Tue, 14 August 2012
A former pizza delivery driver says Iowa law has made his job almost impossible. Steve Beale has a case? John Wohlstetter says we are "Sleepwalking with the Bomb." A wake-up call. Then, Iowans respond to the political bullying at the Iowa State Fair during the Con. Paul Ryan visit. |
Mon, 13 August 2012
The argument usually starts the same way. Somebody in the blogo-sphere expresses dismay at the moral decline of the United States and wonders why ‘in a Christian nation’ are there such things as ___________________ (fill in the blank yourself)… abortion, same gender marriage, dirty movies, Planned Parenthood… the secularization of our institutions, and how could be happening with such intensity?” Then, somebody will blog a response like, “ Then, the other guy will write, “Oh yeah, what law?” “The 1790 Treaty with The Christian nut ball either gets brain freeze or he tries to reason with the other guy using history. This is usually a big waste of time as once the conversation gets this far everyone stops listening and the name calling begins. Everyone shuts down their computer, smugly thinking their one-liner or abusive language has won the day. Usually, these exchanges are a huge waste of time. However, since this canard is served up with some frequency, I’ll make a few observations. From my Facebook page, here’s an example of what I’m talking about from a recent conversation between a couple of guys were having a go at each other. Writes the first guy: ”We aren't and never were a Christian nation. Those among us that we're the This view is wrong headed and anti-historical on two levels. First, is the mistaken notion of what jurisdiction treaties actually have. And the second is the removal of the treaty from its historical context. Contemporary liberals lust after making treaties because they erroneously think they can bypass the limits of the Constitution with treaty powers. In the past, treaties have been proposed which could even limit the Bill of Rights, the 2nd Amendment being a frequent target. While treaties indeed become the Law of the Land under the Constitution they cannot be used to amend the Constitution itself. Alexander Hamilton’s view was that treaties are instruments of agreement between nations and not international pacts designed to impact individuals. “Treaties…are not rules prescribed by the sovereign to the subject, but agreements between sovereign and sovereign…the only constitutional exceptions to the power of making treaties is, that it shall not change the Constitution…” Jefferson himself wrote, “…if the treaty making power is boundless, then we have no Constitution.” In 1956, the Supreme Court in Reid v Covert, “…SCOTUS regularly and uniformly recognizes the supremacy of the Constitution over a treaty…no agreement with a foreign nation can confer power on the Congress or any other branch of government which is free from the constraints of the Constitution.” Therefore, any random or explicit language contained in a treaty has zero weight upon American culture if it fails to conform to our form of government. Here’s the actual treaty language in question: “As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion as it has in itself no character of enmity [hatred] against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen [Muslims] and as the said States [America] have never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.” The 1797 Treaty of Tripoli was designed to end hostilities of a war in which Muslims felt it perfectly honorable to enslave and murder American merchant sailors while stealing their cargoes. That why we called them pirates. They felt justified in behaving this way since they were Muslims and Americans were not. This attitude exists today contained in dhimmi laws in many Islamic countries. While the statement was mostly public relations to end the jihad, in a legal sense it was true. It was also true in a Constitutional sense. The Constitution expressly avoided establishing a Christian national state religion based upon any denominational affiliation. If there had been any hint that the founders wanted to establish a national religion there would have been wholesale rebellion. In fact the 1st Amendment properly removes any national religions jurisdiction of any kind from the federal government. “Congress shall make no law respecting (regarding) the free exercise of religion”. Plus, there is an explicit prohibition of any religious test for any Constitutional office. However, when asked about the state of religion following the writing of the Constitution, This is also the meaning of that phrase in the Tripolitan Treaty. The Moreover, when the treaty was re-newed by It’s interesting that some consider “Almighty God, Who has given us this good land for our heritage: we humbly beseech Thee that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of Thy favor and glad to do Thy will…endow with Thy spirit of wisdom those to whom in Thy Name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home and through obedience to Thy law, we may show forth Thy praise among the nations of earth. In time of prosperity fill our hearts with thankfulness, and the day of trouble, suffer not our trust in Thee to fail; all of which we as through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen”. Just in case somebody is a little stubborn and insists that treaty language or court opinions bind our country to the philosophical notions of the authors, I say, “Cool, if that’s what you really want”. “In 1783, at the close of the war with Great Britain, a peace treaty was ratified that began with these words: ‘In the name of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity, it having pleased the Divine Providence to dispose the hearts of the most serene and most potent Prince George the Third, by the Grace of God, King of Great Britain’. That treaty was signed by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and John Jay. Keep in mind that it was Adams who signed the 1797 treaty of “In 1822, the 1. DeMar’s “America’s 200 Year War with Terror”. More than just treaties, there are hundreds of proclamations, court decisions and the Pre-amble of the Declaration of Independence (part of the organic law of the July 4, 1821 John Quincy Adams... “The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected, in one insoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity….from the day of the Declaration…they (American people) were bounds by the laws of God, which they all and by the laws of the Gospel, which they nearly all acknowledged as the rules of there conduct.” DeTocqueville’s “Democracy in America” …in the United States the sovereign authority is religious…there is no country in the world in which the Christian religion retains a greater influence of the souls of men that in America.” SCOTUS…1799 Runkel v Winemiller “…by our form of government, the Christian religion is the established religion.” SCOTUS…1931 in review of an 1892 decision reiterates that “Americans are a Christian people”. The historical record of the Christian character of our institutions, laws, and beginnings is overwhelming. Revisionists depend upon the historical illiteracy and laziness of the public to say otherwise. This little blog barely scratches the surface of our heritage. Feel free to scratch deeper.
Category:general
-- posted at: 9:45pm CDT
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