Panel Rules Justice Moore Failed to Respect & Comply with Law; Judge removed from Supreme Court

[Hillary's Lovely Legs]

More to follow

[huck von finn]

Yes. It's a definite trend these days.

[Doctor Stochastic]

... resistance to mentioning intelligent design theory in the classroom or textbooks, ...

Are you claiming that the opponents of ID are all atheists? Is ID a religious topic?

ID isn't taught in science courses because (up to the current time), the proponents have been able to make a scientific case, not because of the religion (or lack therof) of its proponents.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your reply!

Are you claiming that the opponents of ID are all atheists?

Not at all. I offered it as an example of the "unfair advantage" enjoyed by atheists with reference to the "establishment clause" of the first amendment.

IOW, because both science and the classroom are restricted to the boundary of materialism - metaphysical naturalism has an "unfair advantage" over all religions in publicly funded education. That is taking the view that atheism (metaphysical naturalism) is a religion and naturalism has the monopoly.

I didn't wish to derail this thread into a crevo debate. The poster asked for examples of unfair advantage, and that one came to mind.

[exmarine]

I have no problem judging other cultures or even imposing our culture's values on them through force, like we did with the Japanese and the Nazis. Recognizing that other cultures have different rules of morality doesn't mean that I'm not willing to defend our culture. I'm also aware that those cultures would have imposed their wills on us if they'd had the strength to do so. If the Nazis had come out on top, it would have been considered moral to murder Jews. In the real world, winners get to impose their moral code on the defeated.

Since in your system cultures decide what is moral, murdering Jews can't be wrong if the Nazi culture believes in it. Your morals are not superior to those of any other culture - all are equal in your system. You may be able to overpower other cultures, but this does not speak to the issue of whether murdering jews is wrong. You cannot say objectively that murdering jews is objectively wrong, you can only say that murdering jews is disagreeable to you or your culture and you won't stand for it. This is the textbook definition of the philosophy of "might makes right." (Stalin believed what you believe.) One problem with your philosophy is that it makes no distinction between power and goodness. There is no goodness or virtue or right or wrong in your philosophy as these would require a moral standard for their existence; and no inalienable rights - no right to liberty, no right to life, right to property - no self-evident rights. The culture dictates your rights - which is not only in direct contradiction with the Declaration of Independence of the United States, but such a believe is anti-intuitive and contrary to right reason. This philosophy is devoid of any humanity and is highly dangerous and destructive as the only way to adjudicate differences between cultures is WAR.

Another problem with your view is it does not take the individual into account - each person is a moral agent who can agree or disagree with the culture-at-large and make moral decisions against the cultural norms, so each person is his own culture because each person has a set of morals that may not agree with the politically correct - like me.

Any system that is on top will claim that it represents the highest moral standard. Some will claim their superiority comes from God, others base it on ideas of racial purity or the historical dialectic. There is no such thing as an objective moral standard because, at the end of the day, the winners write history.

Cultural morals have no force - man's rules are made to be broken. In practice, each person is his own moral agent in your system. So, your system doesn't jive with real life. You can't make a person believe in another person's set of morals or in a culture's set of morals. YOu can make them say they do, but you cannot control a man's conscience no matter what you do. So might makes right is pitifully inadequate to account for personal moral codes. Where does that sense of ought come from? Why do we have it?

You are a moral relativist by your own testimony. Since you are a moral relativist, you cannot say anyone is wrong about anything - in fact, the word "wrong" is meaningless. In fact, I could kick you in the knee and steal your stereo and I could not be wrong if I thought I was right becuase you have no moral standard to go by other than the culture's and the culture's rules are meaningless to me. What are you going to say, that "Stealing is illegal?" Stealing may be illegal, but legality does not equate to morality in your system (in fact, laws can't have any moral base in your system) - it's just a set of meaningless rules enforced by brute force. Psychologists have a label for people who make up their own moral rules - psychopath.

Indeed, Osama bin Laden was absolutely RIGHT in murdering 3000 people in your system of morality because he had the might to enforce his morality on those people in the twin towers. It wasn't a terrible tragedy, human life isn't worth much to a radical muslim, and since cultures decide what is right and wrong, he was right! No way around it in your system.

Your moral system has been weighed in the balance and found wanting.

[ampat]

Having read the post headline, I'm flabbergasted that we still have any politicians left in office.

