Utah's Republic

Posts Tagged ‘democracy’

The Nature of Rights

For many of you this may not be a revelation as it was to me today, but I would appreciate your feedback and any extra insight you may have into this topic.

“We the people.” The Preamble to the Constitution of the United States starts with these 3 words. We sometimes hear the phrase “by the people, of the people, for the people” tossed around but what does it really mean? OK, the people are supreme. That almost sounds like a democracy, doesn’t it? So what does it mean and how does it apply in a republic?

We know that rights come from God. God gave us unalienable rights which cannot be transferred by anyone or to anyone. We have core rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This means we also have a right to self-governance.

For example, if you were in a plane that crash landed on a tropical island and there was a tribe of natives on the island, you would have a God-given right to defend yourself and your property and to pursue a path of happiness (which is probably to make peace with the natives :)), but you would not have a right to demand the natives educate your children or provide you with medical service or build you a house for shelter. That would be charity on their part, but you have no right to force them to do it.

Many of you have probably read Ezra Taft Benson’s excellent treatise “The Proper Role of Government.” In it he describes how government only wields powers we delegate to them. In other words, if I don’t have a right, I cannot endow government with the ability to enforce it for me. Since I have a right to life and property, I can transfer powers to the sheriff to protect my life and property without precluding me from doing what I need to in order to protect my life and property. Likewise, government cannot assume any rights and powers that I don’t possess individually.

Since we as individuals have the rights, we then form government to protect our rights. We can delegate some of those rights to the sovereign state, which then delegates some of them to the federal government. They are OUR RIGHTS which WE THE PEOPLE inherently possess from God. We have chosen to DELEGATE SOME OF THEM to government in a WRITTEN CONSTITUTION because it’s more efficient to have a representative in a constitutional republic handle those things, otherwise we would have a democracy if we had to take care of every issue.

The U.S. Constitution as written by the states (it used to be the united states of America, not the United States of America) has specific powers delegated to the federal government from the states which the feds can handle better than the states such as national defense, coinage, treaties, etc… The powers not delegated were reserved to the states (10^th Amendment). The states have powers delegated to it in their written constitution by the people of their state. What isn’t delegated to the state is retained by the people individually. The states in turn delegate to local government the things best handled at that level.

The Education Question

With this understanding in place, by what right is compulsory schooling allowed to exist in our country?

I do not possess a right to force my neighbor to pay my taxes, to mow my lawn, to educate my children, so how is it that the government has taken a right to itself which the people themselves do not possess. Simply put, it is unconstitutional as well as immoral.

A few months back we discovered Alpine School District had a web page with several offensive quotes including this one:

“Arguments for compulsory education have been based on the idea that the school is the only institution that can counter the accident of birth, guarantee quality of opportunity, and provide objective and fair ways to select and train talented individuals.” (http://www.alpine.k12.ut.us/phpApps/genericPage.php?pdid=777)

Right off the bat you get a sense that something is wrong. The blatant statement of compulsion immediately strikes out at you if you know that to force someone against their will is at best, misguided, and at worst, satanic. It is a violation of moral agency which God gave each of us. Coupled with the phrase “accident of birth” and you start to wonder what type of individual would dream up such a phrase, and then wonder what kind of person would post it on a school district website. (Hint: a follower of John Dewey and a John Goodlad AED Scholar)

If I have no right to walk over to my neighbor’s home and force him/her to educate his/her child, then I clearly do not have the ability to delegate to government a right to enforce compulsory education on my neighbors’ child either. At its core, education by force is a socialistic concept where the elites believe they know what is best for parents and they seek to enact it by force in complete violation of individual’s moral agency.

In Ronald Reagan’s first inaugural address in 1981, he said:

“From time to time, we have been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. But if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?”

So I ask the question, what does constitutional, non-compulsory schooling look like? Please leave your thoughts below.

If you’ve never watched the republic video linked to in the top right corner of this website, may I suggest you make it a priority to understand there are only 2 forms of government. There never has been a lasting form of government other than a type of totalitarian government, and a republic.

