First Amendment and the Ten Commandments

[alternatefutures]

Well, President Bush, as far as I know, was never for gay marraige. Even all the Democratic candidates save for Al Sharpton are against it. Again, POTUS has no power to make laws, only to push for or veto them (which Congress can then overrule), that's it. The First Amendment also does not prohibit the President from basing his actions on religious beliefs. That the President responded to public opinion on an issue that is not protected under the Constitution would normally be considered by many to be a good thing in this democratic republic. Even if I may disagree with it I still recognize it as a good thing as the law isn't being violated and the people's voices were heard.

[Arigatomina]

The law isn't being violated.

That's exactly my point. Most people tend to see this 'separation between church and state' as meaning religion has no sway on the government. But it does - and as you've noted, it's entirely legal and correct for the government leaders to base decisions on Christian law. Thanks for agreeing with me - there is no separation (as laymen define it), and never has been.

[GoldenGundam]

Yeah. Its really stupid when some one sees something such as the ten commandments on display and then makes a big deal saying that its "unconstitutional." WHY THE HELL ARE THEY MAKING A BIG DEAL NOW INSTEAD OF TWO YEARS AGO WHEN IT WAS SET UP? Its just that they put the commandments up two years ago. I can't recall if they had a large controversy back then, and if they did, then correct me. But I mean, its been two years and its still up. I don't get it. But that's why I'm going to be a politition any time soon.

[azulmagia]

Allow me to use me my capacity as an informed non-American to make some observations.

All this is very well said, and their a few errors made by the participants thus far, but nobody has mentioned the major fact that the US Constitution is a dead letter, it does not correspond to present needs, and as for the state of the Union, i.e. the Republic, why that doesn't exist anymore either. Note I said Republic, not Democratic Republic, since as far a democracy is concerned, there has historically been more heat than light in your country; and the Founders never intended your country to be a democracy in the first place, and certainly not the kind of mass democracy that developed in the industrialised world c. 1900.

A few of you may or may not be incensed, but I don't really care. I mean come on, take one cold blooded look what your land has become in the last three or so years. Forget the Constitution. To look in that document, dating from 1787 or thereabouts, for solutions to the problems of today, or to criticize present day positions, is to indulge in ideological grave-robbing. Whenever an American wants to defend freedom of speech, he invokes the First Amendment, but is so habituated to doing this that he does not really notice the name of the clause, that it is an amendment, i.e. the Framers didn't see fit to insert its provisions in the document as it was being produced. Plus, the verbiage is clumsy, it says "congress may pass no law", but guess what they did just a few years later, in the wake of Shay's Rebellion, during WW I, and now with the "Patriot Act" and the forthcoming "Patriot Act II". The Fourth Amendment is void as well, also thanks to the Patriot Act. And don't tell me that those acts are needed for the "War on Terror". Freedom of speech can neither be effectively exercised if the authorities can search your premises at will and without your knowledge, nor if they can lock you up indefinitely without trial. If the Patriot Act II passes, the US will have definitively crossed the line from free society into that of a police state. All the more so since the US is not a democracy in the first place. How could it be, when the current holder of executive power (note I did not say "President") was selected by the Supreme Court, and black voters were taken off the Florida voters list because they had committed felonies in 2007? Not to mention the fact that he's a complete dunce at running the country, and prosecuted a war of aggression based on lies.

I could go on like this indefinitely, but in general, stop worshipping the Founders/Framers and their Declarations, Federalist Papers and Constitution like they were holy writ, rise above the intellectual horizon of the 18th century, purge yourselves of illiterate concepts like "big government" and other phrases that are mere words, and consider the needs of the common citizen as he/she actually exists in view of human emancipation, without dogmas, even dogmas of this or that amendment or the "American Dream" or what ever. Don't blame any aberrations/abominations on external factors, or even "incorrect ideas" per se, but look for the causes in the actual development of society, and consider that your own attitudes are not necessarily freely adopted but are tied into that evolution, since you are yourself a product of that society, to recognise a need to criticise your own preconceptions and desires. That way you have at least a chance of escaping the parochialism of those concepts that have had "conservatives" and "liberals" going in circles for the past thirty or more years, and can make real progress. Which considering the situation has to happen, since if America is no longer a Republic what else could it be an Empire? [/i][/quote]

[kthulhu]

Nah, we won't be a empire. We'll be a third world nation. At the rate jobs are going overseas or disappearing, and with our crumbling national base (economy, education, etcetera), I expect America to be in some bad shape soon - and to possibly take the rest of the world with it, if we don't change course.

