According to Senator Rand Paul, "We prize our Bill of Rights like no other country.  Our Bill of Rights is what defines us and makes us exceptional."

We SHOULD prize our Bill of Rights, and the important liberties it guarantees, but do we really know what it says?  Are we prepared to protect our rights when they are in jeopardy?  

Do our children understand and value their precious legacy of liberty?  Are we raising a generation that knows that their rights come from God, not from government?  Do they know what their God-given rights are?  Do they have the courage and character to defend them?

These videos give a great introduction to the Bill of Rights.  They are good to watch and discuss with our families.  These are basic principles we need to understand and teach to our kids!

Each video lasts about 9 minutes.

"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, 
it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government -- 
lest it come to dominate our lives and interests." 
 ~Patrick Henry

"We prize our Bill of Rights like no other country. Our Bill of Rights is what defines us and makes us exceptional....

"Yes, the filibuster was about drones, but also about much more. Do we have a Bill of Rights or not? Do we have a Constitution or not and will we defend it?"

TRANSCRIPT OF THE ENTIRE SPEECH:

I have a message for the President, a message that is loud and clear, a message that doesn’t mince words.

The message for the President is that no one person gets to decide the law, no one person gets to decide your guilt or innocence.

My question to the President was about more than just killing Americans on American soil.

My question was about whether Presidential power has limits.

Lincoln put it well when he wrote, “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man, give him power.”

President Obama who seemed, once upon a time, to respect civil liberties, has become the President who signed a law allowing for the indefinite detention of an American citizen.

Indeed, a law that allows an American citizen to be sent to Guantanamo Bay without a trial.

President Obama defends his signing of the bill by stating that he has no intention of detaining any American citizen without a trial.

Likewise, he defended his possible targeted Drone strikes against Americans on American soil by indicating that he has no intention of doing so.

Well, my thirteen hour filibuster was a message to the President.

Good intentions are not enough.

The presidential oath of office states ‘I WILL protect, preserve, and defend the Constitution,’ NOT ‘I intend to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution.’

Mr. President, good intentions are not enough. We want to know, will you or won’t you defend the Constitution?

Eisenhower wrote,

“How far can you go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without?”

If we destroy our enemy but lose what defines our freedom in the process, have we really won?

On MARCH 19, 1590, a boy was born in England named William Bradford.

At age 17, the same year Shakespeare produced his play, "Anthony and Cleopatra," William Bradford fled from England to Holland with the persecuted Pilgrims. 

At age 30, he sailed with them to America. 

In 1621, William Bradford was chosen governor and reelected 30 times till his death.

The main history of the Pilgrims was William Bradford's journal, published as, Of Plymouth Plantation, 1650, in which he wrote: 

"Since ye first breaking out of ye lighte of ye gospell in our Honourable Nation of England...what warrs and opposissions...Satan hath raised...against the Saints...by bloody death and cruell torments...imprisonments, banishments...

What could now sustaine them but ye spirite of God and His grace?...

Ought not the children of these fathers rightly say: 

Our fathers...came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in this wilderness; but they cried unto ye Lord, and He heard their voyce." 

William Bradford continued: 

"All great and honourable actions are accompanied with great difficulties...

Out of small beginnings greater things have been produced by His hand that made all things of nothing...and, as one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone unto many, yea in some sort to our whole nation; let the glorious name of Jehovah have all the praise."

Learn More:  2 Minute Video and Link to William Bradford Resource and Activity Book

“The world is coming undone and the world is splitting into different camps. Those who understand individual liberty, that it is not about the collective, that the only way to truly bring the collective up is for individuals to empower themselves and to behave like men determined to be free. 

"When you understand what that means, it means that you are someone who obeys the law, that you are somebody who does not pick the pocket of your neighbor, that does not, does not push off responsibility to others, that you take responsibility for your action and you insist that those around you also take honest accounting and responsibility for what they have done. And that’s the way you get to be free.

“But the other group that the world is splitting off into is one that will take anything. They are a drowning swimmer and they will pull you under the water....

“Please, do not tell anyone. Do not panic. There’s time, but this is a warning that you should see. Deepen your preparation and keep it to yourself."  ~Glenn Beck

In his remarks at CPAC 2013, Dr. Benjamin Carson said that if someone wanted to destroy the United States, they would:

1.  Create division among the people.

2.  Encourage a culture of ridicule for basic moral principles.

3.  Undermine the financial stability of the nation with crushing debt.

4. Weaken morale and funding to  destroy the military. 

He then pointed out that those are the very things that are happening right now.