In the scriptures we see various examples of this. Kings wield sovereign rule in 2 ways. Righteous kings (benevolent dictatorship) included King David (Bible) and King Benjamin (Book of Mormon-BOM), and wicked kings included King Ahaz (Bible) and King Noah (BOM) [sidebar: back in 1993 after President Clinton had been in office a year, I wrote a list of about a dozen parallels between his governmental actions and that of King Noah as found in Mosiah 11--it gave me a new perspective for how King Noah may have been a real schmoozer with the people and not just some fat gluttonous fellow as depicted in Arnold Friberg's picture].

We also see conniving individuals in the scriptures who formed what the BOM calls “secret combinations” so they could achieve dictatorships and bring all the people under their power and control. An example of this would be Amalikiah (BOM).

It will be recalled that in the Old Testament, the Lord had given Moses the law and they had a system of representatives to offload the burden from Moses. Someone was appointed over 10, 50, 100, etc… This was a republican form of government. A written law existed and the people had a scheme of representation.

Later, Samuel the prophet gave the people judges but the people found them corruptible so they demanded a king so they could be “like all the nations.” (1 Samuel 8:5). How many people in America today are clamoring for us to be “like all the nations.” Where are “all the nations” today? They are either under totalitarian rule or quickly getting there by use of democracy.

Democracy is a dangerous form of government because it devolves into anarchy over time as the people lack the ability to closely watch all the issues and they begin to only vote for the things that benefit them and not the country. The passing of the 17th amendment was a breakdown of the separation of powers to hold the voice of the masses in check by those specifically put in place to represent the voice of the state (ie. to strip away the protection of states’ rights).

What did it mean when the people in Samuel’s day wanted to be like “all the nations?” The Lord answered that in 1 Samuel 8:7.

“And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.”

Turning to a dictatorship is a rejection of God. Why? Because the primary element in worshiping the Lord is found in the principle of agency, or the freedom to choose. God doesn’t force you to worship him and he doesn’t force people to be good. He lets their own actions speak for themselves. When we choose to do good and charitable things, we are blessed for it. When we do evil, we are cursed. When we choose to have a king, we reject the one true King which is God. We can find many examples in the scriptures of wicked kings leading the people to do sin or bringing them into bondage by government policies or by morally weakening the people to the point that outside forces easily conquered them.

Concerning America, one Book of Mormon prophet wrote:

“Behold, this is a choice land, and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall be free from bondage, and from captivity, and from all other nations under heaven, if they will but serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ, who hath been manifested by the things which we have written.” (Ether 2:12)

I believe our Founding Fathers were divinely inspired to set up a republic in America precisely because that is the only form of government that preserves agency and allows people the freedom to choose to serve God. They rejected the government of the king of England because God is King. Our freedoms have rapidly eroded over the last century the further God has been pushed from public dialog and from our schools.

Concerning democracy, the word doesn’t appear in scripture, but the word republic does appear one time in the LDS canon. Doctrine & Covenants 98:3 states:

“We believe that all governments necessarily require civil officers and magistrates to enforce the laws of the same; and that such as will administer the law in equity and justice should be sought for and upheld by the voice of the people if a republic, or the will of the sovereign.”

There are only 2 forms of government. A republic that is upheld by the voice of a moral people, or a form of a dictatorship. When people lose their morality and their worship of God as king, they embrace destructive government policies which tell them what to do and how to live and as that monster grows, liberty is destroyed.

If any of you would like to read a paper I wrote on why socialism is the devil’s plan, please click here to read my LDS perspective on freedom and agency.

While on Red Meat Radio this morning, Scott in Sandy called in to share how a Republic is more representative of the people than a Democracy. Here’s a simple analogy.

Lets say you have 100 people in your country. In a Democracy, you would need to get half plus one (50 +1) of the votes in an election, or 51.

On the other hand, if you had 10 states in this country with 10 people each (total population again 100), in each state you would need a simple majority again (5+1) which would be 6 votes in an election. This has the potential to give the winner 60 votes (6 times 10 states) which is more than a simple majority of 51 in a Democracy.

