Dakota Beacon

Self-Aggrandizement

History has recorded too many self-indulgent men and their evil self-serving deeds that seek power over and control of all others, men whose names are now and likely forever will be all but universally reviled by mankind. Condemnation of others, yielding to disgusting desires of the flesh, and the embracing of evil, all without a scintilla of remorse, are the hallmarks of their tyrannical stain on history.

An Alternative to Self-Aggrandizement

A belief in something bigger than self, coupled with humility and reverence for all that surrounds us, with this belief accepted freely into one’s life, and supported fully for the benefit of all of mankind. This is love… a love that requires both the courage to embrace and the work to support.

The Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;” The first Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America provides that all Americans may freely exercise the religion of their choice and prevents government from establishing a “State Religion” that must be practiced by any or all its citizens.

The Self-Aggrandizing Myth of Separation of Church and State

It was Thomas Jefferson who, in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Church, first referred to a “wall of separation” between church and state. Later, in 1878, a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court employed the term “separation of church and state”. Importantly however, the first Amendment of the Constitution does not suggest a total separation of religion and government. The action of the founders in setting up oaths of office to be sworn on a bible may be one of the first and perhaps most important example of the welcoming of religion into government. The recital of a prayer at the beginning of each session of the House and Senate is another important reminder of the presence of religion in government. And even more important is the fact that no “state prayer” or “state religion” may be required to be spoken or honored but instead that tradition has accepted many prayers from many religions as proof that religion is freely exercised throughout government as it is throughout the land.

Statists, who, in one breath, condemn Thomas Jefferson for his fathering of at least six children with Sally Hemmings (the one-quarter African slave he inherited from his wife’s father) years after his wife’s death, and, in another breath, cleverly insert his Danbury letter into the first Amendment to our United States Constitution as if Jefferson was the sole framer. A single written opinion of Chief Justice Morrison Waite in 1878 likewise attempted to insert unintended words into the first Amendment. After the almost half century blunder of “Roe vs Wade,” no error by one or more justices should surprise us… after all these are mortals and all mortals both directly sin and make mistakes. Whether run-of-the-mill Marxists or ego-inflated justices make the first Amendment mistake is of little consequence; the Marxist’s useful idiots in journalism will apparently continue to ride the errors like breaking waves.

The writers of our Constitution were extremely deliberative in their discussions and selected words and phrases only after careful consideration. To expand on their wisdom expressed in our Constitution is pure conjecture (the Federalist and Anti-federalist papers are the work of select individuals, not the whole approving body) and to attempt to “correct” their world-revered document is the work of Statist heretics.

God is Love

The words of my favorite Declaration of Independence signer George Wythe:

“Religion is our best and greatest friend; it furnishes the best of all motives to virtue and the strongest dissuasive to vice. Christianity, of all religions, is the sweetest and sublimest in the world for it labors throughout to infix in our hearts this great truth, that God is love.”

Whether God, Yehweh, or Allah, the beliefs in something “greater than self,” while not the same for the three Abrahamic religions, represent a mortal’s striving for personal improvement that, with avoidance of sin and grace (forgiveness of sins), many believe can lead to immortality. Virtue (often mistakenly interchanged with Values), which is in somewhat short supply of late, is a natural result of most elements of faith.

Virtues vs Values

Honesty, Courage, Compassion, Generosity, Fidelity, Integrity, Fairness, Self-control, and Prudence are examples of Virtue. Virtue, once acquired as habit, becomes characteristic of an individual. Virtues are almost universally good for society. Traditional Christian angelology lists “virtue” as the seventh highest order of the nine-fold celestial hierarchy. In laymen’s terms, “Virtues” are almost universally accepted.

Values are individual beliefs that motivate people to act one way or another. Values are a result of one’s upbringing within the culture they are raised in. For example, a Gaza school child taught by UN paid school teachers is extremely likely to have been taught to kill as many Jews as possible in their lifetime. The point here is that a particular value can be either good, bad, or both for society. In laymen’s terms, “Values,” however, reflect a variability of moral beliefs on a spectrum that runs from individual acceptance to universal acceptance. For example, a psychotic killer may embrace the value of cleanliness in disposal of a victim while the individual act of murder is an almost universally abhorred “value” of the psychotic. Some values are “good,” some values are “abhorrent,” and others are in between. Is this why the term “Values” seems to be preferred by those lacking in virtue?

Ethical relativeness offers the best explanation of the variability of moral belief. The difference in the definitions of these two words reveal the relativist nature of the word” Values” versus the definitive elements associated with the word “Virtues.” An up-to-date example is the false “Value” of “Collectivism” which has removed the term” professional” from the field of education while being currently on track to do the same to medicine.

Expressions of Virtue

All, including the unworthy, are welcome.

Provide comfort to those who mourn.

Honor those who are gentle.

Reward those who hunger and thirst for what is right.

Be merciful so you may receive mercy.

Seek goodness toward yourself and others.

The pure in heart shall see God.

Peacemakers are the children of God.

Forgive those who hurt you.

Respect others.

Be kind.

These virtues, in large part, represent those of An Alternative to Self-Aggrandizement, as expressed in the second paragraph above.

Virtues, not Values, are almost Universally Accepted

It is virtues, not values, that are almost universally accepted. “Values” is the word used by Marxists to attract their “useful idiots” to a godless approach to life that serves best the Marxist who claims such relative values only to pit multiple elements of society against each other to achieve the poverty that results from “equal outcomes” (i.e. Socialism).

The expressions of virtue partially listed above, while not immediately recognizable as such, represent some of the basic teachings of Jesus Christ. Followers of Jesus Christ, called Christians, strive to live up to Christ’s teachings through actions of their daily lives. Many, if not all, of these teachings of virtue are also found in Judaism and Islam. They have historically resulted in societal support of a free market’s “Equal Opportunities” rather than Socialism’s false promises of “equal outcomes.”

The whole point of this exercise is to reveal the goodness of religious people that results from all loving faiths. On the contrary, godless Marxists, who have infiltrated most every aspect of society within the United States of America, constantly attack religion to various degrees. Marxists know that their worst nightmare is represented by religion, especially the multitude of religions that are freely exercised throughout our great and historically increasingly prosperous country.

The next time you hear a journalist embracing ongoing efforts to destroy the Catholic Church from within through the incessant advertising of its internal shortcomings (we all sin, Protestants perhaps even more so), or hear those same journalists use the expression “Christian Nationalists” applied to Evangelical Christians… remember that your faith (or lack of faith) is next on the Marxist Attack List. If the term “Christian” describes most of our country, Marxists will paint us all with the same brush, whether we are also “Nationalists,” those that love our country and what it stands for, to include both the “Establishment” and “Free Exercise” clauses of our Constitution.

It’s the Debt, Stupid

Lastly, while our national debt of over $34 Trillion is a formidable barrier to the historical prosperity of future generations of Americans, we can all do our part to reduce the entitlement mentality that has, over decades, caused the debt problem in the first place. We must remove, in the voting booth, a good many selfish politicians that have exploited our Christian values to bring future generations to this point of national bankruptcy. When you vote, please consider voting for those who advocate and thus may even fulfill drastically reducing our looming national debt and the nightmare of hyperinflation that can and will result if our leaders do not act now.

My motto of life is LOVE = WORK + COURAGE, not INDIFFERENCE = LAZINESS + FEAR

If you fear National Bankruptcy, I implore you to have the Courage to Work on a campaign of a like-minded candidate for political office. God Bless.