all-encompassingly

The Supremes Have Spoken

From all-encompassingly reader Marshall:

This week the Supreme court voted 5-4 in favor of a ban on capital punishment for offenders under 18. The ruling drew cheers from Amnesty International, who stated that, "Today's ruling we see as one of the final milestones in the road to global abolition of the death penalty for crimes committed by children" (Reuters). Amnesty International's standard for "children" is apparently 17 and under.

The greatest cause for concern in the ruling comes from the list of justifications that Justice Anthony Kennedy presented in favor of the ban:

1. International Opinion

" The European Union, human right lawyers from the United Kingdom and a group of Nobel Peace laureates had urged the court in friend-of-the-court briefs to strike down the juvenile death penalty.

In saying that this strong expression of international sentiment 'provide[s] respected and significant confirmation for our own conclusions,' Kennedy lengthened the recent string of decisions in which the court has incorporated foreign views -- and decisively rejected the arguments of those on the court, led by Scalia, who say it should consider U.S. law exclusively" (Washington Post).

2. The American Psychological Assosiation

The American Psychological Association is a liberal politicians' lap dog. On one hand, they assert that

"First, psychologists can continue to bring forth existing and new data on the limits of adolescent reasoning, judgment and decision-making" in reference to the death penalty.
[source]

On the other hand they are are quick to defend the right of teenage girls to receive abortions without the consent or knowledge of their parents, claiming that:

"Psychological theory and research on cognitive, social, and moral development support the finding that adolescents, as a group, are able to understand, reason, and make decisions about important life situations. When comparing adolescents to adults, research has found that adolescents who considered abortion were generally as competent as legal adults in their decision-making; however, adolescents under age 15 who did not consider abortion were generally found to be less competent in their decision-making than adults (Ambuel & Rappaport,1992)."
[source]

So which is it??? Do adolescents have "limits of reasoning, judgement, and and decision-making" or are they "as a group, able to understand, reason, and make decisions about important life situation"? Please, somebody help me understand!

3. "National Consensus"

20 states permitted the execution of minors up until yesterday, including major population centers such as Texas. The other 18 death penalty states already had restrictions against capital punishment in juvenile cases. If my math is correct, that's less than 50 percent. Hmmm, if this were baseball that would be a pretty awesome percentage.

At this point, all of the reasoning for the decision seems point to the fact that our justices suffer from envy of the Legislative branch. I mean, does this country really need a separation of powers in the state anymore? Come on.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Just when you think that the United States was as litigious as possible, you read something like this:

Two teenage girls decided one summer's evening to skip a dance where there might be cursing and drinking to stay home and bake cookies for their neighbors.

Big mistake.

They were sued, successfully, for an unauthorized cookie drop on one porch.

The July 31 deliveries consisted of half a dozen chocolate-chip and sugar cookies accompanied by big hearts cut out of red or pink construction paper with the message: "Have a great night."

...

Inside one of the nine scattered rural homes south of Durango that got cookies that night, a 49-year-old woman became so terrified by the knocks on her door around 10:30 p.m. that she called the sheriff's department. Deputies determined that no crime had been committed.

But Wanita Renea Young ended up in the hospital emergency room the next day after suffering a severe anxiety attack she thought might be a heart attack.

But it even gets more ridiculous:

The girls wrote letters of apology to Young. Taylor's letter, written a few days after the episode, said in part: "I didn't realize this would cause trouble for you. ... I just wanted you to know that someone cared about you and your family."

The families had offered to pay Young's medical bills if she would agree to indemnify the families against future claims.

Young wouldn't sign the agreement. She said the families' apologies rang false and weren't delivered in person. The matter went to court.

Young said she believes that the girls should not have been running from door to door late at night.

"Something bad could have happened to them," she said.

[source]

Something bad....yeah, like getting sued!

Ban the swastika?

Apparently some German lawmakers, seizing an opportunity provided by the outrage at Prince Harry's wardrobe malfunction, are suggesting that there be a Europe-wide ban on Nazi insignia.

"All of Europe suffered under Nazi crimes in the past, therefore, it would be logical for Nazi symbols to be banned all over Europe," said Silvana Koch-Merin, vice president of the Liberal group in the European Parliament.

[source]

It seems to me that the best hope for not repeating history is remembering it. Remembrance doesn't imply that honoring (or wearing the insignia in public) would be necessary.

If this ban simply bans favorable public displays of Nazi insignia then I would be inclined to applaud the effort. But I can't see the benefit of trying to outlaw symbols (anywhere and everywhere) associated with Nazism.

posner on 1L misconceptions, other law school stuff

i will have to excuse myself from the blog for the next six-eight weeks, as i throw together a personal statement and study for the february 12 LSAT administration. the pressure is on, since i've only been working on things for a couple of weeks. i may blog infrequently, but i'd like to manipulate expectations by posting this notice. as they say in business (1): "under promise and over deliver." and as they say in taking the LSAT and applying to law schools (2): "start studying two hours a day in january and take the test in june, work on your personal statement for six months and send it in with your completed applications by december 1. otherwise, you're royally screwed and good luck if you get accepted to florida coastal."

well, one outta two ain't bad!

on topic, the following comment from a distinguished judge and legal scholar is timely:

"...the principal misconceptions of first-year law students. There are two, and they are closely related. The first is the idea that the law exists somewhere, in a book presumably (or, to be modern, in an electronic database), and that what you learn in law school is how to find the book, and that what law professors do, to justify making you sit in class for three years, is hide the book from you. The second misconception is that legal reasoning is something special, subtle, esoteric, which will enable you once you have learned it to answer a question in a way that would make no sense to a lay person. In other words--and this is what joins the misconceptions--law is a mystery."

"But what law really is is a tool that law school shows you how to use. It is a rhetoric, a vocabulary, a tradition, a set of rules and conventions, which you can use to achieve practical results, which are the only results worth having. So if you're a judge--which sounds like something special, something far removed from the real world of nonlawyers, but is not, or should not be--you are given problems that you try to solve in a way that will be realistic, having regard for the issues at stake, the relevant moral values of your society, the interest in providing guidance for the future, the goals behind applicable rules or standards, the value of a certain kind of neutrality or impersonality, and perhaps other considerations both particular to the case at hand and systemic." [link]

judge posner serves on the US court of appeals for the 7th circuit and teaches at the university of chicago law school. the above remark was made in response to comments to this post. his words echo things i've read as i've researched schools. washington and lee's admissions page calls the first year "mental boot camp", apparently because of the very misconceptions posner highlights:

It's not that everyone is trying to make life difficult for first-year law students, by imposing on them some sort of rite of passage. It's just that the law is different. There is nothing black-and-white about it. Often "facts" aren't even facts in a legal sense. That takes some getting used to. Success depends less on how much you absorb than on how well you learn to use it. Learning becomes a much more active endeavor, compared with even the most demanding of undergraduate educations. [source]

taxes and fairness

when you put it this way, it seems the only way to be fair is to tax workers less:

"What if, instead of paying taxes in money, the government forced you to work on a chain gang in order to pay taxes? If you have to work until 5PM every day, but everyone else gets to go home at noon, would that be fair?"

