All text taken directly from online Christian fundamentalist forums.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Aftermath
It’s been about a month since the Olso bombing/Utøya shootings. Now that the initial shock is starting to subside, many commentators are have put forth more detailed analysis based on what we’ve all read from Breivik’s manifesto. It’s been a rare and terrible thing. Most everyone has been too emotionally sickened to say much of anything. It has, however, brought to light a few interesting opinions of which we’d all do well to take note in terms of our broader discussion about secular society and religion.
Can we separate Breivik’s actions from his goals? There has been some murmurings from Conservative Christians which seem to suggest that while (to their credit) they abhor his methods and ideology, they don’t particularly disagree with his overall vision of what Europe should look like. I mentioned part of the following quote in my previous post about the shootings, and I’d like to expand on this kind of thing for a bit:
“Much of his analysis of cultural trends in Europe and the danger created by Islamic immigration and infiltration is accurate. But clear thinking Westerners and every Christian I know believes these problems can be solved through public policy rather than mass murder.” -Bryan Fischer, American Family Association
Such a statement appears relatively benign for those who haven’t taken the time to delve into Breivik’s manifesto. But Mr. Fischer has read the manifesto. (He even skipped playing golf to read it, such sacrifice! Way to take this seriously Bry-Bry.)
Fischer goes on to distance the Christian faith from Breivik, attempting to illustrate that no “Real Christian” would do what Breivik did. However, to me at least, such denouncement comes up very, horribly, short.
It isn’t enough to just denounce Breivik’s actions. His ideology is wrong, horrible, and misguided. If you believe that all people are free and have the right to live and work and practice whatever faith they want wherever they damn well please then Breivik’s beliefs (and the ideologies that drive Christian reconstructionists and radical Muslims) are evil. There’s no other word for it. People who think that the solution to cultural tensions between Christianity and Islam is to build nations with their basis in nationalized religion, forcing values and laws based on a small group of people’s interpretations of ancient texts onto their citizenry, are wrong. Full stop.
Of course, I am an atheist. So I don’t have any scripture to cite in an appeal to authority. I don’t have any quotes from the man-god hybrid they told you stories about when you were a kid to tug on your heartstrings. No commands have been handed to me from down from on high ordering us to treat each other with a little fucking dignity. I’m just an ordinary person saying it would be nice for a change if people would stop being dicks to each other, and the only way that I can see to do that is to encourage rational, secular government and society.
Segregating the world into theocracies (in this case Christian nations, Islamic nations, Jewish nations, et. al.) does nothing to settle divisive ideologies that keep people from getting along with each other. It just moves the boundaries. And once the lines are re-drawn the whole mess starts over again with both sides scheming and conniving to increase their territory out of an ultimate quest for total dominion, both sides believing that they’ll ultimately be successful because they’ve been told as much by their preachers. It doesn’t work, it’s never worked, and it never will work to just move the pieces around the board. We need to change the ideas that are causing all these conflicts in the first place.
None of this is to say that the encroachment of Islamic Sharia principles in Europe is not a very serious and disturbing issue. It may well be the major threat to secular culture in the West, but Christian reconstructionism (dominionism) or Christian-Nationalism or Christian anything is not the answer. It’s an equal threat whose methods are more surreptitious and less violent (at least for now). Many heads of state in Europe either have or are beginning to express their belief that multiculturalism just isn’t working out. The truth is that multiculturalism isn’t failing. We are failing multiculturalism. We, as a species, are the ones failing to live up to the expectations of our own ideals.
There’s no way to put this delicately: Islam and Christianity are wrong. They are fundamentally and inexorably incorrect. We don’t need to find inconsistencies in their scripture to prove that. We don’t need to prove that God doesn’t exist to validate it. People—large numbers of people—are willing to kill and die for them. That’s all the proof anyone should need.
It is true that the failure of immigrants to effectively assimilate can cause a good deal of tension. The United States has seen that time and again, but we’ve survived (Heck, as far as I’m concerned you’re not in a ‘real’ city in this country unless it has a Chinatown). Yes, there were lots of, and still are, racial and ideological tensions. That makes me kind of sad, but it’s true. You’ve got to admit that things have gotten progressively better though. And I don’t see any reason why we should let a bunch of assholes buck that trend for the rest of us. The only thing keeping Christianity and Islam, Islam and Judaism, Hinduism and Islam, Christianity and Judaism, etc., etc. from getting past their differences is each other. It’s their unwillingness to see beyond their narrow view of the world and do what is right for humanity even if it doesn’t line up with their scriptures. And that is just plain bad for everybody.
.
Can we separate Breivik’s actions from his goals? There has been some murmurings from Conservative Christians which seem to suggest that while (to their credit) they abhor his methods and ideology, they don’t particularly disagree with his overall vision of what Europe should look like. I mentioned part of the following quote in my previous post about the shootings, and I’d like to expand on this kind of thing for a bit:
“Much of his analysis of cultural trends in Europe and the danger created by Islamic immigration and infiltration is accurate. But clear thinking Westerners and every Christian I know believes these problems can be solved through public policy rather than mass murder.” -Bryan Fischer, American Family Association
Such a statement appears relatively benign for those who haven’t taken the time to delve into Breivik’s manifesto. But Mr. Fischer has read the manifesto. (He even skipped playing golf to read it, such sacrifice! Way to take this seriously Bry-Bry.)
