And I hate the converse — the assumption that the supposedly smart person has said something smart. Stop. Slow down. Read/listen closely. It's often the case that what we have is a banal political disagreement. And that's what I think this O'Donnell/Coons thing is.
I really wish I had the verbatim transcript of the colloquy, and that's the main reason I've been dragging my feet posting on this. The reporters aren't presenting the quotes in a reliable fashion. And we need to begin with stark clarity that the text of the Establishment Clause is: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."
So let's look at the reporting:
"Where in the Constitution is separation of church and state?" O'Donnell asked while Democrat Chris Coons, an attorney, sat a few feet away.Plainly, the Constitution does not say "separation of church and state," so there's nothing stupid there. It's provocative, because many people like that gloss on the text.
Coons responded that O'Donnell's question "reveals her fundamental misunderstanding of what our Constitution is. ... The First Amendment establishes a separation."He's talking about interpretations of the text, and she was talking about the text. What we're hearing is 2 individuals talking past each other.
She interrupted to say, "The First Amendment does? ... So you're telling me that the separation of church and state, the phrase 'separation of church and state,' is in the First Amendment?"She's telling him to pay attention to her limited point about the text.
He noted again the First Amendment's ban on establishment of religion.Ah, here's where I hate reporters. Give me the quote. I don't think Coons quite gets it. Ah. Here. He says: "Government shall make no establishment of religion."
O'Donnell reacts: "That's in the First Amendment?" And, in fact, it's not. The First Amendment doesn't say "government." It says "Congress." And since the discussion is about what local school boards can do, the difference is highly significant.
Also, it isn't "shall make no establishment of religion." It's "shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." There's a lot one could say about the difference between those 2 phrases, and I won't belabor it here. Suffice it to say that it was not stupid for O'Donnell to say "That's in the First Amendment?" — because it's not. Coons was presenting a version of what's in the cases interpreting the text, not the text itself.
The 2 were talking past each other, trying to look good and make the other look bad. It is a disagreement about law between 2 individuals who are not running for judge. It's not detailed legal analysis. It's a political debate and this is a political disagreement. An important one, no doubt. But it can't be resolved by laughing at one person and calling her an idiot, something I find quite repellent.
Posts
248 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 248 of 248My point was that the church didnt create/invent morality
Um, who did?
How did humans get this idea of morality?
there is no reason why we need to tie our moral values to the bible
Then why are people always appealing to religious books when it comes to morality?
It is fun to watch you avoid the elephant in the room.
Very fun.
So not only O'Donnell is a JOKE in her personal affairs, but a total dunce on the Constitution. Seriously, is this kind of right-wing psycho talker the best the Rethugs can do?
You would go to jail for a very long time if lived your life literally from the bible.
Huh?
Who is advocating this?
Is this the best you silly leftists can do?
but a total dunce on the Constitution.
Hysterical.
As opposed to Coons who can't list the rights defined in the first amendment.
Your comments demonstrate who the dunce is.
Jay - following the bible literally is what Glenn Beck wants us to do.
Jay - following the bible literally is what Glenn Beck wants us to do.
No, it isn't.
And you can't provide any actual facts to support this ignorant claim.
The laughter in the crowd is synonymous with arrogance of liberalism. They don't know that much yet are arrogant in their self avowed truths and sneer at those ignorant fools like O'Donnell who don't even know that separation of church and state is written int he constitution. Obviously, they aren't that familiar with the constitution, otherwise they wouldnt' be laughing.
But that is so like liberals of today. Think of someone like Al Franken. So smug, haughty and arrogant in their knowledge and willing to insult people who aren't as benighted as themselves. Only, more often than not, they are simply factually ignorant.
Think of liberals thinking they have a gotcha moment with Sarah Palin's discussion of the year 1773 at a Tea Party event. This is the exact thought process that is going through a majority of those liberals minds. "She's so dumb, she thinks the declaration of independence was signed in 1776. ANd to think she could have been this close to the presidency, what a dumb bimbo".
If they were at all sophisticated they might notice that the Tea Party event might somehow correspond to the Boston Tea Party, and MAYBE she might be referring to that event.
Only that talking point isn't part of their vernacular I guess, so when she mentions the year, they go into full on scorn mode.
Only the jokes on them. They are the idiots. If you were watching O'Donnell and laughed at her ignorance, you are the dolt. If you thought Palin was a moron for mentioning 1773, you are the idiot who doesn't know his history.
