This country was founded by Christians, and judeo-christian principles. 24 out of the 56 signers of the declaration of independence had seminary degrees, and some of them were ministers. The first meeting of the constitutional congress opened with a 3 hour prayer and a bible study. The reason we have "checks and balances" is because the founders knew all men are sinners and can't be trusted with power. James Madison got the idea for our three branches of government from Isaiah 33:22. This idea that this country has ever been secular in any sense is ridiculous. While some presidents may have been pandering, we are a Christian nation, and that is why we elect Christian leaders. Around 80 percent of us self-identify as Christian, and around 90 percent profess a belief in a higher power. Only around 13 percent of the country believes in darwinian evolution without any divine intervention, which is the reason why we won't have any atheists in the office anytime soon.

Newsweek

Now historians are discovering that the bible, perhaps even more than the constitution, is our founding document

12/27/82

>> ^Diogenes:

well, as the link infers... probably right from the start
i just find it difficult to agree with penn in that the umbrella term 'christian' began to flourish in the 1970s, and because of some sort of 'planning'
i mean, we know simply from the etymology of the word that it was used long, long ago... at first disparagingly by non-christians, and then embraced a few hundred years later as different assemblies used it to self identify
i think those who run for office are canny by nature, and it's probably second nature for them to understand that to garner more votes, they must present an inclusive image, rather than divisive

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

If God indeed is God then would it not be justified? (I should qualify this with I am an agnostic atheist) But there is very little that separates a Abrahamic faith than a scientific one, or even logical one. Rational systems have undeniably "Chinese walls", as does science. Bedrocks on which are facts that have to be accepted that can't be proved. All people, every single one, lives their day hinged on "facts" they have no idea are "True" with a capital T. Everyone is living with some form of dogma. It is a new found arrogance, and perhaps in rebellion of the arrogance that "religion" has had for some time, that people who don't "have faith" are somehow being smarter or less dictated too. Many of the worlds brilliant mathematicians and my personal favorites were rejected by the world of "free thinkers" to the point where they killed themsevles. All their opposition died, in time, and their ideas only came into popularity after they were dead and in the ground. People are brutally unfair, not fully considering things most of the time...even those tasked with the responsibility to do great thinking. Seldom to people embrace the ignorance we all share, and instead bask in the differences.
One of my favorite quotes on the matter is this:
So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.
-James Madison
We are all not so different, in the end...how could we be?
>> ^A10anis:
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
>> ^A10anis:
I am an Anti-theist, in that the very thought of an eternity of cowing, grovelling, and being a slave to some celestial being is not one I would choose. It would be, as Hitchens says, like an eternity in North Korea. Be a slave to your god if you wish, but leave the rest of us, most importantly our children, to think for ourselves.

A lot of self indulgence and confirmation bias there, as much as some faiths religions (for clarity ) I would suppose.

No bias, just fact. Name one Abrahamic faith that does NOT dictate to it's followers. I choose freedom of thought, over controlled thought, every time. Religion, if is not stopped, will happily take us back to the dark ages. A time when they had absolute power over every aspect of peoples lives. Who, in their right mind, would prefer that to freedom?


What are you talking about? How can you rationally claim that "very little separates Abrahamic faith from science?" or that science has "facts that can't be proved?" BTW, you cannot be an Agnostic Atheist, you are either not sure there is a god, or you believe there is no god. Or are you saying you are not sure if you are an atheist..lol. I leave it to others to see the nonsense of your non-sequiturs.

If God indeed is God then would it not be justified? (I should qualify this with I am an agnostic atheist) But there is very little that separates a Abrahamic faith than a scientific one, or even logical one. Rational systems have undeniably "Chinese walls", as does science. Bedrocks on which are facts that have to be accepted that can't be proved. All people, every single one, lives their day hinged on "facts" they have no idea are "True" with a capital T. Everyone is living with some form of dogma. It is a new found arrogance, and perhaps in rebellion of the arrogance that "religion" has had for some time, that people who don't "have faith" are somehow being smarter or less dictated too. Many of the worlds brilliant mathematicians and my personal favorites were rejected by the world of "free thinkers" to the point where they killed themsevles. All their opposition died, in time, and their ideas only came into popularity after they were dead and in the ground. People are brutally unfair, not fully considering things most of the time...even those tasked with the responsibility to do great thinking. Seldom to people embrace the ignorance we all share, and instead bask in the differences.

