(can't think outside of the box)
Posted on 08/23/2012 4:06:33 AM PDT by don-o
"Our rights come from God and nature, not from government."
Those words brought rousing ovations in Norfolk, Va., as Paul Ryan accepted his candidacy as Mitt Romney's running mate.
But even high-octane tea drinkers from the Grand Old Party surely don't intend for our government to renege on its responsibility to ensure not only our civil rights, but our safety, our productivity, our well-being and our freedom.
How silly to say government isn't the arbiter of our rights as Americans, the protector and safeguard of democracy. Maybe Ryan wants to play on the emotional issues of gay rights and reproduction rights, both of which the Republican platform seeks to convince Americans are anti-their-religion and anti-Mother-nature.
They like to posture government as a bogeyman that strips us of our freedom, religious and otherwise. But setting up a government that gives us all — rich, poor, black, white, old, young, powerful, marginal, majority, minority, liberal, conservative, born-again Baptist or Wiccan — the right to pursue happiness and live in peace was the patriots' dream long ago and what we have fought to sustain in every war since.
(Excerpt) Read more at knoxnews.com ...
Weep or scream? Nope, take a page from John Sununu and just laugh at them at the same time holding the Declaration and Constitution booklet from Heritage.
Wow. Somehow I can just see Ina sitting back smiling after finishing this spittle-laced, nonsensical and blathering idiocy, thinking she is the smartest person in the world, totally oblivious to the fact that she is a clueless, socialist-loving moron who has everything exactly a$$ backwards. Behold... the Obama voter and the enemy within.
How silly to say government isn’t the arbiter of our rights as Americans, the protector and safeguard of democracy
Silly? Not really. Without our consent the Government does not exist. So in fact we are the arbiter of the Government rights. Its called the vote..
Without our consent the Government does not exist. So in fact we are the arbiter of the Government rights. Its called the vote..
The system has been rigged so that candidates favoring upholding our rights can rarely win.
Which only reinforces my point. Make them so uncomfortable they seriously consider those locations as a new habitat.
The best thing about Alinsky writing that book is we can use the book of Sun Tsu as a guide to turn their own weapon against them.
This term always puzzles me. Who wants to interfere with people's (women's) right to reproduce?
Many people, not only atheists, disagree about the nature of human rights. One could ask, do Muslims see God as endowing them with these rights? Many God-fearing people all over the world have no such belief.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
LLS
Thanks for this. Great stuff.
This is true, she certainly is all those and more. However, Leftists like Hughs are not just clueless to the existence and meaning of our founding principles. . . .they are well aware of them AND OPPOSE THEM! That's the thing to remember. . .they oppose the core ideals that have made America great. Consider the Humanist Manifesto. . .tenet number 5 says the following:
Humanism asserts that the nature of the universe depicted by modern science makes unacceptable any supernatural or cosmic guarantees of human values. Obviously humanism does not deny the possibility of realities as yet undiscovered, but it does insist that the way to determine the existence and value of any and all realities is by means of intelligent inquiry and by the assessment of their relations to human needs. Religion must formulate its hopes and plans in the light of the scientific spirit and method.
Catch that? This is a direct negation to the essence of the Declaration's assertions and the role of religion is civil society.
It is better, imo, to use standard English and to refute rather than descend to name calling and gutter language.
She’s a bitter divorcee (after 30 years marriage) living in a log cabin in a cove on the Tennessee River (or so her Knoxnews Bio says)- having recently taken up painting!
Specializes in bitter womens’ issues and liberal quasiquidity.....
Ina, shockingly ignorant on so many things, in too many ways to list here. I suppose that piece would make a fairly effective resignation letter for someone that thinks they are in the journalism business.
How such people are able to function in situations that require thought is a mystery, given her obvious lack of thought in the first few paragraphs of this piece.
Was it Chesterton or Lewis who sad - paraphrase - “that a thing worth thinking about is worth thinking all the way through”?
If there is any semblance of a thought that rights come from any other source than God, then that source may grant and withhold them at its whim.
I’ll see her collectivist, State-worshipping foulness at the bottom of that half-decaf soy skinny latte and raise her by ten million committed patriots willing to kill and die for his God-given rights.
Unbelievable drooling idiocy.
Ina Hughs.
Imagine when the government decides spending scarce health care dollars on an over aged women with cancer would be better spent replacing a knee on a 20 year old with many years yet to live.