"Although an income tax seems like a confiscation of your money, it is really a confiscation of your time. After all, you earn your income by sacrificing your time. If you work 40 hours each week, and you pay 50% of your income in taxes, that means you work 20 hours a week for yourself and 20 hours for the government. Sure, you don't notice, but that's only because you spend your 20 government hours sitting at the same desk, drinking the same coffee, and talking to the same co-workers that you do during the 20 hours each week you spend working for yourself."

"Imagine it wasn't like that. Imagine, instead, that you worked your 20 government hours each week busting rocks on that chain gang. Some of the other folks on the chain gang only have to bust rocks for 10 hours a week, because their tax rate is 25%. You spend twice as much time on the chain gang."

"That's how the graduated income tax discriminates. (Proponents like calling it a "progressive" tax, because that sounds like progress, and how could progress be bad?) By setting different rates for different people, the government forces some citizens to sacrifice more of their lives on the IRS chain gang. If taxation is partial slavery, why should some slaves be more partial than others?"

"People who favor a graduated tax say it's fair because it makes people pay more as they earn more. True, but that would be the case under a flat tax as well. Suppose there's one tax rate, at 20%. Someone making $50,000 a year pays $10,000; another person making $250,000 pays $50,000. According to my calculations, $50,000 is more than $10,000 by about $40,000. Even under a flat tax, higher earners pay more. What progressive tax advocates really want is for the high earners to pay more than more, to penalize them for their success by making them spend disproportionately more time on the IRS chain gang. That doesn't sound fair to me." [link]

the above text was lifted from brain-terminal.com, which means we didn't write it. to read another post that we didn't write on the subject of taxes, go here.

Lock Criminals Up and Crime Rates Decline

The title of this entry should be obvious to anyone with a functioning cerebral cortex. Unfortunately, this part of the body was severely damaged during birth for most liberals.

As has been widely reported, the crime rate around the country is at a thirty year low.

Attorney General John Ashcroft attributed the drop to the work of police and prosecutors.

But some crime experts say tougher prison sentences and the building of additional prisons are more likely explanations.

Surprise! Lock bad guys up and less bad stuff happens.

Cliff Kincaid at Accuracy in Media has a great article on the topic, and reviews how the liberal media is distorting this obvious fact.

In addition, he brings to light the efforts of (feign shock) Democrats, led by George Soros, to get more felons on the voting rolls.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

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.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut: Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton

[link]

utah, boy scouts trade invoices

after being told tuesday that the organization would have to come up with nearly $14 million to pay for a forest fire allegedly started by some of its members, the boy scouts turned the tables on the state of utah and presented authorities with a bill for $595 million. the bill provides a monetary estimate for tens of millions of previously uncharged hours of volunteer work performed by the boy scouts. nationwide, over 40 million hours of service were performed by the group last year alone, with an estimated half of that total coming from scouts in the state of utah. also noted are the BSA's civic education programs and the effect they have had on lowering crime rates. and with this being the first invoice ever presented to a government agency in the nearly one-hundred year history of scouting, it is understandable that the total could reach the hundreds of millions. said one utah scouting representative eddie lavell cross,

you know, that $595 million is a low estimate. we just counted the big stuff, like building trails and collecting canned goods for needy families. but if we had added "helping old ladies cross the street" to the bill, the total would've reached well into the billions.

no word yet on how the state of utah plans to reimburse the boy scouts for their labor or civic education programs.

and while the cause of the june 2002 fire for which the boy scouts are blamed is unknown, the documented destruction of more utah forests last summer by hippies [see here] remains unprosecuted.

black harvard grads upset: affirmative action helping too many people

an interesting nytimes story claims affirmative action isn't working as it should, but you might be surprised with their conclusion:

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — At the most recent reunion of Harvard University's black alumni, there was lots of pleased talk about the increase in the number of black students at Harvard.

But the celebratory mood was broken in one forum, when some speakers brought up the thorny issue of exactly who those black students were.

While about 8 percent, or about 530, of Harvard's undergraduates were black, Lani Guinier, a Harvard law professor, and Henry Louis Gates Jr., the chairman of Harvard's African and African-American studies department, pointed out that the majority of them — perhaps as many as two-thirds — were West Indian and African immigrants or their children, or to a lesser extent, children of biracial couples. [link]

affirmative action isn't for children of legal, minority immigrants? affirmative action isn't for children of biracial couples? gag me with a spoon.

don't get me wrong, i believe affirmative action is deplorable. what i find funny is that those who cry discrimination don't want to extend the payoffs from their programs to other groups making similar claims--and ones that are equally eligible according to the strictest interpretation of executive order 11246.

this is exactly the problem with affirmative action's quest for equity: it chooses some inequalities, but ignores others. perhaps the harvard black alumni intended nothing sinister with their forum, but nevertheless, they've completely misread WHO the intended recipients of affirmative action should be. this is the wording of president johnson's executive order 11246, where the phrase, "affirmative action" first appeared:

"take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin."

and two years later, johnson added "gender" to that list. so, let's review the list again--the harvard speakers who are whining about the "failings" of affirmative action obviously haven't.

*race
*creed
*color
*national origin
*gender

hmmm. these harvard elites DO want us to consider the color and national origin of students considered for admission to their alma mater. presumably, biracial kids are too white, and the children of immigrants from africa and the caribbean are too black. also, they're dirty foreigners. sigh.

honestly, i couldn't care less about this. i just think it's hilarious.

in those (above) categories, our government felt minorities were under-represented in american institutions 40 years ago. harvard's crack team of researchers seems to think affirmative action is about some specific circumstances. but if it's about circumstances, let's talk circumstances. i'm not entirely up on african history, but i know the slave trade was initiated there, by portuguese and muslim traders, nearly 200 years before the first permanent colony was established in america. [link] and i have a hunch that the slave trade continued, locally, long after demand in europe and north america disappeared. so, why do american blacks seek to keep those who don't fit their mold away from the government's affirmative action handouts?

and this from liberals who tout their status as "citizens of the world" (instead of citizens of america). can we add poor white trailer trash to the list of those deserving affirmative action, if they can document exploitation by the white man by producing the tape of the jerry springer episode on which they appeared? must we ask the children of african immigrants to provide "proof of a grandparent's enslavement" before being eligible for admission to american colleges?

or if we're going by the levels of discrimination and racism a person has endured, why are the kids of biracial couples not eligible for affirmative action? they are more likely to have felt rejection from both blacks and whites, and are definitely a smaller minority than those with the affirmative action-sanctioned brown skin.

affirmative action has always been about normalizing the presence of minority races, religions, colors, and nationalities in american institutions and professions. but these pompous harvard types seem to see it as something closer to reparations.

i oppose affirmative action. i think whatever inequality exists should be remedied earlier (with better primary schools and more two-parent families, specifically) than with such things as unearned admission to college or unqualified hirings to jobs. i am not opposed to the participation of people of different genders, races, colors, creeds, nationalities in my society. i am opposed to the stigma that affirmative action programs create for these capable people, and for the racism inherent in these programs.

the speakers at the controversial harvard forum are wrong because they define affirmative action as protecting those disadvantaged because of "Jim Crow laws, segregation and decades of racism, poverty and inferior schools". however, executive order 11246 and the 1964 civil rights act define affirmative action as protecting those of minority "race, color, religion, sex, [and] national origin". in this instance, i find the hypocrisy of the harvard forum speakers amusing. they discriminate against others (like biracial kids and children of black immigrants) despite enjoying their current status as harvard graduates perhaps because of the very affirmative action they seek to limit.

unbelievably, it's gotten to the point that i have to educate liberals about how to use their own social programs.

