The Declaration of Independence by Pastor Garrett Lear, The Patriot Pastor
On July 4th, we celebrate one of the most solemn days in American history, the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It was a transforming moment in the history of North America, which changed the British colonies into a self-determining nation.
It is easy today, 239 years later, amidst the celebratory parties, barbecues, and fireworks displays, to forget that American independence was not inevitable and did not happen overnight. It was a hard-won victory that required a struggle of more than 30 years and great personal sacrifice from many men and women. And on July 4, 1776, that victory still hung in the balance.
At first, the future citizens of the United States wanted only to preserve their rights and liberties as British citizens. The colonists strongly opposed the acts of trade enacted by the British Council in 1760, authorizing, among other things, search warrants on any pretext, and the Stamp Act of 1765, which levied heavy taxes on the colonists without their own parliamentary representation, seeing in these laws a violation of the rights guaranteed by British common law. When it became clear that insisting on their rights would not be enough, those opposed to tyranny took action on that sultry July day in 1776 and declared independence from Great Britain. The gravity of this act was not lost on any present at that meeting of the Second Continental Congress. The Declaration, as far as the British sovereign was concerned, was a deliberate act of treason and the signatories were all in danger of their lives. Benjamin Franklin quipped to his fellow representatives at the signing, “We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
The War of Independence marks a second stage, although it began 15 months before the signing of the Declaration, at the Battle of Lexington on April 19, 1775, and ended in 1782 with the signing of the Treaty of Peace in Paris. The third and final stage reached its conclusion when Congress ratified the Constitution in 1789, bringing into being a new country and a new kind of government.
A contest of principle
But the great work of the American struggle for independence was not winning the conflict of arms. The birth of liberty was a contest of principle. At each stage, the struggle for independence was met by individuals, providentially prepared with minds and spirits trained to the issues of the times. The Declaration of Independence was the standard heroically waved in this war of ideas because it annulled the idea that men were subjects to any tyrannical powers and affirmed the natural right to be self-governed. The tie to British rule was dissolved by one common act, the signing of that document. It made Americans into members of a distinct community in relation to each other, bound by the laws of nature and the Union. It was the opening to a new era in the science of government and in the history of mankind.
From “John Quincy Adams on the American Revolution,” The Christian History of the American Revolution, Consider and Ponder
Camp Constitution at the Flag Day Parade in Dedham, MA
Camp Constitution had a float at the Dedham, MA Annual Flag Day Parade Sunday evening June 14. We had campers and staff from Camp Constitution hand out over 500 copies of the U.S. Constitution, 800 Camp Constitution pamphlets, and about 6 bags of candy. We were well received by the attendees young and old alike who appreciated getting the Constitutions and candy. Along the route, we asked one question to those receiving the Constitutions: What are the first 10 Amendments called? Sadly, only a handful knew the right answer. This is why our mission is so vital, and this is why we need to start more summer camps, and more outreach events. Interested in being part of the solution? Contact us. Host a presentation on how to start a camp in your area. 
Camp Constitution at the 2015 Mass Hope Home School Show
For the six year in a row, Camp Constitution had a successful information table at the Mass Hope Homeschool Convention at the DCU Center in Worcester, MA the largest of its kind in New England with 100 vendors from all around the country. The table was manned by Camp Constitution instructor Rev. Steve Craft, the camp’s director, Hal Shurtleff, and Hal’s daughter Emily. The table offered copies of the U.S. Constitution, a 10 question quiz on the Constitution, books and pamphlets published by Camp Constitution Press, CDs, DVDs and reprints on important issues like stopping the Article V Convention, and the dangers of Common Core. As in past years, the table offered a free drawing for a free week at this year’s camp.
Camp Constitution Joins the Patriot Pastor on Lexington Green
The Men Behind the Article V Convention Movement
Camp Constitution Radio did an expose of the men, and organizations behind the latest drive for an Article V Constitutional Convention. This recent movement was launched at the Conference on the Constitutional Convention www.conconcon.org by leftist professor Larry Lessig, and Mark Meckler, the man who founded the Convention of the States. Meckler passes himself of as a conservative, and has received the support of may conservatives who should know better. This program reveals Meckler’s connections to Van Jones and Living Room Conversations, Joan Blades of MoveOn.org and the Aspen Institute. It also reveals the disturbing connections to Mike Farris and Grover Norquist. Farris, founder of Home School Legal Defense Association, is perhaps the most active proponent of an Article V Convention. Farris, who is quick to denounce any and all who oppose an Article V as “evil” and “enemies of the Constitution” has credibility in the Christian homeschool community, but few know that sitting on the board of directors of Farris’s Parental Rights group is Grover Norquist. Norquist, a member Council on Foreign Relations, was both a member and an advisor to the now-defunct homosexual organization GoProud, and has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood Glen Beck recently reported. Camp Constitution Radio is heard on WBCQ The Planet 7.490 and shows are available on Camp Constitution’s Youtube Channel
zBiNYBCgYy7N8lP0zBWX4lni4Qg&index=1
Honoring Bettina Dobbs
Camp Constitution recently sponsored an afternoon at the Rockland, ME Library to honor Mrs. Bettina Dobbs, co-founder of Guardians of Education for Maine, and author of the book “Gems From the GEM Years,” published by Camp Constitution Press and available on the camp’s on-line bookstore. Guardians of Education in Maine was started in 1978 by Mrs. Dobbs, a registered nurse and a retired school teacher, and Charlotte Iserbyt, a Camden school board member who later went on to work for the U.S. Department of Education. Mrs. Pat Truman, a member of GEM, presented a framed letter from Maine’s Governor Paul LePage to Mrs. Dobbs commending her efforts with GEM, and the impact she has made on the lives of several generations of students and parents. Michelle Truman, a school teacher spoke about the great influence Mrs. Dobbs had on her teaching career, and GEM’s co-founder, Charlotte Iserbyt reminisced about the numerous success stories GEM had on local, state and regional education issues. Here is a link to the program on Youtube:
Camp Constitution’s 7th Annual Family Camp July 12-19
Camp Constitution is now taking applications for its 2015 family camp at the Toah Nipi Christian Retreat Center in Rindge, NH. Camp Constitution is an all volunteer association first formed in 2009. The camp offers classes and workshops on a number of subjects including U.S. History, the U.S. Constitution, current events, and how to be a freedom activist.
