When Words are defrauded
Leaders are rare
Words … Just Words!
By Stephen L. Wilmeth
The use of parables in our spiritual training are confounding and reassuring. On one hand, they paint a meaning of thought where words fail. On another, they leave the point open for interpretation. Being mere man, the outcome can be disappointing, and … confusing.
On the other hand, words can be manipulated and altered to make a point. Perhaps the use of parables was adopted in the attempt to circumvent the expected fraudulent misuse or reinvention of words and their meanings.
The symptoms of War and Words
Those of us who live in the world of border conflict just as the state of Arizona encounters daily understand the frustration those state leaders face. They know the federal government is not looking out for their best interests. After all, the United States is suing Arizona for its attempt to take some control of the safety of its citizenry in the absence of federal actions.
Arizona didn’t take that course without reason and didn’t engage in the process lightly. They believed in what they read in the Constitution. Article I, Sections eight and 10 contain words that should have specific and clearly defined meanings.
Section eight sets the stage that “The Congress … provide(s) for the common defence … (has the responsibility) to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations … (has the mandate) To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union … and (must) repel invasions.”
In simple language, Section 10 goes on to remind Arizona and all other states that they cannot engage in War “unless actually invaded, or (are) in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.”
Arizonans, and all other state border county citizens, have come to recognize a foreign invasion when they live through a foreign invasion! When procedure and warning signs are created by government agencies to warn citizens and or to protect their employees from threat of death, a war, by any definition, is in progress.
Very simply, Arizona is being invaded by a foreign Nation engaged in an illicit, unregulated trillion dollar commerce undertaking and is being sued by the federal government for trying to protect itself and its citizenry.
The responsibility to explain with Words
A major failure of our system is the dismissal of the intended power of local controls and power and the transfer of power to the federal level. Men allowed and prompted that to happen. Perhaps a more honest assessment of that dilemma is the likelihood that ambitious leaders manipulated the original intentions without adequate and moral adherence to the mandates set forth in words.
A case in point is what Americans must understand about the Constitutional phrasing of “natural born citizen”. Without any question, the 1776 definition came from the prevailing wisdom of the time. That would imply that Vattel’s The Law of Nations or Principles of Natural Law would be the source of authority in the phrasing.
The Founders and Framers were united to limit the President and the Commander in Chief to be a leader born “in the country” to “citizen fathers”. The latter was modified to be set forth as “citizen parents”.
The issue was practical. The common law leaning framers strongly believed this one, all important leader, must be born on American soil of two United States citizens. Only a candidate, under the unity of citizenship and native born allegiance to the United States, could be considered. They wanted no opportunity for a foreign monarch to hijack their government. They had had their fill of those folks.
The failure of leaders to adhere to that standard eventually occurred. One occasion came with the 21st President Chester Arthur. Arthur was born of a Vermont (maybe even Canadian?) citizen mother and an Irish immigrant father. He should have been disallowed to fill, first the slot of vice president, and then the slot of president when Garfield was assassinated. Lackadaisical leadership allowed the abrogation of original intent to occur.
More modern day occurrences included the likelihood that Arizonans Barry Goldwater and John McCain both failed to meet the standards. In Goldwater’s case, he was born in Arizona Territory prior to statehood. In McCain’s case, he was born in the Canal Zone either in a military hospital or a local hospital, but technically not on American soil in the context of the original meaning.
Again, slothful leadership and citizen ignorance overlooked those departures from original intent. The Constitution is dynamic but a process is required to change it. If enough people agreed that changes needed to be made, they should have been made in order to correct deficiencies that technically left both Goldwater and McCain out of contention.
They weren’t. As such, both of these candidates should not have been allowed to run until the guiding document was honored. The method of change is fully described. The adjustment process was not only disregarded, but the rights of all Americans were placed in suspension. If it can happen once … it can happen repeatedly.
At a minimum, the current administrator’s qualification of natural born citizenship is in tatters. For starters, the 1776 adherence to citizen “father” is absent. The eventual wording of “citizen parents” is also in breach.
Vattel also clarified a child’s citizenship if the father’s citizenship does not qualify. The child could inherit the mother’s citizenry only if she was not married to the father at the time of birth.
A further review of the legal defense of challenges for the president’s natural born citizenry status yields no authority to overturn the wording of the Constitution. The repeated attempts to suggest the document is dynamic without formal change is meaningless. In order for it to be dynamic it still must be changed by legal process. It has not been. It can’t provide something out of wishes and words that don’t have legal standing.
The largely unreported tact to use the British Nationality Act of 1948 to somehow infer that this president’s father can be grandfathered into being a United States citizen is ludicrous. Although it gained no traction when it was tried, the current status of that Act must disallow any further notions … but it does highlight a matter of interest.
Only Section 3 of the Act survives. That section deals with only with “extra-territorial jurisdiction of crimes committed by British subjects overseas”!
The Gospel and Words
I listened to the president speak at the recent National Prayer Breakfast. His Bible must be different than mine. The use of scripture to defend the suggestion that any American is his brother’s keeper is simply wrong.
For starters where does “keeper” actually appear in the Bible? It appears infrequently enough to list all the references. There were men who were keepers of ‘sheep’, ‘wardrobe’, ‘gate(s)’, ‘women’, ‘prison’, ‘mine head’, ‘watch’, ‘king’s forest’, ‘house’, ‘vineyards’, ‘field’, ‘door’, ‘charge’, and ‘home’.
A higher reference of ‘Keeper’ central to the president’s message appears only in two places. The use of ‘My brother’s keeper’ comes from Genesis 4: 9.
Let us remember the context of that discussion. God had just confronted Cain after Cain had slain his brother, Abel.
God asked Cain, “Where is your brother, Abel?”
“I don’t know,” Cain replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
Is our welfare system predicated on this verse? If it is, we should all be reminded of what followed. It is profound if it, in fact, implies death in matters beyond simple physical death.
“What have you done?” God said, “Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground … When you work this ground it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.”
Are we overlooking the most important part of this scripture?
Death can mean many things the least of which may be physical. The destruction of human ambition, hope, integrity, and honesty can be worse than death. It, too, can lead to despair and efforts that yield no harvest. Hasn’t our welfare system done that? Have we taken out of context the interpretation of our brother’s keeper to the detriment of all sides of the welfare debate?
The Keeper
That brings us to the cardinal reference of Keeper in the Bible. In Psalms 121: 5, the only relationship of “Keeper” is revealed between God and man or even man and man. The scripture reads:
“The Lord is your Keeper;
The Lord is your shade at your right hand.”
This president has overreached. Neither, he nor any man is authorized to create scripture. Likewise, no man is in charge of applying scripture to our lives for political expediency.
It is time we read and interpret the words for what they are. It is also time for all leaders to stop pursuing wrongful ambitions of deity status.
Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher. “The Founders and Framers weren’t speaking in code, but they were people who were tired of monarchs who did.”
THE WESTERNER Sez: The conservatimve movement had William F. Buckley. Looks like we have our own William F. Buckaroo.
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