Guns save over 6000 lives a day

These are not my words, or findings although I agree with the truth found in this article from from https://www.gunowners.org/sk0802htm.htm 

FactSheet: Guns Save Lives

A. Guns save more lives than they take; prevent more injuries than they inflict

* Guns used 2.5 million times a year in self-defense. Law-abiding citizens use guns to defend themselves against criminals as many as 2.5 million times every year -- or about 6,850 times a day. [1] This means that each year, firearms are used more than 80 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take lives. [2]

* Of the 2.5 million times citizens use their guns to defend themselves every year, the overwhelming majority merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off their attackers. Less than 8% of the time, a citizen will kill or wound his/her attacker.[3]

* As many as 200,000 women use a gun every year to defend themselves against sexual abuse.[4]

* Even anti-gun Clinton researchers concede that guns are used 1.5 million times annually for self-defense. According to the Clinton Justice Department, there are as many as 1.5 million cases of self-defense every year. The National Institute of Justice published this figure in 1997 as part of "Guns in America" -- a study which was authored by noted anti-gun criminologists Philip Cook and Jens Ludwig.[5]

* Armed citizens kill more crooks than do the police. Citizens shoot and kill at least twice as many criminals as police do every year (1,527 to 606).[6] And readers of Newsweek learned that "only 2 percent of civilian shootings involved an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal. The 'error rate' for the police, however, was 11 percent, more than five times as high."[7]

* Handguns are the weapon of choice for self-defense. Citizens use handguns to protect themselves over 1.9 million times a year. [8] Many of these self-defense handguns could be labeled as "Saturday Night Specials."

B. Concealed carry laws help reduce crime

* Nationwide: one-half million self-defense uses. Every year, as many as one-half million citizens defend themselves with a firearm away from home. [9] * Concealed carry laws are dropping crime rates across the country. A comprehensive national study determined in 1996 that violent crime fell after states made it legal to carry concealed firearms. The results of the study showed:

* States which passed concealed carry laws reduced their murder rate by 8.5%, rapes by 5%, aggravated assaults by 7% and robbery by 3%; [10] and * If those states not having concealed carry laws had adopted such laws in 1992, then approximately 1,570 murders, 4,177 rapes, 60,000 aggravated assaults and over 11,000 robberies would have been avoided yearly.[11]

* Vermont: one of the safest five states in the country. In Vermont, citizens can carry a firearm without getting permission... without paying a fee... or without going through any kind of government-imposed waiting period. And yet for ten years in a row, Vermont has remained one of the top-five, safest states in the union -- having three times received the "Safest State Award."[12]

* Florida: concealed carry helps slash the murder rates in the state. In the fifteen years following the passage of Florida's concealed carry law in 1987, over 800,000 permits to carry firearms were issued to people in the state. [13] FBI reports show that the homicide rate in Florida, which in 1987 was much higher than the national average, fell 52% during that 15-year period -- thus putting the Florida rate below the national average. [14]

* Do firearms carry laws result in chaos? No. Consider the case of Florida. A citizen in the Sunshine State is far more likely to be attacked by an alligator than to be assaulted by a concealed carry holder.

1. During the first fifteen years that the Florida law was in effect, alligator attacks outpaced the number of crimes committed by carry holders by a 229 to 155 margin.

2. And even the 155 "crimes" committed by concealed carry permit holders are somewhat misleading as most of these infractions resulted from Floridians who accidentally carried their firearms into restricted areas, such as an airport. [15]

C. Criminals avoid armed citizens

* Kennesaw, GA. In 1982, this suburb of Atlanta passed a law requiring heads of households to keep at least one firearm in the house. The residential burglary rate subsequently dropped 89% in Kennesaw, compared to the modest 10.4% drop in Georgia as a whole. [16]

* Ten years later (1991), the residential burglary rate in Kennesaw was still 72% lower than it had been in 1981, before the law was passed. [17]

* Nationwide. Statistical comparisons with other countries show that burglars in the United States are far less apt to enter an occupied home than their foreign counterparts who live in countries where fewer civilians own firearms. Consider the following rates showing how often a homeowner is present when a burglar strikes:

* Homeowner occupancy rate in the gun control countries of Great Britain, Canada and Netherlands: 45% (average of the three countries); and, * Homeowner occupancy rate in the United States: 12.7%. [18] Rapes averted when women carry or use firearms for protection

