Free Republic

So now you’re going to attack our founding fathers is some misguided attempt to bolster your abortionist candidate?

Who said I'm attacking them? First of all, much of this is well-known history. However much you respect them as founding fathers, it is inaccurate to present them as moral exemplars. Frankly, the fact that not all were saints gave them a far better understanding of humanity than they would have otherwise. It leads me to respect them more than I would otherwise.

As for abortion in general, my objection is not to you being down-the-line pro-life. My objection is to defining a religious, morality-based conservatism as the only true conservatism.

It is not. There are other types of conservatism and other concerns that people have. And, frankly, my personal study of history leads me to consider religious-based conservatism to be rather out-of-line with the intent of the Founding Fathers.

Quite possible.

What can I say. Rudy is my first choice. Fred is close second. I’ll defend ‘em both. 8>)

4 month old??? Thats weird. So now he has a trophy wife and a 4 month old. Woman are going to love that./s.

Well... there is a 17 year gap between his divorce and his second marriage and he didn't meet her until more than 10 years after his divorce, so I don't think that's going to be much of a problem.

As the righteous few suffer the temporal judgements laid upon the unjust many, while waiting the blessings of eternity, so also the unjust few enjoy the temporal blessings poured upon the righteous many while waiting eternal destruction.

There is a huge area between those two, however, in which I think the U.S. has always fallen. To borrow Hamilton's phrase with regard to a potential wife, we are a nation that loves God and hates a saint.

That is how we were created. Our strength fails when we adore saints, as much as it fails when we stop loving God.

Fortunately for our Republic, Almighty God chose to use those individuals in furtherance of His Will, and the establishment of the American Republic was clearly part of that Will. Our willingness or refusal to do that which is spelled out in Chronicles 7:14 ["If My people, which are called by My Name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land."] will determine if this Republic will survive or not.

I agree with you that there seems to have been some divine providence behind the creation of this nation -- certainly in the way that such different geniuses could be brought together in one time and place.

However, the men who put it together were not universally men who "turned from wicked ways" -- at least not as modern religious conservatism would define "wicked ways." For that matter, in Second Chronicles 7:14, God was responding to Solomon, another divinely-guided rulers who seemed far from perfect morality.

(For that matter, it's an open question as to whether that passage in the Bible refers to nations in general or only the kingdom Solomon ruled.)

***I’m pretty sure the same words were there when I signed up in 1998 and were there when you signed up in 2000. I don’t think the site has changed, nor has Jim Rob, nor have socons for the most part. Perhaps it is your perpsective that has changed.

You have a point. I acknowledge that I've reversed the normal -- or, at least stereotyped -- process and actually become more culturally relaxed, since I married and, particularly, since I became a parent.

That said, the atmosphere in the GOP and conservative movement have changed. In 2000, Clinton had been President for 8 year and Gore was on the verge of taking that office. There was more of a "We're all in this together" vibe.

Six-plus years into Bush's term of office and the divisions that were plastered over in common cause more than beginning to show. Everyone has certain issues that they think should be put first and that the other guys' issues should be the ones compromised on. And that's just where there's general agreement.

Where there is disagreement -- as there is between religious conservatism and leave-people-alone conservatism, what starts as a crack can become a schism. The plaster hiding the differences can only stretch so far, before cracks show.

It's the natural course of all political movements, I guess. So maybe it's not a matter of either the site or my perceptions changing, as much as politics in general have changed.

I feel i have science on my side here. The law is not the palce to debate fine points of metaphysics, so we need to go to science and science says a human is a human from conception.

I agree with you to a point on that. If I were an atheist, I would be pro-life.

Whether you have a right to keep and bear arms is currently being debated...does that mean you might not have that right?

You're missing the point. The debate on abortion is not -- or ought not, at least -- be a debate over whether a right exists. It is a debate over at what point in development does a fetus have rights.

What I’m driving at is that many of the founding fathers did not practice what would be considered “god-fearing” morality.