Fischer goes on to distance the Christian faith from Breivik, attempting to illustrate that no “Real Christian” would do what Breivik did. However, to me at least, such denouncement comes up very, horribly, short.
It isn’t enough to just denounce Breivik’s actions. His ideology is wrong, horrible, and misguided. If you believe that all people are free and have the right to live and work and practice whatever faith they want wherever they damn well please then Breivik’s beliefs (and the ideologies that drive Christian reconstructionists and radical Muslims) are evil. There’s no other word for it. People who think that the solution to cultural tensions between Christianity and Islam is to build nations with their basis in nationalized religion, forcing values and laws based on a small group of people’s interpretations of ancient texts onto their citizenry, are wrong. Full stop.
Of course, I am an atheist. So I don’t have any scripture to cite in an appeal to authority. I don’t have any quotes from the man-god hybrid they told you stories about when you were a kid to tug on your heartstrings. No commands have been handed to me from down from on high ordering us to treat each other with a little fucking dignity. I’m just an ordinary person saying it would be nice for a change if people would stop being dicks to each other, and the only way that I can see to do that is to encourage rational, secular government and society.
Segregating the world into theocracies (in this case Christian nations, Islamic nations, Jewish nations, et. al.) does nothing to settle divisive ideologies that keep people from getting along with each other. It just moves the boundaries. And once the lines are re-drawn the whole mess starts over again with both sides scheming and conniving to increase their territory out of an ultimate quest for total dominion, both sides believing that they’ll ultimately be successful because they’ve been told as much by their preachers. It doesn’t work, it’s never worked, and it never will work to just move the pieces around the board. We need to change the ideas that are causing all these conflicts in the first place.
None of this is to say that the encroachment of Islamic Sharia principles in Europe is not a very serious and disturbing issue. It may well be the major threat to secular culture in the West, but Christian reconstructionism (dominionism) or Christian-Nationalism or Christian anything is not the answer. It’s an equal threat whose methods are more surreptitious and less violent (at least for now). Many heads of state in Europe either have or are beginning to express their belief that multiculturalism just isn’t working out. The truth is that multiculturalism isn’t failing. We are failing multiculturalism. We, as a species, are the ones failing to live up to the expectations of our own ideals.
There’s no way to put this delicately: Islam and Christianity are wrong. They are fundamentally and inexorably incorrect. We don’t need to find inconsistencies in their scripture to prove that. We don’t need to prove that God doesn’t exist to validate it. People—large numbers of people—are willing to kill and die for them. That’s all the proof anyone should need.
It is true that the failure of immigrants to effectively assimilate can cause a good deal of tension. The United States has seen that time and again, but we’ve survived (Heck, as far as I’m concerned you’re not in a ‘real’ city in this country unless it has a Chinatown). Yes, there were lots of, and still are, racial and ideological tensions. That makes me kind of sad, but it’s true. You’ve got to admit that things have gotten progressively better though. And I don’t see any reason why we should let a bunch of assholes buck that trend for the rest of us. The only thing keeping Christianity and Islam, Islam and Judaism, Hinduism and Islam, Christianity and Judaism, etc., etc. from getting past their differences is each other. It’s their unwillingness to see beyond their narrow view of the world and do what is right for humanity even if it doesn’t line up with their scriptures. And that is just plain bad for everybody.
.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Ron Paul: Enemy of Individual Liberty
U.S. Congressman Ron Paul’s website states “Ron Paul of Texas enjoys a national reputation as the premier advocate for liberty in politics today.” He is regularly questioned on his electability, his idealism, and on occasion his sanity. But the nearly universal narrative is that Ron Paul is an honest and principled defender of individual liberty and a strong opponent of government interfering in our lives. Why then would I confidently state that Ron Paul is an enemy of individual liberty, a proponent of intrusive government, and an author of the largest congressional power grab ever attempted in our Nation’s history?
First, The History
While certainly a monumental achievement, in retrospect, The Constitution was a seriously flawed document. While there were discussions at the time of its drafting, slavery was not banned. Slaves were 3/5th of a person and Native Americans were excluded entirely. The rights of the people were not explicitly protected, but this last error was to be corrected right away. The delegates to the Constitutional Convention agreed that a list of amendments that guaranteed the rights of the people would be added to the constitution.
Ten amendments soon followed, collectively known as “The Bill of Rights.” That title is a bit misleading, as the amendments are not declarations of what rights we, as people, innately possess. They were instead restrictions on the Federal Government’s power over the people. This is key, and often overlooked. The Bill of Rights does not protect the individual from the actions of state or local governments.
It was not until the era of Reconstruction that our nation began to seriously expand the rights and protections available to all Americans. The Thirteenth Amendment (1865) freed the Slaves. The Fifteenth Amendment (1870) mandated that people of all races could vote. The Nineteenth Amendment (1920) gave women the right to vote and the Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964) addressed the issue of poll taxes. What then of the Bill of Rights? How does this apply to the states? The answer is the Fourteenth Amendment (1868).
The Fourteenth Amendment is an oddity in that its meaning is not definite. In pertinent part it states that:
To simplify a complex area of Constitutional law; there has been an ongoing debate since the late 19th century regarding the bounds of the Fourteenth Amendment. Specifically, the question has been what restrictions are placed on the state actions and under which clause of the Fourteenth Amendment? One side found this amendment to be functionally inert. A second side found that every protection granted in the Bill of Rights should now apply at the state and local level.
As often occurs, a compromise was reached over time. Each right protected at the federal level via the Bill of Rights is now analyzed by the Court one at a time. This is known as the process of incorporation.
