Standing Up to the ACLU
- Thread starter Overpaid Union Thug
- Start date
ezmoney5150
Well-Known Member
A school is run by a government. If you allow one religion to worship in it you should let all religions worship in it. Are you willing to let the church of satan use it for their workshops??? or to pray in???? if you don't then the government has condoned one religion over another. That's why there's a separation.
By the way I don't want liberals on the court either. I also don't want conservatives. Right now its run by conservatives.
Overpaid Union Thug
Well-Known Member
I don't recall ever saying that one religion should be aloud to worship in schools. Like it or not this country was founded on Christian values so Christianity is naturally embeded in our history and culture. It shouldn't be ignored or stripped from out history books. If a group of students want to have prayer then those that do not don't have to participate. They can leave the room until it's over. It's not a church service so I don't see what all the fuss is about.
diesel96
Well-Known Member
Although I agree with the 2nd half of your post, I do have a quarrel with this country founded solely on Christian values.
Many Religious Right activists have attempted to rewrite history by asserting that the United States government derived from Christian foundations, that our Founding Fathers originally aimed for a Christian nation. This idea simply does not hold to the historical evidence.
Of course many Americans did practice Christianity, but so also did many believe in deistic philosophy. Indeed, most of our influential Founding Fathers, although they respected the rights of other religionists, held to deism and Freemasonary tenets rather than to Christianity.
The United States Constitution serves as the law of the land for America and indicates the intent of our Founding Fathers. The Constitution forms a secular document, and nowhere does it appeal to God, Christianity, Jesus, or any supreme being. The U.S. government derives from people (not God), as it clearly states in the preamble: "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union...." The omission of God in the Constitution did not come out of forgetfulness, but rather out of the Founding Fathers purposeful intentions to keep government separate from religion.
If religionists better understood the concept of separation of Church & State, they would realize that the wall of separation actually protects their religion. Our secular government allows the free expression of religion and non religion. Today, religions flourish in America; we have more churches than Seven-Elevens.
ezmoney5150
Well-Known Member
If you leave it to some of these fundemental Christians there will be only one religion in this country. Theirs. That's why they constantly try to influence this government with campaign donations. Scary.
Last time religion and politics was mixed people were burned at the stake.
av8torntn
Well-Known Member
I think the last time religion and politics were mixed is now. People are stoned to death in the Islamic republic of Iran.
That's not exactly a strong endorsement for mixing church and state...
av8torntn
Well-Known Member
I never endorsed mixing church and state. But I do believe we should be allowed religious freedom. If some kid wants to say a prayer before a test I have no problem with it. I see the problem is that my federal tax money is going to schools. I believe strongly in personal freedoms. I see people that want to tell someone they cannot have a Christmas party at school as someone who wants to take away liberty. I see someone who believes that it is OK to stop a school from allowing a minister to say a prayer at a graduation ceremony as a person that is willing to give up my freedom. To me the ACLU in their zeal to eliminate all things religious from government as not wanting to allow people the opportunity to pray, read their scripture, celebrate Christmas voluntarily. To me when you celebrate the government taking away these freedoms from its citizens you are not much different than a government that has a state church which forces its beliefs on you. Why do they not take this same energy and defend the second amendment? When you read the Supreme Court decisions about separation of church they for the most part are on very narrow points. I still say it is not as clear as you want or hope for. I am not a religious guy but it is so silly to me when I listen to people want to take away the rights of others to be religious. Anyway I have no desire to enter into an argument on religion.
ezmoney5150
Well-Known Member
I agree. I don't have a problem with a kid saying a prayer to himself silently. But!!!! The religious ideologues don't want that. They want christian prayers said before school along with the pledge of allegiance. Not Muslim, not jewish. So if you're Jewish or Muslim too bad.
