Moral legislation [Alan Keyes]

RenewAmerica.us ^ | July 20, 2007 | Alan Keyes

[Sherman Logan]

Perhaps I misunderstood your post 45. I assumed you meant that Islam should be outlawed as we outlawed Nazism and Communism. I pointed out in response that neither ideology was outlawed in this country.

Certain acts in support of those ideologies were appropriately punished. I know few people who think Muslims who commit criminal acts should not be prosecuted for them.

If you want to outlaw Islam as a religion, you have to change the Constitution. If that isn’t your goal, I apologize for jumping to a conclusion.

[Jorge]

Any poster can read your post #34, in which you made a false claim.

What are you talking about?

I made NO CLAIMS about anything in post #34.

I asked a QUESTION!

"are we going to outlaw every religion but that of the majority."?

Are you really this dishonest or can't you keep track of the exchange?

[Zon]

Even the best government is the least evil, it is not and cannot be truly good.

"Argue for your limitations and sure enough they're yours." Richard Bach. The best government is not evil and is instead morally and ethically good.

A terrorist holds 50 people hostage, with them wired to be blown up if the police attempt to rescue them. 

The terrorist believes the ends justify the means. The terrorist has initiated force against 50 people. He's a criminal. He has chosen to deny his own ability to persuade by reason and has denied his victims the ability to persuade by reason.

A sniper can take him out and save the 50 people. But we can't do that, because the end of saving 50 innocent people's lives does not justify the means of blowing the terrorist's head off.

Are you insane? (/rhetoric) Of course the sniper takes out the terrorist. It's moral and ethical to use force in self-defense against a person that is initiating force. The means -- using force in self-defense -- justifies the end. The end is saving 50 people.

"No exceptions to the immorality of initiatory force exist. No matter how "noble" the ends, they never justify the means of initiating force, fraud, or coercion against any individual. Any government or activity that depends on or uses initiatory force, threat of force, or coercion is immoral and destructive... While all governments have the power, none ever have the moral right to initiate force or coercion against any individual. The only beneficial and moral laws are those designed to protect the life and property rights of individuals from initiatory force, the threat of force, and fraud. In turn, the only moral use of force is for self-defense: That is for protection of oneself, property, or country from force initiated by other individuals or governments. ...Self-defense by any means, including force, is not only a basic moral right, but a moral duty."
INITIATORY FORCE -- THE PRIME EVIL

[Jorge]

LOL...you can’t weasel out of what you posted, no matter how hard you try.

I don't have to "weasel" out of ANYTHING with you...YOU WEAKLING.

I just posted a quote that proved you were lying about me accusing you of something dishonest.

I DON'T LIE ABOUT ANYTHING.

You can't respond on the level to my challenges so you post these false accusations. You wus

[Jorge]

You created a straw man, a fiction, and just can’t stand the fact that it was so easily pointed out, laughed at, and dispensed with.

You are either a liar or an idiot.

You didn't point out crap. You didn't even address the issue being discussed. PERIOD. Who the hell you think you are?

[EternalVigilance]

Throughout the ages, men have ruled over - lorded it over - other men, for their own gain. This heart attitude, finding its expression in the practical world, always leads to tyranny. Always.

But the advent of Christianity turned that worldly way of doing business on its head.

"Jesus called them to Himself and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. 43 Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant. 44 And whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” - Mark 10:42-45

This Christian principle of servant leadership - of self-sacrifice on behalf of others - is the true foundation of American governance.

[Spyder]

Remind you of anyone round these parts?

Deacon

"Be he a Baptist, Scientologist or Zoroastrian, in the heat of battle Deacon will call down Divine retribution on all net sinners, and will never miss an opportunity to blather endlessly about his religion. Deacon is fervent and earnest, but seldom contributes anything of interest or substance to the discussion. Occasionally Tireless Rebutter or Philosopher will rouse themselves engage Deacon in battle, but they soon lose interest because of his utter predictability.

Credit the following: http://redwing.hutman.net/%7Emreed/

Mike Reed mreed@hutman.net

Mike Reed Illustration mikereedillustration.com

[EternalVigilance]

What are you talking about?

I made NO CLAIMS about anything in post #34.

I asked a QUESTION!

"are we going to outlaw every religion but that of the majority."?

Are you really this dishonest or can't you keep track of the exchange?

LOL...you've changed your own post. It was not framed as a question at all.

Right. So we're going to outlaw every religion but that of the majority. - Jorge

No question marks in it, which any reader can scroll back and see for themselves.

[Sherman Logan]

Basic disagreement. Until humans are perfectly good, no government composed of humans can be perfectly good.

