I was surprised that this entire article wasn't just a bash Bush fest since it was posted on Beliefnet originally. It is a very interesting article.
<> Our Chiliastic Commander in Chief is the biggest threat to world peace. His binary,Manichaean, weltanschauung is truly frightening. He actually believes he is the instrument of God in this world and, more and more, he is adopting the "good guys" vs. the "bad guys" approach.
The "good guys" can do what they desire in opposing the "bad guys" because the "ridding-the-world-of-the bad-guys" end justifies the "War of agression" means.
The world is a very complicated place and we all are burdened with original sin yet listen to our dufus Dubya (yes, I do think he is dumb) trying to convince us the mantle of God is upon his shoulders and he was chosen to liberate the entire planet. This is pure madness. In better days, someone would have thrown a net over the loon.
Nineveh was saved by fasting and prayer. Put down your forks and hit your knees....This nutball already has us bogged-down in Afghanistan (how many thousands of innocents were killed in that Unjust War?) we are about to launch an UnJust War in Iraq (Our sanctions have already accounted for over 500,000 deaths of innocent Iraqis and we have 200,000 disabled Vets from Daddy's first Gulf War), the War Criminal Sharon wants us to take out Iran after Iraq (any bets we won't?)and we have a president that struts about as though he were mini-Mussolini and he personalises disagreements with other world leaders (Saddam and Korea's Kim)and I listen to Dubya talk trash to them and about them and I think, "What the Hell is this, the World Wide Wrestling Federation?"
Dubya READ THE CONSTITUTION you one-termer. You have NO authority to do what you are doing. (The Congress has NOBODY with a lick of courage to stand-up to this madman and tell him to go to Hell. Congress has the duty to declare war))You are ruining the economy, (Nice budget, what about the war? Think that'll cost a few dollars?) dragging us up to the gates of Hell and while you are too puffed-up with pride to notice Cerebus nipping at your heels, your soldiers are slowly sinking in the quagmire in Afghanistan (What, you thought we'd "win" there? Russia, right next door couldn't) and you are about to endanger both Iraqi and American souls with this foolhardy war for oil and currency (which will prevail, the dollar or the Euro? Follow the money...).
"War President" my ass. When YOU were in the National Guard (to duck Vietnam), you were AWOL for over a year. Chickenenhawk. The same goes for your entire damn cabinet, 'cept Powell. Same goes for Rush and the rest of the war-rabid, chickenhawk,neo-cons
And why was it ok for V.P. Cheney to do businesss with Saddam up until 1998 if Saddam is Hitler? And why was it ok for Daddy Bush and The Carlyle Group to be doing business with the Bin Laden Family in Saudi Arabia even after 911? Why did you, Dubya, squash the CIA's investigation into the Bin Laden Family as soon as you became president?
Where did all those pilots/terrorists come from? Saudia Arabia and Egypt. Not a SINGLE one from Afghanistan or Iraq, yet, we bomb and attack them...
Speaking of Bin Laden (remember him? He was our NUMBER ONE PRIORITY,DEAD OR ALIVE right?), why did you, Dubya, do business with his brother in your first overseas business venture? A Christian cannot even publicly pray in Saudia Arabia yet you, the instrument of God,and your Dadddy, not only did business with them, you invited the Saudis to your ranch in Texas after 911. (I won't even mention your family raking in the cash while doing business with Hitler)Instrument of God? Yeah, and Rosie O'Donnell is spokeswoman for Weight Watchers. Hypocrite, liar, phony, dufus. "Our foreign policy must be humble..." Yeah, right.
You can instruct Powell to go and lie to the United Nations but you are not fooling the world. The next day his lies were unmasked. In citing "new information" about Saddam's chemical weapons, Powell was quoting from a TWELVE YEAR OLD THESIS WRITTEN BY A GRAD STUDENT. Good Lord. That was even easier to unmask than his lies leading-up to Daddy's First UnJust War in the Gulf. He said "Our Satellite intelligence, (sorry,can't show you, it is classified), shows over 1000 tanks and tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers massed on the Saudia Arabia border." One little woman, at the St. Petersburg Times, purchased satellite photos from a commercial satelite and proved that was a lie.
Powell musta been promised the V.P. spot the next time around as the price for his public lies in support of your duplicitous actions.
You have been President for less thsan three years and look at what the hell has happend to our country....I can't fly without being harassed as though I were a criminal, our economy has gone to hell, our liberties have been reduced, you put the criminal Poindexter in charge of reading my Emails and listening to my phone calls, your crackpot Atty General puts a cloth over the Statue of Justice to hide her "nudity" while at the same time trying to lift the veil of the lawyer-client priviledge and he has already prepared a second "Patriot Act" ready to Goose-step through the craven Congress the next time we suffer a terrorist attack, and we are told to buy duct tape and plastic. This is madness...our country is being dragged into the pit and there is not a single conservative alive who can truthfully respond "Yes" in answer to Reagan's famous question; "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?"
