There’s a song called The Battle Hymn of the Republic that includes a line that reads “Christ died to make men holy; Let us live to make men free.”
Let us live to make men free.
Those words remind me of words written by Whittaker Chambers when he said that “Communists are that part of mankind which has recovered the power to live or die – to bear witness – for its faith.” Later in that same letter, he wrote, “That is why Communism is the central experience of the first half of the 20th century, and may be its final experience – will be, unless the free world, in the agony of its struggle with Communism, overcomes its crisis by discovering, in suffering and pain, a power of faith which will provide man’s mind, at the same intensity, with the same two certainties: a reason to live and a reason to die. If it fails, this will be the century of the great social wars. If it succeeds, this will be the century of the great wars of faith.” (excerpts from a Foreward in the Form of a Letter to My Children, Whittaker Chambers, Witness, 1952, Regnery Publishing).
Those words were written in the turmoil of the mid 20th century. Here we are living in the turmoil of the first quarter of the 21st century and we have, thus far, notably (maybe even with nobility) withstood a deep, treacherous enemy who never sleeps; an enemy that has been working internally and externally to destroy the greatest form of self-government in the history of mankind; that is our magnificent modern American Republic.
That enemy is still called Communism and if it succeeds in the 21st century, that enemy could still completely destroy Western Civilization.
We cannot allow that to happen. Not on our watch; not in our time.
How can we restore our country that was organized to be governed under a constitution based upon Judeo-Christian values of morality, justice for all, and a decent respect for life, liberty and property, when men and women all around us are clamoring to change our form of government?
What would they have it change to? That is the first question that must be answered. We see evidence of what they want in every facet of our society today. Men who want to be women (for some unfathomable reason), women who want to be men (for an equally unfathomable reason), lawlessness, open borders, closed churches, massive transfers of wealth from those who produce to those who do not, a destruction of the meaning of words like right and wrong, the destruction of our election processes, to name a few.
Now ask yourself, are you going to allow this change to continue to happen or is the correction and reestablishment of that sense of moral decency worth living and, yes, dying for? Only you can answer that question and only you will stand before God with that answer on your lips.
Okay, so if each of us, on an individual basis, wants to do what ever we can to restore decency and morality and justice for all in our country, then the second question that must be answered is: Where do we start the process?
Maybe we can, and maybe we should, begin by understanding and then educating others toward an allegiance to the separation of limited delineated authority for the men and women who are elected and appointed to protect and defend that constitution. That is the absolute nature of our American Republic: Constitutionally delineated, structured, systematic and logical separation of limited delineated authority.
But, you say, we have wandered so far from that end that it seems impossible to restore the rule of law or an allegiance to our constitution! That may be so, but we cannot stop trying, because it will always be better to die on your feet as a free individual than to die on your knees before any tyrant of any stripe, color or making.
Extraordinary problems require extraordinary solutions.
If you truly thought that one supreme court decision made a century and a half ago would right the many wrongs that have ensued in that past century and a half, would you take the time to read it, study it, understand it and then use it to restore our Republic? There is evidence that one such legal decision, made in 1886, could do just that, if We the People could force our public functionaries to abide by these justices clear understanding of some of the fundamental definitions of our Republic.
What do I mean by that? My use of the descriptor “public functionaries” comes from the decision made at the US supreme court level that has never been rescinded or revised or challenged. It is called Norton vs Shelby County, Tennessee 118 US 425 and it was decided in 1886.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/118/425
In Norton vs Shelby County, Tennessee, we are informed that the men and women elected and appointed to any and all governmental positions are there solely to perform constitutionally delineated “functions” for the “public” hence they are referred to as public functionaries, no more, no less – clearly defined, limited in scope and limited in authority.
Norton vs Shelby County also clarifies the fact that an unconstitutional act is not a law, and an unconstitutional board or agency or department has no right to force compliance with their mandates, rules, regulations or even suggestions. Bottom line, if it isn’t in the constitution, it isn’t lawful. Which then suggests that the job of our public functionaries isn’t to “represent the people in their district” it is to protect and defend the constitution, at any and all costs – including the faith to live … and to die … for it.
That is the strength of Norton vs Shelby County.
It would behoove us to educate our citizenry (and our public functionaries) on the strength of our own God-given right to leadership that is codified in this beautiful form of self-government. We must understand the foundations of our constitution; and we must force compliance to it to restore the American Republic, if we really do intend to keep it.
