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To: bvw
This is just bull manure. A right is a right, a duty is a duty. Do you think Thomas Jefferson thought "your right to liberty is a duty to protect that liberty and use it to good -- to godly -- ends?" First off, define "godly." Jefferson was not a Christian. He did not believe that the Bible was the divine revelation of God. He did not believe that Jesus was the son of God. He did not believe in miracles or in Heaven or Hell. He believed that God started the universe but from then on did not intervene. He wrote and believed in "Nature's Law" and "Nature's God." He also believed in freedom, freedom of religion, freedom of thought, and freedom to decide one's own destiny. "Godly ends." Only in your revisionist dreams. A right is a duty? Yes and I suppose you could claim that black is white if you felt such was needed to win your argument, but that wouldn't make it right. A "right" is a "right." A "duty" is a "duty." A right to life is not a duty to live. A right to pursue happiness is not a duty to pursue happiness. A right to liberty is not a duty to be free. Do we all have a duty to protect these rights? I think so if we want to live in a decent society. Do we have a duty to do something like pursue happiness, or be "godly" as you say? I don't think so. Do we have some duty to live in agonizing pain? Maybe that is a duty in your religion. If that is a duty in your religion, then abide by your religion. But do not impose your religious duties on anyone else.
905 posted on 01/17/2006 8:18:26 PM PST by TKDietz
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To: TKDietz
Rights and duties are not seperable. They are distinct: there is a right to do this, that comes with a duty to do that. But you do not have a "right", without some associated and inseperable duty.

I put no beleifs into Jefferson's head as you seem to have done. The historical record, iirc and fwiw, shows that Jefferson was Christian at times and Diest at times. What I wrote of "godly" duties was not Christian, it is more fundamental.

The Declaration is signed by many, Jefferson may have been its editor and main author, he is not the sole author, the expressions and statements in it represent a consensus. They represent the consensus of legal, ethical and philosophical thought at the time of Revolution and the Constitution. The ideas of fidelity to and foundation in G-d's law is found in them and in such primal referenece sources of that time as Blackstone.

Those were times when hebrew was taught at the Colleges as a basic requirment. You live and speak from a later timte when there is no hebrew, nor even greek, nor even latin, were even the basic english of college graudates suffers from lack of teaching.

Your anger is found in that I think, you scream out of being tossed in with the fallen and ignorant in this generation.

938 posted on 01/18/2006 4:57:41 AM PST by bvw
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To: TKDietz
A right to life is not a duty to live.

Precisely. Well put.

965 posted on 01/18/2006 8:18:54 AM PST by highball ("I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have." -- Thomas Jefferson)
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