The Heaven-Rescued Land Celebrates Another Birthday

I’m going to put off doing the annual SCOTUS session wrap up for a few more days to honor our country for the 249^th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

It’s nice to have a celebratory holiday in the middle of summer, with fireworks to end a day of sunshine, barbecues, and watermelon. But somewhere in the celebration we ought to take a solemn pause, and think about what it means.

We declared independence—from a tyrannical government. The British later became our friends, but it was a painful breakup there for a while.

We began an experiment in self-government—still underway

 

Read the full article on Substack, here.

One Nation Under God

I was in the middle of writing something education related; it will have to wait until I gather another couple of details. And I’m anxious to write about the Supreme Court rulings; ‘tis the season. Maybe next week.

For now, I’m just trying to celebrate our country’s birthday, this coming Tuesday. Most nations don’t have birthdays to speak of. Most nations are based on land, heritage, or result of war—either separating them as conqueror or bringing them in as conquered.

A 4th of July teaching moment, enough years
ago that my granddaughter isn't little anymore.

But our nation was founded on the idea that we are all created equal, not with some created rulers and others created to be ruled. We were all endowed by our creator "with certain unalienable Rights; among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

All of these come down to life. It is ours, our gift from God. If someone takes our liberty, they are taking our life for their purposes, not ours. If someone tries to control how we live our lives—how we pursue happiness—that is usurping control over our lives. And that is wrong.

We are free to choose how to live our lives—and in the end we offer up the result of those choices, like in the parable of the talents, when the ruler (God) comes for a reckoning, and the good and faithful servants offer the doubling of the good they were given. They made something of their lives, offering Him the result.

Our nation is founded on that idea. It requires a connection to God. Unbelievers may live here among us, but they must not be allowed to take away our founding idea, or they are taking away our very nation—along with the life, liberty, and fruits of our living that the government was established to protect and defend.

Our government hasn’t done so well, these 247 years in—that’s since the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, so, our birthday; it was 1787, 236 years ago, that the Constitution was written, and a year later ratified.

Maybe we need to take some time, with family or by ourselves, to reverence these founding documents.

Abraham Lincoln, in a note to himself[i], used the image of a golden apple in a silver frame. The golden apple is the Declaration of Independence—the declaration of our right to rule ourselves, because God has made us all equal before the law. This golden apple is framed by the Constitution—the purposes of government, to protect the life, liberty, and property of the citizens. This image works to illustrate the close connection between these two documents.

image from The Ashbrook Center article Lincoln's Apple of Gold

You might want to take time this weekend to read the Declaration of Independence—even with all the grievances; it takes five or ten minutes. It takes a bit longer to go through the Constitution, although it’s certainly readable in less than an hour, amendments and all.

Maybe it’s time to read The Federalist Papers once again as well. And while you’re at it, take a look at the Anti-Federalist Papers; those were the warning voices saying, “Don’t give that much power to a central government; it will go wrong.” They are probably saying “I told you so about now.” Although I still think we had to try the experiment. It isn’t that our Constitution wasn’t the right balance of centralized and localized power; that balance is spelled out quite clearly. It is that the Constitution has been ignored, twisted to mean something altogether other, and even denigrated as archaic or never good to begin with. And who says those things about it? People who want to control other people, petty tyrants all.

So the prevention is for a critical mass to understand, to know inside and out, the discussions our founders had in freeing us from tyranny and setting the stage for the rest of the world to try self rule.

It is likely that the founders of this nation were the best assemblage of men ever to attempt to write a government document.

A friend passed along to me a talk by Ezra Taft Benson, from 1987. I’ve heard it multiple times; I heard it live. (He was the prophet and president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints during my young adult years. He was also at one time the US Secretary of Agriculture. Not to be missed is his address “The Proper Role of Government.”) This talk is called “Our Divine Constitution.”

Ezra Taft Benson, giving the talk "Our Divine Constitution"
screenshot from here

I encourage you to listen to the whole thing. There are just a few parts I want to reference. One is a reminder of what some of the signers of our Declaration of Independence sacrificed:

This Declaration was a promise that would demand terrible sacrifice on the part of its signers. Five of the signers were captured as traitors and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons in the Revolutionary War; another had two sons captured. Nine died from wounds or from the hardships of the war.

Then he talks about the followup and necessary document—the Constitution:

Between the critical years of 1783 and 1787, an outsider viewing the affairs of the United States would have thought that the thirteen states, different in so many ways, could never effectively unite. The world powers were confident that this nation would not last.

Eventually, twelve of the states met in Philadelphia to address the problem.