* Orlando, FL. In 1966-67, the media highly publicized a safety course which taught Orlando women how to use guns. The result: Orlando's rape rate dropped 88% in 1967, whereas the rape rate remained constant in the rest of Florida and the nation. [19]

* Nationwide. In 1979, the Carter Justice Department found that of more than 32,000 attempted rapes, 32% were actually committed. But when a woman was armed with a gun or knife, only 3% of the attempted rapes were actually successful. [20] Justice Department study:

* 3/5 of felons polled agreed that "a criminal is not going to mess around with a victim he knows is armed with a gun." [21]

* 74% of felons polled agreed that "one reason burglars avoid houses when people are at home is that they fear being shot during the crime."[22] * 57% of felons polled agreed that "criminals are more worried about meeting an armed victim than they are about running into the police." [23]

---

[1] Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense With a Gun," 86 The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Northwestern University School of Law, 1 (Fall 1995):164. Dr. Kleck is a professor in the school of criminology and criminal justice at Florida State University in Tallahassee. He has researched extensively and published several essays on the gun control issue. His book, Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America, has become a widely cited source in the gun control debate. In fact, this book earned Dr. Kleck the prestigious American Society of Criminology Michael J. Hindelang award for 1993. This award is given for the book published in the past two to three years that makes the most outstanding contribution to criminology. Even those who don't like the conclusions Dr. Kleck reaches, cannot argue with his impeccable research and methodology. In "A Tribute to a View I Have Opposed," Marvin E. Wolfgang writes that, "What troubles me is the article by Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz. The reason I am troubled is that they have provided an almost clear-cut case of methodologically sound research in support of something I have theoretically opposed for years, namely, the use of a gun in defense against a criminal perpetrator.... I have to admit my admiration for the care and caution expressed in this article and this research. Can it be true that about two million instances occur each year in which a gun was used as a defensive measure against crime? It is hard to believe. Yet, it is hard to challenge the data collected. We do not have contrary evidence." Wolfgang, "A Tribute to a View I Have Opposed," The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, at 188.

Wolfgang says there is no "contrary evidence." Indeed, there are more than a dozen national polls -- one of which was conducted by The Los Angeles Times -- that have found figures comparable to the Kleck-Gertz study. Even the Clinton Justice Department (through the National Institute of Justice) found there were as many as 1.5 million defensive users of firearms every year. See National Institute of Justice, "Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms," Research in Brief (May 1997).

As for Dr. Kleck, readers of his materials may be interested to know that he is a member of the ACLU, Amnesty International USA, and Common Cause. He is not and has never been a member of or contributor to any advocacy group on either side of the gun control debate.

[2] According to the National Safety Council, the total number of gun deaths (by accidents, suicides and homicides) account for less than 30,000 deaths per year. See Injury Facts, published yearly by the National Safety Council, Itasca, Illinois.

[3] Kleck and Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime," at 173, 185.

[4]Kleck and Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime," at 185.

[5]Philip J. Cook and Jens Ludwig, "Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms," NIJ Research in Brief (May 1997); available at https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/165476.pdf on the internet. The finding of 1.5 million yearly self-defense cases did not sit well with the anti-gun bias of the study's authors, who attempted to explain why there could not possibly be one and a half million cases of self-defense every year. Nevertheless, the 1.5 million figure is consistent with a mountain of independent surveys showing similar figures. The sponsors of these studies -- nearly a dozen -- are quite varied, and include anti-gun organizations, news media organizations, governments and commercial polling firms. See also Kleck and Gertz, supra note 1, pp. 182-183. 

[6]Kleck, Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America, (1991):111-116, 148.

[7]George F. Will, "Are We 'a Nation of Cowards'?," Newsweek (15 November 1993):93.

[8]Id. at 164, 185.

[9]Dr. Gary Kleck, interview with J. Neil Schulman, "Q and A: Guns, crime and self-defense," The Orange County Register (19 September 1993). In the interview with Schulman, Dr. Kleck reports on findings from a national survey which he and Dr. Marc Gertz conducted in Spring, 1993 -- a survey which findings were reported in Kleck and Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime."

[10]One of the authors of the University of Chicago study reported on the study's findings in John R. Lott, Jr., "More Guns, Less Violent Crime," The Wall Street Journal (28 August 1996). See also John R. Lott, Jr. and David B. Mustard, "Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns," University of Chicago (15 August 1996); and Lott, More Guns, Less Crime (1998, 2000). 

