During the time of Samuel, God's chosen people rejected God’s rule and requested a King. Since that time, with a few exceptions, earthly political power has been a succession of hereditary kingdoms. Then in the seventeen hundreds Godly men having heard the truth of the word of God preached from the pulpits, declared to the world that there shall be no king except King Jesus.
Their allegiance was a pledge to Him and Him alone. This placed God at the head, family next and government, as the servant of man, imbued with duties and responsibilities for the people to the extent that the people granted it those powers and responsibilities. This, according to our Constitution, is where legitimate civil power resides.
Reason tells us that if God created man it must follow that all men are created with equal political rights, and may not transfer to government rights which they, as individuals, do not possess—i.e. wrongful actions. Man, in his fallen nature, created the State Church. Some state governments required a state sanctioned church into the early years of the 1800s.
This generation prides itself in boasting that a wall of separation exists between church and state. It doesn’t consider that state licensing of churches has been going on for at least two generations. During Alabama's political battle over the state lottery, officials threatened to void the churches’ tax exempt status if they continued to fight the lottery, a clear indication that government views the licensing of churches as a muzzle. One of President Bush's main goals is to establish a public/private partnership with religious organizations. This will bring this country back to our starting point—full government supervision of church activities.
How about the familiar phrase, "innocent until proven guilty." The United States is one of the few countries in the world to incorporate this principle into its legal system. Ever wonder where this came from? Try Romans 13, the magistrate (judge) is required to punish the evil doer—not the person who contemplates an evil act. The individual is therefore innocent until the action is determined to be evil by a group of his peers.
Change of venue? The Lord commands Joshua in chapter 20 to establish cities where "....if the avenger of blood pursues him, they shall nor deliver the slayer into his hand, because he struck his neighbor unintentionally, but did not hate him beforehand. And he shall dwell in that city until he stands before the congregation for judgment....". This also implies a jury trial.
Our society now stands on a hill not unlike the one that Paul was on. It took the message Paul presented 1700 years before our nation was raised up to recognize the primacy of God's law. All this has been said to make the point that society bases its legal system on what it perceives to be right or wrong. In our case, the Bible was our foundation. But we have entered a new era, how long the transition will take depends upon the willingness of the people to accept the new foundation.
The Governor of Oregon, through his executive order dealing with Sustainable Development, calls for full implementation by the year 2025. The order may be found at http://www.oregonsolutions.net/execOrder/sustain_eo.cfm If Sustainable Development is accepted as the ethical criteria that frames our society, freedom as we know it will pass from the scene. In its place will be pockets of humans that dot a wilderness landscape. Each dot will be an independent bioregion. The World Resource Institute, an affiliate of the United Nations maintains the following website that describes a bioregion. The address is http://www.igc.apc.org/wri/biodiv/bioregio.html
"A bioregion is a land and water territory whose limits are defined not by political boundaries, but by
the geographical limits of human communities and ecological systems."
"How big is a bioregion?
Such an area must be large enough to:
·
maintain the integrity of the region's
biological communities, habitats, and ecosystems;
·
support important ecological
processes, such as nutrient and waste cycling, migration, and stream flow;
·
meet the habitat requirements of
keystone and indicator species; and
·
include the human communities involved
in the management, use, and understanding of biological resources.
It must be small enough for local residents to consider it home.
A bioregion would typically embrace thousands to hundreds of thousands of hectares. It may be no
bigger than a small watershed or as large as a small state or province. In special cases, a bioregion
might span the borders of two or more countries.
People and bioregions
A bioregion is also defined by its people.
It must have a unique cultural identity and be a place in which local residents have the primary right
to determine their own development.
This primary right does not, however, imply an absolute right. Rather, it means that the livelihoods,
claims, and interests of local communities should be both the starting point and the criteria for regional
development and conservation. Within that framework many other state, investor, and other economic
interests must be accommodated.
Bioregions are mosaics of ecosystems, habitats, and communities
Within a bioregion lies a mosaic of land or aquatic uses.
Each patch provides habitats in which different species survive and flourish, and each has its own
particular relationship to the region's human population.
All the elements of the mosaic are interactive; the management of a watershed affects rivers, habitats,
farms, estuaries, fisheries, and coral reefs.
The components are also dynamic; each changes over time as rivers change course, fallow fields
regenerate, storms batter coasts, and fires ravage forests. This dynamism gives a well-managed
bioregion the resilience and flexibility to adapt to natural evolution and human-induced activity -- be
it changing climate or changing markets.
Management and conservation issues within bioregions:
Within this ecological and social framework, governmental, community, corporate, and other private
interests share responsibility for coordinating land-use planning for both public and private land and
for defining and implementing development options that will ensure that human needs are met in a
sustainable way.