It took four months—summer months, inside, before air conditioning. That wasn’t quite the sacrifice of war, but it must have stretched patience pretty thin. As William Gladstone said, the Constitution was “the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man.”[ii]

Ezra Taft Benson goes on to talk about the danger our Constitution is in; this was 1987, and it did seem bad then. But now—those concerns are increased a hundred-fold. He says,

How then can we best befriend the Constitution in this critical hour and secure the blessings of liberty and ensure the protection and guidance of our Father in Heaven?

·       First and foremost, we must be righteous….

·       Second, we must learn the principles of the Constitution in the tradition of the Founding Fathers….

·       Third, we must become involved in civic affairs to see that we are properly represented….

·        Fourth, we must make our influence felt by our vote, our letters, our teaching, and our advice.

Ezra Taft Benson mentions a prophecy of Joseph Smith[iii], from July 1840, that there would come a day when the Constitution is in grave danger. But Benson says,

I have faith that the Constitution will be saved as prophesied by Joseph Smith. It will be saved by the righteous citizens of this nation who love and cherish freedom. It will be saved by enlightened members of this Church—among others—men and women who understand and abide the principles of the Constitution.

I reverence the Constitution of the United States as a sacred document. To me its words are akin to the revelations of God, for God has placed His stamp of approval upon it.

Prayers are more urgent this year, as we celebrate our beloved nation’s birthday—with concern and hope that it will not be the last such celebration. May we be the righteous men and women who understand and abide by the principles of the Constitution. May each of us do our part—and, with God’s help, may it be enough.

---

[i] See “Lincoln’s Apple of Gold,” January 25, 2023, on the Ashbrook Institute website. 

[ii] William Gladstone, North American Review, Sept.–Oct. 1878, p. 185.

[iii] Benson gives the whole quote in the talk: “Even this nation will be on the very verge of crumbling to pieces and tumbling to the ground, and when the Constitution is upon the brink of ruin, this people will be the staff upon which the nation shall lean, and they shall bear the Constitution away from the very verge of destruction.” The citation is 19 July 1840, as recorded by Martha Jane Knowlton Coray; ms. in Church Historian’s Office, Salt Lake City.

Founding Wisdom—Part II: George Washington and Others

I heard someone mention this week that the way to get people—mainly young people—to love this country is for them to learn its history. They might have been talking about learning to love the Constitution and Declaration of Independence by studying them. I’m not sure whom to credit now, but it may have been David Barton of Wallbuilders—check out their extraordinary Signers of the Declaration resource page. 

Anyway, with the intention of increasing love for the ideals of this country, I’m continuing the celebration of Independence Day with words from our founders.

I had so many quotes from Thomas Jefferson that I gave him his own day, in the last post. Today will be a few others of the 56 men who signed the Declaration back in 1776, risking their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, plus others who weren’t among those signers, but who nevertheless took those risks for our freedom.

 

George Washington

Washington Praying painting by Arnold Friberg
image from Wikipedia

"I have often expressed my sentiments that every man, conducting himself as a good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience."—George Washington (To the General Committee of the United Baptist Churches in Virginia)

 

The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained.—George Washington (First Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789)

 

Washington's inauguration by Howard Pyle
image found here

"No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency."—George Washington (First Inaugural Address)

 

Your love of liberty, your respect for the laws, your habits of industry, and your practice of moral and religious obligations, are the strongest claims to national and individual happiness.—George Washington

 

“If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”—George Washington

 

 

James Madison

James Madison portrait by John Vanderlyn
image from Wikipedia

"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."—James Madison

 

“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined…[and] will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce.”—James Madison (Federalist 45)

 

“I go on the principle that a public debt is a public curse.”

—James Madison

 

“We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We’ve staked the future of all our political institutions upon our capacity…to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”—James Madison

James Madison engraving by David Edwin
image from Wikipedia

 

“In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”—James Madison (Federalist 51)

 

“If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government that is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”—James Madison (Federalist 51)

 

"An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among the several bodies of magistracy as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others."—James Madison.

