Monday, June 4, 2012

Re: Deliberate media propaganda

the "Two Militants" were in fact targeted as being
"militants"
---
so, now the US is killing militants in addition to terrorists.

fund your own charity work

On Jun 4, 10:00 am, Keith In Tampa <keithinta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, come to find out, the "Two Militants"  were in fact targeted as being
> "militants"  and were not at all collateral damage as the article that MJ
> cut and pasted would have us believe:
>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/pakistani-lawyer-fil...
>
> More anti-American rhetoric and dogma from those who would like to see the
> United States become a third world or fourth world Nation-State.....
>
> On Mon, Jun 4, 2012 at 10:08 AM, plainolamerican
> <plainolameri...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > does it matter what you call them while you're killing them?
>
> > On Jun 4, 7:20 am, MJ <micha...@america.net> wrote:
> > > Saturday, Jun 2, 2012 05:36 AM EDTDeliberate media propagandaThe media
> > now knows that "militant" is a term of official propaganda, yet still use
> > it for America's drone victimsBy Glenn Greenwald(updated below)Earlier this
> > week,The New York Timesreportedthat the Obama administration, in order to
> > conceal civilian deaths caused by their drone attacks, "counts all
> > military-age males in a strike zone as combatants."Although I wrote at
> > length about theNYT's various revelations, Iwrote separatelyabout that
> > specific disclosure, in order to emphasize the implications for media
> > outlets reporting on American drone attacks:What kind of self-respecting
> > media outlet would be party to this practice? Here's the New York Times
> > documenting that this is what the term "militant" means when used by
> > government officials. Any media outlet that continues using it while
> > knowing this is explicitly choosing to be an instrument for state
> > propaganda.Early this morning, the U.S. fired a missile from a drone in
> > northwest Pakistan its first since the NYT story – and killed two people.
> > Here's how The Washington Post is now touting the article about this attack
> > on its online front page:
> > > Readers who click on that story are greeted by an Associated Press story
> > bearing this headline:
> > > There is, as usual, no indication that these media outlets have any idea
> > whatsoever about who was killed in these strikes. All they know is that
> > "officials" (whether American or Pakistani) told them that they were
> > "militants," so they blindly repeat that as fact. They "report" this not
> > only without having the slightest idea whether it's true, but worse, with
> > the full knowledge that the word "militant" is being aggressively distorted
> > by deceitful U.S. government propaganda that defines the term to mean: any
> > "military-age males" whom we kill (the use of the phrase "suspected
> > militants" in the body of the article suffers the same infirmity).
> > > How is it possible to have any informed democratic debate over a policy
> > about which the U.S. media relentlessly propagandizes this way? If drone
> > strikes kill nobody other than "militants," then very few people will even
> > think about opposing them (and that's independent of the fact that the word
> > "militant" is a wildly ambiguous term militant about what? though it is
> > clearly designed (when combined with "Pakistan") to evoke images of those
> > who attacked the World Trade Center). Debate-suppression is not just the
> > effect but the intent of this propaganda: like all propaganda, it is
> > designed to deceive the citizenry in order to compel acquiescence to
> > government conduct.
> > > In light of this week's revelation about what "militant" actually means
> > when used by "officials," there really needs to be some concerted,
> > organized campaign to target media outlets every time they use the term
> > this way. Because this particular article lacks a byline, one way to start
> > here would be to complain to the Washington Post Ombudsman (whose contact
> > information is in the last linehere) and to Associated Press (at the email
> > listedhere). In the meantime, I've contacted AP requesting a response, and
> > will work on a more organized effort to target media outlets every time
> > they do this. This is nothing short of a deliberate government/media
> > misinformation campaign about an obviously consequential policy.
> > > * * * * *
> > > Speaking of propaganda, the media watchdog groupFAIR noteswhat
> > wasentirely predictable(andspecifically predicted): that MSNBC with the
> > exception of a brief discussion on Morning Joe and thisquite good
> > monologuefrom Ari Melber on The Dylan Ratigan Show – never once mentioned
> > to their progressive audience any of the NYT's highly disturbing
> > revelations about President Obama's "kill list" (even as they droned on and
> > on and on about audience-pleasing trivialities such as Donald Trump's
> > malice). FAIR adds: "In fact, a far more interesting discussion of these
> > questions can be heard on Fox News Channel," including "a soundbite from
> > the ACLU to illustrate criticism from the left." [Chris Hayes, on his
> > morning weekend show, is, as usual,a noble exception].
> > > For those who missed it, here is Stephen Colbert's three-minute
> > monologue from Thursday night on the way in which the Obama administration
> > has re-defined "militant":
> >http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/414704/may-31-...
> > Chris Woods, Senior Reporter with theBureau of Investigative Journalism,
> > which has donesterling workin documenting drone attacks in Pakistan, emails
> > today to say this:Today's strike is far from clear right now: maybe one –
> > or two events. May also involve civilian deaths (Dawn reports that the
> > motorbike was accidentally hit). . . .There's also an obverse to this coin.
> > As well as reporting all those killed as "militants", the mainstream US
> > media is consistently failing to report when civilians are credibly
> > reported killed, even as media internationally do so.Excepting today,
> > civilians have only been reported killed twice in Pakistan in 2012, from 17
> > attacks (February 9 and May 24). On both occasions civilian deaths were
> > reported by major international agencies (Reuters, AP etc), and picked up
> > worldwide (eg BBC, Jerusalem Post…) But not within the US. I can find no
> > reference to civilian casualties in any mainstream US publication on either
> > occasion (for the May 24 attack most also censored out the fact that a
> > mosque was hit.)So the US mainstream media is not only classing all victims
> > – regardless of known status – as "militants." It is actively censoring out
> > actual reports of civilian deaths.This is the same American media thatloves
> > to mockPakistanis for being so very propagandized.
> >http://www.salon.com/2012/06/02/deliberate_media_propaganda/singleton/
>
> > --
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> > For options & help seehttp://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
>
> > * Visit our other community athttp://www.PoliticalForum.com/
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> > * Read the latest breaking news, and more.

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Re: Great news...

O is a socialist trying to get as much money from the producers as
possible for the sluggards. That's the job he signed up for.

On Jun 4, 10:33 am, THE ANNOINTED ONE <markmka...@gmail.com> wrote:
> CBO estimates show that each and every job created or saved by Obama
> has only cost about $4,000,000.00 dollars each. Just a little more
> than any of the job holders will earn in a lifetime.... Not bad
> Skippy !!!!!!

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Re: War Pig in a Poke

Gingrich was the most upfront, honest of all of the Republican
candidates
---
the worst thing about Gingrich is that he's a liar.
some Americans might forget and forgive him ... others will remember
him as a liar and deceiver.