- - - - -
check out the harvard black alumni society page and browse the pictures. this is probably just a wacky coincidence, but everybody looks so distinguished until you get to the one picture of a lone white guy down in the bottom right corner. he looks like he's having a seizure or something. [link]

who's skewing the church/state distinction?

last month i got all fired up over the disdain the media--particularly the LA times--showed the catholic church in what should have been an inarguable point. one church leader suggested that john kerry might be refused communion because of his stance on a moral issue. a catholic, he directly opposes the teachings of the church on the issue of abortion; he is for it.

if you'll permit me, a digression: according to a new pew research center poll, only 15% of american journalists feel a belief in god is necessary to be a truly moral person, compared to 60% of the general population. [source] let's ignore those numbers and assume these atheist journalists have SOME right to tell americans how to run their churches....or we could take the logical route and tell them to stick their pens wherever they've been lodging their heads on this issue.

consider this outrageous whining from the left: the other day, someone at NPR suggested churches should lose their tax-exempt status for counseling churchgoers to "vote their values". does that teaching really make churches a tool of the republican party? isn't the tail wagging the dog? give me a break. how about we revoke tax-exempt status for public schools? they support democratic party ideals like free condoms for 12-year olds and "gay day" where students in massachusetts are told how common homosexuality is, and to try it and see if it's for them.

anyway, i never got around to blogging it for some reason, but then i found the issue dealt with properly at ecumenical insanity. quoting the nytimes on the catholic church's stand on politicians who support abortion:

"[A]ny attempt to make elected leaders toe a doctrinal line when it comes to their public duties raises multiple risks. Breaching the church-state line that is so necessary to protect religious freedom is one. Figuring out when to stop is another."

ecumenical insanity has the following to say to that:

When in doubt, haul out your favorite boogeyman. This controversy has nothing to do with church-state separation, other than the fact that politicians and clerics are involved. The bishops have no power to force politicians to act or vote in any particular way. The issue is this: can bishops discipline members of their Church who are acting contrary to the Church's teaching? The Church forbids its members from aiding or abetting abortion, much less having one. Politicians who proclaim their support of the abortion licence place their politics about their faith. It is their privilege to do so. But that doesn't mean the Church must support them in their decision.

In fact, one could argue that it is the aforementioned lawmakers who are breaching the wall of church-state separation, by writing to the Catholic bishops in their capacity as public officials and trying to dictate Church policy to the prelates.

excellent.

john kerry is a member of the catholic church. he is free to leave that organization if he wishes. but the church must be allowed to enforce its standards if he and other politicians like him continue in defiance of them.

Gay [and Open] Marriage

Dan Flynn makes a couple great points about gay marriage.

How do gays consummate their marriages?

Without consummation, a marriage isn't considered complete. It can be declared invalid and annulled.

and

One need only look so far as the first homosexual couple to tie the knot in Provincetown to see this latter oxymoronic form of marriage in action.

Insightful. Read it, and then peruse the rest of Flynn Files. Good stuff.

Help Prevent Future Wardrobe Malfunctions

Since Janet Jackson's famous "fashion blunder" at the Super Bowl, much has been said, but little done, regarding decency in the media. Here is a great article that addresses the issues at hand, as well as providing a way to take the fight for decency to our elected representatives.

Decency In Media – Act Now!

"We are now currently in an election year. Savvy politicians saw an opportunity to jump on the “decency in media” bandwagon and ride the public wave of outrage. They held hearings, press conferences, and promised Americans they would once and for all clean up America’s television wasteland. By doing this, they got free publicity on the very media they were decrying."

Read the whole thing.

And then take action.

thick-with-irony abortion rally

bunnie diehl provides great coverage of last weekend's abortion rally. here is her intro:

I headed down to the March for Women's (Right To Take) Lives today. Within a few blocks I was so disgusted that I felt like throwing up.

There's nothing like being confronted with hundreds of thousands of the angriest, most vile, hateful people advocating for the right to kill their babies.

there are tons of great photos, but i think this protester gets my vote for 'most ironic sign':

bunnie's commentary: An interesting look at how--when people no longer believe in the doctrines of their church--they feel no compulsion to leave. Far from it, they fight to change the doctrines to match their evil. [link]

or perhaps this one:

bunnie: Who decides whether you live or die little child? Apparently your mom.

go here and scroll down for the full effect, or choose from my favorites below:

ah, the moral highground of pro-abortionists

for a group so opposed to religion, they sure obsess about it

pro-aborts put their signage where it belongs

oh, good, it's the anarchists

the importance of a follow-up question

a level of delusion that knows no bounds

logic not their strong suit

the face of evil

odd sign choice for a group that treats abortion like a sacrament

fascism

no hyperbole too far-fetched

More Proof of God's Existence

Michael Jackson indicted.

the founders on 'civil religion'

::: part iii of iii :::

part ii is [here]
part i is [here]

the bulk of the quotations in this entry are taken from primary-source documents. when we go back and read what america's founders have to say on religion, morality, and citizenship, i think we'll find it harder to give in to the atheists who want to remove every reference to religion from our national discourse. i think any christian especially (but any religious person), any patriot, any historian will be struck by the language of the original documents. take advantage of the library of congress exhibit and read the choice exerpts that have been posted online.

loc religion and founding exhibit main page

writings of founders page 1

writings of founders page 2

these documents are proof that, if not anymore, our nation was once a grateful nation, humble enough to acknowledge the vastness of blessings it had received from god--independence, economic and religious freedom, and the opportunity to create its own government. i suppose i've chosen this stance on civil religion because i'd like my fellow citizens to still feel this way, and for our government to express the will of the people thus.

Congressional Thanksgiving Day Proclamation
Congress set December 18, 1777, as a day of thanksgiving on which the American people "may express the grateful feelings of their hearts and consecrate themselves to the service of their divine benefactor" and on which they might "join the penitent confession of their manifold sins . . . that it may please God, through the merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to forgive and blot them out of remembrance." Congress also recommends that Americans petition God "to prosper the means of religion for the promotion and enlargement of that kingdom which consisteth in righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.'"