Good. Let’s hope the left embraces this position. This person is a great example of the ignorance the democrats prey on to build their coalition of government dependent losers. No understanding of history. No reading of philophers who’s writings drove our founders to a government of the people. In their world, government is a benevolent force for good...a concept held by kings and tyrants.
I dropped my subscription to the Sentinel years ago due to the ravings of editor Jack McElroy. His decision to keep this bitter old hag employed only reinforces my decision. And bitter she is.
Our rights don’t ‘come from’ anything but man’s need to live in a society without being molested. Did rights exist before there was religion? Were men at each others throats 24 hours a day? Try to think these questions through.
It’s difficlt to believe people can be that obtuse. I wonder if this woman knows that she’s exposing herself as a huge ignoramus. I hope she’s not a teacher.
Is our nation awash in absolutely clueless incompetents or deadly and determined ideologues?
Dear God, it’s both. Well, we’ve been here before. What an unnecessary orgy of stupid bloodshed ahead of us.
If you want to see more about Ina and her beliefs, background, and previous articles she has written, click on her picture at the article. You will be able to see clearly the true liberal that she is.
When Obama denied American exceptionalism by comparing us to Greece & England he denied the uniqueness of our history; a history that has spread the concept of individual freedom world wide.
When Obama said that our constitution was incomplete because it outlined negative rights, that is what the gov. could not do, he betrayed his perspecitive as government-centered.
When Obama said "you didn't build that" he denegrated all individual achievement.
In Obama's worldview we are subjects not citizens. All of our actions occur through the benevolence of government and only those actions sanctioned by government are legitimate. His actions as POTUS demonstrate this belief.
This position is diametrically opposed to our rights as Americans.
Nothing is more vital than ensuring that he is defeated.
LLS
Whence does government derive its powers to grant rights? According to our chartering documents, as well as the dictionary definition of “democracy,” it is from The People. So government grants rights to the people who ARE the government?
Even if we concede that absurdity, from where do The People derive the power they transfer to government? Certainly not from the government! Those rights are innate, inborn.
While some fools may trust the government to PROTECT their rights, only the most deluded believe that government CREATES them.
And when one speaks of “deluded” and “fools,” one must of necessity be speaking of liberals.
I have and will post to that later. Preview: Religion and God are different.
Your objection is based on a misunderstanding, I think. Don-o said that rights come from "God"; you are objecting by saying they existed before "religion." But "God" and "religion" are not the same thing.
There are some religions, for instance, which do not provide any basis for a discussion of Natural Rights. I think Islam is one example. I am not at all an expert in Islamic thought, but I have seen Islamic religious teachers assert that a natural, universal "right to life" does not exist. And why? Because, by their account, Allah made the world exclusively for the beenfit the Ummah (the Muslim community) and non-believers are actually thieves, occupying the Ummah's ground and breathing the Ummah's air. Their existence can only be tolerated if they are in some way profitable to the ummah, e.g. as dhimmis.
There are other religions which do provide a strong basis for Natural Law and Natural Rights, inasmuch as they understand that God is the author of both Scripture and Nature. Which is to say, God has established Natural Law because He has established human nature.
My understanding is that Taoists, Deists, Catholics, etc. enter the discussion together with agnostic, atheists, and others at just that point: a common acceptance of human nature, discerned by reason, as a basis of natural rights.
Benedict XVI made just this provocative point in his address at Regensberg in 2005, asking the question of whether Islam could accept reason as a common point of departure. This was followed by Islamic rioting on 3 continents resulting in 19 deaths, which did not suggest an answer in the affirmative.
In Obama’s worldview - and more importantly, in the worldview of hjis minders - we are things, animals or machines. Nothing more.
Never forget that.
(can't think outside of the box)
The "bitch" part is offensive: not only does it mainstream sexual contempt, but female dogs resent the comparison.
“Epistle to the author of the book, The Three Impostors”.
Insipid writer, you pretend to draw for your readers
The portraits of your 3 impostors;
How is it that, witlessly, you have become the fourth?
Why, poor enemy of the supreme essence,
Do you confuse Mohammed and the Creator,
And the deeds of man with God, his author?...
Criticize the servant, but respect the master.
God should not suffer for the stupidity of the priest:
Let us recognize this God, although he is poorly served.
My lodging is filled with lizards and rats;
But the architect exists, and anyone who denies it
Is touched with madness under the guise of wisdom.
Consult Zoroaster, and Minos, and Solon,
And the martyr Socrates, and the great Cicero:
They all adored a master, a judge, a father.