The Supreme Court has limited jurisdiction. Like all federal courts, it cannot hear a case that does not pose an actual controversy involving an actual dispute between adverse parties. As a result the process of incorporation has been slow, but almost all rights afforded by the Bill of Rights now apply to the States. States cannot establish a religion. States cannot interfere with the free exercise of religion. They cannot abridge the right to free speech or freedom of the press. Most recently, as of 2010, States cannot interfere with the right to bear arms.
The only remaining key point is that these rights are not admitted because they are in the Bill of Rights, but because the prevailing notions of which rights are fundamental rights require it. Importantly, this means the protections afforded by the Fourteenth Amendment are not set in stone. Unlike the Bill of Rights, these rights change over time and are subject to the prevailing notions of justice in the nation.
The Supreme Court, in interpretation of The Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment has created a base line of protection for individual liberty. It is important to note that this is merely a baseline of protection. No state can violate these protections. Any state can increase the rights provided to its people. Alaska, for example, found that its own constitution’s Right to Privacy protected the personal use of marijuana in the home. The Fourteenth Amendment does not set the rights afforded to the people. It sets the absolute minimum.
The fight for liberty, then, at this time in our nation’s history, is largely fought on the interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Constitutional scholars arguing for a more freedom and liberty are pushing for total incorporation of the Bill of Rights. They are advocating that the Constitutional right to privacy extends as far as the one in Alaska’s constitution. These are the battle grounds of freedom.
To be clear, I am not at this point arguing that opponents of the Fourteenth Amendment’s broad reach do not have valid arguments. What should be evident to any honest, objective reviewer of the facts is that one side is a clear proponent of liberty and freedom and the other wants to see those freedoms mitigated.
Ron Paul takes neither side. He opts for something far more destructive to individual freedom.
RON PAUL
It is now time to examine Ron Paul’s views. Ron Paul wrote the following on the importance of Christianity and the Separation of Church and State in his 2003 essay; The War on Religion:
When discussing different interpretations of our founding documents, I will rarely say that someone is absolutely wrong in their interpretation. Ron Paul is absolutely wrong. The “references to God” that Paul mentions are references to “the Creator.” The founding documents are not “replete” with references to the Christian God, per se. This is evident to anyone even vaguely aware of the Founder’s personal views and their attempts to keep the document neutral as well the fact that many were not Christian. The Continental Congress selected a committee to draft the Declaration of Independence. That committee selected Thomas Jefferson to be the primary drafter of the Declaration of Independence. It can be said no more clearly than this:
What else does Ron Paul add to this discussion? Again from his 2003 essay; The War on Religion:
While I view this as a dubious world view, I will not at this time address its validity. I can say, emphatically, that the proponents of freedom and liberty do not tout the necessity of Christianity to teach morality. Proponents of liberty do not view attempts to restrict the attempts by churches to “eclipse the state in importance” as contrary to our founding documents.
What, then, does Ron Paul Propose?
Ron Paul, “the proponent of liberty,” has clearly come out in support of full incorporation of the Fourteenth Amendment, right? He has declared that our Constitutional protections on the right to privacy should at least equal that in Alaska, and the right to privacy should protect, at a minimum, small amounts of marijuana in the home, right? What substantive legislation has Ron Paul proposed to bring more freedom to the people, and to push the government, at all levels, out of our lives?
I present HR 539. It states, in pertinent part that:
Ron Paul’s interpretation of Article III section I and II of the Constitution is that Congress can limit the jurisdiction of all federal courts, including the Supreme Court simply by passing a bill. This view is not widely accepted but I will concede it is not without merit. It is certainly not the only view and it is absolutely not the view held by anyone who seriously wishes to limit the powers of Congress.
If Congress can unilaterally remove the jurisdiction of the Federal Courts, this gives them the power to pass any legislation of any sort, on any subject, and simply declare that the constitutionality of the subject matter is not reviewable by the courts. This gives Congress the authority to simply bypass the only branch of government that reviews the constitutionality of their legislation. Thus the basis for my conclusion: Ron Paul is the author of the largest congressional power grab this Nation has ever seen attempted.
The Effect of the Legislation:
With this bill, Ron Paul seeks to strip the Federal courts from reviewing State Constitutions and state and local legislation that relates to “the free exercise or establishment of religion”, “the right of privacy” including its protections of “sexual practices, orientation, or reproduction”, and “any claim based upon equal protection of the laws to the extent such claim is based upon the right to marry without regard to sex or sexual orientation.”
What does this mean? First, it means that the progress we have made to securing individual freedoms and liberty in these key areas would be at risk. Any argument that this transfer of power would move the decision closer to the people and is therefore a better way to ensure the protection of our individual liberty is misguided or disingenuous. Again, the Supreme Court in these instances is dictating what the States must do. They are laying a minimum foundation for individual liberty. Any state could elect to increase the protections afforded the people.
What are the results of this bill? States could ban all contraception. States could ban the free practice of any religion or mandate a specific religion. Islam could be banned. Atheists and agnostics could be marginalized or persecuted in any way the States saw fit. States could fund or promote religious leaders of all stripes without fear of constitutional review. States could ban any sexual activity they declared immoral, many simply by enforcing the existing laws that the Supreme Court has declared unconstitutional. They could persecute against homosexuals or bisexual individuals in any way they saw fit. Equal protection would no longer apply to sexual orientation at the state level.