Congressional Fast Day Proclamation
Congress proclaimed days of fasting and of thanksgiving annually throughout the Revolutionary War. This proclamation by Congress set May 17, 1776, as a "day of Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer" throughout the colonies. Congress urges its fellow citizens to "confess and bewail our manifold sins and transgressions, and by a sincere repentance and amendment of life, appease his [God's] righteous displeasure, and through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, obtain his pardon and forgiveness." Massachusetts ordered a "suitable Number" of these proclamations be printed so "that each of the religious Assemblies in this Colony, may be furnished with a Copy of the same" and added the motto "God Save This People" as a substitute for "God Save the King."

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While James Madison was serving as President of the United States, he received a letter from a Jewish congregation that expressed gratitude to him for the freedom to exercise their beliefs in America. Madison responded in May of 1818, “having ever regarded the freedom of religious opinions and worship as equally belonging to every sect…I observe with pleasure the view you give of the spirit in which your sect partake of the blessing offered by our government and laws”(letter addressed to M. M. Noah, par.1. Emphasis added).
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Thomas Jefferson was called upon to compose a bill for establishing religious freedom in Virginia. “Its protection of opinion was meant to be universal,” he says. But, "Where the preamble declares, 'coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion,' an amendment was proposed, inserting the [name], 'Jesus Christ,' so that it read, 'a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion.' The insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindu, and Infidel of every denomination" (writings of Jefferson, vol.1. Emphasis added).
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In his autobiography, Benjamin Franklin describes Philadelphia's Westminster Hall and its purposes thus: "Both house and ground were vested in trustees, expressly for the use of any preacher of any religious persuasion who might desire to say something to the people at Philadelphia; the design in the building not being to accommodate any particular sect, but the inhabitants in general; so that even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach Mohammedanism to us, he would find a pulpit at his service. Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion" (emphasis added).
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Though Franklin confessed to having “some doubts” of the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth, he wrote to a friend, “I think the system of morals, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see” (letter to Ezra Styles (of Yale), March 9, 1790).
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Thomas Jefferson was sure that “the only firm basis [of democracy] is a conviction in the hearts of the people that their liberties are [a gift from] God”(Notes on Virginia, n.18). In his inaugural address, he addressed the power of religion “professed and practiced in many forms [to inculcate] honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and love [of others], acknowledging and adoring an over-ruling Providence” (Gibbs, 31). At the same time, he was disgusted at the idea of forcing all citizens to support a state church, saying, "It is sinful and tyrannical to compel a man to furnish contributions for the propagation of opinion that he disbelieves and abhors. I am for freedom of religion and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another" (qtd. in Fox, 44).
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Thomas Jefferson fully supported rights of conscience and religion. He helped to encourage an article’s passage that protected those rights in Virginia. It reads: "No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his belief; but all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion; and the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities. And we do declare that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind" (writings of Jefferson, vol.2, appendix 3, par. 2). Jefferson wanted people to decide for themselves, and believed they could do it. “I have great confidence in the common sense of mankind in general,” he said (qtd in Wills, 190).
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John Adams showed that he understood the need for religious education of the citizens of a democracy when he said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other” (qtd. in Benson, 23).
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Adams knew that without “virtues of moderation and self-restraint,” people are ungovernable (West, Vindicating the Founders, 161). He advised that our Independence Day ought to be commemorated as “the day of deliverance, with solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty (qtd. in Gibbs, 63). Adams was the author of the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, which declares, “the happiness of a people, and the good order and preservation of civil government, essentially depend upon piety, religion, and morality”(par.12).
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As United States President, Adams wrote, in the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States and the Beyan Subjects of Tripoli of Barbary, that, “the government of the United States is not in any sense founded upon the Christian religion, as it has itself no character of enmity against the law, religion or tranquility of [Muslims]”(Art. 11).
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In Christianity, the Ten Commandments from Exodus chapter 20 and the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew chapters 5-7 are excellent examples of universal codes of conduct accepted by humanity, though different religions taught them independently of each other. In a letter to Jefferson dated 4 November, 1816, Adams told him that such truths “contain my religion.” This statement shows that Adams, like Franklin, was more committed to just principles than to any religion.
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James Madison advocated the large republic, promising that by harboring more factions, none would have enough power to become tyrannical. In federalist #51 he applies this thinking to religious sects: "In a free government, the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights. It consists in the one case in the multiplicity of sects. The degree of security in both cases will depend on the number of interests and sects; and this may be presumed to depend on the extent of the country and number of people comprehended under the same government" (qtd. in Beer, 270).
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Madison also wrote: "It is the natural duty of all to practice…forbearance, love, and charity towards each other. No free government or the blessings of liberty can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles” (The Virginia Declaration of Rights, pars.18, 7).
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When Washington spoke to the Volunteer Association of Ireland in 1783, he told them that America is “open to receive” people from “all nations and religions”(Writings, 27). Thomas West says of Washington, “His openness to non-protestant citizenship is evident in his letter to the Hebrew congregation in Newport, written just after he had been elected America’s first president:” "The citizens of the United States of America have the right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an large and liberal policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were by the indulgence of one class of citizens that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for happily the Government of the United States, which gives bigotry no sanction, and persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving [to the government] on all occasions their effectual support.” (letter, 1790).
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To Jefferson on 1 January, 1788, Washington wrote that the various nationalities and religions of immigrants did not concern him as much as whether immigrants were “pacific, industrious, and virtuous characters.” President Washington encouraged the immigration of the Dutch to America. In a letter to Reverend Francis Vanderkemp, dated 28 May 1788, Washington wrote: “This country certainly promises greater advantages than almost any other to persons…who are determined to be sober, industrious, and virtuous members of society.” He identified the Dutch as possessing these qualities, as well as being “friends to the rights of mankind.” He rightly concluded that they would be “a valuable acquisition to our infant settlements” (qtd in West, 151).
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Washington argued the need for the free exercise of religion: "If I could have entertained the slightest apprehension that the Constitution framed at the convention where I had the honor to preside, might possibly endanger the religious rights of any ecclesiastical society, certainly I would never have placed my signature to it; and if I could now conceive that the general government might ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you will be persuaded that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution. For you doubtless remember that I have often expressed my sentiments that every man, conducting himself as a good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience" (qtd. in Fox 84, 85).
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Following sincere words of gratitude directed toward “the great Author of every public and private good,” Washington adds, "I assure myself that it expresses your sentiments not less than my own; nor those of my fellow-citizens at large, less than either. No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, which conducts the affairs of men, more than the people of the United States. Every step, by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency." He dedicated “Thanksgiving Day” to be “a day of solemn prayer and gratitude” unto heaven for aiding in the establishment of the American nation (qtd. in Gibbs, 81). As a farewell to the United States, Washington counseled, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports”(qtd. in Fox, 130).
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at his inaugural address, Washington said: "There exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity. Thus, we ought to be persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which heaven itself has ordained…Let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle." It is clear that Washington was not in the least bit morally relativistic, saying that “rules of order and right” are “eternal.” However, he identifies these rules as principles of “religion” in general.
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Pennsylvania Senator and historian, William Maclay, while a staunch critic of Washington, nonetheless offered this impressive commentary on his presidency: "Watching with an equal and comprehensive eye over this great assemblage of communities and interests, he laid the foundations of our national policy in the unerring, immutable principles of morality based on religion, exemplifying the preeminence of a free government by all the attributes that win the affections of its citizens and command the respect of the world" (169-170).
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The founding fathers expected each religious group to teach its own specific extension of those broad moral principles that defined the American character. For that reason, they established public institutions, like schools, that would sponsor the general values of the Good and instill their importance into American society. This is shown in the establishment of the Northwest Ordinance in 1787: “Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged” (article 3).
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The Massachusetts Constitution, authored by John Adams, particularly encouraged public and private education, to "inculcate the principles of humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry and frugality, honesty and punctuality in their dealings; sincerity, good humor, and all social affections, and generous sentiments among the people" (par. 21, qtd in West, 161).
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The following is taken from Thomas West Vindicating The Founders, in a chapter called, immigration and the moral conditions of citizenship: "Founders like Jefferson, Madison, Washington, and Adams supported public education [because] a people must have the right character and beliefs if it is to sustain a free government. The purpose of public education, wrote Jefferson, is to make the people “safe, as they are the ultimate guardians of their own liberty…and to render even them safe their minds must be improved to a certain degree. This indeed is not all that is necessary, though it be essentially necessary” (Notes on VA, n.14).
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The Founding Fathers of the United States of America envisioned the Good as a broad set of fundamental moral truths. They seemed to personally favor Christianity, but did not narrow the government’s position to a strict dogmatic interpretation of the moral truths they accepted. Neither did they allow basic moral truth to be dismissed because of relativistic opinions. The Founders of this nation knew the usefulness of religious principles in teaching citizens about the Good. They also recognized the problems that are typically caused by mixing religion with government. They walked a fine line into unknown territory and found a new and appropriate place for religion. George Washington, describing the paradox that the Founders discovered, hailed the same miraculous paradox as the principle that keeps a society from falling into the human predicament: “While just government protects all in their religious rights, true religion affords government its surest support” (qtd. in “The Founding Fathers” CD-ROM).

