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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach; Carry_Okie; snopercod; Grampa Dave; SierraWasp; Gophack; RonDog; ...
Our very rights that some claim to be pretecting, freedom of religion among them, are bestowed upon us by the Almighty. At least that is the key premise stated in the Declaration of Independence that justified creation of this great nation of ours. It would seem some realpoliticians of today are attempting to subvert that concept as if it were only the realpolitics of 1776 and needs now be discarded.

Once the humanists (man, not God, at the top of the ruling hierarchy) eradicate that foundation, can anybody tell me how there then could ever be such a thing as unalienable rights?

It seems to me that this would lead to the ultimate overturning of our way of life. Schemers who can fight their way to the top of any large enough group will then be able to limit the rights of any single individual, even (and likely especially) those within the large group.

It should not be difficult for the unreligious (if indeed they are concerned about rights) to see the need for the ideal that God represents to be placed at the top rather than any one person, group or form of humanity. And it should not be blasphemous for the religious to adopt this line in defense of our need to permit God to remain in our national allegience.

I pray I am clear and can get other of my friends here to help me improve this line of thinking. I'm almost certain that only something along this line argument will provide us the rational and secure appeal to a secular world for the need of keeping God as the recognized Cheif of our society.

The bottom-line, as I've seen the fight as it has been shaping up all my life, is:
those who despise our country should not be allowed to use our liberties to destroy that which ensures our liberties.

If you agree, please help polish and elevate this concept into the national discussion.
If I'm wrong, please tell me how.

-Av
10 posted on 03/04/2003 2:41:22 PM PST by Avoiding_Sulla (You can't see where we're going when you don't look where we've been.)
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To: Avoiding_Sulla
Here was my crack at it:
When activists of any stripe demand rights for animals, rocks, or plants, what they are really doing is demanding disproportionate representation of their interests as the self-appointed advocates representing those constituents. Unfortunately, to enforce a right requires the police power of government, the only agent so capable. Government acquires this role because it is assumed a disinterested arbiter of competing claims.

History suggests the opposite, which is why limiting the number of enforceable rights is as important to securing the blessings of liberty as is constituting them as unalienable.

When government gains the power to confer rights to any constituency, it acquires the means to confer power upon itself as an enforcing agent. There is then no limit to the power to dilute the rights of citizens. Civic respect for unalienable rights of citizens then exists not at all.


11 posted on 03/04/2003 3:16:32 PM PST by Carry_Okie (The environment is too complex and too important to be managed by politics.)
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To: Avoiding_Sulla
Here's another:
Without structural respect for unalienable property rights, no free market system can function with the integrity, energy, and mutual respect required for success-ful expression of any interdependent social system. Allocating the benefits of interdependence by rationalizing individual valuation of and contribution to particular assets is the genius of individual stock ownership. It comes vastly closer to the collective ownership of the means of production than that of Marx’ misanthropic nightmare.
And another:
Alienation of the individual from the collective interest, with the freedom to control an asset as property, demands the consideration of free trade in order to alter a choice of how to employ that asset. Without identified and accounted alternative investments, with predictable returns and controllable risks, there are no bases for an investor to weigh options of land use.

It matters not whether property rights originate by divine endowment or universal public agreement on inviolable Constitutional law. The mechanics of free trade in ecosystem assets demand unyielding civic respect for individual property rights as unalienable.

Or anything else for that matter.

Here's another:

No industry will invest in an asset that has negative market value. No person can trade in an asset that has an indeterminate price. No market can function without civic respect for the rule of law, contract enforcement, and protection of private property rights as unalienable. A market cannot develop, and prices for ecosystem assets cannot be negotiated, while the prospect of civic takings remains. Civic price suppression has been so complete as to negate calculation of the economic value of habitat for endangered species. That does not mean that their potential economic value is nonexistent, quite the contrary. The behavior of civic agencies and the scope of public support for environmental protection demonstrate the pecuniary interests of both civic agents and the urban public.
I hope that helps.
12 posted on 03/04/2003 3:24:25 PM PST by Carry_Okie (The environment is too complex and too important to be managed by politics.)
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To: Avoiding_Sulla
I'm almost certain that only something along this line argument will provide us the rational and secure appeal to a secular world for the need of keeping God as the recognized Cheif of our society.

Romans 1:28-32

28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.


Hosea 6:6-7 For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. But they like men have transgressed the covenant: there have they dealt treacherously against me.

Hosea 4:1-3

1 Hear the word of the LORD, ye children of Israel: for the LORD hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land.
2 By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood.
3 Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish, with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven; yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away.

Proverbs 9:10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.

2 Thessalonians 2:6-7 And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.

2722 katecho {kat-ekh'-o}
from 2596 and 2192; TDNT - 2:829,286; v
AV - hold 3, hold fast 3, keep 2, possess 2, stay 1, take 1, have 1,
make 1, misc 5; 19

1) to hold back, detain, retain
1a) from going away
1b) to restrain, hinder (the course or progress of)
1b1) that which hinders, Antichrist from making his appearance
1b2) to check a ship's headway i.e. to hold or head the ship
1c) to hold fast, keep secure, keep firm possession of
2) to get possession of, take
2b) to possess

Amos 8:11-12

11 Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD:
12 And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find it.


2 Thessalonians 2:8-12

8 And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:
9 [Even him], whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,
10 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

delusion...

4106 plane {plan'-ay}
from 4108 (as abstractly); TDNT - 6:228,857; n f
AV - error 7, to deceive 1, deceit 1, delusion 1; 10

1) a wandering, a straying about
1a) one led astray from the right way, roams hither and thither
2) metaph.
2a) mental straying
2a1) error, wrong opinion relative to morals or religion
2b) error which shows itself in action, a wrong mode of acting
2c) error, that which leads into error, deceit or fraud

***

Alzheimer's, the "long goodbye".

13 posted on 03/05/2003 5:41:41 AM PST by Thinkin' Gal
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