On my other blog page, The OYL, I posted TRUTH: Welfare Destroys The Human Spirit. Now I’d like to explain one way we could actually solve the issue presented by this video:

We start by assuming we live in a society that has constructed a social safety net similar to the one I described in APPLIED NATURAL LAW: A Natural Law Approach To Welfare.  We then assume that the mother in this video has exhausted her lifetime limit for government assistance.  What we tell the mother is simple: tough.  You will have to fend for yourself.  However, we still have the problem of what to do for these fifteen children.  Here is one possible solution that fits within the frame work of Natural Law and our social safety net.

We start by offering the mother choices.  First, she can provide for her children on her own and/or through whatever individual charity she may be able to find.  If she chooses this option, we make it known we will check on the children to make sure they are receiving the proper care – with proper care being defined as the same minimum necessities for life described in our safety net.

We would also offer the mother the second option of surrendering her children to the State.  If she chooses this option, she will not get her children back unless and until she can demonstrate she can provide for them above and beyond the minimum necessities and with the reasonable expectation that she will be able to sustain such care.  If she accepts the State’s offer to care for her children, she then has to make one of two other choices.

Since she has proven she has no concern for the effect of her actions on society, she can either chose voluntary sterilization, or incarceration until she enters menopause.  This way, society exercises its right of self defense without unjustly forcing its will on the mother.  She has a choice here.  If she wishes to remain free, she must demonstrate her willingness not to add to the burden she has already placed on society by voluntarily undergoing sterilization.  However, if she does not wish to do so, then society has every right to jail her until such time where she can no longer have children.  Keep in mind: this woman brought this on herself by first violating the social contract, which contains an inherent duty to keep one’s self from becoming a burned on society.

As for the children, if the State accepts them into its care, it does so until they reach legal age.  It becomes responsible for minimum care and education, as well as reasonable assistance in placing each child in gainful employment upon reaching the age of maturity.  In addition, upon reaching the age of maturity, each child will then become eligible to start drawing from their lifetime total government assistance.

And this is one possible way society could deal with the situation in the above video while keeping within the boundaries of Natural law.

On my other blog page, The OYL, I posted TRUTH: Welfare Destroys The Human Spirit. Now I’d like to explain one way we could actually solve the issue I address in that post that would be in keeping with the principles of Natural Law.

We start by remembering: Natural Law is derived from the assumption that we are all created in the image of God, and therefore, we have equal worth in God’s eyes.  And, if we have equal worth in God’s eyes, we should have equal worth in each other’s eyes.  Furthermore, we should want to refrain from exploiting, manipulating or coercing each other.  This means, if we are going to design a social safety net, it should be designed to actually help someone learn to take care of themselves and their family.  This excludes the possibility of using the system to keep them dependent and doing your will to obtain the sustenance necessary to their survival – the way our current system is designed.

So, we start by not looking down on those who find themselves in need of help.  We must extend true compassion and empathy.  But for the grace of God, it could well be us in their position – and it someday may well be.  This means we deal with our own heart first, and, in doing so, we ask ourselves what we we would need should we actually find ourselves in such a position.  This is the golden rule in practice.

First, we are asking others for help, so we have a duty to ask only for that which we truly need to survive.  To ask for comfort items is to impose and to defile the act of charity being afforded us.  What we need to survive is food, clothing, shelter and basic health and hygiene items.  Then, to become self-sufficient, we may need assistance finding a job and, possibly, training or re-training for a job.  To ask anything more than this is to place a demand on others which we have no right to make.

So, this establishes what a real social safety net should provide: food, clothing, shelter, minimal health care and hygiene products and assistance finding and/or training for a job.  Now, if we are going to offer such assistance, we need to do so with no string attached.  If we are helping a family unit and the father is not working, then that is between him and the Lord.  So long as the mother is trying to provide, we help the whole family.  In addition, should a person or family find work that is not quite enough to provide, we do not cut back or end our assistance.  This is counterproductive as it discourages savings and investment as well as continued effort to get ahead. And, if the person is not working and asks for public assistance, then they should be required to work in and for the community while they are drawing that assistance.  This way, they can keep their dignity.  It will also make it clear that the able bodied must work, whether they receive assistance or not. However, this will lead to the necessity for limitations on public assistance.