Republics therefore, better represent the majority of the population.

Thanks Scott!

To all those visiting the site and agitated that a bunch of nut job (can’t deny it, it comes with a name like Oak) parents are getting nit-picky over the term democracy, I have written a new page of this site to explain the whole story which cannot be explained in a couple of sound bytes in a news story. It’s much more involved. If you want the whole picture, please check it out here. It’s not just the term democracy, but the individual behind it who says the state has a right to your children and that morality is democratic (determined by a vote).

http://www.utahsrepublic.org/democracy-media-fiasco/

The Herald Journal published an opinion piece by Axel Donizetti Ramirez called “What ‘Social Democracy’ means to Utah County Educators.” Below is my response to his piece, which I hope motivates him to re-evaluate the motives behind those who use the phrase in question.

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Lets look at the history behind the “Enculturating the Young into a Social and Political Democracy”. This phrase comes from one of the 4 Moral Dimensions of teaching by John Goodlad. Mr. Goodlad was hired by BYU to come and set up a Public School Partnership in 1983. Mr. Goodlad is a follower of John Dewey and Horace Mann. All 3 of these individuals are humanists, atheists that want to enculturate the young to only believe in what they can prove with the 5 senses. From Mr. Goodlad’s book “Developing Democratic Character in the Young” we get these two juicy tidbits.

“Again, we are looking for a balance—for an institution, really—that will consider the interests of parents, state, and children. Parents do not own their children. They have no ‘natural right’ to control their education fully.”

“Education is a task for both parents and state. The state, parents, and children all have interests that must be protected.”

Which of you believe the state has a right to your children and has interests that must be protected in the education of your child? Read the rest of this entry »

The Provo Daily Herald ripped Alpine School District for trying to brush Susan Schnell’s email under the rug and for telling the public that she misrepresented their views. After their own investigation, the Herald found everything Susan claimed and wondered why on earth ASD would be teaching our children that we live in a Social Democracy. Here’s a link and the fantastic ending to the article if you’re not going to read the whole thing.

Alpine District has explaining to do (2/28/10)

This business of “social democracy” deserves close scrutiny. “Social democracy” is a form of socialism, one that stresses political domination of society and the economy. It’s not the outright ownership of the means of production, but rather a sort of “socialism lite” found today in the welfare states of many European countries.

And this again raises the question why this is part of Alpine School District’s mission statement and emblazoned on big signs at district offices. If our educators use such a slogan knowing what social democracy is, they have considerably more explaining to do.

If they are unaware of what “social democracy” is, they should find other professions where ignorance of politics, history and economics wouldn’t be such a liability.

Let me make one thing very clear. I do not believe any member of the ASD School Board or the Superintendent believes most of the nonsense that came out of William Meyers’ website. The fact that the district DID have a link to that website does give endorsement to that website and shows that *someone* at the district does subscribe to at least the nonsense on the page that was linked to. That page calls our Founding Fathers “predatory elitists” and says we do not live in a Republic any longer and it’s a good thing we’ve moved toward Democracy.

My “beef” isn’t with the people drawing the water out of the well to give our students, it’s with the other folks who are putting poison into the well when they’re not watching.

So if ASD doesn’t believe the stuff on Meyers’ website, we should be able to read their explanation of their motto and come away with a better perspective on what they really intend. Unfortunately, that mission statement doesn’t help their cause. Read the rest of this entry »

To: Alpine School District:
American Fork, Utah
Superintendent Henshaw, and Board Members

Because I am the author of books on the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, recently I was contacted by some residents of the Alpine School district who are concerned about the District’s Mission statement: “Educating all students to ensure the future of our democracy”. (http://www.alpine.k12.ut.us/phpApps/genericPage.php?pdid=2789)

I wrote an e-mail to your public relations people, whose e-mails are listed below the mission statement pointing out that the Alpine School District is not IN a Democracy, but in a Republic which is clearly guaranteed by Article 4 Section 4 of the Constitution of the United States: Read the rest of this entry »