On Jun 4, 10:05 am, Keith In Tampa <keithinta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Throughout the campaign,  despite the nasty rhetoric by Paul and Romney,
> Gingrich was the most upfront, honest of all of the Republican candidates,
> and the most forthcoming.
>
> Gingrich has changed nothing at all in his rhetoric.  Gingrich has said
> since day one, that he would prefer to see any one of the individuals
> standing on the Republican candidate stage for the debates, as President,
> rather than President Obama.
>
> This is typically far left spin by the likes of Lew Rockwell dot com.   Far
> from being a libertarian, and not even remotely being conservative,
> Rockwell is a Moonbat....Always was, always will be:
>
> http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0512/75891.html
>
> On Mon, Jun 4, 2012 at 10:06 AM, plainolamerican
> <plainolameri...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > He has surrounded himself with the most unhinged of the Bush neocon
> > advisors, those who marched this country into the decade-long morass
> > of Mideast warfare. Romney's repeated call for a new "American
> > century" is especially chilling since his war cabinet includes eight
> > signatories of the Project for the New American Century, the manifesto
> > calling for the invasion of Iraq long before 9/11/2001.
> > ----
> > call'em what they are ... zionists
>
> > On Jun 4, 8:11 am, MJ <micha...@america.net> wrote:
> > > "What short memories the electorate must have. Has Gingrich's dubbing
> > Romney "Obama light" been forgotten so soon? At the beginning of the year,
> > Gingrich insisted that Romney was a "liar," and a "fundamentally dishonest"
> > tool of Wall Street. Is January so distant that it his warning has
> > disappeared down a memory hole? Now Gingrich reports that Romney is "a lot
> > like Eisenhower," and "a solid conservative." (He cannot, by the way, be
> > both.)"War Pig in a Pokeby Charles Goyette
> > > With a win in the Texas Republican primary election Tuesday, Mitt Romney
> > has clinched a spot in the November championship round. Or, so his corner
> > tells us. Although there are some valid questions about the real delegate
> > count, with Ron Paul having effectively conceded, it may be academic. But
> > confidence in Romney's victory can be seen in the repugnant spectacle of
> > many of his recent opponents now gathering around to tell us how wonderful
> > a leader Romney will be.
> > > What short memories the electorate must have. Has Gingrich's dubbing
> > Romney "Obama light" been forgotten so soon? At the beginning of the year,
> > Gingrich insisted that Romney was a "liar," and a "fundamentally dishonest"
> > tool of Wall Street. Is January so distant that it his warning has
> > disappeared down a memory hole? Now Gingrich reports that Romney is "a lot
> > like Eisenhower," and "a solid conservative." (He cannot, by the way, be
> > both.)
> > > A quick Google search for "Santorum criticizes Romney" spits out 2.7
> > million hits. But now, "Governor Romney is the candidate who will stand up
> > for the conservative principles that we hold dear," says Santorum.
> > > It seems never to be asked, if his opponents were so wrong when they
> > told us he was a candidate most foul only weeks ago, why we should rely on
> > their fawning enthusiasm for Romney today?
> > > It does no good to tell me "that's just politics." It's all
> > intellectually fraudulent and morally loathsome. I once had a leader of one
> > of country's most well-known and strict religious institutions on the air
> > proudly explain, as though he had just discovered what every high school
> > follower of politics knows, that his favorite candidate would run to the
> > right in the primary, only to run to the center in the general election.
> > "But isn't it dishonest to represent yourself as one thing to one
> > constituency and something else to another?" I asked this man of the cloth.
> > "Shouldn't we be looking for integrity and principals?"
> > > "That's how it's done," he explained indignantly. "That's just politics."
> > > And so it is. They are all just Etch-A-Sketch men. Give them a good
> > shake after the nomination.
> > > Americans should know that Romney's nomination means that in both the
> > Republican and Democrat candidates we have Keynesian, spend-our-way-to-
> > prosperity presidents. Even Paul Krugman believes Romney "is actually more
> > of a Keynesian than he would ever let on." We will have the choice between
> > Obama deficits and Romney deficits, just as we will have the choice between
> > Romney-care and Obama-care.
> > > If there is any hope to save America from certain debt destruction, it
> > has to start with the $1.2 trillion a year in national security state
> > spending. It is an opportunity that will be missed under President Romney.
> > > As often as John Kerry told us he served in Vietnam, Gingrich reminds us
> > he was a history professor. ("I am the most seriously professorial
> > politician since Woodrow Wilson," he once modestly announced.) But it would
> > be a mistake to rely on Professor Gingrich's new slavering description of
> > Romney as "a lot like Eisenhower."
> > > Seven months into his presidency, Eisenhower had ended the Korean War,
> > just as he promised to do during the campaign. He even made an effort to
> > moderate the Cold War and the nuclear arms race. Although he provided some
> > support to the French early on, he avoided the substantial morass of
> > Vietnam – unlike his successors in office. He quickly rolled back the 1956
> > Suez crisis. And he refused to a launch a nuclear attack on China as urged
> > by his senior advisors.
> > > Eisenhower was certainly not an ideal president. He approved the CIA's
> > United Fruit Company coup in Honduras and authorized another CIA coup to
> > install the Shah in Iran, an act that continues to have blowback today.
> > Eisenhower is no more deserving of a peace prize than Barack Obama, but the
> > man who warned us about the undue influence of the military industrial
> > complex was no Mitt Romney either.
> > > Romney has revealed himself to be the complete captive of the military
> > industrial complex. Despite our present economic straits, Romney is eager
> > to "apply the full spectrum of hard and soft power to influence events,"
> > and to that end intends to add 100,000 more people in uniform. While the
> > U.S. spends almost as much as the rest of the worldcombinedon warfare,
> > Romney, who claims "this is America's moment," proposes to spend more.
> > > Romney's foreign policy posture is a continuum with that of George W.
> > Bush. And while Romney avoids speaking Bush's name, referring to him with
> > the verbally clumsy term "predecessor" five times in one speech, Romney may
> > actually exceed Bush in his unmitigated bellicosity.
> > > He has surrounded himself with the most unhinged of the Bush neocon
> > advisors, those who marched this country into the decade-long morass of
> > Mideast warfare. Romney's repeated call for a new "American century" is
> > especially chilling since his war cabinet includes eight signatories of the
> > Project for the New American Century, the manifesto calling for the
> > invasion of Iraq long before 9/11/2001.
> > > Romney joined John McCain for some saber-rattling on Memorial Day and
> > urged the arming of Syrians. Pushing for "more assertive steps" in Syria,
> > it may not be long before he joins McCain in urging U.S. bombing of Syria
> > as well. He proposes to increase military training and assistance with
> > Central Asian states. And Romney will, he tells us, "station multiple
> > carriers and warships at Iran's door," apparently without regard for what
> > our own intelligence community reports about Iran's nuclear viability.
> > > Romney ceaselessly rearranges his taxonomy of threats, bouncing quickly
> > from one to another. He has identified Russia as "without question our
> > number-one geopolitical foe"; jihadists are this century's nightmare; North
> > Korea is a clear and growing threat to the United States; the Iranian
> > leadership is the biggest immediate threat; China threatens Romney's
> > "American century."
> > > So this is what Republicans offer the nation: the warfare part of
> > Washington's warfare/welfare state. Oh, but there will be plenty of welfare
> > to go along with it (mostly for the crony classes), just as Obama has
> > included plenty of warfare even as he tilted to the welfare state.
> > > Americans are perfectly capable of buying a pig in a poke. They have
> > done so over and over again. Even before announcing his run for the
> > presidency, Bush was quite explicit with a biographer about the joyous
> > prospects of invading a country like Iraq to pump up his approval numbers
> > and build political capital. But he told the electorate just weeks before
> > the vote that he wanted a more humble foreign policy, one without nation
> > building.
> > > The nomination secure, Romney may try to moderate his chest-thumping
> > during the general election campaign, too.
> > > But there's a war pig in that bag.
> >http://lewrockwell.com/goyette/goyette37.1.html
>
> > --
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>
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Re: Courting Fear

In 1797 America made a treaty with Tripoli, declaring that "the
government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the
Christian religion.

