A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF GOVERNMENT

Before we the people of the United States of America can have a chance to find a viable self-image, we must understand what lies hidden behind the word "government".

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, their individual self-image, under the thing referred to by the word government. In fact, recorded history is nothing more than a record of the various experiments people have carried out throughout the ages in their attempt to find a government that actually can provide them with life. From its beginning with the family unit headed by the Father and the Mother to the most sophisticated full-blown governments of today, people have been forced to rely on government as the instrument that offered them the best hope of shielding them from the harsh realities created by Death on this planet.

People's allegiance to government has always been created by their willingness to accept as True certain words that were seen to justify government's exercise of power. For instance, in the earliest governmental unit, the family, authority was gained by saying the words, "I am your Father"; or "I am your Mother". These words defined both the basis and the purpose of government in the beginning, and the citizens in this earliest governmental unit, the children, understood these words to define precisely why and how government power was justified. That those who called themselves Father and Mother were responsible for the lives of the citizens in the earliest government unit was self-evident to the children who sprang from the loins of the governors (the Father and the Mother). This self-evident truth gained the consent of the governed (the children) and justified the right of the parents to exercise power in the governmental unit called the family.

Government outside the family unit came into being because of the ownership problem. The ownership problem is the cause of conflict between people on this planet. The ownership problem is created by the unavailability of a means of establishing unquestionable right to ownership--primarily of land, but potentially of any other aspect of reality. In other words, there is no basis for a right to own anything that everyone on earth has agreed is unquestionable. When ownership is disputed, conflicts have always arisen.

The ownership problem forced people to abandon the family as their primary form of government. In a world where possession of land capable of sustaining life was the first requirement for survival, the family unit found itself impotent to obtain and keep habitable land when confronted by landless larger families or landless families that had united together in pursuit of habitable land. This need to protect habitable land explains why the family unit was replaced as the primary instrument of survival and replaced by the overarching authority structures commonly called "governments" that we see evolve in history. Government has always been nothing more than a family or a group of families cooperating together in order to protect the land they occupied. The root explanation for the existence of government has to include the land problem to be factually valid. Whether we look at government in the family unit or government in any fully developed nation, the purpose of government has always been to protect access to land fertile enough to provide sustenance for life.

This purpose has always been defined in what we call principles--words designed to justify the existence of government. In other words, government has always had to explain, both to itself and to others, why it had the right to hold habitable land. The words used by government to explain why it was right that they, and not some other, hold the land were the principles that justified the government.

WORDS AND GOVERNMENT

It is impossible to overemphasize the importance of words to government. Without words, government simply cannot exercise authority. If you will remember, I earlier pointed out that there are two ways government can exercise power: by authority or by brute force. Governments rule by authority when the governed have been moved to consent to allow governments to make decisions which the governed obey without having to be coerced by brute force.

Words are the vehicles that move the governed to grant consent to be governed. Words are the life blood of authority. In the same way that a human body cannot exist without blood, so too authority cannot exist without words.

Words connect the consent of the governed to the power of the governors. In other words, it is through the device of words that governors explain their right to govern in such a way as to gain consent from the governed. By using the mechanism of words, governors create a government that rules by the mechanism of authority. Without words that can move the governed to consent to be subject to the decisions of government, government can only rule by brute force.

Homo Sapiens is the only species that can form a government that exercises power through authority. In other words, only homo sapiens have access to the power of words. The fact that people insist their government be justified by words is that which most obviously separates governments created by homo sapiens from the governments created by other species of life. The fundamental difference between governments established by people and governments established by wolves is wolves don't need words to justify the use of brute force, people do. Governments that exercise power outside the context of words that authoritatively justify the use of that power is government of, by, and for, a beast, or The Beast, depending on your theology.

WORDS AND GOVERNMENT AND SELF-IMAGE

Just as a government cannot rule with authority without words, so too a nation's viable self-image cannot be created and sustained without words. People cannot sustain a viable self-image when they perceive themselves to be beasts. Yet people involved in government must sometimes do things that look beastly. In order to sustain a viable self-image, a nation must be able to understand that even though it is forced to do beastly things, it is not a beast. Words are the only device available to homo sapiens that has the power to create such an understanding. Let's examine how words are used to justify the use of brute force, Deadly Force.

