“Observations”©

by: Donald S. Conkey

Date: December 11, 2008 - # 8850b - December 15, 1791 - Bill of Rights (820)

How many Tribune readers remember the significance of December 15? It is a day every American should remember, and celebrate, but few do. It was 217 years ago on December 15, 1791 that the first 10 Amendments, America’s Bill of Rights, were ratified and became a written part of America’s new Constitution.

       The Colonists had fought a long Revolutionary War for these “unalienable rights,” rights endowed to all mankind by their Creator, as Jefferson said in the Declaration of Independence, and three strong men insisted that they be a written part of their Constitution.  These three men were Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts and George Mason and Governor Edmund Randolph of Virginia. These men were vital to what we Americans now cherish.

       These 10 Amendments were uniquely American. No other nation had ever proposed such unique protections for the individual, or group of individuals in their governments. And the United States is what it is today because of these ten unique amendments added to the Constitution on December 15, 1791.

       Unfortunately, however, there are those Americans today who would do away with these guaranteed ‘unalienable rights.’ Today the Madelyn Murray’s and others, often only one, but always a small minority, who share her secular views have successfully used the courts to gut the Founders intent when they installed these rights into the Constitution. I think Murray’s efforts to have the Bible declared null and void in America was far more successful then even she dared dream. And there is a continuous onslaught to declare the second amendment equally null and void. And while neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution, as amended, ever defines marriage as between one man and one woman, this definition was, and still is the “accepted norm” of America’s “Christian culture.” However in recent years those that advocate different forms of marriage began to use America’s founding documents, like Hitler, in a way never dreamed of by the Founding Fathers. These minority groups have been successful because the majority, often a high majority, has ignored their responsibility to become informed and involved in their government “of the people” until it is too late.  

Jefferson anticipated this inattention to one’s government when he wrote these words into the Declaration of Independence: “... and accordingly all experience has shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed….”  The next four years will tell us whether Jefferson was speaking of this generation.

Will and Ariel Durant in their eleven volume “The Story of Civilization” set pointed out nation after nation fell, and the people suffered greatly when the few were successful in taking over the government by using their constitution to gain power, then subdue the people through fear and intimidation (political correctness) into silence.

In 1933 Hitler gained control of Germany through the election process. His storm troopers intimidated the people, came close to destroying all Jewish citizens, and by May 1945 had succeeded in destroying Germany, leaving the German people totally devastated. Japan and Italy, and later Russia fell the same way. Their people were afraid to speak up against their dictators. And it happened again in Iraq with Saddam Hussein. Could it happen here in America? Have the federal courts, by ignoring the principles established by the Founders, put their stamp of approval on this madness. No nation has ever survived after taking the “laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” out of their Government, and then, with secular laws subdue the people through fear into submission, a fear that seems to be spreading throughout America today.

Jefferson also wrote in the Declaration of Independence “that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights ...” Note Jefferson’s emphasis on the word Creator. He capitalized it. Was Jefferson being insensitive? In today’s world Jefferson would be “politically incorrect” and threatened into silence with a lawsuit. Jefferson knew, as do 90 percent of all Americans, that American rights were, and are dependent upon the mercy of the “laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” – Jefferson’s “Creator.”

While America may not have a Mason, Gerry or Randolph today America’s churches are still willing to stand up and say enough is enough. Fortunately some of America’s churches stood against great odds to pass Proposition 8 in California in November. We also saw how their opponents reacted in attacking them for taking this stand – total intolerance of other points of view. Today it looks like our churches, if and when united, will be the only group strong enough to say enough is enough and begin restructuring America from its current secular trend and return it to its original foundation based on those principles of liberty embedded in America’s three foundational documents – those principles enshrined in America’s Bill of Rights – adopted 217 years ago next Sunday.