The Founders of America were not dogmatic, closed-minded Protestants. They wisely kept government separate from any specific church. But they realized that for a nation to live in happiness, it must have a moral people. They identified religious practice as an aid in that regard, yet worked to create a civil religion open enough to include all groups, sects, and societies that held reasonable moral beliefs. These men and their associates, through unique and progressive thinking, created the unique scenario that we still enjoy today: the American Balance.

[full text of paper]

the library of congress exhibit online: religion and the founding of the american republic

newdow still retarded

::: part ii of iii on civil religion :::

part iii is [here]
part i is [here]

last july, by offering dimebags as bribes, atheist michael newdow convinced a few 9th circuit court judges to rule that a pledge of allegiance which includes the words "under god" is unconstitutional.*

we blogged it then, satirically: on the separation of patriotism and state and grand canyon finally liberated. i still think those two pieces are pretty funny, especially if you recall the events that inspired them. and with all seriousness we blogged: the repulsiveness of christianity.

the other day, newdow argued his case before the supreme court. the funny thing is, somebody forgot to tell newdow how completely useless his cause is. in fact, he might as well argue for the unconstitutionality of:

*our currency (featuring the phrase, "in god we trust")...i think he may raise this question

*the declaration of independence ("men are endowed by their creator...")

*time and calendars (take, for example, this year: A.D. 2004. A.D. stands for the latin "anni domini nostri jesu christi" or "in the year of our lord jesus christ". calendars in our culture reckon time since the birth of jesus christ. even if one uses the secular terminology C.E./B.C.E. (common era/before the common era) he would still be measuring time according to jesus christ's birthdate. sorry the calendar oppresses you every time you look at it, newdow! imagine it, people! the dread with which newdow must approach typically festive new year's eve parties. while normal people gleefully await the ball to drop and the numbers representing the new year to light up, newdow must close his eyes and grimace, tormented by the thought of god that the numbers invoke. [link]

*and while you're at it, why don't you decry the unconstitutionality of the supreme court itself:

When the Court is in session, the 10 a.m. entrance of the Justices into the Courtroom is announced by the Marshal. Those present, at the sound of the gavel, arise and remain standing until the robed Justices are seated following the traditional chant: “The Honorable, the Chief Justice and the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! All persons having business before the Honorable, the Supreme Court of the United States, are admonished to draw near and give their attention, for the Court is now sitting. God save the United States and this Honorable Court!” **

*probably
**hat tip to edmo

the unanimous 1954 vote by congress to add "under god" to the pledge was a manifestation of this civil religion. it is not the crazy fundamentalist abberation that many claim. it is consistent with language in official declarations and government documents from the last 225+ years. not to be a jerk, but, if you don't like it...there's always france.

seriously.

i always see stuff on the E! channel about the french riviera. it seems very inviting.

i recommend the following article in its entirety: atheist civil-liberty union? by michael novak, national review, 12 july 2002. without even asking permission, i've copied it here:

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The American Civil Liberties Union has a public agenda, and that agenda appears to be this: to make the United States in all her public manifestations reflect an atheist's view of the nation's Founding and continuing existence.

Is it item #84 on the ACLU's published agenda that calls for the elimination of "In God We Trust" from our coins? "Under God" must also be torn from the Pledge of Allegiance. The Commandments given Moses must never appear as public symbols under government auspices. This nation must so thoroughly appear to be atheist in public as to be, in fact, and for all practical purposes, atheist in all public spheres. The sweet air of liberty must be replaced with an invisible gas that detects, exterminates, and suffocates any breath that would expel a religious word in public life. Publicly, religion must be totally repressed, so that soon only atheists will find the public atmosphere comfortable. The accommodation this nation long ago reached between believers and nonbelievers must be abandoned. Religion shall be banned from all public appearances under government auspices, until it is totally squeezed down into private life, underground. There, harmless, it can survive as long as it may.

Ideally, some atheists have written and many have heavily implied, religion will perish forever. Its vanishing will free the planet from divisiveness, intolerance, hatred, persecution, and the desire to sweep alternative views from public existence. Secularism, the world's best hope for tolerance, will then rule triumphant, sweetly, having driven its foes from every inch of public existence. To save the world from intolerance, the ACLU must be rigorously intolerant. Public life in the United States must be made religion-free. Atheism is a long-term project. It is not completed when one ceases believing in God. It is necessary to carry it through until one empties from the world all the conceptual space once filled by God.

