State sex and meth offender registries are clear indications that America is progressively forgetting its constitutional heritage and choosing legalistic security over freedom and virtue.

Donna Leinwand once reported in USA Today that,

“States frustrated with the growth of toxic methamphetamine labs are creating Internet registries to publicize the names of people convicted of making or selling meth, the cheap and highly addictive stimulant plaguing communities across the nation. The registries — similar to the sex-offender registries operated by every state — have been approved within the past 18 months in Tennessee, Minnesota and Illinois.”

Although the registries are almost universally considered to be expedient, they are clearly bills of attainder, which are expressly forbidden by the Constitution, both on the federal and state levels.

In Article I, section 9 of the Constitution we read that, “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.” Section 10 continues by dictating that, “No State shall…pass any Bill of Attainder…’

The word attainder comes from the Middle English atteindre, which is the act of attainting, staining, disgracing, or tainting, and from the Old French ataindre, meaning to touch upon, seize, accuse, or condemn.

According to St. George Tucker, in Blackstone’s Commentaries,

“Bills of attainder are legislative acts passed for the special purpose of attainting particular individuals of treason, or felony, or to inflict pains and penalties beyond, or contrary to the common law.”

Offender registries taint the individuals placed on them after they have suffered the penalties stipulated by common law.

The most common argument in favor of the registries is the high rates of recidivism of sex and meth offenders.

But this is yet another example of our contemporary tendency to hack at leaves while ignoring roots.

We have created a culture — through changes to the Constitution — that weakens the family.

The best, most durable, and most responsible method for dealing with the dangers posed by sex and meth offenders is for parents to supervise their children.

But our first tendency is to look outside of ourselves to the government and the power of law to solve societal ills, instead of turning inward and taking personal responsibility to find solutions.

Our sense of morality has been, by and large, removed from spiritual roots and is determined instead by mere legality. And, as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said,

“Whenever the tissue of life is woven of legalistic relationships, this creates an atmosphere of spiritual mediocrity that paralyzes man’s noblest impulses.”

Sex and meth offender registries are clear signs of a society that is straying from its roots of public virtue and constitutional government.

Ironically, we are using the power of government to solve societal problems that were created by an overzealous government in the first place.

Alexander Hamilton once wrote that,

“Nothing is more common than for a free people, in times of heat and violence, to gratify momentary passions, by letting into the government, principles and precedents which afterwards prove fatal to themselves.”

If America is to survive, her people must return to the two things that have made her great: virtue and strict adherence to constitutional forms.

Using the force of law to fix societal problems is a temporary solution at best, and at worst, a subtle yet powerful form of tyrannical dependence.

Associated Press writer Ashley M. Heher once reported that,

“Lawyers for slave descendants asked a federal appeals court…to revive a landmark reparations case that demands 17 of the nation’s insurers and banks publicize and pay for their roles in the country’s slave trade.

“The case, which names Wall Street behemoths JP Morgan Chase & Co., Aetna Inc., Bank of America, Lehman Brothers and others, says the companies’ predecessors issued loans to slave owners and, in some cases, owned, insured and transported slaves…all at a financial profit that helped ensure their success today.”

Slavery was an awful stain upon the fabric of our nation, and it continues to negatively impact us today.

Yet if we are to move beyond the suffering and heal the wounds caused by slavery, it will take voluntary heroism by individuals, not misplaced and misguided governmental force.

Everyone born into this life has a fundamental choice that determines their happiness and success, or lack thereof. That is the choice between victimhood and heroism.

Admittedly, this is easy to say relative to the issue of slave reparations for a person whose ancestors didn’t come from slavery, but the principle applies nonetheless.

If all of us were to seek reparations for atrocities committed on our ancestors, where would the chain of victimhood end?

Why shouldn’t we have groups seeking reparations from companies in Britain who helped finance the war against the colonies? Where are the lawsuits against France for the Napoleonic Wars? Should Rome sue Germany for the Germanic tribes that sacked Rome?