On Jun 4, 10:41 am, Keith In Tampa <keithinta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Read the article again.  The distinction is between ecclesiastical courts
> and courts of the common law.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jun 4, 2012 at 11:21 AM, MJ <micha...@america.net> wrote:
>
> > Denoting how Jefferson's research proves that 'common law' is not based as
> > you claimed .... makes your point?
> > Amazing!
>
> > Your previous couching was also noted.
>
> > Regard$,
> > --MJ
>
> > The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of
> > governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now
> > sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture,
> > hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in
> > their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American
> > governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in
> > America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be
> > pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the
> > gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those
> > at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it
> > will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely
> > by the use of reason and the senses....
> >   -- John Adams, "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the
> > United States of America" [1787-1788];
>
> > At 11:17 AM 6/4/2012, you wrote:
>
> > MJ,
>
> > You very much made my point.  Thank you.
>
> > On Mon, Jun 4, 2012 at 10:50 AM, MJ <micha...@america.net> wrote:
>
> > I have never even insinuated that this Nation is somehow based upon a
> > Christian demoniation or that we are all supposed to be beholding to
> > Christian belief.  It is asinine to sit here and think that this Nation was
> > not based upon Christian tenets and principals.  One need only look to our
> > common law;  or most any of our federal buidlings to see that the Deists,
> > as well as those Christians played a very large part in the founding of
> > this Nation.  To ignore this is revisionist history.
>
> > Letter to Thomas Cooper
> >  Jefferson's letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, from Monticello, February 10,
> > 1814.
>
> >  [image: D]  ear Sir, ­ In my letter of January 16, I promised you a
> > sample from my common-place book, of the pious disposition of the English
> > judges, to connive at the frauds of the clergy, a disposition which has
> > even rendered them faithful allies in practice. When I was a student of the
> > law, now half a century ago, after getting through Coke Littleton, whose
> > matter cannot be abridged, I was in the habit of abridging and
> > common-placing what I read meriting it, and of sometimes mixing my own
> > reflections on the subject. I now enclose you the extract from these
> > entries which I promised. They were written at a time of life when I was
> > bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason
> > to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in
> > their way. This must be the apology, if you find the conclusions bolder
> > than historical facts and principles will warrant. Accept with them the
> > assurances of my great esteem and respect.
>
> > Common-place Book
> >      873. In Quare imp. in C. B. 34, H. 6, fo. 38, the def. Br. of Lincoln
> > pleads that the church of the pl. became void by the death of the
> > incumbent, that the pl. and J. S. each pretending a right, presented two
> > several clerks; that the church being thus rendered litigious, he was not
> > obliged, by the Ecclesiastical law to admit either, until an inquisition de
> > jure patronatus, in the ecclesiastical court: that, by the same law, this
> > inquisition was to be at the suit of either claimant, and was not
> > ex-officio to be instituted by the bishop, and at his proper costs; that
> > neither party had desired such an inquisition; that six months passed
> > whereon it belonged to him of right to present as on a lapse, which he had
> > done. The pl. demurred. A question was, How far the Ecclesiastical law was
> > to be respected in this matter by the common law court? and Prisot C. 3, in
> > the course of his argument uses this expression, "A tiels leis que ils de
> > seint eglise ont en ancien scripture, covient a nous a donner credence, car
> > ces common ley sur quel touts manners leis sont fondes: et auxy, sin, nous
> > sumus obliges de conustre nostre ley; et, sin, si poit apperer or a nous
> > que lievesque ad fait comme un ordinary fera en tiel cas, adong nous devons
> > ces adjuger bon autrement nemy," &c. It does not appear that judgment was
> > given. Y. B. ubi supra. S. C. Fitzh. abr. Qu. imp. 89. Bro. abr. Qu. imp.
> > 12. Finch mistakes this in the following manner: "To such laws of the
> > church as have warrant in Holy Scripture, our law giveth credence," and
> > cites the above case, and the words of Prisot on the margin. Finch's law.
> > B. 1, ch. 3, published 1613. Here we find "ancien scripture" converted into
> > "Holy Scripture," whereas it can only mean the ancient written laws of the
> > church. It cannot mean the Scriptures, 1, because the "ancien scripture"
> > must then be understood to mean the "Old Testament" or Bible, in opposition
> > to the "New Testament," and to the exclusion of that, which would be absurd
> > and contrary to the wish of those |P1323|p1 who cite this passage to prove
> > that the Scriptures, or Christianity, is a part of the common law. 2.
> > Because Prisot says, "Ceo [est] common ley, sur quel touts manners leis
> > sont fondes." Now, it is true that the ecclesiastical law, so far as
> > admitted in England, derives its authority from the common law. But it
> > would not be true that the Scriptures so derive their authority. 3. The
> > whole case and arguments show that the question was how far the
> > Ecclesiastical law in general should be respected in a common law court.
> > And in Bro. abr. of this case, Littleton says, "Les juges del common ley
> > prendra conusans quid est lax ecclesiae, vel admiralitatis, et trujus
> > modi." 4. Because the particular part of the Ecclesiastical law then in
> > question, to wit, the right of the patron to present to his advowson, was
> > not founded on the law of God, but subject to the modification of the
> > lawgiver, and so could not introduce any such general position as Finch
> > pretends. Yet Wingate [in 1658] thinks proper to erect this false quotation
> > into a maxim of the common law, expressing it in the very words of Finch,
> > but citing Prisot, wing. max. 3. Next comes Sheppard, [in 1675,] who states
> > it in the same words of Finch, and quotes the Year-Book, Finch and Wingate.
> > 3. Shepp. abr. tit. Religion. In the case of the King v. Taylor, Sir
> > Matthew Hale lays it down in these words, "Christianity is parcel of the
> > laws of England." 1 Ventr. 293, 3 Keb. 607. But he quotes no authority,
> > resting it on his own, which was good in all cases in which his mind
> > received no bias from his bigotry, his superstitions, his visions above
> > sorceries, demons, &c. The power of these over him is exemplified in his
> > hanging of the witches. So strong was this doctrine become in 1728, by
> > additions and repetitions from one another, that in the case of the King v.
> > Woolston, the court would not suffer it to be debated, whether to write
> > against Christianity was punishable in the temporal courts at common law,
> > saying it had been so settled in Taylor's case, ante 2, stra. 834;
> > therefore, Wood, in his Institute, lays it down that all blasphemy and
> > profaneness are offences by the common law, and cites Strange ubi supra.
> > Wood 409. And Blackstone [about 1763] repeats, in the words of Sir Matthew
> > Hale, that "Christianity is part of the laws of England," citing Ventris
> > and Strange ubi supra. 4. Blackst. 59. Lord Mansfield qualifies it a little
> > by saying that "The essential |P1324|p1 principles of revealed religion are
> > part of the common law." In the case of the Chamberlain of London v. Evans,
> > 1767. But he cities no authority, and leaves us at our peril to find out
> > what, in the opinion of the judge, and according to the measure of his foot
> > or his faith, are those essential principles of revealed religion
> > obligatory on us as a part of the common law.
>
> >      Thus we find this string of authorities, when examined to the
> > beginning, all hanging on the same hook, a perverted expression of
> > Prisot's, or on one another, or nobody. Thus Finch quotes Prisot; Wingate
> > also; Sheppard quotes Prisot, Finch and Wingate; Hale cites nobody; the
> > court in Woolston's case cite Hale; Wood cites Woolston's case; Blackstone
> > that and Hale; and Lord Mansfield, like Hale, ventures it on his own
> > authority. In the earlier ages of the law, as in the year-books, for
> > instance, we do not expect much recurrence to authorities by the judges,
> > because in those days there were few or none such made public. But in
> > latter times we take no judge's word for what the law is, further than he
> > is warranted by the authorities he appeals to. His decision may bind the
> > unfortunate individual who happens to be the particular subject of it; but
> > it cannot alter the law. Though the common law may be termed "Lex non
> > Scripta," yet the same Hale tells us "when I call those parts of our laws
> > Leges non Scriptae, I do not mean as if those laws were only oral, or
> > communicated from the former ages to the latter merely by word. For all
> > those laws have their several monuments in writing, whereby they are
> > transferred from one age to another, and without which they would soon lose
> > all kind of certainty. They are for the most part extant in records of
> > pleas, proceedings, and judgments, in books of reports and judicial
> > decisions, in tractates of learned men's arguments and opinions, preserved
> > from ancient times and still extant in writing." Hale's H. c. d. 22.
> > Authorities for what is common law may therefore be as
>
> ...
>
> read more »

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Re: Courting Fear

Here, then, was a space of two hundred years, during which the common
law was in existence, and Christianity no part of it.
---
nope
Here, then, was a space of two hundred years, during which the common
law was in existence, and Christianity no part of it.

