Nobody talks about common laws anymore. We should because the true balance of power in a Democracy is the distinction between common law and statutory law. Does that balance still exist? No, because with each passing day the principles and values upon which the United States was founded are being eroded. Federal and judicial manipulation has made the Constitution/Bill of Rights nearly irrelevant.

As Americans, we are the most powerful citizens in the world. We can choose our own representatives. We can choose to acquire as much knowledge as we desire. We can choose to worship God in our own way. We can choose to turn our ideas into reality. We have opportunities tha went undreamt of before 1776 and unrealized in much of the world today. We have the power to choose an environment that encourages respect and integrity.

For 200 years people had the protection of the Constitution/Bill of Rights. We educated our children, we exercised our religion, we had the freedom to speak our minds, we had property rights, we could not be subjected to double jeopardy, and the states had authority. We had common laws. For 200 years we were a people.

Times have changed. We have lost that power. States must educate our children in a costly federally mandated manner, our property rights are controlled by tax laws and use constraints, and when and where we choose to exercise our beliefs is governed. We may not voice objections openly or express our opinion unless it is "politically correct." We are tried on the state and federal levels for the same crime, and the states' Constitutional power has been suspended by overreaching federal power.

Our common laws and choices are now bound by federal dictate that is enlarged upon by lawyers, courts, bureaucrats, politicians and special interests with every passing day. We have lost our "democratic" privileges and rights.

What has this to do with our children? Everything.

If we continue to let the government usurp the power of the people, our children will never enjoy the freedoms the Founding Fathers won for us.

Chapter

Preface - America’s Treasures

1 - To the Reader

2 - What Others Would Have Us See

3 - Our Eroding Democracy

4 - It’s Really We the People

5 - The Colonists’ Independence

6 - The Preamble

7 - The Constitutional Powers of the Federal Government

8 - The Congress

9 - The President

10 - The Supreme Court

11 - Our Constitutional Protections

12 - Why We Need the Constitution / Bill of Rights

13 - The Power of the Bill of Rights

14 - The Freedom of Speech

15 - Must We Judge Each Other?

16 - The Metamorphosis of Mankind to Peoplekind

17 - The Fourteenth Amendment

18 - Federal Encroachment on States’ Rights

19 - Our Common Law Legal System

20 - The Dual Aspects of Jury Nullification

21 - Fear Crimes

22 - Religion’s Past Repeats

23 - The Freedom of Religion

24 - Education for a Generation

25 - The Failure of American Education

26 - Our Intra-National Wars

27 - The Lens of Welfare

28 - Economics: More than Just Numbers

29 - Economic Manipulation

30 - Foreign Aid Affairs

31 - Freedom of the Press

32 - The Special Interest Lens

33 - How Do You Now See

Appendix

Mayflower Compact

Declaration of Independence

Constitution and Amendments

Current government fiscal and social policy steps far beyond the Constitutional rule of law, costing us more than we bargained for. It costs us our freedom of choice, our common law, and ultimately our Democracy. Our nationally elected officials are micro-managing our enterprise and our society with political correctness, taxation, regulation, subsidies and a plethora of social regulations, all which classify us according to the current politically correct whim.

Chapter 10: The Supreme Court

Supreme Court rulings become the law of our whole land, affecting all people, yet no jury is present at its hearings. America’s founders saw no need for a jury, because peer juries represent people at hearings involving common law, and the Supreme Court hears only statutory (Constitutional) cases. When social issues, such as harassment, abortion, familial relationships, religion, and education, are heard before this Court, people's authority is nullified. When no jury is present, we are not being heard. Our ability to make that choice is invalidated, challenging our sovereignty.

Chapter 13: The Power of the Bill of Rights

Common law is synonymous with civil rights and civil liberties, and our control of it is the heart of Democracy. How did we get to this point? In part, the statutory law of the Bill of Rights filtered down to us on eddies of federal government funds.

The reasoning? If it is federal money, it must be held accountable to federal legal constraints; those very same laws that freed us from governmental power now bind us to it. Statutory strings hold hostage our common laws for federal funds. Lawyers and politicians are omnipresent, because the task of debasing our self-responsibility and the revocation of our common law is daunting – [they are] alchemists who turn responsibility and self-respect into excuses.

Chapter 18: Federal Encroachment on States' Rights

State constitutions were predicated on the Constitution/Bill of Rights. They reflect the powers states are supposed to have, authority the federal government is not to have.

For example, the Commonwealth of Virginia has a Constitution and a Bill of Rights. Virginia's Constitution was conceived on the premise that particular powers were left to it by the Constitution/Bill of Rights. The government in Virginia also consists of three branches and concerns itself with real property rights, infrastructure, taxation, local government powers, corporate licensure, conservation, the state militia, crime and punishment, divorce, the courts, and education.

It seems to have been forgotten that all of the 50 states have their own constitutions. The term “state” has come to refer to one entity only, the federal government.

Chapter 24: Education for a Generation

In the ideal classroom a teacher balances what must be learned with how it can be learned, a shared experience sometimes directed by unexpected tangents of student fascination.

But teachers are no longer permitted the pleasure of losing control of the context of subject matter, they must walk the narrow confines of standardized tests. As a result, classrooms are less energized and effective, and the better teachers are quitting. Adhering to the discipline of standardized tests is so time-consuming that recess has been eliminated in many school systems, strapping the overflowing minds and bodies of young energy to a desk.

The sheer wonder of education is the stirring of curiosity in a classroom, the force that enlightens as it entertains. Standardized tests should be only a companion to learning, not the driving force. Test makers, a committee sitting in an arid room, are smothering the excitement of expanding awareness. A small group of people with horizons limited by their own experience is directing the scope of education to which our children are forced to adhere.

Chapter 25: The Failure of American Education

After 25 years and 125 billion federal dollars, America ranked near the bottom when literacy levels were tested and compared with 21 developed nations. Federal control of education is more corrosive than we imagine. Schools have become more apt to teach a new socially acceptable fact than actual fact. Real information is the only basis one has for assessment of situations.

Chapter 27: The Lens of Welfare

.... the human spirit flows from nurturing, love, and accomplishment. Nearly a half-century ago the course of our human spirit was diverted by the welfare state. Our great society, our Democracy, was diverted by political social engineers, and now a poverty of values has overtaken us.

Chapter 29: Economic Manipulation

The merger of business and government is just as risky to our people as [mixing] government and religion. Millions and millions of dollars are harvested from the business community by Washington insiders, both parties reaping the benefits, so consuming political thought that alternatives to corporate demands become moot and lost to political consciousness. Money can all too easily erode integrity.

Nancy Wilkens is a Virginian with a degree in history. She has traveled widely and has three grown daughters.