Saddam has been boxed-in for more'n nine years with "no-fly" zones in the north and south. A Threat to the world? Puhleeze. We are the Death Star and Saddam is a guy on a goat with a grenade in his jock.
You know, when I read that Helen Thomas said Bush is the worst President we have ever had, I laughed. I ain't laughing any longer...<>
Bump!
"In terms of population alone, a high percentage of the pre-revolutionary American colonies were of Puritan-Calvinist background. There were around three million persons in the thirteen original colonies by 1776, and perhaps as many as two-thirds of these came from some kind of Calvinist or Puritan connection" (Douglas F. Kelly, The Emergence of Liberty in the Modern World — (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1992), p. 120.
"The U.S. Constitution is a Calvinist's document through and through."
And because of that, they made sure that in America, one man’s liberty will not depend upon another man’s (religious) conscience (as in Europe)!
Dr. George Bancroft, arguably the most prominent American historian of the 19th century — and not a Calvinist — stated:
"He who will not honor the memory and respect the influence of Calvin knows but little of the origin of American liberty"
The 55 Framers (from North to South):
John Langdon, Congregationalist (Calvinist)
Nicholas Gilman, Congregationalist (Calvinist)
Elbridge Gerry, Episcoplian (Calvinist)
Rufus King, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
Caleb Strong, Congregationalist (Calvinist)
Nathaniel Gorham, Congregationalist (Calvinist)
Roger Sherman, Congregationalist (Calvinist)
William Samuel Johnson, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
Oliver Ellsworth, Congregationalist (Calvinist)
Alexander Hamilton, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
John Lansing, Dutch Reformed (Calvinist)
Robert Yates, Dutch Reformed (Calvinist)
William Patterson, Presbyterian (Calvinist)
William Livingston, Presbyterian (Calvinist)
Jonathan Dayton, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
David Brearly, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
William Churchill Houston, Presbyterian (Calvinist)
Benjamin Franklin, Christian in his youth, Deist in later years, then back to his Puritan background in his old age (his June 28, 1787 prayer at the Constitutional Convention was from no "Deist")
Robert Morris, Episcopalian, (Calvinist)
James Wilson, probably a Deist
Gouverneur Morris, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
Thomas Mifflin, Lutheran (Calvinist-lite)
George Clymer, Quaker turned Episcopalian (Calvinist)
Thomas FitzSimmons, Roman Catholic
Jared Ingersoll, Presbyterian (Calvinist)
John Dickinson, Quaker turned Episcopalian (Calvinist)
George Read, Episcopalian, (Calvinist)
Richard Bassett, Methodist
Gunning Bedford, Presbyterian (Calvinist)
Jacob Broom, Lutheran
Luther Martin, Episcopalian, (Calvinist)
Daniel Carroll, Roman Catholic
John Francis Mercer, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
James McHenry, Presbyterian (Calvinist)
Daniel of St Thomas Jennifer, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
George Washington, Episcopalian (Calvinist; no, he was not a deist)
James Madison, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
George Mason, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
Edmund Jennings Randolph, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
James Blair, Jr., Episcopalian (Calvinist)
James McClung, ?
George Wythe, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
William Richardson Davie, Presbyterian (Calvinist)
Hugh Williamson, Presbyterian, possibly later became a Deist
William Blount, Presbyterian (Calvinist)
Alexander Martin, Presbyterian/Episcopalian (Calvinist)
Richard Dobbs Spaight, Jr., Episcopalian (Calvinist)
John Rutledge, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, III, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
Abraham Baldwin, Congregationalist (Calvinist)
William Leigh Pierce, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
William Houstoun, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
William Few, Methodist
Even some "four score"-odd years later, the supposedly "non-christian" Abraham Lincoln offered the positively Biblical and very Reformed covenantal view of the Sovereign of the Nations and Ruler of history:
"It is the duty of nations, as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon. And to recognize the sublime truth announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord." (Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation, October 3, 1863. bold emphasis mine).
INTRODUCTION TO THE LIBERTY PRINCIPLES IN AMERICAN POLITICS
by Stephen L. Corrigan -
http://w3.one.net/~stephenc/fun.html
The founders of the United States of America believed that all men were created with equal authority. Thus they declared the following principle as the foundation of their political union. They said:
" 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 Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
The founders also believed that this concept of equal authority was taught in the Bible. They used Sir Walter Blackstone’s Commentary on Law to explain and illustrate this Biblical concept. The following is from Blackstone's "Commentary on Law" concerning the equality of mankind at creation:
"If man were to live in a state of nature, unconnected with other individuals, there would be no occasion for any other laws, than the law of nature, and the law of God. Neither could any other law possibly exist; for a law always supposes some superior who is to make it; and in a state of nature we are all equal, without any other superior but him who is also the author of our being."
