Bastiat & Hazlitt

"If you liked The Law by Bastiat and Economics in One Lesson by Hazlitt then you will like this book. A book that explores the keys to understanding the way the world works - what money is- How we are stolen from by government and the way back to liberty." ~ John Barbour on Goodreads.com

I am honored to be mentioned in the context of Frederic Bastiat and Henry Hazlitt. I  hope to have occasion to meet Mr. Barbour someday and thank him in person for such kind words.

The Law and Economics In One Lesson are classics in the top of their categories and I highly recommend them. In fact, a friend and I gave away hundreds of copies of The Law during my 2010 Georgia State Senate campaign.

Know Stealing at Amazon.com

Know Stealing - Review

"Armed with wisdom, knowledge and an aptitude for teaching, Shane Coley skillfully disperses the fog of economic, political and moral complexities which tend to make our nation's problems seem insurmountable. Shane brings to light long ignored principles which must be understood if we are to have any chance of restoring the liberty, peace and prosperity which our country enjoyed in former times. Information contained in this excellent work is invaluable."~ Linda Morrow

Know Stealing at Amazon.com

Truth, Reason, and Inspiration

"Lies take decades, truth takes a minute." This is a wonderful quote from the book that is indicative of the read. When truth is presented clearly, especially when accompanied by an unobstructed chain of reason, it resonates instantly and last forever. Truth transcends all nationalites, races, cultures, and any other social, economic, or political segment in our world system. All of the subjects presented in Know Stealing qualify as truth based on this merit.
Since wisdom and understanding are more valuable than the treasures of the earth, it no coincidence that after reading Know Stealing we are left with a feeling of enrichment in one of its purest forms. Shane Coley's productive efforts in uncovering this nearly hidden insight and his willingness to compile it in such a way that is simple to understand is a testament the author's diligence, patience, and grace. The parables are great additions to expound the knowledge presented. The content is layered from start to finish to savory perfection. Know Stealing is a baklava of wisdom. 
If read purely as a study of economics, it rivals some of the best books ever written on the subject and should be required reading in economics classes worldwide. 
Most readers will be left with a rekindling of purpose and will to be a part of the solution. Real liberty results from exposure to truth, however with liberty is responsibility of action. Know Stealing has the ability to inspire the leadership that will be necessary to right the wrong that has our nation and our world in disarray.

Know Stealing should be in everyone's library and should be discussed an taught regularly in our homes, churches, schools, and businesses." ~ Cody Murray

Know Stealing at Amazon.com

Revolutionary

"Shane Coley has succeeded in methodically correcting the most dangerous errors modern American society has in understanding economics, politics, government & Christian theology. A 15 year project with more to show for it than most entire lives. Transformational!"

Jimmy Norman
Executive Director
Georgians For Constitutional Government

Know Stealing at Amazon.com

Read This Book

"If you are wondering where we have gone wrong as a country, then read this book. Shane Coley does a great job of getting to the very core of the problem. The media and talking heads we hear every day are so fixated on the symptoms that we forget to search for the root cause. This book peels the onion back layer by layer and explains in detail where the problem is. This book is a MUST read for anyone interested in restoring individual liberty in America!" ~ Clay Ortiz

Know Stealing at Amazon.com

Do you KnoW Stealing??

Rick McQueen has written a review of Know Stealing. It can be found here:

A Wandering Mind: Do you KnoW Stealing??

"I am forced to say that in all my years of formal education, I had never learned of the Austrian School of Economics.  All of those good 1970 era dollars spent in vain sitting in micro and macro economic classes, principles and theory of banking, all culminating in a degree in accounting and I never heard of Ludwig Von Mises until I met Shane." ~ Rick McQueen

"Complete with charts and illustrations, readers are led on a journey to rediscover the elementary fact that words have meanings, or, more specifically, accurate meanings!  I was pleasantly surprised that even a old goat like me could still discover some words with a nuanced meaning a little different than what I had thought.  Who knew??  Once the foundational understandings of the key words are in place, topics are explored to weave together the knowledge that will allow you to KnoW Stealing. "  ~ Rick McQueen

Know Stealing at Amazon.com

Know Stealing

Know Stealing at Amazon.com

Know Stealing is the culmination of 15 years of research and 5 years of writing, learning more, digging deeper, throwing material away and writing again, always searching for the root causes of our problems as a state and nation.

