Posted on 06/29/2002 1:57:34 PM PDT by theoverseer
God Is Not in the Constitution
We receive our rights from God. —George W. Bush, denouncing the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision that the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional because it includes "one nation under God," CNN, June 27
This decision is nuts, just nuts. —Democratic Senate leader Tom Daschle, CNN, June 26
If this decision is not overturned, we will amend the Constitution. —Democratic senator Joseph Lieberman, Fox News, June 26
In 1943, during our war against Hitler, the United States Supreme Court handed down a decision concerning the Pledge of Allegiance that created fierce controversy around the country—just like last week's Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling.
The West Virginia Board of Education had expelled children of Jehovah's Witnesses for refusing to salute the flag and stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. These deviants were to be sent to reformatories for criminally minded juveniles, and their parents were threatened with prosecutions for causing juvenile delinquency.
The majority of the Court, in a decision written by Robert Jackson—later chief American prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials—defined the very essence of Americanism as they rebuked the West Virginia Board of Education and sent those kids back to school:
"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox politics, nationalism, religion, or any other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein." (Emphasis added.)
Since then, there has been a long line of federal court decisions affirming the right of students to refuse to stand for the pledge or salute the flag—for a wide spectrum of reasons of conscience.
As I described in Living the Bill of Rights (University of California Press, paper), a number of principals and school boards have nonetheless punished students for following the 1943 Supreme Court decision, and these "educators" have been overruled by the courts.
Now we have nearly the entire House and Senate, along with an array of fashionable law professors and such dubiously anointed "legal analysts" as Jeffrey Toobin of The New Yorker and CNN, scorning the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling that the phrase "one nation under God" puts the Pledge of Allegiance in violation of the separation of church and state.
First, contrary to such instant experts as Connie Chung of CNN, the pledge has not been banned across the nation. The decision affects only the nine states within the Ninth Circuit's purview, if it is not overruled. Second, even within those nine states, a public school student can still recite the pledge, omitting God. Or he or she can recite the pledge, including God—but not as part of an officially mandated public school exercise.
What Judge Alfred Goodwin, a Nixon appointee, did in his Ninth Circuit decision was to follow the rule set by Justice Robert Jackson in 1943:
The fact that "boards of education are educating the young for citizenship is reason for scrupulous protection of constitutional freedoms of the individual, if we are not to strangle the free mind at its source and teach youth to discount principles of our government as mere platitudes." (Emphasis added.)
In his decision in Newdow v. U.S. Congress, Judge Goodwin—like Jackson in West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette—was affirming the fundamental constitutional command that the government cannot endorse any particular religion or all religions. Otherwise, like China, we would have certain preferred religious beliefs especially protected by the state.
From Judge Goodwin's decision about why including "one nation under God" is a violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment:
"Particularly within the confined environment of the classroom, the policy is highly likely to convey an impermissible message of [government] endorsement to some, and disapproval to others, of their beliefs regarding the existence of a monotheistic God."
As he pointed out, the phrase "one nation under God" was added to the pledge by Congress in 1954 to advance religion for the sole purpose of differentiating the United States from atheist Communist nations. And, Judge Goodwin emphasized, "such a purpose" is forbidden by the establishment clause, which prohibits the government from advancing religion "at the expense of atheism."
Goodwin also pointed to the "age and impressionability" of the children at the Morse School in Elk Grove, California, the site of the lawsuit. But on Friday morning, there on television were the elementary school students of that very school, with their hands on their hearts, reciting the pledge, including "one nation under God"—and to hell with the establishment clause of the First Amendment.
"Impressionable," however, is not the word for the members of the House and Senate who thronged to excoriate the Ninth Circuit. And on the Capitol steps, in a proud bipartisan display of ignorance of the Constitution's separation of church and state, the House members, hands on hearts, recited the pledge and broke into a righteous "God Bless America."
