FreeAgent's Blog

A funny/interesting email I rec'd recently... 8-)

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This is entertaining  ---

Just a  little humor to help ease the pain of your next trip to the pump...

Compared with Gasoline

Think a gallon of gas is expensive?
This makes one think, and also puts things in perspective.

Diet Snapple 16 oz $1.29: $10.32 per gallon

Lipton Ice Tea 16 oz $1.19: $9.52 per gallon

Gatorade 20 oz $1.59: $10.17 per gallon

Ocean Spray 16 oz $1.25: $10.00 per gallon

Brake Fluid 12 oz. $3.15: $33.60 per gallon

Vick's Nyquil 6 oz $8.35: $178.13 per gallon

Pepto Bismol 4 oz $3.85: $123.20 per gallon

Whiteout 7 oz $1.39: $25.42 per gallon

Scope 1.5 oz $0.99: $84.48 per gallon

And this is the REAL KICKER...

Evian water 9 oz $1.49..........$21.19 per gallon?! $21.19 for WATER  - and the buyers don't even know the source (Evian spelled backwards is Naïve).
So, the next time you're at the pump, be glad your car doesn't run on water, Scope, or Whiteout, or God forbid Pepto Bismal or Nyquil.

Chill Out About Global Warming
by Steven F. Hotze, M.D.
5/1/2007
http://www.americanvision.org/articlearchive2007/0
5-01-07.asp

Socialists use fear tactics to gain public approval for expanded government control of the economy. Their latest scare is global warming. Politicians will use this to impose a host of new energy taxes on the population, promising that this revenue will be spent to stop global warming.

The federal government can’t even balance its budget. Do you really believe they can change the climate?

The Saturday before Easter it was 38 degrees Fahrenheit in Houston. On Easter Monday, while attending my grandson’s baseball game, a Little Leaguer’s mother commented about the cold Easter weekend saying that it was another sign of global warming. Go figure. Now, no matter what happens, be it hurricanes, droughts or blizzards, the commonly accepted thinking is that it must be due to global warming. Intuitively, doesn’t it seem nonsensical to attribute cold weather to global warming?

The funny thing about global warming is that scientists say it has been going on for over 12,000 years. That is when the last Great Ice Age ended and the glaciers that covered the northern part of our nation retreated and melted to form the Great Lakes. Oh yes, there was a Little Ice Age which lasted from the 1300s until 1850. In the 1600s glaciers in the Alps advanced, destroying villages and farms. Since the end of the Little Ice Age, around 1850, we have experienced gradually warming temperatures world wide.

What do you think has the most direct bearing on the earth’s atmospheric temperature? If your answer is the sun, you are correct. Scientists have discovered solar variations which are changes in the amount of radiant energy produced by the sun. Scientific studies demonstrate a strong correlation between solar activity and weather patterns. Solar activity tends to run in cycles, ebbing and flowing much like the tides of the sea.

Since creation, the world has experienced extended periods of warming and cooling due to changes in the sun’s activity.  Fossil sedimentation samples indicate that in the past the entire world’s climate was very tropical. Scientists say the Great Ice Age lasted 250,000 years.

Of course, if we were in a period of global cooling, then the socialists would claim that carbon emissions from fossil fuels were the culprit. They would demand more government control of the economy and new taxes on energy use. Remember, the goal of the socialists is to destroy the free enterprise system and in doing so deprive us of our liberty and property.

Allow me to demonstrate the absurdity of the thinking of environmental socialists. They have now targeted carbon dioxide as a culprit causing climate change. Here are the facts: Carbon dioxide is essential to life on this planet. Animals inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. Plants use carbon dioxide in photosynthesis and produce oxygen. It is a part of the cycle of life. Beware! The socialists may one day tax us for exhaling carbon dioxide and polluting the environment.

http://www.americanvision.org/articlearchive2007/0
5-01-07.asp

Prescribe a Dose of Free Enterprise for Medicine
by Steven F. Hotze, M.D.
3/13/2007
http://www.americanvision.org/articlearchive2007/0
3-13-07.asp

The only thing that will save medicine is a good dose of free enterprise. Government regulations, entitlement programs and HMOs are leading us down the road to socialized medicine.

