This is a statement that I do not think many people fully understand so I want to explore it a bit in it’s basic form that I hope will hit home for many of us. First let me make this statement by which both freedom and liberty must be firmly seated in and that is “Personal Responsibility”. What I mean by this has many implications. I may FEEL as if I have the “Right” to do something that I think is a freedom or liberty but am I willing to take responsibility for that action? It is majorly important to consider the responsibility of doing anything in life that may affect others. In short, are we willing to except the consequences personally for an action I thought I should have the right to do? It is simple and complicated all at the same time and for many of us it may seem like common sense whether to do something that may result in an issue of harm or damage or even death but let’s remember common sense is not so common in today’s world. The founders knew that if we kept Christian values, meaning morality at the center of our newly proclaimed freedom and liberties that most issues of infringements would not be an issue and could most likely be worked out between people. I always love to use quotes from a founding father so take this one in from Patrick Henry. “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians, not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this reason, peoples of other Faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom to worship here.” Is this not the exact opposite of what we are being told today? I firmly believe that if each of us grounded ourselves in the reality that actions have consequences and it is ours to bare, we would have much less violence and evil in the world today, love thy neighbor as I love myself. We truly are our brother’s keeper; this should be at the very center of our church’s missions today. Now on with a little more American history.

Unfortunately, at the end of the civil war, 1871 to be precise and when Washington DC was incorporated, the Lieber Codes were introduced and instead of having positive law through our constitution we now had statues and UCC codes (universal commercial codes) as the law of the land. I am not sure how many statues and codes we have on the books now but a few years ago there were well over 3 million. I’m sure I break a code everyday without knowing about it or even what I violated. This has proven to be disastrous for many people that the government could not prosecute on a lawful bases or constitutional bases. It is important to remember that “Legal” is a term that falls under the statues and codes and “Lawful” falls under constitutional guidelines. NOW, having said all this I hope it has made us think about why this kind of thing happened and how and why we should return to positive constitutional law. The purpose of this article is to get you thinking about how things SHOULD be in this country instead of how they are. There is not a short cut to correcting most of the ills we have today, but my intention is to explore some of the remedies we have available to us in articles to come in the near future so please stay tuned. Below I am jumping back to one of our founding fathers, John Adams, in an effort to make us think about what our freedoms and liberties meant to him and should mean to us.

John Adams concepts of liberty and freedom.

Given Adams’s importance in establishing our country on the basis of liberty, we should remember his advocacy of the rights, or property, that is the content of our liberty and whose defense is the central reason our government was instituted.

• “Liberties are not the grants of princes and parliaments.”
• “[People have] rights…antecedent to all earthly governments—rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws.”
• “Each individual of the society has a right to be protected…in the enjoyment of his life, liberty, and property…no part of the property of any individual can, with justice, be taken from him, or applied to public uses, without his own consent.”
• “In a free state, every man…ought to be his own governor.”
• “To be commanded we do not consent.”
• “Liberty is [government’s] end.”
• “In order to have this liberty, it is requisite the government be so constituted… that one citizen need not be afraid of another citizen.”
• “Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist.”
• “The end of…government is…the power of enjoying, in safety and tranquility, [individuals’] natural rights and the blessings of life.”
• “[Government]…should be…for the preservation of internal peace, virtue, and good order, as well as the defense of their lives, liberties, and properties.”
• “The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If ‘Thou shalt not covet’ and ‘Thou shalt not steal’ were not commandments of heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free.”
• “Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people.”
• “Trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.”
• “Liberty must at all hazards be supported.”
• “A free constitution of civil government cannot be purchased at too dear a rate, as there is nothing on this side of Jerusalem of equal importance to mankind.”
• “Be not…wheedled out of your liberty by…hypocrisy, chicanery, and cowardice.”

John Adams, because he recognized “an enemy to liberty [as] an enemy to human nature” and that “nothing is so terrible as the loss of their liberties,” wrote that “It has ever been my hobby-horse to see rising in America an empire of liberty.”

I pray that this article has given you all reflection as to what we have as our birth right in this country and just how precious they are. If we lose our freedoms and liberties, we will not regain them without much lose. As Jefferson said, The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.