If we agree to a social safety net, we set a fixed number of years that a person may receive help from the public in their entire lifetime.  When those years are exhausted, that is the end of their eligibility.  The idea is to provide a safety net; not to provide for a way of life or to create a permanent public burden.  So, if a person applies for public assistance, then we give it to them for whatever period they request up to their lifetime limit.  We do not place any restrictions on how much they can earn or even how they use that assistance.  At the same time, we offer help in learning how to manage money and how to live a lifestyle less susceptible to persistent poverty.  And we encourage a person to get involved with a church or social group that helps them to understand the dignity and self-respect that comes with being personally responsible and self-sufficient.

This is the extent that any free and self-governing society can be bound to provide for others.  Anything more than this is not charity; it is government imposed theft of one person’s property for the benefit of another.  As I have described it, a society can agree to the terms on the social safety net as it is equally available to every member, rich or poor.  Furthermore, it covers only those things necessary to sustain life, and even then, only for a set number of total years in each lifetime.  When that time is exhausted, no matter how desperate, a person would be refused public assistance.  This is the natural inhibitor to using your allotment: you never know whether or not you may actually need it in the future, so you should be very cautious about using it only in time of actual need.

I’m sure there are many more, but this is one way the social safety net could be designed to function in a truly caring society that tries to operate by the principles of Natural Law.

The following story illustrates the erosion in our society’s understanding of the difference between Natural and Human Rights:

This Obama Nominee Questioned If the Constitution Even Matters

“We can pat ourselves on the back about the past 223 years, but we cannot let the Constitution become an obstacle to the U.S.’s moving into the future with a sensible health care system, a globalized economy, an evolving sense of civil and political rights,” Stengel wrote.

Stengel went on to write, “The Constitution does not protect our spirit of liberty; our spirit of liberty protects the Constitution. The Constitution serves the nation; the nation does not serve the Constitution.”

I wish I could write that I believe Stengel does not understand the difference between the notion of Natural Rights upon which our Constitution was founded and the notion of Human Rights to which he desires to change our system – but I can’t.  The man does know the difference, and it turns everything he writes about our Constitution into a study on political deception.  Human Rights are not the same as Natural Rights.  The first is a natural enemy of the latter.

The first point is this: the Constitution was written to protect the people from government tyranny.  The founders were very clear about this.  They stated that they expected our government to become what it has become, and that the Constitution was constructed in such a manner as to delay the inevitable for as long as possible.  When they did so, they had men such as Stengel in mind.  Therefore, it is not the people who protect the Constitution as Stengel claims, but the Constitution which protects the people from their government – exactly as the framers said.

Which leads us to the next point: the spirit of liberty can be found only in our framers’ understanding of Natural Rights and Natural Law.  It is not and will never be found in the system of Human Rights Stengel advocates.  This point was never more clearly illustrated than in the difference between the Declaration of Independence and American Revolution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the French Revolution.  It was the difference between these two understandings of liberty that prevented our founders from sending children to the guillotine, but not so much the French.

The distinction here is important because the Constitution was designed to protect and preserve the liberty of a moral people.  Again, this is not my opinion, but the clear assertion of the men who framed our Constitution.  But we are no longer such a people.  If we were, we would reject the claim that health care is a Natural Right.  It is not.  Nor does a globalized economic system have anything to do with protecting the Natural Rights of this nation’s citizens.  In fact, the goals are actually at odds with one another: a free and self-governing people cannot remain so if bound by treaty to other nations whose government is founded on a system of Human Rights because Human Rights are based on human law and not Natural Law.  They are natural enemies of one and other.  This is clearly asserted by Stengel when he says we have an “evolving sense of civil and political rights.”  What this man means is we are succumbing to those who wish to dominate and control, not to the preservation of individual rights and liberty.