A proponent of freedom and liberty would not seek to jeopardize the rights that are currently guaranteed to all people of the United States. Ron Paul authored a bill to tear down these protections.
Beyond the implications of his bill, what can be deduced about Ron Paul’s purpose? This bill does not increase freedoms or liberty. It specifically opens certain groups to attacks in a way no other Congressman has committed to legislation. This bill specifically seeks to limit the rights of all people who do not believe or behave in a manner that Ron Paul sees fit: religious minorities, homosexuals, users of contraception, and practitioners of anything society could declare sexually deviant.
This legislation seeks to move absolute control over the exercise and establishment of religion, the regulation of sexual practices, and the persecution of sexual orientation to the state level. Coupled with this transfer is the stripping of all constitutional protections afforded to the citizens of those states.
Ron Paul’s view of government is destructive to individual liberty. It specifically targets groups that have and continue to be persecuted and removes their protections. It destroys these fundamental protections and grants authoritarian and unchecked power over the lives of individuals to the States.
Ron Paul is not the champion of individual liberty he claims to be. He seeks to reverse the progress we have made in protecting our freedoms. He is specifically targeting non-Christians and homosexuals. But more destructively, he seeks to open the floodgates to all forms of persecution at the state and federal level. In Ron Paul’s America, Congress could simply bypass the Supreme Court, and thus the Constitution, on any legislation that violates the rights of individuals. Then by a simple act of Congress, people again could be bought and sold. Women could lose the right to vote. Religions could be declared illegal.
Despite our national narrative, we as a nation are not mandated to move towards freedom and liberty. People have the ability to be absolutely wrong and this ability is not restricted to minority viewpoints. A constitutional democracy recognizes the ever present danger of the tyranny of the majority: the idea that democracy alone is not enough to protect the rights of people. Fundamental rights must be established or the Government will attempt to impede on these rights.
Where you stand on the issue of absolute protections and inherent rights defines your commitment to individual liberty. Ron Paul stands as an activist for intrusive government and in firm opposition to the very concept of individual liberty.
First, The History
While certainly a monumental achievement, in retrospect, The Constitution was a seriously flawed document. While there were discussions at the time of its drafting, slavery was not banned. Slaves were 3/5th of a person and Native Americans were excluded entirely. The rights of the people were not explicitly protected, but this last error was to be corrected right away. The delegates to the Constitutional Convention agreed that a list of amendments that guaranteed the rights of the people would be added to the constitution.
Ten amendments soon followed, collectively known as “The Bill of Rights.” That title is a bit misleading, as the amendments are not declarations of what rights we, as people, innately possess. They were instead restrictions on the Federal Government’s power over the people. This is key, and often overlooked. The Bill of Rights does not protect the individual from the actions of state or local governments.
It was not until the era of Reconstruction that our nation began to seriously expand the rights and protections available to all Americans. The Thirteenth Amendment (1865) freed the Slaves. The Fifteenth Amendment (1870) mandated that people of all races could vote. The Nineteenth Amendment (1920) gave women the right to vote and the Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964) addressed the issue of poll taxes. What then of the Bill of Rights? How does this apply to the states? The answer is the Fourteenth Amendment (1868).
The Fourteenth Amendment is an oddity in that its meaning is not definite. In pertinent part it states that:
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
To simplify a complex area of Constitutional law; there has been an ongoing debate since the late 19th century regarding the bounds of the Fourteenth Amendment. Specifically, the question has been what restrictions are placed on the state actions and under which clause of the Fourteenth Amendment? One side found this amendment to be functionally inert. A second side found that every protection granted in the Bill of Rights should now apply at the state and local level.
As often occurs, a compromise was reached over time. Each right protected at the federal level via the Bill of Rights is now analyzed by the Court one at a time. This is known as the process of incorporation.
The Supreme Court has limited jurisdiction. Like all federal courts, it cannot hear a case that does not pose an actual controversy involving an actual dispute between adverse parties. As a result the process of incorporation has been slow, but almost all rights afforded by the Bill of Rights now apply to the States. States cannot establish a religion. States cannot interfere with the free exercise of religion. They cannot abridge the right to free speech or freedom of the press. Most recently, as of 2010, States cannot interfere with the right to bear arms.
The only remaining key point is that these rights are not admitted because they are in the Bill of Rights, but because the prevailing notions of which rights are fundamental rights require it. Importantly, this means the protections afforded by the Fourteenth Amendment are not set in stone. Unlike the Bill of Rights, these rights change over time and are subject to the prevailing notions of justice in the nation.
The Supreme Court, in interpretation of The Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment has created a base line of protection for individual liberty. It is important to note that this is merely a baseline of protection. No state can violate these protections. Any state can increase the rights provided to its people. Alaska, for example, found that its own constitution’s Right to Privacy protected the personal use of marijuana in the home. The Fourteenth Amendment does not set the rights afforded to the people. It sets the absolute minimum.
The fight for liberty, then, at this time in our nation’s history, is largely fought on the interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Constitutional scholars arguing for a more freedom and liberty are pushing for total incorporation of the Bill of Rights. They are advocating that the Constitutional right to privacy extends as far as the one in Alaska’s constitution. These are the battle grounds of freedom.
To be clear, I am not at this point arguing that opponents of the Fourteenth Amendment’s broad reach do not have valid arguments. What should be evident to any honest, objective reviewer of the facts is that one side is a clear proponent of liberty and freedom and the other wants to see those freedoms mitigated.
