"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
Monday, July 5, 2010
Name That Document
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13 comments:
Oh, oh, I know…uhm…from Pat Robertson’s right wing extremism!
Or, Jerry Falwell’s crazy rant!
Or, militant bible thumper’s soapbox yell fest!
Oh, this is a tough one…George W. Bush’s foaming at the mouth get the troops exited diatribe!
My oh my, I do not know what the document is but I do know this: it must be censored from the public school classroom with its references to the three letter “G” word!!!
:o)
What's your point?
Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
- Treaty of Tripoli, 1797, voted for unanimously
"...no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."
Ooops. Treaty is null and void. And it was from the start, being based on a lie.
Treaties are not founding documents. Quoting a treaty as proof of the basis for the creation of the nation is not valid, logically. I know that the Atheist Left revels in the discovery of the wording of this obscure diplomatic document, but such documents do not reveal anything except diplomatic political maneuverings of the times.
You'll have to do better than that.
"Pursuit of happiness."
Which, for some people, means getting married to the partner THEY choose, not one that the State has authorized for them.
Therefore, as it says, "institute new Government."
Exactly why I fight social conservative politics.
Pursuit of Happiness is not a universally approved right: Burglary, embezzelment, rape, cannibalism and sado-maso-torture make some folks happy. We make laws that are consistent with personal rights not to be abused. Having the right to marry my dog or my pickup truck is an abuse of other rights conveyed by marriage laws. That also is true of the homosexual attack on the man-woman contract.
The government does not choose "authorized" mates as you suggest; it limits the access to the rights of a civil union which has historically and nearly universally been considered reserved for a man-woman union. If such a restriction is not reserved, then marriage has no reason to even exist as a legal category, and "marriage" should be removed from legal lexicon completely.
Only since the 1970's campaign to de-list homosexuality from a psychological deviancy status - by massively attacking the listing psychology institution - has homosexuality been advertised as a normal lifestyle.
Redefining the man-woman contract in order to satisfy the homosexual lobby is destructive, for the following reasons: first the value of the man-woman contract is devalued to meaninglessness; second, the same rights may be obtained through other legal processes - it is not the rights that homosexuals want, it is the legal justification of their behaviors that they want to establish as law; third, marriage as an institution is already defiled by constant cultural attack, to the point that only religious ceremonies carry any real meaning of commitment; homosexuals don't want religious ceremonies for the most part, what they want is legal justification for a deviant lifestyle.
Homosexuality in your face and on the streets and in the schools (as Home Depot has just endorsed) is a type of cultural decay that historically typically precedes collapse, en toto. Failure to discriminate against depravity in favor of all-inclusiveness is a deadly cultural turn. Accommodating all decadence is the institution of an instability into culture that is almost insurmountable. The instability is a mental inability to differentiate positive values from negative values, and the rot of the negatives takes hold.
Fine, if you want to believe all that, but the State still needs to stop meddling in the private lives of consenting adults. Either get out of the marriage business altogether, or offer civil unions for everyone and let churches handle the "marriage" part.
Same goes for drugs. Same goes for prostitution.
Ron Paul calls this "legislating virtue," and I agree with him that it is anathema to a free society.
I would like to be a libertarian. I really would. But libertarianism is only viable in a culture that is responsible, properly educated in both thinking processes and world history (science is tertiary to good citizenship). In order to avoid Paul's "legislated virtue", the society must a) be virtuous a priori, and b) know what virtue is. Virtue is an interesting topic.
Our nation's children learn virtue from sitcom's and video games. The nation is revelling in sex, which produces waves of unwed mothers with fatherless children. Our minorities are largely dependent upon government doles, generation to generation. By 2050, whites will be a minority, but that doesn't matter because whites will largely be fatherless progeny looking for their father in the government. (The Clinton/Obama Syndrome, both fatherlesss).
There is no evidence that suggests to me that putting prostitutes under OSHA, or putting homosexuals in charge of congressional committees (Oh. Wait...) will produce any benefit at all for this increasingly virtueless society.
A society that has no virtue inherent, and has no virtue legislated, is without virtue.
But many are against virtue, even as a concept - it smacks of absolutes and morals. Or they wish to redefine it to include their perversions du jour. For example self-reliance is denied by the Left as a false virtue of the Right and is replaced by omni-benevolence by the Left. In fact, most standard concepts of virtue are threatening to the Left.
