Ron Paul's glaring downfall

[Moseley]

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All the Constitution says about religion is that Congress may not pass a law establishing a State Church, and neither can Congress pass laws that prohibit people from practicing religion.

The words "separation of church and state" are not in the Constitution.

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I had no idea. Where did this phrase come from?

Do you believe, that if schools were fully funded through property taxes, i.e citizens in the school district, that neither the state nor the federal government would have any say as to whether they pray or honor the flag/country in home period (start of the day) if that school district, by vote of its citizens, chose to do so?

[Moseley]

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The point is that government was envisioned to be very small.

Also, churches can do voluntarily a lot of the things government does coercively, such as raise money for Katrina relief or feed the poor or house the homeless.

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Jesus!!! You're talking about giving billions of dollars to church leaders (who molest children & buy 23k marble toilets) to distribute to those in need.

And I thought I needed help.

[TomCollins]

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All the Constitution says about religion is that Congress may not pass a law establishing a State Church, and neither can Congress pass laws that prohibit people from practicing religion.

The words "separation of church and state" are not in the Constitution.

[/ QUOTE ]

I had no idea. Where did this phrase come from?

Do you believe, that if schools were fully funded through property taxes, i.e citizens in the school district, that neither the state nor the federal government would have any say as to whether they pray or honor the flag/country in home period (start of the day) if that school district, by vote of its citizens, chose to do so?

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Thomas Jefferson

[Moseley]

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All the Constitution says about religion is that Congress may not pass a law establishing a State Church, and neither can Congress pass laws that prohibit people from practicing religion.

The words "separation of church and state" are not in the Constitution.

[/ QUOTE ]

I had no idea. Where did this phrase come from?

Do you believe, that if schools were fully funded through property taxes, i.e citizens in the school district, that neither the state nor the federal government would have any say as to whether they pray or honor the flag/country in home period (start of the day) if that school district, by vote of its citizens, chose to do so?

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Thomas Jefferson

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Thank you for the link!

Here is his quote I like the most, that references the 1st Amendment:

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God , that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State."

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Based on that quote, I can answer my own question about prayer in school. It has no place in that type a public setting, because if 51% of the citizens in the school district vote in favor of prayer in school, the other 49% are denied the opportunity to exercise Jefferson's beliefs.

[Moseley]

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I think the key, the real reason Ron Paul emphasizes this is because he believes many of the financial burdens placed on the federal government (disaster relief, [federal?] welfare, etc) were intended to be handled by those "vital institutions", the churches - or other charities. I could be wrong though, but I know I've heard him advocate churches helping.

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you and I, sir, are in complete agreement.

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I would also agree, in whole, if it were not for the fact that many churches are just as, if not more, corrupt than government.

[Taso]

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I think the key, the real reason Ron Paul emphasizes this is because he believes many of the financial burdens placed on the federal government (disaster relief, [federal?] welfare, etc) were intended to be handled by those "vital institutions", the churches - or other charities. I could be wrong though, but I know I've heard him advocate churches helping.

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you and I, sir, are in complete agreement.

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I would also agree, in whole, if it were not for the fact that many churches are just as, if not more, corrupt than government.

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I wouldn't say many. But I agree, there would be corrupt charities/churches that might squander the money instead of helping out the poor, etc. The whole point though, is that because your donations to the church/charity would be volountary, if a church/charity didn't help as it said it would, you could donate to a different church/charity, instead of being forced to "donate" (taxes) to one single government, that if corrupt, could take years to fix.

^Right ACists?

I'm not entirely in line with that way of thinking, but I'm somewhere near it. Don't qoute me on any of that stuff though, this whole way of thinking is very new to me.

[elwoodblues]

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It is. The First Amendment says "Congress shall make no law", not that no one else can. When this country was founded many of the states had state relgions. The primary purpose of keeping the federal government out of religion was to keep any of the different branches of protestantism from gaining supremacy. Some states even required you to be members of that state's relgion in order to vote!

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i used to be a slight history buff (a few history courses in college w/ some credits after i had enough for my double major and AP US/ AP European history in high school) but i had no idea about this.

how did we get the "separation" interpretation we have today?

was it struck down by some interpretive supreme court (ruling that "congress shall make no law" implies that all govts federal or otherwise shall make no law)?

interesting stuff...if you could take a few moments to expound upon it i'd bea ppreciative.

thanks,
Barron

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Very early in Constitutional interpretation the word "Congress" in the first amendment was interpreted to mean "Federal Government."

After the passage of the 14th Amendment, courts began interpreting the Due Process clause (i.e. that no person shall be denied by the states "liberty" without due process of law) to incorporate some of the protections of the Bill of Rights. This process began in the 20's (if I remember correctly.)
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There is heated debate about whether the 14th Amendment's Due Process clause should apply the liberty protections of the Bill of Rights to the States. Personally, I think the best argument against the liberty interests described in the 14th Amendment being inclusive of the Bill of Rights is found not in original intent/meaning, but in the text of the document itself.

The argument goes something like this:
*None of the text of the Constitution should be read to be unnecessary (i.e. all of the clauses should have independent meaning/value.)
*The same language used in different parts of the Constitution should mean the same thing.
*The Due Process Clauses of the 5th Amendment (applied to the federal government) and the 14th have the same language and should, therefore, have the same meaning.
*If the "liberty" interests in the 5th Amendment included, for example, the right to Free Speech then the Free Speech clause of the 1st Amendment would be unnecessary. Thus, "liberty" in the 5th Amendment cannot include the right to free speech (as it is already protected elsewhere.)
*Because the "liberty" clause of the 5th Amendment does not include Free Speech and the 14th Amendment liberty clause has the same meaning as the 5th Amendment liberty clause, then the 14th Amendment liberty clause cannot include the right to free speech.


I think the courts would have been on stronger ground had they read the Priviliges and Immunities clause to apply the Bill of Rights to the States. The P&I clause reads: "The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States." Unfortunately, that clause has little meaning today because of an early court decision limiting its scope (the slaughterhouse cases.)

[pvn]

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I think the key, the real reason Ron Paul emphasizes this is because he believes many of the financial burdens placed on the federal government (disaster relief, [federal?] welfare, etc) were intended to be handled by those "vital institutions", the churches - or other charities. I could be wrong though, but I know I've heard him advocate churches helping.

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you and I, sir, are in complete agreement.

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please never stop posting here.

[andyfox]

I think his summary is probably correct (although it doesn't hold for Jefferson). That said, what the Founding Fathers felt about a robustly Christian America should have no effect on what our society should think about religion's place in America today. And I would worry about a man who thinks it should.

[pvn]

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The point is that government was envisioned to be very small.

Also, churches can do voluntarily a lot of the things government does coercively, such as raise money for Katrina relief or feed the poor or house the homeless.

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Jesus!!! You're talking about giving billions of dollars to church leaders (who molest children & buy 23k marble toilets) to distribute to those in need.

And I thought I needed help.

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No, he's not talking about giving billions of dollars to church leaders. It's not like taxes will be collected the same way as they are now, then handed over to churches to distribute.

The status quo inovolves "giving" billions of dollars to state leaders who molest children and buy $400M bridges to nowhere, $2,000,000,000,000 wars in iraq, etc.