Ron Paul takes neither side. He opts for something far more destructive to individual freedom.
RON PAUL
It is now time to examine Ron Paul’s views. Ron Paul wrote the following on the importance of Christianity and the Separation of Church and State in his 2003 essay; The War on Religion:
“The notion of a rigid separation between church and state has no basis in either the text of the Constitution or the writings of our Founding Fathers. On the contrary, our Founders' political views were strongly informed by their religious beliefs. Certainly the drafters of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, both replete with references to God, would be aghast at the federal government's hostility to religion.”
When discussing different interpretations of our founding documents, I will rarely say that someone is absolutely wrong in their interpretation. Ron Paul is absolutely wrong. The “references to God” that Paul mentions are references to “the Creator.” The founding documents are not “replete” with references to the Christian God, per se. This is evident to anyone even vaguely aware of the Founder’s personal views and their attempts to keep the document neutral as well the fact that many were not Christian. The Continental Congress selected a committee to draft the Declaration of Independence. That committee selected Thomas Jefferson to be the primary drafter of the Declaration of Independence. It can be said no more clearly than this:
“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 & State.”
Thomas Jefferson’s Letter to the Danbury Baptists (1802)
What else does Ron Paul add to this discussion? Again from his 2003 essay; The War on Religion:
“The Founding Fathers envisioned a robustly Christian yet religiously tolerant America, with churches serving as vital institutions that would eclipse the state in importance. Throughout our nation's history, churches have done what no government can ever do, namely teach morality and civility. Moral and civil individuals are largely governed by their own sense of right and wrong, and hence have little need for external government. This is the real reason the collectivist Left hates religion: Churches as institutions compete with the state for the people's allegiance, and many devout people put their faith in God before their faith in the state. Knowing this, the secularists wage an ongoing war against religion, chipping away bit by bit at our nation's Christian heritage.”
While I view this as a dubious world view, I will not at this time address its validity. I can say, emphatically, that the proponents of freedom and liberty do not tout the necessity of Christianity to teach morality. Proponents of liberty do not view attempts to restrict the attempts by churches to “eclipse the state in importance” as contrary to our founding documents.
What, then, does Ron Paul Propose?
Ron Paul, “the proponent of liberty,” has clearly come out in support of full incorporation of the Fourteenth Amendment, right? He has declared that our Constitutional protections on the right to privacy should at least equal that in Alaska, and the right to privacy should protect, at a minimum, small amounts of marijuana in the home, right? What substantive legislation has Ron Paul proposed to bring more freedom to the people, and to push the government, at all levels, out of our lives?
I present HR 539. It states, in pertinent part that:
(3) Article III, section 2 of the Constitution of the United States gives Congress the power to make `such exceptions, and under such regulations' as Congress finds necessary to Supreme Court jurisdiction.
(5) Congress has constitutional authority to set broad limits on the jurisdiction of both the Supreme Court and the lower Federal courts in order to correct abuses of judicial power and continuing violations of the Constitution of the United States by Federal courts.
(11) Congress has the responsibility to protect the republican governments of the States and has the power to limit the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and the lower Federal courts over matters that are reserved to the States and to the People by the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
SEC. 3. LIMITATION ON JURISDICTION.
The Supreme Court of the United States and each Federal court--
(1) shall not adjudicate--
(A) any claim involving the laws, regulations, or policies of any State or unit of local government relating to the free exercise or establishment of religion;
(B) any claim based upon the right of privacy, including any such claim related to any issue of sexual practices, orientation, or reproduction; or
(C) any claim based upon equal protection of the laws to the extent such claim is based upon the right to marry without regard to sex or sexual orientation; and
(2) shall not rely on any judicial decision involving any issue referred to in paragraph (1).
There are two portions of this bill that must be analysed - the method by which the legislation is enacted and the effect the legislation has on freedoms in our society.
The method of implementation:
Ron Paul’s interpretation of Article III section I and II of the Constitution is that Congress can limit the jurisdiction of all federal courts, including the Supreme Court simply by passing a bill. This view is not widely accepted but I will concede it is not without merit. It is certainly not the only view and it is absolutely not the view held by anyone who seriously wishes to limit the powers of Congress.
If Congress can unilaterally remove the jurisdiction of the Federal Courts, this gives them the power to pass any legislation of any sort, on any subject, and simply declare that the constitutionality of the subject matter is not reviewable by the courts. This gives Congress the authority to simply bypass the only branch of government that reviews the constitutionality of their legislation. Thus the basis for my conclusion: Ron Paul is the author of the largest congressional power grab this Nation has ever seen attempted.
The Effect of the Legislation:
With this bill, Ron Paul seeks to strip the Federal courts from reviewing State Constitutions and state and local legislation that relates to “the free exercise or establishment of religion”, “the right of privacy” including its protections of “sexual practices, orientation, or reproduction”, and “any claim based upon equal protection of the laws to the extent such claim is based upon the right to marry without regard to sex or sexual orientation.”
What does this mean? First, it means that the progress we have made to securing individual freedoms and liberty in these key areas would be at risk. Any argument that this transfer of power would move the decision closer to the people and is therefore a better way to ensure the protection of our individual liberty is misguided or disingenuous. Again, the Supreme Court in these instances is dictating what the States must do. They are laying a minimum foundation for individual liberty. Any state could elect to increase the protections afforded the people.
