Re: Democracy...

["Edwin E. Smith" <edsmith@IntNet.net>]

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And while we are on the subject, nothing gets to me quite so easily 
as self-styled educated men who cannot spell or form a grammatically 
correct sentence. You attempt to flame those whose logic is faulty 
and come off looking like ignorant boobs.

If you had done a little more reading in your past you would be able 
to recognize your own poor ability to communicate yet you rail on 
about the cluelessness of AOLers who haven't read the constitution. 
My question is how is it that you are able to read it?

I have pity for those who are products of the public school system 
but they have an excuse. What excuse do computer programmers have? 
They are forced to think logically yet so often refuse to do so in 
matters of real life. They often fall back upon the constitutionality 
of a particular concept yet haven't tested it with the power of their 
own sense of truth and justice.

Such is the substance of lawyers and politicians.

I recently saw a posting about right v. wrong or good v. evil. These 
are subjective terms as any good semanticist knows. But what is real 
and what is unreal is a much more difficult thing to determine. It 
requires rigorous thinking without prejudice or belief getting in the 
way.

As to law. The first of the Bill of Rights says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, 
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of 
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to 
assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

If you are going to quote something, do it fully and accurately. It 
isn't that hard and if you don't have a copy of the constitution 
laying around then either get one or keep your damn mouth shut until 
you know what you are talking about.

No, the words "seperation of church and state" do not appear but then 
neither does "privacy", but it is damn well implied by the 4th 
amendment. 

Those self-righteous pricks who want bible reading in the schools and 
rail against those who recite the 1st amendment either lack 
understanding of the term "reading" or are being dishonest by 
insisting that disallowing teachers to read the bible to students is 
wrong and that the constitution needs to be amended. Anyone with any 
honesty would realize that the first amendment doesn't prohibit bible 
reading by students or even bible study in a historical context. It 
merely prohibits tax-paid teachers from "respecting an establishment 
of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;". If I see 
just one more bible-thumping zealot message about "would you care to 
show us where "seperation of church and state" is to be found in the 
constitution/bill of rights?" I will be tempted to take him out in 
the parking lot and pound sand into the parts which are unaccustomed 
to this substance.

I am all for separation of school and state. Show me where in the 
constitution/bill of rights everyone is entitled to a theft/tax 
funded education. This would solve church and state in schools 
wouldn't it. If you don't like your kids getting a non-religious 
education from the godless state, you are free to pull them out and 
put them into a private school of your choice. But of course it isn't 
your kids you are worried about is it? It's all those other peoples 
kids that aren't getting the benefit of the word of the one true 
Christian god that you want to help isn't it!

Hypocrisy is the Vaseline(tm) of political intercourse!

Edwin E. Smith


At 08:39 PM 9/15/98 -0700, you wrote:
>At 7:27 PM -0700 9/15/98, Jaeger wrote:
>>hey, would you care to show us where "seperation of church and 
state" is
>>to be found in the constitution/bill of rights?  absolute right and
>
>Gee, check out the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Also 
the first
>item in the Bill of Rights. "Congress shall make no law respecting 
the
>establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise 
thereof..."
>(from memory, so don't bother me with minor wording corrections.)
>
>By standard convention, this is also referred to as "separation of 
church
>and state."
>
>As with the clueless AOLers yakking about an "Assimov" story they 
read a
>couple of years ago in the 5th grade, you bozos need to get educated 
and
>spend a minute or two thinking before writing.
>
>
>--Tim May
>

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