MY SOLUTIONS ARE GIVEN UP FRONT !

My Answers to the Religious and Social Issues

My religious viewpoints are explained in my books and I refer to myself as a New Christian, in that I believe in Christ's teachings, but not that he was God. I stress observance of the two most important commandments to which Christ referred: loving God and loving one's neighbor. I strongly affirm my beliefs in the First Amendment right to freedom of religion and will work hard to see that those rights are not violated. We must be eternally vigilant to assure that "all" religions are protected from any form of intimidation and persecution and that every citizen has the right to worship God in freedom, whether they are Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, or if they are simply non-believers.

Our public schools should be a seedbed of God's truth and knowledge, but not necessarily a seedbed for any one religion. Therefore, I would support public or private prayer in schools and the elective study of philosophical and theological truths that are not tied to any one religion. All children should be taught at an early age how to use their intellects, and it is time we introduced our junior and senior high school students to Plato, Aristotle, and the science of metaphysics. Opening up their imaginations will open up their minds to the unexplored horizons and to the Source of our being. Without a Divine Beacon, without a purpose in life, I believe that the future of our nation will evolve into a nation where the laws of the jungle will prevail, rather than the laws of morality and justice. I believe we are at a moral crossroads, and we must ask ourselves: "Are we going to take the high road, or are we going to take the low road? Are we just going to debate these issues, or are we going to act and really do something about them, so that we can leave our children and grandchildren the blessings of hope and enlightenment through intellectual expansion based on a Divine Compass?"

I believe that the doctrine of separation of church and state is meant to be a separation of "religion" and state, and not a separation of "God" and state, for God is the very foundation of our Constitutional rights and our system of justice. I believe that "one nation under God" means exactly that, that God is above all of us because God is the Creator of us all. To deny God as a matter of policy in our schools, by ignoring God's existence, is to make a mockery of our insistence that we are "one nation under God". Therefore, to study the nature of God, is not the same thing as worshiping God or practicing a religion. I would not support any "religious practices" in the public school system curricula. I believe that would violate the First Amendment. But I will support "studying about God" or the "Supreme Being, First Cause, Universal Spirit, Creator or whatever name we attribute to the source of all creation." This would not violate the First Amendment as long as it is not tied to a specific religious belief or a religious practice - and that - is not difficult to do. It is not Constitutional to bring into the classrooms "holy scriptures" of any denominations because they belong to each religion. But to bring in books by the great philosophers and to teach rational theology would not violate the First Amendment.

My Answers to the Education Issues

Concerning education in general, I am a firm believer in "whoever mandates pays". If the federal or state government mandates anything, whether it be curricula or the physical environment, then the federal or state government must pay for what it mandates. From a Constitutional perspective, they (the States) would be shirking their responsibilities by allowing this usurpation, because the U.S. Constitution specifically states in Article 10, that "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Education never was, nor is now, a Constitutionally mandated obligation. This obligation rests upon the States in view of Article 10. Consequently, the usurpation by the federal government of those rights that belong to the States, namely, their rights to determine how to educate their children, has eroded ever so insidiously the quality of education of their children, because the states must re-allocate their resources to conform to the imposed federal guidelines which do not always advance the cause of education but these guidelines merely add layers of red tape and paper work to comply with non-funded federal standards. We are confronted today with crime, not in our streets, but in our schools, not just in the city schools but in schools throughout rural America. No school is free from crime, no school is free from drugs, and yet, we have the federal government continually mandating but not paying for imposition of guidelines that have resulted in the aforementioned serious problems. I do not want to revert to an adversarial relationship between the States and the Federal Government, but I do want justice to be done in those situations in which the federal government places an undue burden upon the States, and then looks the other way when the States are in dire financial predicaments because of these mandated impositions. Consequently, as president, I will look into all these financial binds that federal guidelines are causing our schools to get into, and will seek to provide sufficient funding to implement these guidelines, such as expanding our teacher base, and providing relief for our school systems where relief is obvious. Surely, if as is currently being suggested that we increase the amount of "forgiven loans" that are due the United States by various foreign governments, from 30 billion to 70 billion, we surely can forgive our own children's "student loans" that they are having to pay back with interest, many, many years after they graduate from college. Charity begins at home, so if the federal government is going to forgive foreign governments 70 billion dollars, as president of the United States, I will first want to forgive our children their debts. It is not only fair, but it is also just.

MyPosition on School Vouchers and Teaching of Evolution (Next Page)

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