http://dixienet.org/New%20Site/whatthesouthwants.shtml

An excerpt:

What we want:

To live in peace with the rest of the world, if possible;

To engage in fair trade with Europe, Asia, Latin America, and other emerging world markets;

To avoid entangling political and military alliances with all other nations;

To return to a sound currency and to re-establish a solid manufacturing base in the Southern States;

To help Southerners become freeholders by the ownership of family farms and small businesses;

To halt illegal immigration completely;

To protect our natural environment from the effects of over-population and irresponsible business practices;

To eschew aggressive war as a means of foreign policy, especially in the volatile Middle East;

To preserve the South for Southerners by establishing a Southern constitutional republic based on historic Christian principles and mores;

To withdraw from all international bodies which threaten national sovereignty;

To oppose globalization and the elite class that profits from it;

To destroy the Establishment�s political stranglehold by the Republican and Democrat parties.
__________________________________________________


What we don�t want:

To engage in �perpetual war for perpetual peace� nor to witness the shedding of any more Southern blood for the advancement of the American Empire;

To rule the world by spreading global capitalism and global democracy;

To engage in unfair trade practices with other nations, either through so-called �free trade� agreements or through the establishment of protective tariffs;

To extend �most favored nation� status to any country;

To force the �Southern way� on any other people anywhere in the world;

To continue the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq or to go to war with Iran;

To go to war against any nation except in self defense;

To continue the outsourcing of Southern jobs to other countries with lower wages;

To continue to live in the godless, multicultural American Empire.
__________________________________________

Here,Here I TOTALLY AGREE

Is Ron Paul writing for you, or, are you writing for him? miles

TBear's appeal has preempted the only rationale response.

1B

I agree 100%. Too bad the South itself has become so infiltrated with Yankees that it is almost less "southern" than some other states.

This is an excerpt from an article written by Mike Hill, president of the League of the South. LOS is its own movement, discussing, debating and coming to conclusions independent of the Ron Paul revolution. Obviously many LOS members are wildly enthusiastic about Ron Paul though.

The "founding fathers" of the LOS are not a bunch of back-woods racist klansmen, they are godly Christians and scholars and university professors. Writing and discussing history, theology, monetary policy etc.

And eating haggis...

That's great, DixieFreedoms, but I'm with milespatton: if all that's true, how come the South isn't voting for Ron Paul in overwhelming numbers?

Hear hear!

PS Is it "hear hear," or "here here?"

Why the South is not voting for Ron Paul...

1)People are not awake to the fact that they really truly can be free in the here and now. Beaten down for so long by federal tyranny they have allowed their minds to become dulled to even the remote dream of true self governance.

2)The failure of the Christian Church, across the board, to address, preach, teach, historic Christian scriptural theology concerning the resistance to tyranny.

3)The broad self deception that fiat currency is inherently ok and that the wonks will avoid any real true catastrophic meltdown.

So hey... I could go on. Obviously the broad cross section of the Southern folks are not thinking through the bigger issues of life, and voting for Huckabee shows that their heart may be in the right place but their judgement is flawed.

I think a catastrophic epic event will occur in the near future and that event will force these issues to the forefront of the people's attention.

And I sincerely believe that there is hope for a free south. I have no hope for New York, or Massachussets and the North East corridor that follows their lead. They are hopeless in my estimation and beyond redemption as a society. Individuals maybe but not as a society. They are wed in their hearts to their idols of socialism and hedonism.

The south still has defiance in it. They just need leaders, and an entirely righteous cause untainted by the sins of the past.

So you've given up on the rest of the country. Only Southerners want those things?

Get over yourselves.

Jump on Zumbo for dviding gun owners and then you do it yourself on a National level by dragging out the century-old Civil War (or, "War of Northern Aggression."as you will call it) divisions.

I was born in New Jersey, grew up with central Pennsylvania ideals and still hunt and fish in Pennsylvania. I'm proud as hell for those ideals and you know what? They're not all that different than the ideals of those in the South.

I've traveled a great deal down South and have always been comfortable down there (and been made comfortable by you folks down there). I love the South.

But, it's the divisive attitude of the old "Yankee vs. Johnny Reb" mentality that undercuts the good values that exist throughout this great Nation. You'll rail against the hyphenated classifications like "African-American", or "Mexican-American", but you will choose to divide the country by North and South and make discriminations based upon that division.

Not all Northerners are blue-bloods and not all Southerners are hicks. Ted Kennedy may be from Massachusetts, but Bill Clinton is from Arkansas.

If we can't figure out how to overcome this crap and work together as a Nation, we're no better off than the Middle East or Africa, where the nations are unstable due to constant infighting.

What makes us different than Iraq with it's religious factions all fighting for dominance?

What makes us any different than Israel and Palestine?

The War's been over for almost a century and a half. For whatever reasons, one side "won" and one side "lost" (the entire Nation lost, truthfully). Both "sides" need to suck it up, put it past them, work together, and try to keep the Nation from degrading into another Third World s*ithole.

As for the article (admittedly, I have only read your excerpt), I agree with quite a few (if not darn close to all) of the things presented. What galls me is that not only does it take the egocentric view that only Southerners (and no one else) want those things, but that it's everyone but the Southerners that are standing in the way of the achievement of those goals.

That's pretty much what I have to say about that.

I'm sure I didn't make any friends with my reply, but that's how I see it. If that makes me a "Yankee" in your eyes, so be it. Label me whatever you want, but it sure as hell doesn't solve the problem.

Aqualung

Here is the deal Aqualung, all that stuff Dixie talked about and with which you say you mostly agree, can only be achieved with smaller political subdivisions, not a larger centralized government. You should be rooting for the South because if the South were somehow able to break away, you perhaps, could free yourself from the eastern seaboard of your own state. Maybe those in the West could set up something that freed them from all that ridiculous federal intervention that has put 80 percent of their land in the hands of the Feds, got them unwanted wolves, and Californians. The fact is, this whole "unity and one country" spiel will never get us anything but being dominated by the east and west coasts urban liberals. Their stranglehold gets stronger and stronger as urban centers in other portions of the country take on those same attitudes.

So, whether you are Barak and you believe in no politics beyond the local level, or Dixie and you want a smaller Southern government, the idea is the same. A giant centralized government over the whole continent like the one we have now, has become oppressive and unable/unwilling to respond to the desires of its people.

An interesting article that some participants in this thread may enjoy.

If no other opportunity affords itself,.. you can just do it independently.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski192.html

An excerpt:

The republic is dead. Not sick, not dying, not failing, or in a gradual decline, not waiting to be resuscitated, but already stone cold dead.

