Posted on 09/18/2005 9:30:23 PM PDT by betty boop
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Seems to be a popular phrase whether one is for or against either medicalization or sin.
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Excellent distinction. The plethora of religious phrases and appeals to God in the founding documents as well as the myriad embellishments on and around government buildings is proof that we are not officially free from religion.
A tougher reading of the establishment clause speaks specifically to prohibiting the creation by the government of a corporate institution of religion.
The Iraqi proposed constitution differs from this only narrowly. While it makes appeals to the cultural heritage of Iraq as Muslim it does not establish an official Muslim institution in the government. The Iranian government, on the other hand, does just this. One is a democracy. The other is an oligarchy.
The interpretation of the establishment clause by recent jurisprudence ignores the founding documents and replaces them with a government scrubbed antisceptically clean of religion. It is nearly imnpossible to avoid the conclusion expressed by betty boop that contemporary government is actively pursuing a campaign to rid the culture of any vestige of public religious expression. This leads inexorably to betty's discussion of utopian government, especially as it distinguishes between government and society.
I was struck in the 90's by the continued interchangable use of the words government and society by the Clintons. They, and especially the Jr. Senator from NY, continue to this day to merge the two. She uses the words government and society interchangably. They are, in her lexicon, one entity. Clearly, then, for Hillary and her ideological cohorts, the establishment clause must, finally, rid society of the infection of religion.
These are not distinctions with no important differences. If government is society then all personal behavior is governable by law.
We are at a crossroads. Many would agree that we have gone far down the road of government intrusion into all aspects of life. When the only concern on the political left is the right of privacy as it pertains to the taking of neonatal life, we do not have far to go toward ending all vestiges of morality.
Jerry Springer, arguably the most vivid torch carrier of the political left, argues consistently that civil matters must be discussed apart from religious influence. He strikes at the heart of the matter.
I would beg to differ. There IS Constitutional recourse but, up to now, no congress has displayed the fortitude to use it!
Oh no, I do not disagree with you, or Dr. Barlett. I merely brought up this up b/c for a good many years -- for a good many decades... after the USC was enacted this question was a sticking point to lawmakers, judges, legal scholars, etc. on both the state and national level.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this question was first addressed in 1819 or so w/ the Cohens v. Virginia case with CJ John Marshall citing as proof the opening lines of the USC which reads: "We, the people....", not "We, the states..."
But of course lawyers were no different then than they are now -- if they get kicked out the door, they'll try climbing though the window.
Interesting choice of words, as many people do not know that until the Industrial Revolution was firmly in place, (latter first quarter of the 19th century,) the word "corporation" do not refer to business and commerce but to institutions, i.e. Harvard, Dartmouth and what we today would refer to as charities (Red Cross, ASPCA, etc.)various societies (Elks, Women's Temperance League, etc.)
Business/commerce did not so much hi-jack the word "corporation" as it just sort of slipped into it on little cat's-feet.
No, sir, with all due respect I disagree. The fundamental question re: the Constitution is: Was the US Constitution created for the benefit(s) of the individual states in the united States, or for the whole peoples of this nation called the United States? As to the question --"Does the fact that a law is validly enacted according to the Constitution mean that it binds one in conscience?" -- essentially changes horses in mid-stream, i.e. from jurisprudence to metaphysical.
Having read quite a bit of Barnetts writings, it's clear to me he would say for the 'whole people'.
Constitutional laws bind all of us in conscience because, in effect, we as citizens have sworn to support & defend our Constitution. As you said, it's the "highest law of the land".
Oh no, I do not disagree with you, or Dr. Barlett. I merely brought up this up b/c for a good many years -- for a good many decades... after the USC was enacted this question was a sticking point to lawmakers, judges, legal scholars, etc. on both the state and national level.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this question was first addressed in 1819 or so w/ the Cohens v. Virginia case with CJ John Marshall citing as proof the opening lines of the USC which reads: "We, the people....", not "We, the states..."
You are correct, of course. The 'states rightists' have more or less abandoned that particular aspect of their overall argument that states can ignore the Bill of Rights, -- but they still ignore them, using any means possible to give laws that violate individual rights the color of law.
But of course lawyers were no different then than they are now -- if they get kicked out the door, they'll try climbing though the window.
Lawyers, politicians, whatever, - statists of any stripe have one common goal, gaining the power to control people; its been called the socialist's disease.
This brings a question to mind, should we pledge allegiance to the flag or to the constitution?
