Scientists have long held that there is no proof that God exists. The acceptance of this statement by many has had profound affects on our ethical, moral and legal conduct. His Holiness The Dalai Lama wrote,
Now, many people, believing that science has 'disproven' religion, make the further assumption that because there appears to be no final evidence for any spiritual authority, morality itself must be a matter of individual preference. And whereas in the past, scientists and philosophers felt a pressing need to find solid foundations on which to establish immutable laws and absolute truths, nowadays this kind of search is held to be futile. (Ethics for the New Millennium).
With the banishment of God from government, the Supremes have struck a mortal blow to the very foundations of American political philosophy, beliefs and values. These rights, as expressed in the US Constitution and Bill of Rights, were held by the Founding Fathers, and other political philosophers at that time, superior to any rights granted by any government. They have been declared null and void by the Supremes. With no substitute standard being announced by the Supremes to guide the people, they are left to flounder. And we have floundered.
In place of these higher standards and ideals, we have the decisions of 9 people in black that are subject to the ebb and flow of the times. These Supremes have decided just which enumerated rights will and which will not be protected, have added additional rights not enumerated (US v. Carolene, 304 US 144, 1938, Footnote Four), and outright denied the validity and intent of the Ninth Amendment: 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.
We are no longer a nation of laws, but a nation of men. We have no moral, ethical or legal compass. Anything the Supremes decides goes. Bill Moyers wrote,
The most fundamental liberal failure of the current era: the failure to embrace a moral vision of America based on the transcendant faith that human beings are more than the sum of their material appetites . . . (Moyers On Democracy).
The people have been rendered powerless when the burden of proving unconstitutionality falls to them, and when legal scholars for the real estate business interests declare the laws of equitable servitudes that govern homeowners associations superior to the Constitution. (See Restatement Third, Property: Servitudes, § 3.1, comment h).
What unalienable rights?
George K. Staropoli is president and founder of Citizens for Constiutional Local Government, Inc, and author of "Establishing the New America of independent HOA principalities."
He has appeared before and has made presentations to several state legislative committees. He has been quoted in the New York Times, CCN/MoneyOnline, Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine,Private Neighborhoods and the Transformation of Local Government (2005), AARP Policy Institute Homeowners Bill of Rights proposal (2006), and acknowledged in the Thomson – West legal treatise, California Common Interest Development – Homeowner's Guide (2006).
Mr. Staropoli maintains several web sites on HOA issues: http://pvtgov.org, and http://pvtgov.wordpress.com that contains his Commentaries.
Since only humans define and identify a "higher power", and since different religions and individuals will identify different ones, there is obviously NO higher moral power. And a good thing too, because it wouldnt be a "god"; it would be what a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist....or Marxist said it was. Just be glad there is no such thing. The last ones of note were Stalin and Hitler.
by
Lorna Salzman (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 3 comments)
on Saturday, July 19, 2008 at 7:50:18 AM
I am responding to those comments focused on the question of God or a higher authority rather than on the question of our rights and freedoms as set forth in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.
What is “justice”?What constitutes ethical and moral behavior?We can look at the broad principles found common to all religions, and to the philosophies of Aristotle, Socrates and Plato for examples (there are many parallels).For example, in a broad, generalized statement The Dalai Lama wrote, “an ethical act is one which does not harm another’s experience or expectations of happiness.”Should we reject the statement based on its source, or on its content?
What guides our Supreme Court Justices?Surely not the contract between the federal government, the states and the people -- the U.S. Constitution.The basis of our democracy holds that we have rights superior to any government laws, rights that the government cannot take away. Take away the validity of “rights endowed by their creator”, because of the belief that there is no Creator, the defense of our fundamental rights and freedoms fall away, and so does the basis of our government.
Why is there such a frenzy about the appointment of the Justices?Is it because of their political leanings and not their broad principles about justice, ethics, morality or democracy?Their purpose is to defend and uphold the US Constitution as the supreme law of the land, not to freely interpret it, or to re-invent it.There is an amendment procedure, you know, that addresses any changes deemed necessary by Congress. (For more info see David's Hammer: the case for an activist judiciary, Clint Bolick, Cato Institute, 2007).
We have become a nation under the rule of men, and not of law.
by
George Staropoli (5 articles, 3 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 3 comments)
on Saturday, July 19, 2008 at 11:57:14 AM
Rights do not come from god or the government or any other institution. They are just something we all naturally have as free and sovereign individuals.
by
Ty (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 821 comments)
on Sunday, July 20, 2008 at 7:39:22 AM
No gods were wanted by the Framers of the Constitution. They were all highly intelligent men.
After extended deliberations, they constructed the Constitution without a single reference to or invocation of any gods, spirits, demons, poltergeists or archangels. They derived the legal and ethical basis for the U.S. Constitution solely from the "consent of the governed."
Nota Bene: No god was required for Constitutional governance; Congress was even prohibited from recognizing any gods; "Congress shall make NO LAW regarding the establishment of religion...."
This explicit choice--eliminating any reference to "goddy" things--was done despite the fact that several of the Founding Fathers were aware of religion as a force in Europe. Some of the Founders were Deists, some Unitarians, some Atheists--none, I believe, were christianists or "evangelicals." If so (And I may have been wrong here) any christianists were greatly outnumbered.
So assigning blame for current social ills to a phantom illusion (i.e., alleged deviation from a long-lost christianist past) will never pass the historical sniff test.
by
R. Queisser (7 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 62 comments)
on Monday, July 21, 2008 at 12:59:21 AM
8 comments
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