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Atlas Shrugged: Fiction or Reality?

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ayn ryanThe other day I watched the second installment of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged movie. Though it had been some time since I saw the first part of the sequel of 2011, this one rekindled disturbing eeriness that the first one left in me. The sense that this book, and movie, is hitting just a little too close to the reality of today, particularly in America.

This movie centers around what our world would be if the government was not governed by the tenets or principles of documents, such as the Constitution, where the right of citizens to their life, liberty, and property, i.e., pursuit of happiness, were supreme, that restricted the reach of the government, but was governed by what was good for the society, or majority, as a whole, PERIOD! This governmental ideology was greatly stifling to the producers, innovators, and entrepreneurs.

Both individuals and companies were taxed and regulated simply based on their capacity to earn, and produce. And the amount of their wealth was to be redistributed and made accessible to those based on their need and want. Words and phrases such as “fairness”, “the collective”, and “the common good” were used by government representatives and agents like they were getting points of word usage.

Industries of production were being placed under government control. There was a strict limit on the amount of money companies could earn. And if a company sought to exceed the government imposed profit limits or act counter to the demands of the government, they were run out of business, or faced prison time and or crippled with financial penalties. Some owners and creators of businesses even went as far as to destroy that which they had spent a life time to create, rather than let the government have it. Citizens of great wealth and talents were being taxed to the point that many of them chose to simply no longer work or exercise their God-giving talents and skills – to disappear. There were scenes of mobs of citizens championing the agenda of the government to tax the “evil rich” to give them more of their wealth. But their tunes soon changed once they saw the consequences of businesses and producers being so heavily taxed and regulated.  It meant that fewer of them had jobs, the price of goods sky-rocketed, and their quality of life plummeted.

But that’s just fiction. Make-believe. Right?

Have you been listening closely to the words that have been coming out of the mouths of the government creatures over the past 6 years, or so? Have you been paying attention to their actions, and the results thereof?

Before Mr. Obama became president he let it be known that taxes should be raised on the producers, not for the sake bettering of the nation’s economy, but for the sake of “fairness”. With regards to the coal and the energy industry, he promised to bankrupt the coal industry and regulate the nation’s energy complex, supposedly so that we may all have clean air, to the point that the natural ramifications would be soaring energy prices for the folks, you and I. In order for everyone to have healthcare, and have someone else pay for it, the government passes Obamacare, i.e., The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Obamacare is forecast to raise healthcare cost and encourage people to not work. There has been more regulations placed on the American economy and industry like in no time in our history that have acted like a 2,000 ton albatross around the angle of the nation. Coupled with the unprecedented fact that there are over 98 million citizens not working and over 100 million on Food Stamps. Even though the top income earners are paying the vast majority of the federal taxes, the ignorance of the populous leads them to demand the wealthy pay more of their “fair share”.  To top it all off, a record number of U.S citizens, the producers, are turning in their U.S Passports. 

The simple fact is if you were to look around at every other nation that has the government as the main engine of the economy, whether it’s socialists as in Greece, Sweden, or England, the E.U is an economic dumpster fire, or communist/authoritarian as in North Korea, Russia, or China, were you have to force people to stay at gun point, they all have several things in common; one, none of them can naturally out produce America on a per-ca pita basis, two, many of their best and brightest hit a granite ceiling, their income or what they can earn, no matter how talented or productive they may be, is capped by the government. That causes many of them to stay and suffer, stop producing, or leave the country all together. And three, the nation’s economies will eventually stall or collapse under the sheer weight of there being more people on the dole of the government than paying into it.

But, since economic and historical weights are what are most absent from this production, America appears to be headed down this already worn out path of government-centralized power that has yet to create a economic super power.  Where the drive to dare to dream and to get rewarded for your success, as well as feel the sting of your failures, the education of life, is suppressed by the big hand of the government. Despite the popular perception, government does not create any wealth. It can only redistribute wealth. But, eventually even the greatest most powerful government will run out of people to redistribute from. America was created to be different. Where people controlled the government. Where the individual had his unalienable rights to his property, his life, and his liberty protected above the cries of the “common good” or the collective. But if this theatre continues to play out, where more of us surrender more of our responsibilities and liberties to the government, more of us will be asking, Where is John Gault?.

