Citizen Awake!

"We dare defend our rights! Live free or die! Wisdom, justice and moderation. Let it be perpetual!"  --United States state's mottoes

Citizen awake; today we learn that we sleep in the dust, that in our slumber there is terror in our land; that our government proposes there be enemy combatants in our house! How can this be? How can we, as citizens of the United States of America, be we patriots descending back to the founding of this nation, native born, or naturalized citizens stand restless as the elect-citizens* of our nation propose to deny the rights and duties of every citizen to some citizens? Where does the "natural law" fall herein?

At issue is the surviving accused Boston Marathon bomber, who lies critically wounded in a Boston hospital. He, a naturalized US citizen, innocent until proven guilty under law, afforded all the rights and benefits of his citizenship now be proposed that he be an "enemy combatant"?
How can this be?
Are we afraid, those of us either native-born citizens or naturalized citizens?
I am very worried, terrified even, that at the highest levels of government, citizens-elect*, think it wise to propose such effrontery against one, against all.

As has been stated here several times, the Simple Mind knows full well that religion is integral to everyday life; it is instilled in politics and government fully. Those of us living under democracy, monarchy, a designated government or state religion may easily attest to this. From this flows much else. Here in the United States, our ancestors, my ancestors, fought against tyranny, against rule from a distant shore; they preferred self-rule over monarchy. They dared to defend their rights, to live free or die. Free thinking, republican, libertarianism was the call of their generation.They called for moderation against others who would dictate without justice, without prudence.

Have we now lived so long without rulers absolute that we no longer recognize them within our own citizenry? It is and always will be for the citizens of this nation to arise and check the despotic impulses of others. For if we do not, if we neglect the meaning of the natural law upon which this nation founds itself, we may then be lost.
A citizen must not be reduced in status to an enemy combatant, no more than a man should be a slave.
 If this be the case, then no native born citizen and especially no naturalized citizen is protected from the whims and capriciousness of a government responding to illegal or repugnant acts committed within its borders by its citizenry.

Let me explain so that you may determine upon your own conscience the course of action to be taken:

In the words of one Revolutionary War veteran, Levi Preston, regarding the words of men like, Harrington, Hobbes or John Locke on the principles of eternal liberty, or freedoms accorded by the natural law: Preston is said to have remarked, "I never heard of them. We read only the Bible, the Catechism, the Almanac and Watt's Psalms, and Hymns... [We fought because] we had always governed ourselves, and we always meant to. They [the British] didn't mean that we should."

This independent thought is our tradition. Our bill of rights and our constitution stand on this position of historical, natural rights and free thinking. The 14th amendment of the US Constitution is this: 
 "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without the due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."  --section 1, XIVth amendment to the US Constitution

This Amendment is most often said to protect a person's right against government violations; our founding Fathers sought to return to a state of Common-law, laws of nature from which they believed each was "endowed with by the Creator." As John Locke wrote of the natural, common law, "God has furnished men with Faculties sufficient to direct them in the Way they should take, if they will but seriously employ them."
US Supreme Court Justice James Wilson wrote, "American common law is closer to the common law of the Anglo-Saxons... The Anglo-Saxon, like the American, held a more expansive notion of individual liberty...our common law is not a list of laws, but a way of thinking, a sensibility focused on freedom of association."

And when our government goes back on those common laws, reneges, thus claims civil laws, like imperialism, by itself, we can do nothing less than react to preserve our citizenship, our natural dignity as human beings.
For not every power government engages are just powers, powers for the common good. 
Have courage, speak against the un-legislated assumption of power by the federal government; act as if you, yourself count among the Founding Fathers of this nation.

Some call civil-law, the "ever emerging child of fantasy rebelling against facts or lessons from the past; it will not secure the future."
However, your actions may secure the common good, the rightful status of a citizen. Our Declaration of Independence empowers us:  "under absolute despotism, it is their right [the right of a citizen], their duty to throw off such government and to provide new guards [guardians] for their future security." Act now; tell your elected officials this attack on citizenship cannot be permitted.


*those persons, citizens elected by ballot.