 

"It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be tomorrow."—James Madison (Federalist 62)

 

 

John Adams

John Adams portrait by Gilbert Stuart
image from Wikipedia

“The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If ‘Thou shalt not covet’ and ‘Thou shalt not steal’ were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free.”—John Adams (A Defense of the Constitutions of Governments of the United States of America, 1787)

 

I am well aware of the toil, and blood, and treasure, that it will cost us to maintain this Declaration [of Independence], and support and defend these States. Yet, through all the gloom, I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is more than worth all the means, and that posterity will triumph in that day's transaction, even although we should rue it, which I trust in God we shall not."—John Adams, July 3, 1776

 

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.—John Adams (1770, closing argument in defense of a British soldier)

John Adams portrait by John Trumbull
image from Wikipedia

 

"Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it."—John Adams (Thoughts on Government, 1776)

 

“All are subject by nature to equal laws of morality, and in society have a right to equal laws for their government, yet no two men are perfectly equal in person, property, understanding, activity, and virtue, or ever can be made so by any power less than that which created them.”—John Adams (Discourses on Davila—XV, 1776)

 

"You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe."—John Adams

 

In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.—John Adams

 

The Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations... this radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution.—John Adams (John Adams to Hezekiah Niles, Feb. 13, 1818. Cited in The Works of John Adams, vol. 10, p. 282)

 

 

Samuel Adams

Samuel Adams portrait by John Singleton Copley
image from Wikipedia

"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."—Samuel Adams

 

"Here therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man."—Samuel Adams

 

"How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!"—Samuel Adams

 

“All might be free if they valued freedom, and defended it as they should.”―Samuel Adams

 

Freedom of thought and the right of private judgment, in matters of conscience, driven from every other corner of the earth, direct their course to this happy country as their last asylum.—Samuel Adams

 

If ever a time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin.—Samuel Adams

 

 

Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin portrait by Joseph Duplessis
image from Wikipedia

"I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it."—Benjamin Franklin

 

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."—Benjamin Franklin

 

It is a common observation here that our cause is the cause of all mankind, and that we are fighting for their liberty in defending our own.—Benjamin Franklin

 

“We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."—Benjamin Franklin

 

 

Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton miniature attributed
to Charles Shirreff, image from Wikipedia

"For my own part, I sincerely esteem it [the Constitution] a system which without the finger of God, never could have been suggested and agreed upon by such a diversity of interests."—Alexander Hamilton

 

“Here, sir, the people govern.”—Alexander Hamilton

 

"If it be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws—the first growing out of the last.... A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government."—Alexander Hamilton (Essay in the American Daily Advertiser, Aug 28, 1794)

 

 

Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine portrait by Laurent Dabos
image from Wikipedia

"What at first was plunder assumed the softer name of revenue."—Thomas Paine

 

“To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture.”—Thomas Paine (American Crisis)

 

Tyranny like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.—Thomas Paine (The America Crisis)

 

Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.—Thomas Paine (Common Sense)

 

“It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government.”—Thomas Paine

 

All the principles of science are of divine origin. Man cannot make or invent or contrive principles. He can only discover them, and he ought to look through the discovery to the Author.—Thomas Paine

 

 

Benjamin Rush

Dr. Benjamin Rush
image found here

“The only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty.”—Benjamin Rush

 

"Where there is no law, there is no liberty; and nothing deserves the name of law but that which is certain and universal in its operation upon all the members of the community."—Benjamin Rush (1788)

 

“Unless we see medical freedom put into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize an undercover dictatorship. To restrict the art of healing to one class of men, and deny equal privilege to others, will be to constitution the Bastille of medical science. All such laws are un-American and despotic, and have no place in a Republic. The Constitution of this Republic should make special privilege for medical freedom as well as religious freedom.”—Dr. Benjamin Rush, MD (this is a paraphrase of his sentiments, developed after his death in 1813, not an actual quote)

 

When describing 24 “causes which have retarded the progress of our science,” this was number 24:

“Conferring exclusive privileges upon bodies of physicians, and forbidding men of equal talents and knowledge, under severe penalties from practicing medicine within certain districts of cities and countries.

"Such institutions, however sanctioned by ancient charters and names, are the Bastilles of our science.”—Dr. Benjamin Rush

 

 

Patrick Henry portrait by
George Bagby Matthews
image from Wikipedia

Patrick Henry

"Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles." — Patrick Henry

Celebrating Freedom—and Passing It On

This Sunday we celebrate our country’s birthday—our Independence Day. The Declaration of Independence was a piece of parchment. It became a reality through fighting—and winning—a bloody war for independence. That was 245 years ago. And this may be the year we need more reminding than ever about what was on that parchment. 

President Calvin Coolidge
image from Wikipedia

Calvin Coolidge gave a speech in 1926 at the 150-year mark of the Declaration. I shared large parts of that last year for the 4^th of July. I’ll just repeat a paragraph here: 

It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.

We were reminded by Ronald Reagan that what our founders knew, and what our grandparents knew a century ago, is too easily lost: 

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.

