Posted on 09/01/2003 12:46:50 AM PDT by goldstategop
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
-- First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution
What does the First Amendment really mean – particularly in the context of the current, raging debate over the Ten Commandments monument in the Alabama state judiciary building?
Federal Judge Myron Thompson, who ordered the Ten Commandments monument removed from the Alabama courthouse, believes it means no one can reference God in a government building.
Is he right? Not if you read and comprehend the clear and concise words of the First Amendment.
Most people understand it means:
the federal government has no business interfering in the individual free exercise of religion;
and that the federal government cannot declare an official, state religion. But it means more than that. The First Amendment clearly says the federal government has no business passing any law even addressing the issue of establishing a religion – not for it or against it.
Couple the First Amendment with the 10th Amendment, which says: "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." Now you clearly have to see the federal government has no power to interfere in Alabama's affairs on this matter raised by the actions of Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who brought the Ten Commandments monument into the judiciary building.
If Judge Thompson's ruling is permitted to stand, it will be the beginning of the end of any mention of God in the public square. Period. End of story.
It's amazing to me that so many otherwise sensible people cannot understand what is at stake in this conflict. It is profound. It is as monumental as any great debate this country has ever had. This is much bigger than the washing-machine-size granite monument in the Alabama courthouse.
Simply, we will not recognize America a decade from now if Thompson's ruling stands. It will open the floodgates of litigation that will strip the country of its national spiritual heritage. It will distort and destroy the meaning of the First Amendment. It will turn us from a nation established on the rule of law and self-governance to a nation ruled by men, ruled by elites.
This is big. This is very big. I do not exaggerate.
This is a national crisis. You may not think so because no one is losing life and limb in this conflict. But we are losing our freedom – and we have always sacrificed life and limb in this country's history for the preservation of freedom.
As Justice Moore himself puts it: "The battle over the Ten Commandments monument I brought into Alabama's Supreme Court is not about a monument and not about politics. (The battle is not even about religion, a term defined by our Founders as 'the duty we owe to our creator and the manner for discharging it.') Federal Judge Myron Thompson, who ordered the monument's removal, and I are in perfect agreement on the fact that the issue in this case is: 'Can the state acknowledge God?'
"Those were the precise words used by Judge Thompson in his closing remarks in open court. Today, I argue for the rule of law, and against any unilateral declaration of a judge to ban the acknowledgment of God in the public sector. We must acknowledge God in the public sector because the state constitution explicitly requires us to do so. The Alabama Constitution specifically invokes 'the favor and guidance of Almighty God' as the basis for our laws and justice system. As the chief justice of the state's Supreme Court, I am entrusted with the sacred duty to uphold the state's constitution. I have taken an oath before God and man to do such, and I will not waver from that commitment."
He continues: "By telling the state of Alabama that it may not acknowledge God, Judge Thompson effectively dismantled the justice system of the state. Judge Thompson never declared the Alabama Constitution unconstitutional, but the essence of his ruling was to prohibit judicial officers from obeying the very constitution they are sworn to uphold. In so doing, Judge Thompson and all who supported his order violated the rule of law."
I concur.
We must do everything in our power to see that Justice Moore prevails.
One thing to consider for now.
To avoid discrediting connections, note that egalitarian is a very loaded word. It's definition is filled with Marxist concerns.
[from M-W] Main Entry: egal·i·tar·i·an·ism
Function: noun
Date: 1905
[egalitarian: adj -- Date: 1885
: asserting, promoting, or marked by egalitarianism ]
1 : a belief in human equality especially with respect to social, political, and economic rights and privileges
2 : a social philosophy advocating the removal of inequalities among people.
Note too that the word dates to well after the time of our founders. I thought it dated from Rousseau and am surprised it took so long to get adapted from French to English. At any rate, our founders avoided the terrors that including egalité in their ethos visited upon the French.
To the extent that it could mean equal treatment under the law, those who coined it most likely (probably an interesting thing to investigate for clear proof) were more obviously interested in redefining justice (as in the Marxist "economic justice" the Left uses regularly} to the extent that it allows power seekers to exploit the envious and would institute laws to suit them.
