[antimedia] antimedia: Restoring the America We Love....

[Email subscription to blog articles]

Exceptional.
Is there to be a sequel?
 
-------Original Message-------
 
From: Email subscription to blog articles
Date: 06/23/07 22:15:24
To: antimedia at lists.powerblogs.com
Subject: [antimedia] antimedia: Restoring the America We Love....
 
Posted by antimedia:
Restoring the America We Love....
http://www.antimedia.us/posts/1182636977.shtml
 
 
   ....In previous articles I have written about [1]What's Wrong With
   America? and [2]Why America Abandoned God. As promised, this article
   will talk about how we can restore the America of old.
   The answer to America's problems is to return to an "Ask not what your
   country can do for you" society and abandon the present foolhardy
   march toward socialism. It's really that simple. In short, government
   is not the answer to your problems.
   For many this seems old-fashioned -- out of date -- even useless.
   Some, not comprehending at all what the First Amendment means, even
   think it's illegal.
   But [3]the First Amendment does not ban religion from the public
   square, as some seem to think.
 
     Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
     or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom
     of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to
     assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of
     grievances. (Emphasis mine.)
 
   When schools prohibit a student from praying at a graduation ceremony,
   they are violating the First Amendment rights of that student. The
   Amendment clearly states that Congress shall make no law that
   "prohibit[s] the free exercise" of religion. Interpreting these words
   to mean that students should not mention God in public ceremony is so
   obviously wrong-headed as to turn language on its head.
 
   ([4]show)
 
   When people complain that the President should not mention God in his
   speeches or Congress should not pray before each sesssion, they fail
   to comprehend that both the President and Congress are not making law
   but exercising their First Amendment rights.
   These actions should be celebrated not suppressed. It is not a
   violation of the Constitution to introduce the subject of religion or
   commit a religious act in a public setting of any kind, legal
   interpretations of [5]the establishment clause notwithstanding. The
   idea that someone is being coerced to support or believe in a religion
   or the government is somehow favoring a religion simply because the
   person hears religious speech at a government sponsored event is
   laughable.
   When our country was founded, our founders displayed unusual wisdom
   regarding government, especially Thomas Jefferson. They understood
   that, while men need some form of government to maintain a civil
   society, [6]"That government is best which governs least".
   To [7]quote Thomas Jefferson:
 
     "It is not by the consolidation, or concentration of powers, but by
     their distribution, that good government is effected."
     "[Some] seem to think that [civilization's] advance has brought on
     too complicated a state of society, and that we should gain in
     happiness by treading back our steps a little way. I think, myself,
     that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too
     many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. I believe it
     might be much simplified to the relief of those who maintain it."
     "Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we
     should soon want bread."
 
   Jefferson was right. Today our government tells us how much water our
   toilets may use, how much fuel mileage our vehicles must obtain and
   what ingredients we are allowed to have in our food.
   Perhaps Jefferson's most oft-quoted phrase is the "separation of
   church and state", frequently used to argue that religion has no place
   whatsoever in the public square. Yet it is clear from Jefferson's
   writings that he referred to [8]a particular problem.
 
     Yet palpable as it must be to every lawyer, the English judges have
     piously avoided lifting the veil under which it was shrouded. In
     truth, the alliance between Church and State in England has ever
     made their judges accomplices in the frauds of the clergy; and even
     bolder than they are. For instead of being contented with these
     four surreptitious chapters of Exodus, they have taken the whole
     leap, and declared at once that the whole Bible and Testament in a
     lump, make a part of the common law; ante 873: the first judicial
     declaration of which was by this same Sir Matthew Hale. And thus
     they incorporate into the English code laws made for the Jews
     alone, and the precepts of the gospel, intended by their benevolent
     author as obligatory only in foro concientiae; and they arm the
     whole with the coercions of municipal law.
 