The window for libertarianizing the USA has closed. It should not be re-opened without salvaging the populace first. I would like to be a libertarian. I really would.
I'm late to the discussion, so Happy Belated Independence Day, everyone! How wonderful to have the right to discuss our opinions and bicker at one another freely.
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"Laws of Nature and Nature's God"
This is a clear reference to the philosophy of Deism, the belief in the God who created the universe and let it run itself without intervention. Deistic thought was popular during the Enlightenment and among the Founding Fathers, such as Jefferson and especially Paine.
Yet, I recall someone stating on a blog that Deism is a form of atheism.
And while we're quoting documents..
"Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgement on themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. For he is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid...Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience' sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God's ministers attending continually to this very thing." - Romans 13:1-6, NKJV
Thus, "Common Sense" (Heh, get it?) will tell you that the colonies sinned against the God of Abraham by rebelling against George III and his tax plan. I wouldn't be the one to say John Locke's government philosophy trumps St. Paul's.
Your move, Stan.
I'm sure you are aware that I restrict my comments to Atheism and its defects, and that I am not a Christian apologist.
That said, my understanding of that segment of Romans refers to urging Christians to be submissive, to use love: "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good"... Romans 12:21 immediately prior to 13:1-7. The entire old testament is filled with "stiff necked" Hebrews who were delivered into the hands of tyrants as punishment, time and again. But they occasionally broke free. I presume that breaking free when told to do so would be an appropriate response to tyranny.
As for deists being a form of Atheist, I don't see that as part of the Atheist description, which is a denial of the existence of deity. Deists would be non-theists, certainly, but they don't fit into Atheism.
Some Atheists claim "no god theory" (which is false). But deists would not fit into that either.
The entire old testament is filled with "stiff necked" Hebrews who were delivered into the hands of tyrants as punishment...I presume that breaking free when told to do so would be an appropriate response to tyranny.
How could I have missed that?
I'm sure you are aware that I restrict my comments to Atheism and its defects, and that I am not a Christian apologist.
Yes, my apologies for putting you back into the Christian apologist box, but with issues of morality, it envitably goes back to specific sources. I'm reluctant to rehash the "Christian nation or not" debate. So we shall keep the discussion mostly within politics.
In one of your previous blog posts, here, you stated:
Deism is a form of Atheism; Deists do not believe in absolutes or morals in the same fashion as Atheists.
Now, I'm aware that Thomas Jefferson, though not viewing Jesus as divine, considered him one the greatest of moral teachers. Meanwhile, Thomas Paine wrote a book, "The Age of Reason", attacking organized religion, and is considered a Humanist icon. He also held ideas about progressive taxation and land redistribution in "The Rights of Man" and other writings.
My questions are: Does this mean American politics and society are not limited to complete individualist and conservative/libertarian principles?
As for morals, I know you're a follower of Jesus, but not a "Christian" in the tradition sense. Do you believe this is somewhat parallel to Thomas Jefferson's personal philosophy? (You know, minus the anti-divine revelation sentiments.)
I was also going to ask more about moral authority, but you seemed to have answered my questions in the post following the aforementioned one.
Kip,
You said (that I said),
"Deism is a form of Atheism; Deists do not believe in absolutes or morals in the same fashion as Atheists."
You have found a non-coherence in my thinking, thank you. I should have said that Deism shares some characteristics of Atheism...etc. It is not a subset. Thanks for alerting me to that error.
You ask,
"My questions are: Does this mean American politics and society are not limited to complete individualist and conservative/libertarian principles?"
I am a long term fan of the tenth amendment. I also believe that the constitution should have declared interstate commerce to be real commerce, not theoretical, since that undoubtedly was the intent. Between those two things, if followed, the nation would not be in the situation(s) it now faces. Whether this is libertarian or conservative or original liberalism, I don't know.
I failed to answer this:
"As for morals, I know you're a follower of Jesus, but not a "Christian" in the tradition sense. Do you believe this is somewhat parallel to Thomas Jefferson's personal philosophy? (You know, minus the anti-divine revelation sentiments.)"
I am not certain, but I rather doubt it because Jefferson seemed to be a Francophile, and France at the time was libertine. So I don't really know what his actual philosophy was.
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