On Jun 4, 10:17 am, Keith In Tampa <keithinta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> MJ,
>
> You very much made my point.  Thank you.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jun 4, 2012 at 10:50 AM, MJ <micha...@america.net> wrote:
>
> > I have never even insinuated that this Nation is somehow based upon a
> > Christian demoniation or that we are all supposed to be beholding to
> > Christian belief.  It is asinine to sit here and think that this Nation was
> > not based upon Christian tenets and principals.  One need only look to our
> > common law;  or most any of our federal buidlings to see that the Deists,
> > as well as those Christians played a very large part in the founding of
> > this Nation.  To ignore this is revisionist history.
>
> > *Letter to Thomas Cooper
> > **Jefferson's letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, from Monticello, February 10,
> > 1814.
>
> > * [image: D] ear Sir, ­ In my letter of January 16, I promised you a
> > sample from my common-place book, of the pious disposition of the English
> > judges, to connive at the frauds of the clergy, a disposition which has
> > even rendered them faithful allies in practice. When I was a student of the
> > law, now half a century ago, after getting through Coke Littleton, whose
> > matter cannot be abridged, I was in the habit of abridging and
> > common-placing what I read meriting it, and of sometimes mixing my own
> > reflections on the subject. I now enclose you the extract from these
> > entries which I promised. They were written at a time of life when I was
> > bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason
> > to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in
> > their way. This must be the apology, if you find the conclusions bolder
> > than historical facts and principles will warrant. Accept with them the
> > assurances of my great esteem and respect.
>
> > *Common-place Book
> > *     873. In Quare imp. in C. B. 34, H. 6, fo. 38, the def. Br. of
> > Lincoln pleads that the church of the pl. became void by the death of the
> > incumbent, that the pl. and J. S. each pretending a right, presented two
> > several clerks; that the church being thus rendered litigious, he was not
> > obliged, by the *Ecclesiastical law* to admit either, until an
> > inquisition de jure patronatus, in the ecclesiastical court: that, by the
> > same law, this inquisition was to be at the suit of either claimant, and
> > was not *ex-officio* to be instituted by the bishop, and at his proper
> > costs; that neither party had desired such an inquisition; that six months
> > passed whereon it belonged to him of right to present as on a lapse, which
> > he had done. The pl. demurred. A question was, How far the *Ecclesiastical
> > law* was to be respected in this matter by the common law court? and
> > Prisot C. 3, in the course of his argument uses this expression, "A tiels
> > leis que ils de seint eglise ont en *ancien scripture*, covient a nous a
> > donner credence, car ces common ley sur quel touts manners leis sont
> > fondes: et auxy, sin, nous sumus obliges de conustre nostre ley; et, sin,
> > si poit apperer or a nous que lievesque ad fait comme un ordinary fera en
> > tiel cas, adong nous devons ces adjuger bon autrement nemy," &c. It does
> > not appear that judgment was given. Y. B. ubi supra. S. C. Fitzh. abr. Qu.
> > imp. 89. Bro. abr. Qu. imp. 12. Finch mistakes this in the following
> > manner: "To such laws of the church as have warrant in *Holy Scripture*,
> > our law giveth credence," and cites the above case, and the words of Prisot
> > on the margin. Finch's law. B. 1, ch. 3, published 1613. Here we find
> > "ancien scripture" converted into "Holy Scripture," whereas it can only
> > mean the *ancient written* laws of the church. It cannot mean the
> > Scriptures, 1, because the "ancien scripture" must then be understood to
> > mean the "Old Testament" or Bible, in opposition to the "New Testament,"
> > and to the exclusion of that, which would be absurd and contrary to the
> > wish of those |P1323|p1 who cite this passage to prove that the Scriptures,
> > or Christianity, is a part of the common law. 2. Because Prisot says, "Ceo
> > [est] common ley, sur quel touts manners leis sont fondes." Now, it is true
> > that the ecclesiastical law, so far as admitted in England, derives its
> > authority from the common law. But it would not be true that the Scriptures
> > so derive their authority. 3. The whole case and arguments show that the
> > question was how far the Ecclesiastical law in general should be respected
> > in a common law court. And in Bro. abr. of this case, Littleton says, "Les
> > juges del common ley prendra conusans quid est *lax ecclesiae*, vel
> > admiralitatis, et trujus modi." 4. Because the particular part of the
> > Ecclesiastical law then in question, to wit, the right of the patron to
> > present to his advowson, was not founded on the law of God, but subject to
> > the modification of the lawgiver, and so could not introduce any such
> > general position as Finch pretends. Yet Wingate [in 1658] thinks proper to
> > erect this false quotation into a maxim of the common law, expressing it in
> > the very words of Finch, but citing Prisot, wing. max. 3. Next comes
> > Sheppard, [in 1675,] who states it in the same words of Finch, and quotes
> > the Year-Book, Finch and Wingate. 3. Shepp. abr. tit. Religion. In the case
> > of the King *v*. Taylor, Sir Matthew Hale lays it down in these words,
> > "Christianity is parcel of the laws of England." 1 Ventr. 293, 3 Keb. 607.
> > But he quotes no authority, resting it on his own, which was good in all
> > cases in which his mind received no bias from his bigotry, his
> > superstitions, his visions above sorceries, demons, &c. The power of these
> > over him is exemplified in his hanging of the witches. So strong was this
> > doctrine become in 1728, by additions and repetitions from one another,
> > that in the case of the King *v*. Woolston, the court would not suffer it
> > to be debated, whether to write against Christianity was punishable in the
> > temporal courts at common law, saying it had been so settled in Taylor's
> > case, ante 2, stra. 834; therefore, Wood, in his Institute, lays it down
> > that all blasphemy and profaneness are offences by the *common law*, and
> > cites Strange ubi supra. Wood 409. And Blackstone [about 1763] repeats, in
> > the words of Sir Matthew Hale, that "Christianity is part of the laws of
> > England," citing Ventris and Strange ubi supra. 4. Blackst. 59. Lord
> > Mansfield qualifies it a little by saying that "The essential |P1324|p1
> > principles of revealed religion are part of the common law." In the case of
> > the Chamberlain of London *v*. Evans, 1767. But he cities no authority,
> > and leaves us at our peril to find out what, in the opinion of the judge,
> > and according to the measure of his foot or his faith, are those essential
> > principles of revealed religion obligatory on us as a part of the common
> > law.
>
> >      Thus we find this string of authorities, when examined to the
> > beginning, all hanging on the same hook, a perverted expression of
> > Prisot's, or on one another, or nobody. Thus Finch quotes Prisot; Wingate
> > also; Sheppard quotes Prisot, Finch and Wingate; Hale cites nobody; the
> > court in Woolston's case cite Hale; Wood cites Woolston's case; Blackstone
> > that and Hale; and Lord Mansfield, like Hale, ventures it on his own
> > authority. In the earlier ages of the law, as in the year-books, for
> > instance, we do not expect much recurrence to authorities by the judges,
> > because in those days there were few or none such made public. But in
> > latter times we take no judge's word for what the law is, further than he
> > is warranted by the authorities he appeals to. His decision may bind the
> > unfortunate individual who happens to be the particular subject of it; but
> > it cannot alter the law. Though the common law may be termed "Lex non
> > Scripta," yet the same Hale tells us "when I call those parts of our laws
> > Leges non Scriptae, I do not mean as if those laws were only oral, or
> > communicated from the former ages to the latter merely by word. For all
> > those laws have their several monuments in writing, whereby they are
> > transferred from one age to another, and without which they would soon lose
> > all kind of certainty. They are for the most part extant in records of
> > pleas, proceedings, and judgments, in books of reports and judicial
> > decisions, in tractates of learned men's arguments and opinions, preserved
> > from ancient times and still extant in writing." Hale's H. c. d. 22.
> > Authorities for what is common law may therefore be as well cited, as for
> > any part of the Lex Scripta, and there is no better instance of the
> > necessity of holding the judges and writers to a declaration of their
> > authorities than the present; where we detect them endeavoring to make law
> > where they found none, and to submit us at one stroke to a whole system, no
> > particle of which has its foundation in the common law. For we know that
> > the common law is that system of law which was introduced by the Saxons on
> > their settlement in England, and altered from time to time by proper
> > legislative authority from that time to the date of Magna Charta, which
> > terminates the period of the common law, or lex non scripta, and commences
> > that of the statute law, or Lex Scripta. This settlement took place about
> > the middle of the fifth century. But Christianity was not introduced till
> > the seventh century; the conversion of the first christian king of the
> > Heptarchy having taken place about the year 598, and that of the last about
> > 686. Here, then, was a space of two hundred years, during which the common
> > law was in existence, and Christianity no part of it. If it ever was
> > adopted, therefore, into the common law, it must have been between the
> > introduction of Christianity and the date of the Magna Charta. But of the
> > laws of this period we have a tolerable collection by Lambard and Wilkins,
> > probably not perfect, but
>
> ...
>
> read more »

