New church-state controversy

#26
#26
VOLatile said:
Gonna have to disagree. In my mind, there's good reason for complete separation, but in the mind of a Christian, their life is ruled by the Bible and so should everyone else's. It's pretty ambiguous and should really be clarified.
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way off if you believe the middle part of your paragraph
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#27
#27
MG1968 said:
just think, if this teacher was like utgibbs and put,

"I am a Marxist and proud apologist for Castro and Che Guevara. If you don't like to hear rhetoric of the Revolution, get over it. It is my fervent wish to the the US' capitalist system overthrown and replaced with a true workers' paradise."

into his syllabus, he would be praised as a champion of free speech.
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I wanna play:

"I am a Muslim and a fervent believer in the teachings of Muhammad. If you don't like to hear the rhetoric of the true prophet, get over it. It is my fervent wish that the US' democratic system be overthrown and replaced with a true Islamic Republic."

Still cool?
 
#28
#28
NEOCON said:
I'm a christian.

While I know you like to speak for me ... you are wrong.

Could care less if you follow my religion.

Wanna go 2 out of 3?
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Can you be a Christian and not want everyone else to be one as well? What with the great commission and all.
 
#30
#30
I want everyone to go to heaven but that is an individual choice........
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#31
#31
RespectTradition said:
Can you be a Christian and not want everyone else to be one as well? What with the great commission and all.
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religion is a choice.

it should not and cannot be forced on someone.

you disagree with me about religion that's your choice.

i have the right to tell you what i believe and you have the right to either accept it or move on.
 
#32
#32
NEOCON said:
religion is a choice.

it should not and cannot be forced on someone.

you disagree with me about religion that's your choice.

i have the right to tell you what i believe and you have the right to either accept it or move on.
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plus one
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#33
#33
CSVol said:
I wanna play:
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178113.jpg
 
#34
#34
nbakerld said:
I like the idea of separation of church and state, but the first amendment is applied too widely. It was never intended to regulate a HS in Florida. If public education didn't have a monopoly we wouldn't really hear about this sort of thing. There would be a lot more private schools where this guy could speak his mind.
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IMO, the first Amendment makes federal involvement in education unconstitutional. Religion must either be discluded or included in education. Either choice if dictated by the federal gov't yields a "law respecting an establishment of religion".
 
#35
#35
lawgator1 said:
One is religious dogma, the other political. The First Amendment discusses the former with an affirmative bar on the mixing of church and state, and that has long been recognized to explicitly include overtly religious commentary by teachers in public schools.
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So you are saying that political indoctrination in the classroom is constitutional?
 
#36
#36
lawgator1 said:
It has long been held to be an affirmative bar. You may disagree, but you have no vote in the matter.
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The USC was written specifically so it could be commonly read and understood. They WERE originalists concerning its text and had no "hidden" meanings for someone to expand on later.

How typical of the left though... pervert the text of the USC then declare the matter closed when someone advocates correcting it.
 
#39
#39
sjt18 said:
No. I don't.
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next to the "quote" button in a post is a little button with quotation marks, click on that for each post you want to reply to, then at the bottom left, click on the "post reply" button and each quoted post you respond to will be in your reply box awaiting your response.
 
#40
#40
NEOCON said:
religion is a choice.

it should not and cannot be forced on someone.

you disagree with me about religion that's your choice.

i have the right to tell you what i believe and you have the right to either accept it or move on.
Click to expand...

Been sick and had to be off for a while. Sorry I am so late in responding.

I am not advocating forcing religion on anyone. I just state that we are commanded to spread the gospel and convert as many as possible. So, isn't it impossible to be a christian and not to 'care' if someone else becomes a christian or not? I can want everyone to be a christian. I am not willing to force it on anyone. Mainly because that is impossible, since christianity is a choice.
 
#43
#43
Velo Vol said:
Did you know that George Washington owned slaves?
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Do you know the Whole story of how George Washington felt about slavery?

Very wordy i know, But the father of our country deserves better than your statement. Its obvious that you need to know this to keep you from embarrasingly speaking half truths .
The rest of the article is at the link here, it also talks about Jefferson if your interested.


FREE EDUCATION HERE!!!!

WallBuilders - Issues and Articles - George Washington, Thomas Jefferson & Slavery in Virginia

A small excerpt below:

Consider first the views of George Washington. Born in 1732, his life demonstrates how culturally entrenched slavery was in that day. Not only was Washington born into a world in which slavery was accepted, but he himself became a slave owner at the tender age of 11 when his father died, leaving him slaves as an inheritance. As other family members deceased, Washington inherited even more slaves. Growing up, then, from his earliest youth as a slave owner, it represented a radical change for Washington to try to overthrow the very system in which he had been raised.