The Fundamental Re-Education of America Rages On Un-Abated

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As the debates over same-sex marriage and the illegal-immigration of Mexicans are visible as lead distractions, there is something troubling that intertwine these issues that’s going unbeknownst to most of the American populace.  From the man who was to be crowned U.S president promised “to fundamentally transform this nation [America]”, things appear to be proceeding to that end. 

A couple of things have caught my eye that by themselves may seem innocuous, but combined not so much. A recent Rasmussen Poll shows that only 35% of likely U. S voters believe that the nation is going the right direction. A Pew Research Survey reports that incredibly 30% of American adults under 30 years of age now identify themselves as having no religious affiliation – In the last five years alone, there has been an increase from aprox. 15% to 20% of all adults.  And in 2009 in the Muslim nation of Turkey Mr. Obama proclaimed, as the President of the United States and the representative of the people of America, that, “We [Americans] do not consider ourselves a Christian nation.” Really? Isn’t that something inappropriate for a U.S president to say while on foreign soil?  Or is it just me?

What these three indicators detail is bubbling crisis that is threatening our nation’s fundamental social structure – our basis of belief, values, and identity.  While the majority of us clearly recognize that there is something very wrong with the country, we feel powerless to do anything about it.  Too many of us have become helpless spectators to the most significant dismantling of an empire since Ancient Rome. And in so doing have left the most vulnerable amongst us to the whims of the tide of political and social disorder – the nation’s next generation.

It is said that the greatest trick of the Devil was to make others believe that God never existed.  Would the day come when Americans showing no evidence of the existence of God or morality in their lives, or do not reflect the existence and relevance of the founding documents such as the Constitution in their lives be even more remarkable and stunning?  I would say yes!  And would too say that the He is getting ready to take a bow.

When you have reports of an actual “ex” anti-American terrorist, Bill Ayers, who has actually been allowed to teach as an Illinois State College Professor before thousands of American students, who is a long-time friend and mentor of  Mr. Obama, unabashedly boasts before a crowd that its good that America is on the decline; that the federal government’s regulation and management over the lives of it’s citizens and Americans are at unprecedented levels; and read repeated stories of the increasing disengagement and apathy of many of Americans, in particular the youth, in the affairs of politics and the workings of the government you would have say WTF?.  It is as though someone has spike the air over our nation to cause the incremental dismantling of the nation’s foundations of religious principles, family values, and the strong sense of self-responsibility and self-governance not directly by any foreign force, but by our very own hands. 

There is a silent battle for the minds of the young of America in the government schools and through the Media.  The evidence is in full view even for the most passive observer.  It didn’t just began with Mr. O’s claim to “Fundamentally transform America” on the eve of his first election. And it is not just about transforming our economic system, or even our political system, but transforming what we believe in – pride in our history, our traditions, or culture, or belief system – that which makes us what we are.

At a time in which the U.S government is in more than $16 Trillion in debt, is spending more than a Trillion more than in brings in annually, and the Federal Reserve is printing out more than $200 Billion daily, thus further weakening America, Mr. Obama appears to have no serious will or desire to work to correct these critical issues.  But, what he has sought is to be the flag bearer and point man with all the vigor and fortitude of General Sherman through Georgia  to create the notion of “free” healthcare, bring homo-sexuality statutorily on par with heterosexuality, diminish or destroy the traditional American principle of personal responsibility and Christian foundation, and the make America unexceptional.

Irregardless of what Mr. O says, the fruits that his actions and governance has brought forth and ignited upon this once great nation an era of unprecedented government dependence and lack of self-governance, severe resistance to fundamental Christian and American traditions, and the quickening of America’s long-term domestic and international economic value of which may not be quickly, if ever, reversed.