Any less than 100% good government is by definition evil to varying degrees. Until men (and therefore governments) become good, it is best to limit the ability of men in power to domineer over others. Therefore a more limited government is by definition better than a less limited one.

With the obvious caveat that a government must be strong enough to fulfill its prime obligation, which is indeed to prevent the initiation of force against its citizens by actors either inside or outside its area of control.

There is also, BTW, the unfortunate fact that people differ greatly in their definition of what constitutes “good” in a government. Until all agree on a definition it seems pretty silly to think that we could devise a truly good government. Until then it seems wiser to settle for a limited, lesser evil government.

[EternalVigilance]

Apology accepted.

[Sherman Logan]

This Christian principle of servant leadership - of self-sacrifice on behalf of others - is the true foundation of American governance.

You know, I have probably read a good many hundreds of books on American history, and I see very little of this in our history. Although there has been a good bit of pious posturing in that direction.

Even stretching your definitions, few leaders would fit. Washington perhaps, who apparently had a geniune aversion to public life and served out of a sense of duty. With that exception, every leader I can think of was serving at least partly out of personal ambition. This is true because without that ambition driving them they never make it to a position of power.

Your interesting theory also directly contradicts the Constitution and the Federalist Papers, which make it clear that the true foundation of American governance is the expectation that most men act out of their own self-interest, so we design a government system that works because they do.

I don't believe that because men become Christian that power no longer has a corrupting influence on them. The past 1700 years of Christians in political power backs me up on this pretty thoroughly.

[EternalVigilance]

John Witherspoon, signer of The Declaration of Independence:

"He is the best friend to American liberty, who is most sincere and active in promoting true and undefiled religion, and who set himself with the greatest firmness to bear down on profanity and immorality of every kind. Whoever is an avowed enemy of God, I scruple not to call him an enemy to his country." - [speech at the College of New Jersey (Princeton) , May 17,1776]

[Melas]

That reads a lot like a personal attack.

[EternalVigilance]

Just because they recognized man's fallen nature, and therefore wisely set up a system of checks on power, does not mean that they didn't pin their hopes for self-government on the personal power of true Christian living and reliance on the ability of the American people to walk according to their religion's precepts. It is clear that they did. I've already posted abundant evidence for this on this thread repeatedly.

[Melas]

I believe Jorges point is that you can’t force anyone to be Godly. It’s truly a case of bringing a horse to water.

[Sherman Logan]

There is abundant documentation from this period. Only if you carefully cherry-pick the evidence can you hold the theory that all or most of the Founders were aggressively fundamentalist Christians of today’s type.

They were also not secularists by today’s standards, as others try to claim.

At the time, aggressive religiosity was considered to be in poor taste, more than anything else. Christianity was accepted as a background to society, for the most part it was not something people got excited about, either in favor or against. Most of the Founders were Christians, although many were not terribly devout, and some of the leading Founders were not Christians at all in any traditional sense.

America became much more religious in the Second Great Awakening from 1800 to 1830. The first Great Awakening was roughly from 1730 to 1745, so the Revolution occurred during a lull in religious activity in America.

[EternalVigilance]

Well, your expressed opinion about the character and the beliefs of the founders [despite their well-documented words on this subject] explains quite a lot.

Good night.

[Nan48]

“Certainly we can, although darn few of us can maintain it permanently. I certainly know I cannot.

“But even those who are good are not thereby qualified to rule over others and enforce their will on them.”

Are you equating goodness with perfection? Being good is a very simple daily decision.

If a good person chose to rule over others and force their will on them, they would cease being good.

[Zon]

Basic disagreement. Until humans are perfectly good, no government composed of humans can be perfectly good.

You've injected the "perfect" qualifier. Not even God is perfect. Uh Oh! Now I've done it. LOL! There can be a good government despite some people being not good. They just can't be employed by the government.

Do you think we should all give up trying to make good government because it's impossible for humans to be perfect? Opps, you suggested perfectly good government, not the attainable, good government..

Ask a person when they want the government to initiate force against them and their property and do the same to their loved ones. I think the vast majority of people would say never. Ask those persons if a government that never initiated force against them would be good government and I think the vast majority would say that that is good government.

Ahh, but here's were some people are hypocrites. They want, under the color of law, force initiated against other people 

[Nan48]

I’m not sure why it is that people today have such a hard time understanding the Founders’ concept of self-government and self-control. A government doesn’t have to be “perfect” to respect individual rights, for instance. It’s a matter of focus. The government can control everything we do, or the government can allow us our God-given, inalienable rights. If we’ve allowed ourselves to become so wicked that the government has to control everything we do to “protect” us from ourselves, then we no longer are a free people. A truly free people are a moral people.