Benjamin Franklin fathered a child out of wedlock. His common law “marriage” to Deborah Read was not really legal. Her husband had abandoned her and fled to Barbados, but he was still alive when she took up residence with Franklin. Apparently, there was no divorce. Franklin apparently carried on amours, when stationed in London (and still married), before the Revolution, as well as when Ambassador to France.

Gouverneur Morris, who wrote the final draft of the Constitution and is the probable author of the Preamble (”We, the People...”) cut a wide swathe through the women of the U.S., as well as France — there was one woman who was simultaneously a mistress of both Morris and Talleyrand.

Alexander Hamilton, when describing his ideal of a wife, wrote, “She must believe in God and hate a saint.” Whether or not his wife was such a woman, he found time to have an affair with her sister. Another affair with Maria Reynolds wrecked his political career — and he paid her husband off in attempt to keep it secret, while continuing the affair — but it didn’t keep him off the $10 bill.

As a young man, James Madison nearly got thrown out of The College of New Jersey (now Princeton) for writing Ribald verse. As Secretary of state, he hired prostitutes for an delegation from Tunis, who was demanding “concubines.” He paid the prostitutes out of state department funds and listed it in the books as “Expenses for foreign intercourse.”

Certainly there were founding fathers, who were more up to moral snuff. George Washington, most likely (though his growing hemp might be frowned on today) and John Adams come to mind.

But to cast the founding fathers as universally — or, even, in the main — as exemplars of strict morality is historically incorrect. They were men of a wide variety of habits, practices, and religious beliefs. Many were, shall we say, men of the world.

What they had in common was a genius understanding that no man has perfect understanding of God. And that, therefore, He who created the universe created Humans with rights, so that one man would not be bound by the state to commit another man’s error.

These men, various in morals and practice, managed to write the greatest collection of political writings and construct the greatest political system that mankind has seen — perhaps the greatest that mankind has ever seen. But they did not do it, because they were of one moral accord. They did it because they recognized than no man is perfect in understanding.

So it was that Gouverneur Morris wrote the Constitution. So it is that James Madison is the Father of the Bill of Rights.

It is admirable to live a religiously moral and conservative life. It is necessary that such a morality be preached — if for no other reason than that the widest range of ideas and ideals may be presented for consider.

But to demand that a conservative religious morality be basis of American law is not conservative in a political sense. And it is definitely not conservative in an American sense.

Well let me help you out with that, America was founded on Judeo-Christian principles, by God-fearing patriots who placed their trust in the Almighty,

Define "God-fearing." That is, how did "God-fearing" impact their beliefs and behaviors?

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (Prov. 1:7)

Which tells me nothing about how you see the Founding Fathers demonstrated, through their acts and behavior that they were "God-fearing."

Ripping a small child's limbs off is not conservative. neither is tolerating it, considering it a sacred right equivalent to freedom of speech, or promoting it.

I said earlier that the question of abortion is a question of when the fetus becomes a human with the rights inherent.

Now, my personal belief, is that happens sometime between first brain activity (at about 40 days) and viability (sometime around 21 weeks). Which means that, at the least, partial birth abortion and other late term abortion should be banned.

Well let me help you out with that, America was founded on Judeo-Christian principles, by God-fearing patriots who placed their trust in the Almighty,

Define "God-fearing." That is, how did "God-fearing" impact their beliefs and behaviors?

Yours is the same old liberal argument. We hear it every day from the same old liberal sources. You are defining yourself as a liberal. Doesn't change the fact that this country was founded on Judeo/Christian principles and our entire society is God-centered, and conservatism is about defending same.

No... I agree that the nation was founded on Judeo/Christian principles. Where we differ is what those principles are.

I suppose my interpretation could be considered "liberal" is the sense of classic liberalism. It is certainly not "liberal" in the modern sense, which too often demands subordination to a different moral code.

Were they not devout believers? Were they not men of God? Is our system of government not designed on Judeo/Christian principles? Is not our traditional way of life and society God-centered and hasn't it been so all down through history for hundreds of years?

