Was the Revolutionary War justified?

[carlos123]

I just found out, if true, that Governor Jeb Bush tried to rescue Terri Schiavo but that state law enforcement officers backed off when local police told them they would not allow Terri to be seized. It was uncertain whether the hospital where Terri would have been taken, would have disobeyed Judge Greer's standing orders that the feeding tube not be reinserted (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2270&ncid=2270&e=1&u=

/krwashbureau/20050326/ts_krwashbureau/_bc_braindamagedwoman_seize_exclusive_wa)

It would appear that we as Americans are now living in a land ruled by judicial tyrants. By men in black robes whose word of judgment cannot be bypassed, ignored, or otherwise disobeyed however unjust it might be. We no longer have a government of checks and balances but one where the Judical branch has effectively usurped power over the others.

Let's assume for a moment, without getting into the details of the Terri Schiav case itself, that a great injustice has been done and that our system of checks and balances has indeed broken down. Are we now justified to start a second American Revolution against judicial tyranny? Even to the extent of protecting our liberties and defending the helpless by force of arms?

If we are not justified in doing so now then were we as a people justified in the Revolutionary War against England that resulted in our independence?

Why or why not?

Please try and stick to the question and not veer off topic into the actual merits pro and con of the Terri Schiavo situation (which I personally believe to be a great travesty of justice that stinks to the high heavens). I am curious as to whether Christians justify to themselves the American Revolution that led to our independence but denounce any such Revolution today under similar circumstances. I am not completely sure of the answer to my questions myself though I lean in the direction of seeing a new Revolution justified.

If anyone has verses to support a view either way please feel free to share them.

Carlos

Edited formatting to limit width appearance of post.

[Old Timer]

It's not a Bible verse but almost as good:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object 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...

[Leonard]

Pretty good stuff, Carlos! Thomas Jefferson warned us against permitting the courts to become the final arbiter of governmental decisions. We are supposed to have three coequal branches, not what Jefferson would be a 'Judicial Oligarchy.'

[other one]

Actually the entire 11th circut of appeals should be impeached. Congress told them to do a thorough review of this case and they only did an overview of the process of the origional trial. There are fancy legal terms that I can't remember tonight, but they did not do what they were instructed to do.

The congress did not go back and push them to do as instructed so congress is not living up to it's constitutional directives and they are at blame also. the whole government is out of step with the constitution, and I don't see a good way out of it for any of us. If you say anything serious these days about a revolution you will be declaired a terrorist and disappear......

The powers to be have a death grip on our nation and there is little or nothing we can do about it and time is very short.

[other one]

I hope you are right Reb. Someone posted on another thread that CNN and Fox were reporting that his chruch had ask him and his family not to come back to church there. I have not seen this but hope it is true. Maybe the same can be said of his courtroom some day.

[carlos123]

Please forgive this rather long post but I have a lot to say .

...Someone posted on another thread that CNN and Fox were reporting that his chruch had ask him and his family not to come back to church there.  I have not seen this but hope it is true.  Maybe the same can be said of his courtroom some day.

Actually from what I read in a report he left the church because the pastor was speaking out in favor of Terri living. I don't think the church asked him to leave.

What concerns me greatly in all this, is that the Executive and Legislative branches of the U.S. government have seemingly become subserviant or helpless before the Judiciary. And most American's that I have heard talking, even among the Christians whose highter allegience should be toward God, are willing to do whatever they can up to but no further than what the courts allow us to do. That is VERY bad for all of us.

Federal judges are not elected, are appointed for life, and it would be next to impossible to impeach them. They cannot be impeached simply because their judgment, when compared to God's standard of right and wrong, is unjust and evil. They would have to be impeached on a point of legality respecting how they executed their work as judges. Given that other judges have upheld Judge Greer's judgments in the case of Terri it is very unlikely that he along with other judges can be impeached. Same goes for Supreme Court justices.

To the degree that they are more or less free to interpret laws as they see fit and to interpret the Constitution as a living document that changes with the times to suit a more modern concept of what is embodied in the Constitution (effectively rendering the original meaning subservient to our modern interpretation), we the people are virtually helpless to stop them from judging out of existance all that we as Christians hold dear and what our Founding Father's intended for us as a nation to be.

Furthermore there are police forces who will side with the Judiciary against the Executive and Legislative branches. Which means that the only way that the Judiciary will be able to be opposed is through armed confrontation and a willingness to shed blood.

