A Note to My Brother Expresses the Futility Millions Feel as They Watch Their Constitution Shredded - The Rush Limbaugh Show
I listened to this on the radio today as I chauffeured my kids in preparation for the coming school year. The letter sent to Limbaugh's brother and the conversation it fostered from Rush offers much food for thought.
In spite of any preconceived notions about Limbaugh try reading the article before slamming the source.
I add:
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
John Adams
I adjust the quote to say a self-policing people governed by morals.
In spite of any preconceived notions about Limbaugh try reading the article before slamming the source.
I add:
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
John Adams
I adjust the quote to say a self-policing people governed by morals.
The US was founded on reason, not christianity.
http://www.aproundtable.org/tps30info/be...
That being said, however, the basic values were those that specifically stipulated that rights were an endowment exterior to man and not of his invention. That those rights so closely coincide with the rights proclaimed by many Judeo-Christian faiths (which undoubtably predate Locke or the concept of natural law) is IMHO not a coincidence at all.
Have there been people throughout history who have turned from the principles espoused in the doctrine of Christ to abuse power? Assuredly. But it should be noted that among all the religions known to man, the Christian ethos (but not necessarily any specific sect) is the most providential and closely aligned with natural rights.
They were unable to abstract into the dimension of: It's the union of money, prestige and power in a centralized government that ends individual rights.
Well...we have it in Washington, D.C. so we haven't learned our lesson yet....
Deists are by no means Christians as they decry many of the basic tenets of Christianity. They had taken a tentative step away from irrationality but were unable to fully embrace reason by eliminating the need for a Creator.
Perhaps this mind is waiting for us humans to become like Him...
Clearly, and thankfully, they avoided (by means of reason) incorporating any archaic or draconian gobbledygook from the King James Bible into their great experiment but it is more than a very safe assumption that they believed in their hearts and minds that what they were doing was right in the eyes of God. And no, I am not a theist but I know how theists work.
Don't tell me someone raised in a Christian society is merely a Deist who regards Islam, Wicca and atheism as morally equivalent to Christianity.
Sophistry.
You're just trying to pretend, "The Founding Fathers believed more like me than like you".
which is a nonsense argument.
What's the matter? Was your daddy a Bible-thumping fundamentalist who spanked you for playing with yourself?
I'm guessing name-calling, giving negative Gulch brownie points, and sticking out or biting one's tongue at you doesn't matter either. I can't believe anyone does it when arguing a point.
God gave you your life, therefore, like a book, it's yours.
God did not license your life to you, like a video game, whereby you are required to use it according to His license agreement.
The *Founding FATHERS* designed the country so one State or municipality could have laws against blasphemy (or not have them), but the nation could not. So you could vote with your feet, and be thereby free.
And yes, we know you two are shameless.
The analysis is flawed and not worthy of a learned person. If shame isn't sufficient to chastise, then https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ueacC_X...
The flaw was not on your part, but Dale's. A more complete understanding of the founding fathers and their foundational perspective of the nation and ethos is in order. That is not conjecture, it is historical fact. You don't have to accept my word for it, and if you insist on citations, I could provide innumerable, but it's not worth my time to do so for such an obvious fact.
Why would you allow ANYONE to tell you what to eat?
I have a problem with the hierarchy when they give "special dispensation" when St. Pats day is on a Friday during lent, and there are other times when local diocese get same for some local reason. It is either important or not. It is not a requirement that you eat corned beef and cabbage on 3/17 (yum, love it). And waiting one day or advancing such by one day is certainly reasonable.
So, nobody "tells me what to eat," I choose so freely as a part of how I live my life, and what is important to me. It could just as easily be meditating an hour a day, or yoga, or exercise, etc., etc., etc.
Hmmm. Not sure. Can't think of any specific reason. Would you rather I be cranky the other 6 days? Just so there's no discernible difference?
Actually this summer has been perfect. I'll take every one just like this one.
I like fish (and crab, lobster, scallops, and shrimp) but at the core, I'm a carnivore - always been. Ever had a Culvers Butter burger? Or a Portillo's Italian beef with hot peppers? If not, your life has not been complete.
