How Would Our Founding Fathers Grade the Republican Party Platform?

If you’re like me, you’ve spent some time this week watching or at least following the news of the Republican Party Convention. In my younger years I was never really that interested in things of this sort, but I truly believe that today, right now, our country is in a much bigger trouble as a nation and as a people, and I truly want to know what our nation’s leaders plan to do about getting us out of this mess we’re in.

But here are the questions that must be asked:

• Why isn’t our America working right today?
• Why are we so seriously spiraling down as a nation?
• Why don’t our leaders just fix the problem? Is it because they don’t know how to fix it? Or even worse – are our leaders actually part of the problem? Allow me a few thoughts here.

Recently my wife, Kelly, and I took a drive up north to the Dakotas part of our America. We put on quite a lot of miles coming all the way from Texas, so I found myself stopping for gas 2-3 times each day. As I stopped to get my first fill up in North Dakota I found something new to me; I was given a choice to pick between filling my vehicle with all gasoline, or to take a mix of gasoline mixed with ethanol. I picked the gas/ethanol mix because it was some cents cheaper per gallon.

Well, I got back on the highway, clipping along about 80-85, and I began to notice my pickup engine sounding different, and every so often there was the slightest hesitation. So I pulled over at the next station and inquired. The man at the station told me that it was the ethanol, and that my vehicle wouldn’t run its best on the gas/ethanol mix. I didn’t know if the man was right or wrong but at my next fuel stop I opted for the more expensive all gasoline mix and for the rest of the trip my vehicle engine sounded right, acted right, and operated correctly. My conclusion? For my vehicle, the gas station man was exactly right; my Silverado will not work right running on any fuel other than what the inventors designed it to do.

Now, you might be saying now, “What has auto fuel got to do with why our America is not running right?” Actually – EVERYTHING.

What most people either have forgotten what they learned in their high school government classes, OR never learned at all is this –

• our founding fathers invented our America to be completely different from any other nation in the history of the world;
• but before this American “engine’” could run, the “inventors” had to determine what components and ingredients would make this engine, our American democracy, work right; AND
• they had to put safeguards and rules (an owner’s manual) into place that must be followed in detail to make this new invention work right. In other words, our America was made to run on gasoline, not ethanol.

So, if our founding fathers came to our America today and looked around, what do you think they would say?  They would say,

1. “Why are you trying to run and operate our invention (this American democracy) without using the specified fuel (that is, the value system, the ideals that it was built upon) ;
2. Why are you trying to change the blueprint of this invention (our America); AND MOST IMPORTANTLY
3. Why are you working so hard to modify, to change this invention (our America) when it has already been proven to work so well?”

When you put it that way, looking at America as something new and unique with its own “Users Manual”, it makes those look foolish who are trying so hard to make it work, while ignoring what the “inventors” (our founding fathers) made it to be.

So, then back to the original question mentioned at the outset of this writing, “How would our founding fathers grade the Republican party platform in place for this 2016 election season? Would they believe that the Republican Party is going the right direction to help make our America work right or not?”  To know that, let us go back to the “blueprint”.

When our founding fathers laid out the “blueprint” for America, here were the key parts:

