The Island of Logic

Recently IOL had to take on a lib that was commenting in response to Lorenzo’s post “The Separation of Church and State“. I thought that our responses were exceptionally brilliant in this case and would be worthy of an actual post. Shawn actually reminds me of many of the students that I used to have. They had a full knowledge of the facts, but understood no practical application of them. They didn’t have the ability to take their reasoning’s to their logical conclusions. It’s called deductive reasoning, and Shawn doesn’t have it. Here is the conversation below.

Shawn:

Phrase interpreted incorrectly

…

Interpretation incorrect?

Logic?

Where does interpretation intersect with validity? This post proceeds from the assumption that whatever Jefferson meant to say is the correct statement, which is not necessarily true.

The fact is that religion is no different from any other form of organization (it incorporates rank, ideology, and executive centrality); and if one wishes to make the “free speech” argument, then one must recognize the right of other groups to express their views in “public spaces” with displays of symbols.

So how soon after this “wall” is thrown out do we see people standing on the steps of SCOTUS with their fingers hanging over their jeans, and a swastika relief in stone at regional courthouses?

We have a common government, and that common government should only be displaying symbols common to all people, not just the accepted calling cards of the majority.

Jason M:

We do not have a “common” government, and this argument has nothing to do with the First Amendment. Where in the Constitution do you see that our government is a reflection of all people? This is a bunch of drivel. The Constitution does allow all people the right to speech and all religions the right to practice, but it does not in any way respect or reflect the opinions or values of all people. It is built on Judeo-Christian values and our founding fathers made no bones about that. You can see this in our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution itself. The wall of separation is to protect religion from Government, but it is not there to protect Government from Religion.

When you have a “living breathing” constitution that bends and molds with the times, you have dead constitution and the rule of law is gone.

Lorenzo:

Shawn, the only problem with your argument is that you can’t change history, no matter how hard you try you can’t do it. I will repeat what I said before the best interpretation, is to see how the people who penned the Constitution lived it out, and I have a feeling when you do you won’t like what you see. Not only did they support a religious framework for the founding of this country they (the federal government) also also purchased 20,000 bibles to be placed in schools,and by the way what do you think the most researched document was for the making of the Constitution? You guessed it the Bible. I really hate it for you, but you can’t change history. http://www.michaelnewdow.com/ContinentalCongress.htm

Shawn:

History cannot be changed, but the future may be salvaged. It is not 1787 anymore.

This country is not bound by the opinions of long-dead men who had no foreknowledge of the immense diversity that would be encountered by the society they founded. This country governs its people, it does not rule. And to govern is to serve the citizens, whether they are of the majority or the minority.

The Constitution being built on similar values to a religion does not make it a propitiation of the religion from which it is derived. The founding document is a legal one. It is law. And as stated in the first amendment to its body, the law cannot ordain a religion with political power.

You are arguing contextualism, which in itself makes the Constitution static and unchanging.

But that brings to mind the first lesson of the exit from adolescence: things change.

Lorenzo:

And yet the further we get away from the Judeo-Christian principles this country was built on, the more we deteriorate as a country and as a society

Jason M:

A Constitution that can be bent and molded with the times without being changed with the amending process breaks down the entire rule of law which keeps a civilized society civil. This is what we see today. We have a President and Judiciary that completely disregard their Constitutional restrictions and do whatever they want. This can only go on for so long, we will either fall into anarchy, statism, or dictatorial rule.