This year’s camp instructors include Mrs. KrisAnne Hall, author and lecturer, Tom DeWeese of the American Policy Center, The Patriot Pastor, Garrett Lear, Dr. Edward Harshman of the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons, and the camp’s featured instructor, Rev. Steve Craft. In addition to the classes, the camp offers an all day field trip to the Boston Tea Party Museum and the Massachusetts State House, a hike up Mt. Monadnock, volleyball, indoor rock climbing, swimming, boating, and chess tournaments. The camp also has evening campfire, and a daily newspaper. Staff and campers participate in a community outreach event where they distribute copies of the U.S. Constitution to people in the surrounding towns. The camp’s mission can be summed by its motto “Honoring the Past…Teaching the Present….Preparing the Future.”
To download camp applications or for more information please visit the camp’s website www.campconstitution.net or call the camp’s manager Mr. Charles Everett (704) 288-7270. A link to a short video about the camp is available on the camp’s Youtube Channel:
Gems From The Gem Years by Bettina Dobbs
The latest book published by Camp Constitution Press “Gems from the Gem Years: Are You Missing in Action” by Bettina Dobbs. The following is the foreword written by Sam Blumenfeld:
GEM is indeed a gem. It
was started in 1978 by two patriotic American women—Bettina Dobbs,
a retired teacher and registered nurse, and Charlotte Iserbyt, Camden
School Board Member and later Senior Policy Advisor at the U.S.
Department of Education. They will go down in history as two Americans
who epitomize the stamina, courage, and intelligence of American women
(with the unstinting help of their husbands). This account of their work to
save American schoolchildren from the evils of progressive education will
be a lasting monument to remind future patriots what it takes to preserve
and sustain the America we love.
Those of us who have fought in this ongoing war understand the kind
of dedication and stick-to-it-iveness that was necessary to make GEM
the kind of organization that informed thousands of parents of the truth
about what was going on in the public schools. It was not easy finding out
what the educators would not have wanted us to know. So it took hours
of dogged research to get the facts and then convey them to parents who
needed to know.
GEM also aimed its informational arrows at those in power: state and local
legislators, school superintendents and administrators, and teachers. They
had to know that there was a watchdog aware of their every move and that
the public was not deaf, dumb, and blind to their mischief.
In this way, GEM did all in its power to save Maine’s children from the
worst programs the progressive educators were determined to inflict
on their students. And GEM did this without the help of those great
foundations that finance all sorts of liberal education projects. They did
this knowing that the progressives were also receiving millions of federal
dollars in grants from the U.S. Department of Education.
Indeed, it was Charlotte Iserbyt, as Senior Policy Advisor at the
Department of Education in Washington, who blew the whistle
and exposed what was going on in the department in her massive
documentary book, The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America. That
book will go down in American history as one of the most remarkable
accounts of governmental treachery ever written by anyone. Only
in America could a citizen freely expose the wrong doings of its top
officials and survive.
Which means that we can still win this war. Truth is more powerful than
deception. We now know that it was John Dewey, the socialist educator,
who concocted the plan to dumb down America by changing the primary
school curriculum. His essay, written in 1898, The Primary Education
Fetch, outlined the progressive plan in detail. And he and his colleagues
knew that it would take deception to put it over. Indeed, he wrote:
“Change must come gradually. To force it unduly would compromise its
final success by favoring a violent reaction.”
If what the progressives were advocating was so good, why would it have
provoked a “violent reaction”? The plan worked. It was put over on us
so gradually, that we did not see the complete picture until the 1970s. But
by then, our side did not have the power to stop the decline in literacy, the
increase in school violence, the massacres, the drugging of students to cure
school-induced ADD and ADHD, the increase in student promiscuity and
depression, the campaign against biblical religion and its replacement with
secular humanism, atheism, and nihilism. All of these manifestations of
the progressive education philosophy have made public education a royal,
unhealthy mess.
