Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Monday, November 21, 2011
The Establishment Clause and Religious Freedom
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . ". Thus begins the first amendment to the United States Constitution, which we call the Bill of Rights, consisting of ten articles, eight of which spell out the rights to be protected from encroachment by Congress. The ninth amendment reminds us that the list is not necessarily complete because rights are endowed by God and constitutions do not create rights, they protect them. And the tenth amendment reserves to the states or to individuals the burden of protecting rights which are not specifically listed in the first eight amendments.
That is the Bill of Rights, ten articles which are perfectly understandable in principle, though the details in some cases must be filled in by the courts as they consider individual cases. To illustrate, what precisely is Due Process? For example, granted that a defendant has a right to counsel if accused of a crime, does that include the right to free appointed counsel for those who cannot afford to pay a lawyer from their own pocket? In Gideon vs. Wainright the Supreme Court ruled that it does because otherwise, in many cases, the right to counsel would lack content and be meaningless for some people. However, merely because judges are called on to exercise judgment does not mean, and never did or was intended to mean, that they can read into the law their own personal ideas on the way society should be structured. Judges were not intended to be tyrants or dictators.
Yet radical organizations like the ACLU, aided and abetted by liberal judges, have turned the first sentence of the Bill of Rights, with its simplicity and obvious meaning and intent, from a protection of the indivdual from the tyranny of forced religion into a war on religion, primarily Christianity. Every president from George Washington to George Bush has asked for the recognition by the American people and their government of the dependence of America on Divine Providence for its freedom and prosperity. As President John Kennedy stated in his Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961 "The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God". There have been hundreds of such statements by presidents, congressmen, governors and, yes, even judges throughout American history. In 1789 President George Washington complied with the request of both Houses of Congress, made by joint resolution, "to recomment to the People of the United states a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be obersved by acknowledging with grateful heart the many signal favors of Almight God, . . .". President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered that there be inscribed on the mantlepiece in the State Dining Room in the White House a prayer composed by John Adams and contained in a letter to his wife Abigail; "I pray Heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof". The Declaration of Independence, authored principally by Thomas Jefferson, declares that man is endowed by his Creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Harry Truman said to a conference of attorneys general; "The fundamental basis of this nation's laws was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul. I don't think we emphasize that enough these days", and in quoting Psalm 127 John Quincy Adams reminded Americans that "Except the Lord keep the city the watchman waketh but in vain". That passsage was to be read by John Kennedy in the address he would have delivered in Dallas had he not been murdered by a madman. Similar sentiments are to be found inscribed in state capitals, courthouses, public libraries and monuments throughout the United States. Yet this is the nation which liberal judges tell us cannot tolerate a simple, wholly voluntary prayer by a small child in a public school class room, or a cross over a soldier's grave in the desert.
There can be close questions in the application of the first amendment but whether or not the recognition of the Soverignty of God in public places and at public events is constitutional is not a close question. This is a Christian nation, though its people are free to follow the promptings of conscience as they see fit without invading the rights of those who disagree with them. By "Christian Nation" we do not mean that Christianity is established by any law as the official state-supported religion of the United States or that anyone is required to take part in Christian observances but, rather, that Christian principles motivated and animated the nation's founders and subsequent leaders with the full consent and encouragement of the American people. Our people and our government have a right to acknowledge that, and they should, gladly and with gratitute to the Great God who gave them life.
That is the Bill of Rights, ten articles which are perfectly understandable in principle, though the details in some cases must be filled in by the courts as they consider individual cases. To illustrate, what precisely is Due Process? For example, granted that a defendant has a right to counsel if accused of a crime, does that include the right to free appointed counsel for those who cannot afford to pay a lawyer from their own pocket? In Gideon vs. Wainright the Supreme Court ruled that it does because otherwise, in many cases, the right to counsel would lack content and be meaningless for some people. However, merely because judges are called on to exercise judgment does not mean, and never did or was intended to mean, that they can read into the law their own personal ideas on the way society should be structured. Judges were not intended to be tyrants or dictators.