One of my favorite quotes on the matter is this:

So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.

-James Madison

We are all not so different, in the end...how could we be?

>> ^A10anis:

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
>> ^A10anis:
I am an Anti-theist, in that the very thought of an eternity of cowing, grovelling, and being a slave to some celestial being is not one I would choose. It would be, as Hitchens says, like an eternity in North Korea. Be a slave to your god if you wish, but leave the rest of us, most importantly our children, to think for ourselves.

A lot of self indulgence and confirmation bias there, as much as some faiths religions (for clarity ) I would suppose.

No bias, just fact. Name one Abrahamic faith that does NOT dictate to it's followers. I choose freedom of thought, over controlled thought, every time. Religion, if is not stopped, will happily take us back to the dark ages. A time when they had absolute power over every aspect of peoples lives. Who, in their right mind, would prefer that to freedom?

>> ^Lawdeedaw:
No, none of what I mentioned is really political at all, even though it directly relates. What my message did note is that without effort from the people even the most successful government format can do nothing. And the funny part is, if the masses are educated, hardworking, freedom loving, and kind and generous, then they would make perfect libertarians. They wouldn't need government to tell them how to live.

Reminds me of this quote from James Madison, "If men were angels, no government would be necessary."

Madison of course knew men weren't angels. The paragraph (and indeed the entire Federalist paper it's contained in) speaks to the entire problem one must solve when designing a government.

It's why I'm leery of people who want to reinvent society without taking any of that commentary into consideration.

>> ^Lawdeedaw:

But sadly, I see no way out. Term limits have created a horrible environment in Florida, where Pols just grab for quick power even faster. The gulf of the Mexico will either be drilled for by the U.S. or some other nation (And we get polluted either way.) Heck, the only way to stop other countries from stripping the world of its resources would be to war, or cease trading--which is not going to happen.

I agree, they're all hard problems. I'm just saying there's no easy fix. Unwinding the government doesn't seem like a fix for any of them.

On the environment, I actually agree with the Reason answer above. We need to move away from treating the environment as an unowned collective commons, and set up a property regime.

A.K.A, Cap & trade.

@blankfist I can't speak for every state (and BTW, this is almost entirely an issue left to the states to legislate on), but there's nothing legally stopping a divorce from being settled out of court in Ohio. You don't even need an arbitrator, if the parties can come to total agreement on the disposition of the custody of the children and all the relevant property disputes. In such cases, the state basically just acts as a witness to the agreement.

Almost no divorces happen that way, largely because the couple can't come to a full and wide-ranging agreement. Not only that, they usually can't even agree to binding arbitration. My parents couldn't, and instead went into the full legal food fight in civil court.

At no point in here do I see how taking civil court off the table helps.

As far as my own parents' divorce proceedings, my observation was that all the advantages went to my dad, largely because he was the sole income earner in our household. The only topic mom seemed to get preference on was with custody, and I think that was more a case of dad relenting than mom getting some sort of preferential treatment.

Even so, unfair laws aren't written in stone, and I'm sure you could cobble together a pretty potent PAC of pissed off rich men who're mad about how women get too much of a free ride when it comes to divorce. Bad judges can be impeached, and many state courts elect their judges anyways (we do here, and they even all have partisan affiliations -- the Ohio Supreme Court is 100% Republican again).

And as far as judges are concerned, I'm sure the voting blocs are driven more by abortion than anything else, and I guarantee you that the abortion-should-be-illegal crowd are a lot more likely to rule against agnostic parents over "proper" Christian ones in divorce proceedings.

In terms of actual statute, I suspect a lot of the stagnation of law in this area is because the law is set at the state level. Just about no one gets into the details of what their state legislature does unless it catches the attention of the national media (e.g. SB1070, Prop 8, Prop 19, Romneycare, etc.). Even a political junkie like me is hard pressed to say what issues my state legislature has even tried to address over its last session.