Hmmm, I wonder why these crazy Christianists didn't get the "separation" memo:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles
Hey, what would they know, right?
I mean, they didn't go to Havard or Yale law school so they must not be as smart as a modern "progressive."
I see the state of Minnesota gives funds to the unabashedly Christian Bethel University to operate two charter schools. I hope a full investigation into their Christian indoctrination commences soon.
Minzo...I see your point of view. It may be a superior one to the Reformed Protestant point of view that created the United states. The author of scripture seems to have helped the early settlers that came here 350+ years ago and their descendants. These young rebels were 95% adult literate having been trained to think, argue and learn from the Old Covenant scriptures and the New Covenant scriptures that you call The Bible. Where else could they find help and a great education? classical Greek studies were for the aritocracy and Kings. The Bible was their fountain of a common morality, covenant relationships and community life. Have you ever read the Apostle Pauls writings? It is quite a flexable document itself, bestowing a full freedom from Religious Law upon "Believers" in Christ's ressurrection. And then says keep a basic morality too (See, Acts Chapter 15).
Minzo wrote:
Where did morality come from? Us. Partly self-interest, partly altruism, but there is no reason why we need to tie our moral values to the bible or try to make our government follow it to achieve the right results. (At least thats how I interpreted your post- correct me if im wrong)My point was that the church didnt create/invent morality and while it has helped to sustain it, it hasnt done so on its own.<
What should we tie our morality to then? Liberal sentiment? Why is humanism any more moral than nazism? Nazism is based on self interest and even altruism (altruism towards the betterment of the master race). Nazism even adheres closer to Darwinism which I know the materialists say they should believe in. So why should anyone complain, in moral terms for what the nazis did? It may not adhere to your notions of morality? But who are you? Why is your morality any more valuable or right than theirs?
Humanists like yourselves simply have no foundation for any question of morality, and despite saying we don't need christianity, keep falling back on the tenets of christianity when it suits you (don't judge others lest ye be judged, etc.).
Humanism still needs an ordered universe and a god (not necessarily God) or it's just another modality that is indistinguishable from any other. And then those who demand people act according to those dictates are even more oppressive than the religious nuts who keep trying to legislate morality. Because for christians, they say it's wrong to do x, because there's a higher power and God says so (whether this is right or wrong). When the materialist says its wrong to do x, he's basing it solely on his own views. He's right, therefore others must heed.
Do you ever think about libs who are so haughty and arrogant about evil republicans and fat cat greedy capitalists, who then turn around and say they don't even believe in a moral universe? Then on what basis do they have to judge evil? Who says that greed is in fact a flaw? Them? Maybe the evil republican came to his morality through self interest and altruism. Maybe he rejected altruism as an evil and replaced it with greed. Why would he be wrong though? If he's able to get through life and at the end of the day is sitting on a big pile of money, and the guy who is so altruistic is begging the govt for social security because he has no cash, maybe altruism is in fact immoral.
I'm not saying it is, I'm just saying, you have no basis to say it isn't because your whole moral foundation is simply based on your own beliefs. Since everyone else has the same moral foundations, your beliefs are simply opinions.
Only somewhat on topic, but could someone who believes that evolution should be taught in school, but intelligent design should not explain in what way evolution is the better scientific theory?
I'm not an expert on intelligent design ( for some reason it was lacking in my public school education ) but my understanding is that it agrees with evolution on the underlying facts ( unlike creationism ) and on predictions. The only disagreement is on whether things happen at random or not, something that I don't believe has ever been proven.
I do think that evolution deserves the credit for doing the heavy lifting of figuring things out, whereas intelligent design is a me-too sort of latecomer. But imagine an alternative scenario, where some religious group believe that God intentionally hides his direct intervention in the universe. If people motivated by this belief developed intelligent design as a theory, and later athists came along and said they believed the same thing, except they replaced God with random chance, should their theory be ignored? Is squatter's rights really a fundamental principal of the scientific method?
Note that I do not think that creationism should be taught in science, except as an example of what not to do, and intelligent design should get maybe 5 minutes so that students know what people are talking about when intelligent design is mentioned.
Oh, and in case it matters, I'm an atheist who does not believe in intelligent design.
This is a response to "Traditional Guy." The Presbyterians did NOT do MOST of the fighting during the Revolutionary War. They did SOME of the fighting; and it's surprising they did so much given John Calvin pretty clearly taught REVOLUTION was a SIN on Romans 13 grounds.
Many in the population also greatly distrusted the Presbyterians because they had the reputation for being pushy and obnoxious, with borderline theocratic tendencies.