[11]Lott and Mustard, "Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns."

[12]Kathleen O'Leary Morgan, Scott Morgan and Neal Quitno, "Rankings of States in Most Dangerous/Safest State Awards 1994 to 2003," Morgan Quitno Press (2004) at http://www.statestats.com/dang9403.htm. Morgan Quitno Press is an independent private research and publishing company which was founded in 1989. The company specializes in reference books and monthly reports that compare states and cities in several different subject areas. In the first 10 years in which they published their Safest State Award, Vermont has consistently remained one of the top five safest states.

[13]Memo by Jim Smith, Secretary of State, Florida Department of State, Division of Licensing, Concealed Weapons/Firearms License Statistical Report (October 1, 2002).
14Florida's murder rate was 11.4 per 100,000 in 1987, but only 5.5 in 2002. Compare Federal Bureau of Investigation, "Crime in the United States," Uniform Crime Reports, (1988): 7, 53; and FBI, (2003):19, 79.

[15]John R. Lott, Jr., "Right to carry would disprove horror stories," Kansas City Star, (July 12, 2003).

[16]Gary Kleck, "Crime Control Through the Private Use of Armed Force," Social Problems 35 (February 1988):15.

[17]Compare Kleck, "Crime Control," at 15, and Chief Dwaine L. Wilson, City of Kennesaw Police Department, "Month to Month Statistics: 1991." (Residential burglary rates from 1981-1991 are based on statistics for the months of March - October.)

[18]Kleck, Point Blank, at 140.

[19]Kleck, "Crime Control," at 13.

[20]U.S. Department of Justice, Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, Rape Victimization in 26 American Cities (1979), p. 31. 

[21]U.S., Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, "The Armed Criminal in America: A Survey of Incarcerated Felons," Research Report (July 1985): 27.

[22]Id.

[23]Id.

The Devil In Disguise

One Evil Human

Written by Jim O'Neill

I have been hearing rumblings about this man for years now.  This is the most precise information - in one page - that I have seen.  We are really "in for it" and appear to be void of ways to cope.  Our people have been hypnotized by the liberals and progressives, and we just don't want to believe it.  Look around you and start really paying attention, or not, not is much easier, but whatever you do or don't do, at least PRAY FOR OUR COUNTRY and the whole world.

Glen Beck has been developing material to show all the ties that Soros has through the nation and world along with his goals. This article is written by Steve Kroft from "60 Minutes". It begins to piece together the rise of Obama and his behavior in leading the nation along with many members of Congress (in particular the Democrats, such as the election of Pelosi as the minority leader in Congress).

You can understand what is happening to our America after reading this.

One Evil Human

FROM STEVE KROFT ("60 Minutes") A LIBERAL I MIGHT ADD

If you have wondered where Obama came from and just how he quickly moved from obscurity to President, or why the media is "selective" in what we are told, here is the man who most probably put him there and is responsible. He controls President Obama's every move. Think this is absurd? Invest a few minutes and read this. You won't regret it.
Who is Obama? Obama is a puppet and here is the explanation of the man or demon that pulls his strings. It’s not by chance that Obama can manipulate the world. I don't think he knows how to tie his shoe laces. After reading this and Obama's reluctance to accept help on the oil spill you wonder if the spill is part of the plan to destroy the US ? "In history, nothing happens by accident. If it happened, you can bet someone planned it." / Franklin Delano Roosevelt


Who Is George Soros? He brought the market down in 2 days. Here is what CBS' Mr. Steve Kroft's research has turned up. It's a bit of a read, and it took 4 months to put it together. "The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States . "George Soros"


George Soros is an evil man. He's anti-God, anti-family, anti-American, and anti-good." He killed and robbed his own Jewish people. What we have in Soros, is a multi-billionaire atheist, with skewed moral values, and a sociopath's lack of conscience. He considers himself to be an elitist World class philosopher, despises the American way, and just loves to do social engineering and change cultures.

György Schwartz, better known to the world as George Soros, was born August 12, 1930 in Hungary . Soros' father, Tivadar, was a fervent practitioner of the Esperanto language invented in 1887, and designed to be the first global language, free of any national identity. The Schwartz's, who were non-practicing Jews, changed the family name to Soros, in order to facilitate assimilation into the Gentile population, as the Nazis spread into Hungary during the 1930s.