    Lately we have been hearing talk about whether we in fact are a “Judeo-Christian” nation. On may 4th, 2009 Congressman J. Randy Forbes (R-VA), introduced House Resolution (H.RES.397) in the House of Representatives to the 111th  Congress, stating; “ Affirming the rich spiritual and religious history of our Nation’s founding and subsequent history and expressing support for designation of the first week in May as ‘America’s Spiritual Heritage Week’ for the appreciation of and education on America’s history of religious faith. Whereas religious faith was not only important in official American life during the periods of discovery, exploration, colonization, and growth but has also been acknowledged and incorporated into all 3 branches of the Federal Government from their very beginning;”. This got me thinking; Are we or aren’t we a Christian nation?
    Recently, President Barack Obama claimed while in Turkey that “we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation, or a Jewish nation…,” Newsweek stated that this is “The End of Christian America,”. We are constantly hearing of what once were considered religious liberties now being taken away, such as “voluntary” religious activities at public schools, the Gideon’s have lawsuits against them brought on by the ACLU for passing out Bibles to school kids. And the list goes on and on…
    Worse than all of those things is the brazen push by special interest groups in this country to get the government to deem unnecessary or even outlaw some of the things that have made this country great.
    In 2002 a copy of the Ten Commandments was removed from a courthouse in Montgomery, Alabama after the Supreme Court “decided it violated the “Separation of Church and State”, And yet John Jay the first Supreme Court Justice said, “..No human society has ever been able to maintain both order and freedom; both cohesiveness and liberty apart from the moral precepts of the Christian Religion applied and accepted by all classes. Should our Republic ever forget these fundamental principles of governance, men are certain to shed their responsibilities for licentiousness and this great experiment will surely be doomed”.
    When the Washington Monument was completed in 1884 an aluminum capstone was placed on it with the names of the engineers, the Commission, and the words “ Laus Deo (Praise be to God)”, recently however the piece has been rearranged in such a way so as to hide the reference to God. Oddly enough when Washington took the oath of office as our first President, he revealed his reverence for the Bible by kissing it. And, he added to the oath at the end, “So help me God,” establishing a precedent which every subsequent President has, of course, followed.
    Officials at the Veterans Dept. recently put a stop to the “voluntary” flag folding service during military funerals, because they mentioned God. The wording on the “Flag Certificates” was changed to remove the word “God” , and went even further by saying that the text from the “Pledge of  Allegiance” would be censored from it as well because it contained the words “one nation under God”. And yet Alexander Hamilton in a letter to James Baynard in 1802 said “I now offer you the outline of the plan they have suggested. Let an association be formed to be denominated “The Christian Constitution Society” its object to be first: The support of Christian Religion. Second: The support of the United States.”
    The brand new “Capitol Visitors Center” in Washington (which could quite easily be termed a $621 million dollar shrine to politically correctness) has conveniently left the phrase “In God We Trust” out of its depictions of the “House Chamber and Speakers Rostrum”, also in its reference to “article 3 of the Northwest Ordinance” which states “Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged”, has decided to leave out any reference to religion and morality stating instead that “..schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged”. And yet one after another our Founding Fathers have stated that if we are to succeed as a nation it will be because of our trust and dependence on God and not in spite of it.
    Benjamin Franklin said “ he who introduces into public affairs principles of primitive Christianity, will change the face of the world”.
    John Jay our first Supreme Court Justice said “Providence has given unto our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers”.
    Charles Carroll one of the signers said this “without morals a public cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion whose morality is so sublime and pure…are undermining the solid foundation of morals, its best security for the duration of free governments”.
    So are we, or aren’t we? The debate will rage on as time passes but one thing is sure: our nation was and still is a Christian nation as far as this writer is concerned. It doesn’t matter what they do they can’t erase history. George Orwell has so correctly said “ He who controls the past, controls the future, and he who controls the present controls the past”, it is imperative that we never lose the awareness that we all have a responsibility to God and to this country to uphold the principles on which this nation was founded.
    Samuel Adams in a letter to James Warren in 1779 stated “A general dissolution of these principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America, than the whole forces of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but once they lose their virtue, they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external invader”. Our nation is as Godly as we are, and I for one am not ready to throw in the towel just yet. John Adams in talking about the Constitution said this, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the governance of any other”. And while the majority of the “people” seem to fall in the latter category, those of us that don’t have a God given responsibility to make sure that America never forgets its rich and Godly heritage, so I salute you Congressman  Forbes, keep up the good work I for one am behind you. GOD BLESS

Related Links:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=hr111-397

http://www.islandoflogic.com/index.php/2008/07/04/lawsuit-possible-after-teen-killed-by-six-flags-ride/

On this Independence Day, which some are now naming so aptly Dependence Day, I want to talk about personal responsibility. As in the words of one of our Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson, “I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it”. Thomas Jefferson believed in the merits of hard work and the belief that we are the ones that are most responsible for our own lives and not a government forcing others to take responsibility for us. This nation was built on the princples of personal responsibility and we have a Declaration of Independence and Constitution that reflect these values. I find it interesting that last year I also wrote about personal responsibility. Follow the link above. It seems to be a reoccuring subject with me every 4th, but I can’t just sit by and say nothing when I see one of our founding principles trampled on with impunity by those that currently hold power.