I am not at all certain that most American's are willing to shed blood as we once were during Revolutionary War days.

What this means is that we as Christians are in for some very hard times in coming days. It may be too late to do anything about all this at all.

Below is a copy of a letter I wrote a friend that I wanted to share with you all....please bear in mind if you read it that when I talk of doing more I am NOT referring to armed revolt. But rather to doing more in the sense of protesting and getting very actively involved politically. I am not opposed to armed revolt per se but I am not certain that such is justified before the Lord. At least I am not convinced that it is justified from a Biblical standpoint yet.

There is no question in my mind that disobedience to unjust laws and non-violent attempts to help those being unjustly treated is most definitely justified. I am just not sure that armed revolt against the governing authorities is justified. Bear in mind that Rome was far worse than the U.S. government has become yet the Christians did not rise up in armed revolt against that government. For that reason, I have never quite settled in my own mind whether the Revolutionary War was justified before God.

Here is the letter I wrote which says what I feel quite well so instead of reposting my thoughts I just copied it below.....bear in mind when I said in the letter that I am a man without a church I meant that I am not involved in a local church. I have tried many and have generally found them all to be more interested in following church traditions than in following the Word. I'm still looking but have yet to find one where I and others are free to just follow the Word.

I am ashamed to call myself an American today.  So angry at the way my

country has gone that I feel as though I should renounce my citizenship.

At the very least there is no way any longer that I would take up arms

to defend our way of life in the U.S., if it were not directly attacked

and then only to defend my wife and children and neighbors. 

Something has died in me today.  My eyes have been opened to realize

that the experiment of the Founding Fathers to found a nation under God

has failed and failed miserably.  That it, like all human endeavors, has

been doomed from the beginning by virtue of the sin in the heart of

humanity derailing the Christian heritage on which the U.S. was

founded. 

It has been the best, greatest, and longest lasting attempt by man to

found a nation under God but it has failed. 

Like the people of Israel we have been found wanting and I am afraid

that the judgment of God hangs over the U.S.  Perhaps that judgment will

be unleashed in God allowing an atomic bomb to go off in one of our

cities.  Perhaps God will simply withhold his hand of protection over us

and give us, as a nation, over to the fullest expression of our own

vices.  I do not know.  But that the judgment of God and His wrath are

being stored up in the heaven's against all the unrighteousness and

ungodliness sweeping the land is certain.  For the Bible says that His

wrath is so stored against all men who defy His decrees and trash

underfoot the glory due to His name.

I am no less ashamed of the Church of God.  While most sat in churches

on Friday and will be going into the weekend singing songs of worship to

the God of mercy and justice an innocent woman starved to death.

Helpless and virtually alone.  And the Church as a whole did nothing!!

It is hard for me to describe to you how disgusting that is to me.  How

much I believe the Church of God itself deserves judgment. 

We who have known the decrees of God and have been able by virtue of

knowing the Word to declare what is good and right have stood by and

done less than those in the world have done in the cause of freedom.

Hundreds of thousands have marched in the Streets in Lebanon, Romania,

and elsewhere in an expression of desire for worldly freedom. 

And the Church?  All told a measly 200-300 showed up at the hospice

where Terri is being brutally killed.

How utterly sickening and revolting it is to me that under all of heaven

not even 500 Christians were found to go and protest the death of Terri

in a State with millions of professing Christians.  While most will be

going to church to hear countless sermons about the death of Christ and

how He proved His love for us by dying in our place a mere handful of

Christians, by comparison, will have stood in protest of an innocent

woman being starved to death. 

Even worse than Peter and the apostles, who ran away when Jesus was

arrested, we have not even entered into the garden of Gethsemane to keep

watch with Terri [she is not Jesus!  What I mean is that we don't even have the spirtual strengh to stand watch with someone who is suffering by being there with them].  We have not been willing as a church to get out of our comfort zones to even stand with a single sign protesting what is happening. 

Imagine if you will if tens of thousands of Christians, on par with the

demonstrations on behalf of freedom around the world, had descended on

the hospice where Terri has been.  Imagine if you will the impact that

such large demonstrations would have had. 

Instead we as a Church have all but been silent by our relative inaction

in the face of evil. 

Certainly there have been many who have done much and I do not mean to

demean what has been done but as a whole the Church has stood silent

once again. 

