Posted on 11/17/2003 8:24:55 AM PST by Chancellor Palpatine
Or did he not mean what he said?
Please point out where CP has done this. Please be very precise.
I don't know about the motivation for this thread, but I have observed that the goal of most homeschool bashing is to take away the right to homeschool. Leftists don't like parents, rather than the state, educating children, as the home educated tend to grow up much more conservative than the average. Even worse, homeschool families tend to be much larger than government school families. If this trend continues for a few generations, the homeschoolers will outvote their opponents.
One would think this outcome would be a cause for rejoicing to Freepers, and I'm sure it would be for most. But as we all know, there are quite a few regular posters on Free Republic that aren't all that conservative. Their aim seems to be to disrupt the free and friendly discussion of conservative ideas and to annoy Christians enough that they exile themselves to the Religion ghetto.
So then all the framers were liars and cheats?
Because your idol was a liar..does not translate to 100% of the framers being liars..
When we come to study the influence of Calvinism as a political force in the history of the United States we come to one of the brightest pages of all Calvinistic history. Calvinism came to America in the Mayflower, and Bancroft, the greatest of American historians, pronounces the Pilgrim Fathers "Calvinists in their faith according to the straightest system." John Endicott, the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony; John Winthrop, the second governor of that Colony; Thomas Hooker, the founder of Connecticut; John Davenport, the founder of the New Haven Colony; and Roger Williams, the founder of the Rhode Island Colony, were all Calvinists. William Penn was a disciple of the Huguenots. It is estimated that of the 3,000,000 Americans at the time of the American Revolution, 900,000 were of Scotch or Scotch-Irish origin, 600,000 were Puritan English, and 400,000 were German or Dutch Reformed. In addition to this the Episcopalians had a Calvinistic confession in their Thirty-nine Articles; and many French Huguenots also had come to this western world. Thus we see that about two-thirds of the colonial population had been trained in the school of Calvin. Never in the world's history had a nation been founded by such people as these.
With this background we shall not be surprised to find that the Presbyterians took a very prominent part in the American Revolution. Our own historian Bancroft says: "The Revolution of 1776, so far as it was affected by religion, was a Presbyterian measure. It was the natural outgrowth of the principles which the Presbyterianism of the Old World planted in her sons, the English Puritans, the Scotch Covenanters, the French Huguenots, the Dutch Calvinists, and the Presbyterians of Ulster." So intense, universal, and aggressive were the Presbyterians in their zeal for liberty that the war was spoken of in England as "The Presbyterian Rebellion." An ardent colonial supporter of King George III wrote home: "I fix all the blame for these extraordinary proceedings upon the Presbyterians. They have been the chief and principal instruments in all these flaming measures. They always do and ever will act against government from that restless and turbulent anti-monarchial spirit which has always distinguished them everywhere." When the news of "these extraordinary proceedings" reached England, Prime Minister Horace Walpole said in Parliament, "Cousin America has run off with a Presbyterian parson" (John Witherspoon, president of {Calvinist Presbyterian} Princeton, signer of Declaration of Independence).
History is eloquent in declaring that American democracy was born of Christianity and that that Christianity was Calvinism. The great Revolutionary conflict which resulted in the formation of the American nation, was carried out mainly by Calvinists, many of whom had been trained in the rigidly Presbyterian College at Princeton, and this nation is their gift to all liberty loving people.
J. R. Sizoo tells us: "When Cornwallis was driven back to ultimate retreat and surrender at Yorktown, all of the colonels of the Colonial Army but one were Presbyterian elders. More than one-half of all the soldiers and officers of the American Army during the Revolution were Presbyterians."
The testimony of Emilio Castelar, the famous Spanish statesman, orator and scholar, is interesting and valuable. Castelar had been professor of Philosophy in the University of Madrid before he entered politics, and he was made president of the republic which was set up by the Liberals in 1873. As a Roman Catholic he hated Calvin and Calvinism. Says he: "It was necessary for the republican movement that there should come a morality more austere than Luther's, the morality of Calvin, and a Church more democratic than the German, the Church of Geneva. The Anglo-Saxon democracy has for its lineage a book of a primitive society — the Bible. It is the product of a severe theology learned by the few Christian fugitives in the gloomy cities of Holland and Switzerland, where the morose shade of Calvin still wanders . . . And it remains serenely in its grandeur, forming the most dignified, most moral and most enlightened portion of the human race."
