Mass Shootings in Today's America

From the November-December 2012 issue of Forerunner.

The end of 2012 came with a bang. Many bangs, a reported 152 of them. The December 14 school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, not only took the lives of 27 people, including 20 children, but the horror of the mass murder also reverberated across America, immediately spawning a national debate on school safety, mental illness, and of course, guns and the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Occurring less than six months after the Aurora, Colorado, "Batman" shooting, which killed 12 and injured 58, the Sandy Hook tragedy seems to have caused many Americans to say, "Enough is enough."

Such a reaction is natural. It is upsetting and disheartening to learn of the deaths of so many children, realizing that they were mercilessly slain by an assailant whose demons were his own. Without defense against the young man's murderous and insane rage, they died essentially alone and without comfort. It chills the heart of any parent or of any feeling person.

The death of anyone at the hands of another is cause for grief and consternation. It should cause law enforcement, government, and those involved to review what happened and ask the hard questions: Did the school, the school system, local police, and government do enough to provide a safe learning environment? Were there lapses in the safety protocols? Were reaction times fast enough? Was the school sufficiently hardened against assault? Were school employees trained in how to react? What additional measures could prevent such atrocities in the future? Responsible citizens consider it a solemn duty to undertake such an investigation to prevent anything like this massacre from happening again.

Some of these questions have been asked, but the final one on prevention has received the most ink. From what appears on the news, it seems as if the only "additional measure" that many in public office want to discuss is banning so-called assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines, not to mention tightening licensing guidelines and limiting ammunition sales. Their fellow travelers in the mainstream media also jumped to this conclusion almost immediately, inaugurating a gun-control campaign as soon as the news hit the wires.

In an instant, progressive forces in America decided that the tragedy in Newtown was the perfect crisis to help erase over two centuries of constitutionally unrestricted freedom to own firearms. In defense of their crusade, they also downplayed and dismissed suggestions from Second Amendment advocates to place more armed guards in schools or to arm teachers themselves, as occurs in Israel. Gun-rights groups like the National Rifle Association were marginalized, with many in the media rolling their eyes in disbelief that anyone could defend the ownership and use of firearms.

However, they are the ones who are out of touch. According to a Harvard study, the average gun-owning American household contains about five firearms. America's more than 300 million citizens own more guns than there are cars on its streets. As a whole, these firearms collections comprise nearly half of the world's guns, a real deterrent to both internal tyranny and foreign invasion, as the Founding Fathers intended by including the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights. It is not surprising, then, that those who favor greater governmental control—as progressive political thought advocates—would desire to limit further gun sales and even reduce the number of firearms in private hands. Middle America, though, stands in their way.

Knowing a little about the reported mental state of the Sandy Hook shooter, a thinking person might wonder if some sort of mental-health measure could be effective in preventing similar tragedies. Some have suggested that a psychological checkup be added to the background check required for licensing a gun, but this idea has been dismissed as overly intrusive and open to both wild subjectivity and easy corruption. Besides, a mentally unhinged individual will find a weapon if he wants one badly enough, no matter how illegal it is for him to possess one.

Another factor that is only just beginning to be discussed is the known link of psychiatric drugs to mass killings. The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International reports in "School Shooters Under the Influence of Psychiatric Drugs" (http://www.cchrint.org/school-shooters):

Between 2004 and 2011, there have been over 11,000 reports to the U.S. FDA's MedWatch system of psychiatric drug side effects related to violence. These include 300 cases of homicide, nearly 3,000 cases of mania and over 7,000 cases of aggression. Note: By the FDA's own admission, only 1-10% of side effects are ever reported to the FDA, so the actual number of side effects occurring are most certainly higher. (See also, "A Brief History of Psychotropic Drugs Prescribed to Mass Murderers"; http://www.ladailypost.com/content/brief-history-psychotropic-drugs-prescribed-mass-murderers.)

The article links to 31 school shootings in which such drugs played a part, resulting in 72 dead and 162 wounded. Its findings do not include the Sandy Hook shooting, but its perpetrator had been prescribed Fanapt® (iloperidone), a controversial anti-psychotic medicine used to treat schizophrenia.