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Re: Courting Fear

It is asinine to sit here and think that this Nation was
not based upon Christian tenets and principals.
----
the founding fathers made it clear that America is a secular
nation ... no adherence whatsoever to xianity.
to imply it is revisionist history

On Jun 4, 9:45 am, Keith In Tampa <keithinta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Plain Ol,
>
> I have never even insinuated that this Nation is somehow based upon a
> Christian demoniation or that we are all supposed to be beholding to
> Christian belief.  It is asinine to sit here and think that this Nation was
> not based upon Christian tenets and principals.  One need only look to our
> common law;  or most any of our federal buidlings to see that the Deists,
> as well as those Christians played a very large part in the founding of
> this Nation.  To ignore this is revisionist history.
>
> There is no debate......It is,  what it is.
>
> Keith
>
> On Sun, Jun 3, 2012 at 9:50 PM, plainolamerican
> <plainolameri...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > IYou keep on believing that
> > this Nation is Non-Christian,
> > --
> > secular ... the founding fathers made this clear
>
> >  and that the Constitution allows for open
> > borders and illegal immigration.
> > ----
> > the USA has closed borders and immigration
>
> >  We've shown you absolute proof contrary
> > to your beliefs,  and you choose to get real quiet when there are
> > facts and
> > irrefutable proof....Kind of like Plain Ol when he is confronted with
> > something that is indefensible
> > ---
> > in fact, the Constitution forms a secular document, and nowhere does
> > it appeal to God, Christianity, Jesus, or any supreme being. The U.S.
> > government derives from people, not God, as it clearly states in the
> > preamble: "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more
> > perfect Union...." The omission of God in the Constitution did not
> > come out of forgetfulness, but rather out of the Founding Fathers
> > purposeful intentions to keep government separate from religion.
>
> > Good Weekend Everyone!  I have only a few short "days/hours" left at
> > home
> > and I won't be taking the time to accumulate empirical data to prove
> > you
> > once again incorrect!
> > ---
> > take your time .... you've already lost the debate
>
> > On Jun 1, 7:23 pm, Keith In Tampa <keithinta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > I've done so many times......All to deaf ears.  You keep on believing
> > that
> > > this Nation is Non-Christian, and that the Constitution allows for open
> > > borders and illegal immigration.   We've shown you absolute proof
> > contrary
> > > to your beliefs,  and you choose to get real quiet when there are facts
> > and
> > > irrefutable proof....Kind of like Plain Ol when he is confronted with
> > > something that is indefensible.
>
> > > Good Weekend Everyone!  I have only a few short "days/hours" left at home
> > > and I won't be taking the time to accumulate empirical data to prove you
> > > once again incorrect!
>
> > > KeithInTampa
>
> > > On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 11:20 AM, MJ <micha...@america.net> wrote:
> > > >  At 11:01 AM 5/31/2012, you wrote:
>
> > > > especially Christians,  of which this Nation's principals and tenets
> > are
> > > > founded upon,
>
> > > > Do elaborate upon your claim.
>
> > > > Regard$,
> > > > --MJ
>
> > > > It is an affront to truth to treat falsehood with complaisance. --
> > Thomas
> > > > Paine
>
> > > >  --
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Re: War Pig in a Poke

Agreed.
 


 
On Mon, Jun 4, 2012 at 11:17 AM, MJ <michaelj@america.net> wrote:

MORE fallacy ... it never ends, apparently.

Regard$,
--MJ

"It is hard for the plain people to think about a thing, but easy for them to feel. Error, to hold their attention, must be visualized as a villain, and the villain must proceed swiftly to his inevitable retribution. They can understand that process; it is simple, usual, satisfying; it squares with their primitive conception of justice as a form of revenge…. [The average reader] is not at all responsive to purely intellectual argument, even when its theme is his own ultimate benefit…. But he is very responsive to emotional suggestion, particularly when it is crudely and violently made, and it is to this weakness that the newspapers must ever address their endeavors. In brief, they must try to arouse his horror, or indignation, or pity, or simply his lust for slaughter. Once they have done that, they have him safely by the nose. He will follow blindly until his emotion wears out. He will be ready to believe anything, however absurd, so long as he is in his state of psychic tumescence." -- H. L. Mencken



At 11:13 AM 6/4/2012, you wrote:
Typical response by a crackpot.   Once you realize that you are a crackpot,  maybe things will start getting better for ya!


 
On Mon, Jun 4, 2012 at 11:10 AM, MJ <michaelj@america.net> wrote:

ROTFLMAO!
Gingrich had already proven himself to be a fraud and a fake (as far as his promises/rhetoric go). -- see the FAILED 'Republican Revolution'

What your LATEST fallacy has to do with anything is not known.

GHWB is a poopeyhead. <rolls eyes>

Regard$,
--MJ

"Gingrich backed Rockefeller over Goldwater in 1964, backed Ford over Reagan in 1976, voted to create the Department of Education in 1979, wrote a book advocating a gigantic expansion of NASA, backed cap and trade, backed the individual mandate, long trumpeted FDR as the greatest president of the 20th century, and in general has always been a lefty. Romney's father was a member of the anti-Goldwater, anti-Reagan leadership of the '60s and '70s GOP; Romney gave Massachusetts Romneycare; and Romney has proposed no substantial spending reduction. These people are more Bushes." -- Kevin Gutzman




At 11:05 AM 6/4/2012, you wrote:
Throughout the campaign,  despite the nasty rhetoric by Paul and Romney,  Gingrich was the most upfront, honest of all of the Republican candidates, and the most forthcoming.  
 