The cause of all this belligerently conformist patriotism is Dr. Michael Newdow, an atheist and emergency room doctor who also has a law degree and acted as his own lawyer. He sued to preserve the constitutional rights of his eight-year-old daughter, a second-grade student in the Elk Grove Unified School District.
For exercising his constitutional right to confront his government in court, Dr. Newdow says, he is receiving "personal and scary" threats: "I could be dead tomorrow. . . . A lot of God-loving people think that killing other people who don't agree with them is OK."
Dr. Newdow may not receive a warm, protective response from Attorney General John Ashcroft, who insists that "this decision is directly contrary to two centuries of American tradition."
An even longer American tradition is that there is no mention of God in the Constitution. The Declaration of Independence, heralded by opponents of the Ninth Circuit decision for its references to God, does not have the force of law. And the Constitution says plainly, "No religious test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public trust under the United States." We all have the right to freedom of belief, or nonbelief, in God.
There is no way you can reconcile Locke and Robspierre. Locke was a liberal. Read the opening of the 2nd treatise, he makes a very logical argument why no one has a natural right to rule. The French Revolutionaries were Liberalism-turned-Absolutism that resulted mainly from the anti-Church/Monarchy sentiments that a lot of the people held due to the abuses they suffered from said institutions. Absolutists twisted Locke's arguments and used them to justify absolutism. If you condemn 18th liberalism, you condemn the DoI and the US Constitution in the same breath. Our government in no way is a Christian government. It is founded on heresy and according to paul, direct rebellion against God. There is no way to justify the 1776 War for Independence with the Bible, none whatsoever. Read Romans 13:1-13:7. We rebelled against a "legitimate authority" that God had instituted to rule us therefore we rebelled against God in 1776 according to the Bible.
Or maybe, just maybe, America was the result of a larger movement: the ending of Judao-Christian control over Western civilization and in many intellectual and political areas a return to our roots. For 1/3-1/2 of its existance, Western Civilization was not Christian and not influenced by Judaism. It was a culture that valued reason heavily, valued aesthetics, promoted learning natural science as a virtue and believed that equality and individual rights are a key foundation of civil society. That is the reason why the West was essentially culturally dead until the Renaissance began the push toward a return to our cultural heritage.
Amendment X
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.
Where do you believe the founders took their political ideals from? It certainly wasn't from the rebirth of civilization after the dark ages, because it was at that time that men regarded sovereignty as coming from God.
They never envisioned a society in which the USSC would be the only safeguard besides the 2nd amendment and the citizen-soldier against tyrannical government policies. Be glad that the USSC can rule on any government action, that is the only check that keeps the Congress and President from conspiring successfully to turn us into a police state.
Here in America Jefferson, Franklin, and Henry, who were familiar with the writings of the French philosophers, adopted much of their philosophy and applied it to the American situation
They were influenced by Locke. Locke influenced the French Revolution. Locke was the preeminent classical liberal philosopher. He was to classical liberalism and many modern American conservatives what Marx is to Socialism.
So...was the breakdown of our constitutional system the ramifications of liberalism? I think so. I am never popular for stating this opinion around here, but I would remind folks that all authority comes from God and if authority isn't exercised in harmony with God's law, then it isn't legitimate.
You don't even apparently understand what the only alternative to liberalism is, despotism. Despotism cannot even maintain a civil society, especially not anymore. Afghanistan is a perfect example. Had we not overthrown the Taliban, the Taliban would have literally driven the majority of the country's population into extinction. Only liberal societies have become advanced and stable societies. The reason is simple, liberalism is obsessed with the means, not the ends. Liberalism is an absolute political moral code. To a liberal, unless you are having to protect individual rights from a terribly powerful opponent, the ends virtually never justify the means if the means are immoral. That is why Liberals will virtually never advocate security at the cost of individual rights. Liberal theory on rights includes the belief that when you restrict just the rights of the current batch of citizens, you restrict the rights of every human being who will be a part of society until the policy is replaced. That is part of the reason why Liberals oppose gun control, we believe that every single person who will die from someone not being able to own a gun for self-defense is a victim, regardless of whether they exist now or 1000 years from now. A child who will not be born in 2479 AD because his/her mother will be murdered because she didn't have a gun to defend herself is a victim of a gun control policy enacted today. We act with far more restraint in politics than those who claim to have divinely given knowledge because we readily admit that we cannot forsee the consequences of our actions beyond the immediate future and that as a result we must be as rational, deliberate and concerned with detail as possible. People that claim to know what God wants, virtually never exhibit such qualities.