[exmarine]

Grant determined that their center of mass was Robert E. Lee himself. He was so VERY, very right.

I believe Lincoln knew this long before Grant came east. Lincoln drove this home to McClellan, Burnside, Hooker, Meade - before Grant took charge. I believe he stressed this most strongly to Grant when he arrived - so I believe this originated from Lincoln, not Grant.

[exmarine]

Grant determined that their center of mass was Robert E. Lee himself. He was so VERY, very right.

I believe Lincoln knew this long before Grant came east. Lincoln drove this home to McClellan, Burnside, Hooker, Meade - before Grant took charge. I believe he stressed this most strongly to Grant when he arrived - so I believe this originated from Lincoln, not Grant.

[Modernman]

Since in your system cultures decide what is moral, murdering Jews can't be wrong if the Nazi culture believes in it.

In Nazi culture, killing jews is fine. I don't live in a Nazi culture- I live in one that has very different rules. When our culture is threatened by a culture like that, we defend ourselves.

You cannot say objectively that murdering jews is objectively wrong, you can only say that murdering jews is disagreeable to you or your culture and you won't stand for it.

Agreed. I find nothing controversial about that statement. I don't believe in an objective standard of right and wrong. That doesn't mean I don't subscribe to a system of right and wrong.

This is the textbook definition of the philosophy of "might makes right." (Stalin believed what you believe.) One problem with your philosophy is that it makes no distinction between power and goodness.

"The strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must"- Thucydides.

At the end of the day, unfortunately, force is the final arbiter of who is wrong and who is right (just ask the Nazis- oh, wait, they no longer exist).

and no inalienable rights - no right to liberty, no right to life, right to property - no self-evident rights. The culture dictates your rights -

Agreed, again. The only reason we have the rights we have today is because the Founding Fathers were able to defeat the British and seize those rights. The only rights you have are the ones you are able to hold onto.

the only way to adjudicate differences between cultures is WAR.

That is completely true. Human history is little more than a procession of one culture eliminating another. Since there is no final arbiter of what culture is "right" or "wrong" in a given situation, the only way to settle the question is with force.

each person is a moral agent who can agree or disagree with the culture-at-large and make moral decisions against the cultural norms, so each person is his own culture because each person has a set of morals that may not agree with the politically correct

If you say so, but people who stray too far from society's rules get punished until they modify their behavior. You don't have to believe society's rules, but you do have to follow them.

You are a moral relativist by your own testimony.

Sure, but I believe that my moral system is the correct one. Nobody has been able to convince me otherwise.

Psychologists have a label for people who make up their own moral rules - psychopath.

I think that makes them a sociopath. Anyway, since you've already stated that you don't follow society's rules, doesn't that make you the psychopath?

Indeed, Osama bin Laden was absolutely RIGHT in murdering 3000 people in your system of morality because he had the might to enforce his morality on those people in the twin towers.

If Osama Bin Laden and his ilk were to win and convert the entire world to their way of thinking, they would be RIGHT, since nobody would be around to question them. The trick is to not let that happen.

[exmarine]

At least Chancellor Palpatine is consistent. He says, "Get rid of it all."

Yes, I'm sure he would like to turn the U.S. into a socialist or Stalinist state, but it will be over the dead bodies of 50 million Americans who will fight him and his secular humanist Anti-Christian brethren.

My question to Chancellor Palpatine and CobaltBlue and all others who think like them is: Why do they hang out on a forum called "Free Republic" - their worldview has nothing to do with Freedom. Shouldn't such people start their own forum, perhaps called "Communist Dictatorship" where they can pat each other on the back and plot against the Christians more secretly?

[Sonnyw]

Well, exmarine, the answers to your questions are easy, and, as you’ll see, your conclusions regarding the “misapplication” of the 1st Amendment are wrong. I’m often amazed at how many Americans argue vociferously (and with good intentions) for one position or another regarding the 1st Amendment, and yet so few of them have actually studied the history behind its development. I’m sadly reminded of the Madras schools in the Muslim world, where, instead of facing modern realities, historical facts are warped by the local Mullah to fit the current circumstances.