Taking the famous Vonnegut short story as for instance taken to the absurd, egalitarianism seeks to be the very antithesis of liberty. Thus, even more loaded than is the word security (at least, so far :) ).
It all started when you asked me what there was to gain from chanting
I'll answer anew tomorrow.
By the way, what are you aiming for FReeperdom to most infer from your choice of screen name?
>>>> Third, if you would not have God, you will suffer having gods imposed upon you. Gaia, for instance, as the envirowacko symbol and excuse for sacrificing your lands to her priests.
>>I don't agree to this assumption. And this is the very essence of our debate.
Yes. I agree that this is at the heart. We got afield earlier. I think we should go back to your original question and then reintroduce our best arguments, but now restated as the need arises.
Now that we are more familiar with each other we may be able to reach some agreement or expose where and how we continue to disagree.
It all started when you asked me what there was to gain from chanting
I'll answer anew tomorrow.
By the way, what are you aiming for FReeperdom to most infer from your choice of screen name?
I wanted to use a noun that would somehow convey an American trait. Risk is what has made America great. It's present in Patrick Henry's fiery epithet, "Live free or die!" It's there in the massive losses we suffered on D-day. It's the Boston Tea Party, and the shot fired that was heard around the world. It's our passion for freedom above everything, and our dedication to making things better whatever the cost.
About the time I joined, some liberals and paleocons were arguing that we should stop exploring space because of the Columbia shuttle disaster, suggesting that it was too risky, too expensive, and had nothing to do with solving our social problems here on the planet. In other words, for the poor children, we had to stop these "wild" expenditures. The future could wait.
I felt that the essence of American patriotism was a strong willingness to take risks in order to make gains in science, engineering, business, and geopolitics. A lot of problems in our society today seem to be caused by people craving safety and predictability. For example, the gun control lobby has no concept of how firearms have contributed to our national history, and how critical they were in the minds of our founding fathers in establishing a society where the citizen could be responsibile for his own safety, and also able to defend the country on a moment's notice.
Taking risks is inherently American, and I find those who want to eliminate all risk to be the worst threat to our country today. The PC movement that threatens individual prayer, Anglo-centric history, traditional literature, and masculine sports in school, for example, is an avoidance of risk: gee, someone might be offended or hurt. Well, life is risky and so is freedom!
The Hollow Men was also quoted in Apocalypse Now , by Colonel Kurz.
The potential links between Colonel Kurz and this poem are fascinating given the nature of the Vietnam conflict and the rogue nature of his effort to win it. Certainly Coppola, like Elliot, is paying homage to men who refuse to live a meaningless life, who march to the beat of a different drum as it were; men like Fawkes who stood up for what he believed. I think that Coppola is pointing out the impotence of America's "limited" war in Vietnam, as well. In a strangely sympathetic way, he is pointing out the ineptitude of the "elites" who were managing the war, the ones who frittered away lives and dribbled America's power into the southeast Asian jungles.In the morning Willard is carried again to meet Kurtz. Kurtz sits in the temple and reads T.S. Eliot's poem The Hollow Men: KURTZ "We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rats' feet over broken glass In our dry cellar Shape without form, shade without colour, Paralysed force, gesture without motion;"
I agree with this sentiment in principle, but when I disagree with the courts, I may be simply unhappy with their opinions. I totally agree with the Alabama Supreme Court, the Ethics Commission, and judge Thompson in this case. But you disagree with them. I believe they are following the Constitution, but you believe they are tearing it asunder. Our republic's entire system of government is responsible for these men's appointments, and yet now that is wrong, immoral, and an affront to certain politically-active Christians. I can't agree, and for the same reasons I find Moore a demagogue, I believe this sentiment, in this particular case, to be undemocratic.
SCOTUS' assertion in June that it could ignore the very charter that limits what government can do, limits on itself, limits on Congress or the Prez or even a state school was the shot they took at the heart of our constitutional republic. That shot should have been reverberating all over the media and the internet, but it's barely received a whimper save for the comments of yours truly. Note how that legal eagles I pinged ignore it still. The same has happened on other threads for months now.