When Hitler's henchman Adolf Eichmann arrived in Hungary , to oversee the murder of that country's Jews, George Soros ended up with a man whose job was confiscating property from the Jewish population. Soros went with him on his rounds.

Soros has repeatedly called 1944 "the best year of his life." 70% of Mr. Soros's fellow Jews in Hungary, nearly a half-million human beings, were annihilated in that year, yet he gives no sign that this put any damper on his elation, either at the time or indeed in retrospect" During an interview with "Sixty Minute's" Steve Kroft, Soros was asked about his "best year."

KROFT: My understanding is that you went out with this protector of yours who swore that you were his adopted godson. SOROS: Yes. Yes.

KROFT: Went out, in fact, and helped in the confiscation of property from your fellow Jews, friends and neighbors. SOROS: Yes. That's right. Yes.

KROFT: I mean, that sounds like an experience that would send lots of people to the psychiatric couch for many, many, years. Was it difficult?

SOROS: No, not at all. Not at all, I rather enjoyed it.. 
KROFT: No feelings of guilt? 
SOROS: No, only feelings of absolute power. 
In his article, Muravchik describes how Soros has admitted to having carried some rather "potent messianic fantasies with me from childhood, which I felt I had to control, otherwise they might get me in trouble." Be that as it may. After WWII, Soros attended the London School of Economics, where he fell under the thrall of fellow atheist and Hungarian, Karl Popper, one of his professors. Popper was a mentor to Soros until Popper's death in 1994. Two of Popper's most influential teachings concerned "the open society," and Fallibilism.

Fallibilism is the philosophical doctrine that all claims of knowledge could, in principle, be mistaken. (Then again, I could be wrong about that.) The "open society" basically refers to a "test and evaluate" approach to social engineering. Regarding "open society" Roy Childs writes, "Since the Second World War, most of the Western democracies have followed Popper's advice about piecemeal social engineering and democratic social reform, and it has gotten them into a grand mess."

In 1956 Soros moved to New York City , where he worked on Wall Street, and started amassing his fortune. He specialized in hedge funds and currency speculation. Soros is absolutely ruthless, amoral, and clever in his business dealings, and quickly made his fortune. By the 1980s he was well on his way to becoming the global powerhouse that he is today.

In an article Kyle-Anne Shiver wrote for "The American Thinker" she says, "Soros made his first billion in 1992 by shorting the British pound with leveraged billions in financial bets, and became known as the man who broke the Bank of England . He broke it on the backs of hard-working British citizens who immediately saw their homes severely devalued and their life savings cut drastically, almost overnight."
In 1994 Soros crowed in "The New Republic," that "the former Soviet Empire is now called the Soros Empire." The Russia-gate scandal in 1999, which almost collapsed the Russian economy, was labeled by Rep. Jim Leach, then head of the House Banking Committee, to be "one of the greatest social robberies in human history. "The "Soros Empire" indeed. In 1997 Soros almost destroyed the economies of Thailand and Malaysia . At the time, Malaysia 's Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohammad, called Soros "a = villain, and a moron." Thai activist Weng Tojirakarn said, "We regard George Soros as a kind of Dracula. He sucks the blood from the people."
The website Greek National Pride reports, "Soros was part of the full court press that dismantled Yugoslavia and caused trouble in Georgia, Ukraine and Myanmar [Burma] Calling himself a philanthropist, Soros' role is to tighten the ideological stranglehold of globalization and the New World Order while promoting his own financial gain. He is without conscience; a capitalist who functions with absolute amorality."

France has upheld an earlier conviction against Soros, for felony insider trading. Soros was fined 2.9 million dollars. Recently, his native Hungary fined Soros 2.2 million dollars for "illegal market manipulation." Elizabeth Crum writes that the Hungarian economy has been in a state of transition as the country seeks to become more financially stable and westernized. Soros deliberately driving down the share price of its largest bank put Hungary 's economy into a wicked tailspin, one from which it is still trying to recover.

My point here is that Soros is a planetary parasite. His grasp, greed, and gluttony have a global reach. But what about America ? Soros told Australia 's national newspaper "The Australian." " America , as the centre of the globalised financial markets, was sucking up the savings of the world. This is now over. The game is out," he said, adding that the time has come for "a very serious adjustment" in American's consumption habits. He implied that he was the one with the power to bring this about."

Soros: "World financial crisis was "stimulating" and "in a way, the culmination of my life's work."