[azulmagia]

kthulu wrote:

Nah, we won't be a empire. We'll be a third world nation. At the rate jobs are going overseas or disappearing, and with our crumbling national base (economy, education, etcetera), I expect America to be in some bad shape soon - and to possibly take the rest of the world with it, if we don't change course.

It's too late, you're both already. You're an Empire because of the level of sheer power, particularly military power; and you're a third world nation because of lack of democracy and the gap between rich and poor in addition to the aforesaid economic degeneration. But's it's correct that the rest of the world will be taken with it, sad but true. The problem is that it's unreasonable to expect it to change course, the causes being so deeply rooted. Not that you can sustain being both conditions for very long, the money just isn't there, and whoever becomes President cannot but continue the same trends.

[GoldenGundam]

It sure seems something like it. But we are not an empire because we don't have colonies and the such, just military bases and several commonwealths(or something like that). And so does the U.K., France and along with several other countries. Oh well.

[madmallard]

This does not mean that gay people shouldn't be able to develop their own lifestyle and means of creating a union (not that i'm going out and campaigning for it) but the use of the institution of "Marriage" to do it is an insult to those who feel differently. Not questionable, but an -insult- because it so clearly contradicts what they think to be acceptable.

I'm sorry, the thought that we should not do things because they contradict what someone thinks of as acceptable, is, as an American, completely absurd and sickens me to no end. With this logic, very little would be permissable in a society as varied as ours. If they don't want to call the union of homosexual couples a "Marriage" then the law needs to be changed as such so that it is merely referenced as a union, for all people. Those who are religious can call it a "Marriage" all they want. There is no reason to afford one set of people more rights than another because of something like sexual orientation.

[/quote]

ahh, so you see my point perfectly clear.

[alternatefutures]

Uh... our economic situation is far better than most of Europe, which has had far higher jobless rates on average than the US (6%? There used to be a time that was considered good!). The reason for the vast descrepancy in rich v poor isn't that the poor keep getting poorer, but instead we are home to the Bill Gateses of the world. Our jobs have been going over seas since the 1800's, yet we still have enough apparently to keep our jobless rate low and employ a significant number of illegal immigrants from South of the boarder. Oh, and we can't become a third world nation, simply because first and second worlds are defined as the US and (former) USSR spheres of influence respectively, dating back to the Cold War.

As for the Patriot act... it has indeed infringed on the 14th amendment, but I haven't seen where it infringes on the 1st. Could you please site the language? DMCA, on the other hand, as well as anti-spam legislation, most certainly does. That's kinda what I'm ranting about. The Constitution isn't some antiquated relic, it is vital to ensuring the people have access to the law. I'm trying to get people stired up here to see what has been going on for the past century (You think much has really changed in three years?) and why it has to stop. Let me tell you, the legislative and executive branches are not the big threats. They have passed laws and made policy infringing on the Constitution before that have fallen by the wayside time and again. The system is built to handle those kinds of abuses. It's the judiciary that has become the cancer growing in government.

[MAS PRODUCTIONS]

Yeah. Its really stupid when some one sees something such as the ten commandments on display and then makes a big deal saying that its "unconstitutional." WHY THE HELL ARE THEY MAKING A BIG DEAL NOW INSTEAD OF TWO YEARS AGO WHEN IT WAS SET UP? Its just that they put the commandments up two years ago. I can't recall if they had a large controversy back then, and if they did, then correct me. But I mean, its been two years and its still up. I don't get it. But that's why I'm going to be a politition any time soon.

I'm sure its an issue now because most people didn't know it existed.