LOVE this! Tim Harris owns his own restaurant -- where hugs are on the menu! The sign says, "Tim's Place: Breakfast, Lunch and HUGS!" 

Tim has Down Syndrome -- and is, we are told, the only restaurant owner with Down Syndrome.

Greetings guests at the door with a hug -- you can see the joy he gets from serving people food -- and from giving a little bit of love!

As Tim says, "We serve breakfast lunch and hugs: hugs are the best part!"

The Albuquerque restaurant calls itself "the world's friendliest restaurant!"

Owning a restaurant has been a lifetime dream: "When he was 14 years old, he said he wanted to own a restaurant."

Tim sums up his philosophy of being a restauranteur -- and life: "Food is food. I give them a hug and then they all feel better!"

Check out Tim's website: World's Friendliest Restaurant

Immigration is a difficult issue—there’s no getting around that. How do we encourage and improve lawful immigration, while deterring unlawful immigration?

David Addington, head of Heritage’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, takes on this question just as the Senate’s “Gang of Eight” nears a deal on a new bill. He writes:

The U.S. should reform its immigration system through a careful, step-by-step process that welcomes lawful immigrants, encourages their full participation in American life, and expands opportunity. The process also must prevent unlawful immigration, encourage respect for law, secure America’s borders, and preserve America’s sovereignty.

Heritage has described this step-by-step process for a problem-solving approach to immigration issues, such as reform of the lawful immigration system, visa reforms, lawful temporary worker arrangements, and strong border and interior enforcement.

Broad federal declarations usually don’t work, and a one-size-fits-all immigration policy is not the way to go.

It’s also important to remember why people come to America. They are drawn by the promise of freedom and the chance to make a better life for themselves and their families.

The best thing we can do for all immigrants—past and future—is to make sure that America remains a place where people want to come. America must be a place where citizens are protected and laws are enforced. Respect for the law is what makes individual freedom possible; the Constitution safeguards our freedoms.

Immigration policy that extends amnesty to unlawful immigrants goes against that respect for the law that makes America stand out in the world. As new congressional plans emerge, Addington warns that people who knowingly entered or remain in the U.S. unlawfully should not receive amnesty:

Amnesty comes in many forms, but in all its variations, it discourages respect for the law, treats law-breaking aliens better than law-following aliens, and encourages future unlawful immigration into the United States.

America needs—and wants—immigrants to enrich the nation. At the same time, we have to protect the nation’s borders and its sovereignty. Workable immigration reform will balance these necessities without compromising the American values that attract immigrants in the first place.


LEARN MORE:

Encouraging Lawful Immigration and Discouraging Unlawful Immigration

Read the Morning Bell and more en español every day at Heritage Libertad.

Note from PatrioticMoms.com 

Few organizations in America do as much good as the Heritage Foundation.  
PatrioticMoms.com is grateful for permission to repost articles from their site. 

Part of Ronald Reagan’s brilliance was not apologizing to critics. Instead, he explained confidently and cheerfully why limiting government is a better approach than growing it, and would produce better results for normal Americans. It drove crazy the sophisticates who were sure they were way smarter than him.

It also cheered millions of Americans who knew Reagan was right. Before and since then, however, they often despaired of finding a leader who could go toe to toe with the liberal establishment, defend conservative principles, and not sound either like an accountant extolling a strong balance sheet or a Sunday school teacher calling sinners to repentance.

In 2012, the liberty movement searched from candidate to candidate, looking for a standard bearer they could rally behind—someone not just with exceptional skills and resume, but with a Constitutional vision of freedom and limited government, and the ability to make a comfortable, appealing case that touched average Americans.

But a new crop of leaders is rising. The field for 2016 could present the opposite “problem;” with several able, articulate, and philosophically strong possible candidates. Instead of a brutal triage that culls the field by blemish or blunder, leaving a last man standing, the primaries might be a race for distinction. The winner could be the one who most impresses and inspires, and becomes the best choice rather than the survivor.

Recent buzz surrounds Rand Paul, the doctor-turned senator from Kentucky, who electrified the nation and caught the administration flat-footed with his largely impromptu 13-hour lesson on why the President deciding whether he can kill Americans in America is a bad idea. Paul easily and lucidly shared the constitutional principles that define a different America.  Paul combines his father’s libertarian outlook without some of crazy-uncle persona Ron Paul couldn’t quite shake.