In all this finger-pointing, do we, as Christians, see anything missing from the discussion? To most of the politicians and pundits pontificating on the issue, the problem is inadequate safety measures, firearms, mental health, or drugs—or other factors like violent video games, a violent culture, or societal inequalities. We see that, yet again, they have left God entirely out of the picture. America's once staunchly Christian value system is fast eroding, and in its breakdown, its citizens have lost most of the internal controls that keep atrocities like these from occurring so often.

So comes to pass in modern America a fulfillment of one of the most horrifying of the Bible's prophecies: "Because you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children" (Hosea 4:6).

Middle East Democracy?

Many voices across the political and media spectrums have hailed the recent protests and changes in governments across the Middle East as welcome democratic advances into a largely totalitarian region of the world. With Tunisian President Ben Ali and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak overthrown, protests have spread to Yemen, Iran, Jordan, Bahrain, and most recently to Libya, where Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's regime teeters on the edge of collapse. These revolutions-in-the-making are the agitations of mostly restless young men who are tired of low wages, few prospects for advancement, and stifling government control over just about everything. In other words, these are rebellions like most others in history.

Seen from the West, the protests, the calls for new elections, and the forcing of longtime leaders out of office seem to be the perfect setup for the progress of democracy. To those of this mind, this is the formula for a more peaceful world. Perhaps if all nations were democracies, the peace quotient would indeed be higher than today, but would it necessarily be significantly higher? A better but more general question would be, "Would global democracy ensure peace?" And the answer would be a resounding, "No!"

No form of human government can ensure peace, and the reason is found in the word "human." People have human nature, and no matter how they are governed, people will come into conflict with each other because human nature is essentially selfish (see Jeremiah 17:9; Matthew 15:19). When two people—or two nations—want the same thing badly enough, they will do whatever it takes to get it, including going to war. The only real advantage of a democracy over monarchy or totalitarianism is that more people have to agree to take the road to war or to any other evil, yet these things still happen with regularity. As former British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill remarked, "Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

In his most recent column, "Democracy Versus Liberty," Dr. Walter E. Williams, an economist at George Mason University, reminded his readers that "democracy and majority rule [are] a contemptible form of government." He went on to quote a handful of the Founding Fathers—from James Madison and John Adams to Alexander Hamilton—illustrating that they held democracy in low regard and therefore did not saddle the fledgling United States of America with it. In fact, they called democracy "turbulent," "folly," "extreme," and "suicidal"! Hamilton wrote, "If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy, or some other form of dictatorship."

As Dr. Williams points out, our nation's two most fundamental documents, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, do not contain even one instance of the word "democracy." The Constitution of the United States establishes the government of this nation as a republic, which dictionaries define simplistically as a government comprised of elected representatives of the people and usually presided over by an elected president. Likewise, they say a democracy is majority rule by the people, whether directly or through representatives.

While these spare definitions sound very similar, the similarity ends here. The primary difference, as seen through the Founders eyes, is the origin of rights: In a republic, they are the natural rights that spring from a loving God, and the government is constitutionally bound to protect them. In a democracy, rights have their source in the people, and the government imposes them through the force of law. Thus, citizens of a republic have a divine assurance of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" that no just law can supplant, whereas those in a democracy have no such guarantee. The majority can change or annul their rights at its whim.

Unfortunately, the United States discarded true republicanism a long while ago, transforming itself into a representative democracy, and this is the form of government that it has been pressing on the nations of the Middle East for many years. The consequences of this are troubling. If these nations are successful in forming democratic governments, they will not ally or even collaborate with the liberal West but with their Muslim brothers in the Islamic world—and increase the possibility of world war, not diminish it!