This past year has shown how true this is. Our nation has been particularly under assault by those who would rewrite history, to cover up the truths that are self-evident, and replace them with the antiquated miseries of tyranny. They’re trying to distort history, to claim that those things we’ve been told about our founding are all a lie, that the real founding purpose was to establish slavery on this continent.

President Trump, last year, established a commission to stop those lies—such as you read in the New York Times’ 1619 Project. Biden reversed that order on his first day in office. The essence of the lie is that America was essentially founded in 1619, when slaves were first brought to Virginia. And that nothing that comes after this point counts in a positive way, not even abolishing slavery, nor abolishing the Jim Crow laws that followed in some former slave states. Nor did Civil Rights legislation or the easing of racial tensions throughout the country count as progress. According to this theory, everything white people do, or have ever done, is based on that original sin of allowing slavery into this new world—at a time when it was present all over the world and had been through most of human history, including among natives on this continent. This theory says that whites do nothing that isn’t about subjugating other races. And if you say otherwise, you are of course racist.

It's a pernicious ideology. And it ignores all the true history—good and bad—of this nation, and much of the world. It divides by race, and calls whites (or anyone else who is socially and economically successful) white supremacists who ought to be eradicated, or at least subjugated to the races claiming power through victimhood. Hating people because of their skin color is racist. This ideology is pure racism.

This is so ugly that its proponents have gone into schools and separated third graders into oppressors and oppressed—by race. A white child is an oppressor, based solely on skin color or genetic heritage, and should therefore be punished by submitting to oppression by the definitionally oppressed others. I say teaching any child such a thing is abusive.

questions to ask your school board
screenshot from Critical Race Theory video by Christopher Rufo

It’s hard to understand how such a pernicious ideology could succeed in a country so blessed with freedom and opportunity. But people who try to get rid of freedom and set themselves up as rulers are commonplace everywhere.

There’s a moment of the movie in The Avengers in which the villain Loki comes to earth to subjugate the people. He’s a complex character, but he seems to truly believe humans are inferior and should be grateful for his “benevolent” dictatorship. He forces everyone in a crowd to kneel before him. But one man, an older German man, stands up.

scene from The Avengers where Loki forces all to kneel, and one man stands
screenshots from here

Here’s Loki’s speech, followed by that man’s very true words: 

Loki: Is not this simpler? Is this not your natural state? It’s the unspoken truth of humanity that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life’s joy in a mad scramble for power, or identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel.

[man in crowd stands]

Standing Man: Not to men like you.

Loki: There are no men like me.

Standing Man: There are always men like you.

Tyrants think what Loki thinks—that they are special, superior, and entitled to rule. Power mongers like him show up wherever humans are not yet perfect. So, everywhere. There are always people like him.

Loki quickly executes the man—before Captain America stands to take him on and the fight gets interesting. If we can’t be Captain America, we at least need to be the man who stands up and points out that Loki is just one of those we’ve seen so many times before.

There are such people, those willing to stand, regardless of consequences. In many states, legislation is underway to take on these anti-American ideas and the tyrants who attempt to rule over us.

map showing states doing anti-Critical Race Theory legislation,
screenshot from Critical Race Theory video by Christopher Rufo

Texas passed such a law, HB 3979, just a month ago. People think it’s not strong enough, and they may be right; the topic of stopping Critical Race Theory in schools is on the Governor’s agenda again for the special session coming up in a week. As I read the bill, it’s pretty good. One deficiency may be in addressing only social studies curriculum—which allows those concepts to be taught in other subjects. Another is what got added during debates.

The Texas law has essentially two segments: what should be taught, and what should not be taught. What should be taught is mainly about the positive things related to our founding. Included are race-related things in our history, some of which I wonder about, but it emphasizes original source documents, which is a good thing—with exceptions I’ll note below in a look at these prescribed things to study:

In adopting the essential knowledge and skills for the social studies curriculum, the State Board of Education shall adopt essential knowledge and skills that develop each student's civic knowledge, including an understanding of:

•          the fundamental moral, political, and intellectual foundations of the American experiment in self-government.
•          the history, qualities, traditions, and features of civic engagement in the United States.
•          the history of Native Americans.
•          the structure, function, and processes of government institutions at the federal, state, and local levels.

Let me note that these are the things that were taught when I was in school. Next come the founding documents to be used:

        The founding documents of the United States, including:

•          the Declaration of Independence.
•          the United States Constitution.
•          the Federalist Papers.
•          the transcript of the first Lincoln-Douglas debate.

 

The troublesome part of the bill comes next. As written, it’s simply inaccurate. Continuing from the list above:

 

•          the writings of and about the founding fathers and mothers and other founding persons of the United States, including the writings of:

o George Washington.

o Ona Judge.

o Thomas Jefferson.

o Sally Hemings.

o And any other founding persons of the United States.