1. Protect life – in America, all life is precious. It is to be protected at all costs – whether born or unborn.
2. Provide liberty – that is, make the American citizens free, with a free will to pursue their own destiny with a freedom of self determination. In other words, our founding fathers believed in a limited government doing only what is absolutely necessary to help keep the American train on the right track – but not to be the train’s conductor.
3. Keep America safe with law and order – as our citizens pursue their own destiny, each pursuit has to be done in a legal and respectful manner, following general rules of decency. And if the law and order are to be kept, there must be a penal system in place that is harsh enough to stop those trying to break these rules. If the punishment is not harsh enough, the system will fail. By the way, our founding fathers believed in capital punishment when the crime called for it.
4. Set Standards –when our founding fathers set our rules and guidelines for our common decency, where did these rules and guidelines come from? THE BIBLE. So many Americans today, when they hear someone say that our founding fathers built our nation to follow the Judeo-Christian teachings of the Bible they are not familiar with the terminology. It simply means this: to follow the teachings of the Bible as laid out in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. Now, does that mean that you have to be a Christian to live in America? Of course not – our founding fathers gave us a protection in the Constitution that allows for freedom of religion to all. BUT the rules of conduct and common decency found in the Bible are to be our guide for the moral conduct of our nation. So, let me make this simple – to live in America, you don’t have to follow the Christian God, but you do have to follow His rules of decency, of law, and of order. Anything less and the America “invention” will fail.
5. All Americans are to work hard, there are no free rides – except for those who truly cannot take care of themselves, all Americans are to be self supporting, working hard, seeking their own “American Dream”. We are not to just sit by and have happiness given to us by our government; we are to be given a safe and free nation which allows us to each “pursue” our own happiness.
6. Protect ourselves – although we are to have a strong organized military, strong enough to protect our nation, our people, our freedom, each citizen is to be prepared to protect themselves from those attempting to do them In other words, we are to bear arms and be ready to use them. For our founding fathers, it was not an option – it was a requirement. In fact, in 1619, the colony of Virginia had a statute that required all citizens to own a gun and to know how to use it.
7. An education for all which is God-centered – what most do not know is that in our early public schools, the Bible was one of the main foundational text books – that is a historical fact. That way, the children could not only learn how to read and write; they could also learn the foundational laws of decency for our America as laid out in the teachings of the Bible.
8. Love and respect our America – of course, we are to understand that there are other people, other nations in the world that we should try and reach out to, but our founding fathers believed that our first responsibility as citizens is to love our America first and foremost, to be proud of who we are, and to work hard to make us a better nation.
9. Recognize and Respect God for His Great Part in Making this America – our founding fathers knew what God had done to help them win our new freedom, and they knew it was His Wisdom that helped create this nation. They knew that without God, there would be no United States. AND FINALLY
10. Our Leaders should be our greatest examples to follow – our founding fathers believed that a good and moral America starts with good and moral leaders. AND to give special favor to one of our leaders that would not have been given to any other citizen is wrong – oh so wrong.

So, based on these foundational principles as laid out here, how do you think that our founding fathers would score the RCP?  Here’s what I think as noted by a

1. Protect life – the platform is Pro Life
2. Provide liberty – I give a check here because the Platform talks about making a smaller government, but is our present Republican majority Congress working to make a smaller American government?
3. Keep America safe with law and order – 
4. Set Standards – I couldn’t give a check for this one because our founding fathers insisted that the moral values of our America should be those as laid out in the Bible, and that these values must be taught to the children and used as the guide for our public actions and standards. Of course, our Supreme Court took care of that by banning the Holy Bible from our public schools.
5. All Americans are to work hard – The platform wants jobs for all Americans working to become self sufficient with less people on government assistance.
6. Protect ourselves – 
7. An education for all which is God-centered – No check mark here. Take a look at your child’s public school history book; God is not even mentioned. What a sad commentary for us to really believe that we built America all by ourselves.
8. Love and respect for our America – 
9. Recognize and Respect God for His Great Part in Making this America – I hear the words spoken rarely, but there is no acknowledgement that God was the reason that our nation was born. If you doubt this truth, take some time to read the writings of both George Washington and Benjamin Franklin.
10. Our Leaders should be our greatest examples to follow  – they say it, but let us see the proof in their actions to come.

So I give the Republican Party Platform 7 out of 10. What score do you give?

To help in your own grading, you can go to https://www.gop.com/the-2016-republican-party-platform/  to see the platform points that I read to make my determination.

Your Own Grading:

1. Protect life –
2. Provide liberty –
3. Keep America safe with law and order –
4. Set Standards All Americans are to work hard –
5. Protect ourselves –
6. An education for all which is God-centered –
7. Love and respect for our America –
8. Recognize and Respect God for His Great Part in Making this America –
9. Our Leaders should be our greatest examples to follow –

I invite your score sent directly to me at jerrystewartusa@gmail.com.

Jerry Stewart