By Bob Eschliman
Editor
I am oftentimes asked, “Why are you doing this? What’s the point?” And my response is very simple: two terms for Barack Obama.
The only way that happens is with an electorate that is so disconnected from the principles that founded our nation that it can no longer distinguish between liberty and tyranny. Americans have become completely ignorant of those two terms even mean — and they’ve become too lazy to learn it for themselves — that they’ve bought the notion that they are whatever they’re told (by those in power and their media accomplices) they are.
So, I’m putting the truth out here for whomever actually wants to read it, hoping they will then share it with others. That’s how the brushfires of freedom were set alight in the minds of men, borrowing from Samuel Adams, two and a half centuries ago. While it may seem slow in a digital age, it is effective — you can hardly argue over the past results of success.
I have just one request. If you’re reading this, please share it with someone else. You don’t even have to provide a commentary; just share it. Over the next several weeks, I’m going to take you through the foundational concepts that led to our great nation, concepts that when implemented even today can restore its greatness to former glory.
So, let’s dig in.
Many civics curricula incorrectly state that our nation’s founding document is the Constitution. While it certainly formed the foundation of our system of government — and we’ll get to that in a few weeks — it didn’t found our country. It wasn’t even the Declaration of Independence, although we can find much of the principles that led to our nation’s founding in it.
The founding document is the Bible (cue the head explosions among the liberal-socialist-progressive-statist and atheist crowds).
But, seriously. Where do you think Thomas Jefferson came up with the concept that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were inherent rights endowed in all human beings by their Creator? He didn’t just think it up one day, because it received a warm reception at a party. He got the idea from the Bible.
Genesis 1:27 stated, “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”
Genesis 2:7 also stated, “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.“
We were created by God. And, as he read further, he learned from the story of the Garden of Eden that God gives us freedom to choose, that those decisions can lead to (eternal) life or death, and that God’s desire is that we all choose life. Further examination shows that God does not want us to take the lives of others through murder.
So, physical life is a gift given to each of us by God, to be lived in accordance with His will, until the time He has appointed for the end of our physical being. That is why, among “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” life comes first.
It all begins with life.
If anyone may murder me, at any time, how could I possibly enjoy my right to liberty, or my right to pursue happiness? The honest answer is simple: you can’t. Without an innate, absolute right to life, there is no possible way for you to have any other absolute rights.
A few years ago, I authored a piece that explains when and how life begins. It references indisputable scientific evidence that also happens to support everything you would find in the Bible. If you’re struggling with the notion that life begins at conception, I humbly suggest you CLICK HERE to read the earlier piece (don’t worry, we’ll still be here when you get back).
The right to life is inalienable because we didn’t create it; God did. If we didn’t create it, it’s not ours to take. Not from others, including the unborn, or from ourselves (suicide).
Let’s look at what James Wilson, one of the handful of men to have signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution (that makes him both a Founder and a Framer), and a U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice, had to say on the matter. He said:
“With consistency, beautiful and undeviating, human life from its commencement to its close, is protected by the common law. In the contemplation of law, life begins when the infant is first able to stir in the womb. By the law, life is protected not only from immediate destruction, but from every degree of actual violence, and in some cases, from every degree of danger.”
But that’s just one guy, you say. But, Wilson’s “Lectures on Law” were attended by nearly every other Framer, Founder, and leading “enlightened freethinker”of the day. If he said it, you can be fairly certain every other leading American of his day believed it.
In fact, it’s a position supported by Sir William Blackstone and Henry de Bracton, who both had substantial influence on American jurisprudence. The fact that medical science continues to further their argument only compounds the indictment against our society as continue to murder millions of unborn each year.
All of the old arguments for abortion, or for incrementalist approaches to ending abortion are being wiped away. With the recent Center for Medical Progress videos, and continued advances in technology, as well as increased emphasis on science in the general education of our populace, it is impossible for anyone to reasonably argue they do not know they are ending another human life when they choose abortion.
It’s time we put away the tired, old “pro-life” label. All too often it is used as a shield to protect those who only seek to create new loopholes through which murder may be justified. Instead, this matter requires a very black-and-white solution.
You’re either for the abolition of human abortion, or you’re against it.
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Bob Eschliman is the editor and co-publisher of The Iowa Statesman. He is a journalist with more than 16 years experience covering government and politics in Iowa. He may be contacted at bob@theiowastatesman.com.
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