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Has America Lost Its Way
By Frank Salvato
November 23, 2004

Anyone who is familiar with American history, not the American history summarized in our schools today but a comprehensive search for the truth about how our country was founded and where it has come since then, can only surmise that we have strayed from our founding principles. In a land that was founded on individual freedoms and the concept of liberty we stand on the brink of accepting the principles of a socialist state. The truly frightening thing is that some among us applaud the transition.

It cannot be denied that our country was founded using Judeo-Christian principles. For those whose "liberal alarms" just went off I will clarify. This country was founded by men who believed in a philosophy that determined there existed good as well as evil. They believed the sun did not rise on their whim, rather that they were subservient to a higher calling. They believed there was something more important than self. That's what made these men humble. It is also what made these men great.

In almost every writing by every Founder, from Madison to Jefferson, John Jay to George Washington, there was mention of a higher power. In most presidential proclamations and speeches, including Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, there is reference to a higher power. It wasn't until recently that the Judicial Branch of our government, with no validating precedent set, decided that the idea of a higher power was inappropriate for our nation.

It's an undeniable fact that nowhere in the United States Constitution do the words "separation of church and state" exist. The only mention of religion comes in the First Amendment to the Constitution, which states:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;..."

These words guarantee Satanists and Secularists - which are both recognized religions, as is Atheism - as well as Christians, the right to practice their religion.

With the coming of the Industrial Age and our nation's concentrated urban areas came the likes of Margaret Sanger and Roger Baldwin, urban liberal elites. Also emerging as a force to be reckoned with for the first time in the United States were the liberal philosophies of secularism, socialism and communism.

While Baldwin's creation - what is today known as the ACLU - considers itself a voice for civil liberties there is growing evidence that its secular agenda many times crosses over the line of inclusion to exclusion. Where they once fought to have evolution taught side-by-side with creationism in our public schools, they now work diligently to have all traces of religion of any kind erased from our public enterprises. These endeavors are clearly not in line with the ideals used by our Founding Fathers in the creation of our country. Combine that with the fact the ACLU gets to recoup their legal costs from the taxpayers for every lawsuit they pursue with regard to the non-existent separation of church and state and we see an extortion of monies from the American taxpayer while a secular and socialist agenda is pursued to our nation's demise.

Sanger, the founder of what is now known as Planned Parenthood and a devout Socialist, further championed the pursuit of socialism. While her efforts to educate women about reproductive issues and socially transmitted diseases were commendable, her belief in eugenics and that the influence of economic considerations on choice of spouses was to blame for causing suboptimal human breeding was, and is, considered an egregious violation of human rights. "The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it," Sanger said. This philosophy was taken to the extreme in Nazi Germany where forced sterilization and the murder of those considered inferior were the doctrine. In the end, genocide prevailed in Hitler's Germany.

Today these organizations are revered as institutions that champion the best for our society. President Jimmy Carter even awarded the Medal of Freedom, the highest honor that can be granted by our country to a civilian, to Roger Baldwin. As our American culture embraces this generation's "sitcom attention span" it would seem that we embrace the rewritten and fictional history of questionable institutions while we neglect the civic responsibility of protecting and defending the very principles with which our country was created.

While encroachment on the true wording and intentions of our Constitution is achieved every day by organizations like the ACLU and Planned Parenthood and championed by an activist judiciary, we find ourselves at a precarious crossroad in our history. Whether we choose to survive as a sovereign nation, firm in the principles used to create our great country, is completely dependent on whether we as a society are strong enough to combat extremism on every level. If we do not we shall cease to exist.

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Frank Salvato is a political media consultant and managing editor for TheRant.us. His pieces are regularly featured in Townhall.com. He has appeared on The O'Reilly Factor and numerous radio shows. His pieces have been recognized by the Japan Center for Conflict Prevention and are periodically featured in The Washington Times as well as other national and international publications. He can be contacted at oped@therant.us

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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.