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Posted: April 21, 2009

Alabama Tea Party Speech Statehouse Montgomery, AL April 15, 2009

Founding Principles: The Key to the Past, Present, and Future

By Pastor John Killian

Each year, patriotic Americans celebrate July 4, 1776 as the time when Americans declared our liberty from Great Britain. Mind you, our freedom was not secured until 1783, when the British nation finally acknowledged what we ourselves had declared seven years earlier.

Mind you, the spirit that won our liberty and independence was a spirit that did not wait for government to declare that we were free, but we were free when we recognized that our destiny was in our own hands. These men were influenced by the preachers of Colonial America and the philosophies of the enlightenment enough to recognize the danger of a government too big and too centralized.

Hence, on July 4, 1776, our founders staked their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor on a challenge to that overbearing government. These men could have been part of that system, but their convictions would not allow them to support a government which stretched beyond the bounds of right.

Hear what these men said as they declared independence:

"A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. In describing the tyranny of King George, these brave patriots challenged that the King has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance."

Our founders properly understood that a government that stretches beyond the bounds of justice is an illegitimate government. And where did they get that idea? They read what Scripture said in Romans 13, on the purpose of that government which was ordained by God. When serving as agents of justice and defenders of liberty, our government is a minster of God. But that is the limit of government. No wonder, Patriots in the Revolution cried no King but King Jesus!

Thomas Jefferson warned that "the federal government is our servant not our master." The Father of our Country, George Washington explained that "Government is not reason; it is not eloquence. It is force. And force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." Our founders wisely established a system whereby free individuals could prosper, not by the hand of government, but without undue interference from government. Jefferson wisely explained "A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."

This nation was never intended to be a nation where people are cared for from cradle to grave, but we were to be a nation of free citizens, of individuals where initiative is rewarded and indolence is left to languish. In recent months, the halls of Congress has been filled with much legislation that will greatly enlarge the role of government in our personal lives and, in particular, our financial lives. We hear of bailouts for the housing industry, bailouts for the auto industry, bailouts for the states, bailouts for everyone but the honest, working taxpayer.

The fact is, we are bailing out blood-sucking bureaucrats, similar to those mentioned in the Declaration of Independence who are harassing our people and eating our substance. We are enlarging government to a size far beyond our ability to afford. And while the world should observe that socialism has failed across the globe, our silly leaders seem to be driving headlong toward a system that will cripple production and destroy the greatest economy in the history of humanity.

Is it time for a tea party? Yea, it’s past time for a tea party! These are the days that we have been warned about for a generation by the wise leaders who spoke of dangerous times. For years, Reagan and Goldwater spoke of creeping socialism, but in the past six months, we are observing leaping socialism.

How can we have our own tea party? First of all, we must be loyal to principle over party. Former US Senator from Wyoming Alan Simpson declared that we have two political parties in America– the stupid party and the evil party. When they join together in bi-partisanship, you can count on it being both stupid and evil. In the latter part of 2008, we saw a housing bailout that will cost each taxpaying family well over five years salary. This monstrosity was supported by leadership in both parties– now a greater portion of production is under the control of big government. Stupid, but also evil and certainly far beyond the authority given in the US Constitution.

How can you help protest an unruly, oversized government? Next, get your own hands out of the trough. When a legislator comes home asking for your vote because he brought home the bacon, you send that pig to the slaughterhouse. No government gives you anything. They are trying to make you into a political prostitute when they can take the money of taxpayers, and parcel out pennies on dollars and win your vote. No longer do we need their money, us local folks can spend it better ourselves, thank you.

The year was 1780 and British General Cornwallis thought he had the Southern states wrapped up and then would take the Colonies back under the rule of the Crown. But a group of backwoods boys from the hills of what is now Tennessee, came from over the mountain to a place called King’s Mountain and in sixty-five minutes won, perhaps, the greatest victory in the War for Independence, breaking the back of the Redcoats and winning our freedom. But when the loyalist militia retreated, a select number of these loyalist troops were hanged. Who were they? These hanged were the men who had originally sided with the patriots, but who changed sides when a British victory appeared imminent. It’s time we single out traitors who have taxed away your security, borrowed away your children’s future, and spent away your livelihood. We may not hang them with the rope, but in next year’s election, we can hang them with the vote.

The principles of our founders will work today. Let’s bind down big government with the shackles of the Constitution. May God save and bless our wonderful United States.

To read more from Pastor Killian, be sure to visit his blog Musings From Maytown

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