Obama has recently promised 10 billion of our tax dollars to Brazil, in order to give them a leg-up in expanding their offshore oil fields.. Obama's largesse towards Brazil came shortly after his political financial backer, George Soros, invested heavily in Brazilian oil (Petrobras).

Tait Trussel writes, "The Petrobras loan may be a windfall for Soros and Brazil , but it is a bad deal for the U. S. The American Petroleum Institute estimates that oil exploration in the U S could create 160,000 new, well-paying jobs, as well as $1.7 trillion in revenues to federal, state, and local governments, all while fostering greater energy security and independence."
A blog you might want to keep an eye on is SorosWatch. com.Their mission: "This blog is dedicated to all who have suffered due to the ruthless financial pursuits of George Soros. Your stories are many and varied, but the theme is the same: the destructive power of greed without conscience. We pledge to tirelessly watch Soros wherever he goes and to print the truth in the hope that he will one day be made to stop preying upon the world's poor, that justice will be served."

Back to America . Soros has been actively working to destroy America from the inside out for some years now. People have been warning us. Two years ago, news sources reported that "Soros [is] an extremist who wants open borders, a one-world foreign policy, legalized drugs, euthanasia, and on and on. This is off-the-chart dangerous." In 1997 Rachel Ehrenfeld wrote, "Soros uses his philanthropy to change or more accurately deconstruct the moral values and attitudes of the Western world, and particularly of the American people. His "open society" is not about freedom; it is about license. His vision rejects the notion of ordered liberty, in favor of a PROGRESSIVE ideology of rights and entitlements."

Perhaps the most important of these "whistle blowers" are David Horowitz and Richard Poe. Their book "The Shadow Party" outlines in detail how Soros hijacked the Democratic Party, and now owns it lock, stock, and barrel. Soros has been packing the Democratic Party with radicals, and ousting moderate Democrats for years. The Shadow Party became the Shadow Government, which recently became the Obama Administration. 
Discover The Networks. org (another good source) writes, "By his [Soros'] own admission, he helped engineer coups in Slovakia , Croatia , Georgia , and Yugoslavia . When Soros targets a country for "regime change," he begins by creating a shadow government, a fully formed government-in-exile, ready to assume power when the opportunity arises. The Shadow Party he has built in America greatly resembles those he has created in other countries prior to instigating a coup." 
November 2008 edition of the German magazine "Der Spiegel," in which Soros gives his opinion on what the next POTUS (President of the U. S. ) should do after taking office. "I think we need a large stimulus package." Soros thought that around 600 billion would be about right. Soros also said that "I think Obama presents us a great opportunity to finally deal with global warming and energy dependence. The U. S. needs a cap and trade system with auctioning of licenses for emissions rights."

Although Soros doesn't (yet) own the Republican Party, like he does the Democrats, make no mistake, his tentacles are spread throughout the Republican Party as well.
Soros is a partner in the Carlyle Group where he has invested more than 100 million dollars. According to an article by "The Baltimore Chronicle's" Alice Cherbonnier, the Carlye Group is run by "a veritable who's who of former Republican leaders," from CIA man Frank Carlucci, to CIA head and ex-President George Bush, Sr.

In late 2006, Soros bought about 2 million shares of Halliburton, Dick Cheney's old stomping grounds.When the Democrats and Republicans held their conventions in 2000, Soros held Shadow Party conventions in the same cities, at the same time. In 2008, Soros donated $5,000,000,000 ( that’s Five Billion ) to the Democratic National Committee, DNC, to insure Obama's win and wins for many other Alinsky trained Radical Rules Anti-American Socialist. George has been contributing a $ billion plus to the DNC since Clinton came on the scene.

Soros has dirtied both sides of the aisle, trust me. And if that weren't bad enough, he has long held connections with the CIA. And I mustn't forget to mention Soros' involvement with the MSM (Main Stream Media), the entertainment industry (e. g. he owns 2.6 million shares of Time Warner), and the various political advertising organizations he funnels millions to. In short, George Soros controls or influences most of the MSM. Little wonder they ignore the TEA PARTY, Soro's NEMESIS.

As Matthew Vadum writes, "The liberal billionaire-turned-philanthropist has been buying up media properties for years in order to drive home his message to the American public that they are too materialistic, too wasteful, too selfish, and too stupid to decide for themselves how to run their own lives."