The survival of the reality called government requires that people who do not willingly consent to the decisions of government be forced to submit. This requirement means that those who do not grant authority to government will be forced by government to submit to its authority by the use of brute force, brute force that sometimes takes the form of Deadly Force.

People involved in the exercise of Deadly Force against members of their own species must believe they are right in the exercise of that force or their viable self-image is destroyed. The belief that sustains those involved in the exercise of Deadly Force against members of their own species consists of words that explain why it is right that government exercise Deadly Force against members of its own species. Without those words, and the belief that those words accurately explain objective reality, terrible things begin to happen in the minds of those who exercise Deadly Force against members of their own species.

Instead of perceiving themselves to be individuals who are firmly seated on a reality that can sustain their lives, they begin to find themselves beset by terrible fears, beastly images flash into consciousness, they experience a chronic sense of dread--in short, their viable self-image has been destroyed by the destruction of their peace of mind.

Peace of mind is the essential environment for a viable self-image. Without peace of mind, members of the species homo sapiens are the most uncomfortable inhabitants of spaceship Earth. Since words are the things that provide people involved in government with justification for the use of Deadly Force, words are the things that provide those involved in government with peace of mind.

Those words become the most important things in life. Since you are involved in the government of the United States of America, the words used to justify this government are the only things that can provide you and I with peace of mind, and that peace of mind is the absolute necessity if we are to sustain a viable self-image.

Every citizen of the United States of America alive today is involved in the government of this nation. We the people are the source of the power exercised by the government of the United States of America. Not a day passes in this nation without the power of this government being exercised in Deadly Force against some member of the species homo sapiens. At the root of the anxiety that presently grips this nation is the suspicion that no one actually understands words that can explain where we the people get the right to exercise this Deadly Force.

I understand those words. I have found the foundation that was designed by the Founders of this nation to provide all the citizens of this nation with peace of mind as we went about the horrible business of government on this planet. The words defined by the Founders in the Declaration of Independence are words that explain exactly how and why we the people of the United States of America are justified in exercising Deadly Force in this world. Those words are absolutely essential to the viable self-image of this nation because those words, and those words alone, have the power to explain where and how we the people got the right to do whatever is necessary to protect and defend the government created by the Founders of the United States of America. If we are going to find a viable self-image for the United States, you must understand why the words in the Declaration of Independence are the only vehicles available to the people of the United States of America that can provide us with the peace of mind essential to a viable self-image.

The words in the Declaration of Independence are the only words in the United States of America that can actually create government authority in this nation. They are the only words because they were the words that were, in the beginning of this nation, designed by the Founders of this nation to create authority in this nation. While it is theoretically possible for the citizens of the United States to choose other words upon which they base authority, such a move is a Revolutionary Act that, at some point in time, would have to receive sanction from the same Court--the Court of Last Resort--that issued sanction to the words originally chosen by the Founders of this nation to be the basis of authority.

For the citizens of the United States to treat the words in the Declaration of Independence as meaningless is to abandon the foundation of authority in this nation. And that is exactly what has happened in this generation. Since the words in the Declaration of Independence presently have no legal standing in this nation, real authority has disappeared in this nation. The destruction of authority means that the only mechanism through which government can rule is brute force.

If we the people want to avoid a government that can only rule by brute force, if we the people want to find authority again, we must grasp the meaning of the words in the Declaration of Independence. To understand why the Declaration of Independence is the Foundation for Law and Authority in the United States of America, we must grasp what the Founders were doing when they wrote that document. They were defining for the world the way they perceived reality to be organized. Therefore, according to any definition of the word "law" or "truth" or "fact" they were defining what they understood to be the law. Even though the Declaration does not contain the word "law", it does contain the word "truth". If you understand that the two words are absolutely interchangeable because they point to precisely the same referent, then you can understand why the Declaration of Independence is Law for those who define their duty in terms of protecting the government created by the Founders of the United States of America. It is Law because it is Truth because it is Fact. Let us see that Law.

To see the real Law in the United States of America, we've got to see the reality viewed by the people who founded this nation. They saw a world ruled by kings. The Founders of the United States of America believed God wanted to change the world ruled by kings by forming a new Law on this planet. The Founder's were proved to be correct and the New Law they wanted to see operate on this planet became the Real Law in the United States of America. Review the historical record and see if you don't agree.

In the beginning, the government of the United States 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. "...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..."

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.