Know Stealing begins:


"A people or nation that does not understand liberty cannot defend it." 


"I work late and rise early thinking about liberty, production and the nature of things. The stakes are high. Your time is valuable. Please permit me to be direct. We have been deceived, and I know how it was done.
The reader with an open mind, who actively questions everything, including the ideas recorded here, will get the most out of Know Stealing. When you reach the last page, it is my hope that you will have demanded, and that I will have delivered, solid arguments capable of standing under scrutiny and pressure."


Following are a few other excerpts from the introduction:


"... My single objective is to share the very best of what I've learned with those who are willing to open their minds and think, in order to understand how to restore and preserve our great nation as a land of liberty and production. I welcome all challenges with regard to these ideas."


"... The material in this book is powerful. It will teach a bold middle school student all that is necessary to debate and defeat a formally educated economist or an experienced politician. Imagine a magnificent skyscraper that is built on a lie. If a person, even a child, can show that the foundation is a lie, then the whole building has to be an illusion. Many things we believe are true are no more than illusions. Children who study the ideas presented in this book will have a better understanding of the world we live in than most successful and formally educated adults."


"... One of my challenges is to explain where we are wrong in our thinking without unnecessarily offending people. At the same time, I would debate any citizen, businessman, pastor, professor, teacher, leader, political activist, elected official or journalist on these ideas at any time, in any place. The bottom line is that our thinking is extremely mixed up and, in many important areas, just flat out wrong. The errors in our thinking and understanding are costing us our liberty, our homes, our jobs, our retirements and our children's future."


"... Liberty and prosperity are always at stake in every nation for every generation. Eventually bad decisions in the past force a generation to come to terms with the truth about what is necessary to sustain a free society. We are one of those generations. In our case, we can no longer naively depend on past production, new land, old-style immigration, industrialization, available cheap energy and paper wealth to maintain our standard of living."

###

Know Stealing will shatter preconceived notions and replace them with clear and precise knowledge which is capable of driving restoration in our American Republic in particular, and modern civilization in general. Clearly the preceding statement is bold, but it will hold up under honest critical review. 


With wisdom, knowledge, understanding, courage and commitment, we can right the ship and restore prosperity in the United States in a matter of months. The same is true in any society that will genuinely defend individual life, liberty and property.


One of the principle goals of the book is to enable more people to Know Stealing, so that we can enforce a policy of No Stealing. Theft that goes undetected will never be stopped.


Know Stealing at Amazon.com

Ron Paul 30 Years of Consistency

Only 30 years of consistency in the public record? I suppose that's pretty good... 

Most public people have consistency all the way back to the last comma in the sentence currently being uttered.

"We must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint inheritance of the English-speaking world and which through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, Trial by Jury, and the English common law, find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence."-- Winston Churchill

Ron Paul is Pro-Life

Ron Paul is Pro-Life

AN EXPERIENCED PHYSICIAN

As an OB/GYN who delivered over 4,000 babies, Ron Paul knows firsthand how precious, fragile, and in need of protection life is.

Dr. Paul’s experience in science and medicine only reinforced his belief that life begins at conception, and he believes it would be inconsistent for him to champion personal liberty and a free society if he didn’t also advocate respecting the God-given right to life—for those born and unborn.

After being forced to witness an abortion being performed during his time in medical school, he knew from that moment on that his practice would focus on protecting life.  And during his years in medicine, never once did he find an abortion necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman.