The strongmen currently being overthrown are the "devils we know," as it were, and they have maintained a degree of peace in the region for many years, albeit with sporadic flare-ups and threats of terrorism. Egypt's Mubarak, especially, has respected the peace treaty between his country and Israel that he inherited from his predecessor, Anwar Sadat. While the Egyptian military regime has not fallen (only the head of state has been removed), the new government has promised to share power with more radical elements who may not honor the treaty in the same way. Should the Muslim Brotherhood become more influential, it will surely renounce it, and a new Arab-Israeli war would not be far behind.

The situation in Bahrain, whose population is 70% Shia like Iran, contains another factor that will undermine keeping Middle East peace if the current government falls to a "democratic" revolution. For many years, the U.S. Navy has headquartered its Fifth Fleet in the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom under a deal that has been maintained since World War II. The ships and their attached air forces are stationed there to ensure the free flow of oil, to contain Iran, and to monitor and prevent terrorist organizations like al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah from strengthening and expanding across the region. Its mere presence deters these radical actors on many levels.

Finally, Yemeni President Saleh, who has been an ally against al Qaeda, has pledged—under the duress of demonstrations—that he will not run for office again in 2013, nor will his son, whom he had hoped to succeed him. Yemen, itself a hotbed of radical Islamism, lies just across the Red Sea from Somalia and all of its turmoil. A radicalized Yemen would virtually guarantee heightened tensions around the Horn of Africa and disrupt sea traffic between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.

The situation across the Middle East could change swiftly if these dominoes begin to fall. Certainly, the nation of Israel will begin to feel even more encircled by enemies, and its only real ally, the U.S., handcuffed by distance and shrinking logistical options, may be unable to come to its aid with strength as it now can. Could we be seeing the region reconfigured to instigate the King of the North's whirlwind invasion, as Daniel 11:40-43 describes? Perhaps, but would it not be a great irony if this world's great hope, democracy, played such a central role in bringing on the crisis at the close of this age?

Religion in Politics

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In the past few weeks, two significant events have transformed the race for the Republican nomination for President of the United States. First has been the surge in popularity of Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee into the top tier of candidates. Various polls show him gaining substantially on the party's frontrunners, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. Huckabee now appears to have secured a strong second-place ranking in Iowa, where he must score big to have any chance in later primaries. Huckabee, it must be mentioned, is an ordained Baptist minister. He frankly admits that his faith influences his policy decisions.

The second event of consequence was the December 6 speech by Romney at the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas, in which he answered his critics on the subject of his Mormon beliefs. Essentially, he argued that, while confessing the Mormon creed, he is still a Christian, saying, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and the savior of mankind." However, should he be elected, he said, "Let me assure you that no authorities of my church, or of any other church for that matter, will ever exert influence on presidential decisions. . . . I will put no doctrine of any church above the plain duties of the office and the sovereign authority of the law."

He reminded his listeners of the fact that many of the Founders of this nation were religious men and that they enshrined religious principles into our founding documents. Despite their memberships in various denominations, they were patriots first, fighting for America's well-being. Romney promised that he would strive to follow their example: "A President must serve only the common cause of the people of the United States." The former Bay State governor cited the example of another politician from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy, who "explained that he was an American running for President, not a Catholic running for President. Like him, I am an American running for President."

In an era of mounting secularism, it is intriguing that religion has become such an integral part of the election debate. Members of the American Civil Liberties Union and other anti-Christian groups—their hopes firmly placed in the more secular Democrat candidates—must be beside themselves in frustration at the resurgence of matters of faith into the national discourse. Should an ordained minister like Huckabee attain the Oval Office, their fears of a fanatical religious takeover of America will reach hysterical proportions: the atheistic version of "the end is near!"

Nevertheless, true Christians should not take this religious turn of events as a sign of American revival. Despite their claims of piety, these two Republican candidates are not knights on white horses to the rescue. Romney, for instance, is a Mitt-come-lately to the conservative cause, having made a number of reversals in his stances on homosexual rights, abortion, and stem-cell research and more recently, on gun-ownership and the environment. His position on illegal immigrants is also seen to be hypocritical, having hired undocumented workers as landscapers at the Governor's Mansion. He is at best a Northeastern moderate running as a conservative.