If all of the above is true (and it is) then why would we not say that the root of conservatism is our belief in God?

Some were devout and some were not. Some were devout in, ways that were not in line with the established church. Certainly their standards of moral conduct varied quite a bit.

You are right to that the nation was founded on Judeo-Christian principles, but I think there was one specific principle that had heavier influence on the founding than the others -- and a principle, furthermore, that was strongly affected by the enlightenment. This is the concept that each person answers to God individually.

In some ways it was a radical concept. The European nations, for the most part, had official churches -- something that was explicitly rejected by the First Amendment. Indeed, the founders rejected an explicit statement of morals in favor of rights (which is why the first ten amendments were called "The Bill of Rights," not "The Bill of Morals."). The rights were God-given -- but in the idea of "natural rights," is the point that they cannot be denied, even by those who do not believe in God.

Those rights exist so that the individual may determine what God wants of him. That is the founding principle that should be the foremost to be concerned. As such, the problem with law based on morals, rather than rights is that they often clash with the founding principle and are, as such, not conservative.

The irony is that the government, founded on Judeo-Christian principles, ought not base its law on Judeo-Christian morals. Rather it should respect the individual relationship (or lack of same, perhaps, in some cases) between man and God and and rule based on rights.

I believe that is what the nation was founded on. I believe, therefore, that it is a conservative, if often radically libertarian, outlook.

(Abortion, BTW, does not fit neatly into this framework, because there is a debate of when the fetus becomes a human individual with the rights of an infant. Even if you think the answer is obvious, the question is presently being debated.)

I'm flummoxed. Why didn't you join the Libertarian Party? Even you recognize that's where your sympathies lie.

I'm flummoxed as to which of the three principles isn't conservative.

As for the LP, they don't believe in a strong foreign policy/defense, which was my major issues, when I was 18 ... and still is important enough to me now to have problems with the LP on that.

How freewill coexists with Divine Providence and the fact that all history is an unfolding of the Torah (which was already written before the Creation) is a mystery which we will never understand on this side, if ever. However, this does not excuse us from denying either of these two realities.

I have to disagree here. The key to man's relationship with God is, IMO, that we were created in His image. Not a physical image (obviously), but spiritual image.

As such, we have free will. As such, we must be allowed to grow up and exercise our free will. Thus, we see the Bible -- and the unfolding of human history -- as starting with God intensly involved in and affecting man's affairs, gradually, releasing his control, as we grow up. Still watching, perhaps even giving an occasional shove here and there, but leaving us, in this world, more and more to our own devices. Per His plan.

This site continues to grow!!!

Then why are the FReepathons taking so much longer?

Anyone who believes in the God of Abraham, has only two choices when contemplating the Holocaust: (1) God was powerless to stop evil men from perpetrating the Holocaust and therefore allowed this unspeakable calamity to occur; or (2) He made it happen.

There is a third. God had the power to stop it, but allowed it to happen.

God gave us free will. We have to live with the consequences.

When I joined the GOP, straight out of high school, I did it based on three principles:

1. A strong foreign policy/national defense (which was my main issue at the time).
2. Low taxes; low domestic spending.
3. A government that stayed out of the life of individuals.

All three of these are, IMO, conservative principles. Now, there always has been a tension, between the third on my list and certain aspects of social religious conservatism.

When you write: As a conservative site, we are pro-God, pro-life, pro-family, pro-liberty, pro-America., you appear to be defining conservatism almost entirely as a matter of being a social/religious conservative.

If so, then this is not really a conservative site -- certainly not the broad-based one it was, when I signed up in 2000. Rather, it is now a specifically social/religious conservative site. If this is the case, then you should expect that this site will have a significantly smaller number of users -- and correspondingly smaller influence.

As, I think is, happening.

Why didn’t any students help this 75yr old man?

From what I can tell, he told them to escape. Frankly, I doubt he wanted any of them to risk their life for him.