What Mr. O has undoubtedly realized and has come to understand, just as other past historical observers of America, is that America is not great because of our great military, our even financial institutions, but our moral foundation, our Constitutional governance, and our social infrastructure, i.e., our family moral values, that makes us exceptional as a nation of people.  We our morphing into a nation of no societal absolutes, where any action is just simply based on how it makes us feel.  Matters of ethics and right or wrong are irrelevant.  Where 200 plus years of history as a nation which has withstood the test of time and prospered beyond imagination, stubbornly grounded in Judo-Christian principles, has been the shiny light on the hill welcoming nation-people from all over to be free, stood as a nation of laws not men, and believing that one should be able to work hard for what he wants and desire with limited interference from government, is now to be considered to be passé’?. 

There is a new norm developing where traditional American moral and social scales are said to be not only wrong, but unjust and almost criminal. But, it is and has always been our nation’s grounded morality that has given us providence. Have we floundered at times?  Of course just as all nations of Man.  As we shall do so again.  But in all of the nations today, what of them would not want to change places given not of decrepit current state, but of our underused and unrealized promise of liberty for all that is the foundation of our nation’s existence?

As for the question of if we are a Christian nation, I say this, in all of my readings of America’s founding I can see nothing speaking to anything but Christianity and “Divine Providence”.  I see no mention of Buddha, Mohammed, Judaism, or any other Prophet or religion as a guiding principle. When I read the Constitution and Declaration of Independence I see no other religion basis other than that of Christendom. And when I visited our nation’s capital all I see are references to the Judo-Christian theology as our nation’s guiding moral principles.  So if it not Christendom that we as a nation are to use as our basis, than what?  Why are we to say that having a stern moral and religious compass is no longer relevant or extreme?

Just as a few great people of our past have taken accounting of the extreme importance of a stern moral grounding such as the nation’s first President George Washington said, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest prop of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge in the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle… Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it?”  and as Douglas MacArthur said prophetically, “History fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject to moral decay have not passed into political and economic decline. There has been either a spiritual awakening to overcome the moral lapse, or a progressive deterioration leading to ultimate national disaster.”

Our nation’s history is still being written by us. We can have it tell of how a nation rose to great economic heights by Divine Providence to crash as one with no moral societal absolutes.  We can choose to have it tell of how the oldest and only Constitution that distinctly recognizes Divine authority and governance proclaiming that all men are to have their right to their life, their liberties, and their pursuit of happiness is now irrelevant and immaterial.  We can choose to have it tell of how we were passive witnesses to the destruction of the greatest experiment of human self-governance or of its rebirth. It matters not what Man is called president, Governor, or Senator, the choice is ours – people of America.

The Sexual-Orientation & Illegal-Immigration Movement Are the Greatest Moral Issues in America in Generations: They will forever define this nation’s moral identity.

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Here we go again. We are purposely being distracted from real issues that can actually bring this nation out of the worst economic downturn since the ’29 Depression to expend energies on an issue that wasn’t on anyone’s map before the Media and the Administration put it there. Kinda like the healthcare “crisis” that made it crucial for the government to ram Obama-care down our throats; or the financial “crisis” that made it crucial that the government pass the Dodd-Frank financial over haul with scant public exposure.

Now Mexico being located to the south of us and like-gender individual’s relationships have now been thrust up the sleeping American people for yet another “crisis” that the United States government has to solve. But unlike Obama-care and Dodd-Frank that will have negative economic reverberations for generations to come, the issues regarding the illegal-immigration, of Mexicans in particularly, and same-sex marriage is a seismic social earthquake of mega-tone proportions that will forever change the nation’s moral landscape.

