Saturday, February 11, 2006

200 Years Ago - There was a generation of great souls...

There was a generation of great souls, who lived on this continent 200 or so years ago when the thirteen original states were but colonies belonging to England. By today’s standards, they were giants; devout men and women, schooled not just in letters and numbers, but well-versed in the scriptures and in the classics, often translated in their own hand from the original languages.

They were avid students of history, especially the history of governments going back thousands of years. From those studies they had gleaned a healthy fear of the power of government and its propensity to corrupt the nature of fallen men. From their writings, we can see clearly that they recognized that the experiment upon which they were embarking, that of starting a new nation from scratch, based on the principles gleaned by the successes and failures of thousands of years of human experience, was of momentous importance.

Not only were these great men and women endowed with a burning love of liberty, but they were of a breed quite rare today, in that they were willing to sacrifice their property, their lives, and even their sacred honor to establish on this earth a kind of government that had never before existed: a republican form of government, which had as its primary function the preservation for each individual citizen the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The Founders recognized the absolute necessity of morality and religion in maintaining that government; and they recognized the importance of binding that government in the chains of a Constitution to strictly limit its power. And they recognized that the right of a citizen to own and be secure in his property was fundamental to that liberty and thus took steps to insure that government respected that right.

And so it remained for many generations of Americans. Eventually though, Americans took for granted the constitutional protections they had enjoyed since birth. Many never knew that things could be any different than they were here in the land of the free. Tyranny and socialism were only hypothetical concepts. Freedom was something that could not be lost.

The precious became common and was taken entirely for granted. Generations failed to pass on to their children the same values their forefathers had passed on to them.

Maybe we thought the schools would take care of all that instruction for us. After all, they teach civics and history in public schools, don’t they? Sure they do, but probably not the civics of Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and Madison. They also teach history in public schools, but not so that you would recognize it, unless you believe Christopher Columbus was an evil, greedy man and the Founding Fathers all Deists.

Yes, it is a curse of the human condition that we eventually forget and take for granted precious things. But as Moses lays out so clearly in Deuteronomy, there is a price to pay for forgetting. Forgetting is not an excusable sin.

There are consequences to all actions we take and decisions we make.

But our children will not grow into the adults they should be, just because we love them. That love creates an environment in which we can teach and nourish and pass on our values and traditions.

We have failed our children if we have not passed on to them a realistic perspective of government.

We must insure that they know that it is not okay to raid people’s paychecks and steal their property, even if doing so seems to be in the best interest of society.

We must not take it for granted that our children know the importance of spiritual things as well as understand the foundations of traditional morality.

We must insure that they do. These are the core issues facing the future success of our children and our nation - as a whole society - but it is clearly at stake.


Can we make this a priorty in their lives - as law abiding citizens and parents?

For my part - I hope to do so - and hope there are many 1000's of others vitisting my site and blog - you will and do as well and have been commenting on them - honestly.

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Thank you - everyone - for listening and helping my Son and I stay connected and in sharing the sacrifices needed to achieve a certain positive level of success -in the past - and a continued hope for a future based on what our founders truly beleived when our constitution and declarations of independence were written.
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There are things we can do to remember. Every once in a while I pull out a videotape of my kids when they were little. I watch them opening their presents on Christmas morning, wearing those little pajamas with the padded feet. I watch their little, barely awake faces light up. I listen to their bubbling laughter and hear again those sweet little voices I almost had forgotten - they had.

Then, when I have turned off the video, I go to their bedrooms and see them as they are now, looking half grown-up and dealing with the pressures and demands of school work, peer pressure and hormone changes. Leaning over them, I forget the argument we had this morning over the music I won’t let them listen to, and I put my arms around them and hug and kiss them and tell them how much I love them; lest they forget; lest we forget - and know we never ever should let them.

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Stephen Rene
www.ParentsWhoCare.us
www.eBusinessProfessionals.us
Together We Are Changing Lives for the Better Everyday!
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