Gratefully, we still have commonsensical judges who recognize how ridiculous is the concept of reparations from historical abuse. Said Circuit Judge Richard Posner involved in the case,

“If you think you’ve been wronged, it shouldn’t take 100 years to investigate the conduct of Aetna, Lehman Brothers and the like. There are a lot of people living today whose parents were wealthy in the 19th century who have nothing.”

It’s also unclear how money will solve the problems of those seeking reparations.

Receiving money will do nothing to help them make the decision to be heroes instead of victims, neither will it allow for volitional charity from individuals and corporations who may have contributed to the evils of slavery and racial oppression.

Without a fundamental change in consciousness, increased amounts of money do nothing but exacerbate existing problems.

Reparations for slavery are like putting a band-aid on a gaping, traumatic wound that actually requires surgery.

Public and private virtue stemming from personal, voluntary choice in the minds and hearts of individuals is the only thing that can deeply and truly heal the pain caused by slavery.

For example, companies who have blights in their history from slavery could voluntarily create programs to help struggling black youth, and people seeking reparations must choose to be heroes instead of victims.

It sounds simplistic on the surface, yet this prescription is, in fact, the most difficult method for solving human problems.

It’s easy to look outside of ourselves for solutions, but painful and exhausting to turn inward.

As Marianne Williamson said,

“The most important factor in determining what will happen in our world is what you decide to let happen within you.

“Every circumstance–no matter how painful–is a gauntlet thrown down by the universe, challenging us to become who we are capable of being. Our task, for our own sakes and for the sake of the entire world, is to do so.”

I single-handedly saved the entire health care industry today. Okay, that might be exaggerated just a bit, but hear me out.

I arrived at my orthopedic doctor’s office at the appointed time, opened a book, and settled in for an expected long wait. A full hour later a nurse showed me to an examination room, and asked me what the problem was. I explained that I had a hairline fracture on a bone in my forearm and that I had already been to InstaCare, who had x-rayed and found the injury. I told her that InstaCare had emailed the x-rays to their office.

“Oh, well our computers have been down all day and we won’t be able to download them,” she answered.

Did I mention that this was 5:35 in the afternoon, four days after I had been to InstaCare? Did I also mention that this was something that I had told them over the phone when I set up my appointment? If they knew all day that they wouldn’t have been able to see the x-rays anyway, would not a simple phone call have saved us both a lot of time?

I own a small service business, and my common practice is to call and let customers know when I will not be able to perform any part of the agreed upon service, or if I am going to be later than the agreed upon time. Maybe it’s just me, but I consider it a matter of common courtesy, not to mention a good business practice.

The nurse then told me that we would have to take another x-ray. I asked if there would be an additional charge to which she answered, “Yes.”

By the way, have I mentioned that my wife and I pay $787 per month for health insurance? Yes, that’s right–$787 per month — another house payment in our budget. You’d think that we had spent enough to pay for several open-heart surgeries and a few chemotherapy treatments after a few months of that.

Well, now that I consider the fact that the hospital once charged us $462 for a 2-minute procedure to draw my wife’s blood, I guess that $787 is a small drop in the bottomless bucket of the health care industry.

At this point of my visit I decided that enough was enough. I stood up from the x-ray table and told the nurse forcefully, “My appointment was at 4:30. You mean to tell me that I waited for an hour for you to tell me that you can’t access my x-rays, that you’ll have to take yet another x-ray, and that there will be an additional charge?”

With that I marched out of the office determined to take care of myself.

I made it to my car in the parking lot when the nurse ran up to me to tell me that the doctor would do the x-ray for free. At the moment I was too upset to think of a clear response. I think I just muttered a defiant “No!,” or something equally as brilliant.

Had I been thinking more clearly, this is how I would have responded: “For free, you say? That translates into, “Steve, the doctor says that somebody else is going to pay for your x-ray.

“There is no such thing as free! Why would I stamp out of your office on principle, refusing to pay another red cent to a defective system, and then allow somebody else to pay for my troubles like a sniveling child?

