Congressional Issues 2010
GOVERNMENT
Liberty Under God

The United States of America became the greatest nation on earth by following this simple principle:

Liberty Under God

For America's Founding Fathers, "Liberty Under God " meant that no person or group has the right to prevent others from living peacefully under their "Vine & Fig Tree." That includes "the government," because it too is "under God."

For decades, this principle has been under attack by all three branches of government.

• Congress has been delegating our liberties away,
• the President has sacrificed our liberties in a short-sighted quest for "security,"
• and the Supreme Court has been at war with God for two generations. 

"Liberty Under God " should not be just an empty slogan to parade about on patriotic occasions. Kevin Craig is the only candidate for Congress who is willing to risk being labeled "politically incorrect" by sticking to this principle as consistently as America's Founders did.

Liberty

The contrast between contemporary America and her Founding Fathers is seen in the fact that the Founders were willing to risk their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to fight taxes which scholars estimate at 3-5%. Americans blithely pay ten times more without more than occasional comment about taxes being "too high." The ratification of the Constitution was not an easy process, as Americans were concerned about surrendering even the slightest liberty. Most of these liberties have been lost. In the choice between a government nanny and liberty, America's Founders chose liberty.

Under God

Limitations on government power and human rights flowed naturally from the Christian presuppositions of Western Civilization. A government that does not acknowledge itself to be "under God" is a government that thinks it is God, and the Messianic State is a threat to your liberties. If your neighbor thinks he's god, he is a threat to your liberties.

The Founders recognized that society could not be held together—and the rights of human beings protected—without the pervasive effect of religion and morality. The oft-repeated slogan of "separation of church and state" no longer has anything to do with churches or church denominations (as the Framers intended), but in practice means the separation of God and state, something opposed by every single person who signed the Constitution. In his Farewell Address, George Washington, "the Father of his Country," reminded the nation:

Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, Religion, and Morality are indispensable supports.—In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens. —The mere Politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them.—A volume could not trace all their connexions with private and public felicity.—Let it simply be asked where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion.—Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure—reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.—

Why is the federal government imposing secularism on our schools and our public institutions? Because the God of the Bible must be pushed out of the way in order to make room for the Messianic State. Your liberties are not safe if the government thinks it's God.

Should we take up arms against this atheistic tyranny? Kevin Craig opposes violent revolution, even America's War for Independence, but agrees with the Founders that Britain's infringement on our liberties was immoral and tyrannical.

Jacob Hornberger describes the libertarian society that America's Founders created:

Was the society that existed under the federal government a perfectly libertarian society? We all know it wasn’t. There was slavery. There were tariffs. There were land grants to the railroads. There were various economic regulations at the state and local levels. There was corporatism.

Once again, however, that’s looking at the glass as half empty. Consider the other side of things: Our ancestors brought into existence a society in which there was no income tax or IRS, one where people could keep everything they earned and decide for themselves what to do with it. There was no Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, farm subsidies, education grants, food stamps, public housing, or FDIC. Indeed, there was no welfare state or mandatory, coercive charity. There were no drug laws. There were very few economic regulations, especially at the federal level. No minimum-wage laws. No occupational-licensure laws. No Federal Reserve. No fiat money: the official U.S. money consisted of coins made out of precious metals. No immigration controls. No public (i.e., government) schooling. No national-security state. America had a relatively small army that was nothing like the enormous military establishment and military-industrial complex that exist today. No foreign military bases. No regime-change operations, coups, foreign interventions, foreign aid, or alliances with foreign regimes. No CIA. No NSA. No official programs for mass surveillance, torture, and assassination.

That is the most remarkable political and economic achievement in history. Never in history has there existed such a society. It was the closest that people have ever come to what libertarians envision as a genuinely free society. Notwithstanding the exceptions (e.g., slavery and tariffs), the result was the freest and most prosperous nation in history and certainly among the most peaceful and harmonious for most of the time (the Civil War, the Mexican War, slavery, and the war against American Indians being notable exceptions).

Today, we obviously live in a very different type of society, one that has all those government programs that our ancestors didn’t have. For most of the 20th century and continuing through today, we live under what has become known as a welfare state and a warfare state, where the federal government wields omnipotent power over the lives and economic activities of the citizenry.

Many in both the "Religious Right" and the secular "progressive" "left" oppose the Founding Fathers' idea of "Liberty Under God."

Throughout this web site you will find insights into the relationship between liberty and true religion. You'll find criticisms of government programs which infringe on liberty and replace true religion with a false religion which undercuts public virtue and personal responsibility. You'll find historical information on the true foundations of the American system, and a classroom full of resources on the economic and political theory which distinguishes America from all the socialistic nations of the world. Both the Republican and Democratic parties have abandoned these principles. Now you have a chance to vote for someone who will give a voice for traditional American values which brought the prosperity that amazed the world, making America the most respected and admired nation in history.

• Religion and Liberty: The Christian connection [Archive.org] -- and A Response
• Ludwig von Mises says The Idea of Liberty is Western

  The idea of liberty is and has always been peculiar to the West. What separates East and West is first of all the fact that the peoples of the East never conceived the idea of liberty. The imperishable glory of the ancient Greeks was that they were the first to grasp the meaning and significance of institutions warranting liberty. Recent historical research has traced back to Oriental sources the origin of some of the scientific achievements previously credited to the Hellenes. But nobody has ever contested that the idea of liberty was created in the cities of ancient Greece. The writings of Greek philosophers and historians transmitted it to the Romans and later to modern Europe and America. It became the essential concern of all Western plans for the establishment of the good society. It begot the laissez-faire philosophy to which mankind owes all the unprecedented achievements of the age of capitalism. But we should remember that Greece held a plurality of its people in slavery, and "liberty" was only for the elites: Libertarian Greece is "Greek Mythology."

• Around 700 B.C., the prophet Isaiah threatened Israel with captivity to foreign nations (a meaningless threat, if liberty had no meaning), and held forth the idea of liberty as a gift of God:

  “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,       Because the LORD has anointed me       To preach good tidings to the poor;       He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted,       To proclaim liberty to the captives,       And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;

  The idea of liberty already existed in the days of Samuel in the Old Testament, earlier than 1000 B.C. The "Liberty Bell" in Philadelphia is inscribed with a verse from the book of Leviticus, written just after the Exodus from Egypt in 1430 B.C.:          

  PROCLAIM LIBERTY THROUGHOUT ALL THE LAND UNTO ALL THE INHABITANTS THEREOF LEV. XXV X.

next: Vine & Fig Tree: The American Dream