Huckabee is no better. While he tends to agree with social conservatives on abortion and homosexuality, he is extremely soft on illegal immigration, having consistently supported giving benefits to illegals and their children, while opposing restrictions on them. He is also known as a tax-and-spend governor. The conservative Club for Growth writes of him: "His history includes numerous tax hikes, ballooning government spending, and increased regulation." In Arkansas, as Romney did in Massachusetts, he has governed as a moderate at best, though he talks about Jesus a great deal.

As this column has mentioned before, the Church of the Great God is apolitical, which means we do not become involved in the political process. We do not endorse political candidates or parties, nor do we lobby government on political issues. However, we often comment about politics from a biblical point of view because political trends eventually effect societal change. It is the church's job to be society's watchman and warn the people of coming destruction, whether internally or externally generated (Ezekiel 33:1-11). And while it may seem strange that we should caution people about this trend of including religion in politics, it is necessary.

We cannot for a minute discount the decades-long shift toward secularism in our culture, thinking that the tide has been stemmed and reversed at last. Nor can we forget that these men are vying for the nomination to the highest office in the land, the office with the most political power in the whole world—they would say or do anything to make themselves more electable. Finally, we should not diminish the fact that these men need the voting power of the Religious Right to catapult them to the nomination and the Presidency beyond.

Call me skeptical, but these men are playing the "religion card," which they believe may be their ace in the hole. It is an old ploy, using religion to gain temporal power. Our radar should beep like crazy when it appears on the horizon. What they are doing is not far removed from the behavior of the Pharisees in Jesus' day, and He castigated them for their hypocrisy (see Matthew 23). The truth and the true prophets of God were in mortal danger when they held the reins of power (see Matthew 23:13, 15, 27-35). History proves that religion and politics do not often mix well, as one corrupts the other with delusions of power.

It is indeed true that "when the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; but when a wicked man rules, the people groan" (Proverbs 29:2). However, a religious person is not necessarily a righteous person, especially when so much is at stake. Americans would do well to discern the difference.

Sorry, I Forgot

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Many readers of this column know that Church of the Great God teaches that the Anglosphere (as columnist Mark Steyn phrases it)—Britain, America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand—is composed of descendants of the biblical patriarch, Joseph. We go further by teaching that America derives its population from Joseph's firstborn, Manasseh, and the other nations mentioned above descend from his second son, Ephraim. This belief is called by many "British-Israelism."

In simple terms, Jacob's prophecy in Genesis 48:19 foresees two major world powers, one of which—Manasseh—is a single great nation while the other—Ephraim—is "a multitude of nations." The United States of America is without doubt the greatest single nation in terms of both wealth and power that the world has ever seen. Similarly, the British Empire, upon which the sun never set, it was once said, was in its time even greater, especially in terms of its scope and control of the world politically and economically. These brother nations, bound by more than just a common language but also a common ancestry, have worked together for nearly two centuries to dominate world affairs.

God weaves clues to the character of these nations in His Word. One of the Bible's most consistent hints concerning peoples and nations arises from the meaning of their names. Genesis contains numerous references to the births of progenitors of nations and—interestingly—their parents' reasons for naming them as they did. Joseph's sons' births are mentioned in Genesis 41:50-52, along with their father's explanations of their names:

And to Joseph were born two sons before the years of famine came, whom Asenath, the daughter of Poti-Pherah priest of On, bore to him. Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh: "For God has made me forget all my toil and all my father's house." And the name of the second he called Ephraim: "For God has caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction."

Thus, Manasseh means "forgetful" or "making forgetful," while Ephraim means "fruitful" or "productive." Joseph, by the way, means "He [the LORD] will add," implying blessing from God (see Genesis 30:22-24). Joseph, through Jacob's blessing of his sons, received the firstborn's portion of Israel's inheritance, and it was mainly upon Joseph that God's physical promises of wealth and power that he made to Abraham were fulfilled. God certainly added to Joseph by blessing his descendants.

