Posted on 03/28/2011 5:40:36 PM PDT by LonelyCon
Maybe you two should exchange Freepmails. You know you have at least two things in common, so far. :)
You are far from either a Jesus or a “Pharisee”!
Your system is one based on the assumption that law comes from man, and that man has the final say. That is not the Judeo-Christian Natural Law position. Hence we are not even discussing with same ontological inventory.
As for my answer, you are the one who wants to make assumptions. Given that there were two possible questions that I could have been responding to, why did you automatically assume that I was responding to the later one?
Jefferson wasn’t present at the Constitutional Convention, he was off in France at the time. Wilson was instrumental in crafting the Constitution, and was actually responsible for voting on it, as well as instrumental in having it ratified in Pennsylvania. Further, Wilson was considered to be perhaps the most learned individual at the Convention. Moreover, Wilson actually served in a position where he was directly responsible for the interpretation of the Constitution that he helped Frame. Jefferson can claim none of those things.
Moreover, Wilson’s views were shared by most of the others who attended the Convention.
I outlined a direct link between the writing of Madison of the 1st Amendment (the one under discussion) DIRECTLY to the writings of Thomas Jefferson.
What direct link can you show between what Madison wrote and any influence Wilson had upon it in writing or words?
It is revisionist history of the worst sort to dismiss the influence of Jefferson on the Constitution.
Wow you are ignorant. You act as if Madison wrote the Constitution by himself. Wilson sat on the Committee of Detail, he gave the second most number of speeches at the Convention, he had an active hand in writing and voting on the various provisions in the Constitution.
Jefferson? Oh yeah, he was in France.
Not as big a factor as divorce. Should we ban that as well?
So in other words you HAVE NO direct link between the 1st Amendment written by Madison and the writings or speeches of Wilson. Madison himself cited Thomas Jefferson and the Virgina Religious Freedom Act he penned as the inspiration for the 1st Amendment.
Oh, but Jefferson had NOTHING to do with it, well other than being directly cited by the author as the inspiration and basis.
So apparently you need to dismiss and demean one of our most influential founding fathers, and completely ignore Madison citing him as a direct inspiration in order to buy into your revisionist history.
You assume that you know God’s law and how it should be applied and enforced. You put yourself in the position that you would be the arbiter and gatekeeper as to what is and what is not God’s law. Therein lies your problem.
You can talk about God’s law all you want, but in the end it comes down to you and your supposed moral superiority as the one to decide and apply that law. I simply rejected your assumption that you are morally superior and declared myself superior to you, and by that authority will interpret and apply God’s law as I see it.
How is that different from you and your self-derived authority?
Since you obviously have assigned yourself a position of judgement based on your morally superior status, I have no doubt you think that way.
I just gave you one genius. Do you even know what the Committee of Detail was? Do you know what was involved with assuring the ratification of the Constitution? Wow... just wow.
God reveals his law to us, both through the Revealed and Natural Law. This is the position that formed the bedrock of the Western Legal Tradition for most of our History. Contrary to your assertions, there is nothing close to man picking and choosing in the way that you suggest.
Hence, as I stated before, we aren’t even discussing this with the same ontological inventories.
As such what Jefferson had to say on the 1st Amendment seems much more relevant than what Wilson has to say. At least according to Madison.
Oh, but Wilson was on the committee! And apparently in your mind being on the committee was more inspirational that actually writing what the author based his own writing on.
Delusional doesn't begin to cover you revisionist history trying to remove the influence of Jefferson from the writing of the Constitution.
I knew a very cultist pastor once who took the stoning of the woman who committed adultery story completely differently. He actually said that because we are ‘forgiven of sin’, we have the right to cast the first stone. I think that pastor may be here.
It’s painfully obvious that you have no idea what the Committee of Detail is, nor with the process by which the Constitution was drafted and ratified.
You have a quest to worship Jefferson because you think that he supports your twisted man-centered view of the law. In doing so, you pretend that Madison wrote the Constitution alone, with the help of only Jefferson. Laughably, in the annotated Reports of Virginia that Jefferson helped compile, Adultery, the subject of this thread is clearly listed as a crime (along with fornication).
I guess if you want to invoke Jefferson as the authority, you have to take adultery laws with everything else he brings to the table.
Madison wrote the 1st Amendment.
Madison directly said that he based the 1st Amendment upon the writings of Thomas Jefferson.
Thus your statement that Jefferson somehow had nothing to do with writing the Constitution is OBVIOUSLY in error.
That has nothing to do with Wilson, or the Committee of Detail. Nothing Wilson wrote or said was directly cited by Madison (who need not have written the Constitution in its entirety to be the acknowledged author of the 1st Amendment) as the inspiration for the 1st Amendment.
There is a direct link between Jefferson and the 1st Amendment. Wilson was on the Committee. As such it is obvious to all but the deliberately obtuse or the lackwit revisionist historian that Jefferson had a more direct influence on the writing of the 1st Amendment than Wilson did - and ANY statement that Jefferson had ‘nothing to do with it’ is absolutely moronic, ahistorical, and delusional.
You can keep stamping your feet, throwing a tantrum and repeating yourself ad infinitum, but it will not change the fact that Jefferson was in France and did not participate in the Constitutional convention. Nor will it change the fact that Blasphemy was a criminal offense for which people were convicted long after the ratification of the Constitution. Nor will it change that James Wilson participated in drafting, voting and ratifying the Constitution. Nor will it change the fact that James Wilson, as an Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court was in a far better position to determine whether such law conflicted with the First Amendment.
Feel free to type yourself silly in your quest to elevate Jefferson to a position that he did not hold.
Not to mention, Jefferson, your hero recognized that Adultery and Fornication were criminal offenses (something that you neglect to address in your rambling response.)
Have a nice day! :)
Do you wish, in light of Madison (the author of said Amendment) directly citing Jefferson as the inspiration for the 1st Amendment, to revise or amend your remark?
If not, it is obvious you are on a delusional quest to revise history and remove Jefferson and his Virginia statute as the inspiration for what Madison wrote.
Wilson, fornication and adultery have nothing to do with your ahistoric delusion that Jefferson had ‘nothing to do with’ the writing of the Constitution.
Can you understand that? Or should I repeat it to you a few more times?
“Many couples that go through extramarital affairs end up staying together for their children’s sake. Marriage experts say that the real test begins after the affair is over.
Only 35 percent of unions survive an extramarital affair.
65 percent of marriages break up because of adultery
Nothing can destroy a marriage faster than extramarital affairs and marital infidelity.”
http://www.infidelity-etc.com/index.php/4
My status is certainly NOT morally superior. My own level of sin is quite high — some is mortal. Yet should a man’s sin’s be his burden, in that they make him too ashamed to function, too dispirited to help others and do — in the now and in the future — what is right?
Yes, men need the ability to fail, for only in that can we appreciate success. But this is also a real world, not an ideal one. The law — the public law of a place — sets standards. A culture’s ideals, regular behaviors, habits and lists of tolerated and intolerated aberrations set another group of standards. Best when law and culture complement one another.
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