This death probably occurred as we began to win the Cold War, but long before we realized we had prevailed. The professionalization of politics, of military and bureaucratic service to the state, of foreign policy making, and of business seems to have completely done in the old ideas. Simply federated, decentralized, self-depreciating government that once feared the people has self-actualized into a contemptuous, rapacious and iron-fisted murderer of freedom, and murderer of men.

The founders worried that subsequent elites and factions would take over the republic they had birthed with every aspect of their power, as the gifted political elites of their time. Yet, as the 19th century dawned, even the most pro-state among them loved freedom and hated tyranny.

They were right about government power and human nature, and their predictions true. New elites and government-dependent factions have ascended. Unfortunately, these political elites hate freedom and love the tyranny of government solutions.

Recognition of reality is liberating. When Jesus said, "the Truth will set you free," I�m not sure he was directly speaking of the governments of men. But recognizing the unreality of a once treasured concept � in our American case, a vibrant past and future republic, may in fact free us to do what we need to do.

"And what is that, exactly?" you ask.

Recognize that the republic is dead, and that we owe its rotting bloated corpse no loyalty whatsoever.

We face a modern American state more overweening and dictatorial than even King George III could imagine, yet we have no declaration of independence, no privileged elite to demand it, no interested population to read and debate it. This time, our declaration will be made individually, every day, in calm desperate fearlessness, as we simply live free.

It's true. I think its more country vs city values than Southern vs Northern, these days.

Great piece.

Yes! You should not be worrying so much about the regional division of past hatreds when you yourself are pretty much acknowledging that the South was right. Lots of good people in Jersey and Pennsylvania. Dixie's post got me to thinking earlier today when I was out driving and getting some stuff done. What states could be counted on? Surely it wouldn't just be the Confederacy. There are lots of freedom-loving states that would secede I think, if it were put to a popular vote and they thought they could get away with it without some Abe Lincoln marching in and taking all their goods and killing their children. Just look at the red states vs. blue states maps of the previous two Presidential elections. Look at the county maps afterwards. The County maps will give you an even better idea of where this divisiveness is actually located-urban vs. rural. It is the fact that most of the parasites and freedom-haters are concentrated in small urban areas. We hold all the countryside while they cower in the supposed safety of their cities. Think about it Aqualung.

I have thought about it and agree with things exactly as you presented them and Hawkeye put it. It's more rural vs urban.

But my gripe was with the focus of the article making the assumption that the view presented was solely the South's belief and none others'. I saw that not only the belief of the article, but expressed in comments made in this thread, in others, and in my other experiences...like all the problems are the North's fault and that if I'm from the North, I'm part of the problem.

I'm probably reading more into it than what I should, but generalizations tend to do that in folks. I'm from the North, I live in Philadelphia, but don't call me a Yankee City-Slicker!

I honestly don't claim to know all the political beliefs of the North and the South (then and now) and should probably dig some more into some history to get a better understanding.

I just know that there are a lot of folks who are not happy with the direction our Nation is headed. Hopefully something can be done as a whole to make it change direction. Subdivision of people with similar values and beliefs makes their cause weaker.

Or, maybe it's just too late, as Bristoe's quoted excerpt suggests.

Aqualung

Is it easier to stop and turn around a runaway locomotive, or a runaway compact car? Unity ain't all it is cracked up to be.

It is definitely country vs. city values, though I know lots of city folk who lean to the 'country side', no pun intended. People need to wake up and should take a long hard look at that list. Our country would be a much better place if we could follow it, especially the "wants".

Aqualung, good post! I have lived in Pennsylvania my whole life, and feel just as you do. It's not a North vs. South thing, that can only lead to another division.

Thats an excellent repsonse Aqualung and I couldn't agree more.

Except for the fact that there are too many whities in the south and there is no mention of Black reparations, this topic is.....

Dang that makes me thirsty! Now ifn' we just had some crack, some ho's, some watermelon and some smoke we could have us a party!

America was multicultural for a long time. If I'm not mistaken blacks were hauled over by people in the south for use as slaves because the Indians that lived there would escape instead of work like mules. That's three cultures right there without counting the Cajuns and others. I guess you just want to pick and choose which cultures you want to mingle with.

The godless thing amazes me. I've been all over the US and it's hard to throw a rock and not hit a church. You don't need the government to support something that seems to be doing just fine on it's own merits. Any person can worship, or not, any religion of their choosing without fear of persecution. That SHOULD be good enough. If you're talking about government supporting one religion over another....well people have fought and died to keep that one from happening and count me in on those that would kill those that would want to change that.

Once you throw in with rifle loonies, I guess you have to expect
that an inordinate interest in rifles is only one vector for irrationality and that a wider and deeper phenomenon of lunacy inevitably will find expression here too. It still is important to understand that buying into rifles does not automatically commit all of us to every other wacko cause that bubbles up out of the swamp.

The LOS-er mantra expressed here embraces economic isolation, anti-war pacifism, secession with an inevitable civil war -- again, after the last tragic waste of blood and opportunity!-- and theocracy.

This witches' brew of academic thumb-sucking and atavistic myth could not be espoused elsewhere without being laughed out of town. And if actively pursued instead of just mumbled under free speech guarantees, the program ultimately and rightly would place its adherents on the Attorney General's list of dangerous nutters.

It's time to draw a line.

1B

It's obvious that you've spent far too much time living within the D.C. archipelago.

So tell me,..

What "line" should be drawn?

relevant current article,..

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/good-magazine/vermont-most-likely-to-s_b_84820.html

Pat Buchanan was pushing for a break up of the United States shortly after the Soviet collapse. It sounded like a good idea then, and I still like it.

Bistoe,

Secession and theocracy would be a start. My line is certainlt drawn there.

I also believe that taking an oath of loyalty to the US means something. I did so out of high school 45 yeares ago when I volunteered for the US Army and have spent the bulk of my life since then honoring that promise.

Discarding that oath and raising arms against the US is treason by anyone's definition -- look it up -- and IMO those who do so for all time remain traitors.

1B

Foreign and domestic,.... remember?

Remaining loyal and true to concepts, rather than countries....

To beliefs, rather than borders....

To Freedom, rather than flags....

To Liberty, rather than land....

Seems to me to have always been the crux.

I'll toe that line, rather than the other.

Revising history to fit seems to be popular of late.

This nation was founded by people that fled a nation that had an official church. Now people are trying to say it was founded with a specific religion in mind? I don't think so, Tim.*

*lame Tool Time reference.

On, this, as I'll call BS.

