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At our roots of democracy and tolerance is authoritarianism and intolerance.

KHannon wrote:

Res,

What I have been telling you is not what lawyers say the Constitution is, it IS what the judges have said the Freedom of the Press clause means. 

Like I said, one is certainly entitled to believe that the Clause SHOULD encompass something, but it is quite another to say that that thing IS encompassed by the Clause.  You have the former.  I have told you what the latter is under this country's Constitution.

And there are lawyers who disagree with you.
And I disagree with you.

If the government forbids access to an event where they are specifically granting access to others because they do not like what the media organization has to say, that is punitive and limiting the freedom of the press.

The lawyer I saw (on Fox) cited a case where the court deemed that such events where media is invited, which are DIFFERENT than cases where media requests an interview but wasn't invited, are considered a public resource (or something of that nature, I forget exact phrase) and exclusion based on political viewpoint or ideology was not allowed based on the 14th amendment, and he also cited another case he thought this fit that was first amendment.

I wish I could give you a link. But I can't.

Last edited by resedit (2009-10-25 9:19 pm)

resedit wrote:

Given that the constitution only came about after a prayer session was called because they were in dead lock, and given that the same people who wrote the constitution were at least culturally christian if not true believers, and even used congressional funds to fund christian missionaries to the Indians (something that did violate the establishment clause), I think it is pretty obvious that reading the constitution with christian cultural influences impacting your interpretation results in an interpretation that is closer to the original intent.

Actually, most of that is revisionist history made up by people who want to make out that the US was founded as a Xian nation.

It never happened.

Last edited by user (2009-10-25 9:25 pm)

resedit wrote:

sturner wrote:

Don't examine the Puritan roots too carefully. They really weren't that nice a group of people. Even the Dutch wanted them to leave because they were so hateful.

Um, the people who penned the constitution were largely born here. I think you are talking about the pilgrims that predate them.

The Puritans were a major influence in the North Eastern Colonies. The Puritans influenced religious thought, social policy, and political thought from the 1600's onwards in this country. Don't think that we lost them. They are us. A great many of the ideas we have about sex and morality stem from their teachings, especially sexual mores.

resedit wrote:

user wrote:

resedit wrote:

Given that the constitution only came about after a prayer session was called because they were in dead lock, and given that the same people who wrote the constitution were at least culturally christian if not true believers, and even used congressional funds to fund christian missionaries to the Indians (something that did violate the establishment clause), I think it is pretty obvious that reading the constitution with christian cultural influences impacting your interpretation results in an interpretation that is closer to the original intent.

Actually, most of that is revisionist history made up by people who want to make out that the US was founded as a Xian nation.

It never happened.

Check your history - the way you see it is the revision, not the way they recorded it themselves.

Not really.

The primary leaders of the so-called founding fathers of our nation were not Bible-believing Christians; they were deists. Deism was a philosophical belief that was widely accepted by the colonial intelligentsia at the time of the American Revolution. Its major tenets included belief in human reason as a reliable means of solving social and political problems and belief in a supreme deity who created the universe to operate solely by natural laws.

The supreme God of the Deists removed himself entirely from the universe after creating it. They believed that he assumed no control over it, exerted no influence on natural phenomena, and gave no supernatural revelation to man. A necessary consequence of these beliefs was a rejection of many doctrines central to the Christian religion. Deists did not believe in the virgin birth, divinity, or resurrection of Jesus, the efficacy of prayer, the miracles of the Bible, or even the divine inspiration of the Bible.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ … /myth.html

Governor Bradford was not present at the constitutional convention.

resedit wrote:

This is funny.
First, y'all try to portray at one extreme, Taliban like having been kicked out of places.
When that's demonstrated to be false, you switch to the other extreme of them not being very religious at all.

You'll accept any argument that avoids them being what they really were, regardless of which extreme it is at.

More accurately, we're saying both sides existed.  And both sides were fighting to keep the others from dominance.  The whole freedom of religion clause was brought about because a lot of people hated and feared the Puritans and worried they'd try to create a theocracy.  They did have high numbers and great power, but they were by and large, not the creators of the Constitution.

resedit wrote:

KHannon wrote:

Res,

What I have been telling you is not what lawyers say the Constitution is, it IS what the judges have said the Freedom of the Press clause means. 

Like I said, one is certainly entitled to believe that the Clause SHOULD encompass something, but it is quite another to say that that thing IS encompassed by the Clause.  You have the former.  I have told you what the latter is under this country's Constitution.

And there are lawyers who disagree with you.
And I disagree with you.

If the government forbids access to an event where they are specifically granting access to others because they do not like what the media organization has to say, that is punitive and limiting the freedom of the press.

The lawyer I saw (on Fox) cited a case where the court deemed that such events where media is invited, which are DIFFERENT than cases where media requests an interview but wasn't invited, are considered a public resource (or something of that nature, I forget exact phrase) and exclusion based on political viewpoint or ideology was not allowed based on the 14th amendment, and he also cited another case he thought this fit that was first amendment.

I wish I could give you a link. But I can't.

I'll see if I can find that case (if you can find a link to the video with the lawyer, if he mentions the name that will help).  If I can find it I will post it so we can both read it.  I am guessing it is not a SCT case b/c I am pretty familiar with the SCT cases involving the First Amendment.

user wrote:

resedit wrote:

user wrote:

Actually, most of that is revisionist history made up by people who want to make out that the US was founded as a Xian nation.

It never happened.

Check your history - the way you see it is the revision, not the way they recorded it themselves.

Not really.

The primary leaders of the so-called founding fathers of our nation were not Bible-believing Christians; they were deists. Deism was a philosophical belief that was widely accepted by the colonial intelligentsia at the time of the American Revolution. Its major tenets included belief in human reason as a reliable means of solving social and political problems and belief in a supreme deity who created the universe to operate solely by natural laws.

The supreme God of the Deists removed himself entirely from the universe after creating it. They believed that he assumed no control over it, exerted no influence on natural phenomena, and gave no supernatural revelation to man. A necessary consequence of these beliefs was a rejection of many doctrines central to the Christian religion. Deists did not believe in the virgin birth, divinity, or resurrection of Jesus, the efficacy of prayer, the miracles of the Bible, or even the divine inspiration of the Bible.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ … /myth.html

Many of the founders held to spiritual beliefs that latter on formed the foundation for the establishment of the Unitarian and Universalist faiths, which have since merged.
The founders were liberal, intellectual elitists who shared few of the "Christian" values common in the general population.

Last edited by Pariah (2009-10-26 6:14 am)

Initially, only male land owners could vote.
Somehow that doesn't strike me as liberal either.

resedit wrote:

This is funny.
First, y'all try to portray at one extreme, Taliban like having been kicked out of places.
When that's demonstrated to be false, you switch to the other extreme of them not being very religious at all.

You'll accept any argument that avoids them being what they really were, regardless of which extreme it is at.

These are two different things. The Puritans colonized the United States in the 1600s. They were very similar to the Taliban, as they outlawed anything even vaguely enjoyable and stoned and burned anyone they suspected of heresy.

The Framers of the Constitution lived in the United States in the late 1700s. As political philosophers of the Enlightenment, they were very much about separation of church and state.

resedit wrote:

The founders were liberal, intellectual elitists who shared few of the "Christian" values common in the general population.

Intellectual, sure.
Not sure they could be called "liberal" - they had laws about not working on Sunday, for example, based on the 10 commandments, and you could have your wife publicly whipped for a number of reasons.

I'm not sure liberals would appreciate being associated with that.

The concept of what a "liberal" is depends on the current society, it's not an absolute term. A european conservative is going to be different than an american conservative for example.