Washington declared:

"I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it [slavery]; but there is only one proper and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, and that is by Legislative authority; and this, as far as my suffrage [vote and support] will go, shall never be wanting [lacking]. "6

As Washington had pledged, he did provide his support and leadership in efforts to end the slave trade. For example, on July 18, 1774, the committee which Washington chaired in his own Fairfax County passed the following act:

Resolved, that it is the opinion of this meeting that during our present difficulties and distress, no slaves ought to be imported into any of the British colonies on this continent; and we take this opportunity of declaring our most earnest wishes to see an entire stop for ever put to such a wicked, cruel, and unnatural trade. 7

Having developed this position, Washington maintained it throughout his life and reaffirmed it often. For example, when General Marquis de Lafayette decided to buy a plantation in French Guiana for the purpose of freeing its slaves and placing them on the estate as tenants, Washington wrote Lafayette:

"Your late purchase of an estate in the colony of Cayenne, with a view of emancipating the slaves on it, is a generous and noble proof of your humanity. Would to God a like spirit would diffuse itself generally into the minds of the people of this country, but I despair of seeing it. Some petitions were presented to the [Virginia] Assembly at its last session for the abolition of slavery, but they could scarcely obtain a reading. "8

And to his nephew and private secretary, Lawrence Lewis, Washington wrote:

"I wish from my soul that the legislature of this State could see the policy of a gradual abolition of slavery. 9"

In addition to the slaves he inherited, Washington also bought some fifty slaves prior to the Revolution, although he apparently purchased none afterward, 10 for he had reached the decision that he would no longer participate in the slave trade, and would never again buy or sell a slave. As he explained:

"I never mean . . . to possess another slave by purchase; it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery in this country may be abolished by slow, sure, and imperceptible degrees. "11

As the laws of Virginia did not permit him to emancipate his slaved (those laws will be reviewed later in this work), the only other means for him to dispose of the slaves he held was to sell them. And had Washington not become so opposed to selling slaves, he gladly would have used that means to end his ownership of all slaves. As he explained:

"Were it not that I am principled against selling Negroes . . . I would not in twelve months from this date be possessed of one as a slave."12

Interestingly, the personal circumstances faced by Washington provide decisive proof that his convictions were indeed genuine and not merely rhetorical. The quantity of slaves which he held was economically unprofitable for Mount Vernon †and caused a genuine hardship on the estate. As Washington explained:

"It is demonstratively clear that on this Estate (Mount Vernon) I have more working Negroes by a full [half] than can be employed to any advantage in the farming system." 13

What, then, could Washington do to reduce his expenses and to increase profits? An obvious solution was to sell his "surplus" slaves. Washington could thereby readily accrue immediate and substantial income. As prize-winning historian James Truslow Adams correctly observed:

One good field hand was worth as much as a small city lot. By selling a single slave, Washington could have paid for two years all the taxes he so complained about. 14

Washington acknowledged the profit he could make by reducing the number of his slaves, declaring:

[H]alf the workers I keep on this estate would render me greater net profit than I now derive from the whole. 15

Yet, despite the vast economic benefits he could have reaped, Washington nevertheless adamantly refused to sell any slaves. As he explained:

"To sell the overplus I cannot, because I am principled against this kind of traffic in the human species. To hire them out is almost as bad because they could not be disposed of in families to any advantage, and to disperse [break up] the families I have an aversion". 16

This stand by Washington was remarkable. In fact, refusing not only to sell slaves but also refusing to break up their families distinctly differentiates Washington from the culture around him and particularly from his State legislature. Virginia law, contrary to Washington's personal policy, recognized neither slave marriages nor slave families. 17

Yet, not only did Washington refuse to sell slaves or to break up their families but he also felt a genuine responsibility to take care of the slaves he held until there was, according to his own words, a "plan adopted by which slavery in this country may be abolished." One proof of his commitment to care for his slaves regardless of the cost to himself was his order that:

"Negroes must be clothed and fed . . . whether anything is made or not". 18

Not only did George Washington commit himself to caring for his slaves and to seeking a legal remedy by which they might be freed in his State but he also took the leadership in doing so on the national level. In fact, the first federal racial civil rights law in America was passed on August 7, 1789, with the endorsing signature of President George Washington.