One must also, for instance, abandon the conviction that the events, phenomena, and laws of the world we live in (those of the whole universe) cohere, belong together, have a unity. What is born from chance may be ruled by chance, quite insanely. Most atheists one meets, however, take up a position rather less rigorous. To the big question - Did the world of our experience, with all its seeming intelligibility and laws, come into existence by chance, or by the action of an agent that placed that intelligibility there in the first place? - the run-of-the-mill journalistic atheist replies, By chance. Problem is, such fellows blink at the point grasped so fearlessly by Nietzsche. If the answer to the Big Question is chance, then all the coherence among the little questions may mean nothing at all - is intelligible only in appearances, and is otherwise a big lie.

Courage is not really any better than cowardice; that's only a preference. Hate is not really worse than love; to think so is merely a weakling's prejudice. Freedom is no better than slavery; both are equally absurd. Destructiveness is no better and no worse than creativity.

Most atheists, of course, would rather get rid of God, but still keep the rationality in the universe that comes from actually having a God, Who understood all things before they were, and then made them to be. Atheists of that sort would even like to keep the Jewish vision of community, justice, and compassion, as set forth in the Prophets. All this, without keeping the God of Israel. A nice deal, if you can negotiate it. Even Jean-Paul Sartre thought being an atheist is a lot harder than that. At a minimum, he thought, one has to be honest, and not steal what one no longer has title to steal.

In America, however, most of our atheists are actually thinly disguised Christians, or sometimes thinly disguised Jews, who want to retain the humanism taught by the Creator, without believing in the Creator. They believe in the image of God, without believing in God. They want the Kingdom of God - the Kingdom of compassion, justice, peace, love, integrity, honesty, and commitment - without God, the King. A terrific deal, if you can get it. A steal!

What makes the life of the ACLU difficult is that the actual history of the United States has been borne aloft on the wings of Jewish and Christian faith since its very beginning: The first act of the First Continental Congress in 1774 was a motion to pause for prayer, for guidance in a sudden extremity (British troops were reported to have landed with flame and violence in Boston). When that motion was carried, the prayer chosen was a Jewish prayer, Psalm 35. With American troops suffering terribly at Valley Forge, under the blows of defeat after defeat following July 4, Congress decreed an invitation to the states to celebrate a national day of fasting and humiliation [December 11, 1776], to beg God's pardon for the manifest sins of Americans of all ranks, and to ask for His assistance in the present just and necessary war. [Where was the ACLU that December, when we needed them?] Even Tom Paine wrote that he was not so much of an infidel as to believe that Almighty God could abandon a people committed to the liberty to which he had called them. Commander-in-chief Washington ordered his soldiers to begin each day with public prayer, in ranks, in the presence of their officers. During the Jefferson administration, the largest church service in the United States was held in the US Capitol Building, and Jefferson publicly attended, and saw to it that music was supplied at government expense, by the Marine Band. Decades later, a large church service was also held each Sunday in the Supreme Court building.

The American way was not separation of church and state. It was accommodation. The Americans did not want a national, federally chosen established church, such as the Church of England was in Britain. They insisted that the Congress accommodate itself to existing establishments of religion in the several states, and not prohibit existing exercises of religion, public or private. They also wanted unfettered freedom of individual religious conscience, for that is what alone of all world religions, Judaism and Christianity distinctively require. The American people, led by the Baptists of James Madison's district in Virginia (who forced Madison to change his intentions on the matter, if he wanted their votes), demanded a constitutional amendment to make freedom of religion explicit in the Constitution. The final amendment prohibited Congress both from any action regarding the establishment of any one national religion, and from any action regarding the disestablishment of any of the existing established churches (in the five states that had such). Congress was to "make no law respecting the establishment of religion," neither for nor against establishment.

In sum, the official actions, decrees, and laws of the Founding generation, and for generations after them asserted or implied that whole peoples and states, as well as individuals, have duties toward their Creator. In fighting for their independence, the American nation had formed a bond with Him to treat liberty as His sacred trust. By giving humans liberty in their natural endowment, liberty above all when face-to-face with Himself, the Creator had led them to believe that "rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God." Setting liberty as a pillar of light advancing before them, He had guided them through the night of war. With His help, they outlasted a far superior power and won their independence. They felt a duty to be grateful, as a nation. It is hard to imagine American public life over the next four or five score years after independence without the public presence and leavening power of Judaism and Christianity. Think of the abolition movement, the temperance movement, the Sunday-School movement, the Social Gospel.

The early Protestants were uncommonly attached to the Jewish Testament, as the best practical guide for a new people building a new nation. They saw themselves in a position much like that of the ancient people of Israel, the "First" Israel, to which they imagined themselves the "Second." They were coming out of captivity, crossing through a wilderness, trying to build a city on the hill, trying to establish a new nation, and to find a method of government both successful and pleasing to God. (Many sermons in those days took as their texts the biblical history of the Jewish nation. So, often enough, did John Locke himself.)

Imagine American history once the ACLU gets finished cleansing it from public mention of religion. Consider the plight of Abraham Lincoln. The ACLU will have to ban the public singing of the anthem that more than any other symbolized the crusade against slavery, "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." There's a lot about God in that hymn, and His Truth, and its power to keep marching on, trampling on vineyards, loosing lightning-swift swords. Even the Easter of the Savior Who died to set men free. In other words, quite publicly, quite officially, the armies of this nation sang aloud, over tramping feet, that human freedom is a sacred cause, singled out by Judaism and Christianity as the central historical responsibility of every single woman and man created by God, the author of liberty.

Few other world religions require that their God must be worshiped "in spirit and in truth." It is not clear, for example, that Buddhism is even to be understood as a theistic religion; and probably not Animism, either. For most world religions, such as those of ancient Greece and Rome, all that is required is external observance: bow your head, bend your knee, burn the incense, say the words. There is no personal God to see directly into your heart as in an open book. Not so, Judaism and Christianity. Here the appeal is directly to the conscience of each, in that sacred arena in which the Creator and each human creature are present to each other, as Madison's Remonstrance puts it, prior to civil society, and prior to all obligations of any man to either state or civil society.

The Jewish and Christian God, like no other, offers His friendship to each man and woman, and each of them, inalienably, must reply, Yes, or No. Neither mother nor father, nor brother nor sister, can reply for you. You must reply, as I must reply, alone. Inalienably. There, for Madison (as for the Virginia Declaration of Rights and Statute of Religious Liberty), on ground that comes not from philosophy but from Judaism and Christianity and them alone, lies the foundation of natural rights. Arguments from philosophy may complement this religious conviction. But they are not nearly so tight or precise in pinpointing the individual conscience, or the source of its sacred inviolability. So also, Tom Paine sailed to France in 1789 to beg the French revolutionaries not to turn to atheism, lest in that way they undercut the ground of their human rights. Paine was no orthodox Christian or Jew of any stripe, but from such sources he had imbibed much about conscience, Final Judgment, and the ground of human rights. He warned the Jacobins that atheism would lead to rivers of blood. He was thrown into jail as many meddlesome preachers before him had been. A great deal of blood flowed, in the name of Reason, as he had feared. For such reasons, virtually all America's Founders (take the top 100, for instance), believed that religion, at least natural religion, of the Jewish and Christian type, that is, putting individual conscience, human liberty, and the brotherly community at the center of political striving, was indispensable to the thriving of republican government. Without liberty, no republic. Without virtue (sound habits of specific sorts), no liberty. Without religion (at least for most people, and over the long run), no virtue.

