchange of ideas many of our most prestigious centers of higher learning are promoting diversity in everything but thought.

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground. –Thomas Jefferson

That which the academic left undermines and opposes through censorship can be reduced to three categories: limited government, religious influence, and economic freedom. Institutional opposition to these foundational elements is one of the great mysteries of a free society, especially in light of the conclusion reached by Dr. Oppenheimer (the UC Berkeley creator of the greatest school of theoretical physics that the United States has ever known) that Communist dogma or theory never made sense to him.

It is imperative that today’s young people are taught and understand that limited government, religious influence, and economic freedom are the pathway to the fulfilling of their potential and the betterment of society. No centralized government, no matter how big or well-intentioned, can effectively and efficiently control society in a beneficial way. On the contrary, big governments are inherently inefficient and harmful because in their promotion of dependency they rob citizens of their initiative and self-respect. As declared by President Franklin Roosevelt, “Continued dependence on government support induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit.” Evident in our time, big government corrupts the political process and eventually kills the goose that lays the golden eggs.

The parents have a right to say that no teacher paid by their money shall rob their children of faith in God and send them back to their homes skeptical, or infidels, or agnostics, or atheists. –William Jennings Bryan

During the past several years, I have had many rewarding experiences driving people from the Salt Lake Airport to Park City for the Sundance Film Festival or their ski vacations. The 45-minute drive is always interesting as I get to know people from all around the world. Two winters ago, as I drove two first-year college students from Austin, one of them proudly announced that she was a philosophy major who does not believe in God anymore. When I asked her how her parents felt about her atheism she said, “My dad is very sad.”

On a subsequent occasion I was driving a family of four. A daughter, who was attending Notre Dame, happened to be a philosophy major as well. When I asked her if her teachers had destroyed her faith, her mother looked up and said, “I want to hear the answer to this!” The twenty-six-year-old responded, “No. At Notre Dame they are very respectful of religious belief.”

Contrast her experience with what happened to one of my nieces at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, during her freshman year a few years ago. As related by her, she said that she was sitting in a required philosophy class with hundreds of other students when a tenured professor walked in and said, “If any of you believe in God that’s okay. But if you believe in God at the end of this semester it will be because you are a ‘blanking’ idiot!” My niece related that she stood up at that moment and walked out of the class.

Her stand reminds me of the experience of Robert P. George, a devout Catholic and tenured Princeton professor who has been called the most influential Christian conservative thinker” in the United States by Time magazine. As a 19-year-old, George was sitting in an introductory political philosophy class at Swarthmore College discussing “Gorgias,” in which Plato questions the motives for debate by asking if individuals argue in order to find and advance the truth or simply to boost their own social standing by winning the argument.

For George, contemplating those questions for the first time in college was like “having a bucket of ice water thrown in my face, and I woke up. I realized I should be asking a much more important question than about how to win debates. I should be asking the question, ‘What side am I on?’ For the first time in my life…I had to think my way to where I would stand, rather than just standing where I stood because it was what the ambient culture told me.”

With its foundation in faith, its action in works, and its aim of obedience to God in improvement of self and benevolence to others, religious influence is the foundation of society, the basis on which all true civil government rests, and from which power derives it authority, laws their efficacy, and both their sanction. In other words, religious influence is a universal good–a key ingredient in the flourishing of individuals and societies everywhere. Without its free expression, if shaken by contempt or loss of popular respect, the whole fabric of society cannot be stable or lasting.

Addressing why he is willing to fight for economic freedom, Charles Koch, Chairman and CEO of Koch Industries, Inc., recently wrote, “I want my legacy to be greater freedom, greater prosperity, and a better way of life for my family, our employees, and for all Americans. And I wish the same for every nation on earth.”

Those of us who cherish freedom and the opportunities freedom brings can relate to the desires of Charles Koch. We also want every living soul to experience the joy of potential fulfilled.

There are many reasons why the views of Oppenheimer, Roosevelt, George, and Koch have universal appeal. First, it is good to have feelings for the oppressed and to be willing to do something about it. Second, it is good to consider the state of young people who are facing a bleak economic outlook and be willing to participate more fully in the life of the community. Third, it is good to recognize the importance of limited government, religious influence, and economic freedom and then be willing to champion their value in the classroom, in the news, in political discourse, and from the pulpit.

A society that puts equality–in the sense of equality of outcome–ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests. –Milton Friedman

As a further inducement to the abolition of social injustice, I suggest that preparing students for an economy built on limited government, religious influence, and economic freedom is our best way forward as a nation. As things now stand, the rate of return on capital, such as real estate, dividends, and other financial assets, is racing away from the rate of growth required to maintain a healthy economy. Stagnant pay, except among the super-rich, soaring health care and education costs, unemployment, high energy and transportation costs, and diminished expectations among young and old alike are becoming the norm. If these trends continue inequality will get worse as wealth becomes ever more concentrated in the hands of a few. Moreover, the avenues of upward mobility that beckon us and define the American Dream will be closed off while retirement will become something to endure rather than to enjoy.

