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Did George Washington By Matt Barber
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It’s that bustling time between Thanksgiving and Christmas (Christ’s Mass), our nationally recognized and congressionally “established” birthday celebration for Jesus, the sovereign Lord of all mankind. Now is a valuable opportunity to reflect upon our nation’s past, present and future (our true past, not the historically revised version propagated by secular-”progressives”). First, for
the public school-educated: No, Thanksgiving was not about high-fiving
the Indians for corn on the cob. In his 1789 Thanksgiving
Day Proclamation, George Washington made abundantly clear exactly
Whom America should thank, and why. Washington
began by declaring that “it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge
the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His
benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor” so that a special
day might “be devoted by the people of these States to the service of
that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the
good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in
rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and
protection of the people of this country” as well as “for the civil and
religious liberty with which we are blessed.”
Oh,
how times have changed.
That,
while “acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of
Almighty God,” continued Washington, America might “unite in most humbly
offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of
Nations” in a concerted effort “to promote the knowledge and practice
of true religion and virtue.”
You
with me, Supreme Court?
Now,
lest there be any confusion as to the identity of “the great Lord and
Ruler of Nations” to Whom Washington referred, President John Adams, Washington’s
successor, ordered, in 1799, a day of “solemn humiliation, fasting, and
prayer,” wherein he
proclaimed that Americans should, “on that day abstain as far
as may be from their secular occupations, devote the time to the sacred
duties of religion in public and in private: That they call to mind our
numerous offenses against the most High God, confess them before Him with
the sincerest penitence, implore His pardoning mercy, through the great
Mediator and Redeemer, for our past transgressions, and that, through
the grace of His Holy Spirit, we may be disposed and enabled to yield
a more suitable obedience to His righteous requisitions in time to come.”
“Separation of church and state”? Not
so much.
I know.
Calm down, atheists. It wasn’t a theocratic dictate requiring that you
bow your knee before Jesus. Christians don’t force conversion. After all,
contrary to Barack Hussein Obama’s claim
otherwise, we are not a “Muslim country” yet. It was just
a firm suggestion. As for bowing before Christ, God will see
to that later.
Imagine
if anti-Christian outfits like the ACLU or the so-called “Freedom From
Religion Foundation” (FFRF) had been around back then. At a time when
Americans’ freedoms were protected under an authentic First Amendment
application, these counter-constitutionalists would have been laughed
out of town (or worse) upon their first frivolous “Establishment Clause”
lawsuit.
Still,
George Washington’s myriad “declarations of American dependence” upon
God were not all sunshine and fuzzy bunnies. Many took on a decidedly
somber tone, clearly intended to warn both his patriotic contemporaries
and, most especially, future generations.
America’s
reluctant first chief executive sought to forestall the predictably devastating
consequences of a national break from America’s Judeo-Christian moorings.
In fact,
during his Farewell Address, Washington spoke of exactly the kind of subversive,
anti-theist provocateurs who make up the aforementioned ACLU, FFRF, et
al. He called them unpatriotic. He underscored the critical role religion
and morality play to our national survival and, though he did not specifically
identify them as such, warned of secular-”progressives” like Barack Obama
a man who, exposed as a serial liar, would later bring great shame upon
the noble office Washington first held.
“Of
all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity,” declared
Washington, “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. … [R]eason and experience both forbid us to expect
that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”
Regrettably,
Washington’s parting words exemplify, to a great extent, the current state
of affairs in the very government he helped to bring about.
“Let
it simply be asked,” he warned, “‘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?”
Where
indeed? Not only have our courts of justice abandoned any “sense of religious
obligation,” they increasingly seek to subvert “we the people’s” very
freedom to exercise such obligation.
Is it
any wonder, then, that, with a government that weaponizes the IRS, brushes
off the gross moral failings of our public servants and facilitates the
brutal slaughter of tens of millions of its most vulnerable citizens
security for property, reputation and life has disappeared?
Continued
Washington: “It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary
spring of popular government. The rule indeed extends with more or less
force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend
to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation
of the fabric?”
That
“necessary spring” of “virtue and morality” has run dry. A “constitutional
right” for sodomy-based “marriage”? a sin both Washington and the criminal
codes called an “infamous crime”? Seriously? A government mandate that
Christians fund your abortion homicide, despite a non-negotiable biblical
command to do no such thing? Are you kidding?
The
foundation has fractured. The fabric has frayed.
In 1788,
eight years prior to his Farewell Address, Washington wrote: “[T]he [federal]
government … can never be in danger of degenerating into a monarchy, an
oligarchy, an aristocracy, or any other despotic or oppressive form so
long as there shall remain any virtue in the body of the people.”
We are
in danger. As our national virtue melts away, it strains credulity to
deny that we are entering, as Washington warned, a dark era of American
despotism. Like water to the gulch, such despotism pervades in the absence
of religion and morality.
And
as history has shown, the despotic nation is not long for the world.
Matt Barber (@jmattbarber on Twitter) is an author, columnist, cultural analyst and an attorney concentrating in constitutional law. Having retired as an undefeated heavyweight professional boxer, Matt has taken his fight from the ring to the culture war.
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