In 1960, only 21 % of personal medical care expenditures were paid by the government, 24% by insurance companies and 55% were paid by consumers out of their own pockets. Today, the government pays for over 50% of all medical expenses while consumers pay for only 15% of care out of pocket. HMOs and other insurance schemes pay the rest.

When my wife and I had our first baby in 1969 at St. David’s Hospital in Austin, the total cost, which we paid out of pocket, was $250 for three days in the hospital and $250 for the obstetrician. When adjusted for inflation, this would equal $2500 today. Yet the total cost of a delivery today, including hospital and doctor, has increased 6 times, to approximately $15,000. What has caused this dramatic increase?

Private medical practice is being choked by corporate socialism, which is the cooperative effort of insurance companies and government to destroy competition and replace it with central planning called “managed care.”

At the heart of capitalism is the voluntary exchange of goods and services for money between two individuals. Private enterprise encourages businesses to compete for consumer dollars. This system of independent economic actions, freely taken by millions of consumers and businesses, has proven to produce the highest standards of living in every country where it has been adopted. Free enterprise capitalism is the soil in which liberty flourishes.

Socialism opposes free enterprise and private property, seeking to govern the economy through central planning. All activity is planned by government bureaucrats and must be enforced by laws and funded through legalized theft of the productive citizens. Everywhere socialism has been tried it has discouraged innovation and led to shortages and rationing of goods and services. Socialism is the drought in which liberty wilts and dies.

Socialism undermines the doctor-patient relationship. If you are covered by an HMO or by Medicare, then your doctor no longer works for you but for whoever pays his bills. The doctor must follow their rules and accept their fees. This is why you may feel that your doctor is not listening to you or doesn’t seem to care. Your physician can only serve one master, and it’s not you.

The solution is to return to a free enterprise system for medicine with doctors charging a fee for service, just like any other business. Treatment is consumer-based and permits the patient to choose how to spend his money. This can be easily achieved through the use of a Health Saving Account (HSA) coupled with a high deductible catastrophic insurance policy. Ask your business to offer this option which is tax free, just like an IRA. What you don’t spend you can save.

Beware of politicians who promise to lead us into the Promised Land by giving us universal health coverage, which really means socialized medicine.

Socialism and Immigration
by Steven F. Hotze, M.D.
5/14/2007
http://www.americanvision.org/articlearchive2007/0
5-15-07.asp

Ronald Reagan had the courage to call modern liberalism what it is: warmed over socialism. When was the last time you heard a politician, from either party, call a government program, subsidy or entitlement, “socialism?”

It is the socialistic policies of our state and federal governments that are at the core of the immigration debate.

America is a nation populated by descendents of immigrants. Our forefathers left Europe in search of religious and political liberties, as well as economic opportunities. When they arrived there were no government programs set up to take care of them; instead, these rugged individuals carved out their future with determination and hard work.

My grandfather was a cobbler. My father, who was born in 1915, put himself through the University of Oklahoma during the Great Depression, earning a degree in engineering by working as a roughneck on an oil derrick. Dad did not depend upon the government to pay his way.

Until the 1930s Americans’ expectations of civil government were extremely limited. The civil governments’ responsibilities were to preserve and protect the unalienable rights of life, liberty and property; maintain law and order; prevent coercion of the weak by the strong; enforce voluntary contracts; define and enforce property rights; and provide a monetary system.

It was during the Great Depression that President Roosevelt proposed the New Deal, promising people that the federal government would establish work projects, programs and subsidies to take care of them. It was then that modern liberalism was born and the role and power of civil government dramatically expanded.

Now, many people depend upon the local, state and federal governments to provide them with womb to tomb security. The programs are too numerous to list but here are a few: Social Security, unemployment insurance, energy assistance, Child Health Insurance Program, Medicare, Medicaid, farm subsidies, food stamps, welfare handouts, and government housing. These are all socialistic policies which encourage dependency and are fraught with abuse.

Incredibly, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that everyone residing on American soil who applies for these government programs has the right to benefit from them, whether or not they are U.S. citizens, and whether or not they are here legally or illegally.

The immigrants illegally crossing our borders by the millions are taking advantage of these programs. Can you blame them? The socialist politicians use these government handouts to purchase the support of these immigrants. Univision, a Spanish speaking broadcast network, is encouraging immigrants to become citizens so that they can vote in the 2008 elections. Who do you think will benefit?

