Observations Worth Considering

Ok, going to write something here that will risk some folks taking it the wrong way, but I believe in giving Glory to God in all things so I will share this little anecdote with you. Most of you that read my stuff on facebook and my blog know that I am teamed with my friend Curtis Bostic to help get him elected to Congress. For those of you that may not know Curtis well, but wonder why I am working so hard for him, permit me to share.  I have already told you about the fact that this guy has great integrity, he has great command of the Biblical Worldview, and he has great command of the United States Constitution. What you may not know about him is his walk with Christ.  If you’re not interested in that, stop reading now. But if you are, let me share with you what I observed recently up close.

Curtis and I were in another city nearby for a campaign visit where we would be meeting with a large group of folks and where Curtis would get a chance to share his testimony and a little about himself. We stopped in abandoned parking lot so that we could pray and ask God to go before us, and to ask him what we always ask him, to breathe life into our efforts and to help us to be thankful no matter how things turn out in the end. So we pull over and begin to pray, and my friend starts praying for the other candidates that we are running against. That God would bless them. Then we get this opportunity for him to speak about his testimony and about himself and about our campaign for Congress. He had a limited amount of time with these folks. He shares how he came to Christ and then spends the rest of the time sharing the life giving message of salvation with these guys.  He knew that he was eating up the time he had allotted and would not be able to talk about the congressional campaign but he spent all of his time telling that group about how they can have a relationship with Christ. He simply told me afterward that he sensed that there were folks in the room that did not know Christ and that he had to tell them and that was more important than our campaign. I’m telling you all of that because otherwise you would never hear about it. Just he and I praying, and he getting his opportunity to speak about the campaign. And he will never tell you he did that.

Friends, Curtis Bostic is the kind of guy that will obey his oath…that’s why I share this with you. Those of you who know me, YOU know how SICK and TIRED I am of sending representatives to Washington D.C. that place their left hand on a bible, then raise their right hand and take an oath to submit to the highest law of our nation, the United States Constitution. Then they summarily dismiss or ignore that oath.

Christian brothers and sisters, I will make no bones about it, we have a unique opportunity to elect a guy that “gets it” on the Biblical Worldview, he “gets it” on the United States Constitution and the Rule of Law, and friends…this guy “gets it” on his priorities and allegiance. Don’t fall for the idea that someone has to have some specific prior “experience” with the system or politics, have we not had ENOUGH of that to make us want to puke already??

Let’s “get it” right and not miss this opportunity to vote for a candidate that has the right qualifications.

Oversight vs Liberty

Those of you that know me know that I have been teaching Constitutional Law and American Government to home high schoolers now for almost 15 years. Indeed I have taught over 120 students my year long course in that span of time, many of them your kids.

Permit me to explain some Constitutional principle, and what we call “First Principles” to you, and if I might use a now overused descriptor, let me “unpack” a bigger issue surrounding something that one of our state representatives said yesterday. This particular state representative made the following statement in response to a query about legislation (H3478) introduced on 2/5/13 that will eviscerate a large portion of South Carolina’s homeschooling statute. He stated the following: "The issue with the third option is that of the three options available it has very little oversight". Friends, this statement is fraught with HUGE problems. I suspect that he is just parroting the word “oversight” that I hear is being used by the primary sponsor of H3478.

The founders of our nation unequivocally intended the default position on government to be towards liberty, not against it.  In other words, liberty is assumed, and constrainment and regulation of the people’s liberty is to be the exception. We see this in the construct of the United States Constitution and it is woven throughout the fabric of our Republic and the Rule of Law.

So when the sponsors of this bill or any other like it for that matter use the word "oversight" what they really mean is "Government Control". His use of that word and his reasoning highlight his absolute and utter misunderstanding of liberty and the intent of the founders. The United States Constitution by its very design was constructed to constrain the government, not the people. Indeed, one of my favorite quotes of Jefferson is when he refers to the Constitution as a set of chains on government (“Put not your faith in men, but bind them down with the chains of the constitution”.)

You see friends, the founders/framers of our great nation and its chartering and governing documents REALLY understood human nature and the desire of men to control other men. They set up a system wherein GOVERNMENT would be constrained by “oversight”, to use the representative’s word. The founders/framers view was quite the opposite of what we hear from this state representative and frankly most elected officials today. The founders/framers view was to weight everything on the side of liberty…and then create a Rule of Law (Constitution) to RESTRAIN government.