If you hadn't posted that, I would have.
Imagine that, a direct reference to our Lord, Jesus Christ. Now there's a fixed star in our Constitutional constellation! :-)
The founders applied much of French philosophy to the American situation. You can whine all you want, but it an undisputed fact. Now, since you disagree with my assessment, can you outline why the system was corrupted so quickly, or are you going to continue rant about despotism?
Locke, Montesquiue and the Roman Republic. The DoI is a Lockean political manifesto, not a traditional Christianity-inspired document. Locke did not acknowledge any government as deriving its authority from God. He believed that all government is a social contract created by men and women for the mutual defense of their lives, liberty and property. He believed that there exists no innately legitimate authority because no one could make a legitimate claim to being Adam's heir who was alive in 1692 or today.
It certainly wasn't from the rebirth of civilization after the dark ages, because it was at that time that men regarded sovereignty as coming from God.
Decartes, Locke, Spinoza, etc derived more of their philosophical views from ancient Roman and Athenian civilization than Christian civilization. Cogito ergo sum is something that Artistotle, Plato or Socrates would have argued. Such a sentiment borderlined on heresy. Locke's insistance that government rules by the consent of the government harks back to the Athenian and Roman Republics, not the Bible.
No what I have done, is giving a real life example of how the moralists, when left uncheck, become oppressive. History is full of many such examples
"What "Kerberos" (CMU student?)"
And just so I correctly understand your attack on my character, what is a CMU student?
Jackson's words sound quite progressive and humane. But when the it was really necessary for him to stand up, he didn't - he was as cowardly as the rest of the court.
Factors in the corruption:
Have a good one.
You could not be any further from the truth when you state that the idea that people can do whatever they want when in positions of political authority is a liberal idea. That is the antithesis of liberalism. Liberalism is based on the idea that there is an absolute natural moral law established by God that essentially governs the universe as much as the laws of Physics do. As such democracy is irreconcilable with liberalism. Liberalism advocated republicanism or constitutional monarchies where Parliaments ruled, not majority rule. And of course liberalism is built on the belief that limited government confined by natural law is the only moral government. As such social contract theory is one of the foundation principles of liberalism. The idea that government can strive for a "higher ideal" is an idea popular among the enemies of liberalism such as Marx. Marx railed against Liberalism in the Communist Manfiesto because it destroyed the power of the state to make a classless society possible even on paper.
And about the people overthrowing their government part... perhaps you missed studying the English Civil War. You know, the one where Cromwell's forces overthrew the monarchy and established the Commonwealth?
I said the founders "adopted much of this philosophy.
Which French philosophers do you think influenced them more than Locke? I find your assertion interesting as it is something no one else has made that I have seen at least.
My grandfather used to teach philosophy at the university level. I think I might email this to him as an amusing real life example of the logic fallacy of false dichotomy. Hate to break it to you, this is not about Christianity versus Atheism. Deism is the logical alternative to Christianity. It is the only religion that is totally compatable with science, including the theory of evolution.
Jonathan Mayhew didn't think so. His 1750 sermon, "A Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission and Non-Resistance to the Higher Powers", has been called the spark that ignited the American Revolution.
Hate to nitpick, but "God" is "mentioned".
In the very last paragraph of the main body of the Constitution, the date mentioned for the unanimous consent of the states present is."...the seventeenth day of September, in the year of our Lord..."
Had they merely been trying to indicate a date, they would have left this out as they did when signing the Declaration of Independence.
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