Freedom-Fighters Forum

The Constitutional Broadside
V1 N12 A PUBLICATION OF THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY COUNCIL
Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.

THE PROPER SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

The separation of church and State is one of the most thorny and ancient problems of our Republic. It is at the very heart of our campaign to maintain our personal liberty.

The Constitution of The United States, as it was first offered to the people, did not adequately define, limit and separate the interests of religion and worship from the proper functions of government. Nor did it fully satisfy the people that the rights of individuals would be protected from the powers of government.

They were not willing to be enslaved by their own government.

The people made it clear that if their liberties could not be guaranteed by basic and specific provisions of written law, they would not create a new and stronger government. As soon as they were satisfied that The bill of Rights would be included as a part of the basic constitution, thus guaranteeing that individual rights would be protected from overpowering government, they accepted the constitution and formed a new and glorious Republic.

THE FIRST AMENDMENT

“CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW RESPECTING AN ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION, OR PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and petition the government for redress of grievances.”

The people in those days were clear-headed. They knew the difference between a person’s rights and the powers of government. They wanted individual responsibility for themselves and they demanded the final power to control their government.

They refused to allow any church to control government and they prohibited government from controlling religion or churches. Their prohibition was not limited to the so-called churches of their day but to any establishment of religion, or to the free exercise thereof.

“CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW”

There is no ambiguity or un-clarity about the words, “no law.”

“NO LAW” covers many things, known and unknown, spoken and unspoken. Congress (and thus the whole government), is forbidden to make any law about, or any contract with, an establishment of religion and it must remain silent about the exercise of religious thought or function. It cannot create a church; interfere with a religious effort, or stop a religious function, so long as the performance thereof brings no harm to anyone.

“NO LAW” means that government cannot legally give money to a church, nor can it take anything from a religious organization or activity by force. This means, among other things, that government cannot legally tax either the income or property of an establishment of religion. Nor can it use its taxing power in such a way that the action of government will control or diminish worship.

“NO LAW” means that government cannot prohibit, control, or alter a course of instruction or a curriculum of a religiously oriented institution.

“NO LAW” means that government controlled schools, cannot teach children either that there is or there is not a God. Nor can they proscribe or refute concepts of a religious nature. It means that a public school cannot be a party to the destruction of a child’s faith in God.

Nor can a mere semantic twist of words be permitted to open the doorway to a violation of specific constitutional proscription. To label a so-called scientific theory as a fact and to offer it in substitution by the force of government to replace a person’s faith in God in God or of God’s explanation of creation is a violation of constitutional prohibition of government action.

FREEDOM OF THOUGHT

Under the First Amendment, individuals are guaranteed the right to think as they please. Worship is one form of thought. Any individual, or group, has the unalienable right to hold in high regard any concept he or she pleases to have in mind. People are free to establish their own modes of religious thought and to function religiously according to rules of their own creation.

Were it not so a true Prophet of God, one inspired and sent by God to man, could be silenced by government and prohibited from teaching the revealed word of God. No other fact shows better the great danger of government domination of religious thought.

It has been almost traditional among leaders of States to try to make themselves appear as gods to be revered as idols and worshipped by the people. Countless numbers of Prophets and great teachers sent from God have been slain and silenced by tyrants. The Constitution guarantees freedom from tyranny over the mind of man.

THE ROLL OF A PROPHET

The most ancient tradition of religious liberty expressed in the long history of Judeo-Christian religious thought has been created and kept alive through the centuries by Prophets of God who have come on the scene when evil governments have run amuck. These divinely inspired minds have shown up among all peoples and attacked with words of truth the evil practices of corrupt government officials.

It is only the fertile soil of liberty that makes the roll of a great and good leader possible. The people must be left free to listen, to think to learn to teach to write to assemble peaceably without restrictions by the State so long as their conduct does not interfere with others not so inclined. Without this freedom to be led and to lead all progress comes to an end.

THE RIGHT TO CREATE

The right to create underlies all efforts to survive in liberty and is an unqualified, unalienable right.

If a person, or a few people, form an organization and define it as an institution of religion, and establish for it an ideology or an eschatology which they define as religious in nature, they are free to do so without interference or harassment from government.