Our founders asserted that the Natural Rights of man are fixed, not “evolving.”  Those who argue otherwise are betraying an ulterior motive.  Though their words may sound as though they support individual rights and liberty, the truth is they are advocating slavery.  Their deception lies in the fact that what they promise cannot be delivered without first forcing others to act against their will.  Health care cannot be made a right unless others are forced to work to give it to you.  That is the antithesis of liberty.  Civil and political rights are equally deceptive terms.  They mean special rights, which means preferential treatment by the government.  This is a clear violation of the spirit of our own Constitution and of the American Revolution.  Again, it is the antithesis of individual liberty, but it is the sibling of Communism, Fascism and every other corrupt form of dictatorship ever known to man.

This brings us to the last point I wish to make about this story.  If this man is confirmed, after he has clearly expressed a disdain for the Constitution, it will confirm that this disdain is shared by the members of the Senate who vote to confirm him.  Our founders said that a system of oaths is essential to holding people to account.  They said this system of oaths rested upon the sincere belief by the person taking the oath in a Creator and in judgment day.  The founders said that, without such a system, we would eventually end up with people who do not think twice about lying when they take their oath of office, and that such people would eventually force the people to chose between slavery or fighting another revolution – this time against their own government.  Dear reader, I submit that that moment is now at hand.

Natural Law does not depend on the will of the majority.  It exists independent of the opinion of the masses.  In fact, the majority opinion is quite often opposed to the dictates of Natural Law.  Our founders understood this.  It is why they rejected the notion of a democracy and chose instead to create a republican form of government, where the rule of law could be relied upon to preserve individual rights and liberty:

“Democracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy; such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man’s life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit, and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable [abominable] cruelty of one or a very few.”

–John Adams

Our founders realized that democracy is a natural enemy of Natural Law and, had they created a democracy, they would be subjecting future generations to the inevitable tyranny of the majority.  However, if it is designed to protect and preserve Natural Rights, the rule of law – represented by a republican form of government – is the natural ally of Natural Law.  It can protect and preserve individual rights and liberty independently of any democratic participation from the people.  In fact, had they chosen to do so, our founders could have just as easily designed our Constitution without any direct input from the people and it would have functioned just as well as it ever has – possibly even better.

If you will read the text of the Constitution, you will find it only requires a vote for two Constitutional offices: that of the President and Vice President.  It does not require that State Senators and Representatives be elected by majority vote of the people of their States.  It does direct that the manner of selecting these positions be left to the people of the States and their State governments, but it does not require they be elected.  They could just as easily be appointed by some other means to which the people of a given State agree.  The same applies to the Electors who actually vote for the President.  The Electors can also be appointed by the States.  In truth, the founders mandated only one vote in the entire Constitution: that for President.

If the truth be told, so long as the people of the States so desired, our republic could actually function by drawing lots to fill the various Constitutional positions.  Rather than elections, every so many years, as dictated by the Constitution, instead of elections, we could hold a draft.  If your number is drawn, you leave your life to go serve your State or Country for whatever period of time is defined, then you return home and the next person is drafted to take your place.  This would have the added benefit of providing a real incentive to properly educating our children while – at the same time e—taking money out of politics.  In fact, it would even end partisan politics and return the governance of this nation to something more in line with what our founders originally envisioned.

So, what does this mean?  It means that the Constitution can function properly without a single American citizen ever voting for any Constitutional office.  What’s more, we might not even notice a difference.  The Federal government would run exactly the same (or better) as it does today.  The rule of law would operate exactly the same as our founders intended it to function.  Individual rights and liberty would be as protected without a vote as they are with it – possibly even more so.  Most likely, we wouldn’t even have as much trouble with corruption in government as we have today.  Thus, we can conclude that democracy is not an essential element to the preservation of individual rights and liberty.

