Chapter Three

UNDERSTANDING GOVERNMENT

What was the foundation of the government founded by the Founding Fathers? To see the original foundation of the government of the United States of America, we must see the government as the Founders saw it. To them, constructing a government was much like constructing a building: before the building was constructed a foundation had to be laid. The Founders explained their government building procedure in the Declaration of Independence: "...it is the Right of the People to...institute new Government, LAYING ITS FOUNDATIONS ON SUCH PRINCIPLES... as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness."

The principles upon which the government of the United States of America was founded are known to every citizen in the United States above the age of eight or nine. But the great majority, whatever their age, either do not understand the principles are foundational, or if they do, do not act like they understand the principles are foundational, which leads to the same result as if they didn't understand.

But we must understand government: there is no way to escape it. Either government will rule us or we will rule government. Why? Government is the overarching reality, the context within which the universe exists.

Everything is subject to government. Everything. From atoms, to wolves, to people, outside forces direct and control every activity in the universe. Scientists tell us the reason everything in the universe does not erupt in one massive explosion of energy contained within atoms is because that energy is held in check by opposing forces. The force holding things in place is called gravity by physicists. If we believe what scientists tell us about gravity, we are logically forced to admit that all things are governed.

Government is the process whereby things are moved to cooperate through obedience to rules. Even if one perceives the universe to be governed by mindless rules, human government is understood to involve the subjection of the will of one to the will of another. Human government is not bureaucracy; Human government is ideas that move people to obey.

Human governments are a product of Reason.

Reason is the process through which we consciously define in words that which is and that which is not. For example, this book attempts to be an exercise in Reason. Words are chosen that define what is and is not true about government because this writer has assumed that what people decide about government determines their destiny, whether they live or whether they die. Is that a reasonable assumption? Reason dictates your answer.

Reason occurs because we all make certain presuppositions about our brains. We have Reason because we believe our brains can determine the distinction between that which is and that which is not. The proof of that presupposition is impossible to find because Reason is a product of faith in the brain. Without this faith, Reason cannot exist. At least to this degree, all who seek to Reason together are believers.

Not only must we believe before we can exercise Reason, we also must believe before we can act. Any person who presumes to enforce their will on another thing in reality, whether it be mosquito, man or mouse, must believe, at least for the split second in which power is exercised, that they have the right to exercise that power, to govern. Once again, the belief used to justify the right to exercise government power is defined by words.

The fundamental difference between governments established by wolves and governments established by people is wolves don't need words to justify the use of brute force, people do. Without those justifying words, the use of power by people is the work of a beast, or The Beast, depending on your theology.

Every government on earth has worked hard to find words to justify itself because nobody, or very few bodies, wants to be the beast. The words used to justify governments are called laws or Principles (A law is the Prince of the People. Principle. Get it?).

A law defines the relationship between governor and governed, and explains the consequences created by that relationship. Law is the realm of cause and effect. Government is the cause, and the governed is the effect. Government is the instrument through which cause and effect is controlled.

History shows us that the people of every nation on the face of the earth have always been willing to subsume themselves, their individual identity, under principles--words--that defined the purpose of government. These principles have always been the foundation upon which government authority rested or fell, as the case may be. In this sense, all human governments share the same foundation. The only real difference between any nation in recorded history is what the people considered to be the self-evident purpose of government.

For most of recorded history, the purpose of government was defined in what were once called theological terms. Before the later part of the eighteenth century on western civilization's calendar, there was a strong consensus among the peoples of the earth concerning the presence of external force or forces (referred to by the word god or gods). Most people believed these external forces were the actual causes of all events on earth whether human or natural. For this reason it was logically necessary to explain, to justify, human government with reference to the plan of god.

With this context in view it is possible to understand the government of the United States of America. In any overview analysis of government, the American Revolution has to be seen to be a pivotal event, a hinge upon which the door of government opened onto a brand new room. It is impossible to understand the evolution of government on this planet unless we firmly grasp what happened when the United States of America was founded.

Prior to the establishment of the government of the United States of America every government that ever existed on the face of the earth justified itself with words that explained how the particular government was in concert with the plan of something called god. Whether we look at the Egyptian Dynasties, the Roman Empire, the Greeks, or any of the myriad medieval kingdoms, every government justified its existence by words that explained the government existed because god intended it to exist in precisely the form it existed. The government founded in the United States of America was just like all the rest of the governments that ever existed on this planet in this regard.