The solution to these problems is to create an economy with good paying jobs rather than an economy that punishes success via inflation, taxation, regulation, and redistribution of income. If academia could somehow reconcile their egalitarian views on poverty, income disparity, redistribution, and the environment with a realization of how deeply political and economic events are affecting the lives of their students and others, they might begin to see the harm in unrestrained government, of social engineering, of denigrating our Founders and our Constitution, of mocking religious influence, and of bashing capitalism.

To underscore the vital importance of economic freedom I turn to the wisdom of Charles Koch:

“Karl Marx famously said: ‘From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.’ The result of this approach is not equality, but rather a lowering of everyone’s standards to some minimal level.

“Some people worry about the disparity of wealth in a system of economic freedom. What they don’t realize is that the same disparity exists in the least-free countries. The difference is who is better off.

“Under economic freedom, it is the people who do the best job of producing products and services that make people’s lives better. On the other hand, in a system without economic freedom, the wealthiest are the tyrants who make people’s lives miserable. As a result of this, the income of the poorest in the least-free countries is one-tenth of what it is in the freest.”

The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest… As for governing, I love to see honest men and honorable men at the helm, men who will not bend their politics to their purses, nor pursue measures by which they may profit, and then profit by their measures. –Thomas Jefferson

By doing their part to prepare their students to obtain good jobs in a market based economy, teachers and administrators will maintain the integrity upon which the system of higher education should be built. In so doing they will also help alleviate the problems of poverty, unemployment, and income disparity by placing their graduates firmly in the middle and upper-middle class income brackets. Beyond that, if they will realize and teach that an economy based upon limited government, religious influence, and economic freedom is in the best interest of not only their students but the entire human family, then, and only then, will they play their unique and pivotal role in helping to turn around a desperately misguided ship of state.

Our Finest Hour

“There is not a truth from history more certain than this: that civil liberty cannot long be separated from religious liberty without danger, and ultimately without destruction to both.” –Joseph Story, Associate Justice U.S. Supreme Court

Coming out of the Great Depression and World War II, the parents of the Baby Boomer generation (1946-1964) wanted to give their children the good life. The result was that the Boomer generation “did many did things which their fathers would have deprecated, and then drew about themselves a flimsy cordon of sophistry while talking about the advance of humanity and liberal thought, when it was really nothing more than a preference for individual license” (John Hall). Agreeing with this sentiment, Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, recently stated that Baby Boomers will “go down in history as the most disappointing generation ever, from sex, drugs, and rock and roll to what we have today.” Hyperbole? I am not sure. But I do see where this could be the epitaph of my generation unless we act firmly and decisively in doing that which is still within our power: changing the course of American civilization.

Along with the aforementioned influences, the Boomer era saw the curtailment of prayer, Bible reading, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, and the singing of Christmas carols in schools. In addition, they created Greenwich Village and Haight Ashbury, epicenters of the 1960s counterculture movement, orchestrated the passage of Roe v Wade, and saw some of the brightest and most ambitious among them take their talents to institutions of higher learning and to Wall Street where they could continue their bohemian lifestyles in more comfortable environs.

The collective result of these actions fueled the acceptance and teaching of Marxist ideas in universities, in the national media, and among the cultural elites. In other words, there was a steady cultural shift away from the traditional values upon which this nation was founded.

Accompanying these trends was America’s turning away from absolute truth and a sense of personal accountability. As described by a leading churchman, “We spend billions of our resources in litigation one against another. Our spiritual power is sapped by a flood tide of pornography, by a debilitating epidemic of the use of narcotics and drugs that destroy both body and mind, and by a declining moral standard that is alarming and devastating to relationships, families, and the integrity of our nation as a whole. In too many ways, we have substituted human sophistry for the wisdom of the Almighty.” (Gordon B. Hinckley)

While we live in a generally prosperous and optimistic age, yet grave problems persist, namely crime, violence, chronic poverty, teen depression, suicide, teen pregnancy, broken families, corruption, changing the meaning of words, fiscal irresponsibility, and other signs of cultural decline. The confrontation in which we are engaged is transforming popular ideas, beliefs, and our national character. Evidence abounds that the fight for the survival of our nation is upon us.

Having won the tacit approval of much of the press, influential policymakers, and a great many ordinary Americans, what has taken place is the triumph of sin and selfishness. In one of the great ironies of freedom, a growing number of our most gifted young people–as well as our citizens overall–are turning away from the principles of our founding, from the nobility of Western civilization, from the rule of law, from sound economic principles, and from the sacred, the very sources of our prosperity and survival.