As a physician, Ron Paul consistently put his beliefs into practice and saved lives by helping women seek options other than abortion, including adoption.  And as President, Ron Paul will continue to fight for the same pro-life solutions he has upheld in Congress, including:

* Immediately saving lives by effectively repealing Roe v. Wade and preventing activist judges from interfering with state decisions on life by removing abortion from federal court jurisdiction through legislation modeled after his “We the People Act.”

* Defining life as beginning at conception by passing a “Sanctity of Life Act.”

Because he agrees with Thomas Jefferson that it is “sinful and tyrannical” to “compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors,” Ron Paul will also protect the American people’s freedom of conscience by working to prohibit taxpayer funds from being used for abortions, Planned Parenthood, or any other so-called “family planning” program.

The strength of love for liberty in our society can be judged by how we treat the most innocent among us.  It’s time to elect a President with the courage and conviction to stand up for every American’s right to life.

Chambliss & Isakson - Clueless About The Fed

August 20, 2011 Gilmer County Georgia

Saxby Chamblis is clueless about the Federal Reserve System.

Our US Senators don't understand The Federal Reserve System, which happens to be the tool used to crush production and wealth among the working people of this country. Notice Isakson offered no corrections to the logically incoherent statements made by Chambliss.

I paraphrase here, but the video below presents their very own words... 

First Senator Chambliss says: 

"There is no question that the Federal Reserve has an inordinate amount of power"

and

"We have got to stop printing money in Washington"

and

"Under the current law there is nothing we can do about it" 

Then Chambliss states he read the Creature From Jekyll Island, which is a book that explains the secrecy surrounding the design of the Fed by the bankers. This excellent book also PLAINLY STATES that the name of the Federal Reserve Central Banking game is BAILOUT. Chambliss said:

"It scared the hell out of me when I read it too by the way!"

Then he agrees that the FED was created by the bankers in Georgia in 1910 stating:

"But [Jekyll Island in 1910 is] obviously where the Federal Reserve was created."

So far, the FED has too much power, congress can't do anything about it and the bankers designed/created the FED on Jekyll Island in 1910. It gets better.

Now Chambliss tells us that:

"Constitutionally there's alot of power given to the Federal Reserve" 

"And you obviously have to change the Constitution to do anything about that."

So now the FED has too much power, congress can't do anything about it, the bankers designed/created the FED on Jekyll Island in 1910 and the US Constitution gives a lot of power to the FED and we have to change the Constitution to do anything about it. In other words, the bankers created the FED in 1910 AND the founders created the FED in 1787... But he's not done yet.  There is more.

Next he tells us that

"there is also authority given to the Federal Reserve by Congress."

OK, so let me get this straight.  The FED has too much power, congress can't do anything about it, the bankers designed/created the FED on Jekyll Island in 1910, the US Constitution gives a lot of power to the FED and we have to change the Constitution to do anything about it. In other words, the bankers created the FED in 1910 AND the founders created the FED in 1787 AND Congress gives authority to the Fed, BUT Congress can't take that same authority away from the FED.

The truth is this: The Federal Reserve Act was passed by Congress in 1913 and can be repealed or cancelled by congress anytime. They could do it today. The Federal Reserve is unconstitutional because Congress cannot delegate its authority to Coin money. It is unconstitutional because printing paper money is unconstitutional no matter who does it. In addition, paper money or debased currency causes theft and, last I checked, stealing is illegal. Unless you are the government.

Are we wrong to expect our US Senators to understand the insidious, destructive, unconstitutional, unlawful, pillaging central banking system which wipes out the savings and retirement of the middle class, enables unlimited government growth and comes straight out of the Communist Manifesto?

Real People Speak for Ron Paul

Real people speak up about Ron Paul.

"The Freedom message unites us all, it does not divide us." 

~ Ron Paul

A Typical Discussion About Ron Paul

Ron Paul believes in just law and your right 

to own, keep and defend your life, liberty and property...

Ron Paul Announces His 2012 Candidacy for President

Ron Paul Announces His 2012 Candidacy for President

Only watch if you care enough about your personal freedoms to think and take a stand.

