"Man’s relation with his God is above human legislation"...

In that grand old document which our forefathers set forth as their bill of rights — the Declaration of Independence —they declared: “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.” And the Constitution guarantees, in the most explicit terms, the inviolability of conscience: “No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

“The framers of the Constitution recognized the eternal principle that man’s relation with his God is above human legislation, and his rights of conscience inalienable. Reasoning was not necessary to establish this truth; we are conscious of it in our own bosoms. It is this consciousness which, in defiance of human laws, has sustained so many martyrs in tortures and flames. They felt that their duty to God was superior to human enactments, and that man could exercise no authority over their consciences. It is an inborn principle which nothing can eradicate.”
— Congressional documents (U.S.A.), serial No. 200, document No. 271.

The Great Controversy, p. 295.
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The Declaration of Independence

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

hen 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 effect 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 when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — 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.

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

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Obama Corrects Himself on the Declaration of Independence

8:21 AM, Oct 27, 2010 • By JEFFREY H. ANDERSON

CNS News writes that, after having misquoted the Declaration on "at least five occasions in the past," President Obama has now started reciting its most famous sentence correctly, including its statement that our rights are endowed by our Creator. CNS News provides a great clip of the president's progression. First, he omits reference to the Creator -- an egregious oversight that the White House has yet to explain -- saying instead, "that we are endowed with certain unalienable rights." Then he apparently tries to get the language correct, but seems a bit unsure of himself and somewhat conflates his earlier words with the document's actual ones -- saying, "that we are all endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights." Then, appearing more confident, he gets it correct, saying, "that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights" -- just like Thomas Jefferson did.



One of the curious things in all of this is why the Declaration has become part of President Obama's stump speech. Is he trying to establish himself as someone who's connected to America's ideals, its mores, and the limited-government philosophy of its Founding? Is he trying (in his own way) to say, "I'm you"? If so, repeatedly mangling the Declaration's most famous sentence, and doing so in a hyper-secular, post-modern kind of way certainly hasn't advanced his efforts

Moreover, unless, or until, the White House convincingly explains the reason behind President Obama's repeated omission of the Declaration's reference to our "Creator," many Americans will justifiably wonder whether he really couldn't get this famous language right, or whether his omission was deliberate. And, if so, whether the president actually thought it acceptable to alter the words of the Declaration of Independence to suit the tastes of his liberal and/or somewhat irreligious audiences, or, even worse, whether the wording that he substituted actually reflects his own misgivings about one of the Declaration's core claims: that our rights come from our Creator, not from government.
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Fidel Castro Applauds Passage of Obama's Health Care Overhaul

AP

Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro on Thursday declared passage of American health care reform "a miracle" and a major victory for Obama's presidency, but couldn't help chide the United States for taking so long to enact what communist Cuba achieved decades ago.

It perhaps was not the endorsement President Obama and the Democrats in Congress were looking for.

Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro on Thursday declared passage of American health care reform "a miracle" and a major victory for Obama's presidency, but couldn't help chide the United States for taking so long to enact what communist Cuba achieved decades ago.

"We consider health reform to have been an important battle and a success of his (Obama's) government," Castro wrote in an essay published in state media, adding that it would strengthen the president's hand against lobbyists and "mercenaries."

But the Cuban leader also used the lengthy piece to criticize the American president for his lack of leadership on climate change and immigration reform, and for his decision to send more troops to Afghanistan, among many other things.

And he said it was remarkable that the most powerful country on earth took more than two centuries from its founding to approve something as basic as health benefits for all.


"It is really incredible that 234 years after the Declaration of Independence ... the government of that country has approved medical attention for the majority of its citizens, something that Cuba was able to do half a century ago," Castro wrote.

The longtime Cuban leader -- who ceded power to his brother Raul in 2008 -- has continued to pronounce his thoughts on world issues though frequent essays, titled "Reflections," which are published in state newspapers.

Cuba provides free health care and education to all its citizens, and heavily subsidizes food, housing, utilities and transportation, policies that have earned it global praise. The government has warned that some of those benefits are no longer sustainable given Cuba's ever-struggling economy, though it has so far not made major changes.

In recent speeches, Raul Castro has singled out medicine as an area where the government needs to be spending less, but he has not elaborated.

While Fidel Castro was initially positive about Obama, his essays have become increasingly hostile in recent months as relations between Cuba and the United States have soured. Washington has been increasingly alarmed by Cuba's treatment of political dissidents -- one of whom died in February after a long hunger strike.

Cuba was irate over the island's inclusion earlier this year on a list of countries Washington considers to be state sponsors of terrorism. Tensions have also risen following the arrest in December of a U.S. government contractor that Havana accuses of spying.