This sublime system is necessary to man.
It is the sacred tie that binds society,
The first foundation of holy equity,
The bridle to the wicked, the hope of the just.
If the heavens, stripped of his noble imprint,
Could ever cease to attest to his being,
If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
Let the wise man announce him and kings fear him.
Kings, if you oppress me, if your eminencies disdain
The tears of the innocent that you cause to flow,
My avenger is in the heavens: learn to tremble.
Such, at least, is the fruit of a useful creed.
But you, faulty logician, whose sad foolishness
Dares to reassure them in the path of crime,
What fruit do you expect to reap from your fine arguments?
Will your children be more obedient to your voice?
Your friends, at time of need, more useful and reliable?
Your wife more honest? and your new renter,
For not believing in God, will he pay you better?
Alas! let’s leave intact human belief in fear and hope.
In vain you raise as an objection to me the hypocritical insolence
Of these proud charlatans promoted to high honors,
Nourished by our work, quenched by our tears;
Of these Caesars tainted by their usurped grandeur;
A priest on the Capitoline hill where Pompea triumphed;
Of these wretches in sandals, the excrement of humanity,
Soaking there detestable hands in our blood;
At the sound of their voice a hundred towns are covered in ruins,
And the horrible matins of bloodied Paris:
I know these awful monuments better than you;
I have unmasked them with my pen for the past fifty years.
But, as the fearsome enemy of this fanaticism,
I have also celebrated God when the devil was vanquished.
I always distinguished between religion
And the misery bred of superstition.
Europe has thanked me; twenty crowned heads
Have deigned to applaud the fortunate labors of my nights,
While Patouillet was insulting me in vain.
I have done more in my time than Luther and Calvin.
They were seen opposing, in a fatal error,
Abuses with abuses, scandal with scandal.
Eager to throw themselves amidst the factions,
They condemned the Pope and wanted to imitate him.
Europe was long desolated by them all;
They troubled the earth, and I have consoled it.
I have told the disputants, hounding one another:
“Cease, impertinent ones, cease, unfortunate ones;
Foolish children of God, cherish yourselves in your brothers,
And stop biting one another for absurd chimeras.”
Good people have believed me: the evil ones, crushed,
Have hurled cries that are scorned by the wise man;
And in Europe, finally, happy toleration
Has become the catechism of all well made souls.
I see from afar that era coming, those happy days,
When philosophy, enlightening humanity,
Must lead them in peace to the feet of the common master;
Frightful fanaticism will tremble to appear there:
There will be less dogma with more virtue.
If someone wants to assume an official position,
He will no longer bring along two witnesses 2
To testify to his beliefs; rather they will swear to his good conduct.
A Huguenot lover will be able to marry
The attractive sister of an important cleric;
We will see poverty clothed and nourished
With the treasures of the Loretto, amassed for Mary;
The children of Sarah, whom we treat like dogs,
Will eat ham that has been cured by Christians.
The Turk, without asking whether the imam will pardon him,
Will go drink with the abbé Tamponet at the Sorbonne. 3
My nephews will dine gaily and with no ill will
With the descendants of the Pompignan brothers;
They will be able to pardon this harsh La Blétrie 4
For having cut short the course of my life.
We will see a reunion of the finest minds:
But who will ever be able to bear dining with Fréron?
-From Voltaire.
Without the absolute of God, no morality is possibe, no rights are possible, and no life is possible. Far wiser men than I, have explained this far better than I can.
LLS
It’s not a matter of offending sensibilities, though respect for the audience is an important component of intelligent dialogue.
There are ways to express oneself forcefully, without resort to name calling and gutter language.
Most moderately intelligent 4th graders would hopefully know the complete error in the above statement.
Our productivity?! Is she serious?
Has this nimrod ever read this? -
“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 such form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government...”
Clearly, the writer of this dreck is an idiot.
There are lot of idiots around; they’re called Democrats.
I did not use gutter language... the president and vice president do that.
LLS
With all this time on your hands maybe you can admonish all these bass turds F-bombing on FR.
There's only 3300+ of them of course the more polite folk toss in an asterisk instead of a "u" but then you're up to 80,000 tickets to hand out.
I'm all for civil discourse but when the very life of our great nation is at stake a little stronger language than perhaps acceptable at your lady's luncheon may be in order.
If its true abuse just hit the abuse button and let the AM decide.
Just in case you were wondering what I thought ... ;-)
You expressed yourself in standard English. Thank you.
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