Thus I welcomed Justice Moore's challenge for reasons that may therefore be unlike anybody else's. The courts are out of control. Statist interests -- those who would want to control every aspect of our lives they don't already control -- would be let in the breach that SCOTUS just rendered this last June. It is just a matter of time unless Congress acts as it should to slap them for that.
Justice Moore's defiance of them for ignoring his demand that he his personal right to express his religious believes goes to the very meaning of the second phrase of the 1st Amendment -- but SCOTUS didn't even bother to tell him that they saw a "compelling state interest" not to let him. Yes, I know there are other issues and arguments. But this was an important one. SCOTUS chose to marginalize a key right that received extra protection by virute of having been expressly added to the very first amendment to the constitution, and SCOTUS said "no comment." You must, absolutely, see the affront those robes have thrust at all of us by ignoring his case!
Have I gotten thru to you to any glimpse yet of the importance of what Justice Moore did? That's just the beginning. He rallied people over the God issue shortly after the time the Justices acted like gods. Precisely the reason even non-believers are served well by retaining what really has always been there. Placed above our public servants was the Symbol of what they are not permitted to become. "The constitution may be the basis of our authority, but as the ultimate authority of all things governmental, we can alter that at will without going thru the formal process of Amending the constitution. After all, formalities are for mere mortals, not us gods."
I, er, pray you see that my analysis of this is not at all hyperbolic. It's SCOTUS that has gone outside the pale, who is operating unconstitutionally, and nary a word has been mentioned by ANYONE in a position to start the official checks and balances rolling. SCOTUS brought on a constitutional crisis and everybody is asleep at the switch.
That leaves it to the people to wake the lazy bums up. Justice Moore struck a chord with the people, and you, from what you've been saying, should leave him alone for now on this and take advantage of the sparks he generated to slap down the biggest crime of all. The important issue is ripe to be driven home, and you sound like the type of patriot who would agree. The courts must be curbed! There is a process. Light up the butts of our lazy congress critters and get them to work. It's important!
Work with me here, risk, to mediate a workable solution. Leave the adversarials to the courts. During the course of our inquiry, we may frequently inspect an advocate's position.>>> Perhaps, from the first, you could see the danger in the state acting as God. Would be gods see Him as competition.
But I don't believe in God, so how does this persuade me?
Surely you can see the usefulness of an ideal moral force, uninvolved in the course of human events, but providing guidance to such procedings. In fact, what I'm suggesting may be difficult for some religious people to accept, because it appears to make of God a tool of men -- a sort of Yardstick against which mere men cannot measure up. Whenever some humans attempt to overreach, God is there as a reminder to one and all. On the other hand, among the blessings He bestows upon those who follow Him, He means to be used as The Strength Who helps prevent secular humanism from being instituted as the default faith of the state. It's a compromise that makes its amenable to both religious and non-religious. That is the compromise we would wind up offering both camps. Surely is provocative, but it does provide something that may actually be workable. Guaranteed, the ACLU would lose considerably ground once this approach was adopted.
I also reject your notion that the state is taking on the role of God here.
I am not talking about this case, as I think you understand from our earlier discussion. I'm talking about keeping a handle on agents of the state in general. The would-be tyrant is, incrementally, a god in-the-making. Having God in public serves a useful purpose in putting for keeping the public servant in his place. God's presence is especially useful in democracies, or in constitutional republics where judges are wont to shred the document to suit their own purposes.The faceless bureaucrat acts much like a god. Peering out from behind a valence at your circumstances. He may or may not be moved by your pleas for mercy based on specific exculpatory circumstances. If a subservient agent is overly zealous in applying a rule, you may easily be down the creek without a paddle. The little demigod has you, or even a more defenseless citizen at his mercy. You tell him that he's not God, and he sneers back that God has no place in this society.
It's happening now, but it's apt to happen on a much bigger scale once the mention of God is forbidden.
Look risk, what I stand up for is as inherently American as Mom and apple pie. God helps all of us, even the non-believer, stand up to injustices, especially those perpetrated by the state. As a philosophical tool, not to mention an historic one not unlike what Justice Moore was suggesting without all the cynical baggage attached to him and his stand by his critics, it should be taught about like that in the schools. God has always served us well that way, even the non-believer.