If the membership of an organization that has defined itself as an institution of religion decides, for instance, that the preservation of liberty is for them a matter of religious faith, or essential thereto, they are free to exercise that faith as an act of worship.

Due to the unqualified and total restrictions placed upon government by The Bill of Rights, particularly by the First, the Ninth, and the Tenth Amendments, the government and its agents are restrained from infringing upon the rights of the people to communicate their wishes and desires to government officials. Their right to petition government is an unqualified civic and religious right.

“NO LAW” means, among other things, that government is prohibited from using any means, including taxation, as a method of controlling an institution of religion or the free exercise thereof. Nor may taxes be assessed as a control penalty against an organization of a religious nature if that organization or its members petition government either for redress of grievances or to improve the world.

THE SEPARATION OF POWERS

The Separation of Powers doctrine of The Founders was far broader than just the concept that Church and State should be kept free of each other.

Clarence B. Carson, writing the FREEMAN for April ,73 page 200 gives us the brilliant article from which we quote the following:

“The purpose of government, so the founders thought, is to provide order and to protect life, liberty and property. Nor did they suppose these to be disparate ends. The surest means of promoting happiness (to which order is the one absolute requirement) they thought, is to protect individuals in their possession of life, liberty, and property. After all two sources of disorder among men in community are the quest for power and the contentions over property. Indeed, so universal have been the contentions over property that some have supposed that, if property were to be done away with, so would the sources of conflict among men.

There is no reason to suppose that this would follow. Nor do such efforts as have been made to do so give evidence to support it. On the contrary, when property rights are abolished, the contest shifts to the arena of quest for power and special privilege, which immeasurably worsens rather than improves the situation. At any rate, the Founders thought that order and liberty are correlative ends of government.

LIMITED GOVERNMENT – AND FREE MEN

The essence of the American political system is limited government.

This conclusion is supported in almost every paragraph of the Constitution. Limited government is the reason for being of checks and balances, the separation of powers, the two branches of Congress, the presidential veto, the power of the courts, the prohibitions against exercise of certain powers, the staggered terms of elected officers, the indirect modes of election, the dispersion of powers among the States and the general government and the having of a Bill of Rights.”

DEMOCRACY

If just giving us Democracy in a Republic was all that The Founders thought necessary to preserve our rights in liberty, their task would have been very simple indeed.

They could have provided for the election by popular vote once every four years of a chief executive and established the view that once he was elected and installed in office he was in fact the sole power and force of government.

Or they could have provided that electors would be chosen at the polls and the electors would have the power to create the government in any way they desired.

They could have labeled the government a “democracy” and told the people that they were entitled to vote for anything they want at any given time and it would be the duty of their servants, the government officials, to provide them with fulfillment of their every whim or wish.

The Founding Fathers were wiser than that. They knew that pure democracy would be the worst form of government they could provide. They knew that in every nation in all history where the people had total freedom to call upon government for fulfillment of their wishes such people were always enslaved and destroyed. They tried in every intelligent way they could think of to keep the people from having a “democracy”.

PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY

Personal freedom without personal responsibility is a myth. If you want to play, you’ve got to pay.

Dirty dishes never wash themselves. If you want freedom to eat clean food on clean plates somebody must clean up the mess after eating.

If you want to breathe clean air free of pollution, throw away your own cigarettes. If you want less carbon monoxide in your atmosphere, tune up your own engines and don’t start them so often.

If you want safety while you ride the highway, slow down and obey the laws of God and man.

If you want prosperity, produce it, if you want wealth, create it. If you want freedom, restrain yourself.

More and stronger government doing every more “for the people” guarantees both less freedom and less prosperity for those who are helped.

THE LAWS OF LIBERTY

It has been said by great Prophets, “He who obeys the laws of God has no need to break the laws of the land.”

This is surely true; especially when the laws of the land are the true laws of liberty. On the other hand, if the so-called “laws of the land” are evil, the citizen who is a man of God has a problem. He is unwilling to subject himself to the rules of Satan. He must obey only the higher laws of liberty. If he learns that Satan’s minions have wormed their way into positions of government and are using those powers of law in violation of the laws of God, he must do everything in his power to apply correct principles of law for the preservation of liberty.

