Posted on 10/15/2001 11:26:22 PM PDT by VinnyTex
Edited on 07/12/2004 3:47:49 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
What kind of a stupid ass question is that. Nobody said you were a libertarian organization.
Oh my, I shall incorporate immediately to save on taxes.
I don't give a crap whether you incorporate or discorporate.
If James Madison, author of the First Amendment, saw Army chaplainships and "national days of prayer" as dangerous in that they could be used as precedent for violating the First Amendment, then certainly putting a sign up declaring a support for monotheism on a state school is in the same category.
So what? James Madison is not King and you are not his court jester. The Constitution is explicit in what it says and doesn't say as regards the establishment of a state religion. What relgion is established by the words God Bless America?
And if you would support separation of State and School, you wouldn't have this problem
You mean if I would submit to the tyranny of a minuscule minority, thats you and your Libertarian Disorganization, I would be loving life?
I have a better idea, why don't you pursue happiness where the will of the people does not include public education?
I'll answer for you, because like a lot of people you choose to ignore that unalienable right because it's inconvenient.
Condescension, thy name is Storm Orphan.
Concerning your earlier question:
You have the right to life.
You have the right to liberty.
You have the right to the pursuit of happiness.
Riding an airplane is not a "right" - since by definition any "right" you have imposes an obligation on me; i.e., I am obligated to allow you to live, to give you liberty and to allow you to pursue your own happiness, all assuming, of course, that you have not in some way negated your rights by violating my rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
While I don't care whether you ride an airplane or not, I am in no way obligated to make sure you get a ride in an airplane. Strapping yourself into a seat on a jumbo jet may be an opportunity, it is certainly a privilege, but it is no "right," constitutional or otherwise.
The shock is that you don't understand English Mr Jefferson. Is condescension a required course at Libetarian U?
Do you oppose the posting of the phrase "God Bless America" at a public institution?
"In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for Divine protection. Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending providence in our favor and have we now forgotten this powerful Friend? Or do we imagine we no longer need His assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: ‘that God governs in the affairs of man.’ And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? I therefore beg leave to move that, henceforth, prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven and its blessings on our deliberations be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business."
Uriell is the only theocrat I know of hereabouts.
If you cannot argue with evidence, don't argue.
One of my litmus tests, yes. Confessing the Lordship of Christ is not a trivial matter of flippant profession. It is demanding -- and while your salvation is perfectly secured by Christ's atonement (for I preach no Works-Redemption), your Christian walk in life is a constant and daily Test of your fealty to the commands of your King -- and God doesn't grade on the curve.
A True Christian is one who loves the Law of God.
A lover of God's Law is duty-bound by his submission to the Lordship of Christ to be an implacable opponent of all violations of the Eighth Commandment -- such as the system of Organized Theft we call, "public schooling".
To be a true christian I must agree with you that public schools constitute a covenant with the devil and death?
Ten families live on an island.
Eight of these families "vote" to sequester the children of the community in a communal camp, five days a week, eight hours a day, where they will be indoctrinated and brainwashed in all sorts of lies and immoralities. They also "vote" to require each parent on the island to suurender a portion of their daily labors to the support of this "enterprise".
The other two families want nothing to do with this ungodly scheme, and wish only to be left alone, to raise their children as they see fit.
The eight families inform the two that they shall indeed surrender their labors to the support of this enterprise, or the eight will take up arms against them, and punish them for their refusal to support their newly-minted "law".
Modern American "christianity" responds, "No Sin has been committed!! After all... a 'vote' was taken.".
Sorry, doesn't cut it. Morality is not subject to majority opinion -- it is objective and absolute. The Eight families are attempting to enshrine into their "law" a systematic violation of the Eighth Commandment, and no "vote" can change that, or somehow sanctify it. They have asserted a Hellish idea as "law", and are now attempting to coercively impose that Covenant with Hell upon those who want no part of it.
If Modern American "christianity" doesn't see the abominable moral offense inherent to that course of action, then Modern American "christianity" can either REPENT, or it can PERISH, for all I care.
And be assured, if we do not choose the former, the latter will surely come... and has come in part already.
If it is, I think your view of christianity is just a tad on the peculiar side.
It is peculiar.
It is the uncompromising Biblical Standard of God's Law. Sadly, that standard has become very "peculiar" indeed to the modern American "church".
And frankly, this is the first time I've heard someone declare that the eighth commandment pertains in any way to the issue of public schools. Seems tenuous to me.
What is true of our ten-family island, is equally true of any and all of the sovereign States of America... and the communal indoctrination warehouses they call "public schools".
The Christian Religion does not sanctify THEFT by the occasion of its practice within the stolen property in question.
Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion & Govt in the Constitution of the United States the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history. (See the cases in which negatives were put by J. M. on two bills passd by Congs and his signature withheld from another. See also attempt in Kentucky for example, where it was proposed to exempt Houses of Worship from taxes.)