Yet radical organizations like the ACLU, aided and abetted by liberal judges, have turned the first sentence of the Bill of Rights, with its simplicity and obvious meaning and intent, from a protection of the indivdual from the tyranny of forced religion into a war on religion, primarily Christianity. Every president from George Washington to George Bush has asked for the recognition by the American people and their government of the dependence of America on Divine Providence for its freedom and prosperity. As President John Kennedy stated in his Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961 "The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God". There have been hundreds of such statements by presidents, congressmen, governors and, yes, even judges throughout American history. In 1789 President George Washington complied with the request of both Houses of Congress, made by joint resolution, "to recomment to the People of the United states a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be obersved by acknowledging with grateful heart the many signal favors of Almight God, . . .". President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered that there be inscribed on the mantlepiece in the State Dining Room in the White House a prayer composed by John Adams and contained in a letter to his wife Abigail; "I pray Heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof". The Declaration of Independence, authored principally by Thomas Jefferson, declares that man is endowed by his Creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Harry Truman said to a conference of attorneys general; "The fundamental basis of this nation's laws was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul. I don't think we emphasize that enough these days", and in quoting Psalm 127 John Quincy Adams reminded Americans that "Except the Lord keep the city the watchman waketh but in vain". That passsage was to be read by John Kennedy in the address he would have delivered in Dallas had he not been murdered by a madman. Similar sentiments are to be found inscribed in state capitals, courthouses, public libraries and monuments throughout the United States. Yet this is the nation which liberal judges tell us cannot tolerate a simple, wholly voluntary prayer by a small child in a public school class room, or a cross over a soldier's grave in the desert.
There can be close questions in the application of the first amendment but whether or not the recognition of the Soverignty of God in public places and at public events is constitutional is not a close question. This is a Christian nation, though its people are free to follow the promptings of conscience as they see fit without invading the rights of those who disagree with them. By "Christian Nation" we do not mean that Christianity is established by any law as the official state-supported religion of the United States or that anyone is required to take part in Christian observances but, rather, that Christian principles motivated and animated the nation's founders and subsequent leaders with the full consent and encouragement of the American people. Our people and our government have a right to acknowledge that, and they should, gladly and with gratitute to the Great God who gave them life.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
A Religion of Peace
Terry Jones, a small town Florida pastor, threatened to burn copies of the Koran on the September anniversary of the World Trade Center attack. Although Jones was well advised to refrain from carrying out that threat, all things considered, you would have thought he had threatened mass murder, given the avalanche of self-righteous indignation directed at him. Some folks breathed a sigh of relief that those big bad conservatives hadn't taken over just yet.
It was jihadist terrorists, promoting the "religion of peace", not Terry Jones, who decided to fly jets into buildings, blow a hole in a ship, torch a night club full of people in Bali, bomb trains in Madrid and London, hotels in India and Pakistan and embassies in Africa, a passenger jet full of innocent people in Scotland, attempted to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge, attempted to set off a bomb at the Los Angeles airport, and on a jet flying the Atlantic, and a jet landing in Detroit, and a bomb in Times Square, decapitate innocent people who displease them, murder disagreeable authors, establish Shariah Law by force where it isn't wanted, stone women to death, require women to have a male escort when leaving home and to forget about driving a car or having a career, erect a triumphant in-your-face mosque at ground zero while denying Christians, Jews and Hindus the right to worship in Saudi Arabia and wherever else they can do so, and to run 'wahabi' schools to teach murder and mayhem against 'infidels'.
Goody-goodies and can't-we-all-get-along types sometimes assert that "you just don't understand the Moslem religion". My response is "I don't have to, nor do I care to. What they believe is their business. What they do is everyone's business". I don't even care whether Islam is really a religion at all, or a political movement dressed up as a religion to take advantage of a lot of misguided notions about religious freedom. Nor should we be interested in the ridiculous argument that they are mad at the United States because we're such mean old imperialists and racists and all that crap. If they were really motivated by anger at Americans why do they commit their atrocities all over the world? If these guys aren't stopped at some point they will take over the world, largely by default flowing from the lethargy and indifference of the West.
Goody-goodies and can't-we-all-get-along types sometimes assert that "you just don't understand the Moslem religion". My response is "I don't have to, nor do I care to. What they believe is their business. What they do is everyone's business". I don't even care whether Islam is really a religion at all, or a political movement dressed up as a religion to take advantage of a lot of misguided notions about religious freedom. Nor should we be interested in the ridiculous argument that they are mad at the United States because we're such mean old imperialists and racists and all that crap. If they were really motivated by anger at Americans why do they commit their atrocities all over the world? If these guys aren't stopped at some point they will take over the world, largely by default flowing from the lethargy and indifference of the West.
How wonderful that we have so far been protected from this monster Terry Jones and his fifty parishioners in rural Florida
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