“No, thank you, you can keep your ‘free’ x-ray and you can keep your dependent health care system. As for me, I’m going to take personal responsibility and take care of my own body.”

Now, here I am with my defiant principles on the one hand, and a broken arm on the other. Lest you discard me as an extremist, allow me to explain my position in more depth.

I am not against health care; in fact, the very doctor I just walked out on performed surgery on my knee and saved me from a lifetime of pain. My own father was saved from heart disease by the miracle of modern medicine. What I have realized, however, is that much of our health care system reflects a deep cultural problem. We live in a culture which is dependent upon experts for even trivial details that we could handle ourselves. We rely upon conveniences so much that we fail to maintain a healthy body and lifestyle. We fail to plan for the future because of our belief in quick fixes.

Let me share another example. The other morning, I went out to my car to find that it wouldn’t start. I opened the hood — a hood I have not opened myself more than perhaps twice in 105,000 miles — to find that a battery terminal was completely corroded due to acid leaking from the battery. Luckily, a friendly neighbor with a rope towed my car to a nearby shop, and I then waited for three days for a simple battery cable to be replaced for $105.

Had I taken more personal responsibility and been more self-sufficient, I would have been performing regular check-ups and maintenance on my own car, I would have diagnosed the problem earlier, and I could have replaced the battery for a few bucks and in a few minutes. But I have become dependent upon the mechanical experts to the point of passing them the buck on even the simplest of operations.

Our dependence upon specialized experts and convenience leads to destructive and short-sighted habits and thought patterns. It makes us focus on the here and now and makes us think that we don’t have to plan for the future. We run our cars and our bodies into the ground because we believe that when they break down an expert can fix them at the drop of a hat. After all, if I can cook dinner in 5 minutes in the microwave, shouldn’t I be able to take a pill to solve all of the problems that the same microwave dinner is causing to my body?

We fill our bodies with fats, sweets, and preservatives, and then we are actually surprised to find that we have high cholesterol. Even then, after the surprise, we believe that taking prescription drugs will cure us, as opposed to just living right. We pour more and more quick-fixes (i.e. money) into our educational system and then are surprised when our children fail tests or repeatedly test lower than other nations.

We regularly sue doctors and insurance companies over petty claims in order to receive the convenience of quick cash, and then complain that our health insurance is so expensive. We rely upon Social Security so much that we fail to save in personal accounts. Some of us even believe that militarily imposing “democracy” upon Iraq will actually cure the disease of terrorism.

Generally speaking, we have strayed far from our roots of personal responsibility and ownership and have become a nation of dependents. We depend upon the government for so-called “safety nets,” we depend on corporations for health care and retirement benefits, we depend on specialized experts to do things that we should be doing for ourselves, and we depend on conveniences to save us time and effort.

Incidentally, in a world full of conveniences relative to 100 years ago, why do we have so little time?

Now I don’t want to be another gloomy, self-righteous critic. I’d rather contribute to the solution instead of just pointing out problems. I propose, then, a three-part vision that will begin the much needed cultural change.

1. There Are No Quick Fixes

This simple realization will help us to work on curing the roots of social ills as opposed to hacking at the leaves. When we truly believe this, we will stop pouring money into inefficient and inoperative systems and, instead, will work on fixing the system itself. Adopting an attitude of long-term, generational change will allow us to create genuine solutions, rather than using temporary band-aids. We will understand that quick fixes only create more problems than they solve.

2. There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

When we can understand that nothing comes free, we will begin to connect the dots between “government” programs and the private citizens who pay for them. We will see that the government is the people — not some detached and self-sustaining entity, like a business. We will understand that governments cannot and do not create wealth; they merely redistribute forcefully what citizens create. We will know that any income or benefit that we receive that was not earned by our own labor and intellect, short of voluntary charity, was taken forcibly from another person. Any time we hear the word “free,” we will automatically raise a red flag in our mind and immediately begin looking for the catch.

3. Personal Responsibility

We live in a sue-happy society; everyone wants to find someone — other than themselves, of course — to blame. Fault-finding has become a highly profitable business. We have stopped doing our own research and we hold others responsible when things go wrong. If a real estate deal goes sour, we blame our agent. If our health declines, we blame our doctor.