Now, to be clear, I’m not just trying to pick on him, but since these were his words, it really made me think about the broader issue that I have been speaking about over and over again lately especially as I have teamed up with my friend Curtis Bostic to help elect him as our next United States Congressman from the 1^st Congressional district of South Carolina. This issue would be the qualifications that we use to select our representation. Friends, the truth of the matter is this, the pool of candidates that really understand, and I mean REALLY understand First Principles is very small today. We continue to elect men like that representative I mentioned above to office with absolutely NO understanding of the principles of liberty and limited government. This is evidenced by their visceral reaction to something they know nothing about, to curtail liberty. In this case it’s far beyond curtailment, its out and out elimination of an entire statute of law created to codify parental rights in the state of South Carolina.

Since 1996, literally tens of thousands of South Carolinians have homeschooled their children under the statute known by most of us as Option 3. Tens of thousands of kids educated under the auspices of their parents have been educated at home with absolute success, have gone on to excel in College and University settings and are now productive members of society. I remember the day my eldest daughter came home from school after her first week attending Charleston Southern University (on full scholarship I might add) and told me what she had observed in just one week; public schooled students that had no work ethic, students that had no idea what their assignments were, that had no clue what a syllabus was and how to use it, needed to have their hands held for just about every little detail of an assignment. I don’t say that to disparage the public school system, they don’t need my help in that; I do say it now to make a point and to add some personal context to what I am saying. The success of homeschoolers is so well documented that I have no intention of wasting any more space here to reiterate it.

I mention those tens of thousands of successfully homeschooled students to make the following point. This state representative also went on to say that because of what he called lack of oversight; he cited two instances of some sort of abuse. So you see what he’s doing here folks, he’s taking anecdotal examples, of which he provides no context other than “abuse”, or if it even was related to homeschooling, and he takes those examples and uses them to make the case that the General Assembly needs to wipe out liberty for thousands of South Carolinians that are successfully educating their children at home and producing well rounded, WORKING citizens for our society. Friends, do you see the problem with that? The absolute worst thing a legislator can do is legislate away the people’s codified liberty in pursuit of fixing either a nonexistent problem or a problem that is the exception and not the rule.

Let me return to the discussion about First Principles. The 9^th and 10^th Amendments to the United States Constitution work together to enable the states to retain the vast majority of powers and to enable the states to “codify” (make statutory law) certain rights that the citizenry of those states thought necessary for their state. This is also linked to the principle of Federalism whereby the states would be sovereign to make laws that would protect specific liberties not specifically enumerated (listed) in the Federal Constitution.

In 1992 and 1996 respectively, the citizenry after years of threats and persecution, families that wanted to direct the education of their children won very hard fought victories to codify into state law the statutes that give us two of the best laws in the entire 50 states pertaining to Home Education. Those two statutes known in the actual state code of laws as 59-65-45 (Option 2/SCHAIS) and 59-65-47 (Option 3/Association of 50 or more members) provide great liberty to South Carolinians to determine what is the best course of action for them in the education of their children. These laws were hard fought victories folks, victories that codified our liberty.

The reasons for this frontal assault on our liberty is mostly driven by money friends, usually always is. In this case it stems directly from the fact that every child in South Carolina that is not under the public school system costs the state of South Carolina federal dollars. The state gets federal dollars for education based on the number of students enrolled. So when some legislators come along with an axe to grind against Homeschoolers for whatever reason, it needs to be answered at first by educating them as to the fact that we understand our liberty, we understand the founders intent for our liberty, and we understand that our founders intended for our elected officials to defend that liberty, not attack it. These legislators need to understand that only as a last resort, do you turn to restrictive measures against the liberties of the citizenry, especially the fundamental right of parents to direct the education of their children. But if they don’t get this message, they need to know with no uncertainty that we are amassing literal ARMY of opposition the likes of which they have not seen, and they better count the political cost VERY carefully before deciding to forge ahead on the legislative field of battle.

The "Mettle" required of a United States Congressman

Friends, as I work closely with Curtis Bostic in this campaign for the 1st Congressional District seat, I need to relate things that I see to you. Just so those of you that don’t know him very well can get to know why I am teaming with him.  All of you who know me know how deeply I care about returning our nation to the Rule of Law. It is not only the right thing to do politically; it’s the right thing to do Biblically. You know that I have been teaching this to home high schoolers and adults all over for almost 15 years. You hear me say over and over again how we MUST care about the constitutional competence of the individual we elect to the United States Congress...and how we must vote for someone that has the integrity to do the "Constitutional" thing when it will not be popular.  We will NEVER begin to herd our government back inside the fence of limited government if we do not do that.

