The Supreme Law of the Land
I am looking for allies who are ready to declare war on the elements in our society that perpetuate all child abuse and neglect. We are already in a war, I am asking that we acknowledge it openly.
We know there are casualties in this war. Thousands of children die at the hand of their parent - in this country, every year. And adults who were abused as children die of drug addiction or other reckless methods of trying to escape the pain, in the aftermath. But the continual casualty is the death of the human spirit, which lies suppressed under the rock of hopeless denial for all those who have not recovered.
The prisoners of this war are all around us: young people imprisoned in virtual concentration camps of parental abuse. These prisoners are not necessarily hidden from our sight, for what holds them is not wholly comprised of walls and locked doors. The real chain that binds is the impossible blanket of denial surrounding the child.
Taught from infancy not to expect help from anyone when parents are violent, trained to believe they have caused it, punished for talking about it or for trying to get out - abused children believe there truly is no way out. No way out, except to find solace in unconsciousness. Thus the prison becomes absorbed into the self.
But there is a way out. Human rights are the system of immunity to abuse and neglect. When speech is freed, recovery becomes possible. When free assembly is real, a person can choose with whom to spend time. With real rights to privacy, one can stop contact with a person who brings destruction or pain - without having to disclose reasons or convince anybody else.
I am declaring war on child abuse and neglect, and my battleground is in me. My enemies are the lies that have prevented me from acting, lies I have believed were too strong to overcome. My enemies are all lies that cause me to collaborate with the destruction of human rights.
We don't have to overturn our government to create a legal system that empowers children to step away from child abuse and neglect. The Constitution is our champion for all human rights.
Just like our human character can be confused by lies into perpetuating abuse - our national identity has become confused with unconstitutional statutes. Whenever unconstitutional law becomes the rule of the day, the enemy to our true human nature is winning.
Child abuse and neglect need unconstitutional law to keep power over human beings. For when human rights operate, the whole human intelligence can respond. The true human spirit is much bigger than any error of abuse and neglect.
There are three kinds of change we must make in our society to put an end to child abuse and neglect. The first change is to correct the Law, by building upon our actual United States Human Rights Constitution.
The second change we must make is in each individual. We must gain a new understanding of what human rights are, and who we each are in relation to our government and society.
Our government is designed to be kept healthy by check and balance. An informed citizenry is an absolutely vital part of the system. We may say that "the legal system" made up of judges and lawyers, legislators and law enforcement has failed us ... but we citizens have also failed to keep up our end of things.
We must claim our Constitution as our own. This document is not just for lawyers to use or interpret. Our Bill of Rights is a true code for living and is integral to a healthy human society, just as genetic DNA is essential to a healthy human body. Healthy human life requires a blueprint of standards.
There are enemies to our Constitution living within our minds. Whenever we treat human rights as expendable, we throw away the entire blessing that is ours as citizens of the United States. And when we fail to use our human rights, we are disowning our human capability for intelligent response.
When we take away human rights, we take away the spiritual space that the whole human nature needs to develop, to mature, and to exist. Human rights are human needs.
Children are human beings. Children need human rights, to keep their whole human nature alive. The shape of our society can change. We can create the solution for the problems of child abuse and neglect, by treating children like whole human beings.
The third part of the solution is the physical structure of community that enables human rights every minute of every single day. A human rights community gives children physical access to one another at all times, without having to ride in a car, face dangerous traffic, or get permission from parents each time.
This is true free assembly. Nothing less will ensure the spiritual health of young people. And guaranteeing privacy for children - this means allowing them to have a room with a locking door within the family home. It also means that we adults respect the boundary around the assembly space for children as inviolable. Children's space for free assembly is Sanctuary.
The realigned Christian Church is a perfect vehicle for creating down to earth physical community based on human rights. This is the way to heal the whole human being. Never mind arguing about the trinity or other details. Describe God with whatever terms you will, and human beings still need human rights to survive with whole human spirit intact.
The liberation of the human being is accomplished with the creation of real human rights. Let's get down to business making space for physical Sanctuary and Assembly space. Free assembly with peers is another way to say Fellowship. And Confession is the old world way of describing the healing power of free speech. The real Christian Church is a human rights community, made up of members dedicated to enacting human rights for all members.
Parents also need human rights. Parents need to be able to claim Fellowship with peers anytime we feel the need. Parents must be able to withdraw from the family scene whenever we feel the need for solitude or privacy, if we are to keep our whole human spirit intact.
Parenting need not be a constant sacrifice of self, struggling to do on a one to one basis what is much more easily done in number. When children have no social life, the demands on the parent can be overwhelming. Parents work overmuch to take care of their children, and believe arbitrary and absolute control is needed for the job.