Expectations are high also for Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, who fluently explains we don’t need different ideas; the idea is America, and it still works. Rubio electrified the GOP convention last summer with a mix of idealism and practical policy rooted in Constitutional philosophy. He ascended to the speakership of Florida, a major, competitive state and GOP must-win at the tender age of 35. It appears Rubio’s gifts are polished by the skills and tact to lead older, ambitious politicians without putting them off.

Eyes also are upon the phenomenally able governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal. The son of Indian immigrants, Jindal has been leading and reforming an array of large state institutions since his early 20s. His mix of boyish earnestness, wonkish numeracy, and American fundamentals are meeting their sternest test as he pursues reform in a state famous for corruption and hostility to Republicans. His popularity and approval ratings suggest he’s passing with margin to spare. Critics say his Republican response to the State of the Union a couple years ago fell flat. But people said the same thing about Bill Clinton’s convention keynote four years before he became president.

Another newcomer that turns head hard is Texas Senator Ted Cruz. Youthful, handsome, and a former Supreme Court law clerk with a Harvard pedigree, Cruz displays brains to match anyone, with finesse to drive his points home. His encounters with Eric Holder and Dianne Feinstein among others have left liberals fuming and conservatives cheering at all the weapons their team can put on the field. Like Rubio, Cruz’s heritage can make him a target of liberals who fear a high profile Latino’s appeal to Hispanic voters. The attacks can be low and personal. Cruz shrugs it off and keeps punching with a smile

Americans recently discovered a potential new weapon for reform and liberty at the national prayer breakfast. African American Ben Carson, head of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University and perhaps that field’s most distinguished practitioner electrified the nation with plain talk about values, the problems we face, and how Washington’s policies make them worse.  It was a gutsy punch out of the president sitting right behind him, carried out with surgical precision that never directly named him.

The performance from a man whose very life story rebukes the government and dependency-centered society that Barack Obama wants to create had many, including the Wall Street Journal Editorial page, calling for him to seek national office.

Paul Ryan in the House retains respect and affection for his substantive role in the presidential campaign, for his unparalleled knowledge of the budget, and for his successful confrontations with both the president and the vice president.

So, the winter of the liberty movement’s discontent is already warming into the green shoots of spring hope. Some or most of the candidates mentioned might not run. The nominee might be someone different.

The important thing for the grass roots and the national party is that there are strong players on the field. It’s enough to get excited about, and motivated voters beat discouraged voters every time.

Every person who loves America needs to understand this message.  

We stand at the crossroads of history.  All that we hold dear is in jeopardy.

The Constitution and the precious liberties it guarantees are about to be lost.  Our lives and the lives of our children will be forever changed.

Now is the time to do everything in our power to save the land we love.  We are fighting for the life of America, and nothing less!  

Dear Friend,

The gun grabbers in Washington have launched an all-out assault on our right to keep and bear arms - and they're hell-bent on destroying the Second Amendment.

And to add insult to injury, Barack Obama is preparing to use Executive Orders to RAM through whatever the gun grabbers can't get through Congress. 

Well, America doesn't have - nor need - a King. 

And as I told Sean Hannity, I'm prepared to do everything in my power to stand up to "King Obama" and stop his all-out assault on the Second Amendment. 

Despite his "King Complex," President Obama doesn't have the Constitutional authority to write legislation. 

And I've introduced the "Separation of Powers Restoration and Second Amendment Protection Act" - designed to nullify any anti-gun Executive Order issued by Barack Obama. 

Unfortunately, this arrogance is nothing new when it comes to Barack Obama. 

When Congress failed to ram through the radical environmentalists' cherished "Cap-and-Tax" scheme, Barack Obama attempted to use regulatory fiat to implement it. 

From invading Libya without the approval of Congress to the so-called "Dream Act," President Obama has a history of abusing his Executive powers to do whatever he chooses. 

Our Founders fought a revolution to STOP this kind of madness. 

And if you value your God-given right to keep and bear arms, it's absolutely critical you fight back by signing your Second Amendment Protection Pledge IMMEDIATELY. 

America isn't supposed to have an imperial President. 

And the Founders created a government based on separation of powers to prevent the President from ever becoming a king. 

As Montesquieu said, "there can be no liberty when you combine the executive and legislative powers." 

But Barack Obama disagrees - and he's garnered so much power and arrogance he believes he can do whatever he wants. 

You and I must stop him....

Together, you and I will stop the assault on our Second Amendment freedoms. 


In Liberty,

Senator Rand Paul