First, most Americans don’t realize that the Bill of Rights (the 1st ten Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which were ratified in 1791) did not apply to the states until after enactment of the 14th Amendment in 1868 (in some cases, years after that date). (Go to this link to see an 1833 Supreme Court decision, Barron v. Baltimore, which supports this factual statement: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=32&page=243)

The Bill of Rights was demanded by the states before they would pass the U.S. Constitution (which, in turn, was demanded by the economic confusion resulting from the Articles of Confederation) because they were suspicious of the power of a centralized government, and especially feared that it would supplant their state’s favored Christian sect. Here is why historians and Supreme Court justices have relatively little trouble in agreeing to what the “Establishment” and “Expression” clauses were intended to mean: because the states did not have a stake in the 1st Amendment, so they expressed exactly what they did not want their new federal government to do. (As you’ll see later, this clear intent eventually… well, it “came back to bite them in the ass,”)

The construct of the words, “an establishment of religion,” and the alternatives that were offered in the tortuous debate over those words make the 1st Amendment’s intent clear. Contributing to this well-recorded history of what was intended by the 1st Amendment is the wealth of information regarding its principle architects, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. See Madison’s 1785 Memorial and Remonstrance or Virginia’s 1785 Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom in Virginia for an in-depth understanding of just how clear our Founding Fathers were in the intent of the 1st Amendment. And, of course, you can also reread Jefferson’s famous “Danbury letter” in which he used the phrase, “a wall of separation between church and state.” (Roger Williams had beat him by nearly 100 years in developing that phrase, but both men came to their mutual conclusion after experiencing the sadness of American religious persecution).

But a thoroughly debated, carefully expressed and obviously intended 1st Amendment was OK with the states… because they did not intend that Amendment to apply to their own state laws!

Most of America’s Founding Fathers were devout Christians, which is why you see Congress printing the Continent’s first bible, Washington requiring his soldiers to attend church, Christian prayers opening Congress, and the Northwest Ordinance requiring new territories to establish a religion (an admittedly Christian one). History is quite clear on that matter. Many Atheists and Humanists are disquieted by this fact (but just as many Christians then misinterpret this comforting historical fact when thinking of applying the 1st Amendment), but the fact remains that most of America’s first citizens came to these shores to escape Europe’s religious oppression, where King’s and other monarchs enacted laws to favor one Christian sect at the expense of others. They wanted a land where “religious freedom” had “real meaning.” (Keep in mind here that these acts showing how Christian the nation was in its founding relate to either state-only issues or internal federal government issues. They don’t deal with how states treat their citizens. The Treaty of Tripoli, on the other hand, declared to the Barbary Pirates that America was “not a Christian nation,” but this statement merely reflected the intent of the 1st Amendment… which applied only to the federal government. Of course our federal government was not Christian; it was our states that were!).

But history is also quite clear on this: these pious colonists soon adopted their own form of religious discrimination, and all too often it led to persecution of others. Each colony had its favored Christian sect and the colonial governments enacted all sorts of laws to support it (“respect an establishment of religion”) and to “prohibit the free exercise” of other religious faiths. As the colonies grew and intermingled, religious strife between Christian sects grew more violent and more frequent. This gave rise to the founding of Rhode Island by Roger Williams, America’s first advocate of the separation of church and state. This devout Puritan fled Massachusetts rather than alter his position. In Virginia, religious strife among Christian sects was quite bad, which gave rise to the political careers of James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, the principle architects of the Bill of Rights and the important 1st Amendment.

(For more information on religious strife, including things like flogging the heretical and hanging Baptists and “Papists,” and what it all meant to how the country developed, see this Library of Congress web site on Religion and The Founding of the American Republic: http://lcweb.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/)

Madison and Jefferson, unlike many of our Founding Fathers, were Deists (they believed in a “creationist supreme being” but also believed that man was left to his own devices in worldly affairs; he was on is own with no more spiritual intervention). Their design for a social compact, which became our Constitutional form of Republic, sprang from philosophers like Locke and America’s influential Thomas Paine (who was an avid Atheist). All of these men frequently accepted “ceremonial deism,” benign expressions or acts that admitted to a nebulous “supreme maker.” At the same time, they abhorred the worldly practices of Christians, seeing so much violence and mayhem spring from narrow-minded religious fervor. These were men straddling their Christian heritage and the newly-emerging—and quite secular—social compact, or form of government. That’s why you can read so many seemingly contradictory remarks from them, at times indicating that they might be Christians and at other times indicating that they might be Atheists. (The “battle over quotations” from our Founding Fathers often gets quite silly, with quote rebutted by quote… but it’s all immaterial to the point of applying the 1st Amendment.)

