Saturday, July 28, 2007

Secular Messianists all, no doubt ...

Here are some fun quotes for Mark to read the next time he declares Bush a heretic and a secular messianist for asserting that political freedom is a gift from God:
"Before any man can be considered as a member of civil society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governor of the Universe. And to the same Divine Author of every good and perfect gift [James 1:17] we are indebted for all those privileges and advantages, religious as well as civil, which are so richly enjoyed in this favored land." - James Madison

"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." - Thomas Jefferson

"God grant, that not only the Love of Liberty, but a thorough Knowledge of the Rights of Man, may pervade all the Nations of the Earth, so that a Philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its Surface, and say, "This is my Country." - Benjamin Franklin

"Nevertheless, amid the greatest difficulties of my Administration, when I could not see any other resort, I would place my whole reliance on God, knowing that all would go well, and that He would decide for the right."
--From the October 24, 1863 Remarks to the Baltimore Presbyterian Synod

"Enough is known of Army operations within the last five days to claim our especial gratitude to God; while what remains undone demands our most sincere prayers to, and reliance upon, Him, without whom, all human effort is vain."
--From the May 10, 1864 Telegram Press Release

"Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, "Letter To Henry L. Pierce and Others" (April 6, 1859), p. 376.

Further examples abound, of course. The point that I have long endeavored to make is that while one might disagree with these sentiments, it's not as though this is a new trend in American political thought or rhetoric and we don't appear to have created the system of the Antichrist just yet.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes! Madison, Jefferson, etc. were children of the Endarkenment and therefore the epitome of secular messianists.

Lincoln was a tyrant and war criminal who pre-figured Truman's war crimes with Sherman's March to the Sea. All because a bunch of yahoos in the South used their constitutional right to secede unwisely (see the tenth amendment: clearly the right to secede, not explicitly reserved for the Federal government in the constitution, is left for the states to exercise). Freeing the slaves was just a (successful) attempt to cloak the War of Northern Agression in a veneer of righteousness; had this ploy not been successful, Lincoln would have gone down as the worst president in history for unleashing brutal, unprecedented carnage on the country just so the Federal government could tyrannize the States.

Anonymous said...

"Lincoln was a tyrant and war criminal who pre-figured Truman's war crimes with Sherman's March to the Sea."

Lincoln was a democratically elected President who saved the country. Comparing the March to the Sea with Hiroshima and Nagaski shows that you know little about these historical events. The idea that Lincoln and Truman were war criminals is paleocon historical revisionism at its worst. None of the actions that they took were considered to be beyond accepted military practices at the time. To apply the term war criminal to these men says much more about the accuser than it does about either of these presidents.

As for the Tenth Amendment guaranteeing a right to secession, that is mistaken. "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." In order for the states to retain a right of secession, they would have had to possess such a right in the first place. You can't point to this amendment and say it creates or reconizes such a right unless you can establish that such a right existed in the first place. Additionally, the text of the Amendment would seem to indicate that if such a hurdle could be leaped, then the question would arise as to where the power resided: in the individual states or in the people of the nation as a whole? If it resided in the people as a whole, obviously no secession could legally occur unless it was agreed to by a majority of the elected representatives of the people in the federal government.

Additionally, an overlooked portion of the Constitution is Article IV, section 4 where the federal government is charged to guarantee to each state a republican form of government. How could the federal government carry out this responsibility if states could secede? If states retained a right to secede why give such a right to intervene in state affairs to the federal government?

Neo-conferate nonsense to the contrary, the Constitution is silent on the right of seccession. That is why men differed so greatly on the issue when the great crisis came in 1860.

My own views on the question are reflected by this letter written by a father to his son.

"Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It was intended for 'perpetual union' so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution, or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession."

I agree with the author of this letter, Robert E. Lee.

Anonymous said...

Well Done Donald.

If I am not mistaken, some eminence said of the tenth amendment and the secession issue, "The Constitution is not a suicide pact."

Anonymous said...

Donald and y'all: I think Anonymous was being facetious. :)

Diane (not the Anonymous in question)

Pauli said...

Diane, please get your kids to fix your blogger account.

8^)

Anonymous said...

LOL, Pauli. For my day job, I've been having to do all this research on "marketing to Generation Y." (Don't ask.) I'm about ready to throttle the little tech-savvy monsters. :p

Diane

Anonymous said...

Bushitler.

Anonymous said...

anon,

Thanks for the post. Mark engages in his shuffle again. Let's see, for the longest time he has denounced the Iraq war as unjust. However, he has supported the troops and belittled those who said this was inconsistent. How can one claim a war is unjust and defend the soldiers carrying it out. Why of course, our brave soldiers are merely being lied to by the evil Bush/Cheney and are thus innocent.

Now he brings up Franz Jagerstatter who died rather then fight for Hitler. Mark holds Jagerstatter as a model for opposing unjust actions of secular states. Well Mark, time to start encouraging disobedience from our soldiers instead of praising them. At least American soldiers won't be beheaded for not fighting in Iraq