Finally, this country has never been the religious hell-hole other countries have become in part because of the pluralistic nature that is represented by God every bit as much as the way God has always been referenced here.
And it has mostly been so well before the ACLU started going out of its way to generate offenses for it to use to attack His Presence with. Leftists organs such as the ACLU champion the faith that the State must be foremost. They don't want competition for allegiance to the State coming from any quarter, least of all the lowly individual with his personal friend and stalwart, God.
I'm not ready to give up the Moore issue, because it is central to our debate. We wouldn't have an argument if it weren't for Moore and his neat attack on the "removal of God from our public life" while actually making a direct attempt to place religion at the root of our legal system. Your arguments, while passionate and sincere, are very similar to his, and therefore I must continue to disagree. Few other religious icons in our public view would concern me, but his went too far, and based on the enthusiasm and aggressiveness of his supporters, it's obvious to me that he has been very successful. I want to be clear: other cases, such as the Pennsylvania display of the 10 commandments cited in Sally Flynn vs. Chester County (PA) are exemplary in terms of allowing traditional symbols to coexist with our secular form of government. As Fisher says:
"I am very pleased with this ruling because it recognizes that the Ten Commandments, while a biblical text, is a statement of historical law displayed in a courthouse where the law is administered," Fisher said. "The plaque may have religious significance, but is not an endorsement of religion because of the historical context of the display."But when Moore came to the defense of his own display, he had no such sense of compromise. His display was erected to remind the people of Alabama that his court and the laws he would uphold were resting firmly on the the 10 commandments. A typical statement by Moore to Paula Zahn on 9/2:
Well, I'm traveling around speaking on this issue because there's so many that don't understand it.You have the whole case right there, the blatant disregard for what the first amendment has come to mean to the citizens of this country over the past 227 years, the attempts to come across as an "expert" who can explain away the simple English meaning of the first amendment, and the forceful statement that our laws are based on a particular God. It's really all right there. He goes well beyond the simple notion that Christianity inspired our founding fathers and places a document from a particular sect above any thing else.
They don't understand what the Constitution says, what the First Amendment's about. What the Alabama Constitution says is very clear. And I think there's too many things going on in this country about the removal of God from our life. And it's fundamental. Actually, the organic law of our country establishes God as the basis for our justice system.
Thus I welcomed Justice Moore's challenge for reasons that may therefore be unlike anybody else's.
But to those who believe in the separation of church and state not only as a well-documented cornerstone of our nation's founding but as an ideal to which we should strive in the future, Moore's ambiguity appears as a Trojan horse. He in particular is the violator that we fear. It's not people who want to recognize the historic relevance of the 10 commandments, nor the ones who believe they were inspirational. Moore's actions were not the simple homage he and his strongest supporters have tried to suggest. I knew that the first time I heard him speak to reporters on CNBC. It's outlined plainly in the Ethics Complaint (In re: Moore, Suspension Of Chief Justice by Ala. Ct. of the Judiciary, Aug. 22, 2003). Instead of saying something acceptable such as, "We are a nation of mostly Christian people, and the 10 commandments have inspired our respect for law and traditional morality," he tried to slip the idea that the Judeo-Christian tradition is the basis for our legal system.
You may ask the question, "Well even if Moore went too far in the minds of secular Americans and Americans who may be Christian but fear the corruption and tyranny that can come from the conjoining of religion and government, should the display be removed just because his justifications were faulty and unconstitutional?" That I cannot answer, but the courts can, and Americans must live by their decisions. This is why I keep bringing up the adversarial nature of our courts. And because I believe that Moore intentionally crossed these well-established lines with this particular display, I can't argue against his memorial's removal. He tried to trick the American judicial system, he nearly fomented a violent revolt over a lie, and so I don't mind that his rock has been removed. Let some future Alabama judge with more honorable intentions and justifications come forward and try to follow the example of Chester, Pennsylvania.
Justice Moore struck a chord with the people, and you, from what you've been saying, should leave him alone for now on this and take advantage of the sparks he generated to slap down the biggest crime of all.