Over the years following enactment of the Bill of Rights, most states adopted one form or another of their own Bill of Rights, especially regarding religious freedom (and speech and press, of course)… but not all. For instance, it wasn’t until the 1830’s that Connecticut finally abolished its tax support for the Congregationalist church (at last, Baptists and Pentecostals did not have to support another Christian sect!). In New York, officials were required to swear an oath to the state religion… and if you didn’t want to do it, then you could not serve in office. Laws such as these came and went within the states, persisted for years after enactment of the “federal-only” Bill of Rights.

But the clear intent of the 1st Amendment, hovering in the background, never wavered… it just never applied to state actions. They could exercise its intent on their own (as most did) but the Constitution did not require it.

Sadly, the abuse of individual freedoms reached a crescendo in slavery, and the Civil War was fought (economic reasons dominated the war-time causes, reflecting the rapidly changing face of America and the increasing complexity of managing such diversity). The very character of the nation’s population was being transformed by the industrial revolution and by the waves of immigrants with their new religious faiths (Catholics, Buddhists, Jews, etc.). In this cauldron, the 14th Amendment was born, enacted by Congress in 1866 and ratified by the states in 1868.

(See Justice Black’s dissenting opinion in 1947’s Adamson v. California for a comprehensive and well-documented history of the 14th Amendment and what Congress intended, including remarks made before Congress as it was debated. This link will take you there: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=332&page=46)

Despite the clear intent of Congress (and the individual state legislatures that ratified it), it took years before enough “good cases” came before the Supreme Court and that clear intent of the 14th Amendment was forever codified in our nation’s laws. (This is the “reverse” of judicial activism; they were slow in enforcing a straight-forward but ultimately very powerful Amendment. Constitutional historians have yet to reach a consensus on exactly why it took so long despite a well-documented record of intent).

As for the 1st Amendment, the states were still free to abridge the “Establishment” and “Expression” clauses until 1940, when Cantwell v. Connecticut was decided (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=310&page=296). Connecticut had a law restricting the religious expression of Jehovah’s Witnesses and the court said in part that, “We hold that the statute, as construed and applied to the appellants, deprives them of their liberty without due process of law in contravention of the Fourteenth Amendment. The fundamental concept of liberty embodied in that Amendment embraces the liberties guaranteed by the First Amendment. The First Amendment declares that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The Fourteenth Amendment has rendered the legislatures of the states as incompetent as Congress to enact such laws.”

So in 1940, the states’ insistence (way back in 1792, remember) that a thoroughly debated, carefully expressed and obviously intended 1st Amendment be written circled back to them. Now both they and the federal government had to abide by it.

So, it’s no wonder, exmarine, why you saw so many states guiding sectarian prayer at graduation ceremonies “into the 1800’s.” My gosh, that practice was perfectly legal… for the states… well into the late 1900’s. But don’t forget that many communities across the nation, perhaps those who had more painful experiences with religious strife, had prohibited such practices well before Lee v. Weisman in 1992 (here’s that link again: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=505&invol=577). The Court’s sympathy with the destructive influence of peer pressure on our young children wasn’t developed in a vacuum. All across this nation, communities and states—perhaps more diverse than yours—had already concluded that a clear separation of church and state best served their children’s interest. And, of course, many overreacted to Lee v. Weisman and other court decision, doing things like restricting after school Bible study, prohibiting the funding of school books for religious schools, forbidding secular teaching aid to religious schools or preventing the use of vouchers in Cleveland because some of the money went to religious schools.

But the Supreme Court soon corrected these errors in application, once again applying the thoroughly debated, carefully expressed and obviously intended 1st Amendment.

No, exmarine, you can’t blame a misinterpretation of the 1st Amendment for your perceived judicial abuses. You’ll have to blame the 14th Amendment.