This leaves us with this question:  if it is a known enemy of Natural Law (and it is), then why do so many people push so hard to establish a link between democracy and liberty?  The answer to that question is simple: in a democracy, the ‘will’ of the people can be bought with their own money:

“When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”

–Benjamin Franklin

The Constitution Cannot Be Amended By Changing The Meaning Of Words

The Constitution of the United States defines two methods by which it can be changed: by Amendment and by Constitutional Convention.  In both cases, two thirds of the States must accept the changes in order for them to be ratified and become a permanent part of our Constitution.  Any attempt to change the Constitution outside of these two methods is – by definition – unconstitutional.  This means it is not law and the people have no moral obligation to hold themselves bound by the change.  In fact, an attempt to alter or change the Constitution by any means other than the amendment or convention process constitutes subversion, which every citizen has a moral obligation to resist.  This applies to Congress’ latest attempt to nullify the 1^st Amendment:

Bill to protect journalists clears Senate panel

The Senate Judiciary Committee approves a media shield bill to keep ‘real reporters’ from having to testify on their work.

On the surface, this story makes it sound as though Congress is trying to protect the 1^st Amendment, but, as with so many things in Washington, the reality is just the opposite.  This story is about Congress establishing control over the 1^st Amendment by giving itself the power to define the meaning of words:

Senate Amendment Would Give DOJ Power to Determine Who Is a ‘Journalist’

The 1^st Amendment reads:

Amendment I

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 to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

But notice: these stories are about a bill addressing journalism, not the press.  This is the first deliberate attempt at deception.  It provides Congress with a false defense.  They will claim they did not write a law concerning the press, therefore, they did not violate the 1^st Amendment.  But they cannot get away with this if we know the truth behind the words of the 1^st Amendment.  The definition of press reads as follows:

Definition of PRESS

b :  the act or the process of printing

c :  a printing or publishing establishment

7a :  the gathering and publishing or broadcasting of news :  journalism

b :  newspapers, periodicals, and often radio and television news broadcasting

c :  news reporters, publishers, and broadcasters

d :  comment or notice in newspapers and periodicals <is getting a good press>

Notice, journalism is only one aspect of the definition of ‘press.’  Now, in our founders’ time, this was not the definition they used.  Thomas Paine, the man who wrote “Common Sense” and several other pamphlets responsible for helping to launch the American Revolution, was not a journalist: he was a pamphleteer, a commentator, and opinion man.  In other words, he was the equivalent of a Revolutionary-age blogger.  This is what our founder’s meant when they said Congress has no authority over the press.

But there’s more.  Notice these words in the 1^st Amendment:

 “…or abridging the freedom of speech,…”

This is a guarantee to every individual, and it is yet another place where Congress and the courts have altered the Constitution without amending it or going through the convention process.  The right to free speech never extended to the right to say whatever we feel like, and it definitely did not extend to actions.  Actions are not speech, but we have given them the equivalent of speech under our laws.  This is a bastardization of the law.  What our founders intended to protect was political speech; the ability to object to our government and to the policies of those in government without fear of reprisal from that government.  This is exactly what the ‘Journalism Shield’ law is all about: a reprisal against those who are objecting to those in power.

Under this new law, only the people our government decides it will recognize as journalists will be afforded their Constitutional protections.  Anyone outside the government definition of journalist will be subject to differential treatment under the law – another violation of the Constitution (this time, the 14^th Amendment).  By any objective standard, this is a clear act of subversion: it is the deceitful dismantling of our 1^st Amendment protections.  Simply stated, this is an act of tyranny.

Before leaving this subject, let’s remind ourselves that this is how slavery was justified and the Holocaust, too: by re-defining who is and who is not human.  If they can do that to human beings simply by changing the definition of words, then what is to stop them from doing whatever they wish – except opposition from you and I?