No, he struck a chord with the people by trickery. He slipped an unconstitutional linkage between government and religion into a simple display of a religious icon. When he met resistance, he slipped into a defense that called forward the naive but devout and asked them how they could abide one of their most highly-revered symbols of justice being thrown out of the public arena. Effective, simple, and dangerous.
I find two issues with this point of view. First, inherent in your statements is the assumption that without a metaphysical basis, our legal system would devolve into something horrible like a Maoist, agrarian revolution; we've heard this again and again in defense of Moore. Second, you're arguing that nonreligious people, or people who believe in a different metaphysics than you can be comfortable with your religious prophylaxis.
First, religion is no defense against inhumanity. I needn't go into detail on that point, as it could inflame the argument. The European Enlightenment was a direct result of the Protestant Reformation, which liberated human beings in two significant ways:
To answer your second point, it's presumptous to assume that an irrascible nonbeliever like me would be content to apply a religious model to my government for your sake. Moreover, a Hindu or an animist might also feel uncomfortable with such a model. The point is that now that we have a government that is based on reason and discourse, people are free to bring their own personal convictions to the public arena when they advocate policy, but they are not free to imply that those policies are only based on their own metaphysics. Your metaphysics are yours, they're not mine, and our laws should be based on what we can agree.
Again, to assume that human beings are incapable of deriving rational and just laws as individuals (who may or may not be Christian) is to assume the worst. It is a pessimistic notion that has no place in a democracy like ours. Put God and morality into your personal life, speak about it often and well in public, but don't expect all Americans to agree with you, or to honor your conviction that without Judeo-Christian beliefs, we would have no basis for our freedoms or justice.
I didn't finish typing that sentence: it should have ended "in strictly religious terms." I meant to say that laws regarding religious behavior fell by the wayside. In other words, the first four commandments were left to individual citizens to uphold or not -- on their own.
One of the first sentences in the piece, and it is completely and demonstrably wrong. I can walk into any federal building and utter the word "God" as many times as I want to with no legal penalty or sanction. (I might get a few funny looks from passersby, but that's about it). However, if I were to drag a hunk of rock with the Ten Commandments carved on it into the center of the same building, I would be hauled off to jail (or the looney bin), and rightly so.
Thompson correctly ruled that Judge Moore's prized big hunk of rock could be construed as endorsement by the state of a particular religion, which is proscribed in the First Amendment. Moore is an agent of the state, took an oath to uphold the law as an agent of the state, and was acting under the color of his position as an agent of the state when he plonked said hunk of rock in the courthouse. Moore deserves every bit of criticism and scorn being heaped upon him. He violated the oath he took and does not deserve to hold the position of public trust that he does.
The article is hyperbolic garbage.
I don't think I addressed this well. To argue that the Chester county, Pennsylvania case falls into this category makes sense. But to argue this given the fact that Moore tried to slip God into government is harder to accept. His was a statist position: the state tells us who God is and requires that we follow his law -- in Moore's world view.
SCOTUS chose to marginalize a key right that received extra protection by virute of having been expressly added to the very first amendment to the constitution, and SCOTUS said "no comment." You must, absolutely, see the affront those robes have thrust at all of us by ignoring his case!
In the case of Chester, yes. Not where Moore goes beyond personal expression, however. In my view, the citizens, a civil servant, anyone who does not argue that a religious icon is binding on the entire political body -- should be able to defend such a public display to the ACLU, the fictional "Aethists of Alabama," or anyone else. A Wiccan may come along and demand equal opportunity, however. In fact, the Wiccan's symbols might bother someone enough to ask that they both be removed as a nuissance, but that is another issue.
For example, Christmas nativity scenes. As long as they're not exclusive. But if a Nativity scene appears at the behest of a civil servant who says on the 5'oclock news the same night: "Citizens of Chester: behold the nativity. I place it there to remind you that our county's moral foundations are are fundamentally Christian!" Then we have a problem with the first amendment. This is what Moore did, but with just enough ambiguity that he might have succeeded if he hadn't been confronted by an Alabaman in court who rightfully felt he had overstepped his bounds.
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