Where are the pastor's leading their congregations to take to the

streets in protest?  Where are the youth groups rising up as one man to

take to the streets in protest?  Where are the people of God tearing

their clothes and putting on sackcloth and ashes on their heads over

what has occurred?  The silence is deafening. 

I feel like earning enough money to go and buy myself a plot of land

deep in the wilderness and letting the world go to hell.  A destiny that

is undoubtedly reserved for most. 

Why get involved?  Why bother?  The Church does not want to be involved!

And most in the U.S. are so deceived in regard to what is good and

proper that no amount of reasoning, no amount of logic, indeed no amount

of pleading to use common sense will prevail against the onslaught of

evil reigning in the hearts of our countrymen.  I have tried as hard as

one can to reason with various people who devalue life in the hope of

convincing them otherwise.  To no avail.  Their frame of reference is

off.  Short of coming to Christ the blindness covering their hearts will

not be lifted. 

I am a man without a country of which I can proudly call myself a

citizen today and a man without a church. 

Christians have lost bro.  We have lost our nation and as much as I hate

to say it I do not believe that there is anything we can do at this

point.  We are too divided, too unwilling to do even so little as take

to the streets in peaceful protests. Too swamped in wrong thinking

internally and without, to effect much change toward righteousness in

our society at this point. 

The war for the minds and hearts of American's was lost way back when

Christians allowed school prayer to be taken out of public schools.

Almost without exception we have lost every other effort to uphold

righteousness in our land.  From abortion to the stripping of God from

the public square we as Christians have lost.  And from all that I can

see we have lost once again with Terri and will continue to loose. 

I had hoped that the Terri situation would have riled the Christians up

enough to do something more about what is happening.  To stop the

erosion of righteousness in our land.  To see the most clear example of

judicial tyranny run amok that there has ever been as a justification

and motivation to do more. 

But honestly bro I do not believe it will happen.  The Christians will

go right back to singing their praises in their church buildings.  They

will go back to having their Bible studies in their homes.  To arguing

and bickering over what the Word says.  They will go back to earning a

living and feeding their families.  Deceiving themselves into thinking

that things could not be that bad, that things will get better, that

others will step in to do what is necessary.  While the unrelenting

march of unrighteousness continues in our land. 

Like the proverbial lobster in a pot who does not realize that the

heating of the water in which it is resting will ultimately lead to it's

death we, as a Church, will continue in our pious ways until we find

ourselves, at some point, boiling to death in a sea of sin.  Helpless to

save ourselves from it's affects. 

Were it not for the hope of a better life to come in eternity, for the

comfort of God's presence in my heart, for His promises in the Word of

His being with me and never leaving me, I would despair.  God knows we

will need His Presence in days to come when those who come to persecute

and take away everything Christians consider dear in this life will

think they are doing a service to God.  When churches will fill with

false brethren and when God's hatred of sin and the glory of His

magnificence will be but a distant memory in the collective conscience

of those still professing to be Christians. 

I am so thankful that the Lord called me to be his own back when he did.

Like the Christians in the New Testament who lost all hope in this life

we too must start to cry out as they did.  "Come Lord Jesus!  Come!". 

Carlos

[homebild]

I just found out, if true, that Governor Jeb Bush tried to rescue Terri Schiavo but that state law enforcement officers backed off when local police told them they would not allow Terri to be seized.  It was uncertain whether the hospital where Terri would have been taken, would have disobeyed Judge Greer's standing orders that the feeding tube not be reinserted (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2270&ncid=2270&e=1&u=

/krwashbureau/20050326/ts_krwashbureau/_bc_braindamagedwoman_seize_exclusive_wa)

It would appear that we as Americans are now living in a land ruled by judicial tyrants.  By men in black robes whose word of judgment cannot be bypassed, ignored, or otherwise disobeyed however unjust it might be.  We no longer have a government of checks and balances but one where the Judical branch has effectively usurped power over the others. 

Let's assume for a moment, without getting into the details of the Terri Schiav case itself, that a great injustice has been done and that our system of checks and balances has indeed broken down.  Are we now justified to start a second American Revolution against judicial tyranny?  Even to the extent of protecting our liberties and defending the helpless by force of arms?

If we are not justified in doing so now then were we as a people justified in the Revolutionary War against England that resulted in our independence? 

Why or why not?