What are the results of this bill? States could ban all contraception. States could ban the free practice of any religion or mandate a specific religion. Islam could be banned. Atheists and agnostics could be marginalized or persecuted in any way the States saw fit. States could fund or promote religious leaders of all stripes without fear of constitutional review. States could ban any sexual activity they declared immoral, many simply by enforcing the existing laws that the Supreme Court has declared unconstitutional. They could persecute against homosexuals or bisexual individuals in any way they saw fit. Equal protection would no longer apply to sexual orientation at the state level.
A proponent of freedom and liberty would not seek to jeopardize the rights that are currently guaranteed to all people of the United States. Ron Paul authored a bill to tear down these protections.
Beyond the implications of his bill, what can be deduced about Ron Paul’s purpose? This bill does not increase freedoms or liberty. It specifically opens certain groups to attacks in a way no other Congressman has committed to legislation. This bill specifically seeks to limit the rights of all people who do not believe or behave in a manner that Ron Paul sees fit: religious minorities, homosexuals, users of contraception, and practitioners of anything society could declare sexually deviant.
This legislation seeks to move absolute control over the exercise and establishment of religion, the regulation of sexual practices, and the persecution of sexual orientation to the state level. Coupled with this transfer is the stripping of all constitutional protections afforded to the citizens of those states.
Ron Paul’s view of government is destructive to individual liberty. It specifically targets groups that have and continue to be persecuted and removes their protections. It destroys these fundamental protections and grants authoritarian and unchecked power over the lives of individuals to the States.
Ron Paul is not the champion of individual liberty he claims to be. He seeks to reverse the progress we have made in protecting our freedoms. He is specifically targeting non-Christians and homosexuals. But more destructively, he seeks to open the floodgates to all forms of persecution at the state and federal level. In Ron Paul’s America, Congress could simply bypass the Supreme Court, and thus the Constitution, on any legislation that violates the rights of individuals. Then by a simple act of Congress, people again could be bought and sold. Women could lose the right to vote. Religions could be declared illegal.
Despite our national narrative, we as a nation are not mandated to move towards freedom and liberty. People have the ability to be absolutely wrong and this ability is not restricted to minority viewpoints. A constitutional democracy recognizes the ever present danger of the tyranny of the majority: the idea that democracy alone is not enough to protect the rights of people. Fundamental rights must be established or the Government will attempt to impede on these rights.
Where you stand on the issue of absolute protections and inherent rights defines your commitment to individual liberty. Ron Paul stands as an activist for intrusive government and in firm opposition to the very concept of individual liberty.
Monday Morning Quotes ~ Joseph Campbell
"Myth is what we call other people's religion."
"What gods are there, what gods have there ever been, that were not from man's imagination?"
"Life is like arriving late for a movie, having to figure out what was going on without bothering everybody with a lot of questions, and then being unexpectedly called away before you find out how it ends."
"All religions are true but none are literal."
"Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer."
"We're so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it is all about."
“People say that what we are all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”
“God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that.”
"God is the experience of looking at a tree and saying, 'Ah!"
"The first step to the knowledge of the wonder and mystery of life is the recognition of the monstrous nature of the earthly human realm as well as its glory, the realization that this is just how it is and that it cannot and will not be changed. Those who think they know how the universe could have been had they created it, without pain, without sorrow, without time, without death, are unfit for illumination."
“The priests used to say that faith can move mountains, and nobody believed them. Today the scientists say that they can level mountains, and nobody doubts them.”
"Half the people in the world think that the metaphors of their religious traditions, for example, are facts. And the other half contends that they are not facts at all. As a result we have people who consider themselves believers because they accept metaphors as facts, and we have others who classify themselves as atheists because they think religious metaphors are lies."
"If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it's not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That's why it's your path."
"Instead of clearing his own heart the zealot tries to clear the world."
“Too many of our best scholars, themselves indoctrinated from infancy in a religion of one kind or another based upon the Bible, are so locked into the idea of their own god as a supernatural fact -- something final, not symbolic of transcendence, but a personage with a character and will of his own - that they are unable to grasp the idea of a worship that is not of the symbol but of its reference, which is of a mystery of much greater age and of more immediate inward reality than the name-and-form of any historical ethinic idea of a deity, whatsoever ... and is of a sophistication that makes the sentimentalism of our popular Bible-story theology seem undeveloped.”
"Myth is much more important and true than history. History is just journalism and you know how reliable that is."
The two greatest works of war mythology in the west ... are the Iliad and the Old Testament.... When we turn from the Iliadand Athens to Jerusalem and the Old Testament [we find] a single-minded single deity with his sympathies forever on one side. And the enemy, accordingly, no matter who it may be, is handled...pretty much as though he were subhuman: not a "Thou" but an "It."
“Read myths. They teach you that you can turn inward, and you begin to get the message of the symbols. Read other people's myths, not those of your own religion, because you tend to interpret your own religion in terms of facts -- but if you read the other ones, you begin to get the message. Myth helps you to put your mind in touch with this experience of being alive. Myth tells you what the experience is.”
"I don't have to have faith, I have experience."
"What gods are there, what gods have there ever been, that were not from man's imagination?"
"Life is like arriving late for a movie, having to figure out what was going on without bothering everybody with a lot of questions, and then being unexpectedly called away before you find out how it ends."
"All religions are true but none are literal."
"Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer."
"We're so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it is all about."
“People say that what we are all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”
“God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that.”
"God is the experience of looking at a tree and saying, 'Ah!"
