>:|
>:|From: RhymeCon <bob4@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>:|Newsgroups:
>:|alt.politics.usa.constitution,alt.atheism,alt.religion.christian,alt.politics.bush,alt.society.liberalism
>:|Subject: Re: Egregious errors in civic textbook
>:|Date: Thu, 8 May 2008 05:39:43 -0700 (PDT)
>:|Organization: http://groups.google.com
>:|
>:|RhymeCon wrote:
>:|
>:|
>:|This may be unethical but I'm posting here a reply to Buckeye's thread
>:|("Rhymecon/ McCain") of about May 5 which is addressed specifically to
>:|me but I can't use that thread because I've apparently used up my
>:|quota of 5 groups.
>:|
>:|Well, I for one am opposed to the Separation of Church and State
>:|because it's misleading, confusing, and often interpreted as saying
>:|the exact opposite of what the First Amendment says. The First
>:|Amendment (which, unlike the Sep. of C. & S. is in the U.S.
>:|Constitution) prohibits government from influencing religion but
>:|extends freedom of speech and the press to religion as well as every
>:|other group you can think of. Many people, including the late Assoc.
>:|Justice Hugo Black are of the opinion that churches must not discuss
>:|government. In his infamous Everson opinion of 1947 Hugo said <http://
>:|www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/everson.html> that
>:|"Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly,
>:|participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups
>:|and vice versa". Well, that oddly chosen term "vice versa" means that
>:|Churches can't participate in the affairs of government which is the
>:|duty of all Americans, and can't even say "Don't forget to vote
>:|Tuesday" or in a past era "Outlaw slavery" or "Don't send American
>:|citizens to prison for years just because their parents were Japanese"
>:|or in the present era "Outlaw abortion".
>:|
>:|That last example, BTW, illustrates the stupidity of the Christian
>:|Right for their past efforts in convincing the nation that abortion is
>:|a religious issue in the first place. I don't know that anyone has
>:|even found it in the Bible, and some of the most outspoken anti-
>:|abortionists have been atheists! And people of every state were
>:|opposed to Roe v. Wade until the fundamentalists asserted over and
>:|over again that it's impossible to be anti-abortion unless you're a
>:|born-again Christian, and everyone naturally assumed that those
>:|fundies care more about proselyting than they do about fighting
>:|abortion.
>:|
>:|And interestingly the founding manifest of the Americans United for
>:|Separation of Church and State set one of its primary goals to
>:|OVERTURN that 1947 Everson decision sup****ted by Justice Hugo Black!
>:|
>:|Regards, RhymeCon
>:|http://rhymecon.tripod.com/2/
>:|
PART #6
Message #10448 of 10639
In our email: SNEAKY RHYMECON
Wed Aug 22, 2007 7:13 am
"jmcmeans" had written
> Jim says: That is true to a point, so why doesn't Rhymecon tell us
> what he is for specifically, rather than sloganeering, and clear up
> the confusion.
>
buckeyeelo wrote
What Rhymecon is for is what the Radical Religious right is for.
He is a conservative, not in itself a problem, many conservatives
sup****t church state separation. For example, Former USSC Justice
O'Connor basically sup****ted c&s separation for the most part, Prof
Marci Hamilton, a conservative, seriously sup****ts church state
separation. "Ultra" conservatives do not Rhymecon opposes sup****t
church state separation. Does anything else really need be said?
But I will add a few other comments.
Rhymecon approaches this in the same manner the Radical Religious
Right as a whole approaches this. Attack the Everson v Bd of Ed
ruling. While the Radical Religious Right is not one person, not one
group, there is a certain degree of oneness in how they approach
working towrds their common goals.
The attack on Everson spans the theocratic spectrum, from on high with
USSC Justice Thomas down though most if not every single national face
of the Theocratis, the Radical Religious Right to unknown nobodies
posting in discussion forums across the internet.
There is a certain degree of oneness, togetherness, unified front in
their hatred of Everson and their desire to void it in some manner.
Some of the tactics they use are to claim that separation of church
and state is one way, meaning that the government cannot interfere
with church, religious sects, but does not prevent religious bodies,
churches from being involved with or interferring with government.
Another tactic is to try and turn churches into individual. A church
is not a person. However, as Rhymencon does in his comments, they do
try to paint churches as individual.
He says: Can anyone quote the ****tions of the Constitution
that authorize government to limit a church's freedoms of speech or
the press or peaceable assembly or petitioning of government?
Only people have freedom of speech. A church does not have that
freedom. Only people have the freedom of peaceable assembly or
petitioning of government. A church does not.
Rhymecon doesn't understand or fails to acknowledge that the
Constitution is a do***ent of enumerated powers, etc.
He has turned the facts around. One doesn't have to show where the
Constitution authorizes the government to limit religion or church in
any manner. It is his responsibility to show where the Constitution
gives religion or churches a seat at the table of government, any
trappings, authority, offices, authority, influence, or even
acknowledgement.
Don't get too hung up on semantics.
The Theocrats also like to point out that the methaphor says church
and state, not religion and state.
