America and its founding principles

Our forefathers' philosophy about self-governance spawned a great blessing to the world. Our founders did not invent the original form of American government in a vacuum. They were scholars of Greek and Roman history. They pondered writings of political thinkers such as Aristotle, Polybius and Cicero. They studied writings of their contemporaries, and the principles of a "Free Republic," "Self-Governance," "Free Market Economics" and "Natural Law." Montesquieu's, Adam Smith's and John Locke's writings had heavy influence. The bedrock of all was, they were consummate students of the Bible.

Not all were "orthodox" Christians, but all proclaimed the absolute necessity of public virtue based on Biblical morality in order to secure liberty and empower self-governance. Out of the scourge of tyranny, America rose to individual freedom and self-reliance.

A prosperous new nation was born and became a beacon to the world. Today's America is a product of a totally opposite philosophy drawn from Machiavellian deception and manipulation; Karl Marx's abolition of private property rights; heavy progressive income taxation; John Maynard Keynes' "stimulus" spending of money confiscated from tax payers; Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven's treatise on how to overload and bankrupt our welfare state; and, of course, Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals," Obama's handbook for community organizing and fomenting revolution.

These are the philosophies subscribed to by our current government leaders and academic experts of today. These rotten philosophies replaced God as Lord and Master with Government authoritarian power. Thus the basis for our "rotten Common Core."

JOHN McMILLEN, Sikeston