I say silent prayers to yourself or none at all.
av8torntn
Well-Known Member
Well I just do not see the problem. Let the children have a Christian prayer before school just do not make it dependant on a passing grade. If kids can say the pledge, a prayer and love their parents this is a good thing to me. Just on my limited knowledge of religions I know Christians, and Muslims pray so I still do not see where the problem is. I cannot see how it is a good thing to take away the liberties from one group out of fear of offending another group. If an atheist is so offended by a prayer at school they have greater problems than the seperation of church and state. Anyway I know my opinion is the minority here but I do not get so offended that I demand that others act and think the way I do.
diesel96
Well-Known Member
If you want to incorperate prayer in school, thats fine with me, but at the same time don't get upset if Abdul whips out his majic carpet points it towards the northeast, gets down on his knees and starts exercising to Allah, and don't get upset if Wang starts exercising Tai Chi while quoting Budda and Confusious, and don't get upset if the Dreadlock Rastafarian students spark up a spleaf in the corner of the classroom and profess Jah rules with Bob Marley jamming on their I-Pods, the Pagens and Dieists students can go water a plant, airate the soil and place it on the window sill in the Sun warming mother Earth quoting mythologies and riturals. I think you'all get my point...Whats good for the goose is good for the gander. Otherwise lets just not mix state and religion like our fore fathers intended. God Bless...oops, sorry Athiests.
brazenbrown
Well-Known Member
I'm not so sure you're in the minority!
Just for fun here's a video of Comedian Dane Cook and his experience with an atheist. It is very funny!
WARNING FOR LANGUAGE: Try and get by the first minute or so and listen to his story.
If it says the video is unavailable then just go to youtube and type in Dane Cook Atheist as I've tried it and was having trouble.
Overpaid Union Thug
Well-Known Member
The only people stopping them from their Muslim or Jewish prayers in schools is themselves and the Liberals who think they should have to ban everything on others people's behalf.
tieguy
Banned
i would rather see the prayer rugs and chanting then to completely eliminate prayer from school. I don't think the founding fathers were attempting to eliminate prayer from school when they spoke of seperation. For some reason the liberal likes to expose us to diversity until it comes time to share our individual religious beliefs.
As far as I know, no one has tried to completely eliminate prayer from school. I don't think a student saying a few hail mary's (or whatever religious sayings he prefers) before a test is a problem.
What the courts have consistently said is that a public school system, set up by the local government and funded with taxpayer money collected by the state, cannot have a policy whereby they explicitly endorse one particular religion.
Having teachers lead their students in the lord's prayer every morning clearly falls into that category.
I think that's pretty consistent with what the Founding Fathers intended.
Overpaid Union Thug
Well-Known Member
Here is more evidence of the ACLU being a shamefull outfit. Pathetic!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22674564/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22674564/
wkmac
Well-Known Member
I'm all for an expectation of privacy in a bathroom stall the moment you can guarantee my nose won't be violated from the normal natural happenings that take place inside such stalls as they were designed for!
I'm not about sting operations of gov't but Craig IMO got exactly what he deserved. He knows the law, imposes the law on others and therefore not above it. I understand the precedence the ACLU is concerned with and I'd concur but they should take a powder on this specific case.
Back to the school prayer just a moment. IMO we opened that door to regulation the day we as States and local jurisdictions began taking money at the federal level for education. The 14th amendment grants fair and equal protection under the law and the 1st amendment IMO lays bare that religion was a State and local issue at the least or at best depending on POV. Congress shall make no law meant that the sole depositor of regulatory creation at the federal level was barred from touching the matter in any shape or form because the very beings directly effected were under State or local jurisdiction and not federal.
The idea of the amendments in the first place was to calm the fears of many that a large central gov't was coming into being with the new constitution that would usurp State and local jurisdiction. The first amendment in effect was all about States rights as much as the 9th and 10th amendments were. IMO and in the opinion of others, the 14th amendment created a federal citizenship which had not existed before that point. This was the crack in the door using the "Fair and Equal" clause to thus regulate and now Pandora's box is wide open and the State and local jursdictions are laid open for assault.
BTW: What to do about the slaves? Amend the organic constitution as it should have been written in the first place to exclude the 3/5's man clause and to word it so that all peoples are counted under the organic principles as equals and free men. Sadly since this was not done some provision of federal citizenship needed creating and thus the genie is out of the bottle!