However, they overlook James Madison's comments on separation.
He coovers the entire semantic spectrum
James Madison on Separation of Church and State
Direct references to separation to be found in the writings of James
Madison
----------------------------------------
OCTOBER 1, 1803
Notes for annual message, Oct. 17, 1803: alterations and additions,
etc [1]
(3) after "assure"-are proposed "in due season, and under prudent
arrangements, im****tant aids to our Treasury, as well as," an ample
etc.
Quere: if the two or three succeeding paragraphs be not more adapted
to the separate and subsequent communication, if adopted as above
suggested.
(4) For the first sentence, may be substituted "In the territory
between the Mississippi and the Ohio another valuable acquisition has
been made by a treaty etc."[3.] As it stands, it does not sufficiently
distinguish the nature of the one acquisition from that of the other,
and seems to imply that the acquisition from France was wholly on the
other side of the Mississippi
May it not be as well to omit the detail of the stipulated
considerations, and particularly that of the Roman Catholic Pastor.
The jealousy of some may see in it a principle, not according with the
exemption of Religion from Civil power. In the Indian Treaty it will
be less noticed than in a President's speech.[4.]
FOOTNOTES:
[1.] For TJ's third annual message to Congress, Oct. 17, 1803, see
Ford, VIII, pp. 266-7)
[3.] TI's message announced the acquisition of territory by treaty
from the Kaskaskia Indians; see
Ford, VIII, pp. 269-70.
[4.] TJ accepted JM's suggestion to omit any discussion of Indian
treaty requirements to maintain a Roman Catholic priest, leaving the
stipulations in the treaty to "the competence of both
houses.... as soon as the senate shall have advised its ratification";
see ibid.
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, Wa****ngton,
Oct. 1, 1803, Notes for annual message, Oct. 17, 1803: alterations and
additions, etc.[1.],
The Republic of Letters, the Correspondence between Thomas Jefferson
and James Madison, 1776-1826, Edited by James Morton Smith, Vol. II,
1790 -1804, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, London, (1995) pp 1297-98)
---------------------------------------------------
JUNE 3, 1811
"To the Baptist Churches on Neal's Greek on Black Creek, North
Carolina I have received, fellow-citizens, your address, approving my
objection to the Bill containing a grant of public land to the Baptist
Church at Salem Meeting House, Mississippi Territory. Having always
regarded the practical distinction between Religion and Civil
Government as essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by
the Constitution of the United States, I could not have other wise
discharged my duty on the
occasion which presented itself"
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Letter to Baptist Churches in North Carolina,
June 3, 1811. Letters And Other Writings of James Madison Fourth
President Of The United States In Four Volumes Published By the Order
Of Congress, Vol..II, J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia, (1865) pp
511-512)
-----------------------------------------------------------
MARCH 2, 1819
"The civil Government, though bereft of everything like an associated
hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability, and performs its
functions with complete success, whilst the number, the industry, and
the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people, have
been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from
the State."
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Excert of a letter to Robert Walsh from James
Madison. MARCH 2, 1819 Letters and Other writings of James Madison,
in Four Volumes, Published by Order of Congress. VOL. III, J. B.
Lippincott & Co. Philadelphia, (1865), pp 121-126. James Madison on
Religious Liberty, Robert S.Alley, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, N.Y.
(1985) pp 82-83)
----------------------------------------------------------
1817-1833
"Strongly guarded as is the separation between religion and Gov't in
the Constitution of the United States the danger of encroachment by
Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents' already
furnished in their short history"
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Excerpt from Madison's Detached Memoranda.
This do***ent was discovered in 1946 among the papers of William
Cabell Rives, a biographer of Madison. Scholars date these
observations in Madison's hand sometime between 1817 and 1832. The
entire do***ent was published by Elizabeth Fleet in the William and
Mary Quarterly of October 1946.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
JULY 10, 1822
"Every new and successful example, therefore, of a perfect separation
between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of im****tance; and I
have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one
has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in
greater purity the less they are mixed together"
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Excerpt of letter to Edward Livingston from
James Madison, July 10, 1822. Letters and Other writings of James
Madison, in Four Volumes, Published by Order of Congress. VOL. III, J.
B. Lippincott & Co. Philadelphia, (1865), pp 273-276. James Madison
on Religious Liberty, Robert S.Alley, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, N.Y.
(1985) pp 82-83)
--------------------------------------------------------------
SEPTEMBER 1833
"I must admit moreover that it may not be easy, in every possible
case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion
and the civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions
and doubts on unessential points. The tendency to a usurpation on one
side or the other or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between
them will be best guarded against by entire abstinence of the
government from interference in any way whatever, beyond the necessity
of preserving public order and protecting each sect against tresp*****
on its legal rights by others".
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Letter written by James Madison to Rev. Jasper
Adams, September, 1833.Writings of James Madison, edited by Gaillard
Hunt, [not sure what the volume number is but have enough information
presented here to locate the letter] microform Z1236.L53, pp 484-488. )
|