The government directly creating a crisis and or creating the environment for a crisis for it to inevitably offer the solution to move the American people into a direction that benefits its longing for power and control is nothing new. A very good argument can be made that the move of many Black Americans from free man to slave was for the political benefit of the government, specifically the Democrat Party, in concert with big business and the Church. The solution of the government was then to prescribe a new political status and classification, Civil Rights and the U.S Citizen. And we all know how unified we are due to that. Don’t we?

Maybe its only fitting that we as a nation find ourselves again struggling with the government attempting to provide another solution dealing with governmental status and classification, whether someone is to be identified as being legally illegible to receive government privileges and how much the government can benefit from such illegibility. Don’t fool yourself folks the government increasing its tax base and expanding its power and control over its Citizens is what this is really all about. .

Several liberal Media pundits have already spilled the beans about how the government would financially benefit by reclassifying marriage to include same-sex persons. What many of us may not be aware of is the fact that gays and lesbians generally earn more money than Hetero-Sexuals. Also, it has been reported that reforming the immigration system would actually cost the Social Security Administration Billions due to the fact as things stand now though millions of illegal-immigrants pay into Social Security, the Administration doesn’t have to pay out to them. Wonder why we don’t see millions of illegal-immigrants demanding to be U.S Citizens or millions of gays and lesbians demanding to be regulated by the government like their hetero-sexual counterparts marching across the nation? Its simply because this is a government initiated cause. And when the people most of the several states have voted they have fervently voted against illegal-immigration and the redefining of marriage to include same-sex persons.

There are two facts that are indisputable regarding these two issues legally according to the government’s own law, and they are in Black’s Law Dictionary 2ndEd. marriage is defined, “as distinguished from the agreement to marry and from the act of becoming married, Is the civil status of one man and one woman united in law for life, for the discharge to each other and the community of the duties legally incumbent on those whose associationis founded on the distinction of sex.” And according to theFederal Immigration and Nationality Act Section 8 USC 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv)(b)(iii), “Any person who . . . encourages or induces an alien to . . . reside . . . knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such . . . residence is . . . in violation of law, shall be punished as provided . . . for each alien in respect to whom such a violation occurs . .. fined under title 18 . . . imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.” If these are laws and precedents that have lasted for as long as this nation has been in existence, and now all of the sudden the government itself is seeking to subjugate them, rather than have an open and honest discussion about them with us the people to possibly have the laws changed or amended, one has to ask, what is really going on? The government chooses to engage in dishonest, divisive, and manipulative propaganda.The government chooses to not reduce the red tape, onerous regulations, and massive bureaucracy that causes the horrific backlog that keeps so many wanting and qualified immigrants from LEGALLY coming to and staying in America, and not to rightly enforce its current immigration laws. And it chooses to not simply leave marriage defined as what it has always been in this country and dating as far back as Ancient Rome – a union between a man and a woman to promote procreation and a stable society – and create another political status, Civil Union, with its own governance and qualifications. It chooses to seek to have intellectually vacant arguments and attempts to redefine terms and words such as, what is is. What is a man? What is legal? And what is marriage? Despite the government’s propaganda, this issue is not about “equality”, but political status and classification for both the financial and political benefit of the government. As Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas truthfully stated, “Government cannot make us equal; it can only recognize, respect, and protect us as equal before the law.”

It is interesting that the one political party that has been the instigator in America’s most divisive social movements has been the Democratic Party. And like in the past, a combination of politics, big business, and the church, are instigative parties in these movements.  I’m not saying. I’m just saying.

The great hazard of frivolously and loosely choosing to redefining words and customs that have stood for generations and centuries with little regard of the consequences to the society as a whole is to question is anything sacred? Are there any longer any absolutes? Can we any longer definitively claim what is acceptable and not acceptable? How do we stand up and say no if no is no longer clearly definable? How can we then say this is right and this is wrong or that this is good and this bad? And is is is?

Alexis de Tocqueville once prophetically stated, “America is great because America is good. If America ever ceases to be good it will cease to be great.” This is what this battle is about. America’s moral soul. And how our next generations will view issues of morality. In truth, there is little light between what effects social issues and what effects economic issues. They are both of the same stick. It is only our fundamentally sound moral compass that keeps us from one day awakening to a nation engulfed in flames. It is ultimately up to us to chose.