I don't want ANY damned religion, 'cept the one I CHOOSE to follow. You keep yours to yourself (north of the Mason-Dixon line, IIRC).

These here southerners are starting to sound like Chechens...or any number of other angry religious based seperatist movements. Weird.

Who the hell are you calling religious based separatists?

DF is in PA; last time I checked, that ain't down here in the South.

Neither is Kentucky....

In my defense...

I was born and raised all my life in the Old Dominion, and even had choice of duty station out of EM A school due to high scores so I CHOSE Norfolk VA, (which does in fact prove I am sick in the head). When I moved north of the Potomac I nearly had a nervous breakdown, but I did it for a good job for my wife's sake, but that dynamic is about to change real soon too. We be moving back home to Dixie as soon as we settle on a place.

My ancestors go back in VA to the mid 1600's. My great great grandpap was captured at Vicksburg. I think he had about 11 brothers and most fought with distinction, one got a battlefield commission for bravery at one of the Manassas fights. Virginia is in my bone marrow, way down deep. Before I ever entered first grade my dad layed out a Virginia State Flag on the kitchen table and taught me what the latin motto meant.

The thing that got me going in this direction was Lawrence vs Texas. I watched the build up to that decision, saw the beating Santorum took for his public stand. But when the decision came out I was dumb-struck. The Federal Govt had come out, after thoughtful debate, to sustain sodomy over and against the decision of the freely elected legislature of the State of Texas. The Constitution stipulates that a republican form of government will be supported, established and sustained in every one of the individtual states. If Texas cannot have sodomy laws then no state in the union can craft any laws congruent with their local values, customs, mores values, english common law or their faith. Plain flat and simple.

After the Lawrence decision came out, I waited until quitting time at work, then I immediately drove over to the gift shops at Gettysburg, bought the Confederate naval ensign and then went home and nailed it broad side on the side of my house.

I cannot, I will not, bow down in blind loyalty to an over-reaching oligarchy/tyranny that is based on the "values" of sodomy, atheism, child-murder, and socialism-marxism.

We only advocate a Christian Republic in the context of our heritage, not an inquisitional sword to compel faith. If the feds would leave us alone, our institutions down south would reflect our majority core values which happen to be derived from Christianity.

Seriously; this knee jerk reaction and this cry of theocracy reveals that you fellows have never waded through the antecedent philosophical works that brought about the American Revolution, specifically Locke and Rutherford etc. To a great extent our freedoms and the underlying historic thought processes that support those freedoms come MORE from the Scottish enlightenment than even England. Why should we abandon this to sustain an idealistic phantom of a purely secularized state that is nothing more nor less than white-washed-marxist-atheism?

WHO THE HELL IS "WE"?

And, my roots go back just as deep, just as broad, and just as proud. So?

Well, I can translate semper liber as always free, but what does montani mean. I'm guessing mountains.

PS My 75 year old mom is a Virginian. The home she was raised in (Danville) is still in the family. Her side goes back to colonial days in the South.

1B

With all respect and courtesy.

Think it through. When you took an oath to the Constitution, all enemies foreign and domestic, did you intend to sustain a sodomite world view? Or the magic minute philosphy of abortion; that one minute the "thing" may be murdered but then one minute after birth it suddenly becomes a child with inalienable rights?

America, right now today, is NOT what it was even 30 years ago, much less 50 or 75.

Place yourself in the shoes of Sam Adams and Patrick Henry who had to actually rack their brains concerning the core basic philosphy of what government is and then take a stand against the King and Kingdom to whom/which they had formerly been loyal.

We;

specifically League of the South

And maybe you might consider the actual wording of the first Constitution of VA...

And, what does it mean?



If you had any real understanding of that decision, your position would be different.

The case did NOT decide what you state; the religious right said it did, but they can eat schit as far as I'm concerned as to their understanding of law and liberty.

And, wtf that has to do with Southern heritage, I haven't a clue..... must've missed those classes on my heritage as a child....



Still wanting to know who the hell "WE" is, and if your "institutions" down south are anything like I think they are and who/where/what they are, I'd rather the damned federal government.... there is nothing as overarching, overbearing, and overly intrusive, as a theocracy.

My views of Lawrence vs Texas are primarily informed by this man:

http://www.newswithviews.com/Vieira/edwin30.htm

He wrote a book on this very issue which I read carefully.

When these threads play out usually someone gets all puffed up and mad, (sometimes me) and then the cussing and challenging starts. I would prefer to remain gracious if that is possible.

If you believe in Lawrence vs Texas, and if you want every vestige of Christianity purged from the court house... then yes, we truly are on very different pages. Tom Paine did not give heart and soul to our nation; John Locke did.

I'm not worried about sodomites and neither should anyone else. If you raise moral kids like a parent should then they will be able to go anywhere and retain those good values.

My daughter got a four year degree at UC Boulder. There are few more liberal places in the nation. Was I worried that she'd be corrupted by the pinheads that surrounded her in droves? No. I raised her to be the person she is and I trusted her judgement.

She didn't give up eating meat, or liking men, or hunting, or anything else while she was there. She survived unscathed. She shook her head in amazement a lot but didn't get whiplash from it.

I don't know why people think that we should require intolerance of any other choices in life in order to support our own. That's a position that's faithless and weak. If you think your society needs to be a framework to trap everyone into your way of thinking I am certain that you are far from the ideals of the founding fathers. They wanted people to be able to be free to associate with whom they wished, worship however they wished, and to make their own personal choices without the yoke of the government around their neck.

No wonder you boys want to secede. You just don't get it.

Here is one comment by Vieira on Lawrence:

The fifth relevant principle of Marxist-Leninist thought now insinuating itself into contemporary American courts is RADICAL INTERNATIONALISM--embodied most fully in Leon Trotsky's doctrine of permanent world revolution. This appears rather starkly in Lawrence v. Texas, which relied on foreign law to "interpret" the Constitution of the United States. 529 U.S. at 571-73, 576-77. That such a procedure repudiates the Declaration of Independence could not have been lost on the Justices adopting it. The purpose for this departure from America's foundational document is also no mystery: Insofar as foreign law can change with the speed and facility of a kaleidoscope, the potential for permanently revolutionizing and especially globalizing American "constitutional law" by reference to it is now limitless.

_______________________________________

Perhaps it could be you fellows are just not aware of what is going on with the sodomite political activism community. A man in Massachussets was hauled off in hand-cuffs from a parent teachers meeting because he insisted that his kindergarten son should not and would not be indoctrinated into a sodomite philosphy.