The people of Ephraim have certainly been fruitful and productive, far out of proportion to their numbers and the size of their homeland. From the little isle of England, they sent ships and armies that seized and governed far-flung lands and peoples for generations. They used the resources of those lands to build a vast trade and industrial empire that is the envy of nations and would-be empires. They are a people who lived up to their prophetic naming.

In this way, Manasseh does not disappoint either. From its founding in early colonial days, its people have tended, if not desired, to forget the past and plunge into the future. Its first colonists left Europe to put behind them both religious and governmental persecution and economic disadvantage. Leaving behind family and fatherland, they came to these shores to exorcise the old ways and to forge a new life in the wilderness of America. What had happened before and in other lands was of little concern to them; what was important was what lay ahead. What Joseph said in naming Manasseh could have been said by many of those colonists: "For God has made me forget all my toil and all my father's house."

That America was removed from Europe by a wide and often tempestuous ocean encouraged the formation and solidification of forgetfulness in our national character. By the time the colonists decided to rebel against their British overlords in London, most Americans had little interest in the goings-on in Europe to the point that, though they were just a generation or so removed from the Continent, Americans considered themselves a distinct and unique people. "American" was its own brand, having left its European origins behind.

American forgetfulness is enshrined in its founding documents, in which European forms of government are rejected and a totally new form, American republicanism, is adopted. George Washington advised America not to become involved in foreign disputes and wars, fearing that the fledgling nation would be swallowed up in the perennial game of nations in Europe. Later, ideas like the Monroe Doctrine—written by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams during President James Monroe's administration, warning other nations, particularly European ones, that America would not stand by should they attempt to interfere in the Western Hemisphere—isolated the U.S. even further. As this self-enforced isolation continued, America readily forgot the old ways and became famous for "can do" ingenuity, inventiveness, and innovation.

But Manassite forgetfulness has a downside: It tends to repeat the same lessons because it refuses to remember what previous generations learned through rough experience. Thus, American history tends to progress in very similar cycles, in which one generation repeats the mistakes of former ones and succeeding generations must make the best of the pieces that remain and move on. So it appears that the American government never seems to make any progress in its various "wars": on poverty, on drugs, on crime, on illegitimacy, on terrorism, on illiteracy, etc. All of the same old programs keep being tried time and again, and we wonder why the nation's problems never get solved! As wise Solomon said, "There is nothing new under the sun"—and certainly not in forgetful America!

Please keep Manassite forgetfulness in mind while watching events unfold toward the crisis at the close of the age. Truly did Moses and Jesus tell us to live by every word of God (Deuteronomy 8:3; Matthew 4:4; Luke 4:4)!

A Nation of Laws?

A primary concept that separates the United States of America from other nations, particularly those governed by strong men or oligarchies, is the principle of the primacy of law. No person's whims or cadre's machinations are to hold any weight in "the land of the free" unless and until they are duly processed through checks and balances into enacted law. We tout our country as "a nation of laws," in which no individual, not even the Chief Executive, stands above the law. The rights, privileges, and obligations enshrined in our founding documents are to apply equally to all citizens, and the subsequent statutes built upon that foundation are to follow this code of equality before the law also.

America has taken this obsession with law to extremes. Any law passed in Congress seems to run to hundreds or thousands of pages of picayune regulations to cover any and every situation. Added to this are various amendments and supplementary statutes, appropriations, and other rigmarole of lawmaking. Every activity must be covered by laws and regulations, so our law libraries run to thousands of volumes, which no one can possibly comprehend fully. There are so many laws in so many jurisdictions that any person at any time could be considered in violation of one or more of them.

Our near-worship of law has produced a huge number of lawyers—the U.S. has the highest number of lawyers per capita of any country in the world—and with that has come a powerful lobby that wields sometimes overwhelming influence in Washington and the state capitals. We even make law central in our entertainment; we seem to be fascinated by crime, forensic, and courtroom dramas, all of which revolve around the laws—used and abused—which govern our lives. And when elections roll around every two years or so, everything else takes a backseat to debates about who our lawmakers should be.