 

 

Have The American People Gone Too Far Forsaking Liberty?

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Congressman Ron Paul during his farewell speech to the Congress made some very provocative points that should give anyone who truly loves this nation serious pause regarding the path that we now find ourselves as a nation that was established to be the model of individual freedom and liberty.  Two statements he made that caught my eye were, “I have thought a lot about why those of us who believe in liberty, as a solution, have done so poorly in convincing others of its benefits. If liberty is what we claim it is- the principle that protects all personal, social and economic decisions necessary for maximum prosperity and the best chance for peace- it should be an easy sell. Yet, history has shown that the masses have been quite receptive to the promises of authoritarians which are rarely if ever fulfilled.” and, “The Founders were convinced that a free society could not exist without a moral people.  …Today the rule of law written in the Constitution has little meaning for most Americans”   Irregardless of what you may think of the messenger, the message itself  is troubling.

First, why is the message of liberty today not solidly embraced in today’s America, while at the same time many of us stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, wave “Ol’ Glory, and give lip service to its ideals?  Today there are more citizens receiving some form of assistance from the federal government, i.e., Social Security, Food Stamps, and Medicare.   Too many people are more willing to take a hand out rather that a hand up. With Obamacare, the government is now able to regulate or control every aspect of a citizen’s life.  During the past 12 plus years the government has expand to  unprecedented scales and during this recession government  jobs have greatly expanded, while those in the private sector have done so in the reverse.   The citizens of the United States and America have chosen to elect the most liberally social and economic minded man to be president ever who espouses nothing other than greater government, less individual liberty, and give to those simply based on their need and to take from those based on their ability, twice.  Group identity has surpassed individual identity in the consciousness of many Americans, whether it is based on sexual orientation, ethnicity, age, gender, or income. Such ideals are intellectually repugnant to the very principles of our nation’s founding.  In fact, today to even be so bold as to claim one’s liberties recognized in the Constitution as superior to any claim by a group or quote any of the Founders risk being seen as a radical, extremist, anti-diversity, anti-government, or anything short of a child of God.  The very concept of freedom and liberty has become an extreme psychological burden to many.

There was even actually an open conversation on The CBS Good Morning program last month by a so-called professor talking about honestly doing away with parts of the Constitution because they are not “inspiring” and equating the Founders with the U.N and France.  Really?  I have actually had heated discussions with people  over the issue of gun control. They questioned the need for anyone to have military-styled weapons or any amount of guns that they deemed excessive.  My response to them was it is the constitutionally protected right for any American to have as many guns as he wants. Period! Just as every American has the right to smoke as many cigarettes as her or she chooses, or anything else for that matter, gorge himself on fast foods, or spend all of his money on scratch-off lottery tickets, so long as it does not interfere with nor infringe upon my rights and liberties.  That is the truest and should be the easiest concept of freedom to understand.  Shouldn’t it?

America is no longer the freest nation economically, we’re 10th behind nations such as Chile, Hong Kong, and Mauritius, and we have more people in correctional institutions than Communist China or Russia.  Both of these issues are symptomatic of an underlined debasement of our nation’s moral compass and refusal of too many of us to embrace the weight of the responsibility that comes with personal liberties and freedoms.  To borrow a line from Spiderman, “with great power, comes great responsibility.”

America was to be the shining light of freedom on the hill for all those seeking such to be guided.  There is no greater power than that of a free individual, a sovereign.  But, yes too there is no greater responsibility than that which is applied to that individual. Ben Franklin prophetically stated, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.” 