As far as some sort of anarchist state-free system, let me quote James Madison, who puts it far more eloquently than I do:

But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

If you have improvements on the framework laid down by Madison and the other founding fathers to address that problem, I'm all ears.

speaking of original intents, it seems our anti-progress friends have forgotten that that most conservative of founding fathers, the framer of the constitution, James Madison felt so strongly that government should have nothing to do with religion that he was against tax-exempt status for churches and even military chaplains

>> ^bobknight33:

I am sad that there are people like her. Sad that there is a MSMBC
GE is a pathetic left wing liberal Company. Disgusting.


I like her actually, she seems like a decent person. I don't see eye to eye with her ideologically, and she does a bit of pandering, even so, she is a decent human being in my mind.

"So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts."

-James Madison

On the other hand, O'reily is an patronizingly, mean bastard. Even Glenn Beck is a nice guy even though he panders to a different audience, I wouldn't mind having a beer with him or her, but O'Reily can bask in the radiance of his own piousness.

Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.

-Plato

Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.

-Aristotle

So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.

-James Madison

i struggled with this interview due to Woo being so vague and obtuse but in the third part he finally gives some insight to his possible reasons.

those reasons are quite simply an argument that stems to the beginning of this republic.his defense is an ideological one and is very hard to prosecute but easy to defend.the federalist papers were an ongoing argument between alexander hamilton and james madison (if i recollect properly) and the basic premise was,in summary,which is a more beneficial form of government in regards to the federal governments role.
1.a fairly weak federal government whose role is security and little else.leaving the bulk of responsibility on the states.
2.a strong federal government with not only security as a responsibility but also final say on states powers to regulate themselves.
this is the basic argument and we still have representative ideologies today in our political landscape i.e:democrat-republican.

Woo seems to be of the idea that it is the ultimate responsibility of the federal government,and more specifically,the executive branch that should wield greater power.
this is his right though you may disagree.
what i find perplexing is that Woo is a neo-conservative and a republican party member.this is the party of SMALLER government and weaker powers.why would he use a democrat philosophy?
answer=because he is full of shit and nothing of what he did had anything to with his political philosophy.he created the torture memos to absolve his superiors of any wrong-dong by manipulating the law.
it is either that or he is a confused,misguided tool.
considering he is a professor of constitutional law i am going to guess he was working at the behest of those who wielded power at the time.
he is a whore who traded his political ideologies for career asperations.
that or he is a closet democrat.

I am not unaware of the great importance of roads and canals and the improved navigation of water courses, and that a power in the National Legislature to provide for them might be exercised with signal advantage to the general prosperity. But seeing that such a power is not expressly given by the Constitution, and believing that it can not be deduced from any part of it without an inadmissible latitude of construction and reliance on insufficient precedents; believing also that the permanent success of the Constitution depends on a definite partition of powers between the General and the State Governments, and that no adequate landmarks would be left by the constructive extension of the powers of Congress as proposed in the bill, I have no option but to withhold my signature from it, and to cherishing the hope that its beneficial objects may be attained by a resort for the necessary powers to the same wisdom and virtue in the nation which established the Constitution in its actual form and providently marked out in the instrument itself a safe and practicable mode of improving it as experience might suggest.

James Madison,
President of the United States

http://www.constitution.org/jm/18170303_veto.htm

The boundless scope of the general welfare clause was never the intentionality of it. It was confined to the powers granted by the other articles. There would be no limit to the power of this clause otherwise, you could justify anything. Seeking to empower government with inscrutable power will lead to disaster and oppression.

>> ^NetRunner:
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
Ya, and congress passed and repealed the prohibition act, and passed and repealed the separate but equal mess. Trusting the courts or even congress to "interpret" the constitution leads to oppression and tyranny. It is a straight forward and easy to read document, the interpretations from those cases and the ones you mentioned only lead to the perversion of the document. To say something so Carte Blanche as this is absurd. It is the reason we are having this dialogue in the first place.

My point is that you're many Overton window steps away from having the kind of conversation you want to have in your heart of hearts, and really it's shifting in the other direction.
Getting rid of Medicare and Social Security are unthinkable. Universal healthcare is popular and well on its way to becoming law.
The short answer is that yes, it falls under the category of general welfare, just like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, scholarship programs, public schools, etc. etc.
But hey, it's nice to see that libertarians are dropping their pretense of constructionism and going for the idea of fresh reinterpretation of the Constitution as a living document, and judicial activism...