Innovative forms of institutional integration and social cooperation are needed to meet these needs.
Dialogue among all interests, participatory panning, and great institutional flexibility are essential.
A wide range of conservation tools and technologies must also be brought to bear -- among them,
protected-areas management, ex situ technologies, landscape restoration, and sustainable management
of such resources as forests, fisheries, and croplands."
House Bill HB64 has been prefiled for the current 2001 Alabama legislative session. The bill has been placed on the fast track. House Rep. Venable (D) district 31 Elmore and Coosa counties introduced the bill. It calls for a constitutional amendment, which will, if enacted abolish state and county borders. It is likely that dissolving State borders is a prelude to bioregional mapping. It is known that Mississippi has, through a constitutional amendment, abolished its state borders. Documentation may be found at http://www.freemississippi.org/political/borders/borders.htm. The amendment was passed in 1990. How many other states have taken similar action is unknown. The staff of The Mustard Seed has information which indicates that the list is quite long. We urge citizens of other states to check their states constitution. If similar action has occurred in their state please send documentation to The Mustard Seed. We will update the readership as information is obtained.
The elimination of state borders. What does it effect?
Political boundaries establish a geo-political region which retains certain rights as a sovereign community. If these boundaries are abolished the sovereign rights of its citizens are also abolished.
County governments’ charters are dependent upon state government authority.
The legal description for your property is public information that is maintained at the county courthouse. Almost all legal documents are held at the county courthouses.
State Senators and Representatives are elected on jurisdictional boundaries which are politically drawn.
The ramification of these actions to dissolve state boundaries will probably not be understood until some legal question is brought before a court. When that happens, one might envision fecal matter contacting spinning metal blades... so to speak.
PUBLIC/PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS
We’re beginning to hear more and more about public/private partnerships. Generally they are presented as a positive force, a way for government to provide more and better services while involving greater citizen participation in the rule-making process. The truth is they are a way of separating the general population from the policy-making process and putting it into the hands of special interest groups.
Joan Veon, a financial consultant and student of United Nations actions and processes has described the public/private partnership as follows:
The shaded area represents the partnership. The NGO will be a special interest group such as the Sierra Club and will be the "citizens’ representation." The private corporation will be one of the multinational corporations with deep pockets.
Which one of the three do you think will have the power? The one with the deep pockets, of course... at least initially.
This is a partnership, a business arrangement, and it is designed to make a profit. It is also designed so that it operates according to legal partnership principles. It will appoint boards to oversee operations and these boards will not be accountable to the voters.
Interestingly, Gov. Siegelman, in his State of the State address states “We must establish a public- private partnership that gets hot meals to the 15,000 seniors, currnetly on waiting lists.”
When we see civic water works and sewerage operations turned over to private operators we are seeing a form of the public/private partnership. In these cases the private element puts up cash to repair or modernize the operation and assumes primary control. What was the property of the citizenry has now become the property of a private corporation and the citizens have received nothing in payment. The local government cannot be held responsible for decisions the private water-works board makes, so to whom do citizens go when they have a problem? They get the old-fashioned run-around: the board sends them to the city council and the council sends them back to the board. The lines of responsibility become blurred and no one seems accountable.
Two or three years ago we heard Clinton and his British counterpart, Tony Blair, talking most favorably about something they called the "Third Way." This is it, in essence. It’s neither government nor capitalism but a "third" way, a combination of socialism and capitalism that has sometimes been referred to as Fascism.
This is what Regions 2020 is all about. It’s what Clinton’s American Heritage Rivers Initiative was all about. It is what the various States’ initiatives to implement local Agendas 21 is all about. And these initiatives are taking place all across the nation. Major efforts are under way here in Alabama through Siegelman’s establishment (by executive order) of his Commission on Environmental Initiatives (refer to our newsletter, "The Power to Destroy," Vol, 5 No. 14, dated December 15, 2000).
The non-governmental organizations that will be involved will be the UN recognized NGOs, all of which tend toward the left... the far left! Some churches will be involved but they will also be those that conform to the politically correct doctrines of the day. Churches that hold to a strong fundamental faith in the Bible will be demonized as intolerant, even racist or radical, as was the case in WACO.
It has taken a long time for the forces behind the one-world movement to reach the stage we find them at today. They have reached it because trusting Americans refused to believe such a movement was possible. Anyone who used the term "conspiracy" was considered a little lacking in gray matter, all the while the evidence was growing to overwhelming proportions that there is and has been for many years such a conspiracy.
The price of liberty is eternal vigilance and we chose to put the blinders on.