Religion of American Enlightenment

"In the French Revolution, religion was scarcely less an issue than politics, a fact which was bewildering to American admirers of French liberty."--Religion of the American Enlightenment by G.A. Koch

The American liberal thinker of the 18th and 19th centuries, while able to behave as a Republican in political matters, found himself (keep in mind that only males of age and land owning could vote in this period) unable to wholly accept the radical terms of the 'new religion' of that "great and glorious sister republic," France. John Trumbull of Connecticut commented that "still worse than the beheading [of King Louis XVI] was when the National Assembly [Assemblee Nationale francais, roughly equal to the British parliament, or the US Congress] formed a procession to the church of Notre Dame, Paris, and in mock solemnity bowed to the graces of a common courtesan, basely worshiping her as 'a goddess of reason.' Yet not a few in America threw up their hands crying out to the glorious sister republic."

American patriots revolted at the events of that 'sister republic,' France, who had likewise shucked off her monarch; they were, meanwhile, repugnant at the resulting "religious implications of Revolutionary thought, quickly submerged into 'freethinking," writes G.Adolf Koch in his book, Religion of the American Enlightenment. The Founding Fathers, as they are often called, those men who hammered out the American Constitution and the Bill of Rights, they who demanded liberty from the king of England, and which war resulted in the triumph of the new United States of America, those individuals are often called the Founders, or Founding Fathers, of the nation that is the United States of America.

While not having directly to do with the religions of the world, American Enlightenment has exerted a profound impact around the world, altering the perceptions and religious practices everywhere. In a large measure, other nations today fight against "American Imperialism"; that imperialism necessarily includes our religious ideas and expressions. Many who engage in the various forms of American Enlightenment do so without the slightest cognizance that they, too, directly or indirectly practice this same sort of Imperialism through their behavior and actions. Those are actions which they then take around the world, part of a natural flow of ideas.

"I limit my scope to deism as a religious cult," writes Koch. Men such as Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Elihu Palmer and many others were closely involved in the practices of Deism. Thomas Paine, author of The Age of Reason, was an active member of the Deistic Society of New York. Deism and corresponding societies popped up throughout the new nation.

Eschewing traditional religious assemblies, Deists, nevertheless, met regularly; ultimately these meetings resulted in the formation of churches, one which came to be known as the Unitarian/Universalist Church of America. The Philadelphia Deist Society closely associated with the New York Society. In contrast to the 'Kentucky Deists', those living west of the Alleghenies, the New England Deists engaged in a far more extensive re-purposing and a re-configuring manner of Reasoning. It was "militant... The movement to establish meeting houses, services, and other attributes of a religious institution is not synonymous with the religious liberalism of Benjamin Franklin," who was deeply influenced by French thought.

Deism in the second half of the 18th century was characterized by a scepticism "among the upper classes... it did not preclude affiliation with Christian denominations, but did tend to cool religious ardor. Deistic influences broke down the distinctions between one's own true religion and all other 'false' religions. Deists view the deity as 'author of the universe,' their belief is in immortality, but not salvation. Natural religion is more important than revelation... It is an attitude of mind, rather than a specific creed."

Thus as American Republicanism took hold, correspondingly the Enlightenment which spawned it in a public, political sphere spawned a private, individual, creed adverse, spiritual rather than religious mind that entered forcefully into a world of burgeoning scientific reasoning. In this same time period interestingly, the 'Industrial Revolution' is inaugurated; here some argued that man was to become one with the machine, that his life came to be ruled by the clock, the growing merchant class, the industrialists, the capitalists, the profiteers and the resulting ills of it all coalescing into a modern government, a modern political process and retaining all the spiritual ills of mankind.

Others argue the opposite. That Rational thought, Deism has in fact freed men for the constraints of foolish superstition; that men live better, longer lives due to science and advances of technology. They are healthier and more profitable than ever before with more opportunities, time and leisure to assist the world in the struggle for the same. The Deists remarks Koch, "were not theologians... they were common men, had much in common with the average American, past and present."
Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' are gifts which men are endowed by their Creator," who is also called 'Nature's God'. These basic, religious principles of the American Enlightenment have over the centuries constituted an acceptable religious foundation that all Americans can share." Today it has been vogue to call this the 'Civil Religion'.
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