Yet, does it not seem ironic—understanding what we do about Americans' soft spot for law—that so many of them are quite willing to break the law when it comes to the question of illegal immigrants? Should a company fudge some numbers on their reporting to the government—prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law! Should a person drive drunk and get in an accident—take away his keys, seize his vehicle, throw him in the slammer, and let him rot! Should a politician take money under the table—smear him, fine him, imprison him, and run him out of town on a rail! However, should the government try to deport an illegal immigrant—somebody's housekeeper, gardener, or driver—why, that is inhumane!

A young lady recently called a Charlotte talk show, complaining how long and hard it was for an immigrant, legal or illegal, to get into this country through the proper channels. She proceeded to relate her sob-story about conditions in her former country—the lack of jobs, no opportunity, the repression, etc.—and it wound up with her telling the host that her mother just had to take matters into her own hands and cross the border illegally. Her justification was that, since the process was so involved and difficult, going around the law made perfect sense, and the American public should just accept it. What she was really saying was, "Would you not have done the same thing?"

The next day, on another show, a wealthy businessman called in to say that the host's views on this topic were all wet. The caller owned a company involved in agriculture, and he admitted that his firm hired illegal aliens routinely. Why? Normal Americans, he declared, would not work in the fields. Why not? The wage is too low. Well, then, why not follow the law by hiring citizens at a wage they will work for? How naïve! If he did that, he could not compete in the marketplace, and he would go out of business! According to him, the law was impractical, so he took his chances and ignored it. He would support wholeheartedly any amnesty measure that Congress passed.

And let us not forget the bureaucrats. Their line is that 11-12 million illegal immigrants live in this country already (a number that at best can be called a "guesstimate"), and rounding up, processing, and deporting that many people is both physically impossible and prohibitively expensive. Thus, they have ignored the laws already on the books for years, and should Congress pass more immigration laws, they will most likely ignore them too.

What can one conclude except that Americans love law in principle, but when the law begins to squeeze them and their accustomed lifestyles, why, it becomes perfectly acceptable to ignore, bend, or break the offending law. As Romans 8:7 says about people's attitude toward God's law—and we find that it applies equally well to man's laws—"the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be." When millions of people display this self-centered attitude toward law, taking matters into their own hands, anarchy is the result (see Judges 21:25).

True, man's laws are too often poorly written and weakly enforced by those sworn to do so. However, despite America being a free country, this deficiency in the nation's, state's, county's, or city's laws does not give us the right to become scoff-laws. Americans are at heart a rebellious people (see Ezekiel 2:3-4), having given birth to this republic in civil war and fighting among ourselves at every turn, and the Founders, knowing this, wrote into our basic covenants processes for correcting bad law and bad government. Unfortunately, these measures are rarely used, as either we cannot agree on what should be done or we lack the will to carry them through. So these problems continue, and the country slides further toward chaos.

Nevertheless, we can test ourselves (II Corinthians 13:5) in regard to law. What is our attitude toward it, especially toward God's law? Is it, "Oh, how I love Your law?" Or is it, "Those laws don't apply to me?" Be honest.

Teaching Respect for Property

From last week's essay, it is apparent that Constitutional protections of private property ownership have been eroded over the past several decades, not just by major Supreme Court decisions, but also by the steady encroachment of socialism into American culture. At the ends of the day, socialism is about state control, if not outright ownership, of the wealth-producing mechanisms of a country, and as the axiom says, all wealth ultimately comes out of the ground. When government begins to confiscate private properties and businesses in order to nationalize huge sectors of the economy, socialism is entering its final stages. The United States is, thankfully, not there quite yet.

Nevertheless, the groundwork has been laid. This is seen, first, in the general acceptance of governmental powers, particularly federal power, in areas that the Founders of this nation would be aghast to discover. Originally, federal power was severely limited to three major areas: defense, justice, and foreign policy. Beyond these, Congress was given the power to make necessary laws, coin money, and collect taxes. It was thought that the separation of powers and the various checks and balances would inhibit the growth of the government’s power. However, we now see the government regulating everything from car seats to cold medicine. The U.S. has so many arcane laws—federal, state, and local—that every citizen is a lawbreaker in one way or another.