I have decided to write this since I am getting tired of the incorrect definition that is being given by the media and academia to right wing Conservative politics. The common misconception that I keep hearing and reading is that Fascists and Nazis are extreme right wing Conservatives. I have seen this on the History Channel, read it in news stories, and seen it in text books. What pin-headed, whacko liberal was able to get this as an accepted definition of extreme right wing politics, and who are the majestic mountains of colossal ignorance that keep repeating it. Below I have created a political scale.

(Take special note that Republicans are not very close to the Conservative portion of the graph, this has sadly become the state in the last ten years.)

I contend that extreme right wing politics or extreme Conservative politics is Anarchy instead of Fascism or Naziism. The reason it is Anarchy is because the base definition of Conservatism is limited or less government and Anarchy is the absence of any form of authority or government. Anarchy would then be extreme Conservatism. Extreme Liberalism on the other hand is Communism or Socialism. The primary tenant of Liberalism is that more government is the answer to our problems. (Poverty: the New Deal. Retirement: Social Security. Education: Government run public schools. Health Care: Hillary Care. Gas Prices: more restrictions on oil companies, or in the words of the lovely and gracious Maxene Water’s “… this liberal will be all about socializing..basically..TAKING OVER and the government running all of your companies…” (watch below). etc. etc….)

Now what poor Maxene was trying to say here was Nationalize instead Socialize, but in her faux pas she actually stated the truth. Nationalizing the oil industry would be Socialism. This would be akin to what our good old buddy Hugo Chávez of Venezuela did. This is funny and we laugh at her stupidity now, but when too many stupid people like her get into power suddenly their stupidity is no longer funny.

Communism and Socialism are about extreme government control; the government being in control of every aspect of people’s lives, restricting freedoms and transferring wealth, trying to put everyone on a equal playing field. Conservatism on the other hand believes in getting out of peoples lives. It believes that when people are given freedom and the ability to be all they can be without the government coming down on them, they will excel. Nazism and Fascism are left wing forms of government, because they are types of extreme government control. I find it very interesting that Benito Mussolini, one of the primary names associated with Fascism was a Socialist before becoming a Fascist. I doubt his political views changed that much, but yet the form of government that he championed is considered to be “extreme right wing”!? You may say that this is a simplistic way of viewing the political spectrum, and that it is much more complicated than this. Well I agree with Einstein “Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone.” I believe that the basic tenants of the political views are simple and one of the primary measuring sticks that can be used is the level of government control. There are however aspects of political views that transcend this measuring stick. For example, a strong military is the policy of most Communist governments and also a value of the American Conservative movement. A strong military however is more or less apposed by the American Left. Fascist and Nazis supported Militarism which is an extreme view of a strong military. So there are views that are accepted all across the government control spectrum that do not necessarily apply to the level of government control. The right to life or antiabortionism would also fall out of the category of government control and is more of a social or religious view. There are some views like the right to life which are part of a particular country’s form of Conservatism, like American Conservatism. Another country’s Conservative movement may not have the tenant of the right to life or a strong military. Don’t be confused, these are simply aspects of the American form of Conservatism, and not part of the simple definition of political Conservatism. The reason the political spectrum should be measured by the level of government control is because more political policies can be measure with this stick then with any other. The American Constitution is a politically Conservative document because its primary role is to restrict the powers of the Federal government. The founding fathers were so interested in restricting the control of the government that their first form of the Federal government was under the Articles of Confederation which made the Federal government so weak that the thirteen colonies almost fell into Anarchy. The founding fathers in the Bill of Rights made a list of rights that shall not be infringed upon by the Federal government. This is a politically Conservative view that is being continually attacked by the American Left. Liberals believe that certain types of speech should be restricted, hence the age of Political Correctness. That citizens do not have the right to bear arms, even when the Second Amendment in the afore mentioned Bill of Rights explicitly gives that right to its citizens. American Liberals are then left wing and believe in more government restrictions and control and the American Conservatives are right wing and believe in less government control hence these political views land where they are on the political spectrum graph. This view point will probably never be taught in any Political Science class, but that is because this explanation is far to simple for that meathead of a professor to wrap his pee sized brain around. Besides you don’t need a PHD to understand it.