Never been to a Culvers, but I have been to many a Taco Cabana. And the occasional Luby's.
President George Washington was an Episcopalian. He was a member of the Episcopal Church, the American province of the Anglican Communion, which is a branch of Christianity, and which is usually classified as Protestant.
To say that what he spoke in his inaugural address wasn't in relation to a Christian God is disingenuous.
Dear Sir;
"The Constitution is based on Roman and Greek law."
You left out "British Common Law"
What do Roman and Greek law have in common? They are steeped in pagan beliefs and value systems.
The Romans and Greeks were not atheist. Nor were the British.
British common law came into existence in approx 1761 as a compilation of... common British law. Kind of the way the 12 tables of Roman law came into being.
And I'm glad you say that British common law is not part of the Constitution; that way next time SCOTUS refers to British common law definitions for, say Article 2, section 1, clause 5, they'll stand corrected.
To whit: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator" Just who is the creator?
Let us consider some of the ways in which the authors of the Federalist Papers display faith-based beliefs:
Essay 20, Topic 21, urges Americans to let their praise of gratitude for auspicious amity distinguishing political counsels rise to heaven.
Essay 37, Topic 14, tells us that any person of pious reflection must perceive that in drafting the Constitution there is to be found in it a finger of that Almighty hand that has so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution.
Essay 43, Topic 30, asserts that nothing is more repugnant than intolerance in political parties, stressing the importance of moderation the essay concludes that one cannot avoid a belief that the great principle of self-preservation is a transcendent law of both nature and God...
Essay 1, Topic 4, concludes that in politics, as in religion, it's absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecutions.
Essay 2, Topic 4, refers to God in three separate instances, referring to the country they wrote that God blessed it with a variety of soils, watered with innumerable streams, for the delight and accommodation of its inhabitants. In other instance the author makes note with equal pleasure that God gave this one connected country to one united people. And in a third instance wrote that it appears like this inheritance was designed by God for a band of brethren united by the strongest ties.
Essay 31, Topic 2, informs us that theorems may conflict with common sense. Mathematicians agree on the infinite divisibility of matter, the infinite divisibility of a finite thing, but that this is no more comprehensible to common sense than religious mysteries that non-believers have worked so hard to debunk.
Essay 37, Topic 10, addresses how difficult it is to express ideas and words clearly, without ambiguity. The task of clear writing is lamented, for when the Almighty himself condescends to address mankind in their own language, his meaning, luminous as it must be, is rendered dim and doubtful by the cloudy medium through which it is communicated.
Essay 44, Topic 24, sets forward the idea that there must be safeguards against the misuse of religion, in that no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.
Essay 51, lets us know that in a free government, the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights.
Essay 57, Topic 6, briefly elaborates that no qualification of wealth, birth, religious faith, or civil profession is permitted to fetter the judgment or disappoint the inclination of the people.
The importance of the Federalist Papers in helping lay the foundation of the United States cannot be overestimated.
Ignoring this is not the sign of a learned person. It is at best intellectually dishonest, and at worst an intentional attempt to rewrite history.
At no time have I, nor others to the best of my recollection, argued that our nation is a Christian nation. But to attempt to whitewash the fact that our founding fathers did not have as a fundamental basis a Judeo/Christian ethic and assumed that such would be the underlying ethos of the nation, is disingenuous.
Destroyed Rome?
Responsible for the Dark Ages?
Please..
1) Science is still here, stronger then ever, even challenging Creation.
2) Laziness, decadence and paying foreigners to do the fighting killed Rome - Byzantium was an attempt to survive the fall of Rome.
3) the Dark Ages were the result of Rome keeping its tech proprietary.
As for the rest, I can't agree with you there either but I'll not go into it.
Christianity did not destroy Rome, hedonistic rot and collectivism did. If anything, Christianity was a repository that stored ancient ethics and morality through the dark ages.
Yes, there were those in the Christian hierarchy that subverted scientific advancement. But that has been the case for many rulers - as a means of maintaining power. That is a failing of humans, not of faith.
You want to overlay your values on those of the founding fathers. Why is it you cannot accept their values for what they were? You might question whether those values are valid, but you cannot dismiss them - that is not historically accurate nor valid.