"The first step to the knowledge of the wonder and mystery of life is the recognition of the monstrous nature of the earthly human realm as well as its glory, the realization that this is just how it is and that it cannot and will not be changed. Those who think they know how the universe could have been had they created it, without pain, without sorrow, without time, without death, are unfit for illumination."
“The priests used to say that faith can move mountains, and nobody believed them. Today the scientists say that they can level mountains, and nobody doubts them.”
"Half the people in the world think that the metaphors of their religious traditions, for example, are facts. And the other half contends that they are not facts at all. As a result we have people who consider themselves believers because they accept metaphors as facts, and we have others who classify themselves as atheists because they think religious metaphors are lies."
"If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it's not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That's why it's your path."
"Instead of clearing his own heart the zealot tries to clear the world."
“Too many of our best scholars, themselves indoctrinated from infancy in a religion of one kind or another based upon the Bible, are so locked into the idea of their own god as a supernatural fact -- something final, not symbolic of transcendence, but a personage with a character and will of his own - that they are unable to grasp the idea of a worship that is not of the symbol but of its reference, which is of a mystery of much greater age and of more immediate inward reality than the name-and-form of any historical ethinic idea of a deity, whatsoever ... and is of a sophistication that makes the sentimentalism of our popular Bible-story theology seem undeveloped.”
"Myth is much more important and true than history. History is just journalism and you know how reliable that is."
The two greatest works of war mythology in the west ... are the Iliad and the Old Testament.... When we turn from the Iliadand Athens to Jerusalem and the Old Testament [we find] a single-minded single deity with his sympathies forever on one side. And the enemy, accordingly, no matter who it may be, is handled...pretty much as though he were subhuman: not a "Thou" but an "It."
“Read myths. They teach you that you can turn inward, and you begin to get the message of the symbols. Read other people's myths, not those of your own religion, because you tend to interpret your own religion in terms of facts -- but if you read the other ones, you begin to get the message. Myth helps you to put your mind in touch with this experience of being alive. Myth tells you what the experience is.”
"I don't have to have faith, I have experience."
.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Sunday Morning Hate: Rabbi Yehuda Levin
Rabbi Yehuda Levin (associated with NOM): "one of the reasons God brings earthquakes to the world is because of the transgressions of homosexuality."
That was a pretty weak earthquake there YHWH! I tell ya, if a little sodomy is what dooms us all, the majority of the population—straight or gay—is to blame.
That was a pretty weak earthquake there YHWH! I tell ya, if a little sodomy is what dooms us all, the majority of the population—straight or gay—is to blame.
I personally blame squirrels.
With their beady little eyes and twitchy noses. Up to no good they are...
With their beady little eyes and twitchy noses. Up to no good they are...
.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Friday, August 26, 2011
Friday Link Dump 8/26/11
Fox News, North Korea, and Religion: A Note on Flagrant Propaganda our first cross-post with The Crackpot Chronicles. Go visit.
Of Teapots, Santa Claus and Doubt Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!....
There’s no Santa?
Ancient Whales’ Twisted Skulls Were Useful I want to make love to that headline.
We Are Atheism
Renew America Wonders If Obama Is A Demon Forget The Onion. This site is hilarious.
Monday Morning Quotes ~ Albert Camus “Beware of those who say: ‘I know this too well to be able to express it.’ For if they cannot do so, this is because they don't know it or because out of laziness they stopped at the outer crust.”
Yeah, because their websites and videos espousing their garbage isn’t everywhere across the Internet. We have commented on and had fun with some of them. It would seem the majority would rather just not have to think about it.
Why Atheists Shouldn't "Shut the Fuck Up"
'Oldest Fossil on Earth Found'
Climate Gate: Case Closed
Matt Taibbi on the Explosive Investigation Revealing the SEC's Cover-Up of Wall Street's Crimes
'A Universe From Nothing' by Lawrence Krauss
DNA study deals blow to theory of European origins
Michele Bachmann praying Oh how fucking special.
Of Teapots, Santa Claus and Doubt Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!....
There’s no Santa?
Ancient Whales’ Twisted Skulls Were Useful I want to make love to that headline.
We Are Atheism
Renew America Wonders If Obama Is A Demon Forget The Onion. This site is hilarious.
Monday Morning Quotes ~ Albert Camus “Beware of those who say: ‘I know this too well to be able to express it.’ For if they cannot do so, this is because they don't know it or because out of laziness they stopped at the outer crust.”
Yeah, because their websites and videos espousing their garbage isn’t everywhere across the Internet. We have commented on and had fun with some of them. It would seem the majority would rather just not have to think about it.
Why Atheists Shouldn't "Shut the Fuck Up"
'Oldest Fossil on Earth Found'
Attention Governor Perry: Evolution is a fact Dawkins doesn’t play nice and lays the smackdown to Texas’ head idiot.
Disclaimer: Not all Texans are idiots. I said he was the “head” idiot. There’s a difference.
Climate Gate: Case Closed
Matt Taibbi on the Explosive Investigation Revealing the SEC's Cover-Up of Wall Street's Crimes
'A Universe From Nothing' by Lawrence Krauss
DNA study deals blow to theory of European origins
Evolution threatens Christianity “Evolution could not have produced a single mother and father of all future humans, so there was no Adam and no Eve. No Adam and Eve: no fall. No fall: no need for redemption. No need for redemption: no need for a redeemer. No need for a redeemer: no need for the crucifixion or the resurrection, and no need to believe in that redeemer in order to gain eternal life. And not the slightest reason to believe in eternal life in the first place.”
