I believe that if we are to restore our country to it’s former greatness, there are five areas in which restoration will need to be made in America.
- Revive a concrete Faith in God
- Rebirth Traditional Family Values
- Renew a national pursuit of truth
- Reclaim education without government intervention
- Rebuild a legal system of natural law
Let me explain to you why I picked these five categories as what I am calling: The Five Pillars of American Restoration. I picked them because I truly believe that the problems in our country can all be largely mitigated by the restoration of these ideals. I also hold it to be true that our civil society cannot be restored without the restoration of these five ideals.
While I believe that all of these are essential to America’s recovery, I do hold that our lack of faith in God has been the main reason for our decay over the past century or so. Since I believe that restoring this faith in God is the first thing that we must do to save our country and the principles it was founded on, I have placed it first on the list.
Pillar#1: Restore a concrete faith in God
“A nation without God’s guidance is a nation without order. Happy are those who keep God’s law!” Proverbs 29:18 (Today’s English Version)
The second pillar of restoration will likely hit home for most of you, because it is the Re-birthing of traditional family values in the household. It is plain to me that without such re-birthing, we cannot be the nation of laws that we once were. In our society, the family has been distorted immensely to the point where it no longer resembles that purpose which God ordained for it. This is shown in many popular Hollywood productions. Read a review on The Kids Are All Right and you will see what I am talking about. This distortion has taken away the idea of the man being the head of the household, it has torn down the institution of marriage as being between a man and woman, and has minimized the role of parents to teach and instill values in their children, replacing that with what many call the nanny-state.
Pillar#2: Rebirth traditional family values in the home
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise;
Ephesians 6:1-2 New International Version Bible
The third pillar of restoration is the renewing of a national pursuit of truth. In the midst of all of the name calling and smearing amongst our politicians and often times amongst citizens who disagree politically, as well as the continuous distortion of facts presented to us by media outlets, it is worth emphasizing a need to return to truth seeking. If we do not pursue the truth, we will fall. We must have judges who judge based on objective, factual evidence whether than political opinion. We must be capable as citizens to examine every side of an issue in order to tell what is right and what is wrong. It is critical that as citizens we pursue the truth in regards to our political views, so that we may find out for ourselves what is true, and not blindly follow political icons or parties like sheep.
Pillar#3: Renew a national pursuit of truth
Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free”-John 8:32 (New International version)
The fourth pillar of restoration is the reclaiming of education without distortion. It is my belief that as a nation we have failed to build an education system that enriches our students with good, well, education. I believe that teaching should be entirely left up to the private sector (private schools), and parents, not the Federal Government. Let me show you a quick example of why this is so. First though, let me tell you that I believe that whenever the Federal Government gets it’s hands on something, it cannot let go, but must (by nature) tighten it’s vice. This is why our Constitutional Republic was designed with checks and balances. That was so that the people can remain in control of their government, and not the other way around. However, in recent decades, the secular progressive movement whose ranks include the likes of Saul Alinsky, John Dewey, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, to name a few historic examples, have slowly infiltrated society and are instituting their belief in a big, centralized government on it as a whole.
In this manner, the education sector has been infiltrated by progressives in the Federal Government, and the majority of children are now educated in public schools that are, of course, run by that same government. However, did you know that public schools are funded by taxes on every American citizen? Even for those who do not choose to take part in them. Furthermore, if you compared the cost of taxes on education with private school tuition, then private schools would be found to be cheaper? Public schools are funded by the entire population, rather than the minority who choose to put their kids in a private school. This is what produces the illusion that public schools are “free”. It is my firm belief that if we were to abolish public schools and taxes on education, and then encourage growth of private schools through the free market, then the overall cost would be substantially lower for the American citizen in comparison to today’s system.
Another problem with the public schools is that of the ideals taught therein. I have more to say about this in a future article, but for now we must move on for brevity purposes. For more information regarding the transformation of education in the public school system, you can visit the education page on the Eagle Forum website.
Pillar #4 Reclaim education without government intervention
5. He decreed statutes for Jacob and established the law in Israel, which he commanded our forefathers to teach their children,
6. so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children. Psalms 78:5-6
The fifth and final pillar of restoration is the rebuilding of natural law as a legal system. In case you are not familiar with the term natural law let me explain it to you. First off, It has been brought to my attention that there is a natural law party of the United States. I am not familiar with the party, and I cannot endorse that party as legitimate pursuers of natural law for that reason. Natural law, also known as higher law, is a set of laws that are believed by it’s advocates to be self evident by human nature (not that human nature is inclined naturally to obey them, for we are fallen creatures). Let’s examine the legal and cultural definitions for natural law:
Legal definition
Function: noun
: a body of law or a specific principle of law that is held to be derived from nature and binding upon human society in the absence of or in addition to positive law
NOTE: While natural law, based on a notion of timeless order, does not receive as much credence as it did formerly, it was an important influence on the enumeration of natural rights by Thomas Jefferson and others.
Cultural Definition
The doctrine that human affairs should be governed by ethical principles that are part of the very nature of things and that can be understood by reason. The first two paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence contain a clear statement of the doctrine.
The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
It is important that we restore the principles of natural law in our nation as defined in the first two paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence. I want to show you two ways in which natural law no longer governs us as a nation.
Firstly, we have lost respect for the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. For example: We have lost our respect for life by allowing abortions nationwide and rationing health care through health care “reform”. I and a friend debated on the subject at the Teens for Liberty forums.
Secondly, I think there has been a shift in the cultural mindset here in America in the past century. This shift has been aided by the progressives who have wormed there way into our legal system. This shift that I am speaking of is the shift from belief in the right to the pursuit of happiness, to the belief in a right to happiness itself. I call people who buy into this mindset: “entitlement seekers”. These are the people, many of whom my father has had to deal with in the past where he works, who would rather not get a job because they would rather sit at home and live off of the unemployment checks that they receive in the mail from the Feds.
Many of the lies that the progressive majority in Congress and especially in the Obama Administration circulate daily revolve around the premise that you are entitled to happiness. In effect they are attempting to replace the entrepreneurial spirit with that of socialism. There is a difference between every citizen having a level playing ground an an equal shot at the pie that the individual next to them has, and every citizen having an equal share of the pie. Of course, a full discourse on the issues with socialism will have to be saved for another posting, so I will go no further.
Those are the five pillars of restoration that I propose we should focus on repairing. A house divided upon itself cannot stand, and neither can a house stand whose pillars have been torn down. More on this to come soon so subscribe and stick around.
-Calvin Lyman