Christianity is a philosophy that was buried until the Reformation...the resurrection thereof in turn helped found the Enlightenment.
I grew to realize they are wrong and have since embraced individualism.
Theology always began, everywhere, as an attempt to understand the universe about us. Pre-scientific science.
As a practical matter, Christianity served as an attempt to get men to live with one another peacefully, to value one another as individuals.
It is Christianity that saved the world from Islam. But you don't care about that, do you?
Just what IS your grudge, db? Why is your blind hatred so strong that it causes you to ignore historic reality?
One of the bishops tries to explain to Michelangelo that Pope Julius took up the sword to preserve an independent church as a bulwark of freedom against the kings who will always be wanting more power. Kings who would make Christianity a tool for their own power lust, as did Henry VIII...
Many of the world's greatest scientists were devout Christians.
"I am in earnest about faith, I do not play with it" - Johannes Kepler on his refusal to convert to Catholocism.
Seriously, was your father a Bible-thumping fundamentalist preacher who beat you for playing with yourself?
Your attacks on Christianity are more and more clearly emotion-based and irrational.
Where do "natural rights" come from?
Grow up, intolerant child.
""The results should have been predictable, since a human being hasno natural rights of any nature."
Mr. Dubois had paused. Somebody took the bait. "Sir? How about ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness’?"
"Ah, yes, the ‘unalienable rights.’ Each year someone quotes that magnificent poetry. Life? What ‘right’
to life has a man who is drowning in the Pacific? The ocean will not hearken to his cries. What ‘right’ to
life has a man who must die if he is to save his children? If he chooses to save his own life, does he do so
as a matter of ‘right’? If two men are starving and cannibalism is the only alternative to death, which
man’s right is ‘unalienable’? And is it ‘right’? As to liberty, the heroes who signed that great document
pledged themselves tobuy liberty with their lives. Liberty isnever unalienable; it must be redeemed
regularly with the blood of patriots or italways vanishes. Of all the so-called ‘natural human rights’ that
have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and isnever free of cost.
"The third ‘right’? — the ‘pursuit of happiness’? It is indeed unalienable but it is not a right; it is simply a
universal condition which tyrants cannot take away nor patriots restore. Cast me into a dungeon, burn me
at the stake, crown me king of kings, I can ‘pursue happiness’ as long as my brain lives — but neither
gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can insure that I will catch it.""
Talk about mysticism... you have no basis for natural "rights". You have the natural "right" to do whatever you want.
Without theology, there are no "rights"... only power and action.
And if you read that quote from the DofI, the full quote is that those "natural rights" are "endowed by their creator" - or given to us from God.
It's from a short science fiction story called, "We Hold These Rights" wherein the asteroid belt civilization is preparing to rebel against the Earth government.
A three man mining ship is given the job of destroying a navigation beacon. Two of them are "patriotic", fighting to protect their "rights". The third is a new hand, whom the first two conclude is a coward because he won't get enthusiastic about the fight.
Ships in this story travel by pressor/tractor beams. When they get to the beacon, an asteroid, they see an Earth patrol ship waiting. While the first two are trying to figure out how to destroy the beacon anyway, the 3rd guy locks himself in the engine room and orders them to plot a course away from the beacon as fast as possible. Outraged, but having no choice, they plot the course, and begin fleeing.... and the beacon and patrol ship go up in a tremendous explosion.
The third guy had send a beam to Jupiter, and when it bounced back he cut their ship out of the "circuit", leaving the beacon to absorb the incoming gravitational potential of Jupiter...
One of the "patriots" goes down and tries to relate to the "coward", and only manages to freak him out.
He tries to explain that rights don't exist; there's only power and action. He didn't have a right to destroy a beacon worth more than he'd make in all his life; he did it because he had the power to do it and a decent chance to get away with it. Because he didn't want to be ruled by Earth, NOT because he had a right not to be ruled by Earth. In the end he says (from memory) "Clement Ster, if you have to lie, steal, kill, then do it, but have the character to take responsibility for it."
The DoI does *not* refer to natural rights... but God Given rights.