Frank as in Barney introduced and PASSED a sodomite civil rights bill in the house, that if becomes law will FORCE everyone who engages in public commerce and business of any kind to hire, not fire, accomodate etc sodomites, deviants etc.

Perhaps you are not aware what is going on in the south in regards to the homosexual community. Google "gay community" and any major Southern city name and see what all pops up. I tried Atlanta and Birmingham. The links say they are thriving. It's not a Northern thing. It's a sign of the times. The end times. You think you or anyone else will stop that? I don't. You don't have to like it but I guarantee you won't change it. I would that I were wrong.

Ricky...

No doubt.

Please...

I am not saying that all Yankees are deviants and that all Southerners are Holiness Methodists. But overwhelmingly the institutions up in the north east corridor are lost to the deviants

And in support of my argument, Texas still had sodomy laws up until 2003 and only lost them through federal tyranny, along with GA which had been upheld what... 3 years earlier???

Its like Barak's synopsis of government, me and mine have club and beat them and their's or they and their's have club and beat me and mine. And believe you me... the sodomites do in fact wantem club to beat you, silence you, punish you, run you out of jobs and schools and public forums. The examples, even now can be piled up to the clouds.

So do the liberals, the atheists, the Islamists, the skin heads, "activists" of all colors and creeds. The line is long. I shall not be moved.

Aqualung

I just read your objections carefully and let me say; yes indeed I agree with a lot of what you are saying.

When I heard that South Dakota was going to write a law banning abortion I seriously thought of moving there.

Freedom has to start somewhere. It has to have a concrete place and an actual moment in time among actual living breathing people united by some common culture, faith, philosphy or bloodkinship. I might be wrong but it seems to me that the last best hope for a collective culture strong enough to actually stand up and resist tyranny is old Dixie.

There are PLENTY of good folks up north; don't mean to piss em off. If Just three states were to unite and stand up and say enough is enough, it doesn't matter the issue... the tide might start to roll back to local government, the 10th ammendment and actual liberty as the founders intended.

But hey!! Start a League of the South chapter in Central PA and get Western MD to join the fight! Roscoe Bartlett for President!

SteelyEyes:
quote:"I've been all over the US and it's hard to throw a rock and not hit a church."

Don't all of those folks have a right to alter or abolish government and establish a form of government based on the ideal of the consent of the governed? Or in other words; if one state is overwhelmingly majority Christian don't they have the inalienable right to the principle of "consent of the governed."?

I humbly submit that what you are asserting is that all cultures and values systems have a right to exert government influence except Christianity? Because SOME philosophy WILL bear rule and bend the laws to their liking. You can't get around that. Unless you live in Barak-land.

You find for me, where the Constitution forbids the acts of the Lawrence pair, and I'll agree that the government had a right to stop them.

If you can't, then I don't.

Freedom FROM the government intruding into my life, or the lives of others, is (IIRC) one of the pillars of true Southern and AMERICAN heritage.

But, then again.... maybe I missed something.

Oh, boy....

The fact of what this stalking horse under cover of a "Southern thread" actually is, has finally come to light.

Y'all religious boys will find a way to turn just about anything into a discourse on why you're right, everyone else is wrong, it's the end of the world, we should all do like you, repent......

Va Nimrod

You've got it all wrong.

The question you need to be asking is this; what right does the federal government have to dictate to the legislatures of Texas and Georgia to take their sodomy laws off the books?

Also please realize; by taking reference to foreign law precedent for their decision they divorce us from the Declaration of Independence.

Also, since sodomy laws find precedent going back to the colonies and before that into English Common Law they divorce us from our law/heritage, heck even going back to Justinian.

So you want to toss out the Declaration of Independence, Blackstone, Locke, Coke, Colonial heritage just to sustain a public right to perversion?

They could have had their "fun" behind the protections that already exist, without trying to attack the foundation stones of our civilization.

You really ought to apply for employment with Morris Dees, he sounds like your kind of guy!

Good analysis.

Ultimately, however, the Seventeenth Amendment canceled out (almost repealed) the Tenth Amendment, because the institution of government designed by the Founders as the enforcer and guardian of the Tenth Amendment was the US Senate, which was designed to be securely under the thumb of the State Governors. They were also the guardians of the US Supreme Court, highly motivated to insure that only strict constructionists would ever be ultimately positioned as Justices there. To restore the Tenth Amendment, therefore, requires first that we repeal the Seventeenth.

Those who planned and brought about the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment were true geniuses. They knew exactly where to strike to ultimately destroy the United States as the Founders envisioned it, turning federalism on its head. It is likely that only they knew the significance of their actions.

Well said.

No, you have it backwards. The Constitution doesn't grant permission for certain private acts, and deny it to others. The Constitution either empowers the Federal Government to do something, or it denies it the power to do something. One thing it was denied the power to do was to interfere with State governments with respect to their internal police functions, which were supposed to reflect local values, each state being different in this regard, depending on the values (religious, or otherwise) of their respective populations.

Bad analysis.

The federal Constitution and rights guaranteed under it, trump the state constitution and laws.

I.e. the anti-mysogyny cases (where several states made it illegal for inter-racial marriage). The federally guaranteed rights trumps the state law.

The right to be free in one's person, one's life, and one's "pursuit of happiness" is guaranteed on a federal level, and that trumps the state dictates.

Your religious views are valid and protected, until they infringe upon the rights of another. Remember, that cuts both ways, and just as no Muslim or Jew could enforce upon you their beliefs in this country, neither can you enforce upon another your views.

Read the Bill of Rights.

It's a list of things the Federal Government may not do.

Thats what we are getting at Mr Va...

The tenth is on that list. Without the tenth we descend into Marxism. Plain flat and simple.

I truly wish that there were more people in this country who would think like that.

+1

Nope. It ain't just that.

What I am getting at, is your position on the Lawrence v. Texas case is wrong, and it's clouded by your own religious beliefs.

Law and religion should NEVER mix. And, via the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, they are designed (in this country at least) not to.

That you want them to, and say it's Constitutional, and/or Southern, again, is your personal religious belief system; not fact or law.

It references our rights, but it does so as against intrusion by the Federal Government. So, for example, it references our right to keep and bear arms, in order to say that this right (which has always existed, according to the Amendment itself) shall not be infringed. Since this statement exists in an Amendment to the US Constitution, we can know that it applies to the US Government, i.e., the US Government may not infringe on said right.

Each state already had their own Constitution and lists of inviolable rights. Why? Because this nation was designed to be a federal system, whereby states are controlled by their people and their constitutions, and the Federal Government is controlled by 1) the States, 2) by the people of the several states, and 3) by the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights, not necessarily in that order.