Ignorance is Bliss
Extremely well postulated. It certainly deserves some time not currently spliced between work and blogging, lol. I don't think I've seen this counter-example put quite this way before.
Well crafted, sir.
"superior one to the Reformed Protestant point of view that created the United states."
If that were true, the men who wrote the Declaration of Independence, who tended to hate John Calvin certainly didn't know it.
The best you can argue, as my friend Mark David Hall has, is that the reformed tradition was compatible with the DOI and US Constitution, and that indeed, some of the Calvinist resisters anticipated the Lockean ideas which founded America (hence the Presbyterians could find themselves at home in a Lockean rebellion).
But to make the American rebellion into all a bunch of Calvinists is phony history to say the least.
With the exception of John Witherspoon, the most notable pro-Patriot preaches were UNITARIANS, the kind of folks John Calvin would see executed like Servetus.
There is a big part of history that you've missed in your desire to claim the American Founding for Calvinism.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles ...
Well the author of this statement along with 3/5, perhaps 4/5 men who wrote the document arguably weren't "Christian." At least they weren't "Christian" in way that meets CS Lewis' standard of "mere Christianity." Roger Sherman would qualify as a "mere Christian." Jefferson, J. Adams and Franklin would not. And Livingston might not either.
Here is Thomas Jefferson on the Presbyterians' obnoxiousness. I've got one from Adams that will follow in a subsequent post:
"The Presbyterian clergy are the loudest, the most intolerant of all sects; the most tyrannical and ambitious, ready at the word of the lawgiver, if such a word could now be obtained, to put their torch to the pile, and to rekindle in this virgin hemisphere the flame in which their oracle, Calvin, consumed the poor Servetus, because he could not subscribe to the proposition of Calvin, that magistrates have a
right to exterminate all heretics to the Calvinistic creed! They pant to re-establish by law that holy inquisition which they can now only infuse into public opinion."
-- To William Short, Apr. 13, 1820.
POINT ONE: The question "is it constitutional to teach X theory in public schools" is a red herring: public schooling is itself unconstitutional.
POINT TWO: The difference between a religion and a scientific theory is perilously thin. Most scientific facts are ultimately refuted. Why then do we treat science as somehow irrefutable (and therefore it is acceptable to indoctrinate our children with it), and religion as somehow completely false (and therefore it is abhorrent to indoctrinate our children with it)?
Parents should have the right to choose how their children are indoctrinated.
Here's one from Adams:
"The National Fast, recommended by me turned me out of office. It was connected with the general assembly of the Presbyterian Church, which I had no concern in. That assembly has alarmed and alienated Quakers, Anabaptists, Mennonists, Moravians, Swedenborgians, Methodists, Catholicks, protestant Episcopalians, Arians, Socinians, Armenians, & & &, Atheists and Deists might be added. A general Suspicion prevailed that the Presbyterian Church was ambitious and aimed at an Establishment of a National Church. I was represented as a Presbyterian and at the head of this political and ecclesiastical Project. The secret whisper ran through them “Let us have Jefferson, Madison, Burr, any body, whether they be Philosophers, Deists, or even Atheists, rather than a Presbyterian President.” This principle is at the bottom of the unpopularity of national Fasts and Thanksgivings. Nothing is more dreaded than the National Government meddling with Religion."
-- John Adams to Benjamin Rush, June 12, 1812
So you've stretched the semantics of the debate in an attempt to make O'Donnell look less like an idiot. I'm curious though. Do you have a similar defense of her admission that she wasn't familiar with the 14th amendment?
I mean, I don't expect Senators to have the whole constitution memorized. But for the love of God, it's the 14th Amendment. Not exactly a small one. One of the biggest, in fact. To not even be able to associate the 14th amendment with the vague notion of due process and/or equal protection seems far more blatant than the combination of ignorance and arrogance she displayed in the church and state back-and-forth.
Sometimes people who ride movements into nominations for high office are just fundamentally unqualified for the job. Christine O'Donnell is not qualified to be a senator. This isn't a conservative or liberal view. There need to be minimum standards of knowledge and awareness of our laws for anyone trying to get a job writing them.
"There is no federal role in education. Period. Full stop."
What about desegregation? That's a pretty big precedent, one would think.