Writings of and about our founding fathers and mothers are important. I don’t know who they’re referring to as “other founding persons” who are, I guess, not the men and women who founded our country but some other kind of person? But the writing of our founding mothers, for example, would include the letters of Abigail Adams to her husband, John Adams.

But how did Ona Judge’s writings affect our founding? I had to look her up; she was a slave in Washington’s household, who escaped, upon hearing she might be given to a relative, several years before Washington’s death and lived thereafter as a free person. (All his slaves were freed following his death.) There are no writings to read. Is her story interesting? Yes. Important enough to be demanded in a bill? No. And there are no writings to read, so the law cannot be followed.

I was aware of Sally Hemings; I was not aware of her writings. So I went searching. There is no evidence that she learned to read and write in either English or French. So, again, we can’t read her writings. Was she a significant influence on the ideas that went into our founding? I would say no. You can leave her out and still know everything about the ideas of the founding and their sources.

So, writing into the bill that we should consider the writings—not writings of and about these women, but the writings of these women—as among the most important founding source documents to read is a bit of a farce. I suspect these additions to the bill are intended to insist that our founders were slaveowners in a time when they hadn’t yet ended slavery—but which the founding ideas made inevitable. So, that’s how CRT creeps in—show that by today’s standards, our founders don’t hold up, and then paint with a broad brush saying nothing they did holds up.

I looked at the original version of the bill, and that clause about using founding documents simply reads,

The founding documents of the United States, including the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, the Federalist Papers (including but not limited to Essays 10 and 51), excerpts from Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, the first Lincoln-Douglas debate, and the writings of the Founding Fathers of the United States.

They missed the Northwest Ordinance, which is often mentioned by Dr. Larry Arnn when he talks about our founding documents. But otherwise, that’s a good foundational list. 

There’s more in the final bill that seems to me to be added with the intention of highlighting race, as though that is the defining issue of our history. But that just isn’t what our nation was founded upon; that is what our founding has helped us face—with better results than probably anywhere on earth. 

There’s a relatively brief portion of the law concerning what must not be taught. I especially like this line; it must not be taught is that: 

With respect to their relationship to American values, slavery and racism are anything other than deviations from, betrayals of, or failures to live up to, the authentic founding principles of the United States, which include liberty and equality.

When you read the things you can’t do, you realize some of the racial stuff up in the “should be taught” section is not teachable. That doesn’t mean teachers can’t touch on difficult issues; it just means they cannot teach them with the CRT bent, where everything American is white supremacist racism.

While the law does mention that the 1619 Project cannot be taught, the term Critical Race Theory is not used—which is good, since that ideology uses many different terms, for subterfuge. Instead, we say the ideas of our founding should be taught, and should not be twisted into what we know is a CRT race-baiting lie.

There’s a pattern for such legislation as ours, from Citizens Renewing America, an organization headed by Russ Vought, who was the advisor to President Trump who actually authored the executive order to get rid of CRT in government and schools—the one that Biden immediately reversed. Their model is here. 

You can compare the model with the Texas law. Here’s the original version of Texas's HB 3979. And here’s the final version as passed. Take this as a cautionary tale for doing the work in your state or local area. The original Texas bill is very close to the Citizens Renewing America model; the final bill has those troubling, badly thought through, badly written, and self-contradictory parts that will mean revisiting the issue in special session. We want our children taught to love our country and the beautiful ideas we are founded on—because, well, refer to Coolidge, above.

Dr. Larry Arnn once said, 

There is only one way to return to living under the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the institutions of the Constitution: we must come to love these things again.

About that, I’ve said before, 

When I study the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, I find beauty. The more I study, the more I love them. The more I learn about the ideas behind these documents, and the men who thought them through, the more I marvel.

image found here

At our Church’s last worldwide conference, in April, President Dallin H. Oaks spoke about our Constitution and how its principles have benefited the world. Similar to Coolidge, he lists five divinely inspired principles: 

•          The source of government power is the people.
•          The division of delegated power between the nation and its subsidiary states.
•          The separation of powers.
•          The cluster of vital guarantees of individual rights and specific limits on government authority in the Bill of Rights.
•          The vital purpose of the entire Constitution. We are to be governed by law and not by individuals, and our loyalty is to the Constitution and its principles and processes, not to any office holder.

Let’s start with those things—learn them, love them, and teach them clearly to the next generation; then this nation will long endure against the tyrants who show up everywhere, forever trying to take away our freedoms.