As I stand with Curtis every night at our meet and greet/drop in events around the Lowcountry, I get to see things up close and first hand. Permit me to relate to you what I observed last night. It was a stark reminder of what I'm talking about.

I won’t go into the specifics of the question because that is not as important as the substance of the question. Curtis was asked a question that went to the heart of what it is we are talking about with the hard choices of changing minds and adhering to the Rule of Law (United States Constitution). You see our government is a government of limited powers. The founders/framers clearly set it up this way; I would submit to you that it is also clear that God’s providential hand was guiding them. The founders/framers understood the system that they were coming from well, The Divine Right of Kings. This meant that men (Kings) were the law. The founders/framers for the most part operated from a Biblical Worldview, we know this because we know where their education came from. This is not to say that everyone of them were born again believers…surely some were not, but an honest look at history reveals to us that these men operated from a mindset that was formed from biblical doctrine. I would submit that even those that were not believers probably operated from more of a biblical worldview than most Christians do today, but that’s another discussion for another blogJ.

I tell you all of this so that you can understand how our founders/framers thought about government. Coming from a form of civil government that was under the Divine Right of Kings, these men understood the failings of that system because they understood the biblical doctrine of the Depravity of Man. In other words, men cannot be above law. With this mindset the founders/framers crafted a government under the Rule of Law, in other words they set Law above men. The great reformer Samuel Rutherford had written about this about century earlier in his book Lex Rex (Law is King) which was a radical departure from the prevailing thought of the day…Rex Lex (King is Law).

Therefore, the United States Constitution is the Rule of Law for our land. No man is above that Rule of Law. Not the President, not any of the 800 + members of the federal judiciary, and not any of the 535 members of the United States Congress. Every one of those people I just mentioned swears an oath to the Rule of Law (Constitution). They are not permitted to violate it, any of it…at any time. It doesn’t matter if they think that just this one time…they need to do something that is not authorized because they think it’s really, really important. Those of you that remember what the book of Judges in the Bible tells us…will remember that in Judges 21:25 we are told that “everyone did what was right in their own eyes”. If you think about this…you will quickly see the fallacy of men doing whatever they think is right at any given time.  The founders/framers understood this when they set law (the Constitution) above men.

Which brings me back to what I wanted to tell you I observed last night from my friend and our candidate. Curtis was asked about federal funding for something that I suspect most of us would think a worthy and good endeavor. It would have been very easy for Curtis to answer this question in a way that would have been “pleasant” to the questioner’s ears. But instead Curtis took the position that under the Rule of Law, and under his oath that he will take if God grant us favor and we win this election, under that oath…he would be bound to vote against any funding that is clearly not authorized under the Rule of Law. You see friends, if we really believe in the Rule of Law…we have to be willing to do the hard things in order to push our government back inside the fence of the Constitution. It will not be a painless endeavor, you simply cannot fix over 16 trillion $$ of debt with the flip of a switch. But if we are serious about stopping unconstitutional, and therefore ungodly spending (spending that violates the Rule of Law)…we absolutely must have people serving that have this understanding and this kind of backbone. Curtis Bostic has the mettle to do this and we need to give it everything we have to make sure that Curtis Bostic is the next Congressman from the 1^st Congressional District of South Carolina.

40 Years and 60 Million Little Children

As bad as the Supreme Court decision was in The Presidents and the Democrat's so called "Affordable Care Act"...and it was a horrendous blow against liberty and limited government, it pales in comparison to the decision handed down 40 years ago today in Roe v Wade. I wonder how many people today even know about Roe. I ask students that come into my Constitutional Law course each year this question ...and fewer and fewer recognize it every year. In Roe, the Court elevated the right of privacy and "choice" over the rights of little human babies made in the image of God. Conservative estimates tell us that over 60 Million little children have been butchered in their mothers’ wombs with the blessing of the government of the United States of America.

Let me bring your attention to these words in our founding charter (The Declaration of Independence) this morning:

"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,"

All I will submit to you this morning is that we have failed miserably in living up to the mandate in our founding charter in securing the right to life of the unborn....the most defenseless of our citizenry.

May God have mercy on us.

Critical Time...Critical Election...The RIGHT Candidate!

Friends, in just 8 short weeks we are going to be voting in a Primary election for the next Congressman to represent the 1st Congressional District of South Carolina. This is a district that runs pretty much from halfway to Georgetown all the way down to the Hilton Head area.  Many if not most of you in my fb circle live in this district.  This is a VERY important election; we have a pretty solid Congressional delegation from our state in Washington DC with one exception.  We need to make sure we get this open seat right.