-James Madison, "Monopolies. Perpetuities. Corporations. Ecclesiastical Endowments"
Chaplainships of both Congress and the armed services were established sixteen years before the First Amendment was adopted. It would have been fatuous folly for anybody to stir a major controversy over a minor matter before the meaning of the amendment had been threshed out in weightier matters. But Madison did foresee the danger that minor deviations from the constitutional path would deepen into dangerous precedents. He took care of one of them by his veto [in 1811] of the appropriation for a Baptist church. Others he dealt with in his "Essay on Monopolies," unpublished until 1946. Here is what he wrote: "Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom? In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the U. S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion. The law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious worship for the national representatives, to be performed by Ministers of religion, elected by a majority of them, and these are to be paid out of the national taxes. Does this not involve the principle of a national establishment ... ?" The appointments, he said, were also a palpable violation of equal rights. Could a Catholic clergyman ever hope to be appointed a Chaplain? "To say that his religious principles are obnoxious or that his sect is small, is to lift the veil at once and exhibit in its naked deformity the doctrine that religious truth is to be tested by numbers, or that the major sects have a right to govern the minor." The problem, said the author of the First Amendment, was how to prevent "this step beyond the landmarks of power [from having] the effect of a legitimate precedent." Rather than let that happen, it would "be better to apply to it the legal aphorism de minimis non curat lex [the law takes no account of trifles]." Or, he said (likewise in Latin), class it with faults that result from carelessness or that human nature could scarcely avoid." "Better also," he went on, "to disarm in the same way, the precedent of Chaplainships for the army and navy, than erect them into a political authority in matters of religion." ... The deviations from constitutional principles went further: "Religious proclamations by the Executive recommending thanksgivings and fasts are shoots from the same root with the legislative acts reviewed. Altho' recommendations only, they imply a religious agency, making no part of the trust delegated to political rulers."
(Irving Brant, The Bill of Rights: Its Origin and Meaning, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1965, pp. 423-424. Brant gives the source of "Essay on Monopolies" as Elizabeth Fleet, "Madison's Detatched Memoranda," William & Mary Quarterly, Third series: Vol. III, No. 4 [October, 1946], pp. 554-562.)
And from James Madison, principal author, U. S. Constitution and Bill of Rights; 4th U.S. President, 1809-1817, we have this.
Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion & Govt in the Constitution of the United States the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history.
... Congress, in voting a plan for the government of the Western territories, retained a clause setting aside one section in each township for the support of public schools, while striking out the provision reserving a section for the support of religion. Commented Madison: "How a regulation so unjust in itself, so foreign to the authority of Congress, and so hurtful to the sale of public land, and smelling so strongly of an antiquated bigotry, could have received the countenance of a committee is truly a matter of astonishment."
(rolls eyes, shrugs.)
Oh, brother.
Ghost of Kant.
(rolls eyes, shrugs.)
You are an ignorant man. You'd better check with Uriell before you roll your eyes pal.
Assuming he is a theocrat - which I rather doubt - what is he doing to change the form of government of these United States? I hear him exhorting the church to come back to Godly ways, but how is that going to abolish the Constitution?
And there will never be a theocracy as long as our Constitution receives at least lip service.
If you're gonna be a smartass, try and spell the words correctly Mr Storm.
If you cannot argue with evidence, don't argue
Argue? LOL, you're a loser, a dim bulb. There are some good libertarian debaters here, but you're not one of them.
Let's try again.
What religion was established by the words "God Bless America"?
The people intent on removing religion from the public sphere by force of law have the models of totalitarian regimes as backdrops for their persuits. It may be feasable to remove federal funding from public schools, it is less so to remove state funding and even less to remove local funding. And the issue of religion in the public sphere does not evaporate when the sphere regarding education is moved closer to home, for the forces in opposition to any religion are concerned about the minds of the young, no matter where they are educated or who educates them.At some point that issue of religion in public life needs to be confronted and not placed on the back burner in favor of taxation or public funding of education. Governments which have given a wink and a nod to public funding of multiple religions (as in the establishment of no particular religion) have become voluntarily secular (think of norther Europe) whereas governments which have sought to eliminate religion from public life have been hit with backlashes of fundamentalism (think of China and Russia).
An important and well-stated point!
Uriel's idea of theocracy is quite different than the dictionary version. He believes we are all under God's
reign, but that any law of the magistrate that compels obedience or even recognition of God is against His wishes.
I can live with that kind of theocrat. I can't with yours, hotshot. Yours is sneakier. Low.
Another doubting thomas. I suspect many do not read Uriell's posts as thoroughly as they should. I also think that Uriell is an unabashed and unashamed theocrat. He has strong views that he believes in utterly. Have to admire that in a man.
But I don't speak for him. If he says I'm wrong and takes umbrage I'll apologise and withdraw the comment.
Aw. Reduced to spelling police status. Well, take your victories where you can.
Argue? LOL, you're a loser, a dim bulb. There are some good libertarian debaters here, but you're not one of them.
Now you're down to insults. Not much left in that bag of yours.
Let's try again.
Oh, no one would accuse of not being trying.
What religion was established by the words "God Bless America"?
Doesn't matter which one. Simple monotheism is being endorsed on public property at public expense, in
such a way that James Madison (perhaps you heard of him) said is a violation of the First Amendment.
You're wrong again, I'm not a theocrat. I don't believe in a state religion any more than James Madison did. But I do believe in a strong and vibrant first amendment with all sides having a shot at the dais in the public square. I know that is anathema to you. Tough!
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