The current Tea Partiers are composed of Independents, Objectivists, Libertarians, Republicans, Conservatives, and Jeffersonians. Their professed fundamental principle is freedom, but they differ in essential concretes. They differ because some hold contradictions to the principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence: Individualism, the principle of Individual Rights, and that the sole proper function of government is to secure these rights, i.e. police force, courts of justice, and the military.
Its author, Thomas Jefferson, held: "I tolerate with the utmost latitude the right of others to differ from me in opinion without imputing to them criminality."
Jefferson stated the difference between Individualists and well-meaning socialists: "We both consider the people as our children, and love them with parental affection. But you love them as infants whom you are afraid to trust without nurses; and I as adults whom I freely leave to self-government." Socialism is babysitting adults by force.
Jefferson abolished ALL excise taxes including the whiskey tax in the first year of his first presidency. In 1913, the Republicans helped institute taxation-slavery. The Americans of 1913 consented to becoming slaves, spurning George Washington’s words: “The Parliament of Great Britain hath no more right to put their hands into my pocket, without my consent, than I have to put my hands into yours for money.”
The Republicans of 1913 helped legalized extortion and trampled on the first principle of association: "To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father’s has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association -- the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it." – Thomas Jefferson
Earlier, in 1890, the Republicans instituted dictatorship, passing the Sherman Act, the antitrust law. The Republicans defied definitions and logic, dictating that FREE competition must be ENFORCED.
Forgotten are these Jefferson words: "Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual."
Citizens who embrace individual liberty formed the Libertarian Party, but its founding principle is anarchism. Its members spurn these words of the author of the Declaration: "[The] voluntary support of laws, formed by persons of their own choice, distinguishes peculiarly the minds capable of self-government. The contrary spirit is anarchy, which of necessity produces despotism."
Ayn Rand created Objectivism whose ultimate goal is capitalism. She revered the Founders. She was an atheist but said, “THERE ARE RATIONAL RELIGIOUS PEOPLE. If you want to be a full Objectivist, you cannot reconcile that with religion; BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN RELIGIOUS PEOPLE CANNOT BE INDIVIDUALISTS AND FIGHT FOR FREEDOM. THEY CAN, AND THIS COUNTRY IS THE BEST PROOF OF IT....” But, there are self-described Objectivists on Facebook who are fighting, not for capitalism, but for atheism.
Ayn Rand said, "We should keep religion out of politics for the same reasons the Founding Fathers gave. Religion is a private matter... With the American separation of church and state, all religions could live together peacefully, because each man is free to hold his own beliefs but cannot force them on others.
Persuasion, reason, argument are not the province of religion. Religion rests on faith - on an acceptance of certain beliefs apart from reason. THIS IS WHY IT MUST BE PRIVATE. WHEN IT'S A PRIVATE MATTER, IT'S FINE - IT CAN EVEN BE A KIND OF INSPIRATION TO PEOPLE. Faith is what each man may choose for himself, if he wishes. I don't."
The Conservative Party spurns Ayn Rand and Thomas Jefferson, especially these words: "...Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State..."
Ayn Rand described the Conservative Party as “not an American political party, but a religious party – A PHENOMENON FORBIDDEN BY THE CONSTITUTION.” She further said: “the Conservative Party… subordinates reason to faith, and substitutes theocracy for capitalism…”
The Conservative Party is backed by Pope Benedict XVI’s Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth - 2009) and Pope Paul’s Populorum Progressio (On the Development of Peoples - 1967). These encyclicals blame the PROFIT motive for all the world’s problems, and call for a worldwide REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH by a world government as the solution.
Ayn Rand further said: Pope Paul’s Populorum Progressio declares that capitalism is worse than Marxism and that the only morality is altruism (self-sacrifice). She explained: “Sacrifice” does not mean the rejection of the worthless, but of the precious. “Sacrifice” does not mean the rejection of the evil for the sake of the good, but of the good for the sake of the evil. “Sacrifice” is the surrender of that which you value in favor of that which you don’t.
Tea Partiers must resolve good-versus-evil differences. We can do so by using reason and science.
“Shake off all the fears and servile prejudices under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear." – Thomas JeffersonThe opponents of abortion hold it is EVIL while I think their arguments are not science-based, thus reek of the Dark Ages persuasion. This is an EVIL-versus-DARK-AGES difference that must be resolved by science. Heed Thomas Jefferson: "It is an insult to our citizens to question whether they are rational beings or not, and blasphemy against religion to suppose it cannot stand the test of truth and reason." (related article)
'Whereas Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose... not to propagate it by coercions on either, as it was in his Almighty power to do.... our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry.....' – Thomas Jefferson
We have spent the prime of our lives in procuring (young men) the precious blessing of liberty. Let them spend theirs in shewing that it is the great parent of science and of virtue; and that a nation will be great in both, always in proportion as it is free." – Thomas Jefferson
"We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this land the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition, and that every person may here worship God according to the dictates of his own heart. In this enlightened age and in this land of equal liberty, it is our boast that a man's religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the highest offices that are known in the United States." -- George Washington
There is nothing which can better deserve our patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public happiness. -- George Washington
Tea Partiers: let us be guided by the Declaration of Independence.
Ayn Rand worshipped: "If it is ever proper for men to kneel, we should kneel when we read the Declaration of Independence… probably the greatest document in human history, both philosophically and literarily."
Abe Lincoln extolled: "THE PRINCIPLES OF JEFFERSON ARE THE DEFINITIONS AND AXIOMS OF FREE SOCIETY… ALL HONOR TO JEFFERSON - to the man, who in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and sagacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so embalm it there that to-day and in all coming days it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of reappearing tyranny and oppression.”
Let us ponder the founding principles, sharpen our minds, and search our souls. Let us Pay the Freedom-Debt Forward.
5 comments:
I think you would enjoy the discussions that we have at http://www.americancreation.blogspot.com/
As for your thoughts here, I agree with much of what you stated but think you miss that a lot of the founders where much more conservative and religious than Jefferson or even Washington you quote.
This "Tea Party" thing is for real(I was totally cynical) but it is self satisfied will shallow understandings about what ideas went into the DOI and Constitution and where they came from.
Most would be shocked that the words of Jefferson and company in the DOI match almost word for word those of Bellarmine and Aquinas on this topic.
Please post the words of Bellarmine and Aquinas on this topic.
The Tea Party is about politics, where how man should treat other men is determined. Politics, the fourth branch of philosophy, defines the principles of a proper social system.
Religion is a PERSONAL matter. Politics should be free of religion. Otherwise, the social system is a theocracy.
This is from Jefferson's draft:
"We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable;
That all men are created equal & independent,
That from that equal creation
They derive rights inherent & inalienable,
Among which are the preservation of
Life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness;
That to secure these ends,
Governments are instituted among men,
Deriving their just powers
From the consent of the governed..."
"The conservative does not object to coercion or arbitrary power so long as it is used for what he regards as the right purposes. Like the socialist, he is less concerned w/ the problem of how the powers of gov't shd be limited than w/ that of who wields them; &, like the socialist, he regards himself as entitled to force the value he holds on other people." - Hayek
The advocacy or sanction of coercion is the mark of evil. - Royal Serf
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