|
"One may well ask: 'How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?' The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that 'an unjust law is no law at all.'
Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. ...Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong. ...A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law. I hope you are able to see the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law. Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience. We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was 'legal' and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was 'illegal.' It was 'illegal' to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country's antireligious laws." -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail "Without justice being freely, fully, and impartially administered, neither our persons, nor our rights, nor our property, can be protected. And if these, or either of them, are regulated by no certain laws, and are subject to no certain principles, and are held by no certain tenure, and are redressed, when violated, by no certain remedies, society fails of all its value; and men may as well return to a state of savage and barbarous independence."
-- Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833 "Lady Justice is often rightfully depicted as an expectant mother with scales in one hand, a sword in the other, and a blindfold on. The perversion of American government we are now experiencing, at both the national and the state levels, aborts posterity, removes the blindfold - constantly showing favoritism concerning whose equal rights to life, liberty, and property will be protected and whose won't - wields the power of the sword against the upright rather than against evildoers, and uses the scales of justice, not to honestly weigh justice, but to weigh out the thirty pieces of silver the politicians and judges have sold us and our children for." -- Tom Hoefling  "Open your mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy."
-- Proverbs 31:9 "Without justice being freely, fully, and impartially administered, neither our persons, nor our rights, nor our property, can be protected. And if these, or either of them, are regulated by no certain laws, and are subject to no certain principles, and are held by no certain tenure, and are redressed, when violated, by no certain remedies, society fails of all its value; and men may as well return to a state of savage and barbarous independence."
-- Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833 Tom Hoefling: Conservatives hold the key to the survival of a free, secure, and prosperous America12/10/2013 "'You shall not murder' contains no exceptions. If there are exceptions made, there can be no equality. Which means there can be no justice. The premises for the rule of law, and any decent claim to liberty, are completely destroyed. What part of this do American Christian 'pro-lifers' fail to understand? The main obstacle to saving our country is not Planned Parenthood, or Obama, it is "conservatives" who don't seem to understand what it is that must be conserved if we are going to survive as a free, secure, prosperous people. I'm sorry if this message is offensive to some, but it's the truth. And it's a truth everyone needs to hear, and act upon in their politics, before it is too late for America and for our posterity."
-- Tom Hoefling "There are some things you must do no matter the apparent odds, because it is your God-ordained duty to do so, simply because it is right. You must seek peace and pursue it, even though you know that there will never be ultimate peace on this earthly plane, not until the Prince of Peace returns. You must fight for equality before the law, even though you know that in a fallen world such as this, all will not be justly treated. Though you see and know the great power and the constant working of the forces of disunity and dissolution, you must seek to form a more perfect Union, as the oath requires, because that is the purpose of our Constitution, and because our national unity is the security for our liberty. You must work to secure the Blessings of Liberty to Posterity, even though you will never yourself see or know that Posterity in this world. It's all an act of faith in the apparently impossible, and in the unseen, you see, because you believe that in the end God will bless all such righteous efforts abundantly as the good seed that they are, and that it will be of eternal value to Him."
-- Tom Hoefling, March 29, 2013 "It should come as no surprise to anyone that those who want to change the definition of the word "marriage" are mostly the same people who have changed the definitions of crucially-important words like "person," "posterity," "life," "equal," and "due process," leading to the slaughter of more than fifty million innocent children in this country alone.
Justice, the rule of law, and in fact civilization itself, are impossible without a common, reasonable understanding of the meanings of words, one that is based in an awareness of the laws of nature and of nature's God. Destroy that, and ultimately, you will have destroyed everything. Words mean things. Never forget that." -- Tom Hoefling, February 10, 2013 "The only way back for America is for its Christians to once again do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with their God, and for its citizens to strive with all their might to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity. "
-- Tom Hoefling, November 10, 2012 "No government is respectable which is not just. Without unspotted purity of public faith, without sacred, public principle, fidelity and honor, no mere forms of government, no machinery of laws, can give dignity to political society."
-- Daniel Webster The Equal Protection for Posterity Resolution
America's Party Platform (Includes the Resolution) America's Party Leadership Pledge (Includes the Resolution) Tom Hoefling: I Believe (Includes the Resolution) "All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression."
-- Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, 1801 "Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens. The mere Politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connexions with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."
"We have counted the cost of this contest, and find nothing so dreadful as voluntary slavery. Honor, justice, and humanity forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them if we basely entail hereditary bondage upon them. Our cause is just. Our union is perfect. Our internal resources are great… We gratefully acknowledge, as signal instances of the Divine favor towards us, that His Providence would not permit us to be called into this severe controversy until we were grown up to our present strength, had been previously exercised in warlike operation, and possessed of the means of defending ourselves. With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have been compelled by our enemies to assume we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverance, employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live slaves."
— Declaration of Causes and Necessity of Taking up Arms - July 6, 1775 "Our country is in danger, but not to be despaired of. Our enemies are numerous and powerful; but we have many friends, determining to be free, and heaven and earth will aid the resolution. On you depend the fortunes of America. You are to decide the important question, on which rest the happiness and liberty of millions yet unborn. Act worthy of yourselves."
-- Joseph Warren, Boston Massacre Oration, March 6, 1775 "Ye abandoned minions of an infatuated ministry — if, peradventure, any should yet remain among us! — remember that a Warren and a Montgomery are numbered among the dead. Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say, what should be the reward of such sacrifices? Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship, and plough and sow and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood, and hunt us from the face of the earth? If ye love wealth better than liberty; the tranquillity of servitude, than the animating contest of freedom — go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." -- Samuel Adams, August 1, 1776 "The hearts of your soldiers beat high with the spirit of freedom — they are animated with the justice of their cause, and while they grasp their swords, can look up to Heaven for assistance. Your adversaries are composed of wretches who laugh at the rights of humanity, who turn religion into derision, and would, for higher wages, direct their swords against their leaders or their country. Go on, then, in your generous enterprise, with gratitude to Heaven for past success, and confidence of it in the future. For my own part, I ask no greater blessing than to share with you the common danger and common glory. If I have a wish dearer to my soul, than that my ashes may be mingled with those of a Warren and a Montgomery, it is — that these American States may never cease to be free and independent!" - - Samuel Adams, August 1, 1776 "'Just and true liberty, equal and impartial liberty,' in matters spiritual and temporal, is a thing that all men are clearly entitled to by the eternal and immutable laws of God and nature, as well as by the law of nations and all well-grounded municipal laws, which must have their foundation in the former."
-- Samuel Adams, The Report of the Committee of Correspondence to the Boston Town Meeting, Nov. 20, 1772 |
Dial in to talk to
|
RSS Feed