What about those of us who work productively, abiding by our laws? We are being bled to death by taxes to support the non producers in society and the illegal immigrants. Our nation cannot afford this unrestricted flow of immigrants. It’s time to get rid of entitlement programs which fuel the fire of immigration.

Socialism, Christianity and Taxation
by Steven F. Hotze, M.D.
5/8/2007
http://www.americanvision.org/articlearchive2007/0
5-08-07.asp

There are two competing world views in the United States: socialism and Christianity.

Socialism is a system where the State controls capital and production, plans the economy and redistributes wealth from producers to non producers. It breeds a welfare environment where citizens become dependent upon the State for their daily bread. Individual liberties are replaced with the “common good,” decided by bureaucrats.

In socialism, the State claims to be the sovereign authority, demanding people’s homage. Socialistic States are secular and have great disdain for Christianity which rejects this philosophy. Socialism is a de facto secular religious system which elevates the State to the position of God. Remember the Romans proclaimed, “Vox populi, Vox Dei,” meaning “The voice of the people is the voice of God.”

Christianity acknowledges the sovereignty of God revealed in the Bible and through the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christianity proclaims liberty under law. It encourages personal responsibility and initiative. Proverbs instructs that, “The hand of the diligent shall prosper.” The concept of private property is firmly established by the 8th Commandment, “Thou Shalt Not Steal.” Christianity teaches that all government authority is established by God and that civil rulers must govern according to a higher law.

This was the perspective of our founding fathers. George Washington wrote, “It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.”

Yet politicians increasingly choose socialism over our Christian heritage. Nowhere is this more evident than in taxation.

The Bible teaches tithing ten percent of your income to the Church and Christian ministries as acknowledgment that all that we have comes from God’s providential hand.

The socialist State claims ownership over citizens and their possessions by taxing their income and property. Even after you have paid off your mortgage, if you stop paying property taxes, you will find out who really owns your home.

The United States has adopted a so called “progressive” income tax policy. As income increases, the percentage of income subject to taxes rises. Those who earn the most pay the highest percentage of their income in taxes. According to the Congressional Budget Office the top 1% of income earners pays nearly 40% of the total income taxes collected by the federal government. The top 10% income earners pay nearly 70% of the total income taxes collected. The top 40% of income earners pay 99% of all income taxes.

This means 60% of the people pay no income tax. Yet the socialists reward them with government programs.

What is progressive about a system which penalizes individuals who strive to be successful? If you tax productivity, you get less of it. If you subsidize laziness, you get more of it.

The socialists promote organized theft of the producers, under the guise of good government, and redistribute their money to buy the votes of the non productive, disincentivizing both groups.

We have a critical choice to make: Follow socialism and lose our liberty and property or return to our nation’s Christian heritage.

Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to share an excerpt from a recent article from Michael Medved titled:

Why Liberals Are Right To Hate The Ten Commandments, (Wed, Feb 28, '07, http://michaelmedved.townhall.com/blog/g/e7a19b84-9bf8
-4f0c-a23d-5c043cb99f0a)....

 

First Commandment: I am the Lord Your God, Who has taken you out of the Land of Egypt, from the house of slavery…..

This one makes liberals obviously and instantly uncomfortable. According to political correctness, it’s rude and insensitive to proclaim God’s existence in public—and especially not in public schools! Faith is supposed to remain a private matter, an individual habit or quiet commitment, leaving plenty of room for doubt and uncertainty. Secularists therefore resent the notion of an open, out-of-the-closet Deity who shows off in such a noisy, flashy way, staging the Exodus from Egypt with all its plagues and sea-splitting, then announcing himself in a voice from the mountaintop heard by hundreds of thousands of people. For those who worry about too much religion in the “public square,” it doesn’t get much more public or communal or unequivocal than this opening proclamation.

 

Second Commandment: You shall not recognize the gods of others in My presence. You shall not make yourself a carved image nor any likeness of that which is in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the water beneath the earth. You shall not prostrate yourself to them nor worship them…..