The basis for full-blown socialism is also seen in the attitudes of the average citizen, especially young people, toward private property. One of the most visible manifestations of this attitude is the proliferation of insular, planned communities in which powerful homeowners’ associations police property owners on such “vital” matters as flagpole and fence heights, paint colors, and yard décor. Does a person really own his property if he can enhance and maintain it only according to the directives of an oversight committee? This is socialism in action.

It is becoming more obvious that children are not being taught to respect private property. Perhaps this is a failing on the part of parents and/or a product of government schooling, which was set up in the early- to mid-1900s by socialist educators like John Dewey. Whatever the cause, children no longer recognize boundaries between, say, public roads and private yards. Back in the day, parents taught their children that a neighbor’s driveway was his property, and that they should not use it unless they had a specific reason to be there and had the owner’s consent. They were also taught not to use neighbors’ yards as a short cut to somewhere else. It was also a given that a neighbor’s yard was not to be regarded as a trash dump for their candy wrappers, drink cans, and other assorted litter, nor was it a community garden in which they could dig holes, take topsoil, and remove mulch, flowers, leaves, branches, and fruits and vegetables at their whim.

Why are so many parents not teaching their children these basic principles?

Perhaps the primary reason is that they do not consider it all that important because they themselves do not have a great deal of respect for others’ possessions. In the great game called “keeping up with the Joneses,” diminishing the neighbor’s property increases one’s own. Envy and competition, hallmarks of rabid American materialism, can cause normally good neighbors to exhibit less-than-stellar attitudes and behaviors, which children are quick to mimic.

Another reason stems from the quickening pace of life; there is just so little time anymore to pass on these necessary principles. Parents are harried from the time they awaken to the time they fall wearily back into bed at night, and much of their time in between is spent away from home, not with their kids. Many parents likely justify this neglect by saying, “Who has time to take little Johnny aside and teach him the wisdom of the ages? Aren’t they supposed to be doing that at school?” But just the opposite of this latter question is true: Public schools, heavily influenced by “social studies” and liberal policies advocated by the teachers’ unions, push social values that sound as if they come from the Communist Manifesto rather than the Bible, the Constitution, or the Declaration of Independence.

Yet a third reason, perhaps the most elusive to define, may be a nagging feeling among many adults that they do not really control anything, even what they supposedly own. This malaise arises from a multitude of factors present in American society: the aforementioned ubiquitous government power, oppressive personal and national debt, constant and fruitless bickering among politicians, the constant drumming of the media on bad news, increasing awareness of crime and terrorism, frequent and deadly natural disasters, the looming specter of recession or unemployment—in a word, a kind of hopelessness. Why teach Jimmy to take care of the car when the bank is just going to repossess it anyway? Why scold Sally about defacing her school locker when the government has billions of our dollars to fix things just like that? Why get all hot and bothered about passing on such values when life is worth so little and it may be snuffed out tomorrow? Too many believe that events are spinning out of control, and they are fatalistically just along for the ride.

Despite these purported reasons not to do so, teaching our children to respect the property of others is a righteous activity. The eighth commandment, “You shall not steal” (Exodus 20:15), acts as the underlying principle of this responsibility, for trampling another’s rights of ownership is essentially stealing from him. At its mildest, it is abrogating his privilege to say how his property is treated. At its worst, it is downright robbery.

In the Gospels, our Savior says a great deal about stewardship, the overarching concept regarding the maintenance, use, and development of property, either one’s own or another’s (see, for instance, Luke 12:35-39; 16:1-8; 19:12-27; also, from the apostles, I Corinthians 4:1-2; Titus 1:7; I Peter 4:10). It is our duty as Christian parents to instruct our children about proper stewardship of first our and their possessions, and then the treatment of other people’s belongings. This will lay the right foundation for the more important stewardship of God’s gifts and blessings that leads to great reward in His Kingdom (Matthew 24:45-47).

Liberty and Justice for All?