Jonathan...Will you at least admit that Reese Witherspoon is a good actress? The idea of a to have a vote to pick our leaders is missing from all traditions except the Presbyterians, many of whom took up Southern Baptist doctrines yet reatained that insistence on putting everything to a vote by elected representatives (a/k/a Presbyters). If your quotes taken from local politicians in the early 1800s are accepted as an argument, then you will lose that tradition and replace it with a top down authoritarian traditions from European Kings apointed by Popes and ruling through Aristocrats. We just narrowly escaped from that fate once thanks to a rebel named Geo. Washington.
@Dopeslap
"Why then do we treat science as somehow irrefutable (and therefore it is acceptable to indoctrinate our children with it), and religion as somehow completely false (and therefore it is abhorrent to indoctrinate our children with it)?"
One would be hard-pressed to find anyone with intelligence proclaiming science is irrefutable. Science is simply a system which finds the facts. Sometimes the people using science turn out to be wrong; quite often, in fact. In those cases, others will use science to show exactly how they are wrong.
Religions, however, claim to hold the TRUTH, and is fairly resolute and unbending on the notion. The fact that there are so many religions shows that idea to be patently ridiculous.
And, of course, parents can indoctrinate their children all they want. They simply can't indoctrinate other people's children. Parents who want their children to grow up with an incomplete understanding of the world have the options of homeschool or private school.
What about desegregation? That's a pretty big precedent, one would think.
As many a PTA member will more than likely agree with, school administration and education aren't the same things at all. Desegregation is about home room assignments, not actual education.
Apples and oranges.
"The idea of a to have a vote to pick our leaders ..."
A no. The idea of a "to have a vote to pick our leaders" comes from the Greco-Roman democratic-republican tradition.
"If your quotes taken from local politicians in the early 1800s are accepted as an argument, then you will lose that tradition and replace it with a top down authoritarian traditions from European Kings apointed by Popes and ruling through Aristocrats. We just narrowly escaped from that fate once thanks to a rebel named Geo. Washington."
We don't lose anything. John Locke didn't believe this and he was not a "reformed," "Calvinist" type. The FFs thought the idea of "resisting tyranny" traced back, at the very least, to the noble paganism of republican Rome. Hence their surname "Publius" for the Federalist Papers and the affinity for the play "Cato" -- the last of the Roman Republicans who refused to submit to the tyranny of Caeser.
And if you've read Calvin's "Institutes" on the matter, he seemed to argue a tyrannical King is God's punishment on a nation.
"Desegregation is about home room assignments, not actual education.
Apples and oranges."
So the feds can tell the states WHO to teach but not WHAT to teach. What about who they have to teach what?
Picking nits.
I agree with the original idea. Feds have no business telling the states what to teach. It's the states' responsibility to adhere to the 1st and 14th amendments, though.
"If your quotes taken from local politicians in the early 1800s are accepted as an argument,..."
No the quotes are taken from JEFFERSON AND J. ADAMS FORMER PRESIDENTS in the early 1800s.
The pro-revolt UNITARIAN preachers (Jonathan Mayhew, Charles Chauncy, Samuel Cooper, et al.) who played INSTRUMENTAL roles in leading American Patriots to revolt were done PRIOR to 1776.
And there is NO direct connection between THEM and Presbyterian thought. Rather, they connect to John Locke and Enlightenment "Christianity."
Jonathan...Ok, the Presbyterians worked together with the Episcopalians through the 1750 to 1788 experiences with the Parliament and the King. My point is not John Calvin's theology. My point is that an insistence on voting on everything was not anywhere practiced except by the men that had had learned to live with John Knox and his Kirk. To say that others were here too misses the seminal community traditions was put into place by the Presbyterians. They can be big SOBs but they will damn well vote on it first.
So you're in favor of teaching Creationism in the public schools as a valid scientific point of view? That was the actual, you know, point of the exchange.
How about instead of creationalism or intelligent design, they just freaking point out the problems with evolution?
Scot M said it all. We all know that Science must be a skeptical point of view insisting that there are no sacred truths but only indications of something from test data, until a new and better test comes along. So Evolution is not a science because it forbids any skeptics called Intelligent Design guys from speaking. Why? The reason is that without a slavish worship of evolution forever, there might arise scientific skepticism....and that could let God's nose back in under the tent. Ergo, Intelligent Design presentations are classified as illegal acts that sneak Genesis back into Public awareness.
This "seperation of church and state" thing is a pet peeve of mine. When they wrote the Constitution, some of the states HAD established religons, but different ones. The amendment allowed Virginia and Mass. for instance to agree to disagree. The Calvinist Congregatioonal Church worked hand in glove with the State of Mass.