Bank Documents: Created From Thin Air

You MUST watch this and pass it on.

How To Brainwash A Nation

How To Brainwash A Nation

This amazing interview was done back in 1985 by G Edward Griffin, author of The Creature From Jekyll Island, with a former KGB agent who was trained in subversion techniques. He explains the 4 basic steps to socially engineering entire generations into thinking and behaving the way those in power want them to. It's shocking because our nation has been transformed in the exact same way, and followed the exact same steps.

Rand Paul - Consumer Choice

Senator Rand Paul points out the hypocracy of bureaucrats.

This is most excellent.

VIDEO: Coley Testimony - HB3 Constitutional Tender Act

Coverdell Legislative Office Building (CLOB)
18 Capitol Square SW Atlanta, GA 30334

Atlanta, GA

Monday, March 7 · 9:00am - 12:00pm

After presenting testimony, I engaged in a dialog with Representative Bruce Williamson on fractional reserve banking. Bruce Williamson was a gentleman. He opened with a prayer that I would be blessed to hear and concur with any time. The problem we have is that neither Bruce, myself or government are the standard. A good man's character does not make an objectively immoral practice moral or right.

Representative Williamson claimed that Georgia banks don't create money, yet he later said:

I'm not disagreeing with the fact that it expands the money supply, but I don't see that that's inherently unhealthy.

Evidently Representative Williamson doesn't understand that "Expanding the money supply" creates new dollars and is inflation.

When I said that banks create dollars from nothing, Representative Williamson disagreed yet again, stating:

Its not nothing. Its promises to pay that provides the liquidity to shop keepers, to home owners...

And:

All you're doing there is allowing these promises to pay, that when you come to borrow the money to buy the automobile or piece of land or buy new shelving for your hardware store, all the bank's doing is turning around and lending you those dollars... It's not the collateral, its your promise to pay back.

In other words, his view is that the money is not created from nothing, rather it is created because the borrower promises to use his land, labor and capital to produce enough to pay the loan back, plus interest to the banker.  The banker has essentially no skin in the game.

If "its not the collateral", why does the banker take the borrower's collateral if the borrower doesn't pay?

In an honest system, the banker would have to loan out property that actually exists in order to earn interest. In the fractional reserve system, he creates money from thin air and then essentially loans your property to you - and gets paid interest for doing it. The bank brings nothing to the table except the legal privilege to create money.

When you borrow money for a piece of land, the money that you use to pay the seller comes from a ledger entry at the bank which is made because you agree to pay the money back. The only real asset in the transaction is the land. The banker has no equity or asset in the transaction at all. If you default, he gets the land.

Of course that ledger sheet trick works until the bubble pops, particularly when the bubble is combined with Sarbanes-Oxley and federal regulators.

Representative Williamson also stated plainly that leaving the gold standard was a mistake.

It all goes back to fiat inflation. I do not disagree one bit with the fact we should never have gotten off the gold standard. I think Steve Forbes has got it right, but all we are is dealing with the Federal Reserve Notes that our Federal Treasury is [unintelligible] the currency of the nation.

However, the Gold standard simply limited the amount of new money created from nothing by the Federal government. Creating money from nothing is always a problem because the mechanism makes an economy unsustainable. The economy is unsustainable because costless money causes a breakdown in the price mechanism and distorts the allocation of resources.  It also pillages and weakens the producers.  The banks create new money from nothing, much the same as the Federal Reserve. In fact, the banks are able to create nine new dollars for each one new dollar created by the Federal Reserve. Which is bigger? Nine or One?

If costless money is a problem and the banks create more than the Federal Reserve, then the banks are not innocent. They participate in inflating the money supply, or to use Representative Williamson's phrase in "expanding the money supply", which IS inflation. It disproportionately harms the weak and frugal. It enriches those who are granted a special privilege by government (banks) to create new money from nothing - at least from nothing that the banker owns. In the banks view, your property gives them the right to create money that didn't exist in order to charge you interest for using the money.  What a racket.  

