Observations©

By Donald S. Conkey

Date: July 16, 2009 - # 9929 - Title:  Will America ever become the Founder’s ‘City on the Hill’ (825)

For me one of the great biblical stories is the one Moses tells about the ancient City of Enoch that existed for 365 years before being ‘taken up,’ a city so righteous that God ‘came down’ and walked amongst its people. This story is a pattern of righteous government that all freedom loving people relate to because it provides hope to the hopeless today just as America has provided hope to the hopeless for over 200 years. Enoch’s story was likely understood by America’s Founding Fathers as they struggled 222 years ago to create a document for governing patterned after the City of Enoch – a government so righteous that God would feel comfortable in ‘coming down’ and walking amongst its people.

            But something went wrong with the Founder’s dream of building their ‘city on the hill.’ We know the Founder’s newly created Constitution was patterned after Enoch’s government because Jefferson declared “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” to be America’s ‘cornerstone of liberty’ in his Declaration of Independence. The Founders, like Enoch, were testifying against the ‘works of their then world’ and calling the world to repentance. But those they were testifying against, the tyrants, the greedy, the evil men and women of the world, were ‘offended’ and vowed revenge.

            After a strong beginning that lasted through the Andrew Jackson administration those ‘offended’ began to exert greater influence. Instead of providing freedom and liberty to ‘all people,’ as the Founders had agreed (compromised) to do by 1808, the issue of slavery raised its ugly head again during the Martin Van Buren administration and it has been a divisive issue in almost every administration since, especially in the administrations that followed Lincoln after he issued his Emancipation Proclamation. And the major issues facing America today are a direct result of those adverse governmental actions beginning in 1837.

            While Americans are still the envy of all those that still live under Rulers-Law, Americans have never fully attained the potential liberties promised by the founder’s foundational documents. And, unless another Enoch comes along and restores America’s founding principles, America is not likely to become that ‘city on the hill,’ or that ‘City of Enoch’ the Founders dreamed of.

            A neighbor recently let his home termite protection lapse. He paid a price – a heavy price. Termites moved in and began eating away at his home and before he noticed the very foundation of his home was threatened. So too with our government! The rise of the Tea Party movement, like Enoch of old, is warning us that ‘the anti-liberty termites’ are at work in Washington and unless “we the people,” rise up, as are the Tea Party members, those anti-liberty termites eating away at those foundational principles ,established by the Founders, our personal liberties as we have known them will likely be destroyed.

            No one, including governments, can ignore “the Laws of Nature” and survive. We see these laws in action with the current wave of home foreclosures. And if the new administration, including Congress, thinks they can ignore these basic laws of nature they are badly mistaken – and this includes local city, county and state governments (California ignored these laws of nature and went broke). Living beyond their means has destroyed many governments, and living beyond our means will destroy this country unless it changes direction soon. When government goes beyond the three basic functions of government – “to secure to each individual the free exercise of conscience , the right and control of property, and the protection of life” – it begins to allow the “anti-liberty termites’ to begin eating away liberty’s very foundation.

            The new administration, like Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, proposed massive new legislation and demanded it be passed quickly, often without reading or debate. And without the usual checks and balances functioning, this administration, with the House of Representatives leading the way, has been able to do as it pleases. Examples include the Stimulus, Cap and Trade and the Health-Care pre-packaged legislation that no legislator can possibly read or understand. This is a form of Rulers-Law in action.

            While pondering these issues I remembered that 222 years ago 55 men sat in a closed, non-air-conditioned room and “debated and compromised” for nearly four months before agreeing to a document “so unique that it baffled dictators, so strong that it bound together warring factions, so timely that it protected individual rights, so weak that it protected the privacy of individuals from unwarranted intrusion, so enlightening that it freed millions from tyrants, and gave hope to the hopeless worldwide”  and allowed all Americans to “secure the Blessing of Liberty” for themselves and their posterity.

            Are there 55 individuals in America today capable of establishing that ‘City on the Hill’ the Founder’s dreamed of 222 years ago, that City where God would be willing to ‘come down and walk amongst us?’ Fifty-five such people of equal character may be hard to find!