Data also shows that the decline in foundational virtues–work, marriage, and religion–affects all levels of society. Wrote one essayist, “What a surprise! We raised a generation of bright kids without a foundation in religion . . . We never told them that the virtuous life was both necessary and hard, that character was something that had to be built step by step from youth, that moral weakness was contemptible and natural.” (Walter Russell Mead)

Affirming that although there are many successes in raising great individuals, a renowned scholar writes that conditions in today’s world are particularly difficult for boys. “Confusion regarding manhood abounds, including confusion about a proper understanding of virility. Fathers are missing from boys’ lives in devastatingly high numbers. Children are exposed to a dizzying array of cultural signals about what it means to be a man.” (William J. Bennett)

In search of answers as we cross traditional political and cultural boundaries, the driving force in the potential resolution of this conflict will be an increasing awareness that the fate of our nation depends, perhaps like never before, on this truth, as articulated by Aristotle, “All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth.” Order supplies the basics in training the rising generations; the fate of nations hangs on their education.

Thus, the biggest task at hand is to strengthen the home, family, and community, to remind ourselves of America’s Grand Design through a reaffirmation of our divine heritage and potential. To turn things around, we need a restoration of public sentiment in favor of America and to reintroduce classical literature and civic virtue into the classroom and the culture at large.

But there is a danger lurking. Alarming reports indicate fading respect for absolute truth and foundational traditions, which have obscured enduring values. With great numbers turning away from Christianity, and with many on the pathway to atheism, significant numbers from all generations are turning their backs on the religious traditions of their upbringing.

Each of these conditions point to the fact that if there was ever a time for religious influence in our society to be re-examined, the time is now. To achieve our common goals of the public peace, progress, and prosperity, we must be more articulate and persuasive in making the case for Christ, for Christianity, and for the principles of meritocracy, liberty, and justice, which are at the heart of the American system of government.

The rights of conscience and freedom of expression developed gradually and took centuries of struggle to establish. For these essential characteristics of life in America to continue, we must stop the mindless destruction of our Western and American heritage. We need not pretend to have a divine commission and a sacred destiny. America is a part of redemptive history, of divine prophecy fulfilled, of God’s Grand Design.

In a partnership between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born, we must honor the great primeval contract of eternal society, underwritten by the Golden Rule, which connects the visible and invisible world and finds expression in our Declaration of Independence as “the right to life.” Driven by an all-consuming desire to amass power through the doctrines of scarcity, privilege, and fear, we must also realize that freedom’s future hinges on an essential truth: we do not have to choose between a clean environment (via socialism) and a prosperous economy. We can have both.

The roots of this clash extend back hundreds of years. It is a battle between capitalism and Marxism, between the power of the state and equal opportunity for each individual, and between freedom and coercion. It is therefore essential to re-emphasize that a democratic system depends on its legitimacy, not upon equal results, but a sense of equal opportunity.

It has been said that we are fast approaching that moment when, “Even this nation will be on the very verge of crumbling to pieces and tumbling to the ground and when the Constitution is upon the brink of ruin this people will be the staff upon which the nation shall lean and they shall bear the Constitution away from the very verge of destruction.” (Joseph Smith)

“To those who have discerning eyes, it is apparent that the republican form of government established by our noble forefathers cannot long endure once fundamental principles are abandoned. Momentum is gathering for another conflict–a repetition of the crisis of two hundred years ago. This collision of ideas is worldwide. Another monumental moment is soon to be born. The issue is the same that precipitated the great premortal conflict–will men be free to determine their own course of action, or must they be coerced? . . .

“The war in heaven over free agency is now being waged here on earth, and there are those today who are saying, ‘Look, don’t get involved in the fight for freedom. Just live the gospel.’ That counsel is dangerous, self-contradictory, unsound.” (Ezra Taft Benson)

In the movie Apollo 13, as the spacecraft faced multiple perils with three astronauts on board, the chance for a safe return was greatly diminished. Upon hearing his supervisor say, “I know what the problems are. This could be the worst disaster NASA has ever experienced,” Gene Krantz (Ed Harris), the leader in Mission Control, turned towards him and said, “With all due respect, Sir, I believe this will be our finest hour.”

As a generation of Baby Boomers, the challenge before us to preserve human freedom is daunting. Will we be remembered as the generation that lost liberty because of “sex, drugs, and rock and roll?” Or will we, in our finest hour, be the generation that reestablished America as “the world’s best hope?”

Brent Russell is the author of America’s Grand Design. http://www.americasgranddesign.

Blog: americasgrand.design.