Richard Poe writes, "Soros' private philanthropy, totaling nearly $5 billion, continues underminingAmerica's traditional Western values. His giving has provided funding of abortion rights, atheism, drug legalization, sex education, euthanasia, feminism, gun control, globalization, mass immigration, gay marriage and other radical experiments in social engineering."

Some of the many NGOs (Non-Government Organizations) that Soros funds with his billions are: MoveOn. org, the Apollo Alliance, Media Matters for America, the Tides Foundation, the ACLU, ACORN, PDIA (Project on Death In America), La Raza, and many more. For a more complete list, with brief descriptions of the NGOs, go toDiscoverTheNetworks.org.

Poe continues, "Through his global web of Open Society Institutes and Open Society Foundations, Soros has spent 25 years recruiting, training, indoctrinating and installing a network of loyal operatives in 50 countries, placing them in positions of influence and power in media, government, finance and academia." 
Without Soros' money, would the Saul Alinsky's Chicago machine still be rolling? Would SEIU, ACORN, and La Raza still be pursuing their nefarious activities? Would Big Money and lobbyists still be corrupting government? Would our college campuses still be retirement homes for 1960s radicals?

America stands at the brink of an abyss, and that fact is directly attributable to Soros. Soros has vigorously, cleverly, and insidiously planned the ruination of America and his puppet, Barack Obama is leading the way.

 

The words of Patrick Henry are apropos: "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!"
-------------- 

Side Note George Soros has controlled more than our current President, and Congress his tentacles have been in our politics along time 

Above information researched by CBS Steve Kroft

(The disastrous impact Soros has had on our country and the world is appalling, but even more frightening is the hundreds of thousands of influential people he has paid off to continue his crusade against humanity, long after his death)

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."Thomas Jefferson

If you have read this to the end, and you are a true patriotic American, then you will not have a problem forwarding this to everyone on your email list.

28 Principles of Freedom we Should All Live by

The 5000 Year leap, set forth the principles of freedom, these are from Chapter 1

Principle 1 - The only reliable basis for sound government and just human relations is Natural Law.

Natural law is God's law. There are certain laws which govern the entire universe, and just as Thomas Jefferson said in the Declaration of Independence, there are laws which govern in the affairs of men which are "the laws of nature and of nature's God."

Principle 2 - A free people cannot survive under a republican constitution unless they remain virtuous and morally strong.

“Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." - Benjamin Franklin

Principle 3 - The most promising method of securing a virtuous people is to elect virtuous leaders.

"Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt.  He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who ... will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man." - Samuel Adams

Principle 4 - Without religion the government of a free people cannot be maintained.

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.... And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion." – George Washington

Principle 5 - All things were created by God, therefore upon him all mankind are equally dependent, and to him they are equally responsible .

The American Founding Fathers considered the existence of the Creator as the most fundamental premise underlying all self-evident truth.  They felt a person who boasted he or she was an atheist had just simply failed to apply his or her divine capacity for reason and observation.

Principle 6 - All mankind were created equal.

The Founders knew that in these three ways, all mankind are theoretically treated as:

1. Equal before God.
2. Equal before the law.
3. Equal in their rights.

Principle 7 - The proper role of government is to protect equal rights, not provide equal things.

The Founders recognized that the people cannot delegate to their government any power except that which they have the lawful right to exercise themselves.

Principle 8 - Mankind are endowed by God with certain unalienable rights.

"Those rights, then, which God and nature have established, and are therefore called natural rights, such as are life and liberty, need not the aid of human laws to be more effectually invested in every man than they are; neither do they receive any additional strength when declared by the municipal [or state] laws to be inviolable.  On the contrary, no human legislation has power to abridge or destroy them, unless the owner [of the right] shall himself commit some act that amounts to a forfeiture." – William Blackstone

Principle 9 - To protect human rights, God has revealed a code of divine law.

"The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to be found only in the Holy Scriptures.  These precepts, when revealed, are found by comparison to be really a part of the original law of nature, as they tend in all their consequences to man's felicity." – William Blackstone

Principle 10 - The God-given right to govern is vested in the sovereign authority of the whole people.

"The fabric of American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of the consent of the people.  The streams of national power ought to flow immediately from that pure, original fountain of all legislative authority." - Alexander Hamilton

Principle 11 - The majority of the people may alter or abolish a government which has become tyrannical.

"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes ... but when a long train of abuses and usurpations ... evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security." - Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence

Principle 12 - The United States of America shall be a republic.