All this has been thoroughly understood and candidly acknowledged by such penetrating and philosophic historians as Bancroft, who far though he was from being Calvinistic in his own personal convictions, simply calls Calvin "the father of America," and adds: "He who will not honor the memory and respect the influence of Calvin knows but little of the origin of American liberty." ~~ Boettner, "Calvinism in History"
BTW He was a Catholic..a salvation by works guy..he probably thought he could live like hell and get into heaven on the basis of a few prayers and a mass
Thank God the framers believed in a sovereign God
It's always open-season on conservative Christians.
Simple. Out of 27 footnotes in the essay you quoted, six are citations of a single article by Frederick Clarkson. The publication it's found in, "The Public Eye", is published by a group called "Political Research Associates". Here's a statement about them, taken from their own website:
Founded in 1981, Political Research Associates serves as the premier national organization addressing the full spectrum of the US political Right - from the right-wing in the electoral arena to paramilitary organizations. PRA works to facilitate public understanding of the threat posed to democratic values and principles by the Right in the United States. Through our research and publications and as a national resource and support center for activists, journalists and others, PRA helps to build the movement for progressive social change.
So, how long have you been secretly pushing the Democratic Party's agenda on Free Republic, Herr Chancellor?
Let's get back to our analysis of this hit piece:
Of the remaining 21 footnotes, only three directly reference a "core" Reconstructionist author or publication (Gary North twice, Rev. Sandelin once). Only two of those reference direct quotes (both North), and neither are made in the context of home schooling or private education. Of the remaining 18 footnotes all appear to reference articles/quotes made by parties hostile to either conservative politics, Christian Reconstructionism, or Christian activism in general. Add in the six citations mentioned above, and it totals to 24 footnotes of secondary/tertiary sources, one primary book source, and only two actual source quotations from the accused (none about education).
In other words, Chancellor Palpatine (may I call you Darth Sidious?) you've provided us with a wonderfully biased, openly-Democratic-party-supporting slam-job of an article, one that more properly belongs on that whinefest better known as Democratic Underground than on Free Republic.
Refute that.
Great posts, RnMom.
"The tree of liberty was watered with the blood of Calvinists."
Indefensible, Mr. Robinson. Pathetic.
Bravo, Alex. You've scratched and sniffed, and found a DU troll. And a "Progressive," no less.
Thanks for your diligent research.
Indefensible, Mr. Robinson. Pathetic.
You however are attempting to paint all of Christianity with this marginal, irrelevant nonsense, and I'm not going to tolerate it or allow it to go unanswered.
Please point out where CP has done this. Please be very precise.
Tick...tock....tick.....tock......tick......
And in the meantime I'll go get you a Kleenex.
"In other words, Chancellor Palpatine (may I call you Darth Sidious?) you've provided us with a wonderfully biased, openly-Democratic-party-supporting slam-job of an article, one that more properly belongs on that whinefest better known as Democratic Underground than on Free Republic. Refute that.
Oh well??
What the heck has come over you? Why are you permitting this??
Today is no different: "Only the select" have the franchise. If you're 17 years, 364 days old or less, you can't vote, but if you're one day older, you can. Unless you're a felon or a foreigner or dead (take that back: felons, foreigners and dead people do vote in many places in the US). At any rate, the main point is that every government limits the vote to "the select"; it is hardly the terrible calamity you suggest.
No doubt what you meant to say is that you don't like North's version of the select. Well, I'm sure many reconstructionists don't agree with his selection either. And many nonreconstructionists Christians don't agree either. The religious right is hardly monolithic...all this scaremongering is much ado about nothing to worry about. At least not in our lifetimes.
If you're concerned that much about the distant future, maybe you should spend less time posting on Free Republic and more time having children. Teach them your viewpoint and tell to them to do the same with their children. In a few generations there could be thousands of Chancellor Palpatines to outvote those scary Reconstructionist homeschoolers.
Nicely put. After all, that's how I'm planning converting this country to my own values, and away from the Democrats, liberals, and atheists. Of course, it may take multiple generations, but I'm patient. The way I figure it, as long as they're practicing abortion-on-demand (and I'm not) I think my plan wins by default.
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