First Amendment - Religion and Expression The Blah. Blah. Blah. According to Dave.

Saturday, August 15, 2009
First Amendment - Religion and Expression The Blah Blah Blah according to Dave
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,

They are no longer servants

Or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech,

They are no longer representatives

Or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble,

They are now Authority

And to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

They are now Officials and they run things

The first amendment has been amended and made to preclude you and I.
For we are or I am a Civilian and somehow, not quite a free as some other americans
Aberrant malfunctioning as I may be I am still American

Madison's original proposal for a bill of rights provision concerning religion read:
''The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship,
Nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretence, infringed.''

1. The language was altered in the House of Representatives to read;
''Congress shall make no law establishing religion, or to prevent the free exercise thereof, or to infringe the rights of conscience.''

2. In the Senate, the section adopted read:
''Congress shall make no law establishing articles of faith, or a mode of worship, or prohibiting the free exercise of religion, . . .

3. It was in the conference committee of the two bodies, chaired by Madison, that the present language was written with its some what more indefinite ''respecting'' phraseology.

4. Debate in Congress lends little assistance in interpreting the religion clauses; Madison's position, as well as that of Jefferson who influenced him, is fairly clear,

5. But the intent, insofar as there was one, of the others in Congress who voted for the language and those in the States who voted to ratify is subject to speculation.

Not So Scholarly Commentary --The explication of the religion clauses by the scholars has followed a restrained sense of their meaning. take Story for instance, who thought that ''the right of a society or government to interfere in matters of religion will hardly be contested by any persons, who believe that piety, religion, and morality are intimately connected with the well being of the state, and indispensable to the administration of civil justice,'' looked upon the prohibition simply as an exclusion from the Federal Government of all power to act upon the subject. ''The situation . . . of the different states equally proclaimed the policy, as well as the necessity of such an exclusion. In some of the states, episcopalians constituted the predominant sect; in others presbyterians; in others, congregationalists; in others, quakers; and in others again, there was a close numerical rivalry among contending sects. It was impossible, that there should not arise perpetual strife and perpetual jealousy on the subject of ecclesiastical ascendancy, if the national government were left free to create a religious establishment. The only security was in extirpating the power. But this alone would have been an imperfect security, if it had not been followed up by a declaration of the right of the free exercise of religion, and a prohibition (as we have seen) of all religious tests. Thus, the whole power over the subject of religion is left exclusively to the state governments, to be acted upon according to their own sense of justice, and the state constitutions; and the Catholic and the Protestant, the Calvinist and the Armenian, the Jew and the Infidel, ad nausem, may sit down at the common table of the national councils, without any inquisition into their faith, or mode of worship.
''Unless of course George W Bush, should be in charge".
What a crock of shit, Post 911, Terrorism, Al Qaeda, Iraq, Afghanistan, all are extrusions of Religious faith/fervor, Terrorism being the most passionate of the lot or at least the most expressive. and if you don't think so, ask any Hebrew why they (as a group) no longer name there children "Joshua"






Alright enough of this for now. More later perhap