Forever Settled

September 22, 2006

By Roy J. Tanner
U.S. Senate Candidate (FL)

“From bondage to spiritual

faith; from spiritual faith to
great courage; from courage to
liberty; from liberty to
abundance; from abundance
to complacency; from
complacency to apathy; from
apathy to dependence; from
dependence back into
bondage.” Attributed to
Alexander Fraser Tytler, this
passage always raises some
introspection in me, as I trust
it does in you as well. And
with this continuum in mind,
where would you say we are
as a generation with respect to
the time honored principles
our nation was founded on?

By now you’ve surmised, mine is not a typical political campaign that panders to
the electorate. As an independent candidate, I instead feel led to use a different
tact by calling your attention to the perils we’ll face if the erosion of traditional
values, which have protected and prospered this country, continues unabated.

Given the advances of medical science and the pace of change in our cultural
mores, a brave new world is dawning that threatens to eclipse a foundational
principle that sustains our humanity, namely the sanctity of life. Yet even angels
fear to tread on existential issues that are in the purview of the Almighty, alone.
If life begins at conception, shouldn’t it follow that embryos are sacrosanct? If
God claims to know us before He knit us together in the womb, who presumes to
usurp this relationship? If marriage and its offspring are a reflection of the triune
personhood of God, why would we attempt to sanction its counterfeit? And if
the life Giver is also sovereign over death, dare we evoke it before its time?

Perhaps it’s the billions pending in matching government funds that animates
lobbyists, who plead on behalf of experimentation that has yet to bear fruit. Or
maybe it’s the hundreds of millions at stake, if the abortion industry were to lose
its federal mandate, or the gay lobby was to persuade its constituents to shop
elsewhere. Follow the money, and most moral conundrums become clear.

And rather than engage in voter referendum or majority legislation, lobbyists

prefer instead to venue-shop for sympathetic courts that will overturn the will of
the people. Taken together, it warrants question of judicial legitimacy when the
U.S. Constitution is deemed a “living document,” and new precedent emerges
from thin air to protect privacy rights that the ancients deemed reprobation.

When it comes to humanity’s moral imperatives, has the abundance that liberty
set in motion – given way to the complacent apathy that Tytler warned of? If the
Constitution’s framers acknowledged an inalienable right to life, bestowed by the
immutable God over the caprice of government, will this generation relent in
protecting those innocents bound to die from rights born of expedience?

When writing Democracy in America, historian Alexis de Tocqueville concluded

that our national greatness is inextricably tied to its continued goodness. He
gave voice then to what our conscience still attests today, that regardless of
where society’s whims would lead us, God’s word is forever settled in heaven.

Said differently, the notion of American exceptionalism has never relied upon
human nature, but rather ascendant ideals that call us to purposes bigger than
self. Considering the accountability our citizenship assumes and the great cloud
of witnesses that surround us – let it be said of this generation “they chose life.”

For more information on protecting the existential right that will either defend or
discard the next generation, visit http://www.tannerforsenate.com/sanctity.htm

Let’s heed the advice of our better angels,