Talk about intolerance and judgmentalism! This commandment denies the very essence of multiculturalism and diversity: by what right do we dismiss and disrespect the gods of others? Didn’t that wild-eyed, bearded guy who went up the mountain realize that it’s a demonstration of wrong-headed cultural imperialism to express such cruel, callous contempt for deities like the Aztec Quetzcotal or the Canaanite Moloch? Moreover, when it comes to worshipping idols, twentieth century leftists continued the noble traditions of the ancient cults of Baal or Astarte: in the old Soviet Union, every town boasted monumental statues of Lenin or Stalin (usually both) and to this day, the image of the divine Fidel graces every pathetic hovel in Cuba. Refusal to “prostrate yourself” and to “worship them” can lead to big trouble in such enlightened societies.

 

Third Commandment: You shall not take the Name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not absolve anyone who takes His Name in vain.

For liberals, this rule highlights the right wing’s eternal, anal-retentive obsession with proper language and dirty words. Isn’t old Moses here sounding a little bit like the benighted FCC with its seven words you’re never allowed to say on the air? Cutting edge artists and entertainers love using holy names in shocking and disrespectful ways. Liberals supported the National Endowment for the Arts almost unanimously in its funding for the controversial Andres Serrano collage “Piss Christ,” and activists on the left are always more eager to defend any divine designations (like “God Almighty!” or “Jesus Christ!”) if they’re pronounced as curse words (protected speech) rather than with reverence (violating separation of church-and-state).

 

Fourth Commandment: Remember the Sabbath day to sanctify it. Six days shall you work and accomplish all your work but the seventh day is Sabbath to the Lord your God….

Most liberals are okay with the Sabbath stuff, but they squirm over that part of this directive that says, “Six days shall you work….”?!! What kind of exploitative boss would dare to demand a six day work week from today’s unionized laborers? In enlightened nations like France, they’re working to get it down to a three day week--which ought to be enough to keep every citizen well-stocked in snails and frog legs. This commandment fairly reeks of the old-fashioned, restrictive Anglo-Saxon work ethic. In the Twenty First Century isn’t it time we moved beyond that outmoded notion that people should prefer labor to leisure?

 

Fifth Commandment: Honor your father and your mother….

And ignore the scintillating and liberating ideas of the younger generation? Are you kidding? The expectation of honoring your elders burdens youthful free spirits with the dead, oppressive influence of tradition and the past. Progressive thinkers understand that in defining proper standards of dress, grooming, music, entertainment and sexual mores , it’s kids (and particularly adolescents), not parents, who really know best.

 

Sixth Commandment: You shall not kill

On the surface, this sounds reasonable enough to liberals, but they can’t stand the context: just one chapter later in the same book of the Bible (Exodus, 21:12),God and Moses give orders to break their own rule: “One who strikes a man, so that he dies, shall surely be put to death.” The next verses stipulate capital punishment for a wide variety of causes (like “cursing your father and mother”) so the no-kill commandment really begins to sound like no-murder. In other words, the Bible makes a clear distinction that liberals emphatically deny. The left loves slogans that declare that that execution is murder, war is murder, meat is murder, and so forth, but the God of Exodus who emphatically bans murder also specifically authorizes execution, war and meat.

 

Seventh Commandment: You shall not commit adultery

To which the post-modern left would quickly add: unless you really, really love her. It’s not just Clinton apologists who have a problem with this inconvenient taboo on extra-marital involvement: when people take their vows by pledging to remain committed “as long as our love shall last,” the Seventh Commandment begins to look incurably outmoded.

 

Eighth Commandment: You shall not steal

For lefties, this prohibition smacks of the right’s selfish emphasis on private property. Back in the glory days of the 1960’s, the beloved hippie hero Abbie Hoffman penned a liberationist manifesto called “Steal This Book.” Radicals and revolutionaries have always devised comfortable euphemisms to describe the act of theft: “liberating” or “boosting” or “collectivizing” or “nationalizing” private property, or simply “taxing the rich.” If you believe it’s virtuous for government to seize by force the majority of an individual’s earnings (remember the pre-Reagan, top income tax rate of 70%?), you ought to feel somewhat uncomfortable with an absolute ban on stealing.