There is so much more that can be said and the problems are far reaching and complex, but the bottom line is that fractional and fiat money cause theft and lead to poverty and oppression.

Nullification: Turning the Tables

Tom Woods

Important for your liberty and property.

Bill Greene - HB3 Constitutional Tender Act

Coverdell Legislative Office Building (CLOB)
18 Capitol Square SW Atlanta, GA 30334

Atlanta, GA

Monday, March 7 · 9:00am - 12:00pm

Excellent job making the case by Dr. Bill Greene and Representative Bobby Franklin.

My Testimony - HB3 Constitutional Tender Act

Click here for the video and response from the committee.


Coverdell Legislative Office Building (CLOB)
18 Capitol Square SW Atlanta, GA 30334

Atlanta, GA

Monday, March 7 · 9:00am - 12:00pm

Good morning. My name is Shane Coley.

I have studied history and economics extensively.  I was raised in the cattle business, I can operate or rebuild heavy equipment and I am a professional software architect. I am self-employed. I was recently a candidate for state Senate in the 47th District where I carried my home county.  My positions here today match my positions during the campaign.

The laws of Georgia are created and modified by our state legislature.  The legislature is made up of individuals, like you, who analyze legislation in the context of your personal belief system, which makes your belief system very important to Georgians.

The majority of the banking and finance committee members publicly claim to be Christian. Therefore, I will talk about some of the general constraints or limits of the Christian belief system, and then about secular belief regarding theft or stealing.

In at least nine places the Bible tells us about differing weights and differing measures.  In at least four places the Bible says that differing weights and differing measures are an abomination to God.  A Christian must not ignore this.

Here is an example of differing measure:  Suppose I were in the market buying wheat and I had a basket marked one bushel, but the basket was secretly larger than one bushel.  My oversized basket would enable me to steal part of your wheat. 

Differing weights and differing measures deceptively cause theft, which is a violation of the Eighth Commandment, "You shall not steal".

Since 1971, the only way to create a new US dollar is to record an entry in a ledger of the Federal Reserve System, or in a ledger of your local bank.  Producers have to work years for new Dollars that the bank creates instantly with the stroke of a key.

When new US dollars are created in this way, there is no new wealth created, but the purchasing power of all previously existing dollars is decreased.  This is an example of using differing measures to steal labor and property from producers.

This is clearly, undeniably, objectively a form of theft. To support fiat or fractional money is to support theft. 

Some claim that our money system makes us wealthy. This is false. Wealth is the result of production.

Many of us notice that People depend on Production. People eat food and use things. Food and things must be produced. Government Produces nothing and wastes much. Since people depend on production and government interferes with production, there is no way that government has any solutions for us. We must remember that every promise made by a government official has to be kept by a producer. There is no other way.

It is impossible to confiscate a loss. Only profits or capital from past production can be confiscated. It is logically impossible for the creation of new US Dollars to make us wealthy. If I had time, I would prove that creating costless money will first make us poorer and eventually crush our free society.

The reality is that the creation of costless money can only lead to the destruction of a free society.

For those who are not constrained by the Christian belief system, if you oppose theft then you must oppose creating new US dollars from nothing.

Please listen carefully to the following quote from an old banker.

“The few who understand the system, will either be so interested in its profits, or so dependent on its favors that there will be no opposition from that class. The great body of people, mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantages will bear its burden without complaint.”

To the Christians and those who oppose stealing: I respectfully ask that you vote for the Constitutional Tender Act as a small step toward eliminating differing weights and differing measures and theft from our monetary system.

And finally, let’s recall a bit of what John Maynard Keynes wrote in 1919: “while [creating costless money] impoverishes many, it actually enriches some” and also “[Inflation] engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.”

To those members who hold stock in banks or have otherwise profited from the banking business: Since our loss is your gain, I respectfully ask that you recuse yourself from this vote and from the vote on the final bill.