Please try and stick to the question and not veer off topic into the actual merits pro and con of the Terri Schiavo situation (which I personally believe to be a great travesty of justice that stinks to the high heavens).  I am curious as to whether Christians justify to themselves the American Revolution that led to our independence but denounce any such Revolution today under similar circumstances.  I am not completely sure of the answer to my questions myself though I lean in the direction of seeing a new Revolution justified. 

If anyone has verses to support a view either way please feel free to share them. 

Carlos

Edited formatting to limit width appearance of post.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Actually, your example of the Florida State Police trying to seize Terri Schiavo against Judicial order and and in circumvention of the courts and the fact that the Legislative and Executive Branches overstepped their bounds illustrates how much MORE we have to fear from the Tryanny of executives and representatives run amok than Judges and the courts that protect our rights.

Our Founding Fathers foresaw this tryanny of the majority by establishing the very checks and balances the Judiciary was established to prevent

Our Constituiton and the Judges who serve it and protect have been the only protection we citizens have had against government intrusion when government has no business interfering at all.

The state police effort is just more evidence of the Bush brother's and Republican's disdain for law and order and the very Constitution(s) they are sworn to uphold.

[other one]

Carlos, Fox News wrote that the pastor had told the judge that he thought it would be better if the judge did not come to church.

[carlos123]

Carlos, Fox News wrote that the pastor had told the judge that he thought it would be better if the judge did not come to church.

Hmmm....interesting. I can see on a purely practical basis why it would be better for the judge not to be in a church. It would be difficult if most church members felt he was dead wrong in his judgments with some perhaps actively opposing him for re-election to the Judiciary.

[carlos123]

Hi homebild,

I believe you are wrong in your understanding of the Constitutionally mandated role of the Judiciary, how the three branches of government are supposed to work, and in your perspective that intervention from Congress, the President, and governor Bush on behalf of life were examples of Legioslative and Executive tyranny. Please don't think that I elevate my opinions about such on par with Scripture such that I could rightly claim that any Christian who thinks differently is on the side opposing God. I don't. So I am open to re-thinking my understanding that leads me to think you are wrong. It's just that I don't presently understand how you could be right.

Can you clarify and expand on some of what you said for me so that I might be able to better evaluate whether you have valid points?

Actually, your example of the Florida State Police trying to seize Terri Schiavo against Judicial order and and in circumvention of the courts and the fact that the Legislative and Executive Branches overstepped their bounds ....

When you say Legislative and Executive Branches do you mean Congress and the President? Why do you believe that they overstepped their bounds Constitutionally speaking?

...illustrates how much MORE we have to fear from the Tryanny of executives and representatives run amok than Judges and the courts that protect our rights.

Can you explain why you think that in view of the fact that most judges (at least Federal and up) are not elected, are appointed for life, and cannot readily be impeached while Representatives in Congress and the President can both be booted out of office by election? Given that tyranny is a state where we, the people, are subject to absolute power especially exercised unjustly or cruelly.

Our Founding Fathers foresaw this tryanny of the majority by establishing the very checks and balances the Judiciary was established to prevent

Can you explain to me why you think that the Founding Fathers saw tyranny as being a factor of majority vs minority as opposed to one branch of government imposing upon the majority it's will? When you say majority who are you referring to exactly? Who is the majority for example in the case of the Terri Schiavo situation?

Our Constituiton and the Judges who serve it and protect ....

Do you believe that the other branches of government are less obligated by Constitutional mandate to serve and protect the Constitution? If so why?

...have been the only protection we citizens have had against government intrusion

Do you see the Judiciary as absolute in it's role of protecting the citizens? Such that the Legislative and Executive Branches have no authority or right to protect us from the Judiciary?

The state police effort is just more evidence of the Bush brother's and Republican's disdain for law and order and the very Constitution(s) they are sworn to uphold.

I have heard this accusation of them before but can you explain to me why exactly you believe that their actions in the Terri situation have been an example of their disdain for law and order? If a law or judgment was passed or rendered that was absolutely unjust would you have them stand by and bow before the Judiciary?

If the Legislative and Executive branches of government are not co-equal with the Judiciary in serving to protect the citizens and able to circumvent wrong judgement on the part of the Judiciary how are we to avoid ending up in a situation where we live under Judicial Tyranny?

Any clarification or expansion on what you said homebild will help me understand your points better so as to better understand where my understanding of all this could be off in terms of relflecting what the Constitution actually says and what powers are delegated to the different Branches by it.

Carlos