![Ep. 14 Plan For Republicans, Part VII: Morality Secures the Blessings of Liberty [audio and text]](https://www.feet2thefire.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/800px-Peter_Fondas_American_Flag_Patch-690x377.jpg)
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So when the Establishment tells you it’s taboo, that’s generally our cue to open our mouths and speak out. And when it comes to the traditional American values we hold dear, let’s side with the Founders, not the Liberals.
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Never talk religion or politics, right? That’s an expression we always hear. Well, today we’re gonna do both. And that expression is stupid anyway because it’s for the timid and cowardly who can’t handle controversy. Let’s get dirty here, take the gloves off, ask the tough questions and get some real answers instead of avoiding the issues, which is exactly what pusillanimous moderates do. Get an opinion on stuff and then say it and defend it! And the reason we’ll be talking religion and politics is because the former, religion, generally informs the latter, politics. That’s why they go together and why people want to avoid talking about both, because they’re inexorably linked. Your religious views will dictate your personal politics. But that’s not to be avoided here at feet to the fire, where we push the limit on uncomfortable conversations.
Welcome back to Feet To The Fire, the new voice of Conservative dissent, as we continue our discussion on the Plan for Republicans and why they need to stay conservative on all social issues moving into 2015, issues like abortion and marriage. And religion is obviously at the core of this debate on values and social issues, and so it’s got to be talked about. We ended the last show with a question, why bring up this controversial topic anyway? Why are these social policy positions just as important as conservative fiscal policy? Well, let’s look at three quick points which should make the case easily.
Every society has a moral/ethical code. It’s a condition of being not dead, or rather, alive and in any system of human interaction. No society in history has ever functioned without a moral code because even if you have a flagrantly wild and indulgent and hedonistic culture, some code of justice, some standard of acceptable behavior, always still exists. And this is clear even from ancient times. That’s because every individual, and subsequently every community of people, has at the very least a natural impulse towards self-preservation. In other words, for instance, any person from any culture would naturally protect his own life and property from murder and theft. And the minute you appeal to a higher sense of justice and say to an intruder into your little 3rd Century tribal hut, “Hey, you can’t come in my house and steal my iPad and kill my family,” you’ve just declared some standard of ethics from which you are demanding recompense, from which you are demanding fairness, equity, justice. And those lofty notions can only exist when there is a code of morality already in place. So that means, even an atheist in a completely atheist culture still has a moral standard, one that he appeals to for justice and one that is universally accepted as permanent and binding over the collective group. C.S. Lewis makes a similar argument at the outset of his great work Mere Christianity, and I would highly recommend reading that if you haven’t ever, even if you’re an atheist.
And so that’s fairly simple to understand. Every culture has a code of ethics that is agreed upon and followed by everyone and at the same time forced upon the transgressors. Now the question comes in to play, what specific code of ethics should a society organize itself around? And the answer is equally simple though significantly more divisive. Let’s discuss the next point.
What is the preferable morality, moral code, for any society? And the answer? Christianity.
Christianity is a superior moral code by far than any and all others. And that’s not mean or intolerant, it’s just true. The fruits are easily observable in the blessings Christianity has wrought in our nation, which was conceived upon biblical precepts and principles. It is seen in the testimony of any nation or people throughout human history that has humbly consented to organize its society around the moral precepts and statutes written by God in the Holy Scriptures, the Bible. It is seen as far back as the nation Israel. It is the nation that fears and obeys God that prospers. And the Founder Fathers in our own country themselves knew this and attested to it, giving Christianity not only clear recognition as the superior morality amongst all religions of the earth but also testifying to the fact that it was this foundation of Christianity indeed upon which our civil structure was erected in America.
And let’s let the Founders themselves speak on this topic to help affirm it.
John Adams, second President of the United States, wrote the following diary entry:
“The Christian religion is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity and humanity.”
And Benjamin Franklin wrote this:
“As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of morals and His religion as He left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see.”
And Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, said this:
“[C]hristianity is the only true and perfect religion; and… in proportion as mankind adopt its principles and obey its precepts, they will be wise and happy.”
And the reason the Founders were so impressed with Christianity and the reason for it’s notable uniqueness amongst all other religions is because of it’s peculiar ability to reform a man from the inside out, to transform the individual first from the heart and then as a result the whole of his conduct. Thus, it is the greatest purveyor of morality in a society because it bridles not only external behavior but also internal passions.
Thomas Jefferson observed this clearly when he said:
“The precepts of philosophy, & of the Hebrew code, laid hold of actions only. He [that is, Jesus] pushed his scrutinies into the heart of man; erected his tribunal in the region of his thoughts, and purified the waters at the fountain head.”