Gingrich has changed nothing at all in his rhetoric.  Gingrich has said since day one, that he would prefer to see any one of the individuals standing on the Republican candidate stage for the debates, as President, rather than President Obama.
 
This is typically far left spin by the likes of Lew Rockwell dot com.   Far from being a libertarian, and not even remotely being conservative,  Rockwell is a Moonbat....Always was, always will be:
 
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0512/75891.html

On Mon, Jun 4, 2012 at 10:06 AM, plainolamerican < plainolamerican@gmail.com> wrote:
He has surrounded himself with the most unhinged of the Bush neocon
advisors, those who marched this country into the decade-long morass
of Mideast warfare. Romney's repeated call for a new "American
century" is especially chilling since his war cabinet includes eight
signatories of the Project for the New American Century, the manifesto
calling for the invasion of Iraq long before 9/11/2001.
----
call'em what they are ... zionists
On Jun 4, 8:11 am, MJ <micha...@america.net> wrote:
> "What short memories the electorate must have. Has Gingrich's dubbing Romney "Obama light" been forgotten so soon? At the beginning of the year, Gingrich insisted that Romney was a "liar," and a "fundamentally dishonest" tool of Wall Street. Is January so distant that it his warning has disappeared down a memory hole? Now Gingrich reports that Romney is "a lot like Eisenhower," and "a solid conservative." (He cannot, by the way, be both.)"War Pig in a Pokeby Charles Goyette
> With a win in the Texas Republican primary election Tuesday, Mitt Romney has clinched a spot in the November championship round. Or, so his corner tells us. Although there are some valid questions about the real delegate count, with Ron Paul having effectively conceded, it may be academic. But confidence in Romney's victory can be seen in the repugnant spectacle of many of his recent opponents now gathering around to tell us how wonderful a leader Romney will be.
> What short memories the electorate must have. Has Gingrich's dubbing Romney "Obama light" been forgotten so soon? At the beginning of the year, Gingrich insisted that Romney was a "liar," and a "fundamentally dishonest" tool of Wall Street. Is January so distant that it his warning has disappeared down a memory hole? Now Gingrich reports that Romney is "a lot like Eisenhower," and "a solid conservative." (He cannot, by the way, be both.)
> A quick Google search for "Santorum criticizes Romney" spits out 2.7 million hits. But now, "Governor Romney is the candidate who will stand up for the conservative principles that we hold dear," says Santorum.
> It seems never to be asked, if his opponents were so wrong when they told us he was a candidate most foul only weeks ago, why we should rely on their fawning enthusiasm for Romney today?
> It does no good to tell me "that's just politics." It's all intellectually fraudulent and morally loathsome. I once had a leader of one of country's most well-known and strict religious institutions on the air proudly explain, as though he had just discovered what every high school follower of politics knows, that his favorite candidate would run to the right in the primary, only to run to the center in the general election. "But isn't it dishonest to represent yourself as one thing to one constituency and something else to another?" I asked this man of the cloth. "Shouldn't we be looking for integrity and principals?"
> "That's how it's done," he explained indignantly. "That's just politics."
> And so it is. They are all just Etch-A-Sketch men. Give them a good shake after the nomination.
> Americans should know that Romney's nomination means that in both the Republican and Democrat candidates we have Keynesian, spend-our-way-to- prosperity presidents. Even Paul Krugman believes Romney "is actually more of a Keynesian than he would ever let on." We will have the choice between Obama deficits and Romney deficits, just as we will have the choice between Romney-care and Obama-care.
> If there is any hope to save America from certain debt destruction, it has to start with the $1.2 trillion a year in national security state spending. It is an opportunity that will be missed under President Romney.
> As often as John Kerry told us he served in Vietnam, Gingrich reminds us he was a history professor. ("I am the most seriously professorial politician since Woodrow Wilson," he once modestly announced.) But it would be a mistake to rely on Professor Gingrich's new slavering description of Romney as "a lot like Eisenhower."
> Seven months into his presidency, Eisenhower had ended the Korean War, just as he promised to do during the campaign. He even made an effort to moderate the Cold War and the nuclear arms race. Although he provided some support to the French early on, he avoided the substantial morass of Vietnam – unlike his successors in office. He quickly rolled back the 1956 Suez crisis. And he refused to a launch a nuclear attack on China as urged by his senior advisors.
> Eisenhower was certainly not an ideal president. He approved the CIA's United Fruit Company coup in Honduras and authorized another CIA coup to install the Shah in Iran, an act that continues to have blowback today. Eisenhower is no more deserving of a peace prize than Barack Obama, but the man who warned us about the undue influence of the military industrial complex was no Mitt Romney either.
> Romney has revealed himself to be the complete captive of the military industrial complex. Despite our present economic straits, Romney is eager to "apply the full spectrum of hard and soft power to influence events," and to that end intends to add 100,000 more people in uniform. While the U.S. spends almost as much as the rest of the worldcombinedon warfare, Romney, who claims "this is America's moment," proposes to spend more.
> Romney's foreign policy posture is a continuum with that of George W. Bush. And while Romney avoids speaking Bush's name, referring to him with the verbally clumsy term "predecessor" five times in one speech, Romney may actually exceed Bush in his unmitigated bellicosity.
> He has surrounded himself with the most unhinged of the Bush neocon advisors, those who marched this country into the decade-long morass of Mideast warfare. Romney's repeated call for a new "American century" is especially chilling since his war cabinet includes eight signatories of the Project for the New American Century, the manifesto calling for the invasion of Iraq long before 9/11/2001.
> Romney joined John McCain for some saber-rattling on Memorial Day and urged the arming of Syrians. Pushing for "more assertive steps" in Syria, it may not be long before he joins McCain in urging U.S. bombing of Syria as well. He proposes to increase military training and assistance with Central Asian states. And Romney will, he tells us, "station multiple carriers and warships at Iran's door," apparently without regard for what our own intelligence community reports about Iran's nuclear viability.
> Romney ceaselessly rearranges his taxonomy of threats, bouncing quickly from one to another. He has identified Russia as "without question our number-one geopolitical foe"; jihadists are this century's nightmare; North Korea is a clear and growing threat to the United States; the Iranian leadership is the biggest immediate threat; China threatens Romney's "American century."
> So this is what Republicans offer the nation: the warfare part of Washington's warfare/welfare state. Oh, but there will be plenty of welfare to go along with it (mostly for the crony classes), just as Obama has included plenty of warfare even as he tilted to the welfare state.
> Americans are perfectly capable of buying a pig in a poke. They have done so over and over again. Even before announcing his run for the presidency, Bush was quite explicit with a biographer about the joyous prospects of invading a country like Iraq to pump up his approval numbers and build political capital. But he told the electorate just weeks before the vote that he wanted a more humble foreign policy, one without nation building.
> The nomination secure, Romney may try to moderate his chest-thumping during the general election campaign, too.
> But there's a war pig in that bag. http://lewrockwell.com/goyette/goyette37.1.html

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Re: Courting Fear

Read the article again.  The distinction is between ecclesiastical courts and courts of the common law. 

On Mon, Jun 4, 2012 at 11:21 AM, MJ <michaelj@america.net> wrote:

Denoting how Jefferson's research proves that 'common law' is not based as you claimed .... makes your point?
Amazing!

Your previous couching was also noted.

Regard$,
--MJ

The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses....
  -- John Adams, "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America" [1787-1788];



At 11:17 AM 6/4/2012, you wrote:
MJ,
 
You very much made my point.  Thank you.
 