Jefferson's "Wall of Seperation" and it's relation to the 1st amendment has been used by those whose goal it is to remove religion from public life. No argument. There are also those who on other fronts favor or disfavor when it comes to this issue for other reasons. Christianity and it's moral code was very much apart of the foundational makeup of the founding era as it was a core fabric of the idea and ideals of Western mankind. Now I'm not saying that America was a Christian nation alone or it was founded on purely theocratic principles but this fabric none the less was an instrument in the process.
This being the case, it's funny that in those days there was no federal mandate of school prayer or not to have school prayer. Neither for that fact was there a pledge of alligence as this act would have provoked ideas of a return to monarchial days and autocratic lifestyles which they had just broken from. Empire if you will and it's of interest that the thought of the day was of "no entangling alliances" with these empirical types but that's another thread. The European empires were religion by King's decree. Remember Divine Right of King's? This was borrowed from the ancient empires who believed their Kings to be Gods themselves and our history, even religous history is under that influenced. Son of God known well in Western Religious ideals is most associated with Jesus but the term is no purely exclusive to him. It had long standing millenia before Jesus walked among us.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14142b.htm
The part I would reference is the first section regarding the old testament usage at the link. This was not so much an exclusive of the Hebrew peoples but rather a tradition they took on from others around them. This belief was long held before their creation in the Abrahamic traditions and as thus held sway from the early Sumerian/Egyptian/Assyrian/Babylonian traditions through the Greek and Roman and finally the late variations of the Roman empire and it's traveling effects through the early barbaric hordes of Northern and Western Europe as they assimulated from tribal life to larger centralized life and the European monarchial life.
It was as much this historical linkage of King to God by sociatial decree that the founding fathers wanted to break. This would also break the yokes of mental bondage imposed on society by certain religious leaders who through intrigue and secret stealth had gained religious priviledge over society and therefore with political power and religious power hand in hand dominated all thought within society.
Over the years we've gleefully especially in the so-called conservative movement handed over the powers of local determination under the ill informed guise that embedding moral principles using religious code at the federal level would mandate a moral society across the fabric of our nation. As in days gone by it is having a reverse effect because the neutrality of political doctrine set forth by the founders is coming to bare as it should. Jefferson's "Wall of Separation" is being scolded by the very people who unknown to them are the most protected by it. You see, if you read Jefferson you've soon realize that his "Wall of Separation" was for the real purpose of protecting the faith against the contamination and filth of the politician and his minions of power.
It's ironic that the ideals of free market that the founders held dear in economics were also the very same ideals behind the "Wall of Separation" regarding religion. Let the competitive forces of a free religous market police itself rather than for gov't to take charge and mandate for the people what is doctrine and what is heresy. Would anyone here dare claim we should have a dept. of religion at the federal level to regulate religious thought? We regulate everything else these days and in most cases you guys welcome it with open arms.
Instead of screaming at the ACLU who loves central federal control, makes life easy when all the worms are in one can, you should scream at the republican party who for years talked in lenght of killing once and for all the Dept. of Education and returning all school control back to the State and local level. Ironic that when the States and local communities had control (and no it wasn't perfect) but the vast amount of kids coming out of them knew the 3 R's and a High School diploma meant something. I remember when a high school grad could come to UPS and the sky was the limit and now if you don't have the lambskin of higer learning, the need not apply sign is in full view on the door! Also seems like civility and manners were of greater bearing than we have today also but that's a personal observation of a school child of the early 60's through early 70's so there you go. If you lacked them, a one on one meeting with a paddle was in your future and the results tended to work very well. Federal law now outlaws such barbaric practices!
The States and local communities are not barred from prayer in school in "THEIR" schools but the key word is the possessive term "THEIR". Ever noticed in private schools not a word is said about school prayer one way or the other? Why? No tax dollars involved. Want a reason to oppose gov't volchers for school or if you are a gov't power hungry agent of change, what better way to get the federal foot into the private door! Ah-Ha! Light bulb go off did it?
Stop whining about the ACLU and start thinking when you go vote and hold the party that claims to believe in limited gov't to that very principle. Either vote for candidates who have a proven track record of truly limiting gov't if you believe in or stop whining.
Stop talking the talk and walking the walk!