We have got to start realizing that we alone are responsible for ourselves. Even when things happen beyond our control, such as the case with my broken arm caused by an accident playing basketball, we can still take responsibility for our responses to those accidents. In fact, that is the precise meaning of responsibility — being able to choose our responses. I can’t perform brain surgery on myself, but I can take care of a slightly broken bone by simply doing a little research and using a little common sense.

This is not an easy process; it forces us to see our true selves beyond the self-deceit, and it requires — heaven forbid — a little effort. But it is urgent and necessary for our culture to survive. We must stop looking upward and outward for answers, and begin looking downward and inward.

Our politicians can’t save us with more burdensome programs. Our corporations can’t guarantee any type or level of security, no matter how badly we want to believe that. Our doctors can’t mend lifetimes of unhealthy living, even with “miracle” pills. Our educational system cannot educate our children as well as we can. We, as individuals, hold within us the answer to any societal and governmental dilemma facing us. We must change, and as we change individually, we change the world.

The health care reformation begins when individuals walk out of inefficient hospital systems vowing to be more self-reliant. The educational revolution begins as parents take back their responsibility to educate in the home and in private institutions. The political reformation begins as people realize that there is no free lunch and stop voting for more government benefits. The cultural revolution begins and ends with one person who develops deep integrity and virtue.

I began by proclaiming that I saved the health care industry by walking out on it. A deliberate overstatement, to be sure, but can you imagine our world if everyone who was truly able simply walked out of the defective system of dependence to create a new system based on personal responsibility and self-reliance? Let’s change our culture by walking out on its defects while maintaining its healthy origins. Let’s stop waiting for someone or some institution to save us and begin seeing the savior in us all.

Where there is crisis there is opportunity, and nowhere was this more evident than in Hurricane Katrina.

In at least one respect, the disaster was more devastating, yet offered more hope, than the 9/11 tragedy.

As monumental as it was in terms of shaping national politics and policies, 9/11 was primarily perceived as a New York crisis. Those of us in other parts of the country watched it unfold on television and felt the emotions of the tragedy, but otherwise were relatively unaffected.

Aside from a sharp dip accompanied by a quick recovery in the stock market, we weren’t directly and immediately affected economically, politically, or culturally by 9/11.

Yet just days after the New Orleans hurricane, the entire nation was affected directly and negatively in the form of steep gas price hikes.

According to the Oil Price Information Service, the national average price for gas hit an all-time high on September 5th, 2005 at $3.057 per gallon, a 32.6% increase from one month earlier.

Many Republicans and Democrats alike are demanding immediate federal action to arrest the price hikes, yet most proposals fall far short of what is ultimately needed. If we can look beyond the immediate crisis we will recognize and seize the opportunity to thoroughly reform and revolutionize our national energy policies and practices.

Although the nation is sharply divided over Bush administration post-9/11 defense policies, the New Orleans crisis, by virtue of its universal impact, provided the nation with the chance to coalesce across party divisions behind the common goal of energy policy reform.

We may not want to admit it, but it has become increasingly self-evident to most of us that we are being held hostage by our dependence on oil. The problem is not just that we depend on foreign nations diametrically opposed to American values and needs, but also that oil by its very nature as a fossil fuel is ultimately a limited, and therefore potentially scarce, resource.

No matter how much oil reserves the earth still may hold, it’s just common sense to begin at least considering alternative, renewable sources of fuel before it reaches the stage of scarcity and plunges us into further crises.

The decline of the Industrial Age and the rise of the Information Age are revolutionizing most aspects of our economics, politics, and culture.

It is a time of potentially great chaos as increased technological development creates new jobs while making others obsolete, as globalism transforms our political boundaries, as new class systems develop with different values, and virtually thousands of other changes occur both seen and unseen.

The height of wisdom is to perceive and adapt calmly and rationally to change before it occurs, rather than waiting to be forced to evolve hastily and without a clear vision in the throes of crisis. As the trite adage goes, the best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago.