Heart of hearts? I have no idea what you are talking about. I speak from both my heart and my head, your insinuation is rather ambiguous so I can't address what you are even speaking of.

And getting rid of those things are not unthinkable, it is exactly that closed mindedness that has made them the crazy things they are today. Just because universal health care is popular has no bearing on weather or not it should be a law. This is just as much a bush "stay the course" liberal fallacy as I could think. "Keep going with the illegal and unjust thing...because to do the opposite wouldn't be politically expedient". Like I said previous, there have been MANY bad laws in history..ask Socrates how the hemlock tasted. ("Where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy." --Thomas Jefferson)

Madison talked so extensively on the General welfare being a phrase that embodied the enumerated powers listed by the judge.

"I will end with a quote from my favorite American framer:

"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."
James Madison

under the bush administration the DEA and other related federal institutions (DOJ)were given the authority to over-ride state laws.
i believe it was in 2004.
they have been selective in their prosecution of said authority,mainly in california.
the question of state rights/laws trumping federal law has been a contentious subject since the beginning of america.
i would refer to the federalist papers,article 51,in which alexander hamilton and james madison make such an argument on state vs federal powers.
i swear,its almost like we are living in bizzaro world,where republican and democrat have flipped ideologies on these matters.
how can something you do in the privacy of your own home,harm noone,can be considered against the law?
thanks to henry anslinger and his propaganda machine in the late 30's and early 40's demonizing weed,the american citizen has had to endure this egregious breach in our right to privacy.
its an inane,ill-thought and redundant law,based on bad science and even worse social engineering.
and we call ourselves free..pfffft.

Okay. First, I'll point out that you still don't have any sources that repeat your own claim that the Democratic-Republican party simply disappeared into thin air, and that there was a clear and clean break between that party and the Democratic Party.

Second, you either didn't understand my explanation of why the Republican party would be different, or well, I guess there is no other real explanation, because you laid out a straw man instead of responding to what I actually said.

Third, your fixation with the logo is unhealthy. Seriously, if we change the logo now to a Fox to mock Fox News, does that mean Bill O'Reilly founded the Democratic party? I'm not being entirely facetious -- if the Democratic-Republican party didn't have a logo before, but during the Jackson presidency they adopted it to spite the people calling him Jackass, does that make him the founder of the Democratic-Republican party? I think it makes him a Jackass, but that's not what we're talking about.

But really, this all comes down to #1. You said the answers.com page was accurate. Here's some of what you deemed accurate:

Encyclopedia Britannica:

In the 1790s a group of Thomas Jefferson's supporters called themselves "Democratic Republicans" or "Jeffersonian Republicans" to demonstrate their belief in the principle of popular government and their opposition to monarchism. The party adopted its present name in the 1830s, during the presidency of Andrew Jackson.

So, one party, that changed its name.

US History Encylcopedia:

By the end of Madison's presidency and throughout Monroe's two terms, known as the "Era of Good Feeling," the Democratic Republican Party largely abandoned its minimalism and supported tariff, banking, and improvements policies originally supported by its Federalist opponents.

After the retirement of James Monroe, the newly renamed "Democratic" Party came to rally around the candidacy of Andrew Jackson. Jackson steered the party back toward its minimalist origins.

The Law Encyclopedia entry starts with:

The modern Democratic party is the descendant of the Democratic-Republican party, an early-nineteenth-century political organization led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Also known as the Jeffersonians, the Democratic-Republican party began as an antifederalist group, opposed to strong, centralized government. The party was officially established at a national nominating convention in 1832. It dropped the Republican portion of its name in 1840.

They don't all agree about the exact timing of the change, but they say it was a change in name, not a newly founded party.

In the course of searching again today, I found a couple original-source documents:

Thomas Jefferson Randolph (Thomas Jefferson's grandson) said at the 1872 Democratic convention that he'd spent 80 years of his life in the Democratic-Republican party (source), and Inquiry Into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the United States By Martin Van Buren, where he discusses the topic at excruciating length, but frequently talks about the roots of the Democratic party beginning with Jefferson.

Look, you're just wrong. You can disagree with the history as it's written, but that makes you, not me, the revisionist.