In Thursday's essay, Castro called Obama a "fanatic believer in capitalist imperialism" but also praised him as "unquestionably intelligent."

"I hope that the stupid things he sometimes says about Cuba don't cloud over that intelligence," he said.
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Source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/03/25/fidel-castro-applauds-passage-obamas-health-care-overhaul/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fpolitics+%28Text+-+Politics%29

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Health care reform will bankrupt America

November 16, 2009

Dr. Allen D. Unruh

The last nail in the coffin of capitalism will be a government takeover of health care. All doctors will be slaves of the state, while all patients will be wards.

This undermines the entire Declaration of Independence, where the inalienable (God-given) right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is guaranteed.

President Obama has promised fundamental reform, which replaces God-given rights with government-given rights.

The first lesson in economics is there never are enough resources to meet everyone's desires. The first lesson of politics is to ignore the first lesson in economics.

Karl Marx said, "The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism." C.S. Lewis said, "Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised to the good of its victims may be the most oppressive." And Thomas Jefferson said, "I predict happiness for the American people if they can keep the government from confiscating the fruits of their labor under the pretense of taking care of them."

"One of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the great struggle for independence," Charles Beard said. Government health care will be like a hospital gown: You think you're covered, but you're not.

What is at stake in the health care reform debate? Your health, your freedom and your life. Your economic opportunity to prosper will change to a survival mind-set.

We are told the sky will fall if we don't let government take over health care immediately. A better metaphor is that the Titanic is sinking, and bureaucrats want the country to get on board because it will be too late next year. It's time we send some lifeboats because all Americans are in the same boat.

There is one principle about a boat: You can't sink half of it. We either live in freedom or in servitude. There is no in between.

Obama has said, "We are our brother's keeper." But the good Samaritan walked across the road to help the beaten pilgrim. He didn't call a social welfare agency.

They tell us we should just "trust them." Has the federal government given even one reason why we should trust it? Medicare costs nine times more than projected estimates and is going broke fast. In history, there never has been a government program that has come in under budget.

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of White House chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, has been appointed to two key positions: health policy adviser at the Office of Management and Budget and a member of the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research. He bluntly admits that cuts will not be painless.

In the Feb. 27, 2008, issue of Health Affairs, Emanuel wrote, "Savings will require changing how doctors think about their patients." In the June 18 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, he added that doctors take the Hippocratic oath "as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others."

Ezekiel Emanuel wants doctors to look beyond the needs of their patients and consider social justice such as whether the money could be better spent on somebody else. The people who fall through the cracks are the elderly, people in chronic pain, the disabled and those who require expensive procedures. He explicitly defends discrimination against older patients.

Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, urged Congress to delegate its own authority over Medicare to a new, presidentially appointed bureaucracy that wouldn't be accountable to the public.

The current version of health care reform undermines the First, Fourth, Fifth, 10th and 13th amendments to the Constitution. America will go bankrupt, freedom will be lost, health care costs will go up dramatically, health care quality will go down, health care workers will be demoralized and millions of jobs will be lost.

This is not about health care. It's about tyranny and power.

There is only one solution: Kill the bill.

We must give a pink slip in the next election to everyone who votes for it. Market solutions are not allowed on the table.

Edmund Burke said, "Bad laws are the worst form of tyranny." Jefferson said, "Rebellion to tyranny is obedience to God."

Nothing less than the future of civilization is at stake.

Source: http://www.argusleader.com/article/20091116/VOICES05/911160315/1052/OPINION01

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THESE ARE NOT NEGOTIABLE

By Chuck Baldwin
October 13, 2009
NewsWithViews.com

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote, "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 when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies."

I would argue that we, like our patriot forebears, have also endured "patient sufferance." For at least a half-century, we have patiently endured the erosion and abridgment of our freedoms and liberties. We have watched the federal government become an overbearing and meddlesome Nanny State that pokes its nose and sticks its fingers in virtually everything we do. We cannot drive a car, buy a gun, or even flush a toilet without Big Brother's permission. We are taxed, regulated, and snooped-on from the time we are born to the day we die. And then after we are dead, we are taxed again.

In the same way that Jefferson and Company patiently suffered up until that shot was fired that was heard around the world, we who love freedom today are likewise patiently suffering "a long train of abuses and usurpations." In fact, I would even dare say that these States United have become a boiling caldron of justifiable frustration and even anger.

Accordingly, it is incumbent upon us to very seriously and thoughtfully examine those principles that we absolutely will never cede or surrender. We have already surrendered much of the freedom that was bequeathed to us by our forefathers. We are now to the point that we must define those principles that form our "line in the sand" and that we will not surrender under any circumstance. Either that, or we must admit to ourselves that there is nothing--no principle, no freedom, no matter how sacred--that we will not surrender to Big Government.