Why, pray tell, do you label these as "Southern Sentiments"? Do you assume they are not shared elsewhere?

Exactly.

And, to reference the "breaking point" "DixieFreedoms" said was "it" for him, exactly which one of those listed inviolable rights and which one of those enumerated powers gives any level of government the authority or responsibility to even ASK, much less control, what goes on in a person's bedroom?

The fixation with knowing or controlling the acts inside a bedroom of another person that seems to dominate certain individuals or perhaps even segments of the conservative Christian right, has always puzzled me. Can't know why they want to know or control what happens in any other bedroom other than their own, but they sure as hell make it a point to try to do so.

You should probably read the whole thread before you make too many assumptions.

I've said it before and I'll probably have to say it again. Homosexuality is wrong morally. The people who wish to force us to say or even believe it is not are wrong on both counts. The people who would force our churches to marry same-sex couples against their will are also wrong. That said, homosexuality should not be against the law. The sex acts that should be against the law are sex between non-consensual parties. For the most part, that is covered. Same-sex marriages should not be outlawed either. All marriages should not be anything to the state or federal governments...or local ones. The only reason they are is the revenue they accrue.

People, not just Christians, get all twisted about homosexuality. It's a sin. It's also a sin to screw around on your wife. Which is worse? That's for God to decide, not me. If a homo comes into my Church and seeks forgiveness, I'm to help him/her in that endeavor. It's about belief, not good works ie how successful the homosexual is in repressing their urges. There are a lot of things that are wrong that the law should have no effect on.

I've known some homosexuals that were fine folks. That doesn't mean I condone their preference. Conversely, I've known some heteros that were sorry sumbeaches. As long as a homo is not forcing me or mine to join in or condone it, it is their business and not mine. If there is some situation where there is a need for my opinion, I'll give it. Otherwise, it ain't my business.

Not asking you or forcing you to agree with it, but making it ILLEGAL? I can't see that.....

I lost hope for the south's 'rise' when I saw a New York lic. plate backing a boat in Bayou Sorrel, La. The peskey vermin have infultrated the deepest corners of our state!

Law and religion should NEVER mix
_________________________________________

How do you define religion? You want to divorce our country from the Declaration of Independence that asserts that God is the author of our inalienable rights? That is what I am hearing. I am not sure that when you waded through law school that you actually sat down and read through the original source documents ie., the actual writings of John Locke, or Blackstone, or Sydney or Rutherford, or Coke.

Also I think you are trying to paint me into a "straw-man" corner of your own imagination, not what I really believe nor what League of the South actually believes. We believe the founders got it right. The founders were overwhelmingly Christian-libertarians, or Lockean in their outlook. We don't advocate the coercive sword to command faith or deny it; nonetheless our core belief system is heavily colored from our Christian faith, and we as a body of people have the inalienable right to the concept of "consent of the governed"

Read Locke's letters on toleration and also his reasonableness of Christianity etc.

This is an old debate. And I stand with John Adams who dismissed Paine and adhered to Locke. If America was totally secular or overwhelmingly Deist how come Paine was so hated after Americans got a taste of his thoroughly articulated anti-Christian philosophy?

What you have not thought through is this; if you divorce us from our heritage that runs to the English and Scots and divorce us from the Declaration of Independence and the concept that God is the author of our inalienable rights, then you plant us squarely in the camp of those philosophers that gave us the French Revolution, its horrors, then the despotism of Napolean and then the subsequent socialistic revolutions and on and on it goes.

God is the author of inalienble rights. Governments are formed to sustain them. Consent of the governed is juxtaposed with God the author of justice. We were not born if a sodomite-hedonistic, atheistic libertarianism. In all reality the overwhelming culture of the original 13 was Protestantism. This culture was reflected in all sorts of laws, sodomy laws being one minor area. Many states/colonies it was death, Jefferson objected and argued that the sodomite should only be disfigured by slitting his nostrel so all would know. Certainly I don't advocate returning to such severity; let them enjoy the 4th ammendment, but the Feds certainly cannot overturn the lawful laws of Texas, enacted by a lawful republican system, thoroughly rooted in OUR history, OUR culture, OUR link to English Common Law and yes indeed, OUR overwhelmingly historic link to the Christian faith.

And as I pointed out before in that link to that article by Edwin Vieira the court took reference from foreign laws and cultures to sustain their argument to overthrow Texas, and as Vieira points out they did it for the purpose of leaving a "loaded gun" on the table so others might pick it up in the future and use it again and again.

If it wasn't for the Feds stepping in you boys would still have the blacks riding in the back of the bus, going to separate and less than equal schools, and all the other trappings of aparteid...uh, segregation. I'm sure you got all irked about having your state's rights stepped on that time too but someone had to drag you into the 20th Century somehow.

Society does evolve over time. It's been doing so since we first lived in family groups and carried fire hardened spears. Lots of people want to go back to the "good old days" but those days weren't good for everyone.

My question for "Southerner's" is, "does it ever get tiresome being a Southerner?"

To a non-Southerner it appears to be one big case of cultural insecurity.

Not trying to be harsh, but damn!

I've not found it a problem just being an American...

I'll make NO defense for plantation slavery or Jim Crow. But the cure was worse than the disease. Freely chosen Christian love is the answer, but that dynamic is being rooted out by the all powerful Federal State.

I am not pickled in the old fight, some are, I am not so much.

I am forward looking. How it is right now. If there were five or six states with common heritage and culture and some manly defiance up north... then I would move up there. But as far as I can tell in recent history this has only manifested in old Dixie. Scotland hated the English for so long I wonder if they forgot why, but it made them an independent courageous people, many of whom moved to the new world and gave it some of its better virtues.

We desperately need to defy tyranny NOW. If drawing on our historic southern defiance, nurtured by years and years of philosophical conflict, (and an actual blood war) helps stir up courage then that is a good thing.

What does it really truly mean to just be an American? Today.

No one has defined it for me adequately. So I must go to the way things really truly are... hard cold facts of what our federal courts are handing down and what our legislature is writing at the national level. I don't consent. I want out from under the godless tyranny.

If the feds adhered to the 10th ammendment we would have no beef. If we in old Dixie were a seperate nation there are a host of political and social problems that would not even exist. We would close the southern border over-night. There would be NO national endowment for the arts to subsidize blasphemy-art, no planned parenthood or subsidies for them to pay their light bill, no one-way trade deals to rape our workers, no foreign entanglements and huge financial bribes to foreign despots to buy their favor, no gun control, and no Barney Frank civil-rights-bill-for-sodomites.