 
On Mon, Jun 4, 2012 at 10:50 AM, MJ <michaelj@america.net> wrote:
 
I have never even insinuated that this Nation is somehow based upon a Christian demoniation or that we are all supposed to be beholding to Christian belief.  It is asinine to sit here and think that this Nation was not based upon Christian tenets and principals.  One need only look to our common law;  or most any of our federal buidlings to see that the Deists, as well as those Christians played a very large part in the founding of this Nation.  To ignore this is revisionist history.
 

Letter to Thomas Cooper
Jefferson's letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, from Monticello, February 10, 1814.

D  ear Sir, ­ In my letter of January 16, I promised you a sample from my common-place book, of the pious disposition of the English judges, to connive at the frauds of the clergy, a disposition which has even rendered them faithful allies in practice. When I was a student of the law, now half a century ago, after getting through Coke Littleton, whose matter cannot be abridged, I was in the habit of abridging and common-placing what I read meriting it, and of sometimes mixing my own reflections on the subject. I now enclose you the extract from these entries which I promised. They were written at a time of life when I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way. This must be the apology, if you find the conclusions bolder than historical facts and principles will warrant. Accept with them the assurances of my great esteem and respect.

Common-place Book
     873. In Quare imp. in C. B. 34, H. 6, fo. 38, the def. Br. of Lincoln pleads that the church of the pl. became void by the death of the incumbent, that the pl. and J. S. each pretending a right, presented two several clerks; that the church being thus rendered litigious, he was not obliged, by the Ecclesiastical law to admit either, until an inquisition de jure patronatus, in the ecclesiastical court: that, by the same law, this inquisition was to be at the suit of either claimant, and was not ex-officio to be instituted by the bishop, and at his proper costs; that neither party had desired such an inquisition; that six months passed whereon it belonged to him of right to present as on a lapse, which he had done. The pl. demurred. A question was, How far the Ecclesiastical law was to be respected in this matter by the common law court? and Prisot C. 3, in the course of his argument uses this expression, "A tiels leis que ils de seint eglise ont en ancien scripture, covient a nous a donner credence, car ces common ley sur quel touts manners leis sont fondes: et auxy, sin, nous sumus obliges de conustre nostre ley; et, sin, si poit apperer or a nous que lievesque ad fait comme un ordinary fera en tiel cas, adong nous devons ces adjuger bon autrement nemy," &c. It does not appear that judgment was given. Y. B. ubi supra. S. C. Fitzh. abr. Qu. imp. 89. Bro. abr. Qu. imp. 12. Finch mistakes this in the following manner: "To such laws of the church as have warrant in Holy Scripture, our law giveth credence," and cites the above case, and the words of Prisot on the margin. Finch's law. B. 1, ch. 3, published 1613. Here we find "ancien scripture" converted into "Holy Scripture," whereas it can only mean the ancient written laws of the church. It cannot mean the Scriptures, 1, because the "ancien scripture" must then be understood to mean the "Old Testament" or Bible, in opposition to the "New Testament," and to the exclusion of that, which would be absurd and contrary to the wish of those |P1323|p1 who cite this passage to prove that the Scriptures, or Christianity, is a part of the common law. 2. Because Prisot says, "Ceo [est] common ley, sur quel touts manners leis sont fondes." Now, it is true that the ecclesiastical law, so far as admitted in England, derives its authority from the common law. But it would not be true that the Scriptures so derive their authority. 3. The whole case and arguments show that the question was how far the Ecclesiastical law in general should be respected in a common law court. And in Bro. abr. of this case, Littleton says, "Les juges del common ley prendra conusans quid est lax ecclesiae, vel admiralitatis, et trujus modi." 4. Because the particular part of the Ecclesiastical law then in question, to wit, the right of the patron to present to his advowson, was not founded on the law of God, but subject to the modification of the lawgiver, and so could not introduce any such general position as Finch pretends. Yet Wingate [in 1658] thinks proper to erect this false quotation into a maxim of the common law, expressing it in the very words of Finch, but citing Prisot, wing. max. 3. Next comes Sheppard, [in 1675,] who states it in the same words of Finch, and quotes the Year-Book, Finch and Wingate. 3. Shepp. abr. tit. Religion. In the case of the King v. Taylor, Sir Matthew Hale lays it down in these words, "Christianity is parcel of the laws of England." 1 Ventr. 293, 3 Keb. 607. But he quotes no authority, resting it on his own, which was good in all cases in which his mind received no bias from his bigotry, his superstitions, his visions above sorceries, demons, &c. The power of these over him is exemplified in his hanging of the witches. So strong was this doctrine become in 1728, by additions and repetitions from one another, that in the case of the King v. Woolston, the court would not suffer it to be debated, whether to write against Christianity was punishable in the temporal courts at common law, saying it had been so settled in Taylor's case, ante 2, stra. 834; therefore, Wood, in his Institute, lays it down that all blasphemy and profaneness are offences by the common law, and cites Strange ubi supra. Wood 409. And Blackstone [about 1763] repeats, in the words of Sir Matthew Hale, that "Christianity is part of the laws of England," citing Ventris and Strange ubi supra. 4. Blackst. 59. Lord Mansfield qualifies it a little by saying that "The essential |P1324|p1 principles of revealed religion are part of the common law." In the case of the Chamberlain of London v. Evans, 1767. But he cities no authority, and leaves us at our peril to find out what, in the opinion of the judge, and according to the measure of his foot or his faith, are those essential principles of revealed religion obligatory on us as a part of the common law.