That law, entitled "An Ordinance of the Territory of the United States Northwest of the River Ohio," prohibited slavery in any new State that might seek to enter the Union. Consequently, slavery was prohibited in all the American territories held at the time; and it was because of this law, signed by President George Washington, that Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin all prohibited slavery.

Despite the slow but steady progress made in many parts of the nation, especially in the North, the laws in Virginia were designed to discourage and prevent the emancipation of slaves. The loophole which finally allowed Washington to circumvent Virginia law was by emancipating his slaves on his death, which he did.

[U]Notice the following provisions from his will which [/U]embodied the two policies he had pursued during his life,the care and well-being of his slaves and their personal emancipation:

Upon the decease of my wife, it is my will and desire that all the slaves which I hold in my own right shall receive their freedom. -To emancipate them during her life would, though earnestly wished by me, be attended with such insuperable difficulties on account of their intermixture by marriages with the Dower [inherited] Negroes as to excite the most painful sensations, if not disagreeable consequences from the latter, while both descriptions are in the occupancy of the same proprietor; it not being in my power, under the tenure by which the Dower Negroes are held, to manumit [free] them. -And whereas among those who will receive freedom according to this devise, there may be some who from old age or bodily infirmities, and others who on account of their infancy, that will be unable to support themselves; it is my will and desire that all who come under the first and second description shall be comfortably clothed and fed by my heirs while they live; -and that such of the latter description as have no parents living, or if living are unable or unwilling to provide for them, shall be bound by the court until they shall arrive at the age of twenty five years; -and in cases where no record can be produced whereby their ages can be ascertained, the judgment of the court upon its own view of the subject, shall be adequate and final. -The Negroes thus bound are (by their masters or mistresses) to be taught to read and write and to be brought up to some useful occupation agreeably to the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia providing for the support of orphan and other poor children. -And I do hereby expressly forbid the sale or transportation out of the said Commonwealth of any slave I may die possessed of, under any pretense whatsoever. -And I do moreover most pointedly and most solemnly enjoin it upon my executors hereafter named, or the survivors of them, to see that this clause respecting slaves and every part thereof be religiously fulfilled at the epoch at which it is directed to take place without evasion, neglect or delay, after the crops which may then be on the ground are harvested, particularly as it respects the aged and infirm; -Seeing that a regular and permanent fund be established for their support so long as there are subjects requiring it, not trusting to the uncertain provision to be made by individuals. -And to my mulatto man, William (calling himself William Lee), I give immediate freedom; or if he should prefer it (on account of the accidents which have rendered him incapable of walking or of any active employment) to remain in the situation he now is, it shall be optional to him to do so: In either case, however, I allow him an annuity of thirty dollars during his natural life, which shall be independent of the victuals and clothes he has been accustomed to receive, if he chooses the last alternative; but in full, with his freedom, if he prefers the first; -and this I give him as a testimony of my sense of his attachment to me, and for his faithful services during the Revolutionary War. 19

Significantly, numerous incidents in George Washington's life provide ample proof that he suffered from no racial bigotry. Those incidents include his approving a free black, Benjamin Banneker, as a surveyor to lay out the city of Washington, D. C., and his patronage of black poet Phillis Wheatley. In fact, after Phillis wrote a poem in 1775 praising General Washington, Washington made plans to publish the piece but then feared that the public would misunderstand his publication of a poem praising himself, believing it was a sign of his own vanity rather than as an intended tribute to Phillis. As Washington told her:

I thank you most sincerely for your polite notice of me in the elegant lines you enclosed; and however undeserving I may be of such encomium and panegyric [lofty praise], the style and manner exhibit a striking proof of your great poetical talents. In honor of which, and as a tribute justly due to you, I would have published the poem had I not been apprehensive that, while I only meant to give the world this new instance of your genius, I might have incurred the imputation of vanity. This, and nothing else, determined me not to give it place in the public prints. If you should ever come to Cambridge, or near Head Quarters, I shall be happy to see a person so favored by the muses and to whom nature has been so liberal and beneficent in her dispensations


Washington was able to circumvent State laws by freeing his slaves in his will at his death in 1799;

What today have become the almost unknown views and forgotten efforts of both Washington and Jefferson to end slavery in their State and in the nation should be reviewed.

Your Welcome.
 
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#44
#44
You're*

TLDR; Washington owned slaves but didn't emancipate them until he was dead?
 
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