I guess it's a southern thing, I'll never get it. Out west things are a lot different. Pioneering spirit, self sufficiency and all that stuff. No grudges over battles lost or won. A bit of good fences make good neighbors and what goes on over them is none of my business.

I don't care if my neighbors are Mormons, queers, or like one neighbor used to...film commercial pornography in their house. Most of us are like that and we get along fine.

I stopped by the farm auction one day. They were auctioning off chickens and small animals. The cowboy looking guys were stanging right there with the Mexicans and Sudanese muslims with the scarves and all. No bickering, fighing, sneering or anything....just mutual respect.

It's possible to have a community like that and it's not a bad way to live.

The other common Southern myth, that a diabolical Abe Lincoln just did it all hisself, a bearded Sauron inleashing his swarms of orcs.

Forgotten here are the folks who laid their lives down in droves, the people who re-elected Lincoln by a landslide, even after the bloody mayhem of the Fredericksburgs and Cold Harbors, even though the future promised only more of those.

These were the people who marched repeatedly into sheets of Southern lead. Free and literate men, not on a lark, not to "oppress the South", but to preserve the Union, which Union we still enjoy the benefits of today.

As for modern day States voting en masse to secede, I think you'd be surprised at the number of people EVERYWHERE who take the oath of allegiance to their county seriously.

..and in regards to the killing of Southern civilians, there's a topic worth looking into, I'd bet that over most of the South, most of it was done by Southerners themselves against the dissidents in their midst, (Just how many civilians DID die on Sherman's famous "atrocity" anyhow? Remarkably few IIRC), back in the days when five million claimed as property the other three and even the travel of ordinary men was sharply curtailed by Government fiat.

Birdwatcher

I guess it's a southern thing, I'll never get it
__________________________________________

I don't really know, but you might be objecting to a straw man perception here, but maybe not.

Live and let live is a huge part of the Southern ethic, what we don't want is to be forced into the cultural mold dictated by the federal govt, who are pickled in New York Sodomite Marxist values.

They take your wages in taxes and subsidize planned parenthood. Do you believe that is a good thing? Have you no reaction? They took your wages in taxes and subsidized that art show in New York involving the infamous bottle of urine. You have no reaction to that?

Others may, but I will not try to whitewash the iniquities and injustices of old Dixie; on the other hand though, how long must we sit in the corner on: "the perpetual stools of shame and repentance" disavowing the better angels of our heritage and holding the door for marxists to take our place in the public arena?

Mr Bird...

I respect you and always read your posts for some perspective, really. So for just a brief moment I will put down my shield and sword and let down my guard...

For the life of me, I just CANNOT get my mind around what makes for the common glue that holds us together as "Americans"

I think for most folks it is just symbology, heck! Out in California a school teacher started to actually teach the Declaration of Independence seriously as if the words had actual meaning... and IIRC the ACLU brought suit against him!

It has gotten out of hand. We have different value systems and I see NO WAY those conflicting value systems and philosophies can find ANY common ground of compromise.

Maybe you can relate to this? As he felt, as you do.

http://www.ed.brocku.ca/~rahul/Misc/unibomber.html

This is part of the problem. I articulate a cogent argument taking my stand on John Locke and you equate that to the unibomber.

Listen...

If we don't start thinking, really truly thinking through the greater issues instead of just dancing around them or joking them away we will descend into even more despotism.

The cynic never adds to the debate, because once he has found fault with every system of philosophical thought he has in effect posited a system of cinicism, which boils down to simply not believing in anything; and once that system is turned on itself it implodes.

Aww heck Dixie, I respect you too.

Where I think we differ is what you see as regional attributes, I see as individual ones. I can live here in South Texas, or England, or New York, or New Mexico, or the South, heck even Africa, and still find like-minded individuals.

Likewise, I ain't found a place yet devoid of evil, or debauchery, and nobody does trailer-park whorehouses quite like the South. FWIW the most buggery-free place I have lived in was Africa, despite some folks' recent assertions on these boards to the contrary.

Common glue? Just wait 'till the terrorists hit us again. Last time that happened we took out two regimes over there, with the active participation of an all-volunteer military from ALL Fifty States

"Yeah", you'll say, "but look at Berkley and all them Libs".

I just got done reading "The Few" (Alex Kershaw 2006), an in-depth account of the very first American pilots flying for the RAF during the Battle of Britain, when such was still technically illegal by US law.

It would be harder to find a country more uniform culturally, more threatened from the outside, and more united in purpose that the Brits in 1940.

Yet even in those dark days, support for Churchill by Londoners during the Blitz was NOT unanimous. And even on the very bases from which exausted young men flew repeated missions in their Spits and Hurris at awful risk to themselves, there were instances of local civilian kitchen crews refusing to get up at 3am to fix them breakfast.

Look to your own South during the Civil War and the complex issues that arose everywhere. There ain't EVER going to be a nation of like minded individuals, never has been, not to the degree that you're looking for, unless it was a Theocracy.

Just my $0.02

Birdwatcher

That is certainly food for thought.

I take for a wholesome guide the whole broad text of the Declaration of Independence. That part about not going to full revolution every other day over silly crap... you bear injustice as long as you can, it is the lot of all men.

But I really think we have come to the point concerning the "long train of abuses that evince a design to reduce to absolute despotism"

If they would give up forcing child-murder, atheism, socialism and sodomy off on ALL of us, respect the 10th ammendment- heck, I would take the chip off my shoulder and the stars and bars off the side of my house.

My conscience just can't breathe in the broad expanse of the noonday sun while they have this damn federal straightjacket on my soul.

Mr. DixieFreedom,

Why don't you "put your money where your mouth is?"

Get a bunch of like minded people, pick the state you most think wants to secede, and get enough signatures to put secession on a state-wide referendum come next election.

My bet is that you can't even find enough signatures to get it on the ballot, let alone pass it. A lot of Southerners don't agree with you about the things which are wrong with America and even those who do are not willing to throw the baby out with the bath water.

If you think I'm wrong, start a petition drive and prove it.

Your comment on another thread about taking the issue through the courts was thought provoking. In fact the League of the South advocates peaceful secession and full well recognizes the dynamic you describe in the south right now. So they advocate education and local cooperation among free minded families and a practial rejection of the empire as far as is possible, for instance home schooling.

But you have to remember; Patrick Henry was regarded as inflamatory and over-reaching by I think it was Randolph?? And of course Sam Adams was not supported by all the folks of Boston even. They say that only a third sided with Washington's fight and a third actually sided with the British, with the other third gouging anyone they could for war profits.