 

Ninth Commandment: You shall not bear false witness…

Some liberals may endorse this commandment, but only when it’s applied to Scooter Libby. Otherwise, there’s a problem with the ancient Jewish understanding of the deeper meaning of this verse. Our sages suggest that a secret to understanding each one of the Big Ten involves the parallel structure of the two tablets. In other words, the first commandment corresponds to the sixth, the second to the seventh, the third to the eighth, and the fourth to the ninth. That means that this “no false witness” order connects to the imperative of keeping the Sabbath. The association relates to the basis for Sabbath observance stipulated in the text: “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and the sea and all this is in them, and He rested on the seventh day.” In other words, the Sabbath bears witness to God’s role in creation, and the Rabbis say that the denial of divine creation represents the ultimate in bearing false witness. On this basis, today’s libs insist on false witness, the whole false witness, and nothing but false witness. The very idea of questioning a random, materialistic origin of the universe makes them crazy with rage and contempt: they strenuously condemn the mere notion of suggesting in schools that it was an Intelligent Designer who must have “made the heavens and the earth”

 

Tenth Commandment: You shall not covet your fellow’s house. You shall not covet your fellow’s wife, his manservant, his maidservant, his ox, his donkey, nor anything that belongs to your fellow.

Among many other problems, this commandment outrages PETA with its unacceptable suggestions like animal companions like oxen and donkeys can ever “belong” to their human friends. Meanwhile, the ban on coveting involves a restriction on a feeling, a desire, and it’s politically incorrect to suppress or deny or stifle authentic emotions, Blaming yourself for coveting can only undermine self-esteem, and the emergence and liberation of your precious inner child. Moreover, the entire leftist project is largely based on covetousness: resenting the “filthy rich” for what they’ve earned, rather than feeling grateful for your own achievements. The implacable liberal focus on the “gap between rich and poor” – as if impoverishing the wealthy worked in any meaningful way to actually enrich the poor – represents covetous attitudes at their irrational worst. The sacred leftist goal of “redistribution of wealth,” mandating heavy taxes on “haves” for the purported benefits of “have-nots”, depends on coveting for its energy and rationale. On the other hand, the Bible’s unmistakable emphasis on the sanctity of private property (“You shall not covet your fellow’s house”) clearly contradicts the left’s emphasis on a communitarian and collectivist outlook, in which the state becomes the ultimate owner of everything.

 

Reviewing the Ten Commandments one by one exposes their irreconcilable conflict with the demented and dysfunctional philosophy of today’s left.

In other words, in contrast to most aspects of Twenty First century liberalism, the implacable hostility to the Biblical Big Ten actually ends up making perfect sense.

A good email I received recently titled "Tokyo Rose"....

 

"The only thing new in the world is the history you do not know"--Harry S. Truman, U.S. President

 

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."  George Santayana (1863-1952), U.S. philosopher

 

Tokyo Rose:

 

She had the best music on her station and most people just laughed. The ship I was on was sunk no less than five times but each time Davey Jones threw her back up.

 

Tokyo Rose During World War II -- the Japanese developed a way to demoralize the American forces. Psychological warfare experts developed a message they felt would work.

 

They gave the script to their famous broadcaster "Tokyo Rose" and every day she would broadcast this same message packaged in different ways, hoping it would have a negative impact on American GI's morale.

 

What was that demoralizing message? It had three main points:

1. Your President is lying to you.

2. This war is illegal.

3. You cannot win the war.

 

Does this sound familiar?

 

Is it because Tokyo Hillary (Clinton), Tokyo Harry (Reid), Tokyo John (Kerry), Tokyo Teddy (Kennedy), Tokyo Nancy (Pelosi), have picked up the same message and are broadcasting it on Tokyo CNN, Tokyo ABC, Tokyo CBS, Tokyo NBC, to our TROOPS?

 

The only difference is that they claim to support our troops before they demoralize them.

 

Come to think of it, Tokyo Rose told the troops she was on their side, too!

There's No Such Thing as Religious Freedom - and Never Can Be:
From: www.citizensoldier.org

Suppose I told you my religion taught that I must kill and eat five year-old children to go to Heaven. Would you say "Go right ahead, the First Amendment gives you freedom of religion." I hope not!

The truth is there can be freedom of conscience - freedom to believe whatever you want - but there can't be freedom to act on whatever you claim are your religious beliefs. Actions are always limited by law.