Over the last two days, two branches of the American government—the judicial and the legislative—proved again either that they have no idea what this nation's Founding Fathers meant when they drafted, debated, and ratified the Constitution, or that they simply do not care what it says. Activities like these are what provide fodder for conspiracy theorists to imagine grand plots whose aims are to subjugate Americans to a New World Order. Whether there are such schemes is moot, but the freedoms of American citizens are being trampled and obliterated, it seems, on a weekly basis by our own government.

To the Patriot Act (a collusion of the executive and legislative branches, with the approval, so far, of the judicial) and to the broad discretionary powers of the President (most of which have been assumed through executive orders and without Congressional or judicial oversight), we can add our governments' right to condemn private property for just about any cause. Today, in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court decided that the Fifth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable seizures of property, can be ignored by local governments—and by implication, state and federal governments—if they can show that new development on the condemned land will economically benefit the community.

This decision means that, if your city fathers decide that a shopping mall or factory or sports arena will provide more revenue to the city than what you pay in property taxes, they have every right to force you to sell your home, farm, or business to them for "fair" compensation. It used to be—and is still the law in many locales—that government could only condemn property for necessary infrastructure—roads, sewers, airports, power plants, etc. Now, however, if a private citizen pays $1,000/year in property taxes, but a strip mall on the same land will bring in $10,000/year—and add a score of new employees and lots of customers who will pay local sales taxes—the citizen's only option is to take whatever price the city offers for his place.

Who knows if this will be the extent of a government's use of this new power? What if the local city council, dominated by one or the other party, wants to make matters difficult for the rival party, and uses this power like a club? It is not out of the realm of possibility that a government could also use this power to force "undesirables"—the poor, members of another race, etc.—out of a certain sector of the city. Or perhaps it could be brought to bear on a "cult" whose ownership of a piece of property in the city is an embarrassment to the "orthodox" community. Do we really want to open the floodgates to these possibilities?

The second anti-Constitutional activity this week involved the House of Representatives approving the wording of a Constitutional amendment that would give Congress the power to punish those who desecrate the American flag. It would read: "The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States." This is the sixth time since 1995 that the House has approved this amendment, and the Senate has twice voted it down. If passed, it would overturn a 1989 Supreme Court decision that found that the First Amendment protects flag burning. Analysts believe this attempt will also be defeated, as supporters can muster only 65 senators, two short of the 67 needed for passage.

Flag burning is an emotional issue, and since 9-11, it has gained support across the country. In fact, 9-11 was played like a trump card during the debate: "Ask the men and women who stood on top of the Trade Center," said Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA). "Ask them, and they will tell you: Pass this amendment." Nevertheless, the First Amendment is clear in its protection of speech, even rebellious or defiant speech: "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. . . ." The Founders wanted the people of this country to have the power to speak their minds, especially when the government seemed to be getting too big for is breeches.

The Court has found in several instances that "speech" covers symbolic actions—actions deliberately done to make a political point. Burning the flag, then, is along the same lines as burning or hanging a political figure in effigy. Clearly, both of these acts are offensive, but as Americans, we are free to offend and to be offended. Would not the likes of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson laugh us to scorn if they knew today's Americans are so "sensitive" that they would attempt to amend the Constitution to avoid being offended? In days long past, private citizens would "have a quiet talk" with anyone who would dare to be so offensive against our national symbol. And that would be that.

Do we really want the government to institutionalize authority over disagreeable speech or symbolic actions? If the Congress can punish for desecration of the flag, what other kinds of "speech" could they someday ban or penalize using this amendment as a precedent? How about banning certain books, either political or religious, that they find offensive? Perhaps it could be "offensive" remarks that oppose abortion, promiscuity, or homosexuality (Canada already has such a law against the last)? Or maybe Congress might want to impose its authority on churches who offend by not conforming to "orthodox" practices? All the sea needs is one tiny crack in the dike.

It is ironic that the recent hubbub over the Pledge of Allegiance centered on the words "under God." It seems that we need a national debate on "with liberty and justice for all" instead.