And Zephaniah Swift, another Founding Father and State Supreme Court Chief Justice in Connecticut wrote this:
“Indeed moral virtue is substantially and essentially enforced by the precepts of Christianity and may be considered to be the basis of it. But in addition to moral principles, the Christian doctrines inculcate a purity of heart and holiness of life which constitutes its chief glory. When we contemplate it in this light, we have a most striking evidence of its superiority over all the systems of pagan philosophy which were promulgated by the wisest men of ancient times.”
The Founding Fathers further attested to the fact that it was Christianity in particular that directed and informed the establishment of civil liberty and our unique laws and institutions.
John Adams wrote in a letter to Thomas Jefferson:
“The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.”
And Noah Webster said this:
“[T]he religion which has introduced civil liberty is the religion of Christ and His apostles… This is genuine Christianity and to this we owe our free constitutions of government.” He also wrote:
[O]ur citizens should early understand that the genuine source of correct republican principles is the Bible, particularly the New Testament, or the Christian religion.”
And Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story said this:
“One of the beautiful boasts of our municipal jurisprudence is that Christianity is a part of the Common Law. There never has been a period in which the Common Law did not recognize Christianity as lying at its foundations.”
So, there’s no denying it. Christianity, even if you don’t personally practice it, brings great benefit to any nation for the virtue and morality it injects into the culture. And furthermore, it was Christianity that, by their own admission, served as the guiding philosophy for the Founders in designing our republic.
And finally, we come to the main point of the so-called moral issues of the day. Why are they just as vital in our current political fight? Well, it’s again quite simple. It’s because of this third point I want to make, and that is …
III. The Scope of Morality
Morality isn’t compartmentalized. It doesn’t come in categories. It doesn’t come “a la carte” so that you can pick and choose parts to keep, parts to ignore.
Here is the train of thought: if we can agree as we’ve already made the case, that any society by its mere existence must have a moral code, and we can agree that in America, the original and best code of ethics that we’ve adopted is Christianity, as our heritage indicates, then we must accept that system of morality in it’s entirety. All aspects of a moral code must be adhered to or loss will be incurred in every area.
What I mean is this. Try to establish a society with the rules “Thou shalt not steal” and “Thou shalt not covet,” two of the Ten Commandments. These are the principles behind property rights, and they form the moral structure for free enterprise, the philosophy of capitalism. And also administer these rules in your society: “the worker deserves his wages” and “if a man shall not work, he shall not eat,” which are both consistently Old and New Testament teaching. These biblical principles, again, are the foundation of free markets. So great, you’ve got capitalism. And that, obviously is all VERY important in maintaining a free and just society. It’s so important that John Adams actually said this:
“The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.” So okay, good, in this society, we’ve got protection of private property rights. But then at the same time, go ahead and allow for abortion so that you are subverting the command “Thou shalt not murder” and allow for homosexual marriage so that you are subverting the command “Thou shalt not commit adultery” with government-sanctioned sexual deviancy, and now lets’ see what happens. Now you’ve got a major problem, a huge moral dilemma, because on the one hand you are preserving the sanctity of property but on the other hand your are abolishing the sanctity of life and the sanctity of marriage and the family. And unfortunately, that will not be sustainable. And that’s because the very leaders who decide to no longer respect God’s assigned value to life and sexuality will quite easily and very soon after decide they no longer hold to God’s assigned value to personal property rights. And then you are immediately plunged into total oppression, economic, moral, ethical, however you want to classify it. Oppression rules and liberty is abolished. And that’s all because a total, all-encompassing, biblical code of ethics was not sustained in the very first place. Said succinctly, the same government that fails to protect life and family will soon after fail to protect property or anything else for that matter.
And then you can kiss all your other civil liberties good bye as well: the right to bear arms, freedom of the press, freedom of speech or to assemble, freedom of religion. It’s all out the window because the uniform, transcendent moral code that previously upheld and protected these principles was just chopped up and tossed out the window. Without a sustainable, permanent, uniform system of justice, without a permanent fixed standard, that determines right and wrong in all matters of law and civics, nothing is protected and nothing is sacred. So don’t you see? If we try and hold onto the fiscal issues and ignore the moral ones as Republicans, we are doomed, doomed to disaster anyway.
And the Bible says it like this in the book of James:
“For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.”