HOW WE GOT AMNESIA

We got amnesia in this nation because the present government of the United States has tried to do what no nation in the history of the world has ever been able to do: disengage its authority from the plan of god for government. Do I need to spend time pointing out to you the exact process through which this present government has gone about eliminating the idea of god from the decisions made by government in this nation? I think not. Most of us know there has been a concerted effort to separate the government of the United States from any connection with ideas concerning god. If that fact is not obvious to you, then you have not been paying enough attention to the world around you to understand anything I have to say. But you have been paying attention. That's why you can't stop reading this book. You have sensed that I am onto something very important. And I am. I understand the relationship between god and government.

Virtually all of my present authority stems from the fact that I understand that every government that has ever existed on this planet has justified its existence by either explicitly or implicitly founding itself on some explanation of the plan of God for government. Because I possess this understanding I possess the authority that comes to those who speak the Truth about government. This authority operates because people can hardly stop themselves from listening to those who speak the Truth.

But the authority I possess is authority that was intended by the Founders of the government of the United States of America to belong to every voting citizen of this nation. All that authority consists of is knowledge of the Truth, and the willingness to defend it. To get past being mixed up and to have access to the authority that belongs to you as a citizen of the United States of America, you must understand some things about the relationship of god to government.

In order to put the government of the United States of America in historical perspective we must see that all human governments share the same foundation. Remember all that I wrote about the necessity and importance of words to the exercise of government authority? Well, the only real difference between any nation in recorded history is the words used by people in explaining their right to hold the land. Since the fundamental purpose of every government that ever existed on this planet was to hold habitable land, the words used to justify that activity were the words that held the nation together on the land.

For most of recorded history, these words were composed of 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.

For instance, Thomas H. Greer, in his A Brief History of Western Civilization explains how government in ancient Egypt maintained authority over the people. He tells us, "Religion was the base of pharaoh's authority." In other words, the right of the ruler to hold the land and demand the obedience from the subjects necessary to hold the land was explained in theological terms. This example is only one of a pattern that includes every government that has ever existed on the face of the earth: Inevitably, and without exception, every government throughout the course of recorded history has justified its right to hold the land with words that explained why it was God's plan that they hold the land. 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.

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.

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 other words, the king was understood by many to have the right to hold the land because God had given the king that right. In essence, Monarchists believed that anyone who denied the king's right to rule was arguing not only with the king but with God Himself.

As with all governments throughout history, the Founders had to explain in words why it was Right for their government to exist, why their government had the right to hold the land, and not some other. 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 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 and the Creator's plan for government.

UNDERSTANDING THE PLAN

Reread the Declaration of Independence in Chapter Four. 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.

One of the most obvious historical facts visible to anyone who tries to understand the United States of America is that the words in the Declaration of Independence were subject to widely varying interpretations from the moment the Founders consented that those words defined the Law for this nation. For fully a century after the Law in the Declaration of Independence was adopted by this nation, a significant portion of the citizens insisted on interpreting the "all men" portion of the Law in an amazingly narrow way. This narrow interpretation created a horrible situation in the United States, a situation that required this nation to engage in a horribly bloody Civil War before those who insisted on their narrow interpretation could be persuaded to consent to a much broader interpretation of the Law in this nation. But those who want to understand the United States of America must not ignore the moral of the story: it was the Law defined by the Declaration of Independence that was being disputed. There was never a question among any of the parties in the dispute about the Legal Authority of the picture of reality contained in the Declaration itself. In the past, we disagreed about what the Law meant, but we never forgot where the Law was found. The Revolution that has recently occurred in the United States of America has caused us all to forget where the foundation of the Real Law for the government of the United States of America is found--the Declaration of Independence.

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.

In other words, 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.

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. Now is that a great plan or what?!

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 Creator' plan for government.

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, their definition of Truth, their definition of Law--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, the Law, 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. They didn't die, but their plan did. It was destroyed by the people who run the present government of the United States of America. They destroyed the authority of government in the United States when they forgot the plan this government was designed to implement. Such forgetfulness on the part of rulers disqualifies them to exercise authority. A government without a plan, and without a clue how to find one, is no government worthy of the name or the respect due a government rightly named. A government that doesn't have a plan and doesn't have a clue how to find one deserves to be overthrown. I'm out to get them for it. You'll be willing to help me when you understand your own government.