JMO
I'm not about sting operations of gov't but Craig IMO got exactly what he deserved. He knows the law, imposes the law on others and therefore not above it. I understand the precedence the ACLU is concerned with and I'd concur but they should take a powder on this specific case.
Back to the school prayer just a moment. IMO we opened that door to regulation the day we as States and local jurisdictions began taking money at the federal level for education. The 14th amendment grants fair and equal protection under the law and the 1st amendment IMO lays bare that religion was a State and local issue at the least or at best depending on POV. Congress shall make no law meant that the sole depositor of regulatory creation at the federal level was barred from touching the matter in any shape or form because the very beings directly effected were under State or local jurisdiction and not federal.
The idea of the amendments in the first place was to calm the fears of many that a large central gov't was coming into being with the new constitution that would usurp State and local jurisdiction. The first amendment in effect was all about States rights as much as the 9th and 10th amendments were. IMO and in the opinion of others, the 14th amendment created a federal citizenship which had not existed before that point. This was the crack in the door using the "Fair and Equal" clause to thus regulate and now Pandora's box is wide open and the State and local jursdictions are laid open for assault.
BTW: What to do about the slaves? Amend the organic constitution as it should have been written in the first place to exclude the 3/5's man clause and to word it so that all peoples are counted under the organic principles as equals and free men. Sadly since this was not done some provision of federal citizenship needed creating and thus the genie is out of the bottle!
Jefferson's "Wall of Seperation" and it's relation to the 1st amendment has been used by those whose goal it is to remove religion from public life. No argument. There are also those who on other fronts favor or disfavor when it comes to this issue for other reasons. Christianity and it's moral code was very much apart of the foundational makeup of the founding era as it was a core fabric of the idea and ideals of Western mankind. Now I'm not saying that America was a Christian nation alone or it was founded on purely theocratic principles but this fabric none the less was an instrument in the process.
This being the case, it's funny that in those days there was no federal mandate of school prayer or not to have school prayer. Neither for that fact was there a pledge of alligence as this act would have provoked ideas of a return to monarchial days and autocratic lifestyles which they had just broken from. Empire if you will and it's of interest that the thought of the day was of "no entangling alliances" with these empirical types but that's another thread. The European empires were religion by King's decree. Remember Divine Right of King's? This was borrowed from the ancient empires who believed their Kings to be Gods themselves and our history, even religous history is under that influenced. Son of God known well in Western Religious ideals is most associated with Jesus but the term is no purely exclusive to him. It had long standing millenia before Jesus walked among us.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14142b.htm
The part I would reference is the first section regarding the old testament usage at the link. This was not so much an exclusive of the Hebrew peoples but rather a tradition they took on from others around them. This belief was long held before their creation in the Abrahamic traditions and as thus held sway from the early Sumerian/Egyptian/Assyrian/Babylonian traditions through the Greek and Roman and finally the late variations of the Roman empire and it's traveling effects through the early barbaric hordes of Northern and Western Europe as they assimulated from tribal life to larger centralized life and the European monarchial life.
It was as much this historical linkage of King to God by sociatial decree that the founding fathers wanted to break. This would also break the yokes of mental bondage imposed on society by certain religious leaders who through intrigue and secret stealth had gained religious priviledge over society and therefore with political power and religious power hand in hand dominated all thought within society.
Over the years we've gleefully especially in the so-called conservative movement handed over the powers of local determination under the ill informed guise that embedding moral principles using religious code at the federal level would mandate a moral society across the fabric of our nation. As in days gone by it is having a reverse effect because the neutrality of political doctrine set forth by the founders is coming to bare as it should. Jefferson's "Wall of Separation" is being scolded by the very people who unknown to them are the most protected by it. You see, if you read Jefferson you've soon realize that his "Wall of Separation" was for the real purpose of protecting the faith against the contamination and filth of the politician and his minions of power.
It's ironic that the ideals of free market that the founders held dear in economics were also the very same ideals behind the "Wall of Separation" regarding religion. Let the competitive forces of a free religous market police itself rather than for gov't to take charge and mandate for the people what is doctrine and what is heresy. Would anyone here dare claim we should have a dept. of religion at the federal level to regulate religious thought? We regulate everything else these days and in most cases you guys welcome it with open arms.
Instead of screaming at the ACLU who loves central federal control, makes life easy when all the worms are in one can, you should scream at the republican party who for years talked in lenght of killing once and for all the Dept. of Education and returning all school control back to the State and local level. Ironic that when the States and local communities had control (and no it wasn't perfect) but the vast amount of kids coming out of them knew the 3 R's and a High School diploma meant something. I remember when a high school grad could come to UPS and the sky was the limit and now if you don't have the lambskin of higer learning, the need not apply sign is in full view on the door! Also seems like civility and manners were of greater bearing than we have today also but that's a personal observation of a school child of the early 60's through early 70's so there you go. If you lacked them, a one on one meeting with a paddle was in your future and the results tended to work very well. Federal law now outlaws such barbaric practices!
The States and local communities are not barred from prayer in school in "THEIR" schools but the key word is the possessive term "THEIR". Ever noticed in private schools not a word is said about school prayer one way or the other? Why? No tax dollars involved. Want a reason to oppose gov't volchers for school or if you are a gov't power hungry agent of change, what better way to get the federal foot into the private door! Ah-Ha! Light bulb go off did it?
Stop whining about the ACLU and start thinking when you go vote and hold the party that claims to believe in limited gov't to that very principle. Either vote for candidates who have a proven track record of truly limiting gov't if you believe in or stop whining.
Stop talking the talk and walking the walk!
JMO
Overpaid Union Thug
Well-Known Member
We will not stop whinning about the ACLU until they stop twisting and distorting the constitution to screw people over. It's that simple. The elections have very little, if any, bearing on how the ACLU is able to get away with this. Liberal judges are partly to blame. Can we vote them out?
diesel96
Well-Known Member
Sure Big^, use the blame game on liberal judges. How consideratly Conservative of you. Big gov't bad, little gov't good, let's just let everything judicially be handled by the state until something doesn't go a right winger's way then it's OK to have Federal (rt wing leaning) judges interfere with such cases as Gore vs Bush in the state of Florida, or medical marijuana use voted in by free state elections but shot down in California, at the Federal level no less.
But back to the ACLU, their agenda is not to protect victims or liberals but to defend ANYONE accused, arrested or wrongfully convicted of any race, creed, color or political or religious affiliation who's constitutional rights have been violated.Yes, even extreme rt wing anti-gay, KKK hood wearing neo-nazi religous neo-con fanatics. You and I might not like the individuals or entities they protect and would agree they have taken controversial stances, and the ACLU might not promote the message of whom their defending, but it's all about defending their Constitution Rights and liberties. Or are you questioning that the ACLU's position's uses the Constitution purposely to lean more to the left of center as far as the 1st Amendment is concerned.
But back to the ACLU, their agenda is not to protect victims or liberals but to defend ANYONE accused, arrested or wrongfully convicted of any race, creed, color or political or religious affiliation who's constitutional rights have been violated.Yes, even extreme rt wing anti-gay, KKK hood wearing neo-nazi religous neo-con fanatics. You and I might not like the individuals or entities they protect and would agree they have taken controversial stances, and the ACLU might not promote the message of whom their defending, but it's all about defending their Constitution Rights and liberties. Or are you questioning that the ACLU's position's uses the Constitution purposely to lean more to the left of center as far as the 1st Amendment is concerned.
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Overpaid Union Thug
Well-Known Member
As usual you are missing the point. And that point is that their supposed reason for existing and what they are actually doing is two different things. Yes, I am questioning the ACLU position. That position is that of twisting and spinning the constitution to defend their clients. So basically they are spitting on the Constitution. Doesn't sound very Constitutionally sound does it? I think not. Only liberal judges and supposedly conservative judges with no cojones are the fools that fall for their BS. If the ACLU truly practiced what they preached then the number of clients they've represented over the years would be drasticallly less than what they have actually represented to date. They would also be a pretty good organization. But that's not what's happening. And let's not forget their ties to the communist party. Just face it....they are a joke. Their defense of the guy involved with the bathroom stall incident is one of many examples of how they are crazy loons.