But parental rights, because they are used to overthrow the basic human rights of the child, are the reason that child abuse and neglect are still happening. Parental rights are not Constitutional rights. Parental rights are an error in our thinking, and in our national and state systems of law.
Life doesn't have to be difficult. Punishing the parent has nothing to do with ensuring the safety of children. Punishment does not heal. And when fear of punishment prevents parents from admitting that they are having problems with their children, it is children who are ultimately hurt all the more. Granting human rights to all members of the family creates healing for all.
Child abuse and neglect are contagious disorders that are aggravated by stress. There are methods of reducing the stresses of family life that can eliminate assault and deprivation, without the destruction of family bonds. It is possible to live a life free of violence and need, as a member of an Assembly dedicated to whole human rights.
The first step is allowing children to move into the best possible situation, by way of their Constitutional Rights to practice of religion, liberty, free assembly, and privacy. Custody orders and parental rights that hold children prisoner are not Constitutional law. Custody orders that destroy the human rights of the child are illegal laws.
The Constitution of the United States - Article VI
(2) This Constitution ... shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
Whenever we obey unconstitutional law we are collaborating with our collective enemy to human rights and to the safety of the true human spirit. Blind obedience is not virtue. We are not criminals, if we choose to believe and abide by our National Constitution - rejecting unconstitutional law.
It is those who make "law" to take away human rights who are in violation of the Law. Unconstitutional legalities are a criminal assault. The Supreme Law is Constitutional Human Rights.
There are enemies to our Constitution and to all children's lives living within our borders. We are all Americans. But do we all remember why?
If there were foreigners in our country taking away our human rights, it would seem simple enough to identify, attack and thereby eject the enemy. We could call upon our President:
"Now, President , I call you by name. You have promised to defend the Constitution of the United States. Then, send your militia and defend me, for the Constitution and Bill of Rights are my banner, my only shield, and my way of life."
And surely, the militia would come.
But these are not foreign agents who send armed policemen to hunt down escaped children who attempt to claim liberty and privacy - and then return them to their masters like runaway slaves. These are friends and neighbors, our relatives, local magistrates, county sheriffs, city police, and the FBI. Who is the commander in chief of every local police precinct?
Who commands the judges to sign only Constitutional Orders, when the citizenry elects those who routinely discard Constitutional mandate?
The next civil war is waged in the heart and mind of each citizen. I stand ready. I wish to find or found an Assembly dedicated to creating Human Rights for all Human Beings.
We know there are casualties in this war. Thousands of children die at the hand of their parent - in this country, every year. And adults who were abused as children die of drug addiction or other reckless methods of trying to escape the pain, in the aftermath. But the continual casualty is the death of the human spirit, which lies suppressed under the rock of hopeless denial for all those who have not recovered.
The prisoners of this war are all around us: young people imprisoned in virtual concentration camps of parental abuse. These prisoners are not necessarily hidden from our sight, for what holds them is not wholly comprised of walls and locked doors. The real chain that binds is the impossible blanket of denial surrounding the child.
Taught from infancy not to expect help from anyone when parents are violent, trained to believe they have caused it, punished for talking about it or for trying to get out - abused children believe there truly is no way out. No way out, except to find solace in unconsciousness. Thus the prison becomes absorbed into the self.
But there is a way out. Human rights are the system of immunity to abuse and neglect. When speech is freed, recovery becomes possible. When free assembly is real, a person can choose with whom to spend time. With real rights to privacy, one can stop contact with a person who brings destruction or pain - without having to disclose reasons or convince anybody else.
I am declaring war on child abuse and neglect, and my battleground is in me. My enemies are the lies that have prevented me from acting, lies I have believed were too strong to overcome. My enemies are all lies that cause me to collaborate with the destruction of human rights.
We don't have to overturn our government to create a legal system that empowers children to step away from child abuse and neglect. The Constitution is our champion for all human rights.
Just like our human character can be confused by lies into perpetuating abuse - our national identity has become confused with unconstitutional statutes. Whenever unconstitutional law becomes the rule of the day, the enemy to our true human nature is winning.
Child abuse and neglect need unconstitutional law to keep power over human beings. For when human rights operate, the whole human intelligence can respond. The true human spirit is much bigger than any error of abuse and neglect.
There are three kinds of change we must make in our society to put an end to child abuse and neglect. The first change is to correct the Law, by building upon our actual United States Human Rights Constitution.
The second change we must make is in each individual. We must gain a new understanding of what human rights are, and who we each are in relation to our government and society.
Our government is designed to be kept healthy by check and balance. An informed citizenry is an absolutely vital part of the system. We may say that "the legal system" made up of judges and lawyers, legislators and law enforcement has failed us ... but we citizens have also failed to keep up our end of things.