Law, in turn, always reflects the moral beliefs of a weighted majority of citizens - the group that is most willing to incur costs to see their ideas enacted into law. Think of it this way:

Suppose the nation has a population of 100. 99 people oppose theft and are willing to incur a penny's worth of costs to see the law prohibit theft. One person wants theft to be legal and is willing to spend a dollar to make it so.

Because $1.00 > 99(.01), theft will be legal. The law is always for sale, unless the lawmakers can't be bought.

As Americans have abandoned the God of the Bible, our law has drifted away from its Judeo-Christian roots. Still, the Supreme Court has refused to use religious freedom to legalize polygamy (a Mormon belief) or drug use (taught by some American Indian religions).

Religious freedom, in the past, meant you were free to believe what you wanted provided your actions stayed within the bounds of Judeo-Christian morality, the dominant moral system.

As we abandon Judeo-Christian morals, religious freedom will mean simply the right to act in accordance with the new dominant moral view in the culture.

Canada, for example, has already outlawed speaking against homosexuality, despite the Bible's prohibitions and despite the fact that Canada supposedly honors freedom of speech. So much for religious freedom.

The following is a small segment from the book "Never Before In History, America's Inpired Birth". In my opinion, this book should be mandatory reading in all of our schools.

Never Before in History, America's Inspired Birth, by Amos and Gardiner, Unit 3, Chapter 9, Two Founding Documents, pg 129-134

The Law of Nature and of Nature's God

In the opening sentence of the Declaration, an appeal to "the law of nature and nature's God" appears. This is often regarded as a conscious attempt by Jefferson to describe God in deistic terms. A more thorough study, however, reveals that this terminology had for centuries been part of the canon law of the Roman Catholic Church. From there it passed to Christians more generally in England and became squarely implanted in the English Common Law of the thirteenth century.

One of Jefferson's most influential sources was Sir Edward Coke (pronounced Cook). Coke was a Puritan whose writings on the Common Law served as the central textbook for legal studies at the College of William and Mary, where Jefferson received his formal training. Writing in 1610, Coke explained the of the phrase "law of nature":

"The law of nature is that which God at the time of creation of the nature of man infused into his heart, for his preservation and direction; and this is lex aeterna [the eternal law], the moral law, called also the law of nature... And by the law, written with the finger of God in the heart of man, were the people of God a long time governed, before the law was written by Moses, who was the first reporter or writer of law in the world. The Apostle, in the second Chapter to the Romans saith, “While the gentiles who do not have the law do naturally the things of the law...” This law of nature, which indeed is the eternal law of the creator, infused into the heart of the creature at the time of his creation, was [before any written laws], and before any judicial or municipal laws."

Coke grounded the law of nature squarely in the Christian doctrine of creation. Coke's conception of the law of nature or natural law cannot therefore be attributed to the Stoic philosophy of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Not for that matter can it be attributed to the Renaissance and Enlightenment philosophies that took their understanding of natural law from Stoicism.

According to Stoic philosophy, the world and everything in it (including ourselves) are indeed governed by natural laws. Unlike coke, however, the Stoics had no doctrine of creation. Within Stoicism, natural law was a brute given that could work to our benefit or detriment depending on fate. Within Christianity, on the other hand, God implanted the law of nature at creation specifically for our benefit. The Stoic conception of natural law was impersonal. The Christian conception of natural law was personal - God instituted natural law because he was looking out for us. The conception of natural law in the Declaration hinges on a beneficent creator and is therefore specifically Christian.

Coke's understanding of the law of nature as prior to written laws was crucial to American independence. According to the law of King George III, Jefferson and his compatriots were outlaws. To legitimate American independence, Jefferson therefore needed to appeal to a law that was before the written law, a law written not in books, but "infused into the heart of the creature at the time of his creation"

Jefferson also drew heavily on Sir William Blackstone. Blackstone followed directly in Coke's footsteps in explaining the law of nature. In his Commentaries, which were among Jefferson's favorite books, Blackstone devoted seven pages to defining the "law of nature." Blackstone writes as an orthodox Christian within a long tradition of orthodox Christians:

"As man depends absolutely upon his maker for every thing, it is necessary that he should in all points conform to his maker's will. This will of his maker is called the law of nature." According to Blackstone, all human laws depended either upon that unwritten law (the law of nature) or upon the Bible: "Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws"

The concept of natural law appeared in virtually all the key writings that influenced the Founders. The key document of English Calvinists, the Westminster Confession, used the term "law of nature." Calvin himself had employed the concept: "The law of God which we call moral [law], is nothing else than the testimony of the natural law, and of that conscience which God has engraven on the minds of men." In Lex Rex Samuel Rutherford cited the "law of nature" as grounds for political dissent. Richard Hooker, the preeminent theologian and political theorist of the Anglican Church, also championed the "law of nature." Locke in turn drew upon Rutherford and Hooker. By citing the law of nature at the outset of the Declaration, Jefferson was therefore simply reflecting a long tradition of Christian political and legal theory.

Jefferson invoked the "law of nature's God" to remind the king that the power of government is divinely ordained through the consent of the people. This was the position of Rutherford, Sidney, and Locke, as well that of the New England Protestants. One Harvard Puritan had argued "the voice of the people is the voice of God." The American struggle for independence can therefore be understood as a conflict between natural law versus written law, or, correspondingly, as a conflict between religious dissent versus religious conformity.

From: Never Before in History, America's Inspired Birth, by Amos and Gardiner, Unit 3, Chapter 9, Two Founding Documents, pg 129-134

An interesting article. This is from: http://citizensoldier.org/foodforthought.html

Here are some sound bytes that tell the truth behind our freedom:

What is a "human right"?

At the most basic and practical level, "rights" are simply conduct the law will protect. For example, if the law gives me back my car after a thief steals it, the law protects my conduct of excluding others from using the car, and does not protect the thief's conduct in taking my car for his use.

Where do "rights" come from?

Rights come from the prohibitions of moral rules. For example, to have a right to property you must have a moral rule that says "don't steal."

What moral rules create rights?

From the standpoint of man's laws, the only moral beliefs that matter are those held by the majority of citizens. This is because all governments, whether democratic or totalitarian, ultimately derive their authority from the cooperation of their citizens. Even a king's authority is limited because if he pushes his citizens too far he will spark a revolt.

The moral beliefs of the majority dictate what we will see in the law. For example, if the law allows slavery, it's a cinch that the idea that men have a property right in their own labor that cannot be appropriated by others is a view held only by a minority of individuals in society.

What is Freedom?

Because rights come from moral rules, freedom is the condition that exists when man's laws conform to God's laws. The Judeo-Christian Bible is the only complete source of human rights. Every other moral system, though it may contain a great deal of truth, is missing or has twisted some of the Judeo-Christian moral rules. For example, the Bible says love your enemies, but Islam says kill those who resist Islam.

Does this mean the government itself must enforce all of God's rules?

No, how we enforce God's rules depends on a calculation of relative costs and benefits for the various enforcement mechanisms available. For example, since we cannot read minds, the cost of enforcing the commandment against covetousness is infinite. For this reason, we punish people that display evidence of covetousness by a social norm that says being greedy is not nice. We ostracise these people, to a greater or lesser degree. We use the law only when covetousness becomes the act of theft.

Can we keep freedom if we don't enforce all of God's rules either by law or by social norms?

No, the set of moral rules that create freedom are "irreducibly complex." God's rules are given for man's benefit. They not only create rights, but also work to optimize the level of prosperity, happiness, and peace in society. Failing to follow even one of the rules will eventually result in more laws being broken, and people will lose liberty, wealth, happiness, and peace.

For example, God's rules say sex is the physical manifestation of a spiritual union between a man and a woman. It is this spiritual union that allows a husband and wife to find joy - a benefit - from enduring the sacrifices - a cost - of raising children. The more we treat sex as a toy, the more the cost of raising children will be shifted to government - that is, to other individuals other than those who conceived the children.

This situation will lead to more of God's rules being violated. For example, to the extent that this situation also leads to poverty, we will see an increase in theft. And increasing lawlessness in society will force government to reduce liberty, like by restricting gun ownership, violating God's law that allows self defense.

The net result is both an increasing violation of God's rules and a correspondent reduction in prosperity, happiness, and peace.