What made the United States of America different from every government that had ever existed prior to the establishment of the United States of America, what constituted the American Distinctive was this: The United States of American was founded on a radical new definition of the plan of god, a definition that destroyed the power of the Divine Right of Kings, the official explanation upon which all the governments of western civilization had been justified for over one thousand years. With the American Revolution a fundamental change occurred in people's understanding of government. Where before all governments relied on some variant of the Divine Rights of Kings for justification, now in the United States of America, a new government had redefined the purpose of government by redefining the plan of the Creator. This new definition of the plan of the Creator is the American Distinctive, that unique contribution of the American political system to the world.

The fundamental issue facing the founding Fathers of the United States of America was this question: what gives you the right to overrule the will of a king who exercises his authority by Divine Right? The Founding Fathers were citizens of an English Colony. Even though England itself had evolved by the time of the American Revolution to be a monarchy limited by a Parliament, an unwritten Constitution, and bodies of legal precedents known as the Common Law, the king's authority to rule was still justified by the doctrine of Divine Right of Kings. Anyone with an eighth grade education has some insight into the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings. In essence, Monarchists believed that anyone who denied the king's right to rule was arguing not only with the king but with the Creator Himself.

As with all governments throughout history, the Founders had to explain in words why it was Right for their government to exist. The Founders of the United States of America had to answer the question about the king's authority--"the greatest question which ever was debated in America," as John Adams called it--or they could never have the logical justification that would allow them to, in good conscience, rise up in rebellion against the king; nor could they expect the support of the masses of people who had been taught all their lives to respect the doctrine of Divine Right of Kings.

The Second Continental Congress of the states that became the United States of America answered the question about the King's authority in the Declaration of Independence, which is now, was when it was written, and always will be, a theological statement about the Creator's relationship with mankind:

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation--

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness--

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed-- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath 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. But..."(what follows is a list of grievances against the King of England which concludes) "And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor." Those words in the Declaration of Independence defined the American Distinctive.

What is the American Distinctive? The Declaration of Independence is a statement of truth--self-evident truth. The statement of truth had as its subject, rights. The signers declared that all men are created equal. Did they mean that any distinction between you and I, or them and us, must be a false distinction. Is that what is declared self-evident? No. All men are declared to be created equal because they are all equally endowed with certain rights. It is in that sense alone that this equality is couched. Instead of being a statement that declares there are no distinctions between people, the statement identifies precisely where equality between people is located: all men are created equal because they are endowed by their Creator with certain Rights.

The Founders of the government of the United States of America presupposed an image of the Creator, an idea about God, upon which they constructed a philosophy of government. The signers of the Declaration of Independence proclaimed that the Creator, an independent Being with a will and plan of His own, is the source of rights--and right. The Founders claimed that this Creator had created a state of equality by endowing all men with certain Rights, certain unalienable Rights. That which the Creator had granted could not be withdrawn by anyone, whether called King or commoner, because the Will of the Creator would oppose such withdrawal.

The Will of the Creator was identified as the source of individual Rights. The Founding Fathers of the United States of America declared to be self-evident truth that rights are not granted by any nation, or king, or person, or society, or human agency of any kind. They knew that if rights were understood to be granted by people, rights could be withdrawn by people, especially a King. All men were endowed with equal rights precisely because the Creator willed it. Not because people willed it, but because the Creator willed it. Upon these propositions the United States of America was built.

The words written in the Declaration of Independence about the plan of the Creator compose what is actually the unique American contribution to the evolution of government on this planet--the American Distinctive. Those words are a Revolutionary redefinition of the plan of God, and the plan of government on earth.

For the first time in the history of the world, a government was created that said the purpose of government was to protect the Rights of all men. Before the American Revolution every government on the face of the earth defined the purpose of government as being the protection of the Rights of the Rulers. Think about it: every government throughout recorded history had justified its existence by saying God, the Creator, had created government to defend the Rights of the Ruler. Reverse that idea and define the plan of the Creator as defense of the Rights of all men and you see why they call what happened in the United States of America a Revolution.