     Thus we find this string of authorities, when examined to the beginning, all hanging on the same hook, a perverted expression of Prisot's, or on one another, or nobody. Thus Finch quotes Prisot; Wingate also; Sheppard quotes Prisot, Finch and Wingate; Hale cites nobody; the court in Woolston's case cite Hale; Wood cites Woolston's case; Blackstone that and Hale; and Lord Mansfield, like Hale, ventures it on his own authority. In the earlier ages of the law, as in the year-books, for instance, we do not expect much recurrence to authorities by the judges, because in those days there were few or none such made public. But in latter times we take no judge's word for what the law is, further than he is warranted by the authorities he appeals to. His decision may bind the unfortunate individual who happens to be the particular subject of it; but it cannot alter the law. Though the common law may be termed "Lex non Scripta," yet the same Hale tells us "when I call those parts of our laws Leges non Scriptae, I do not mean as if those laws were only oral, or communicated from the former ages to the latter merely by word. For all those laws have their several monuments in writing, whereby they are transferred from one age to another, and without which they would soon lose all kind of certainty. They are for the most part extant in records of pleas, proceedings, and judgments, in books of reports and judicial decisions, in tractates of learned men's arguments and opinions, preserved from ancient times and still extant in writing." Hale's H. c. d. 22. Authorities for what is common law may therefore be as well cited, as for any part of the Lex Scripta, and there is no better instance of the necessity of holding the judges and writers to a declaration of their authorities than the present; where we detect them endeavoring to make law where they found none, and to submit us at one stroke to a whole system, no particle of which has its foundation in the common law. For we know that the common law is that system of law which was introduced by the Saxons on their settlement in England, and altered from time to time by proper legislative authority from that time to the date of Magna Charta, which terminates the period of the common law, or lex non scripta, and commences that of the statute law, or Lex Scripta. This settlement took place about the middle of the fifth century. But Christianity was not introduced till the seventh century; the conversion of the first christian king of the Heptarchy having taken place about the year 598, and that of the last about 686. Here, then, was a space of two hundred years, during which the common law was in existence, and Christianity no part of it. If it ever was adopted, therefore, into the common law, it must have been between the introduction of Christianity and the date of the Magna Charta. But of the laws of this period we have a tolerable collection by Lambard and Wilkins, probably not perfect, but neither very defective; and if any one chooses to build a doctrine on any law of that period, supposed to have been lost, it is incumbent on him to prove it to have existed, and what were its contents. These were so far alterations of the common law, and became themselves a part of it. But none of these adopt Christianity as a part of the common law. If, therefore, from the settlement of the Saxons to the introduction of Christianity among them, that system of religion could not be a part of the common law, because they were not yet Christians, and if, having their laws from that period to the close of the common law, we are all able to find among them no such act of adoption, we may safely affirm (though contradicted by all the judges and writers on earth) that Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law. Another cogent proof of this truth is drawn from the silence of certain writers on the common law. Bracton gives us a very complete and scientific treatise of the whole body of the common law. He wrote this about the close of the reign of Henry III., a very few years after the date of the Magna Charta. We consider this book as the more valuable, as it was written about fore gives us the former in its ultimate state. Bracton, too, was an ecclesiastic, and would certainly not have failed to inform us of the adoption of Christianity as a part of the common law, had any such adoption ever taken place. But no word of his, which intimates anything like it, has ever been cited. Fleta and Britton, who wrote in the succeeding reign (of Edward I.), are equally silent. So also is Glanvil, an earlier writer than any of them, (viz.: temp. H. 2,) but his subject perhaps might not have led him to mention it. Justice Fortescue Aland, who possessed more Saxon learning than all the judges and writers before mentioned put together, places this subject on more limited ground. Speaking of the laws of the Saxon kings, he says, "the ten commandments were made part of their laws, and consequently were once part of the law of England; so that to break any of the ten commandments was then esteemed a breach of the common law, of England; and why it is not so now, perhaps it may be difficult to give a good reason." Preface to Fortescue Aland's reports, xvii. Had he proposed to state with more minuteness how much of the scriptures had been made a part of the common law, he might have added that in the laws of Alfred, where he found the ten commandments, two or three other chapters of Exodus are copied almost verbatim. But the adoption of a part proves rather a rejection of the rest, as municipal law. We might as well say that the Newtonian system of philosophy is a part of the common law, as that the Christian religion is. The truth is that Christianity and Newtonianism being reason and verity itself, in the opinion of all but infidels and Cartesians, they are protected under the wings of the common law from the dominion of other sects, but not erected into dominion over them. An eminent Spanish physician affirmed that the lancet had slain more men than the sword. Doctor Sangrado, on the contrary, affirmed that with plentiful bleedings, and draughts of warm water, every disease was to be cured. The common law protects both opinions, but enacts neither into law. See post. 879.

     879. Howard, in his Contumes Anglo-Normandes, 1.87, notices the falsification of the laws of Alfred, by prefixing to them four chapters of the Jewish law, to wit: the 20th, 21st, 22d and 23d chapters of Exodus, to which he might have added the 15th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, v. 23, and precepts from other parts of the scripture. These he calls a hors d'oeuvre of some pious copyist. This awkward monkish fabrication makes the preface to Alfred's genuine laws stand in the body of the work, and the very words of Alfred himself prove the fraud; for he declares, in that preface, that he has collected these laws from those of Ina, of Offa, Aethelbert and his ancestors, saying nothing of any of them being taken from the Scriptures. It is still more certainly proved by the inconsistencies it occasions. For example, the Jewish legislator Exodus xxi. 12, 13, 14, (copied by the Pseudo Alfred § 13,) makes murder, with the Jews, death. But Alfred himself, Le. xxvi., punishes it by a fine only, called a Weregild, proportioned to the condition of the person killed. It is remarkable that Hume (append. 1 to his History) examining this article of the laws of Alfred, without perceiving the fraud, puzzles himself with accounting for the inconsistency it had introduced. To strike a pregnant woman so that she die is death by Exodus, xxi. 22, 23, and Pseud. Alfr. § 18; but by the laws of Alfred ix., pays a Weregild for both woman and child. To smite out an eye, or a tooth, Exod. xxi. 24-27. Pseud. Alfr. § 19, 20, if of a servant by his master, is freedom to the servant; in every other case retaliation. But by Alfr. Le. xl. a fixed indemnification is paid. Theft of an ox, or a sheep, by the Jewish law, Exod. xxii. 1, was repaid five-fold for the ox and four-fold for the sheep; by the Pseudograph § 24, the ox double, the sheep four-fold; but by Alfred Le. xvi., he who stole a cow and a calf was to repay the worth of the cow and 401 for the calf. Goring by an ox was the death of the ox, and the flesh not to be eaten. Exod. xxi. 28. Pseud. Alfr. § 21 by Alfred Le. xxiv., the wounded person had the ox. The Pseudograph makes municipal laws of the ten commandments, § 1-10, regulates concubinage, § 12, makes it death to strike or to curse father or mother, § 14, 15, gives an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, strife for strife, § 19; sells the thief to repay his theft, § 24; obliges the fornicator to marry the woman he has lain with, § 29; forbids interest on money, § 35; makes the laws of bailment, § 28, very different from what Lord Holt delivers in Coggs v. Bernard, ante 92, and what Sir William Jones tells us they were; and punishes witchcraft with death, § 30, which Sir Matthew Hale, 1 H. P. C. B. 1, ch. 33, declares was not a felony before the Stat. 1, Jac. 12. It was under that statute, and not this forgery, that he hung Rose Cullendar and Amy Duny, 16 Car. 2, (1662,) on whose trial he declared "that there were such creatures as witches he made no doubt at all; for first the Scripture had affirmed so much, secondly the wisdom of all nations had provided laws against such persons, and such hath been the judgment of this kingdom, as appears by that act of Parliament which hath provided punishment proportionable to the quality of the offence." And we must certainly allow greater weight to this position that "it was no felony till James' Statute," laid down deliberately in his H. P. C., a work which he wrote to be printed, finished, and transcribed for the press in his life time, than to the hasty scripture that "at common law witchcraft was punished with death as heresy, by writ de Heretico Comburendo" in his Methodical Summary of the P. C. p. 6, a work "not intended for the press, not fitted for it, and which he declared himself he had never read over since it was written;" Pref. Unless we understand his meaning in that to be that witchcraft could not be punished at common law as witchcraft, but as heresy. In either sense, however, it is a denial of this pretended law of Alfred. Now, all men of reading know that these pretended laws of homicide, concubinage, theft, retaliation, compulsory marriage, usury, bailment, and others which might have been cited, from the Pseudograph, were never the laws of England, not even in Alfred's time; and of course that it is a forgery. Yet palpable as it must be to every lawyer, the English judges have piously avoided lifting the veil under which it was shrouded. In truth, the alliance between Church and State in England has ever made their judges accomplices in the frauds of the clergy; and even bolder than they are. For instead of being contented with these four surreptitious chapters of Exodus, they have taken the whole leap, and declared at once that the whole Bible and Testament in a lump, make a part of the common law; ante 873: the first judicial declaration of which was by this same Sir Matthew Hale. And thus they incorporate into the English code laws made for the Jews alone, and the precepts of the gospel, intended by their benevolent author as obligatory only in foro concientiæ; and they arm the whole with the coercions of municipal law. In doing this, too, they have not even used the Connecticut caution of declaring, as is done in their blue laws, that the laws of God shall be the laws of their land, except where their own contradict them; but they swallow the yea and nay together. Finally, in answer to Fortescue Aland's question why the ten commandments should not now be a part of the common law of England? we may say they are not because they never were made so by legislative authority, the document which has imposed that doubt on him being a manifest forgery.

( Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Cooper, from Monticello, February 10, 1814; Merrill D. Peterson, ed., Thomas Jefferson: Writings, New York: Library of America, 1994, pp. 1321-1329. )

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