We must claim our Constitution as our own. This document is not just for lawyers to use or interpret. Our Bill of Rights is a true code for living and is integral to a healthy human society, just as genetic DNA is essential to a healthy human body. Healthy human life requires a blueprint of standards.
There are enemies to our Constitution living within our minds. Whenever we treat human rights as expendable, we throw away the entire blessing that is ours as citizens of the United States. And when we fail to use our human rights, we are disowning our human capability for intelligent response.
When we take away human rights, we take away the spiritual space that the whole human nature needs to develop, to mature, and to exist. Human rights are human needs.
Children are human beings. Children need human rights, to keep their whole human nature alive. The shape of our society can change. We can create the solution for the problems of child abuse and neglect, by treating children like whole human beings.
The third part of the solution is the physical structure of community that enables human rights every minute of every single day. A human rights community gives children physical access to one another at all times, without having to ride in a car, face dangerous traffic, or get permission from parents each time.
This is true free assembly. Nothing less will ensure the spiritual health of young people. And guaranteeing privacy for children - this means allowing them to have a room with a locking door within the family home. It also means that we adults respect the boundary around the assembly space for children as inviolable. Children's space for free assembly is Sanctuary.
The realigned Christian Church is a perfect vehicle for creating down to earth physical community based on human rights. This is the way to heal the whole human being. Never mind arguing about the trinity or other details. Describe God with whatever terms you will, and human beings still need human rights to survive with whole human spirit intact.
The liberation of the human being is accomplished with the creation of real human rights. Let's get down to business making space for physical Sanctuary and Assembly space. Free assembly with peers is another way to say Fellowship. And Confession is the old world way of describing the healing power of free speech. The real Christian Church is a human rights community, made up of members dedicated to enacting human rights for all members.
Parents also need human rights. Parents need to be able to claim Fellowship with peers anytime we feel the need. Parents must be able to withdraw from the family scene whenever we feel the need for solitude or privacy, if we are to keep our whole human spirit intact.
Parenting need not be a constant sacrifice of self, struggling to do on a one to one basis what is much more easily done in number. When children have no social life, the demands on the parent can be overwhelming. Parents work overmuch to take care of their children, and believe arbitrary and absolute control is needed for the job.
But parental rights, because they are used to overthrow the basic human rights of the child, are the reason that child abuse and neglect are still happening. Parental rights are not Constitutional rights. Parental rights are an error in our thinking, and in our national and state systems of law.
Life doesn't have to be difficult. Punishing the parent has nothing to do with ensuring the safety of children. Punishment does not heal. And when fear of punishment prevents parents from admitting that they are having problems with their children, it is children who are ultimately hurt all the more. Granting human rights to all members of the family creates healing for all.
Child abuse and neglect are contagious disorders that are aggravated by stress. There are methods of reducing the stresses of family life that can eliminate assault and deprivation, without the destruction of family bonds. It is possible to live a life free of violence and need, as a member of an Assembly dedicated to whole human rights.
The first step is allowing children to move into the best possible situation, by way of their Constitutional Rights to practice of religion, liberty, free assembly, and privacy. Custody orders and parental rights that hold children prisoner are not Constitutional law. Custody orders that destroy the human rights of the child are illegal laws.
The Constitution of the United States - Article VI
(2) This Constitution ... shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
Whenever we obey unconstitutional law we are collaborating with our collective enemy to human rights and to the safety of the true human spirit. Blind obedience is not virtue. We are not criminals, if we choose to believe and abide by our National Constitution - rejecting unconstitutional law.
It is those who make "law" to take away human rights who are in violation of the Law. Unconstitutional legalities are a criminal assault. The Supreme Law is Constitutional Human Rights.
There are enemies to our Constitution and to all children's lives living within our borders. We are all Americans. But do we all remember why?
If there were foreigners in our country taking away our human rights, it would seem simple enough to identify, attack and thereby eject the enemy. We could call upon our President:
"Now, President , I call you by name. You have promised to defend the Constitution of the United States. Then, send your militia and defend me, for the Constitution and Bill of Rights are my banner, my only shield, and my way of life."
And surely, the militia would come.
But these are not foreign agents who send armed policemen to hunt down escaped children who attempt to claim liberty and privacy - and then return them to their masters like runaway slaves. These are friends and neighbors, our relatives, local magistrates, county sheriffs, city police, and the FBI. Who is the commander in chief of every local police precinct?
Who commands the judges to sign only Constitutional Orders, when the citizenry elects those who routinely discard Constitutional mandate?
The next civil war is waged in the heart and mind of each citizen. I stand ready. I wish to find or found an Assembly dedicated to creating Human Rights for all Human Beings.