A large majority of Americans learn their moral principles in the context of a Judge to Whom they must render an account, and in the form of the Commandments given to Moses (and all civilized peoples) by the Creator. For them, the good civic habits that protect liberty come from religious nurturing. When their religious faith weakens, so does their moral strictness. They loosen up. Moral entropy is a constant theme down the generations. Great Awakenings, followed by lower standards and broader permissiveness.

A few modern Americans may not see the importance of religion to the morals of many others. Recent surveys suggest some 7 to 9 percent count themselves atheists, who seem to find that at least they can have virtue without religion. Could be. Yet as George Washington put it in his Farewell Address: Whatever may be said of persons of a peculiar character [such as Jefferson?], religion and morality are indispensable foundations for republican government. So also said the Congress, in the same year as the drafting of the Constitution, 1787, in the Northwest Ordinance.

One must feel sorry for atheists. They seem so lonely. Alone not only under the vast stars of a summer's night, in all this immense cosmos. And passing through it as we do all, as evanescently as fireflies. But alone also in this religion-drenched country, most of whose public spaces reek of faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. With great self-restraint on the part of our people, the God who blesses America is seldom referred to as Savior, Redeemer, or Holy Trinity, in the traditional Christian symbols, but rather as Governor of nature's laws, Creator who endowed in us our rights, Judge of our hidden consciences, and Providence in whom we place our trust - all of which are Jewish names for God.

Poor, lonely ACLU.

If you have friends with membership cards, give them each a hug. Despite all, they have every right to feel included. We want them to feel included. We do our best to accommodate them, without making over the whole of public life in their image. For Jews and Christians are obliged to respect liberty of conscience, since, they have been taught, God Himself respects it. They will be trigger-quick to point to eras in which Christians have not respected consciences. We have similar fears about atheist regimes we have known. And this is America, 2002. Atheists in our midst are proof that all consciences can be accommodated here, even those that have no ground for holding that conscience is sacred, inalienable, and prior to civil society.

So also we accommodate - even give tenure to, in certain privileged universities - those who hold that animals, who are not required to respond to God in spirit and in truth, nonetheless bear the same dignity as humans, and have natural rights just as humans do. We make this accommodation, even though we see vividly that animals can't have rights in the same sense, exactly, as humans do, not bearing the same relationship to God that God has uniquely established with human beings. Unless, of course, there is no God. In which case, our own rights are as meaningless as those of animals. Perhaps that is why animals don't respect one another's rights. And why it's a bit odd that we humans do try to respect one another's rights. At least those try, who live in the civilizations shaped by the beliefs of Judaism and Christianity. And what will happen to our own civilization, when the full atheistic agenda of the ACLU has finally and completely been accomplished? When there is no one who can speak publicly, under government auspices, about the ground of our rights? When no public symbols or ceremonies remind the young of these sacred sources, from whose depths alone spring their special nobility and unique calling? When the United States of America has thoroughly abandoned in public the faith of our forebears, and only the desolate winds of atheism blow across our monuments? When our rights are reduced to those of a barnyard? Poor ACLU. No more than the Jacobins of France in 1789 do they know what they do.

civil religion & the pledge of allegiance

::: part i of iii on civil religion :::

part ii[here]
part iii is [here]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A California atheist told the Supreme Court Wednesday that the words ''under God'' in the Pledge of Allegiance are unconstitutional and offensive to people who don't believe there is a God.

Solicitor General Theodore Olson, the Bush administration lawyer arguing for the Sacramento school district, said the Pledge of Allegiance should be upheld as a ''ceremonial, patriotic exercise.''

A new poll shows that Americans overwhelmingly support the reference to God. Almost nine in 10 people said the reference to God belongs in the pledge despite constitutional questions about the separation of church and state, according to an Associated Press poll. [link]

unquestionably, america's founders wanted the presence of a civil religion in america. one bright scholar has poured over primary source materials and come to that very conclusion [word document]. still don't know what "civil religion" is? in an attempt to define it for you, i've shamelessly lifted the following from facsnet.org

“Civil religion is the mysterious way that religion, politics, ideas of nationhood, patriotism, etc. — energized by faith outlooks — represents a national force,” said Rowland Sherrill, chair of Religious Studies at IUPUI. “Civil religion gets very little careful thought. But we live in it, and we appeal to it all of the time.”

The term “civil religion” was coined by the philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau in his treatise, “On the Social Contract” (1762), which was widely influential among America’s founders.

“There is, therefore, a purely civil profession of faith of which the Sovereign should fix the articles, not exactly as religious dogmas, but as social sentiments without which a man cannot be a good citizen or a faithful subject,” Rousseau wrote. “Now that there is and can be no longer an exclusive national religion, tolerance should be given to all religions that tolerate others, so long as their dogmas contain nothing contrary to the duties of citizenship.”

Academic discussion of civil religion in America was revived by Berkley professor Robert Bellah in his 1967 essay of the same name, published in the journal Daedalus.

“What we have, from the earliest years of the republic, is a collection of beliefs, symbols and rituals with respect to sacred things and institutionalized in a collectivity,” he wrote. “American civil religion has its own prophets and its own martyrs; its own sacred events and sacred places; its own solemn rituals and symbols. It is concerned that America be a society as perfectly in accord with the will of God as [humans] can make it, and a light to all the nations.”
There are many variations of the definition of civil religion. Sherrill defines it this way:

“American civil religion is a form of devotion, outlook and commitment that deeply and widely binds the citizens of the nation together with ideas they possess and express about the sacred nature, the sacred ideals, the sacred character, and sacred meanings of their country – its blessedness by God, and its special place and role in the world and in human history,” he said.

Civil religion transcends denomination, and one need not even be a religious believer to believe in the rightness of the country, Sherrill said. But historically, Americans have viewed their country in religious terms. [link]

the harmless but essential, "under god" is one instance of the american civil religion, which is spiritual yet non-denominational. other elements and themes of civil religion in america are:

·Myths: Sacred stories, parables and legendary acts of heroism, such as George Washington’s feats of heroism in the Revolutionary War; and Abraham Lincoln’s great sacrifices to preserve the union.