Michele Bachmann praying Oh how fucking special.
.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Ask Sam Harris Anything #2
Whoops. Meant to post this when it came out a few weeks back. I'll put this up for archival purposes.
Mid-Week Rant: Bill Burr & Marc Maron
NSFW for language
This is really harsh at points so it gave me pause from posting it in the MWR. We decided to post anyway, but I have just a couple of comments to preface this. I personally don’t like everything they say and you can hear the criticisms of their tone and their generalizations coming from a mile away. However, you have to remember that a lot of people really do believe and act the way they describe and that is what they are mocking. Religious apologists and theologians have complex (and convoluted) rationalizations and arguments, but the average layperson in a religion does not. There are many that go to church on Sunday and don’t think about it the other 167 hours of their week. Others, however, really are just like how Burr and Maron describe. The criticism may be harsh, but it is not wrong.
Soo...yeah.
.
This is really harsh at points so it gave me pause from posting it in the MWR. We decided to post anyway, but I have just a couple of comments to preface this. I personally don’t like everything they say and you can hear the criticisms of their tone and their generalizations coming from a mile away. However, you have to remember that a lot of people really do believe and act the way they describe and that is what they are mocking. Religious apologists and theologians have complex (and convoluted) rationalizations and arguments, but the average layperson in a religion does not. There are many that go to church on Sunday and don’t think about it the other 167 hours of their week. Others, however, really are just like how Burr and Maron describe. The criticism may be harsh, but it is not wrong.
Soo...yeah.
.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Monday Morning Quotes ~ Albert Camus
"Everyone would like to behave like a pagan, with everyone else behaving like a Christian."
"I do not believe in God and I am not an atheist."
"Can one be a saint if God does not exist? That is the only concrete problem I know of today." The Plague
"Don't wait for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day." The Fall - 1956
"He who despairs over an event is a coward, but he who holds hope for the human condition is a fool."
"If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life." The Myth of Sisyphus, 1942
"The certainty of a God giving meaning to life far surpasses in attractiveness the ability to behave badly with impunity." The Myth of Sisyphus, 1942
"[...] since the order of world is regulated by death, perhaps is it better for God we do not believe in him and we fight with all our might against death, without raising our eyes heavenward where he keeps silent." The Plague
“I shall not, as far as I am concerned, try to pass myself off as a Christian in your presence. I share with you the same revulsion from evil. But I do not share your hope, and I continue to struggle against this universe in which children suffer and die”.
“In order to exist just once in the world, it is necessary never again to exist.” The Rebel
“We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking.”
“To begin to think is to begin to be undermined.”
“I do not want to found anything on the incomprehensible. I want to know whether I can live with what I know and with that alone.”
“Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable.”
“For the existentials, negation is their God. To be precise, that god is maintained only through the negation of human reason. But, like suicides, gods change with men.”
“I don't know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it. But I know that I do not know that meaning and that it is impossible for me just now to know it. What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms.”
“Beware of those who say: "I know this too well to be able to express it." For if they cannot do so, this is because they don't know it or because out of laziness they stopped at the outer crust.”
“As for Hitler, his professed religion unhesitatingly juxtaposed the God-Providence and Valhalla. Actually his god was an argument at a political meeting and a manner of reaching an impressive climax at the end of speeches.”
“There exists an obvious fact that seems utterly moral: namely, that a man is always prey to his truths. Once he has admitted them, he cannot free himself from them. One has to pay something. A man who has become conscious of the absurd is forever bound to it.”
Thanks to Atheist Quotes & Positive Atheism
"I do not believe in God and I am not an atheist."
"Can one be a saint if God does not exist? That is the only concrete problem I know of today." The Plague
"Don't wait for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day." The Fall - 1956
"He who despairs over an event is a coward, but he who holds hope for the human condition is a fool."
"If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life." The Myth of Sisyphus, 1942
"The certainty of a God giving meaning to life far surpasses in attractiveness the ability to behave badly with impunity." The Myth of Sisyphus, 1942
"[...] since the order of world is regulated by death, perhaps is it better for God we do not believe in him and we fight with all our might against death, without raising our eyes heavenward where he keeps silent." The Plague
“I shall not, as far as I am concerned, try to pass myself off as a Christian in your presence. I share with you the same revulsion from evil. But I do not share your hope, and I continue to struggle against this universe in which children suffer and die”.
“In order to exist just once in the world, it is necessary never again to exist.” The Rebel
“We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking.”
“To begin to think is to begin to be undermined.”
“I do not want to found anything on the incomprehensible. I want to know whether I can live with what I know and with that alone.”
“Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable.”
“For the existentials, negation is their God. To be precise, that god is maintained only through the negation of human reason. But, like suicides, gods change with men.”
“I don't know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it. But I know that I do not know that meaning and that it is impossible for me just now to know it. What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms.”
“Beware of those who say: "I know this too well to be able to express it." For if they cannot do so, this is because they don't know it or because out of laziness they stopped at the outer crust.”
“As for Hitler, his professed religion unhesitatingly juxtaposed the God-Providence and Valhalla. Actually his god was an argument at a political meeting and a manner of reaching an impressive climax at the end of speeches.”
“There exists an obvious fact that seems utterly moral: namely, that a man is always prey to his truths. Once he has admitted them, he cannot free himself from them. One has to pay something. A man who has become conscious of the absurd is forever bound to it.”
Thanks to Atheist Quotes & Positive Atheism
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