But just as one may disclaim, so too can he reclaim.  Many of us have forgotten or have never been introduced to the greatness of our nation’s Constitution and founding documents and principles, so we know not what it is that is to be our birthrite and that has made us uniquely exceptional to other nations. Thus we lack the true significance of our incrementally forsaking our birthrite of liberty.  But, it is up to us to reclaim, to become reintroduced, or to become educated to what it is to be free. To question with stern boldness what direction those entrusted with the nation’s governance.  And if it is not the Constitution and or the people that they receive their authority, it needs to be asked then by which do they? And then seek real change.  Or else remember another statement made by Congressman Paul, “Once government gets a limited concession for the use of force to mold people habits and plan the economy, it causes a steady move toward tyrannical government.”

I Don’t Know Of What U.S Constitution and America Obama Was Referring To In His Inaugural Address; Not That Anyone Really Cares. He Does Sound Good Don’t He?.

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Mr. Obama started in his inaugural speech by praising the strength of our nation’s Constitution. But, then he goes off on a tangent referring to things that have nothing to do with either our nation’s founding principles or founding documents; in particular the Declaration of Independence.

First, let’s give Mr. O credit for finally admitting that we Americans are exceptional.  But, we were NEVER promised a democracy.  If so then the word democracy would be found somewhere in the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence.  It is not!  But Article 3, Section 4 does guarantee us a “republican form of government.”   When he speaks of the patriots not fighting to replace tyranny of kings with the privileges of a few or mob rule, he sounds confused.  Because during the times of kings they were the government, and by definition mob rule is a democracy.  Of which he has shown by his actions that he wants nothing more than to greatly expand both infinitely.

When he says that, “we the people understand that our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it.”  Was he referring to Communist China, the Soviet Union, North Korea, or some other such nation that he holds in suppressed honor and regard?  Because my recollection is that this nation has been the economic marvel that all others have driven to attempt to imitate and still today many of other nation’s citizens cross blistering deserts and shark-infested waters to be included in – illegally and legally.  And it has been the free-spirited individual’s ability to dream and work hard to achieve beyond his wildest dreams to become successful and wealthy.  History does tell us that it is when government expands and eats up more money in the economy, the soup lines expands amongst the people.  It is only most recently, in the past four years, that there are more Americans on welfare, on food stamps, and chronically unemployed and sitting idle, thus not being able to make it.  But, lets not let that get in the way of his story. An argument can be made that we are in the mist of a ’29 depression without the Media plastering pictures and news of it.

The main thing that I found fundamentally glaringly flawed from Mr. O’s speech is that though the Declaration does state that we are all CREATED equal, it doesn’t mean that we are all created to remain so.  And if that is the case, it is not the job of the government to then attempt to make us so.   As Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas have said that, “…America was founded on a philosophy of individual rights, not group rights.” and that, “Government cannot make us equal; it can only recognize, respect, and protect us as equal before the law.”

All throughout the speech it was all about what government should do.  Nothing was stated about the true meaning of the Declaration of Independence, individualism.  Much unlike JFK’s inaugural speech when he said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country”, or Ron Reagan’s when he said, “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem…. We’ve been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of government himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden. The solutions we seek must be equitable, with no one group singled out to pay a higher price.”  Or even Jefferson’s speech at our nation’s infancy said, “Let us then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind, let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty, and even life itself, are but dreary things,” … “Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. … We are all Republicans. We are all Federalists.”

Our nation, even with its issues, corrections, and readjustments, as every other nation has had to some degree, has two things that separates us from all others and enables us to be truly exceptional; they are our Declaration of Independence and Constitution.  What those two documents so fervently proclaim is that it is the individual’s freedom to his life, his liberty, and thus the pursuit of his happiness – not necessarily the possession of it – that is paramount; not that of the collective.  For it is bestowed to him by the Creator.  And for that to be accomplished government must be small and most unintrusive.  It is the President who should wholesomely reflect, recite, and resemble these principles, and not attempt to us remake them in his own vision, image, or ideology that are intellectually repugnant to their very principles.  For it is those founding documents that can truly unite us and strengthen us if they are truthfully  implemented, applied, and understood as they were intended.  For it is those documents that make us Americans.