Here, then, are those principles that, to me, must never be surrendered. To surrender these liberties to Big Government would mean to commit idolatry. It would be sacrilege. It would reduce us to slavery. It would destroy our humanity. To surrender these freedoms would mean "absolute Despotism" and would provide moral justification to the proposition that such tyranny be "thrown off."

*The Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

Men without guns are not free men; they are slaves. Men without guns are not citizens; they are subjects. Men without guns have lost the right of self-defense. They have lost the power to defend their families and protect their properties. Men without guns are reduced to the animal kingdom, becoming prey to the Machiavellians among them who would kill them for sport or for their own personal pursuits. As King Jesus plainly ordered, "He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one." (Luke 22:36) This we will do--at all costs.

*The Right to Own Private Property

Like the right of self-defense, the private ownership of property is a God-given right that is rooted in the Sacred Text. As God told Moses, "Thou shalt not remove thy neighbour's landmark, which they of old time have set in thine inheritance, which thou shalt inherit in the land that the LORD thy God giveth thee to possess it." (Deut. 19:14)

In fact, the history of Western Civilization is replete with the examples of free men who were determined (even at the cost of their very lives) to defend the right to own property. Without private property rights, men are reduced to serfs and servants. Like chattel, they feed themselves by another's leave. This we will not do.

*The Right to Train and Educate Our Children

Education has never been the responsibility of the State. From time immemorial, education has been the right and responsibility of the family. This, too, has its foundation in the Sacred Volume. "And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." (Eph. 6:4)

Therefore, the absolute right of homeshooling or private/parochial/Christian schooling must never be surrendered. Homeschooling, especially, is fundamental to freedom. It is not a coincidence that throughout history, most totalitarian governments forbade parents homeschooling their children. Any government--federal, State, or local--that forbids, or even restricts, the right of parents to homeschool their children has taken upon itself the uniform of a tyrant.

*The Freedom of Speech and Worship

Speech and worship are matters of the heart and conscience (Luke 6:45; John 4:24). Only tyrants seek authority over matters of the heart. But, of course, that is what tyrants do: they seek to control men's thoughts and beliefs.

Hence, the alternative media is essential to liberty: the Internet, short wave radio, as well as independent magazines and periodicals. It is almost superfluous to say that there is no such thing as a free and independent press among the mainstream news media today. In fact, the major media more resembles a propaganda machine than it does a free press.

The same can be said for most of the mainstream churches in America today. They more resemble havens for politically correct, Big-Government ideology than they do bastions of Bible truth. Therefore, home-churches and non-establishment churches are increasingly requisite to a free people.

*The Right to Determine One's Own Healthcare

The marriage of Big Government and Big Medicine has created a healthcare monster. Already, the dispensing of medical treatment is micromanaged by Big Brother in a way that has resulted in skyrocketing costs and inferior care (and in some cases, even death). President Obama's universal health care initiatives that are sure to come (in one form or another) will only exacerbate an already untenable situation.

Free men and women absolutely have the right to refuse vaccinations for themselves and their children. Forced vaccinations (of any kind) are an assault against the very foundation of freedom. Free men have the right to choose their own physicians, their own hospitals, their own insurance programs, etc. They also have the right to refuse any and all of the above.

God is Creator. He is also Healer (Exodus 15:26). Therefore, how men choose to seek God's healing is a private matter between them and God. Alternative medicine is a right. Already, our military personnel are used as human guinea pigs to test a variety of drugs and chemicals. Public schools also require forced vaccinations. And now the push is on to force the general population to take the Swine Flu vaccine. At the current pace, it won't be long until all alternative medicines and treatments will be illegal and the federal government will be America's doctor. This is not acceptable.

*The Right to Life

2000 years of Western Civilization have perpetually reconfirmed that life is a gift of God. Both Biblical and American history repeatedly honor God as the Source and Sustainer of man's existence. Therefore, evils such as abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia must be vehemently resisted. It is bad enough that any government (especially one such as ours) would legalize abortion, but the concept of FORCED abortion, infanticide, or euthanasia could only be regarded as a despotic attack on life and liberty of the gravest proportion. In fact, under Natural Law, such an attack would remove said government from the protection of Heaven and would place it in a state of war.

*The Right to Live as a Free and Independent People

God separated the Nations (Genesis 11). Therefore, it is absolutely necessary that we Americans maintain our independence and national sovereignty. We simply cannot (and will not) allow ourselves to become part of any hemispheric or global union.

There they are: seven freedom-principles that are not negotiable. As Jefferson said, we are "disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable." But cross these lines and free men must do what free men must do: "throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

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© 2009 Chuck Baldwin - All Rights Reserved

Source: http://www.newswithviews.com/baldwin/baldwin539.htm