With the American Revolution a fundamental change occurred in people's understanding of government. Where before all governments relied on some variant of the Divine Rights of Kings for justification, now in the United States of America, a new government had redefined the purpose of government by redefining the plan of the Creator.

In defense of these propositions a Revolutionary War was launched by people committed to seeing their definition of the Will of the Creator enacted on earth. The Founders of the United States were not stupid. They knew the ideas they were espousing were nothing more than their definition of reality, a definition that could be contradicted by others. The point the Founders of the United States of America were making in the Declaration of Independence was this: the Creator of the Founders had endowed them with certain Rights, Rights that were unalienable while the founders remained alive. They knew all the king had to do to disprove the ideas contained within the Declaration of Independence was kill them, or at least arrest them and throw them all in prison. That's all it took for the entire structure of justification contained within the Declaration of Independence to be proved to be nothing but the rantings of foolish rebels, rebels who didn't understand reality, rebels against the Real Order that ruled the world. Because the Founders understood their point of view could be, and might be, contradicted in reality, they ended the Declaration of Independence with these words: "...to this end we pledge our wealth, our lives, and our sacred honor."

To what end were they pledged? The Founders were pledged to seeing their definition of the Plan of the Creator, their definition of the Creator's new purpose for government, enacted as the ruling force in the colonies that would become the United States of America. The Founders of the United States of America were willing to die trying to make the American Distinctive come to power on earth.

But of course they didn't die; not all of them, not even many of them. They didn't die, but their plan did. We made it die when we allowed the American Distinctive to be destroyed.

At the forefront of those of us who destroyed the American Distinctive was those who say the ideas in the Declaration of Independence have nothing to do with the legal structure of the United States of America. The ones who say that are the ones who worked hardest to destroy the American Distinctive. They know that all it takes to destroy the American Distinctive is convince everyone that the words in the Declaration of Independence are just words with no real power in the United States of America. But those people are wrong, the words in the Declaration of Independence are the only foundation for the authority of the government of the United States of America; the words in the Declaration of Independence are the foundational principles that justify all the authority of the government of the United States of America.

Authority in this nation is seen to derive from the Constitution of the United States. We all know the Constitution of the United States of America is supposed to be the Law that rules this nation. What we have to understand is that the ideas in the Constitution of the United States of America are themselves unauthorized. By that I mean the Constitution does not contain one word explaining where its authority to rule comes from.

The Constitution begins with these words: "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." The rest of the words in the Constitution define how the government is to be structured and how the powers of the government are to be divided. Not one word in the Constitution of the United States of America explains where "We the people" get the authority to rule ourselves.

If you want to understand the government of the United States of America you must understand that the people who designed and ratified the Constitution of the United States understood that the ground of authority for the government of the United States of America did not need to be defined in the Constitution; it had already been defined. Everybody in the United States understood that the authorization for the Constitution of the United States had already been precisely defined in the Declaration of Independence. There was simply no need to say again what everybody in the world already knew. We the people had the authority to form a government, to write our own Constitution, because the words in the Declaration of Independence about the plan of the Creator had been proved to be true, not only in the minds of the people who wrote and signed those words, but in the entire length and breadth of this place that was now called the United States of America. The words had been tested, a hard test, a real test, and the words had stood the test. The Creator had intended to see a New Plan for government realized on the face of the earth. And the Constitution of the United States was the proof of that plan.

Is there anyone anywhere who would contend those involved in creating and ratifying the Constitution of the United States of America just happened to ignore the fact that nowhere in the document is there an explanation for where we the people got the authority to ordain our government? Is there anyone who would contend the Founders just made a mistake and omitted defining such a foundational and necessary logical explanation of where the authority of the new government was couched?

Those who deny that the authority of the government of the United States of America is directly dependent on the ideas contained in the Declaration of Independence imply that the people who created and ratified the Constitution simply made a mistake and ignored the fact that the document omits explaining where we the people got the authority to form the government defined in the Constitution. Such an implication has to be seen to be character assassination of the most despicable type, an Orwellian mind-game that caricatures and lampoons the founders of this nation, changing them from careful designers of the American Distinctive to careless and irresponsible architects of a building without a foundation. And this is exactly what has happened in this nation.