Liberty & Production Radio - Tom Woods Interview

Tom Woods

Rollback

Ron Paul - One Chance 2012

There two things I like most about Ron Paul.

Ron Paul loves Liberty.

and

Ron Paul is right.

Those are pretty good credentials...

Coinage Act of 1792

The Coinage Act of 1792, passed while George Washington was President, called for the death penalty for anyone who profited by manipulating our coins in any way.

Penalty on debasing the coins.

Section 19.  And be it further enacted, That if any of the gold or silver coins which shall be struck or coined at the said mint shall be debased or made worse as to the proportion of the fine gold or fine silver therein contained, or shall be of less weight or value than the same out to be pursuant to the directions of this act, through the default or with the connivance of any of the officers or persons who shall be employed at the said mint, for the purpose of profit or gain, or otherwise with a fraudulent intent, and if any of the said officers or persons shall embezzle any of the metals which shall at any time be committed to their charge for the purpose of being coined, or any of the coins which shall be struck or coined at the said mint, every such officer or person who shall commit any or either of the said offenses, shall be deemed guilty of felony, and shall suffer death.

The American Dream By The Provocateur Network

Watch it.

The Costly Free Gift

Most people are aware of the story of Joseph in the Bible.  Many are aware that Joseph is considered a "type" of Jesus.  In other words, Joseph was a living picture which teaches us things about Jesus. 

In the case of the Cupbearer and the Baker, for example, we see at least two parallels.

First we see the two thieves on the cross, one who was lost and one who was saved.  Next we see the bread and the wine, the two elements of communion at the Last Supper.

There are many more similar parallels or pictures of the life of Jesus in the story of Joseph.  However, the picture that follows in this essay is somewhat unique. I discovered this while studying Scripture, but have never seen it written anywhere else and have yet to meet anyone who had seen the same.  If you know where I may find this written in another place, please let me know.

This essay relates to Genesis 41-47.

The Bread of Life

John 6:35 Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.

In the book of John, Jesus declares that he is the bread of life.  In the story of Joseph, because there was a famine in the land and Joseph controlled all of the existing grain, it could be said that Joseph held in his hand "the bread of life".

The Free Gift

There are many more details to the story, but for the purpose of this essay we will only address the points that are pertinent.

When Joseph's brothers came to buy grain the first time, they were sent away with their grain and secretly their silver.  When they returned to buy grain a second time, they brought back double the silver in order to pay for the grain from the previous trip as well as the additional grain they were hoping to buy.  They brought back double the silver because they feared this Egyptian ruler would have them put to death for “stealing silver”, even though they did not put their silver in their bags. Joseph did.

Not only were they given additional grain and all of their silver, they were also told to go home, collect their family and bring nothing back on the trip.  Pharaoh communicated through Joseph. Pharaoh instructed Jacob to forget about all his goods and come to Egypt where the best of Egypt would be at his disposal.

Therefore, we see that for the Israelites, the bread of life held in the hand of Joseph was a free gift that they could not pay for even when they tried.

The Costly Gift

The Egyptians, on the other hand, had a different experience.  First they purchased grain with their silver.  When their silver ran out, Joseph sold them grain in exchange for all their livestock.  When their livestock was gone and they were facing death, they came to Joseph and said:

Genesis 47:18-19 When that year was ended, they came to him the next year and said to him, "We will not hide from my lord that our money is all spent, and the cattle are my lord's. There is nothing left for my lord except our bodies and our lands. "Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land for food, and we and our land will be slaves to Pharaoh. So give us seed, that we may live and not die, and that the land may not be desolate."

Therefore, we see that for the Egyptians, the bread of life held in the hand of Joseph was costly, even to the point of costing everything they had, including themselves.

The Paradox

Taken together we have the following illustration:

The bread of life, i.e. Salvation, is the free gift that costs you all you have.

Tom Woods

Don't Just Cut the Budget; Cut the Propaganda

If a 6th grade understanding of government doesn't suit you anymore, watch this, then get a copy of Rollback by Tom Woods.

