Re: Opium [was: Re: freelance sysadmining -- superlong -- [WAS: "Red Hat recommends Windows for consumers"]]
On Sat, 2003-11-15 at 08:09, ben wrote:
> On Sat, 15 Nov 2003 02:05:15 -0600
> Ron Johnson <ron.l.johnson@cox.net> wrote:
>
> > On Fri, 2003-11-14 at 23:07, ben wrote:
> > > On Fri, 14 Nov 2003 10:14:38 -0800
> > > <donw@examen.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > On Fri, Nov 14, 2003 at 11:39:31AM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote:
> > [snip]
> > > whatever about the rest, a theocracy in a century! bush has already
> > > made public statements about how god instructed him to invade
> > > afghanistan and iraq. what the hell happend to separation of church
> > > and state? on top of
> >
> > Tell you what: I won't interpret the German Constitution if you
> > don't interpret the U.S. Constitution.
>
> nah, i've got a better idea: you feel free to interpret the german
> constitution or any other text in the world, or not, as you wish, and
> i'll go on feeling free to do the same. no need to forbid yourself
> anything on my account.
I still won't try to interpret the German constitution...
> > Do you even know what "separation of church and state" means? Does
> > it mean "government officials shall avoid religion at all costs",
> > or does it mean "Congress shall make no law respecting an estab-
> > lishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"?
> > http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate/constitution/amdt1.html
> > http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Am1
> >
> > Yes, that's right: Jefferson didn't mean what we now understand
> > "a wall of separation between Church and State" to mean.
> >
> then i take it you haven't read jefferson's wall of separation letter.
> there's a copy of it at
>
> www.usconstitution.net/jeffwall,
>
> a transcript of the original in the library of congress.
Thanks for the updated link.
Remembering that "The bracketed section in the second paragraph had
been blocked off for deletion", and thus was not actually in the
final letter, I don't see anything that implies "government should
avoid all semblance of religion, at all cost", which is the current
interpretation of "separation of church and state".
> in response to the two questions above, consequent to my interpretation
> of the statements made by jefferson in that letter, the first answer
> would be that i believe i have a fairly good grasp of what jefferson
> understood separation of church and state to mean, and the second answer
> would be that, both definitions above are equally correct.
>
> don't get me wrong, i'm not an america-basher. i know and like the
> place, but i'm very concerned that so much that is great there, in
> particular the vast range of freedoms implied in the constitution, is
> being steadily pulled out from under you by the current administration,
Those rights started being whittled away under FDR, when the bureau-
cracy started to grow, and increased in the 70s, because of a larger
growth in the bureaucracy, and activist federal judges, and has con-
tinued ever since. Bureaucracies can't survive without making rules,
so that's what they do, every day:
"From 1987-1996, however, the Federal Register has swelled to nearly
70,000 pages - a 40 percent increase."
http://www.goodcommonsense.org/sprawl.htm
"Today, the Congressional Research Service says it canʼt even count
the number of federal crimes. The American Bar Association reported
in 1998 that there were at least 3,300 separate federal offenses and
nearly 10,000 administrative regulations that also can lead to crimi-
nal prosecutions. They are scattered over 50 sections of the United
States code and consume more than 27,000 pages. Though the oldest
of these regulatory criminal laws date to 1850, more than 40 percent
of have been enacted in the last 30 years."
http://www.heritage.org/Press/NewsReleases/nr042103.cfm
And then there are all of the regulations in the 50 states, including
biggies like California, New York, and the Peoples Republic of
Taxachusetts.
> and in such a manner that the conditions under which us other humans get
> to live are also detrimentally influenced. i think that the process by
> which individuals get to be in power, there, has been steadily removed
> from the people to such a degree that too many, albeit well-intended and
> loyal good folks, have begun to rely on blind faith rather than to
> continually regard government sceptically, as a necessary evil that
> should always be held in check and held to account for the manner in
> which it deals with its allotment of public trust.
When the gov't passes out money like water, and jacks up the price
of living, via regulation, the people come to depend on gov't, not
regard it as a necessary evil.
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Ron Johnson, Jr. ron.l.johnson@cox.net
Jefferson, LA USA
Great Inventors of our time:
Al Gore -> Internet
Sun Microsystems -> Clusters
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