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America
And to the republic for which it stands...."

Principle 13 – A Constitution should protect the people from the frailties of their rulers.

"If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.... [But lacking these] you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself." – James Madison

Principle 14 - Life and liberty are secure only so long as the rights of property are secure .

John Locke reasoned that God gave the earth and everything in it to the whole human family as a gift.  Therefore the land, the sea, the acorns in the forest, the deer feeding in the meadow belong to everyone "in common." However, the moment someone takes the trouble to change something from its original state of nature, that person has added his ingenuity or labor to make that change.  Herein lies the secret to the origin of "property rights."

Principle 15 - The highest level of prosperity occurs when there is a free-market economy and a minimum of government regulations.

Prosperity depends upon a climate of wholesome stimulation with four basic freedoms in operation:

1. The Freedom to try.
2. The Freedom to buy.
3. The Freedom to sell.
4. The Freedom to fail.

Principle 16 - The government should be separated into three branches .

"I call you to witness that I was the first member of the Congress who ventured to come out in public, as I did in January 1776, in my Thoughts on Government ... in favor of a government with three branches and an independent judiciary.  This pamphlet, you know, was very unpopular.  No man appeared in public to support it but yourself." - John Adams

Principle 17 - A system of checks and balances should be adopted to prevent the abuse of power by the different branches of government.

"It will not be denied that power is of an encroaching nature and that it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it." - James Madison

Principle 18 - The unalienable rights of the people are most likely to be preserved if the principles of government are set forth in a written Constitution.

The structure of the American system is set forth in the Constitution of the United States and the only weaknesses which have appeared are those which were allowed to creep in despite the Constitution.

Principle 19 - Only limited and carefully defined powers should be delegated to government, all others being retained by the people.

The Tenth Amendment is the most widely violated provision of the bill of rights.  If it had been respected and enforced, America would be an amazingly different country than it is today.  This amendment provides:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Principle 20 - Efficiency and dispatch require that the government operate according to the will of the majority, but constitutional provisions must be made to protect the rights of the minority.

"Every man, by consenting with others to make one body politic under one government, puts himself under an obligation to every one of that society to submit to the determination of the majority, and to be concluded [bound] by it." – John Locke

Principle 21 - Strong local self-government is the keystone to preserving human freedom.

"The way to have good and safe government is not to trust it all to one, but to divide it among the many, distributing to every one exactly the functions he is competent [to perform best]. - Thomas Jefferson

Principle 22 - A free people should be governed by law and not by the whims of men.

"The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom.  For in all the states of created beings, capable of laws, where there is no law there is no freedom.  For liberty is to be free from restraint and violence of others, which cannot be where there is no law." – John Locke

Principle 23 - A free society cannot survive as a republic without a broad program of general education.

"They made an early provision by law that every town consisting of so many families should be always furnished with a grammar school.  They made it a crime for such a town to be destitute of a grammar schoolmaster for a few months, and subjected it to a heavy penalty.  So that the education of all ranks of people was made the care and expense of the public, in a manner that I believe has been unknown to any other people, ancient or modern.  The consequences of these establishments we see and feel every day [written in 1765].  A native of America who cannot read and write is as rare ... as a comet or an earthquake.” John Adams

Principle 24 - A free people will not survive unless they stay strong.

"To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace." – George Washington

Principle 25 - "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations -- entangling alliances with none."-Thomas Jefferson, given in his first inaugural address.

Principle 26 - The core unit which determines the strength of any society is the family; therefore the government should foster and protect its integrity.

"There is certainly no country in the world where the tie of marriage is more respected than in America, or where conjugal happiness is more highly or worthily appreciated.” - Alexis de Tocqueville

Principle 27 - The burden of debt is as destructive to human freedom as subjugation by conquest.

"We are bound to defray expenses [of the war] within our own time, and are unauthorized to burden posterity with them.... We shall all consider ourselves morally bound to pay them ourselves and consequently within the life [expectancy] of the majority." – Thomas Jefferson

Principle 28 - The United States has a manifest destiny to eventually become a glorious example of God's law under a restored Constitution that will inspire the entire human race.

The Founders sensed from the very beginning that they were on a divine mission.  Their great disappointment was that it didn't all come to pass in their day, but they knew that someday it would.  John Adams wrote:

"I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in Providence for the illumination of the ignorant, and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth."