Guest bizabra Posted June 5, 2004 Report Posted June 5, 2004 Bush is s dumba$$. He should have avoided that quote in the first place. Stupid to paraphrase it. Just makes him look dumber. What an idiot. . . . . . . Quote
Guest bizabra Posted June 5, 2004 Report Posted June 5, 2004 Originally posted by TheProudDuck@Jun 3 2004, 09:50 AM In other news, Los Angeles County has just caved in to an ACLU demand to remove a cross symbolizing Los Angeles County's Spanish mission history from the county seal. The city of Redlands gave in to a similar threat about a month ago. Now, THAT (the Spanish mission period) IS something to get worked up about! I fully agree that there is no need to romanticize and elavate in any way a period of time that was a "holocaust" to the native peoples of California. It is a shameful past that is best not being associated with governmental institutions. Quote
Guest bizabra Posted June 5, 2004 Report Posted June 5, 2004 Originally posted by Starsky@Jun 3 2004, 02:34 PM What I don't understand is why someone who isn't religious, who doesn't believe in the commandments, who doesn't believe in God...cares what historically has been present in court rooms, parks, on buildings....on money....why it bothers them...if they don't believe in it..Imagine going to the Greek Isles or Rome and have everything that had to do with mythology taken out/removed because people didn't believe it was true or right, or whatever....Good grief...to me...their desire to have these things/symbols of religious belief only proves they do believe there is validity to them, that they do represent truth and they just can't deal with their own guilt!Just tell me...what could be more valid in a court room than a statement: Thou shalt not kill Thou shalt not steal THOU SHALT NOT BARE FALSE WITNESS Thou shalt not commit adultry ( really good for divorce court..) Yeah, I always wondered why the early Jews and Christians would not give lip-service to the Roman gods. If those gods were non-existant and meaningless, and paying surface respect to them would avoid having yourself and your family persecuted or put to death, then why not just do it? Silly! Quote
Guest TheProudDuck Posted June 5, 2004 Report Posted June 5, 2004 Originally posted by bizabra@Jun 5 2004, 10:19 AM Bush is s dumba$$. He should have avoided that quote in the first place. Stupid to paraphrase it. Just makes him look dumber. What an idiot. . . . . . . Gee, Biz, I would have thought that the 60th anniversary of D-Day would have been a perfectly appropriate time to include Eisenhower's message to the troops in the Air Force Academy commencement speech. How could it be a bad thing to remind the troops of the tradition they are embarking in, and the great things their predecessors have done?Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we havestriven these many months. The eyes of liberty loving people everywheremarch with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers in arms onother Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German warmachine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples ofEurope, and security for ourselves in a free world.Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, wellequipped and battle hardened. He will fight savagely.But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats,in open battle, man to man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced theirstrength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our HomeFronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitionsof war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men.The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together toVictory!I have full confidence in your courage and devotion to duty and skill inbattle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory! Good luck! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this greatand noble undertaking.SIGNED: Dwight D. EisenhowerI still think he should have quoted the full message, whiners about "crusade" be danged. Quote
Guest bizabra Posted June 5, 2004 Report Posted June 5, 2004 Originally posted by TheProudDuck@Jun 3 2004, 05:00 PM Tao --Of course, if we do not remove them, then we are saying it was ok to put them there in the first place.I think it was OK to put the symbols there in the first place. It was a different country then, and there was less occasion for people to be offended. For one thing, there were fewer people of other faiths; for another, the religious minorities that were present, weren't nearly as indoctrinated with the idea that public expression of a religious symbol or concept that a person doesn't hold is offensive. In short, what would create excessive displeasure now, wouldn't have caused the same problem fifty years ago.In addition, I don't agree that "if we do not remove them, then we are saying it was ok to put them there in the first place." Right now, next to the Upper Newport Bay ecological preserve a few hundred yards from my house, there are the remains of a salt evaporation operation that used to exist there. The local feudal lord (the Irvine Company, which owned and developed half of Orange County) built an industrial plant right in the middle of a beautiful tidal wetland, a major migratory bird stop. Heck, no, it wasn't OK to put the saltworks there. Most of the plant got washed away in a flood in the late sixties, but some dikes and basins remain. The fact that they haven't been removed, doesn't mean it was OK for them to be there in the first place. It means that removing them would either do more harm than good (by disrupting the ecology that has adapted to the landscape as it stands) or not be cost effective.Or consider what happened in eastern Europe after World War II, or in coastal Turkey after World War I. Borders got shifted around wildly; millions of people were driven from their homes. It simply wouldn't be productive to try to set these historical wrongs right. It would do more harm than good. Making that judgment doesn't mean that the long-past wrongs, weren't wrong.Those may not be great analogies, but I hope you see my point. Creating something in the first place may be seen, in retrospect, not to have been a good idea -- but removing it may do more harm than good. In this case, editing out a significant part of the past suggests a kind of animosity to that part of the past, and gratuitiously sticks a thumb in the eye of people who value it.I was not saying that we should not put the 10 Commandments in a courtroom. I was saying we should also post other scriptures there to make things fair.I disagree. The Koran, the Vedas, or the Doctrine & Covenants played virtually no part in the development of the American concept of the rule of law. Biblical law did, even if the route was indirect, and the Constitution itself is a secular document. The concepts of natural law, a rational universe, equality, the innate worth and dignity of the individual and his resulting right to liberty are part of a tradition that stretches back from Jefferson, Adams and company through Montesquieu, Locke, Aquinas, and Augustine to the Hebrew metaphysical tradition, though of course with liberal borrowings from Germanic tribal traditions and Roman law. So a display of the Ten Commandments would seem to be a monument to law, while a display of a law code that had nothing to do with the foundations of the American legal system (like the scriptures of other religions) would only be a monument to religion, which might violate the constitutional establishment clause. I'm no lawyer, but I disagree that our laws have a basis in the bible. My understanding is that American laws derive from English Common Law, which is/was the codification of local custom and tradition, such customs and traditions which go back well before William the Conqueror and are rooted in the pagan/druid history of Great Britain. Viking laws were definately NOT based upon biblical laws, and are very much a part of the tradition of old England via the Norman invasions. No doubt the christianization of England led to incorporation of biblical tenents to some degree, but more likely that was simply becuase they now viewed and interpreted "custom" through the lens of christianity.Look to Israel for laws based on Old Testament beliefs. An eye for an eye, stuff like that, is markedly missing from English and American legal systems.Here is one small link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_lawand another: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/state/monarch...ii_law_01.shtmland one more: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09068a.htm Quote
Guest Starsky Posted June 6, 2004 Report Posted June 6, 2004 Originally posted by bizabra+Jun 5 2004, 10:33 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (bizabra @ Jun 5 2004, 10:33 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin--Starsky@Jun 3 2004, 02:34 PM What I don't understand is why someone who isn't religious, who doesn't believe in the commandments, who doesn't believe in God...cares what historically has been present in court rooms, parks, on buildings....on money....why it bothers them...if they don't believe in it..Imagine going to the Greek Isles or Rome and have everything that had to do with mythology taken out/removed because people didn't believe it was true or right, or whatever....Good grief...to me...their desire to have these things/symbols of religious belief only proves they do believe there is validity to them, that they do represent truth and they just can't deal with their own guilt!Just tell me...what could be more valid in a court room than a statement: Thou shalt not kill Thou shalt not steal THOU SHALT NOT BARE FALSE WITNESS Thou shalt not commit adultry ( really good for divorce court..) Yeah, I always wondered why the early Jews and Christians would not give lip-service to the Roman gods. If those gods were non-existant and meaningless, and paying surface respect to them would avoid having yourself and your family persecuted or put to death, then why not just do it? Silly! You totally missed the mark on this one...No one was saying worship....no one said remove the statues either.... the Jews weren't put to death because they wanted to remove all the things that worshipped or represented Christ...they just went about their lives believing and worshipping according to their own ways...What we have today is a bunch of people who don't believe in the Christian values....telling us that we must remove all representations of such...even though many are historical markers... Quote
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