It's okay. I don't blame you for being mad. You don't like the thought that Thomas Jefferson and William Jefferson Clinton were both from the same party. Here's a thought, maybe we should change the logo to a brunette sucking cock, to commemorate the founding of Limbaugh's Clinton's Democrat (as opposed to Democratic) party. The logo change, that's really all it takes to found a new party.

Someone call Hillary and let her know she won the nomination at the Democrat National Convention, where only Michigan and Florida count. Best not show her the new logo though.

Whoa! Slow down. I never said I hate Democrats. They make up the large majority of my friends. Let's take this slowly so not to confuse you any further.

>> ^NetRunner:
I'm well aware of where the logo comes from...so what? If Democrats decide to start using Obama's logo from now on, does that mean Obama founded the Democratic party?

Huh? That has no relevance. The party started with Jackson. He even laughingly chose the mascot based on a derision toward his name: Andrew Jackass. I've given you sources citing this. The party was started with him. It won't matter if the mascot or logo or whatever changes after Jackson or not, the party started with him.

And, I did read your links. Excuse me if I don't take the one from democrats.org seriously. But this one is accurate: http://www.answers.com/topic/democratic-party

I agree it was a split of the party, because after this point there weren't any other Democratic Republicans that I've read about after Jackson. Andrew Jackson also believed himself to be a Jeffersonian Democrat (though arguably in practice I'd say he wasn't, but that's another discussion altogether). But, it wasn't as if the party was handed over to Jackson. It was split, which means the party was effectively dissolved, not transformed.

The Republicans can lay claim just as easily to the Democratic Republican Party, because Adams and Clay created the National Republican Party (which became the Whigs which was further split into the Republican Party). It's lunacy. None of those two parties have anything to do (at least not in practice) with the Jeffersonian Principles of the original party.

But, by your logic, we could say Thomas Jefferson founded the Democrat Party, the Republican Party, the Whigs Party, the National Republican Party, Free Soil Party and the Know Nothing Party. Hell, you could argue the Democratic Republican Party was molded out of the Anti-Administration Party, so therefore James Madison was the founder of all parties.

The National Republican Party (which ultimately morphed into The Republican Party) is said to be a combination of The Democratic Republican Party and the Federalist Party (which was preceded by the Pro-Administration Party), so does that mean both Thomas Jefferson and George Washington founded that party?! Wow!

When you create a new party, it has a founder at the moment it is created. That founder typically is the politician who personifies it, such as Andrew Jackson for the Democratic Party, Abraham Lincoln for the Republican Party and Thomas Jefferson & James Madison for the Democratic Republican Party.

1. "As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion..." - Treaty of Tripoli, 1797, unanimously ratified by the US Senate.

2. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." - The First Amendment to the United States Constitution

3. The First Amendment is the ONLY mention of religion in the entire constitution. There is no mention of god in the constitution.

4. The supreme court has clarified the first amendment in the form of the Lemon Test. In order to be constitutional, a law must pass all three of the following requirements:
a. The government's action must have a secular legislative purpose;
b. The government's action must not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion;
c. The government's action must not result in an "excessive government entanglement" with religion.

5. James Madison, principal author of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, was a vociferous advocate of separation of church and state: http://atheism.about.com/library/quotes/bl_q_JMadison.htm

"What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not." [Pres. James Madison, A Memorial and Remonstrance, addressed to the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, 1785]

"Experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution." [James Madison, A Memorial and Remonstrance, addressed to the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, 1785]

Madison made these remarks to argue against a proposed law that would have funded churches with tax money (Almost what Bush is doing through the back door with OFBCI). Instead of supporting religion with taxes, Jefferson authored and Virginia passed (with Madison's support) the Virginia statute on religious freedom. This act states:

"[Sec. 2] Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

[Sec. 3] And though we well know that this assembly elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding assemblies, constituted with powers equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this act to be irrevocable would be of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present, or to narrow its operation, such act shall be an infringement of natural right."

Under such a doctrine I could not be compelled to contribute tax money to the hiring of chaplains for congress and the supreme court, nor printing religious slogans on dollar bills ("In God We Trust"), nor paying teachers to teach religious slogans ("one nation under God").