It has also been said wisely by a great teacher “Be subject to the powers that be until He signs whose right it is to reign and subdues all enemies under his feet.”

These great truisms are obviously worthy of emulation and obedience. Anyone who has obeyed the laws of God enough to know of their truth and power has no trouble in understanding the difference between our Constitutional Laws of liberty and the powers of Satan’s evil law.

THE POWERS THAT BE

The God of Heaven and the divine principles of conduct He commands us to obey are the only and ultimate “powers that be” to whom, or to which, we are obligated to subject ourselves.

Satan, the so-called God of this world, is often referred to as a power to which honorable men are justified in subjecting themselves.

He who seized the powers of government and rules by force in violation of the laws of God, or of constitutional laws, is an evil power. We have no obligation to be in subjection to the evil edicts of such “powers” that are operating in the name of law.

THE LAWS OF GOD AND THE CONSTITUTION

Moses passed on to us from God the Ten Commandments. The first of these messages said in effect, “I AM” “Thou shalt have no others Gods before me.”

Jesus, The Christ, said it just a little differently, in these words; “Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

It is said also in the Decalogue: ”Thou shalt not bear false witness nor covet thy neighbor’s goods nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.”

These truths are clear. No one needs to be in the dark about their meaning. We either heed or obey them or we fail to measure up to proper standards of righteousness. Thus, we put ourselves to an open shame before God and man.

The “Laws of the Land” are equally clear: “Thou shalt not trespass on thy neighbor’s property nor take by stealth or force anything that belongs to another.”

To add some clarification to our point, concerning the “Law of the Land” we are obligated to obey, we might paraphrase a great quotation from a much revered book in these words of our own:

“Concerning the law of the Land which Constitutionally supports those principles of freedom in maintaining rights and privileges that belong to all mankind, the Lord justifies us all in befriending that law which is the Constitutional Law of the Land; and as pertaining to the law of man, whatever is more or less than the Constitutional Law is evil.”

THE LAWS OF MAN

Many people have a misconception about the nature of the “law of the land” They make the mistake of thinking that all of the statutes and “laws” enacted by all branches of government combine to become “the law of the land” which we are obligated always under all circumstances to obey. This is just not true.

People in government positions are still people. They are subject to error and mistakes of judgment. Many lawmakers – including City and County Commissioners, State and Federal Legislators, and both judges and administrators, are prone to hand down statutes and decisions that conform neither to the laws of God nor the Constitution.

These illegal laws are not the law of the land. Any Statute, to be validly The Law of the Land” must conform to ultimate rules of order and justice. This is true of all types of enactments, including those duly passed by legally constituted legislative bodies, as well as regulations issued as if they were law by the Executive Branch. It likewise includes court decisions that err. Such enactments are not part of The Law of the Land and should be tested in the courts of law.

THE LAW OF THE LAND

“The general rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and name of law, is in reality no law, but is wholly void, and ineffective for any purpose; since unconstitutionality dates from the time of its enactment, and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it. An unconstitutional law, in legal contemplation, is as inoperative as if it had never been passed. Such a statute leaves the question that it purports to settle just as it would be had the statute not been enacted.

“Such an unconstitutional law is void, the general principles follow that it imposes no duties, confers no rights, creates no office, bestows no power or authority on anyone, affords no protection, and justifies no acts performed under it. . .

“A void act cannot be legally consistent with a valid one. An unconstitutional law cannot operate to supersede any existing valid law. Indeed, insofar as a statute runs counter to the fundamental law of the land, it is superseded thereby.

“No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it.”

THE POWER OF CITIZENS

When the chips are down and the final choices are made in the end, it will be seen that “the powers that be” are the citizens of the country who love the Lord and are willing to obey his divine laws.

God, and his laws, and the people who are followers of The Lord are the final “powers that be” to whom we should all be subject until “He reigns whose right it is to reign and subdues all enemies under his feet.”

Here you see the wisdom of The Founders of our Nation. They listened to the whisperings of the spirit of God and took his counsel. That is how it happened and why they provided for the separation of powers in the government and drew a fine but unbreakable line between the powers of government and the strength of the Lord as expressed through the inspiration of his servants in the freedom of The Church.