·Rituals: Ceremonies and actions that define communities and cross denominational lines, such as the honoring of the dead after Sept. 11, memorializing people who died in battle, and saying the Pledge of Allegiance when it includes the “under God” phrase.

·Ethics: Codes of moral conduct, what the Puritans called “cutting covenants with the Lord,” and enacting covenants with one another.

·Aesthetics: Art, music, and architecture – such as public buildings and courthouses built in classical style, and other structures and art forms infused with elements of Americana.

·Doctrines: The Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.

·Social formations: Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion, Daughters of the American Revolution, etc.

·Chosen-ness: The idea that the nation and its citizens have somehow been chosen by God for a higher purpose.

·Freedom and liberty: Universal ideas that no one can oppose.

·Individualism: America places a strong emphasis on individual freedom and responsibility, which also places a heavy obligation on individuals to live up to the covenant, Sherrill said.

·The “American dream”: Going from “rags to riches,” or making one’s fortune. This theme comes with the caveat that it must involve the other civil covenants, Sherrill said. Wealth must somehow be given back to the community in the form of philanthropy or social services. [source]

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we are not doing anyone a favor if we ban every reference to god in public discourse. if we remove "under god" from the pledge, there are a lot of essential elements and themes of americanism that will eventually go down with it.

on gay marriage ::: part VIII of VIII

this will be my last post on this topic. for a long time. i'm sort of sick of talking about it. kind of like when i used to drink a glass of carnation instant breakfast everyday before school in 6th through 8th grades. i started to get more and more of a gag reflex every time i drank it, until i realized, "hey, i gotta stop this. i can have something else for breakfast."

catch up; read parts I-VII here: I II III IV V VI VII. note that in frustration i've posted the last three parts (VI, VII, and VIII) today.

my personal stance on gay marriage is that it is fine. let them get married and eat cake, whatever the hell. i don't care. but i would just like the whiny homosexual activists to recognize that the conservative point is just as reasonable as theirs. since people have been requesting logically valid arguments, i've decided to give one for both sides. here's one argument for the liberal side:

1. all things that are natural and reasonable should be protected by the same rights.
2. homosexuals engage in something that is natural and reasonable, just like heterosexuals.
3. heterosexuals have the right to marry
4. therefore, homosexuals should have the right to marry.

that's pretty much the argument, right nick? connie? michael? notice it rests on premise 2: homosexuals engage in something that is natural and reasonable. all i want is for liberals to admit they understand how conservatives might disagree with that.

to the conclusion, homosexuals seem to subtly add with the arrogance of their position, "we can be better parents than most heterosexuals anyway! we're lawyers and doctors and they're white trash living in trailer parks, and they're poorly dressed and they don't have good hygiene, and we'd really love those kids that heterosexuals abandoned."

i guess what i'm saying (and what i've tried to say in the previous posts) is that both sides have legitimate reasons for believing as they do. while i would like to see a little more charity shown to the conservative side, i'm believe that the liberal side will eventually triumph. i'd just like for liberals to go about it in the right way: through the democratic process. and stop being so whiny about it. especially dan. an argument for the conservative side:

1. legalizing something that is below the moral level of the majority of society will lower the level of morality in that society.
2. homosexual marriage is immoral to the majority of our society.
3. therefore, homosexual marriage will lower the level of morality in our society. (henceforth referred to as " introduce moral relativism")
4. anything that introduces moral relativism into our society will weaken our society's ability to raise moral children generally.
5. one of the traditional purposes of heterosexual marriage has been to raise moral children.
6. therefore, legalizing homosexual marriage will weaken heterosexual marriage.

naturally, a hater might disagree with premise 4, saying that our society is already morally bankrupt. that is arguable--or at least the degree to which it is true may be arguable.

i'll shoot off another argument for the conservative side later and add it to this post. while i shudder, i wonder what strange will say of all this.

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good stuff i would have added to/referenced in this discussion if i weren't already sick of the topic:

http://www.everythingiknowiswrong.com/2004/03/in_defence_of_m.html

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110004735

http://www.timesandseasons.org/archives/000462.html

http://www.timesandseasons.org/archives/000272.html

http://www.gopunk.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=10&t=000086

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=27431

President Calls for Constitutional Amendment Protecting Marriage
Remarks by the President
The Roosevelt Room

10:43 A.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. Eight years ago, Congress passed, and President Clinton signed, the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage for purposes of federal law as the legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife.

The Act passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 342 to 67, and the Senate by a vote of 85 to 14. Those congressional votes and the passage of similar defensive marriage laws in 38 states express an overwhelming consensus in our country for protecting the institution of marriage.

In recent months, however, some activist judges and local officials have made an aggressive attempt to redefine marriage. In Massachusetts, four judges on the highest court have indicated they will order the issuance of marriage licenses to applicants of the same gender in May of this year. In San Francisco, city officials have issued thousands of marriage licenses to people of the same gender, contrary to the California family code. That code, which clearly defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman, was approved overwhelmingly by the voters of California. A county in New Mexico has also issued marriage licenses to applicants of the same gender. And unless action is taken, we can expect more arbitrary court decisions, more litigation, more defiance of the law by local officials, all of which adds to uncertainty.

After more than two centuries of American jurisprudence, and millennia of human experience, a few judges and local authorities are presuming to change the most fundamental institution of civilization. Their actions have created confusion on an issue that requires clarity.

On a matter of such importance, the voice of the people must be heard. Activist courts have left the people with one recourse. If we are to prevent the meaning of marriage from being changed forever, our nation must enact a constitutional amendment to protect marriage in America. Decisive and democratic action is needed, because attempts to redefine marriage in a single state or city could have serious consequences throughout the country.

The Constitution says that full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts and records and judicial proceedings of every other state. Those who want to change the meaning of marriage will claim that this provision requires all states and cities to recognize same-sex marriages performed anywhere in America. Congress attempted to address this problem in the Defense of Marriage Act, by declaring that no state must accept another state's definition of marriage. My administration will vigorously defend this act of Congress.

Yet there is no assurance that the Defense of Marriage Act will not, itself, be struck down by activist courts. In that event, every state would be forced to recognize any relationship that judges in Boston or officials in San Francisco choose to call a marriage. Furthermore, even if the Defense of Marriage Act is upheld, the law does not protect marriage within any state or city.

For all these reasons, the Defense of Marriage requires a constitutional amendment. An amendment to the Constitution is never to be undertaken lightly. The amendment process has addressed many serious matters of national concern. And the preservation of marriage rises to this level of national importance. The union of a man and woman is the most enduring human institution, honoring -- honored and encouraged in all cultures and by every religious faith. Ages of experience have taught humanity that the commitment of a husband and wife to love and to serve one another promotes the welfare of children and the stability of society.

Marriage cannot be severed from its cultural, religious and natural roots without weakening the good influence of society. Government, by recognizing and protecting marriage, serves the interests of all. Today I call upon the Congress to promptly pass, and to send to the states for ratification, an amendment to our Constitution defin