Rollback - Tom Woods

American Steward - Thoughts Regarding A Nation In Crisis - 2007

This was originally written and posted September 13, 2007.  I have modified my views about our nation's founding to incorporate, for example, an understanding of the political means, land speculation and the merchant class. The view is less glowing, recognizing the fatal flaw in our Constitution and the motivations which drove decisions and actions of the founders. 

As a nation, we have a tremendous organizing document and a rich heritage, but we lack specific required knowledge.

American Steward - Thoughts Regarding A Nation In Crisis

September 13, 2007

It is no secret that the United States is a nation in crisis. We have been warned about the fruits of our choices as a nation in many ways, for many years. Anticipating the challenges that lay before us, Benjamin Franklin responded to an inquirer that the Constitutional Convention had produced “a republic if you can keep it.” 

We could be verbose, filling pages with anecdotes, cases and proofs, but we must not. The role of American Steward is to identify the goal, teach people how to see the goal and then to teach people how to keep their focus on the goal. To be clear, the only people who are less misguided are those who hold as a specific purpose the willingness to wisely decipher the information they consume. This deciphering is a required pursuit of thinking people who value freedom and this pursuit must be intentional.

Framing and communicating "the goal" will be left for another time.   This text serves a different purpose.

Before we go further, please understand that American Steward is wholly focused on profitable, labor oriented, productive, earn-our-own-way stewardship. We firmly believe that it is possible and indeed the actual fact of our early history that productive labor in a capitalist economy mixed with right teaching and training and defended by our particular constitutional form of government can produce and maintain a strong social fabric. Defining and communicating the how and why requires analysis that goes deeper than the applied training in order to provide a proper foundation for this training. Such an analysis follows now and leads to specific action.

The difficulties with a Republic are ever present. With the exception of the natural obstacles associated with our precise current condition as a Republic, our turn at the helm presents no other unique challenges because people are people.  People are subject to the same passions today as yesterday and tomorrow.

However, each turn at the helm has the following distinction.  Each generation will find that the captain’s station has been fitted with controls and gages that are different. Different how, you ask. It doesn’t matter. If we focus on how each panel differs from each other panel, we are not focused on the goal. The point of understanding how to fly a plane does not consist in knowing the differences between control panels in different planes, but rather in understanding how the one control panel you are using guides the plane you are flying right now in a world of fixed laws.

Fixed laws exist; both physical and spiritual. Human passions dictate responses based on training. Training occurs every day. Training tends in one of two directions. Training of one sort, when widely adopted, tends toward a world in which men are governed from without by force. Training of another sort, when widely adopted, tends toward a world in which men are governed from within by virtue.

It can be said that life consists of a series of choices, based on belief. Each day we rise and act. Our actions are based on our belief system; our worldview. In the life of a Christian, for example, faith is proven by action. Anyone can say they “believe” a thing, but it is quite another matter for a person to be asked to take an action on the basis of a lightly held “belief.”

How do people go about formulating beliefs? What drives belief? It is clear that some people have outwardly and clearly “destructive behaviors.” How do these beliefs, choices and destructive outcomes fit together? These questions must be left unanswered in this text, but these are critical questions which do indeed have answers.

In the Western, Post-Modern era, we have educated people to believe that Merit is non-existent. We have trained people to believe that everything is good or bad in the eyes of the individual, based on their belief and choice. This is moral relativism and is false. The mechanism was noted and the outcome was predicted by C.S. Lewis in his Abolition of Man essays. In our education systems and social consciousness, we have hidden the concepts of Merit and Transcendent Truth away in a dark cellar; with armed guards at the entrance.

Transcendent Truth and Merit were central to the ideas and drive that brought men out of the dark ages. 

In 1215 the Magna Carta recognized that both the Ruled and the Ruler were subject to the same Transcendent Truth. Therefore laws must not be arbitrary or show favoritism. 