Jan
Regs are a different matter. Often bills like ACA and Dodd Frank bills are filled with "goodies" and the rest is just directing an agency to carry out the directives. It is hugely tyrannic and outside of separation of powers. Cowardly.
This - it would seem to me - could be proposed as a Constitutional Amendment. Am I off base, here?
Jan
Unfortunately our system does not require a constitutional test beforehand... However there was an attempt to require bills to include a clause citing its authority in the Constitution.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/...
Regards,
O.A.
new laws *and regulations* should have to pass a
review by the pertinent supreme court (State or fed)
before becoming active. this might warrant a separate
post, and discussion on its own! -- j
It was "moral" for the Romans to force guards to commit suicide if their prisoners escaped.
It was "moral" for the Japanese commanders to have their soldiers act dead and wait for Americans to walk past, then commit suicide by pulling a hand grenade and killing Americans.
It goes into a thing blaming President Obama for the problem, which I think is nonsense _except_ for the part about using the IRS on his political enemies.
Then he goes into stuff that should appeal to those with psychological depression.
He says Congress should impeach President Obama. I'm not knowledgeable about whether impediment is the right vehicle, but I completely support Congress asserting its power and stopping executive over-reach. When the president says if Congress fails to make laws, the Exec Branch will have to make them and enforce them, Congress needs to say NO WAY.
This man does not deserve a slap on the wrist, he deserves to forfiet his existence. Just my opinion.
The obsession with individual politicians rather than the trends is bad for the cause of liberty. Extremism is even worse.
That said, I'd fire the shot in the firing squad.
The hyperbolic rhetoric hurts our cause. Well, you and I may not have the same cause. My view is we have a gov't with separation of powers and an executive branch intentionally not empowered to make laws or declare war. This became a model for other countries. It's tough to make work, though, b/c the nature of the job of president attracts charismatic people with a vision for what's best. When things happen, the charismatic leader sees the limitations as an impediment to progress. For reasons I don't understand, maybe because of the appearance of political factions (parties), Congress and the judiciary fail to provide a long-term check on exec power. It's a serious problem, but there are no devils or saints in the story. Demonizing one person, esp with over-the-top rhetoric, doesn't help.
At the core of the problem, maybe, is people have come to think of the gov't as something that should get involved when they need all kinds of problems way outside the original purview of gov't. Maybe they'd psychologically like to have the ups-and-downs of their life governed by a single leader. The notion that "the public are armed" is pointless b/c most people don't see the problem; they don't see how turning over a series of small things to the gov't leads to big problems in the long run. They're not even thinking for going for their guns. If people voted and donated based on liberty issues, politicians would deliver in an instant.
On top of this long-term trend that's been going on for 100 years, we are in the midst of a revolution in production as amazing as the industrial revolution. It's another strain with new sets of problems and opportunities; all of them provide reasons for the gov't and exec branch to get involved in peoples lives.
This is all scarier than the extremist ranting. We've had that all my life, and no one president has destroyed the US of a sudden. But we keep on with the extremism, perhaps in an effort to get the attention of people in their busy lives. Troubled people carry on getting fired up. And we keep slipping in little ways here in and there into a country with more gov't intrusiveness.
The above scenario would probably fit into a picture of people sitting around in a futuristic fantasy world with embedded electronic devices. Inflation will get out of control while higher and higher taxes are required to fund ever expanding entitlements. The decline will be exacerbated by poverty, cultural decay, loss of borders and language degeneration.
Magic Dog
And if you listen to all the climate change stuff, DC won't be "sacked"... it'll be "soaked"! --grins--
We're sinking in the morass of more a$$ and its been going on for a long time... while it's hard for people to look back in theor own recent history (too hard for those who do not have minds) we can see where this thing, started in the best of ideal, was coming apart within 100 years.
And now we have an enemy of the constitution and of our nation in charge, and people look blindly and nod, or give placebo "if only someone would do something" comments, but honestly, no one will stand up and do what our *real* patriots did 234 years ago, and as such, we really **are*** f'ing doomed.
Am I wrong?
In that vein, I feel sorry for Rand Paul (OK, taking liberties there) when he (or whoever) takes over for ol' Potus. How would YOU like to face *this* kind of backwards-twisting convoluted mess?