You gotta start somewhere!

Everyone admits that if the Leviathan of Federal bloat were mitigated we would ALL be better off. That seed/thought has to be planted as realistic before it can be watered and grow into widespread action.

Quite frankly I respect even my detractors on this board, and the pithy back and forth makes me hone my thoughts. I am still working out the train of thought for myself.

If some of y'all would READ THE WHOLE THREAD, a lot of repetition could be avoided. On either this thread or another one like it, all this has been discussed before. If it can be summed up regionally in any meaningful way, it could be termed Urban vs. Everyplace Else. That is what the county map of the US looked like after both of the last Presidential elections. The Urban areas across the US are so dominant population-wise, that they were able to WIN the popular election in 2000 and come within a couple million in 2004. This is a problem for anybody who understands "the tyranny of democracy" and why the issue of "state's rights", which was a crucial one in the War Between the States, ever came up in the first place. It is why we have the Electoral College and two houses of the legislative branch instead of just one. IOW, some of us, including Dixie, I think, have pretty much agreed with you. It is just that the South was the leader in trying to put government back upon a constitutional footing, years ago, and still probably has the largest percentage of freedom-loving people of any one region.

I am descended from Southerners but would still welcome the most northern of Yankees to the fold if their principles were the same. Bottom-line, you're truly not going to find as big a percentage of freedom-lovers in Massachusetts as you will in South Carolina.

Sorry but I don't believe that comment, care to show some kind of proof? I come from that region, not from Mass but close enough, we love our freedom and will fight to the death to keep it.

In the Civil War, the North was the spirit of Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon. The South was the spirit of the Founding Fathers resisting tyranny. There's no getting around that by a clever rewrite of history.

DF;

Show me exactly where in the U.S. Constitution or ANY state constitution it gives you, any local or state or federal entity the authority to inquire or control as to what goes on in a person's bedroom, and I'll concede your point as to "religion" (yours, particularly) being necessary or integrated into government.

If you can't, then you concede that you're off base on it issue, as far as it comes to legality.

"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State." - James Madison (Federalist No. 45)

Fair enough question.

I would in fact sustain the fourth ammendment against the over-reaching of the state, absolutely. I believe that is protection enough for folks to do what they do.

But on the other hand I believe that Texas and Georgia have/had a right to write sodomy laws, based on:
1)The guarantee of the Federal Constitution that each state will have a republican form of government; ie a real legislature that has real authority
2)The limits on the federal government in the 9th and 10th ammendments; the federal sphere is strictly limited and does not extend to overthrowing sodomy laws, it is a state issue
3)Our historic root in English Common Law that was more or less the law of the land in the new world until most laws were codified after the revolution.
4)The wisdom of precedent and institution stability, ie., Edmund Burke's wisdom.
5)The Declaration of Independence. You are going to have to argue that sodomy is an inalienable right bestowed by the creator and worthy of the coercive sword of government to sustain it in its righteous defense against the encroachments of tyrants. And this really truly is the heart of the issue and why I argue for secession from the North East.


I will admit this without apology; these are extremely thorny issues well worth painful debate and re-debate and I am not so certain that I have thought them through as best as I might nor am I as fully informed as I would like to be. I have never split the hairs as concerns a right to privacy beyond the bare bones basic words of the 4th ammendment; I don't even know what that argument swirled around or any of the arguments for or against. I believe in the 4th, but obviously I don't have the right to murder my wife behind closed doors.

BUT! The issue extrapolates out rather quickly. Take a close look at the struggles of this man in Massachussets or the controversy over the UCMJ as concerns sodomy, or the right for deviants to adopt, or marry, or have full civil rights and force everyone else to rent/hire/promote/not-fire based on special rights as deviants.

And the theory finds manifestation in real politik rather quickly, every inch of ground the Christians have been forced to give up in the public sphere has been quickly taken over by militant sodomites. They used to open the school day with reading a verse of scripture up until the 50's and early 60's, now the militant sodomite "evangelists" actually teach first graders and kindergarten students the philosophy of sodomy. This shapes society into THEIR mold. This is not what the pilgrims/puritans sailed the stormy North Atlantic to establish. Nor what the Anglican settlers of Jamestown labored for.

But to answer your question without horns and in simplicity; it is point number 5 listed above. I take my stand on the Declaration of Independence and that a REAL diety of known attributes is the one who bestows inalienable rights, and sodomy is not one of them.

Real Hawkeye

YES! I was trying to think of the number and looked up Federalist 48 the other day but it was on division of powers.

Federalist 45. YES! That is the argument. Did Hamilton or Madison pen that one???

No cinicism intented. Did you read it? I see precisely the same line of thought, just worded differently.

VAnimrod;

Help me out, you being a lawyer! How can I find Scalia's dissenting opinion from recent years as concerns a 10 commandments controversy? He argued we were not in the mold or heritage of the secular French Republic. I think it was a good argument.

All right- fair enough... honestly I just can't bring myself to wade through the unibomber's "theology".

But you make a fair point and I concede. I did not read it through in detail. I'll make a deal with you... if you agree to read John Locke's 2nd treatise, and his "Reasonableness of Christianity" and "Essay on Understanding" I will wade through the unibombers articulations.

But what I object to is the idea of linking me or (others who advocate resistance to tyranny) to the likes of McVeigh, the Unibomber, skin-heads, Klansmen etc.

I would prefer to be linked with those whom I truly do admire and have read and who also are integral to our nations founding; Locke, Rutherford, In Defense of Liberty Against Tyrants, Patrick Henry, Sam Adams, Jefferson, (on his good days) Madison, Mason, Burke, Blackstone, Cicero, Natural Law theory traced through Aquinas back to Rome, the stoics and on to the great Greek thinkers, and last but not least the Protestant Reformers that John Adams said started it all for us...

No, when Caesar invaded his own contry it was clearly understood he was staging a coup.

Once again, whatever Lincoln's true nature, the vast majority of the boys in blue were fighting to save the Union, and were willing to die in that cause. These were not cardboard caricatures of "Yankees" (and all that pejorative term implies) or simpletons. They were fuly sentinent men, fighting for the same reasons most of us would fight to preserve the Union today. Lots of folks in the South died for wanting to save the Union too, at the hand of Southerners.

Were the Southerners like the Founding Fathers? Yes, like some of the Founding Fathers, the ones from the South mostly, who tried so hard to have the ringing words "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." struck from the Declaration of Independence.