This phrase "law of nature" was explained by Blackstone a little earlier in his "Commentary on Law" in the following manner:
"This law of nature, being coeval with mankind and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe in all countries, and at all times; no human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this: and such of them as are valid derive all their force, and all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original."
The founders identified the 13 colonies of their union as "Free Protestant". As Protestants, their Declaration in 1776 that "all men are created equal (in authority) " was consistent with the doctrine of their founder, the man who first openly protested the hierarchy of men (the pope and priests in the Roman Chatholic Church) over Christians. His name was Martin Luther. He was a Roman Catholic priest from Germany who began the "Protestant Reformation". He stated the following:
"I say, then, neither pope, nor bishop, nor any man whatever has the right of making one syllable binding on a Christian man, unless it be done with his own consent.
Whatever is done otherwise is done in the spirit of tyranny...I cry aloud on behalf of liberty and conscience, and I proclaim with confidence that no kind of law can with any justice be imposed on Christians, except so far as they themselves will; for we are free from all."
As Protestant Christians, the founders believed that all Christians were in a covenant relationship with God the Father made possible through Jesus Christ. Because of that covenant, they felt that every Christian was obligated to follow at least the minimum of God 's Revealed Will (THE TEN COMMANDMENTS) found in His Holy printed Word. This belief was to be the foundation for order in all communities in America. This belief that God revealed his will directly to all believers regardless of sex was later known by the Free Protestants who came to America in 1620 as the "Priesthood of the Believer".
By accepting God's precepts as the standard for their consciences, they believed that God alone gave them liberty.
Because dictionaries did not exist at the time of the Declaration of Independence, the only way one could determine how Liberty in America was defined both religiously and politically was to look at the only religious source that was to be accepted by all free Protestants. Once that source was determined and an examination of the political documents that had been written at that time had been made, it was a very simple task to determine how the founders applied their religious liberty politically. The only religious book at that time was the "The King James Version" of the Bible.
Let us see how Liberty is defined in this version of the Holy Scriptures. It is found in Psalms 119:45 :
"And I will walk at liberty: for I seek thy precepts."
Because the founders were "free Protestant" concerning their view of the Gospel and how it was to be spread in the world, they adopted a form of political union for their colonies that was taken from the Old World. It was not inconsistent with their religious views concerning associations. The type of political Union that was adopted by the first colonies in America was the "Confederation". This type of union allowed them to unite as a single union FOR SECURITY but allowed them to retain their right of sovereignty as Christians and their right of sovereignty to exist as 'free Protestant" colonies.
The first Confederation was formed in 1643. As we examine a portion of their Charter , we can gain a clear view of how they viewed their religious liberty politically. Again because there were no dictionaries at that time, this is the only source to see how liberty was view in America.
It proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that they continued the belief of the pilgrims identifying God not man as the author and giver of their liberties.
The following portion in that Charter clearly reflects the purpose of the American Confederation and souce of their Liberties. This, by the way is the same Confederation that fought the Revolutionary War:
Whereas we all came into these parts of America with one and the same end and aim, namely, to advance the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ and to enjoy the liberties of the Gospel in purity with peace;
For our founders, one man’s liberty did not rest upon another man’s conscience. Each citizen had the right to program his conscience according to the standards he felt were true and to live his life as his conscience dictated in his pursuit for happiness. Again Blackstone speaks on the subject of pursuing happiness.
"For he (God) has so intimately connected, so inseparably inter-woven the laws of eternal justice with the happiness of each individual that the latter cannot be attained but by observing the former; and, if the former be punctually obeyed, it cannnot but induce the latter."
They believed that God gave life to all men and with that life the opportunity to follow him. As believers, they believed that they had a responsibility to protect the lives and liberties of their fellow Americans against all tyranny and that each citizen should have the right as a priest to pursue happiness according to the dictates of his own conscience.
"League of Friendship" identified the religious and political principles that were in their Confederation as colonies. Those same principles are identified when they again refer to their Confederation of free States as a"League of Friendship" (see Articles of the Confederation). As Christians, they defined the obligation of their sacred friendship in the following manner. In John 15:13 of the New Testament, Jesus made this statement to his followers:
"Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."
Those founders considered the cost of belonging to the Union that they had created and determined that the treasure for their children was well worth the price. Thus they asked God for the following condition as they pledged their support to one another to protect the Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness of their fellow Americans. They asked God to keep them honest by holding them accountable for what they were about to pledge. They then pledged the following:
"We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare:
That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
Rights of Conscience is the foundation of American Politics. Many Christians in America were worried at the time when the U.S. Constitution was passed and feared that their right to let God govern their conscience might be replaced by the authority given to Congress as the U.S. Constitution was ratified. Thomas Jefferson was aware of their concerns and wrote the following:
"No provision in our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the power of its public functionaries..."
(Thomas Jefferson in a letter to the Methodist Episcopal Church at New London, Connecticut, Feb. 4, 1809).
In America, one man’s liberty is not dependent upon another man’s conscience!