Stefanie Brosey was awarded Third Prizes ($250) along with her sister.
by Stefanie Brosey
Are the original political traditions of American law and government being honored today? What are our original political traditions, and where did they come from? “The representative assembly deliberating under God; the virtuous people, virtuous because deeply religious and thus committed to the process of searching for the transcendent Truth. And these are we believe symbols we can be proud of.” These are the political traditions that came from the book, “The Basic Symbols of the American Political Tradition” by Willmore Kendall and George W. Carey, and I believe them to be correct. These traditions came from the founding fathers’ understanding the Bible and trying to do the right things. They were a virtuous people because they trusted and obeyed God. Today, in our country, these original political traditions are not being honored today.
It is my belief, that our original political traditions are not being honored today. Most people today do not even know what the original political traditions are because of their rejection of God. Without the wisdom that comes from God, the people cannot understand what our founding fathers meant when they wrote in the founding documents. Others understand what our original political traditions are (which come from our original documents) but the refuse to accept them, and translate them to mean something which they do not mean to fit their own purposes. But there is a very small group of people who have read all our founding documents, know that God is above it all, and understand fully what our original political traditions are. They do not try to take the documents out of context or say that it is too hard to understand. Our founding documents are not hard to understand, when the Bible is understood, for without God’s book of instructions, there would be no point in the Constitution of the United States nor the Declaration of Independence. The Constitution was made for a people who are a virtuous people. Without the Bible people do not know right from wrong, therefore, whoever is in power could determine what is right, therefore, the Constitution is not valued very highly. This is why we have stopped honoring the original political traditions, because our country has fallen away from being a virtuous people, rejecting God.
Slowly, over the decades, immoral things have been slipping into all individual lives of people who have not been keeping their focus on God. When the TV came out they slowly put things that are wrong into the shows and movies they produced wrong ideas that do not do things God’s way. Soon people began acting like what they saw on the TV shows; people started having sexual relations with others before they got married. When people did get married, divorce rates became higher. Lying and cheating became an accepted thing for people to do. All the pop stars and famous people portray this kind of life, and also cheering it on, making people even more confused as to what is right or wrong when they don’t keep their eyes focused on the light of God’s Word.
Since the people in power don’t acknowledge God, there is now no absolute truth. Without absolute truth, which is the Truth revealed in the Bible, the people in our government can determine between right and wrong. Now, whatever something used to mean has been flipped to mean the opposite. What the liberty of speech and press used to mean, has been turned around to be used in the opposite way; to be used to hurt others and put people down. To speak evil of one another is something God told us not to do in the Bible, so we do not have a right to speak of someone in a way that would hurt them. Also the people who do not honor the Constitution have turned around what “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” means. For example, they think that since everyone has a “right” to be happy then I can do anything to make me happy. So if they go out and shoot the owner of a big piece of property, and take everything the person had owned its almost acceptable now. That is not what it means when we have the “pursuit of happiness”. We are given the right to work our hardest to accomplish what we want in life. It is up to each individual what we make out of our life; there is no other person to blame but ourselves if we ruin our life.
Most people, when they think of equality, think that it means everybody being equal in the sense of everybody having the same amount of stuff. Equality is everyone having the same opportunity to make the best out of their lives; the same opportunity to accept Jesus Christ and do what he says or to reject him. Those who accept Him will work hard and follow the Bible, making them always happy with what they have in life, because they have the eternal treasures waiting for them in heaven. If you are poor, you do not have a right to say, “I couldn’t succeed in life because I didn’t have the resources”, because you could have worked very hard with any and every job they could get, and study with what they do have. If you’re poor you would probably also not have all the distractions that people that are “rich” have.
James A. Garfield, twentieth president of the United States of America, and General in the Civil War did not come out of a great, rich, or famous family. In fact, he came out of a dirt poor family, just barely meeting their needs. His father died when he was a baby, and the mother raised all four of her children with God’s help, for their family feared God and obeyed His Word. As the children grew older they had so much work to do on the farm that they couldn’t go to school, but they learned from the Bible and the few other books they had in their house. James had a strong desire to learn more though. Every chance he could, he did jobs for people. One summer, he cut 120 cords of wood because he said he would, he wasn’t strong but he kept at it and he finished the job almost killing himself. After that job, it made him stronger spiritually and physically. He made the most out of his life, because he honored God, and with God you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you, Philippians 4:13.
With each document, the book by Kendall and Carey goes through, Mayflower Compact, Constitution, etc…, they are written, and signed by thoughtful, godly men; each word weighed over on both sides in the most solemn way; they were very serious and conscious as they created these documents. This was a tradition passed down; to very carefully make sure we are doing what is the most beneficial to the people and in accordance to God’s laws. “In planning, forming, and arranging laws, deliberation is always becoming, and always useful.”- James Wilson Lectures on Law, 1791.
The beginning of our country did start at the Declaration of Independence. Say you decided that since you were 18 now you would declare yourself independent from your family and leave. This is the beginning of your new life. Say then you rented an apartment but since you had no one to tell you how to keep it up, you were trashing it. So you realized you needed to figure out a schedule to keep the place nice and tidy. When you made the schedule, (like the Constitution) is not when you became free, you became free when you left your family and started a new life elsewhere not when you wrote up the instructions on how to make your new life more pleasant.
Slavery I believe is the biggest mistake our founding fathers allowed. They ran away from England to get away from being told what to do, from being controlled, but some of them came to America to do the same thing to others. When in the constitution they tried to get rid of slavery they could not get it signed because the south would not sign it, and since the south would not sign in they made a compromise because only united could the states stand against their foes.
While reading “The Basic Symbols of the American Political Tradition”, I found it very difficult and hard to understand. Many of the sentences in a paragraph were totally unnecessary, some full paragraphs were unnecessary. If I spent enough time at it I could probably cross out all the unnecessary parts to get down to what the author was actually trying to say. I hope that my essay has been easy to read and straight to the point.
When trying to restore our country back to the foundations set up by our Founding Fathers, we do not want to trace back our steps; we want to go back all the way to the start. A good start would be to purge the land of everything evil strengthening families first, emboldening the church, and participating in the community. Going back to our original political traditions means honest communication between virtuous people. On my honor before God the essay I am submitting is my own work and not that of any other.