If a building were to be erected upon a foundation of stone, then after completion that same building were to be moved to another location and set down on Jell-o, it would be a different building even if nothing had been changed in the structure of the building. But this fact might not be evident until a person stepped back and watched the building slowly slip from sight. This is exactly what has happened in the United States of America. A revolution has occurred that left intact the outward form of the government but moved the building itself to an entirely different foundation than the one upon which the building originally rested.

To fail to see that the authority of the government of the United States rests totally on the principles defined within the Declaration of Independence is to disengage the government of the United States from historical fact. A government so disengaged is a victim of amnesia, condemned to wander aimlessly in confusion until someone comes along who can supply the missing identity.

The fact that the government of the United States was built upon the foundation erected in the Declaration of Independence is clear when we understand that the ONLY existing official explanation for the existence of the government which fought the Revolutionary War with England was the explanation found in the Declaration of Independence. Upon that foundation, and that foundation alone, a war was fought and a nation was established--there was no other foundation in existence. Only ten years after the government of the United States had won the Independence declared by the people, only after ten years of bloody warfare and deprivation, was the structure of government erected and defined in the Constitution of the United States of America. But what was that structure laid upon? The Constitution of the United States was laid directly upon the foundation composed of the ideas in the Declaration of Independence. The structure of government defined in the Constitution was erected upon the foundation of the Declaration of Independence; it was laid there by the actions of people who believed the ideas in the Declaration of Independence enough to stake their lives, their wealth and their sacred honor on them.

In fact, the Constitution itself was created in response to the ideas outlined in the Declaration of Independence. As Commanger and Morris point out in The Spirit of '76, their encyclopedic compilation of things written during the Revolutionary period by the Founding Fathers, "It was difficult to justify a war on the basis of the philosophy of the Declaration of Independence and not feel some compulsion to apply that philosophy to domestic concerns. All men, said the Continental Congress, were created equal, and endowed with inalienable rights, including life, liberty and happiness. Governments exist to secure men in these rights--it is for this reason that they are established. These sentiments--Jefferson called them self-evident truths--commanded the support of Patriot leaders and presumably of the American people generally. They were not the doctrines of closet-philosophy, but had consequences. It is with some of these consequences, institutional or intellectual, that we are concerned here."

One consequence of the ideas contained within the Declaration of Independence is those ideas provide the foundation for the authority of the government of the United States of America. It is a matter of historical fact that the Constitution of the United States could not gain ratification by the great majority of the people until 10 Amendments had been added to the document that was originally proposed. Those 10 Amendments are called the Bill of Rights because they were added to the Constitution to ensure that the ideas about Rights contained within the Declaration of Independence would be a part of the official legal structure of the United States of America, a legal structure erected upon the foundation provided by the Declaration of Independence. And the ideas about rights were logically dependent on the idea concerning the role the will of the Creator played in the formation of the government of the United States of America.

Most historians have had a difficult time dealing with the fact that the ideas in the Declaration of Independence were theological ideas. Historians have long prided themselves on their "objectivity." The fact that the idea of the Creator was clearly the foundational fact upon which the Revolutionary War and the government thereby established was utterly dependent forced historians to either explain this theological reality, or ignore it completely. Most historians chose the latter course.

But that does not diminish the fact that anyone who takes the time to look can see that the United States of America was designed by the Founding Fathers so that the plan of the Creator would be understood to be the foundation upon which the authority of the government of the United States rested. Without that idea--the idea of the Plan of the Creator--, the Doctrine of Divine Right of Kings made the people impotent to make a Revolution.

Without these Principles defined in the Declaration of Independence, the organization of government powers enumerated in the Constitution of the United States is removed from the foundation laid by the Founders of the government of the United States of America. Without the principles defined in the Declaration of Independence, the government of the United States is not the government founded in 1776 by the representatives of the people gathered at the Second Continental Congress. If the government now rests on different principles than those the government originally rested upon, it is not the same government, and if it is not the same government, then a New Revolution has occurred in the United States of America!

If the idea of the plan of the Creator can be seen now to have been removed by the authorities of this nation, the only name in the English language that can adequately describe the meaning of such removal would be Revolution. Since the idea has been removed, accuracy requires us to call Revolution Revolution.

The rest of this book is devoted to explaining exactly how the idea of the Creator was destroyed in the United States of America, a destruction that eliminated the authority of the government of the United States of America.