As tragic as it was, the New Orleans hurricane offered us an historical opportunity to enact constructive and revolutionary changes to our national energy policies and practices, but that depends on our attitude and maturity.

Will conservatives continue to instinctively and shortsightedly support the excessive use of oil? Will liberals simply exploit the crises to further their cause of increasingly large government control?

Or can we work together as Americans to look forward to a bright future, rationally and optimistically?

There is a silver lining in the clouds of Hurricane Katrina if we can allow ourselves to let go of our Industrial Age gut reactions and embrace new and progressive attitudes of the Information Age.

The Alabama Federal Court decision ordering the removal of Chief Justice Roy Moore’s monument of the ten commandments from the state judicial building is an illuminating example of the contemporary trend in America of discordant, litigious minority groups causing an alarmingly steady fragmentation of our society.

As these contentious groups advance their short-sighted agendas, they debilitate the nation as a whole by undermining those unifying principles vital to our existence.

A week after the federal court ordered the monument removed, a disturbing CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll found that 77% of Americans disapproved of the controversial decision that ruled in favor of the American Civil Liberties Union, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization with only 400,000 members nationwide (out of a total US population of almost 300 million), who found the monument “offensive” and complained that it made them feel like “outsiders.”

Those of the overwhelming (although remarkably passive) majority have to be alarmed by the destructive factionalism exemplified by this highly propagandized case.

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, noted that

“Separatism nourishes prejudices, magnifies differences, and stirs antagonisms.”

He added that

“This multiethnic dogma abandons historic purposes, replacing assimilation by fragmentation, integration by separatism. It belittles unum and glorifies pluribus.”

The ever-widening dichotomy between dissentious minority groups and the majority, contrary to unification, will inevitably cause the dissolution of a strong national identity, which is imperative for the perpetuation of a healthy society.

Fanatical dissidence of this nature diametrically conflicts with the explicit purposes of the Constitution to “form a more perfect union, establish justice, and insure domestic tranquility” and to “secure the blessings of liberty.”

The irony is that the ACLU and other similar groups are steadily eradicating the very thing they purport to be fighting for.

The self-proclaimed mission of the ACLU is to fight for civil liberties so as to “prevent the tyranny of the majority.” The only problem is that their hypocritical methodology constitutes a tyranny of the minority at the expense of the liberties of all.

Alexandar Solzhenitsyn wisely noted that,

“The defense of individual rights has reached such extremes as to make society as a whole defenseless against certain individuals.”

James Hitchcock, an American historian, observed that,

“Values are necessary for the functioning of any society, and if they are not consciously adopted and publicly acknowledged, they will be smuggled in surreptitiously and often unconsciously. Values are always in real or potential conflict. And the state inevitably favors some values over others.”

In this case, the Alabama judiciary has obviously shown that they support the religion of non-theistic over Judeo-Christian beliefs, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans, regardless of religious belief or affiliation, adhere to the ethic found in the Ten Commandments.

Could not this majority legitimately argue that the monument should remain using the same reasoning: That the lack of the monument is “offensive” and its absence makes them feel like “outsiders?”

Other than a few glaring yet historically rectified contradictions, the legacy of American history has been that of broad ethnic, religious, racial, and linguistic diversity united behind the political ideal of inalienable rights and a morality that acknowledges God.

And while the upsurge of many historically maltreated minorities struggling to achieve equal rights has resulted in healthy consequences (such as the abolition of slavery, civil rights, universal suffrage, etc.), the current trend in America is to denounce the idea of a melting pot and to protect, promote, and perpetuate separate and divisive ethnic, racial, and ideological communities.

Unless the trend is halted, the segregation, tribalization, and fragmentation of America are inevitable. Schlesinger wisely said,

“…as we renew our allegiance to the unifying ideals, we provide the solvent that will prevent differences from escalating into antagonism and hatred.”

Recommended Reading:
Ike Wilson wrote another great article on this subject here.