The fact that so many Americans think "seperation of church and state" is in the Constitution and is part of what it means to be Amwerican, is an example of the deliberate mis-education inflicted upon kids forced into schools dominated by obnoxious, deceitfull progressives.
So Evolution is not a science because it forbids any skeptics called Intelligent Design guys from speaking.
True -- look what happened to my own theory that it takes three beings to make a baby: the mother, the father, and the guardian angel. People scoffed at it as an unnecessary complication motivated by religious belief, but I think they're simply narrowminded and wrong.
Roadkill,
you should be aware that Islam doesn't count when it comes to seperation of church & state.
"And, of course, parents can indoctrinate their children all they want. They simply can't indoctrinate other people's children."
False statement.
Anyone can indoctrinate other people's children simply by influencing the content of school texts or by getting a job as a teacher. Schools are compulsory and education by it's very nature is indoctrination. It can not be divorced from ideology or world view. Even the absence of information is indoctrination as the equal rights movement argued... children who did not *see themselves* in their school texts are actively harmed by the omission.
There is nothing wrong with the "wall of separation between the church and the state" UNTIL we begin understanding "church" not to mean "church" but "anything that involves religious ideas or symbolism" and "state" not to mean "state" but "anything in the public sphere".
At which point we end up with people seriously suggesting that they have a right to freedom *from* religion.
It's the equivalent of a racist, who has the constitutional right to be a racist, thinking that he or she also has the right not to have to see colored people in public places.
So you're in favor of teaching Creationism in the public schools as a valid scientific point of view? That was the actual, you know, point of the exchange.
Not true. The point of the exchange was allowing the locals to determine what their school board taught. Ya know, that pesky democracy thing.
From my admittedly biased perspective, I talked about why I value the separation of Church and State here.
That's the way FLS. See how liberating free speech canbe and the exercise thereof. When the speech is stupid, that is only more targets for easy shoot downs. You will become a tripple Ace in no time. But ever now and then you will learn something that refudiating Christianity has caused you to lose...like love, loyalty, wisdom.
The origins of morality is men's instincts to be kind to his close family. It became extended byKings who wanted to be credited as head of a huge family of subjects. But those attempts were weak and ineffective. Then God gave a perfect Law through Moses...done mainly to prove we are all law breakers...but still being a great blessing to any people who enact its provisions. Yes, Leviticus is at the heart of a perfect moral law. Many of Moses' laws are still in our Statutory schemes.
Minzo said...
Are you saying a society cant have moral values without the bible?
Oh, a society can have moral values with the bible or without a creator endowed rights, but if you look at those societies, then you wouldn't be too impressed, now would you?
Do you think the bible invented morality?
No, but it was an early assemblage of texts that institutionalized some form of morality that, again, stem from a divine source.
Minzo said...
"Where do you people come from?"
Well it started with the big bang...
Meaningless and irrelevant. That's like asking where the center of the universe is.
Perhaps there was an intelligent point to be made about the text, but viewing the videotape, I don't get the impression that O'Donnell was actually making that point. Frankly, I think she came across a bit befuddled. (But I'm not wearing the rose colored glasses). It may have been wiser for her to acknowledge the popular misunderstanding about the phrase "separation of church and state" before clarifying her point about the actual text.
At least as likely as your assumption about her understated wisdom on the point is the possibility that she was generally aware of the right wing view about the issue (i.e., there really is no separation of church and state in the constitution) without being sufficiently aware of the nuts and bolts of that view (i.e., what actually is in the text and how it could be interpreted) to allow her to sound well versed on the constitution.
@ Government Mule
Your point about certain states having established religions at the time of the first amendment is interesting, but it does not really have a bearing on the current law. That is because the establishment clause is made binding on the individual states by virtue of the 14th Amendment rather than the 1st Amendment. The 14th Amendment did not exist when individual states had established religions.
Incidentally, I think COD has come out against the 14th Amendment. If that happened, then states would be free to teach whatever stories they wanted to teach.
Althouse: " It's a political debate and this is a political disagreement. An important one, no doubt. But it can't be resolved by laughing at one person and calling her an idiot, something I find quite repellent."
She finds it repellent, except when she herself is joining in with other partisans to laugh at and call a liberal an idiot.
As she did just days ago:
"Meanwhile, Chris Matthews is an idiot" - Althouse
The 2 were talking past each other
They weren't. Coons was insisting the 1st Amemdment says something other than it does. And was bashing O'Donnell as stupid for not buying it.
Post a Comment