Please don’t get weary of what you see me posting, if you see the direction of our country right now, you simply must discipline yourself to be involved...and stay involved. Stay involved by watching for updates, passing them on, and determining what God would have you do to help in any way possible...big or small. I know some no matter what I say...are going to get tired of this...but I know most of you...you care deeply about our nation and our national trajectory.  So, I’m asking you to brace, and steel yourself for the next 8 weeks until March 19th, and actually beyond...because there will likely be a runoff on April 2nd, and then we will be voting in the General election on May 7th.

You’re going to hear me and see me posting quite a bit on here for the next 8 weeks. Working closely with Curtis and offering counsel and advice I get to see what this guy is made of...and I’m telling you we have a unique opportunity to put a real patriot into the United States Congress.  I would put more stock into ones command of the Rule of Law (read that ...Constitution) than I would anything else for this position. I've been working hard for years to get folks to understand first principles and limited government. Curtis Bostic is a candidate that not only has that important requirement, Curtis is a godly guy that cares deeply about fighting for what’s right. One of the things that was driving me to run was the sick feeling that I get when I see politicians get elected...then summarily disregard their oaths that they take to uphold the Constitution.  Curtis will not do that. If I had any doubts about that for a minute...I would not be pouring all my energy into this campaign.

This last part is key folks, please read carefully...as this is what SETS OUR TEAM APART from the other candidates. The Bostic Congressional Team believes that when this new congressman walks into the United States House of Representatives...the absolute most important thing they need to bring...is a command ability to handle our government manual. The founders understanding of limited government, and the Rule of Law. I have lived and breathed that in the trenches for almost 15 years and I know it when I see it! No other candidate in this race brings that outside of our team. None.

Democracy or Constitutional Republic

Friends, you have heard me say this many times. The United States Constituiton is the Rule of Law. What is meant by that phrase is that our Federal Constitution is the bedrock foundation for all other laws in our nation. Article VI, tells us that the Constituiton is the highest law in the land. It trumps all Federal and State laws that are made that are NOT pursuant to it. It trumps all State Cons...titutions. In other words, nothing in those federal laws or states laws or state Constitutions can be contradictory to the Federal Constituiton. This is also why the framers crafted the scope of the Federal Constitution in such a limited manner. But what I want you to see here is that the United States Constitution is the Rule of ALL law in our nation.

With that in mind, I ask you to ponder this today. Most Americans have been conditioned to use the term "Democracy" to describe our government. That is not an accurate term and it never has been a correct term to describe our form of government. The truth is that the United States of America is a Constitutional Republic. This is similar to a democracy because our representatives are selected by democratic elections, but ultimately our representatives are required to work within the framework of our constitution. In other words, even if 99% of Americans want something that goes against our founding principles, and directly violates the United States Constitution, the citizenry does NOT have a right to call for a violation of constitutional powers or rights.

"The Supreme Court has agreed to Hear Two Cases on Marriage. What Does This Mean for You and Your Church?"

Supreme Court to hear marriage cases

Once issues that don’t belong in the hands of the Federal Government, get into the hands of the Federal Government, we (the plebes in the states) are going to lose eventually. Issues that the Constitution is silent on, belong to the states (10th Amendment). So, now we are faced with 9 unelected Judges who will determine whether or not a state (read that your church and my church) can decide what a family should consist of.

So time for another Constitutional lesson and why it’s CRUCIAL for our elected officials in Congress to know the relevant provisions in the Constitution for "checking" or STOPPING another branch from exceeding its Constitutional authority. Then after they know those provisions, the next thing we need in an elected official is BACKBONE to execute those provisions.

Article III, of the United States Constitution is the Article that pertains to the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary. Section 2 of that same article gives the Congress the authority and power to make exceptions to the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, and for that matter the lower Federal courts. Now to really understand this, keep in mind that the 10th Amendment already states that powers not given (enumerated) to the Federal government in the Constitution are already retained by the states. But the framers were a wise group of men, they added another backup provision here in Article III, Section 2 just in case the courts took it upon themselves to delve into matters that were not in their jurisdiction or power. The framers gave the Congress the power to say..."Hey, let us remind you Court, that this is NOT in your power to decide".

But I take you back to my mantra that I repeat over and over again. Either our Federal elected officials are completely and utterly ignorant of this, OR they blatantly disregard their oath and duty. Again, either one of those options are very bad. Let’s MAKE SURE those we send to the United States Congress can pass BOTH of these tests!