There were commercial corporations before the industrial revolution. The East India Company, Hudson's Bay Company, etc. Also, some of the American colonies were chartered as profit-making companies. But in the old days, it took a specific act of the sovereign to charter a corporation. It became easy later on. I think Delaware was the first state to make it a matter of routine.
The oath of office and the oath of the military, is to The Constitution (to preserve & protect). The pledge is to swear allegiance to the flag. The flag is symbolic of the union of the several states and of the people therein. The Constitution of the United States and the constitutions of the several states are the fundamental law of this Union.
Let us, then, pledge allegiance to the Union, and let us swear to protect and uphold its fundamental law.
Yellow Rose of Texas wrote:
This brings a question to mind, should we pledge allegiance to the flag or to the constitution?
Excellent point.
As a non-Christian, all I ask is that I am allowed to practice my religion within the confines of civil law.
And as a moral, just, and honorable person, I do not find civil laws based on Judeo-Christian tradition particularly confining.
One hypothetical example I use is human sacrifice.
If a particular religion were outlawed in the US due to a passage in it's holy book condoning human sacrifice, that would be in violation of the First Amendment.
However, if one were to actually sacrifice a human, one would be subject to prosecution under our perfectly effective, religiously neutral civil laws against murder/manslaughter. And, one presumes, if it could be proven that the victim were willing, the charge could be reduced to assisted suicide.
While this result would offend nearly everyone in the country, it is the result that the law, as established in the Constitution by the People through their elected representatives, requires.
As my Grandfather often said, "If the law is wrong, change the law." To ignore it is anarchy.
"Does anyone have a source for the legend about the original draft of the Declaration of Independence reading . . ."
You’ve already received most of the answer to your questions, I realize, but as I plow through the several thousand pages of files I have on this subject, I’ll try to remember to post you additional material. The ideas contained in the DoI were not new to the Founding Fathers. As you look through various documents from that time (1748-1796) you will repeatedly encounter certain ideas and phrases which will become very familiar to you. Recollection brings to mind that after the presidential terms of both, Madison wrote to Jefferson wherein he remarked that in drafting the DoI, they were not offering new propositions, but were simply re-stating issues which had long been settled in their minds. I’ll see if I can’t find that letter.
And, yes, there is a draft of the DoI, and it still exists. If you don’t run across it first, believe I can find it, and I’ll post you a copy, or a link. If you go to the Liberty Library at the Constitution Society website, you will find an enormous amount of documentation dealing with this period of history.
Good hunting.
[ This is Professor Julian Boyd's reconstruction of Thomas Jefferson's "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence before it was revised by the other members of the Committee of Five and by Congress. From: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson. Vol. 1, 1760-1776. Ed. Julian P. Boyd. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950, pp 243-247. ]
A Declaration of the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in General Congress assembled.
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for a people to advance from that subordination in which they have hitherto remained, & to assume among the powers of the earth the equal & independant station to which the laws of nature & 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 change.
We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable; that all men are created equal & independant, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these ends, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government shall become destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, & to institute new government, laying it's foundation on such principles & organising it's powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety & happiness.
prudence indeed will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light & 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 & usurpations, begun at a distinguished period, & pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to subject them to arbitrary power, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government & to provide new guards for their future security. such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; & such is now the necessity which constrains them to expunge their former systems of government. the history of his present majesty, is a history of unremitting injuries and usurpations, among which no one fact stands single or solitary to contradict the uniform tenor of the rest, all of which have in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. to prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world, for the truth of which we pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood.
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 & pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has neglected utterly to attend to them.
he has refused to pass other laws for the accomodation of large districts of people unless those people would relinquish the right of representation, a right inestimable to them, formidable to tyrants alone;
he has dissolved Representative houses repeatedly & continually, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people;
he has refused for a long space of time 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, & convulsions within;
he has endeavored 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; & raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands;
he has suffered the administration of justice totally to cease in some of these colonies, refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers;
he has made our judges dependant on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and amount of their salaries; he has erected a multitude of new offices by a self-assumed power, & sent hither swarms of officers to harrass our people & eat out their substance;
he has kept among us in times of peace standing armies & ships of war;
he has affected to render the military, independant of & superior to the civil power;
he has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitutions and unacknoleged by our laws; giving his assent to their pretended acts of legislation, for quartering large bodies of armed troops among us;
for protecting them by a mock-trial from punishment for any murders 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 of the benefits of trial by jury;
for transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences;
for taking away our charters, & altering fundamentally the forms of our governments;
for suspending our own legislatures & declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever;
he has abdicated government here, withdrawing his governors, & declaring us out of his allegiance & protection;
he has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns & destroyed the lives of our people;
he is at this time transporting large armies of foreign merce naries to compleat the works of death, desolation & tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty & perfidy unworthy the head of a civilized nation;
he has endeavored 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, & conditions of existence;
he has incited treasonable insurrections in our fellow-subjects, with the allurements of forfeiture & confiscation of our property;
he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce;
and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, & murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another. in every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms; our repeated petitions have been answered 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 people who mean to be free. future ages will scarce believe that the hardiness of one man, adventured within the short compass of 12 years only, on so many acts of tyranny without a mask, over a people fostered & fixed in principles of liberty.
Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. we have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend a jurisdiction over these our states. we have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration & settlement here, no one of which could warrant so strange a pretension; that these were effected at the expence of our own blood & treasure, unassisted by the wealth or the strength of Great Britain; that in constituting indeed our several forms of government, we had adopted one common king, thereby laying a foundation for perpetual league & amity with them; but that submission to their parliament was no part of our constitution, nor ever in idea, if history may be credited; and we appealed to their native justice & magnanimity, as well as to the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations which were likely to interrupt our correspondence & connection.
they too have been deaf to the voice of justice & of consanguinity, & when occasions have been given them, by the regular course of their laws, of removing from their councils the disturbers of our harmony, they have by their free election re-established them in power. at this very time too they are permitting their chief magistrate to send over not only soldiers of our common blood, but Scotch & foreign mercenaries to invade & deluge us in blood. these facts have given the last stab to agonizing affection, and manly spirit bids us to renounce for ever these unfeeling brethren. we must endeavor to forget our former love for them, and to hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends. we might have been a free & great people together; but a communication of grandeur & of freedom it seems is below their dignity. be it so, since they will have it; the road to glory & happiness is open to us too; we will climb it in a separate state, and acquiesce in the necessity which pronounces our everlasting Adieu!
We therefore the representatives of the United States of America in General Congress assembled do, in the name & by authority of the good people of these states, reject and renounce all allegiance & subjection to the kings of Great Britain & all others who may hereafter claim by, through, or under them; we utterly dissolve & break off all political connection which may have heretofore subsisted between us & the people or parliament of Great Britain; and finally we do assert and declare these a colonies to be free and independant states, and that as free & independant states they shall hereafter have power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, & to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, & our sacred honour.
It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be tomorrow.
Federalist #62
Governmental duplicity in the guise of the 14th Amendment has caused us to claim to be United States citizens, which is a STATUORY, or ARTIFICIAL entity.
The intent of the the Founders was for us to be residents first, and State citizens if we chose to be. A State citizen is a CIVIL entity. Civil entities are 'natural persons' or human beings because civil law is based on common law.
But don't take my word for it:
"A citizen of the United States is a citizen of the federal government ..."
(Kitchens v. Steele 112 F.Supp 383).
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"... a construction is to be avoided, if possible, that would render the law unconstitutional, or raise grave doubts thereabout. In view of these rules it is held that `citizen' means `citizen of the United States,' and not a person generally, nor citizen of a State ..."
U.S. Supreme Court in US v. Cruikshank, 92 US 542:
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In 1887 the Supreme Court in Baldwin v. Franks 7 SCt 656, 662; 120 US 678, 690 found that:
"In the constitution and laws of the United States the word `citizen' is generally, if not always, used in a political sense ... It is so used in section 1 of article 14 of the amendments of the constitution ..."
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The US Supreme Court in Logan v. US, 12 SCt 617, 626:
"In Baldwin v. Franks ... it was decided that the word `citizen' .... was used in its political sense, and not as synonymous with `resident', `inhabitant', or `person' ..."
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14 CJS section 4 quotes State v. Manuel 20 NC 122:
"... the term `citizen' in the United States, is analogous to the term `subject' in the common law; the change of phrase has resulted from the change in government."
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U.S. v. Rhodes, 27 Federal Cases 785, 794:
"The amendment [fourteenth] reversed and annulled the original policy of the constitution"
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By claiming US citizenship, we VOLUNTARILY place ourselves under the jurisdiction of the federal government and are therefore subject to every whim of every black-robed bandit that sits on a bench....nor do we any longer have 'rights'
Merely privileges.
“Necessity is the plea of every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.” William Pitt
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