   Except for "blue laws", which have all been found unconstitutional,
   I'm not aware of any attempt by any government, local, state or
   federal, to introduce Biblical law into our civil laws. The purpose of
   the establishment and free exercise clauses is to preclude the very
   problem that our forefathers fled England to avoid -- religious
   insinuation into civil law, forcing all citizens to practice one
   religion.
   Even [9]Jefferson's famous clause does not go as far as some suggest.
 
     Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely
     between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his
     faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government
     reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign
     reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that
     their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment
     of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus
     building a wall of separation between church and State. Adhering to
     this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the
     rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the
     progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his
     natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to
     his social duties.
 
   Here Jefferson refers to individual rights and reveals that it is his
   belief that the First Amendment prohibits governmental coercion of
   religious belief. It was never his intention that religion would have
   no place at all in public life.
   Lest anyone think that God had nothing to do with Jefferson's ideas
   about government, Jefferson [10]made his views on the subject quite
   clear.
 
     "The evidence of [the] natural right [of expatriation], like that
     of our right to life, liberty, the use of our faculties, the
     pursuit of happiness, is not left to the feeble and sophistical
     investigations of reason, but is impressed on the sense of every
     man. We do not claim these under the charters of kings or
     legislators, but under the King of Kings."
     "Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have
     removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the
     people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are
     not to be violated but with His wrath?"
     "The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the
     hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them."
     "If [God] has made it a law in the nature of man to pursue his own
     happiness, He has left him free in the choice of place as well as
     mode, and we may safely call on the whole body of English jurists
     to produce the map on which nature has traced for each individual
     the geographical line which she forbids him to cross in pursuit of
     happiness."
 
   For Jefferson, the law and good government were inextricably linked to
   the belief that God has granted to every man the right of
   self-determination. Insofar as government possesses power, Jefferson
   articulated, it obtains that power from those freedoms ceded by its
   people for the common good. And those freedoms, according to
   Jefferson, came directly from God. When we lose sight of that, we are
   in grave danger because our liberties are insecure.
   If we believe that the purpose of government is to supply our needs,
   protect us from danger or assure our prosperity, we have abandoned the
   precepts upon which our government was founded. The purpose of
   government, according to our founders, is to establish public order,
   provide for the common good and then get out of the way and allow us
   the freedom to innovate, prosper, raise our families as we see fit and
   practice our beliefs openly. It is up to us, not the government, to
   decide the size of our toilets, the fuel mileage of our vehicles and
   the ingredients in our food.
   It is up to us to decide not to abandon the America of our founders,
   the America God led them to establish.
   ([11]hide)
 
   Tags: [12]First Amendment [13]religion [14]America [15]Constitution
 
References
 
   1. http://www.antimedia.us/posts/1182394398.shtml
   2. http://www.antimedia.us/posts/1182490762.shtml
   3. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment01/
   4. file://localhost/var/www/powerblogs/antimedia/posts/1182636977.html
   5. http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/rel_liberty/establishment/index
aspx
   6. http://thoreau.eserver.org/civil1.html
   7. http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff0650.htm
   8. http://etext.virginia
edu/etcbin/ot2www-singleauthor?specfile=/web/data/jefferson/texts/jefall
o2w&act=text&offset=6688991&textreg=1&query=church+and+state
   9. http://etext.virginia
edu/etcbin/ot2www-singleauthor?specfile=/web/data/jefferson/texts/jefall
o2w&act=text&offset=4827494&textreg=1&query=church+and+state
  10. http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff0100.htm
  11. file://localhost/var/www/powerblogs/antimedia/posts/1182636977.html
  12. http://technorati.com/tag/First%20Amendment
  13. http://technorati.com/tag/religion
  14. http://technorati.com/tag/America
  15. http://technorati.com/tag/Constitution
 
 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.powerblogs.com/pipermail/antimedia/attachments/20070625/12acdb25/attachment-0001.htm 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/gif
Size: 17991 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.powerblogs.com/pipermail/antimedia/attachments/20070625/12acdb25/attachment-0001.gif