I have been pounding this for literally decades and I’m going to continue to pound it as long as the good Lord gives me breath and the ability to do so: our Founding Fathers created a limited government, but one that required virtuous people. And the latter is FAR more important than the former. And today’s America has very little of either, on either side of the aisle.
Democrats are certainly the greatest problem America has right now, but they aren’t the only problem. I see far too many foul-mouthed, promiscuous, pleasure-oriented, unvirtuous Republicans in the country now to ever make the nation great again. Some people need to get the logs out of their own eyes before they start talking about the specks in other people’s eyes. If the only thing that distinguishes us from Democrats is certain political beliefs and how the government spends its money, then we are no better people than they are. And that may be why we rarely persuade any of them to join us.
Let’s review what our Founders said the American people need to be.
1. John Adams stated in an October 11, 1798, letter to the Massachusetts Militia: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." If you limit the power that government has over people (which our Founders did because they certainly did not, for one moment, trust government power in the hands of anyone), then something must restrict the wicked deeds that unrestrained men will do to each other. Adams very plainly stated in the quote above that America’s Founders didn’t intend government to be the major entity in human restraint, but “a moral and religious people.” The Constitution limits what government can (should) do. Religion limits what people can (should) do. THAT is what our Founders intended.
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2. Benjamin Franklin: "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." This is in total harmony with what Adams wrote in point one above. The more corrupt people become, the more they will need government (“masters”) to control them. People can only be free if they choose to be free, and that is by choosing to be virtuous and not harm others. The greater government grows, the less free the people will be. “The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases,” Thomas Jefferson wrote, and he is exactly right. I might add that, not only did our Founders want a limited government with virtuous people, they wanted a people who knew history, which is something Karl Marx didn’t want: “Keep people from their history and they are easily controlled.” And that is exactly what the Democrats want today, too. It’s easy to discover where Democrats get their current, unAmerican ideas.
3. James Madison: “To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people is a chimerical [fanciful] idea.” It matters not, it is wholly irrelevant, what kind of government a country has; if the people are not virtuous, they will not be free or happy. Madison further wrote, “The future and success of America is not in this Constitution, but in the laws of God upon which this Constitution is founded.” The laws of God. Virtue. There will be no “future” or “success” for America without them. And I truly fear that America’s “future” is in grave jeopardy because of lack of virtue in our people.
4. Edmund Burke. Burke wasn’t one of America’s Founders, of course, but he said something that is wholly relevant to this essay, perhaps the most relevant quote of all: “Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.” Men must be restrained for a civilized “society” to exist. That restraint can either come from within (virtue), or without (government). Our Founders (and Burke) believed that only religion could effectively control men and give them freedom, and the past 100 years of atheistic, communist murder and tyrannical governments around the world, and the current plight and disasters that atheistic Democratic-run cities in America are suffering, bears this out 100 percent. Countless humans will not restrain themselves without the laws of God to inspire and direct them. Note Burke further said (as the Founders did) that the less people control themselves (virtue), the more they will need control from some other location (government tyranny). An unvirtuous people cannot be free: “their passions forge their fetters.” “Liberty does not exist in the absence of morality.” That’s another quote from Burke that too many Americans today are ignoring.
To “Make America Great Again” means we must “Making America Godly Again,” and that can only be done by returning to the virtuous Republic our Founders tried to establish. Then we can be truly free and have the limited government that they envisioned, not the totalitarian government the Democrats want, telling us what we can and cannot do, or even think. That isn’t freedom, that’s slavery. That’s what China has. And again, it’s what the Democrats want.
Sadly, we have miserably failed our Founders, and God, and by doing so, we are failing ourselves, our families, our neighbors, our entire country, and the world. “America First” doesn’t mean bombing the snot out of Iran, it means “Virtue First,” being the kind of people God wants us to be. If we aren’t, then all the bombs and bullets in the world won’t do us one bit of good.
“Virtue is the only good, and self-control is the only means of achieving virtue” (Antisthenes of Athens). America will never be great again until we re-learn that lesson.
Read my new book! “Kendrick and other stories,” four great tales of the Old American West, available on Amazon Kindle. Read my other books as well: “Whitewater,” “River Bend,” “Return to River Bend,” and “Allie’s Dilemma,” all available on Amazon. Check out my substacks: “Mark It Down! (mklewis929.substack.com) and “Mark It Down! Bible Substack” (mklbibless.substack.com). Both free. Follow me on X: @thailandmkl.
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