And this brings me to my concluding remarks. Why don’t Christians—who claim such awful abuse because of recent Supreme Court decisions—change things! The majority of Americans claim to be Christian, so wouldn’t it be easy to pass a Constitutional Amendment (maybe a repeal of the 14th Amendment would do it) that corrects these “bad” decisions? Well…. no, it wouldn’t be that easy, because the vast majority of Americans understand this nation’s history, which began with religious peace, progressed to “home grown” religious strife and persecution, traveled through the horror of Civil War and then moved quite peacefully into a clear separation of church and state, a time when more Americans profess a religious faith than at any other time in the nation’s history (there is a correlation!). Americans want to keep the current interpretation of the 1st Amendment, so a Constitutional Amendment would never get off the ground (much to the chagrin of people like Judge Moore). Americans want their spiritual matters to blossom in the home, in church and among their close neighbors. They don’t want to return to the days when government—at the federal or state level—was permitted a say in spiritual affairs.

[exmarine]

I think that makes them a sociopath. Anyway, since you've already stated that you don't follow society's rules, doesn't that make you the psychopath?

Not at all. I go by transcendant standards of right and wrong just as our founding fathers did. Right and wrong exist independent of belief, of your belief. Stalin went by your standards. I'm glad to see you owned up to your dangerous philosophy - I just hope no one us dumb enough to put you in charge of anything.

I think that makes them a sociopath.

Let's be clear - it makes YOU a sociopath.

I hope all on this forum read your position on morality so that they can see that dangerous people like you really do exist in the world today. People like you are the arch-enemy of people who love liberty.

Agreed, again. The only reason we have the rights we have today is because the Founding Fathers were able to defeat the British and seize those rights. The only rights you have are the ones you are able to hold onto.

Wrong. The founders ACKNOWLEDGED the existence of inalienable rights - they didn't invent them. They DISCERNED them. Big difference. A difference someone with your mindset cannot possibly comprehend...

[lugsoul]

Excellent. Which means it is only a matter of time before exmarine accuses you of being a liberal bootlicking homosexual communist.

[Modernman]

I go by transcendant standards of right and wrong just as our founding fathers did.

That's your belief, based on a belief in God. It's not something you can ever prove because your belief system is predicated on a belief in God, whose existence no one can prove.

Right and wrong exist independent of belief, of your belief.

Again, that's your belief, which I have no desire to disabuse you of. However, there is no way for you to prove this point.

People like you are the arch-enemy of people who love liberty.

LOL. My love of liberty is based on cold, hard reality- the only liberty you get is that which you can wrest away from tyrants. Everything else is mere fantasy.

The founders ACKNOWLEDGED the existence of inalienable rights - they didn't invent them. They DISCERNED them. Big difference. A difference someone with your mindset cannot possibly comprehend

Again, your argument is predicated on the existence of God. That is your belief and it is not an illegitimate viewpoint. However, there is no way for you to prove the existence of God. Without that crucial link in the chain, your view of morality is no more legitimate than mine. If you can prove to me the existence of God, then and only then, will your argument be correct.

[Modernman]

Americans want to keep the current interpretation of the 1st Amendment, so a Constitutional Amendment would never get off the ground

That's what kills fundamentalists- they want to blame separation of church and state on liberals/communists/Jews, but they know, deep down inside, that the majority of their fellow Americans agree with the idea.

[MissAmericanPie]

Let's keep the ball rolling that they themselves started. Let's remove all Justices that feel they are above the Consitution of the USofA.

[Sonnyw]

I can't wait. Help from people like him (or her, I suppose) are so important to my personal development as a human being.

[xzins]

Hey, marine, I don't wanna scare you, but this is a religious thread and you got #666 post.

I think the idea of RE Lee being their center escaped everyone initially. I might be convinced that Lincoln figured it out after the Wilderness.
But all they talked of was going to Richmond, the capital of the south.

They were too afraid of Jackson earlier in the war,

[Brandon]

IANAL, but I have studied media law. Trust me on this: Michael Schiavo and Roy Moore are in distinctly different categories when it comes to libel or slander suits. Someone accusing Schiavo of murder (which some on this site have done) are taking a significant risk, both for themselves and for the site itself. Moore's critics are a lot freer in what they can say or do. It's the way libel and slander law works in this country. (You are correct, though, that Schiavo is in a different category than the average citizen -- although I think it would be comparatively easy for him to show that he has been thrust into the public spotlight largely against his will.)

[Novemberyankee]

What law did he violate? Seems like Moore violated an OPINION, not a law.

[dts32041]

You will not be able to outlaw murder, only punish it.

You go broke you pay your creditors back.