In contrast, it is not possible for people to enjoy unity based on philosophy, because philosophy, by its very nature, originates from within the individual. Only by the common medium of revealed truth is there any hope of unity among men.

We have vanquished these ideas of Merit and Transcendent Truth in Western Civilization and our children are being rewarded by being carried steadily toward a new era of oppression.

The Bible is unique in its ability to stand under the scrutiny of our best honest academic minds and at the same time stand in the context of the life experience of millions of believers. The Bible, having diverse authors over hundreds of years, maintains a clear, single and uniform message throughout. With regard to truth, every writer in scripture writes what he received, not what heconceived. 

The debate over the role of the Bible, the Christian faith, the Ten Commandments, etc. has gone on from the birth of our nation. Thomas Paine is a famous antagonist in this regard. However, to suppose that dissenting voices would ever be completely absent is illogical. Likewise, to suppose that dissenting voices indicate that the decisions made were wrong is also illogical. To disagree with a contract that one signed in the past does not invalidate the contract.

With a proper understanding of authority, contracts and legal process we are able to see that this nation was clearly formed with a firm reliance on God by men who were committed Christian servants. 

Seldom is an individual one hundred percent committed to a given decision. We decide something firmly and commit our heart and our course of action, but we sometimes have lingering questions about the choice we made. So it is with our nation. The heart and course of our nation was committed with a firm reliance on the God of Christianity. This is easily and readily evident in our historical documents and our historical monuments.

There are people who pervert facts and collaborate with likeminded “historians” to provide circular references to validate their positions. However, even these people could, if they were honest, see that our nation began and operated for 150 years as a nation having a firm reliance on God. Maybe our founders were deluded and mistaken to have taken this tack. That, after all, is the central argument of many of the contrarians to our view. However, notwithstanding our national sins and mistakes, our overall success as a nation in these first 150 years is undeniable. This success cannot be separated from the decision by those in authority to commit our nation to a firm reliance on the God of Christianity.

If we believe that revealed truth is our only hope for a civil government comprised of a self-restrained citizenry and if we recognize that our nation began and operated with a reliance on Christianity... Could we then be well advised to end our historical analysis right there? Is it possible that we should take note of our beginnings, use our best interpretation of transcendent truth as our guide and think about how we, you and I, want to “keep our Republic?” What future do we see for our nation and our people? After developing an understanding of the foundation, does the endless debate about what people thought or meant really serve our best interest today?

We have before us two choices. We may choose philosophy or revealed truth as our foundation and guide. Philosophy is fatally flawed because it originates from within and is therefore subject to continual evolution and reinterpretation, as well as being subject to the individual passions of the philosopher. Or we may choose revealed truth which has served us well as a nation and which is unchanging.

If we use revealed truth as our foundation and guide, we will interpret the Constitution in the same way our founders did. Just as two Christians have the potential for unity today based on a shared reverence for revealed truth, that same shared reverence will align our thinking with the thinking of the founders from over two hundred years ago. It is not the text of the Constitution that secures our freedoms; rather it is the degree to which the Constitution is congruent with, and reflective of,revealed truth that has the potential to secure our freedoms. That potential security is only accessible if we rightly interpret the Constitution in the context of revealed (or transcendent) truth.

Too many of our judges and leaders have chosen the platform of philosophy to satisfy their intellectual arrogance and rebellious hearts. As children these people were failed by their teachers. They were not trained in the disciplines of truth.  Today they are our judges and leaders.

We have an inherently unstable republic which is at the mercy of the passions of each new generation.  These passions can only be restrained by the functional quality of revealed truth. This truth is useless unless understood and applied. In order for truth to be applied there must be a cycle of training which leads to understanding and application.

American Steward is dedicated to answering the question “So what actions should be taken by leadership oriented citizens?”

We believe that teaching and training must be developed that will enable us to model successful market based strategies that take into account the need to address the tasks of teaching and leadership in the workplace. If we do not maintain a principled, well educated citizenry, we will have no future as a nation of free people.