In April 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education
produced its famous report, A Nation at Risk. It said: “If an unfriendly
foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre
educational performance that exists today, we might have viewed it as an
act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves.”
In other words, our progressive educators are guilty of treason. And they
are still at it!
While GEM made us aware of what was going on, it could not stop the
evil, but it did provide many parents with the incentive to seek alternatives
in homeschooling and private education. Thus GEM was instrumental in
saving thousands of children from psychological and academic harm at
the hands of the progressives.
Bettina Dobbs tells the story of GEM in a way that will inspire future
patriots to pursue the truth with the same energy and devotion. Their
aim should be to restore the public schools
controlled by local school boards, elected by local tax-payers. The present
drive by progressives is to federalize the schools through the Common
Core Curriculum. Americans must oppose this imposition of federal
control over our local schools. We must also elect members of Congress
who will shut down the U.S. Department of Education. Federal control of
the schools means national brainwashing to suit the government. If “We
the People” are to prevail, we must return the control of education to the
parents.
Meanwhile, Bettina Dobbs and Charlotte Iserbyt have shown the way and
are passing the torch on to the next generation. At stake is the future of
our beloved country and the health and safety of American children. And
only dedicated patriots will be able to preserve the great legacy of freedom
bequeathed us by our Founding Fathers.
to their local communities
Sam Blumenfeld
Copies of the book may be ordered from the Camp Constitution Book Store: https://campconstitution.net/store/products/gems-from-the-gem-years-are-you-missing-in-action-by-bettina-dobbs/
For orders of 10 or more, please call (857) 498-1309
Camp Constitution Radio Debuts Monday January 5, 2015– 7:30 PM EST on WBCQ The Planet 7.490 Shortwave
Camp Constitution is pleased to announce that it will host a weekly 30-minute radio show that will air on WBCQ The Planet 7.490 Shortwave http://www.wbcq.com/ Monday nights 7:30 EST. The show “Camp Constitution Radio” will feature guests discussing a wide array of topics that concern liberty and freedom. Copies of the show will be uploaded on Camp Constitution’s Youtube Channel.
The first show “Dangers of an Article V Convention” is an interview of Mr. Peter Boyce, an instructor at Camp Constitutio
A Visit From the Christ Child
A Visit from the Christ Child
Twas the morning of Christmas, when all through the house
All the family was frantic, including my spouse;
For each one of them had one thing only in mind,
To examine the presents St. Nick left behind.
The boxes and wrapping and ribbons and toys
Were strewn on the floor, and the volume of noise
Increased as our children began a big fight
Over who got the video games, who got the bike.
I looked at my watch and I said, slightly nervous,
“Let’s get ready for church, so we won’t miss the service.”
The children protested, “We don’t want to pray:
We’ve just got our presents, and we want to play!”
play!”
It dawned on me then that we had gone astray,
In confusing the purpose of this special day;
Our presents were many and veryhighpriced
But something was missing – that something was Christ!
I said, “Put the gifts down and let’s gather together,
And111 tell you a tale of the greatest gift ever.
“A savior was promised when Adam first sinned,
And the hopes of the world upon Jesus were pinned.
Abraham begat Isaac, who Jacob begat,
And through David the line went to Joseph, whereat
This carpenter married a maiden with child,
Who yet was a virgin, in no way defiled.
“Saying ‘Hail, full of Grace,’ an archangel appeared
To Mary the Blessed, among women revered:
The Lord willed she would bear – through the Spirit – a son.
Said Mary to Gabriel, ‘God’s will be done.’
“Now Caesar commanded a tax would be paid,
And all would gohomewhile the census was made;
Thus Joseph and Mary depart Galilee
For the city of David to pay this new fee.
“Mary’s time had arrived, but the inn had no room,
So she laid in a manger the fruit of the womb;
And both Joseph and Mary admired as He napped
The Light of the World, in His swaddling clothes wrapped.
“Three wise men from the East had come looking for news
Of the birth of the Savior, the King of the Jews;
TIley carried great gifts as they followed a star –
Gold, frankincense, myrrh, which they’d brought from afar.
“As the shepherds watched over their flocks on that night,
The glory of God shone upon them quite bright,
And an angel explained the intent of the birth,
Saying, “Glory to God and His peace to the earth.”
“For this was the Messiah whom prophets foretold,
A good shepherd to bring his sheep back to the fold;
He was God become Man, He would die on the cross,
He would rise from the dead to restore Adam’s loss.
“Santa Claus, Christmas presents, a brightly lit pine,
Candy canes and spiked eggnog are all very fine;
Let’s have fun celebrating, but leave not a doubt
That Christ is what Christmas is really about!”
The children right then put an end to the noise,
They dressed quickly for church, put away all their toys;
For they knew Jesus loved them and said they were glad
That He’d died for their sins, and to save their dear Dad. 
Reprinted with permission by The New American Magazine