And if we have a society that even silently, tacetly, permits transgression in a PART of our moral code by ignoring it or sweeping it under the table; or worse, if we have a society that grants immorality legal status in the case of legalized abortion and homosexual marriage, that society has abdicated any and all moral authority in EVERY area and subjects itself to total moral chaos. How can we trust or respect a government that one minute fights to protect property rights by maintaining capitalism and free enterprise and yet the next minute allows for the murder of the unborn? The same government will just as quickly allow for the confiscation of your private property in the form of, say, socialized medicine, which is exactly what we’ve got in ObamaCare. If the governing officials or the people learn to murder or they legally sanction adultery, they learn to steal, too, and the government is soon corrupted. And unfortunately, we are seeing this moral collapse in our government and society in general all to quickly already. The culture that ignores “thou shalt not murder” will have no problem ignoring all the other commandments as well.
Let’s listen to what Thomas Jefferson said. He said this:
“The practice of morality being necessary for the well being of society, He [God] has taken care to impress its precepts so indelibly on our hearts that they shall not be effaced [that means erased] by the subtleties of our brain. We all agree in the obligation of the moral principles of Jesus and nowhere will they be found delivered in greater purity than in His discourses.”
And John Quincy Adams said this:
“The law given from Sinai [that’s the Ten Commandments] was a civil and municipal as well as a moral and religious code; it contained many statutes . . . of universal application – laws essential to the existence of men in society, and most of which have been enacted by every nation which ever professed any code of laws.”
So here we are, if we blow up our moral fabric as a nation by allowing certain ethical violations in SOME areas of civil life, we won’t be able to recover. And no amount of Republican majority with half-hearted efforts will solve the problem. We have to go for the gold, go all the way, accept nothing short of total victory and conservatism implemented in EVERY and ALL areas of political life in America. Which means, yes, repeal ObamaCare. Yes, protect our national identity and sovereignty by securing the border and resisting amnesty. But all of that is worthless if we roll over on the moral issues of the day and assent to abortion and homosexual marriage. And that assent can be granted simply by our silence. Look, I’m not saying every time there is a debate, we should bring up partial-birth abortion or something like that. That would be absurd and self-defeating. I’m just saying, when it comes up, when those issues do come up, be bold. And as the opportunity arises to deal with these issues, and we as the majority party should be looking for those opportunities, then don’t back down or play the moderate. Take advantage of your majority status to push a conservative-values agenda forward in Washington and around the country. Stand for conservative values, every time, all the time. Every republican, every conservative, needs to be a “values” candidate; otherwise, as we’ve made the case here, they are worthless and all their efforts are worthless. Because you can’t wing the endgame if you lose this battle on moral values in America.
And remember, man is guilty for committing an evil act. But he is also guilty for remaining silent and not stopping evil when he knows it’s taking place, even if he’s not the one doing it. Evil prospers when good men do nothing, and the good men are held accountable for their cowardly silence.
Alright, that’s it, I’m done. So much more to say on this issue. But that should be a start for making the case for a strong conservative stance on the moral/social policy issues of the day. And this concludes the Plan for Republicans after their massive electoral victory this year. So, Republicans, listen up, one more time in case you missed it and just so there’s no confusion. This needs to be our plan moving forward in 2015:
The General Rule: No compromise, don’t compromise with the lunatic LEFT on anything.
And then the 3 specific policy positions we need to adhere to and push without wavering are the following:
Because while we are waging war on the other political fronts, the LEFT will not rest from it’s constant barrage against traditional Christian, traditional American, values in this country. While we are writing bills to repeal ObamaCare and defund amnesty, they are gonna keep using activist judges to gain ground in the moral battle, hoping to go unnoticed while they advance their godless liberal agenda in the courts against the unborn and the nuclear family.
So what next for Feet To The Fire? We’ll see what next week brings…
But until then, let Justice roll down like waters America, and Righteousness like an ever-flowing stream! Don’t believe the hype out there! America was indeed a Christian nation because we were originally founded on a Christian worldview, founded according to biblical principles. It’s in our heritage and in our laws, and it’s what has, in the words of the Constitution, secured the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. And these traditional American values are under attack and require vigilant defense, which is why conservative values needs to be a definitive part of the Republican agenda. Don’t be ashamed of tradition. Stand for life, and marriage… And guns, too. And everything else that falls in line with our enduring legacy of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And when the LEFT tries to intimidate you into giving in and shutting up, don’t fall for it. Shut ‘em down! Wave an American flag in their face, that’ll really annoy them. And let’s hold their feet to the fire…
{increase volume, sweet bluegrass music with backbeat just because it’s so American and so timeless, like a little chapel on a hillside, singing those good ole’ time hymns…}
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