Um, I didn’t clear the edit box properly. My bad. Here’s the post the way I meant it:
Thank you kindly for your prompt and courteous reply. It speaks volumes. Now that I understand you are a papal monarchist, it all becomes quite clear. You are apparently still laboring under the amazingly wrong impression that our Republic is founded on the faulty foundation of Enlightenment rationalism, that the Founders were all deists or atheists using god talk as a mere motivational tool, whilst true believers such as yourself knew all along the lack of a Roman foundation predicted ultimate failure. Something like that?
I understand your confusion. It was a difficult and complex transition. However, I would think you would recognize the common ground here. Augustine and Aquinas laid a good foundation in natural law; Locke merely built upon it (and others, hence the awkward mixture you probably find so distasteful). There’s your deeper bedrock for the positive principles of our Declaration and its natural compliment, the Constitution.
But I think the real problem you have is those pesky Reformers, those crusty old Scottish Presbyterians, who, in their fierce adherence to Biblical principles, rejected the papacy and adopted instead an ecclesiology that was fundamentally a constitutional form of church government, which asserts without apology that *all* humans are under the law, whether kings or popes or vandals, because only God is God. This is the fire that burned the path to our own Constitution, and it is the secret of its strength.
And if it is truly your intention to “watch the Final Four” while your fellow citizens are whisked away one at a time in the dark of night for a rebellion of conscience against the dictator de jour, I have no need of inquiring what principles you would offer in the place of those our Founders gave us. Thank you for your time.
“those pesky Reformers” = heretics
“those crusty old Scottish Presbyterians” = spiritual rebels
“their fierce adherence to Biblical principles” = their prideful adherence to their own personal interpretation of Scripture
But this is pointless. Believe whatever you want, FRiend.
EXCELLENT POST.
THX.