I’m taking a moral stand.
There is nothing in this world or universe worthy of our adoration except the God of the Bible. Him and Him alone we must worship. No mortal man, no creation of our hands or invention of our minds are worthy or worship. We must love Him first and always.
Murder is wrong. Everyone agrees to this. Or so they think. We cannot kill the sick or the unborn. They are human life, and worthy of our protection, as much as the healthiest and most able among us are. We must stop aborting our children. We must stop so-called “mercy killing” AKA assisted suicide.
Sexual relations of any sort outside of the bonds of holy marriage between a man and a woman is wrong and is leading to the death of our society. It must be stopped. We must write laws that make it illegal and punish it with death. Things that are like it—pornography, etc—must also be stopped and punished accordingly.
These two things—how we create life and how we take it—are sacred things we should never tamper with nor trivialize.
Personal property is sacred. We all have a right to own what we own. We have no right, of course, to harm the property of those around us. We need government to be there simply to mediate any damage we do to each others property so that wrongs can be righted. All this crap about environmental law and such is absurd. We simply need to have people right the wrongs they do to each other.
Those who steal maliciously, that is, who knowingly violate the property of others with mal intent, should be dealt with swiftly and decisively. We cannot tolerate theft in our society without lawlessness taking over. This includes our elected officials, who steal as a matter of policy from the people to redistribute it to their party and voters. This means we must end the practice of “charitable” government. Government cannot act as a charity. It is the exact opposite of charity since it operates only by force and threat of violence.
The family institution is critical to our society. We must support it and defend it. We will defend it by punishing mothers and fathers who fail to live up to their obligations to each other and their children. Mothers and fathers are required, by moral law, to teach their children right from wrong. Government is supposed to support the parents as they do this, not interfere. Scientific knowledge is no substitute for moral knowledge. I would rather we have a country of illiterate ignoramuses who understand right from wrong than a society of highly educated professors who can’t discern right from wrong. Knowledge is a tool. We can no more arm an immoral people and expect happiness than we can educate an immoral people and expect happiness.
Churches play a central role in the teaching of morality. Government’s duty is to protect the free exercise of religion. There should be no pressure from any part of government to limit in any way anything a religion wants to teach. There should be no limits to where they are allowed to build their churches our how they practice their religion, provided that they are obedient to the laws of the land. There should be no limits where they are allowed to preach (as long as they don’t harm the property of the people).
I’ve often heard libertarians say that government’s job isn’t to protect people from themselves. If someone wants to fry their brain on coke then government should simply allow that. I would agree with that sentiment if it weren’t true that one person’s fried brain doesn’t hurt me. But that simply isn’t the case. And so, I boldly declare, that the people have an interest in limiting the personal behaviors of the people. And as such, the government, particularly the state governments, should outlaw the manufacture, possession, distribution, and consumption or substances that are mind-altering such as alcohol and other drugs. If such substances have legitimate medicinal use, then they should be closely regulated and monitored to see that they are only used within the bounds of their usefulness, on a limited basis.
Finally, I want to talk about lying. We have laws already on the books condemning and punishing such behavior. We need to extend them. If what you say is provably false, and you, knowing it is false, say it anyway with the intent to deceive or harm people, you should be punished for your deception according to the amount of damage you have done, and then some. If you cannot pay back what damage you have done, you pay with imprisonment or servitude.
Now, in all things, I want to keep the distinction between private and public behavior clear. What you do in private is my concern, but I am powerless to stop you since I do not know what you are doing. That’s the definition of private—you don’t tell me or show me what you are doing. But publicly, I can see what you are doing and that you are harming yourself, myself, and society at large. And so what you do publicly is my concern.
If you disagree with the moral laws of the state, you don’t have to keep them—privately. Note that your behavior will still harm yourself, your family, and society at large, but we are powerless to stop it.
And finally, one more distinction. I don’t believe the federal government should be the author of any moral laws, except laws that deal with how states deal with one another. (For instance, a law that says marriages made in one state do not have to be recognized in another state if it is not between one man and one woman.) Concentrating in one body the power to not only wage war and regulate trade but to regulate individual behavior is simply too much power for any body of government.
But the states should write their own laws governing every aspect of business, religious, and personal life that needs to be legislated. They should write laws to protect the freedoms of the people and laws that punish behavior that disturb the peace and freedom of the people.
