American Founding Principles

Overlooked Gun Violence Solution

Every time America experiences a unique gun violence episode, some Americans fall back on their preconceived notion that guns are the problem, as if eliminating guns will take away people’s desire and will to kill others. If such a panacea were true, all Americans should support it, but this idea is a fairytale. The reality is that guns no more inspire people to kill others than automobiles inspire people to commit vehicular homicide.

Their argument falls short by the fact that guns have been a part of our nation since its inception, and also by the fact that from the time fully automatic weapons, like the 1920 Thompson sub-machine gun, were invented until they were restricted by the 1934 National Firearms Act, every American had access to firearms and anyone could purchase fully automatic weapons without restriction, but yet no one used them to promiscuously kill others. The question Americans should ask is, “What has changed?” It certainly is not access to guns.

Since a few Americans have opened Pandora’s Box by advocating for the infringement or abolition of a right enumerated in the Bill of Rights, the following is an alternative solution to the so called gun violence problem that will also solve more than just America’s alleged gun violence issue. Continue reading “Overlooked Gun Violence Solution”

Just Emancipation

When Lincoln took office in March of 1861, then took our nation to war in April of that same year, he forfeited a golden opportunity to end the scourge of slavery in America without bloodshed. Due to the secession of seven Slave States, his party held a super majority in both the House and the Senate, which gave him a lot of latitude to take other actions to limit the exercise of slavery, or make it economically more expensive.

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The American Civil War, Just or Unjust?

Most modern Americans, who think about the nature of the American Civil War, consider the war to have been justly initiated against the South, because, as they most likely believe, it was a war perpetrated to end slavery. Yet even if Lincoln perpetrated the war to end slavery, the Civil War was neither civil nor just.

The Just War Doctrine, which western society has acknowledged for many centuries and to which the United States implicitly subscribed at its inception, is the only non-anachronistic standard by which modern American society can judge a western nineteenth century war to determine if it was justly commenced. One of the criterion of the Just War Doctrine is that a war can only be just, for the aggressor nation, if every other means to achieve a peaceful resolution has been earnestly attempted. Both Lincoln’s own words and his actions prove that he did not resort to war as a last resort. Another criterion of the Just War Doctrine is that an aggressor nation must have a just cause for war. While the abolition of slavery, under certain circumstances, could have been a just cause for war, Lincoln’s own words refute that he initiated the war for that purpose. The historical record shows that Lincoln, and the Northern States, did not use war as a last resort and that he did not have a just cause to go to war against the seceded Southern States, which makes the American Civil War both morally and legally unjust.

What-Caused-the-Civil-War

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A Southern Abolitionist Plagiarizes Habakkuk

O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,

and you will not hear?

Or cry to you “Violence!”

and you will not save?

Why do you make me see the iniquity of men in bondage,

and why do you idly look at the wrong of your people treating others so heartlessly?

Destruction and violence are before me;

strife and contention arise.

So the law is paralyzed,

and justice never goes forth.

For the wicked surround the righteous;

so justice goes forth perverted.

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Taxpayer Rights

We now live in an era of manufactured rights: illegal alien rights, universal free healthcare rights, free college education rights, LBGTQ rights, right to choose rights, and a list of other rights only limited by one’s imagination. All of these so called rights come with a cost of implementation that must also be continually funded year after year. Yet, these alleged rights, for which someone else has to bear the financial burden, are another form of tyranny.

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The South Was Wrong!

From a twenty-first century perspective, it is difficult to imagine that any American could make a defense of institutionalized slavery as it existed in the United States from before its inception, as an independent nation, until 1865. Looking back through history, it is easy for anyone living today to see that slavery was wrong and that there is no Biblical, humanitarian, or rational defense for its practice. People living today might easily make such a judgment because they do not have their entire lives and livelihoods dependent upon it and because it is easy for anyone to make judgments about the ills of others while completely ignoring one’s own transgressions. All of us need to be mindful of these two facts when considering the issue of slavery in America. That being the case, the South was wrong about slavery, but it was right about secession, and frequently these issues are conflated in the minds of modern Americans.

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Curtailing Mass Murder

Once again we are faced with another tragic school shooting and once again many people beat their drums for gun control. Yet, is gun control the solution to our nation’s recent epidemic of mass shootings? Asked in this way, the answer is obviously yes, because other than firearms, there is nearly no other object that people use to lethally “shoot” another person. But such a question is equivalent to, “Have you stopped beating your spouse?”

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The Lost Eastern Christian Empire

Theotokas Western Christian orthodoxy, in which American culture is rooted, came out of the dispute with the eastern Christian Church. There was a time when Christianity was the predominant faith throughout what is now known as the Middle East and it reached all the way to modern China. The eastern Christian empire, however, did not hold to the same beliefs as the western one. Today, except for a few pockets of Christians in what is now an Islamic dominated region, Christianity in that area has all but disappeared. The eastern Christian empire and their different understanding of the nature of Christ are vital, not only to the story of Christianity, but to the understanding of American culture and reasonable expectations concerning the future of our nation given its present political course.

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The Forgotten Founding Father

In a nation that appears to be doing everything possible to expunge the remnants of its Christian foundation and heritage, it is no wonder that John Calvin has been forgotten as the virtual founder of our nation. John Adams, America’s second President; Leopold von Ranke, a nineteenth century leading German historian; and George Bancroft, a Harvard educated historian known as the “father of American history”, all testified to the significant influence Calvin had upon the foundation of America.

Unlike Locke or Montesquieu, Calvin did not write a political treatise on how to organize civil government. Instead, he wrote Biblical expositions that completely changed how people in western culture thought about their relation to God and, subsequently, how they thought about their relation to their civil government.

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Flag of Contention

In the wake of the Charleston, South Carolina Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church shootings on June 18, 2015, Governor Nikki Haley called for the removal of the Confederate Battle Flag from the State capital’s flagpole. Regrettably, even if her call for action is successful, it would do no more to change the reasons behind the hatred that drives one human to kill others than legislation to ban the “N” word would go towards closing the inaccurately named “racial” divide.

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