The Confederate Veep hisself famously bragging on how those words were a crock, and how the Confederate Consitution was unique in that it specifically recognised that all men were NOT created equal. Slaves f'rinstance. 'Course, by that time the South was stuck between a rock and a hard place, up a creek without a paddle, stuck on the wrong side of the river with the bridges burned.

Unlike any other Western nation at that time, more than one third of the Southern population were slaves. When I look at the history of Vermont or of New Hampshire, splendidly self-reliant enclaves of armed Scots-Irish ("Live Free or Die") I see the South, the way it should have been.

Just my $0.02
Birdwatcher

This is probably the one you mean:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/03-1693.ZD.html

Precisely????

Really truly...

Precisely???????

On another thread I made a defense of myself against the charges of being a Timothy McVeigh and so I will re-articulate.

I am not an anarchist. I do not believe that individuals may take the law into their own hands. I do not believe in unauthorized violence or mob riot as manifested in the peasants revolt at the time of Luther. Luther justly damned them. I believe in armed self defense but I do not believe in vigilante justice. Romans 13, governments, in theory are just instruments ordained of God.

The thorny problem for the Christians since the Reformation started was how to honor romans 13's God-ordained government in the light of real-world tyranny. This convoluted problem was thought through with a great deal of wisdom by the author of "In Defense of Liberty Against Tyrants" This treatise was among the top five books read and quoted in the build up to the American Revolution.

A lawful lesser magistrate who is authorized to use the coercive sword of structured lawful government should interpose himself between the people he must serve and the tyrant that seeks to oppress them. That is it in a nutshell. Rutherford built on this. This is interwoven into our Constitution and fully developed in the Federalist Papers and the theory of division of powers and also..... The very real power of the STATES to resist encroachments of an over-reaching federal government.

Francis Schaefer brought many of these points to life again in his work, "A Christian Manifesto"

As I understand the Unibomber; he was a disaffected loner who hated society in general and engineering firms in particular and murdered people from a self-acutalized authority that I hold is not lawful or godly.

Perhaps in my red-neck hubris I really truly have given the wrong impression. I apologize.

Kaczynski was no John Locke, but he was a Harvard graguate, complete with a rational philosophy, until Berkley pushed him over the edge.

Yes... That is the one! Thanks Steve.

Ok you got me!

One day I was at a used book store and bought Mein Kampf so that I could say that I had read it for educational purposes and I am glad that I did, and I need to do the same thing with respect to the Koran. (It goes without saying that I reject Hitler...)

So someday when I am not on my home computer but rather at a public library I will print out the unibomber and read it to learn what was in his demented head. (for educational purposes of course)

Fortunately I don't have to go to the public library to get a look at the insides of a demented head.....

You don't have to come back... you only have to go...

You have NO IDEA how often you have zinged me into rolling belly laughs...

http://www.conservativebookservice.com/products/BookPage.asp?prod_cd=c6967

I think I will get this one and see what this fellow has to say.

Dicta from a dissent, and lines from the Federalist Papers are a good start, but I'm still waiting for you to show me where in the enumerated powers of any federal or state government that either can intrude into by asking or controlling actions a person's bedroom.

If you can, I'll grant you the argument, and likewise grant that Hitlery, Obama, Schumer, and Kennedy can then send in troops, or have done via the local or state level, to insure that your firearms are safely stored....

The problem with the fullest guarantee of freedoms to the people of a nation, is that sometimes some people will do things that are or should be LEGAL, and that others won't like it and try to stop them.

Myself, I'd rather err on the side of greater freedoms, than less.

True, but the powers of the state CANNOT trump the guaranteed and protected rights of the citizens.

That includes, esp. to be secure in their persons and their homes from unreasonable searches and seizures. Unless you can find an enumerated power on the federal or state level that grants authority to control actions in one's bedroom, the search in Lawrence v. Texas was/is unreasonable, as would be a Schumer-esque search for "illegally stored weapons".

So you are arguing:
1) God does in fact grant in inalienable right to sodomy
2) English Common Law should be purged from all of our legislation because of the 4th ammendment

An excerpt from some website:
___________________________________________

Bowers v. Hardwick (1986) case, Supreme Court Justice Burgher wrote: "...the proscriptions against sodomy have very 'ancient roots.' Decisions of individuals relating to homosexual conduct have been subject to state intervention throughout the history of Western civilization. Condemnation of those practices is firmly rooted in Judeao-Christian moral and ethical standards. Homosexual sodomy was a capital crime under Roman law....During the English Reformation when powers of the ecclesiastical courts were transferred to the King's Courts, the first English statute criminalizing sodomy was passed. Blackstone described 'the infamous crime against nature' as an offense of 'deeper malignity' than rape, a heinous act 'the very mention of which is a disgrace to human nature,' and 'a crime not fit to be named." ...To hold that the act of homosexual sodomy is somehow protected as a fundamental right would be to cast aside millennia of moral teaching."

Do you believe that Bowers vs Hardwick is also a bad decision?

show me where in the enumerated powers of any federal or state government that either can intrude into by asking or controlling actions a person's bedroom
____________________________

Like I said I am not well versed with the right to privacy debate. But if murder is "actions a person's bedroom" the state has a compelling interest... does it not?

If we purge all morality laws do you want to legalize bestiality or do you feel it is already a fundamental right?

And what about the UCMJ? Do you want that modified in the light of Lawrence?

James Madison.

I guess you didn't read my post. The powers reserved by the states are NOT DEFINED. They are many and INDEFINITE. That means that, unlike the US Government, states do not derive their powers by enumerated delegations. They exercise authority over "all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people," without restriction by enumeration of powers. States are unlike the US Government in this respect. You cannot, therefore, use the analogy of limited and enumerated powers when discussing the states. States derive their internal sovereignty from the people directly, through their state level representatives.

There are very few restrictions in the US Constitution on what a state may do with respect to the "lives, liberties and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State." For example, states may not print or coin state money; they may not establish their own standards of weights and measures; they may not engage in foreign diplomacy; they may not declare war, i.e., they may not individually assume any of the powers which are essential to the functions of the US Government as a whole. Apart from that, states have total free reign to form the kinds of separate experiments in republican self-government, and to form the kinds of internal laws, their citizens demand for themselves.

That was an accurate expression of the law of the land. Too bad it was overturned.

Yes.

DF;

Here's your position, in a nutshell:

It's against my religion, and my religion is right, so it ought to be against the law.

Here's the flaw:

This country was founded upon maximizing individual freedoms and liberties FROM intrusion by the government. All men (and presumably women) were endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights..... life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is no man's (or presumably woman's) right to tell another how they should live; in fact, that was the entire premise that many if not MOST of the Founders of this nation came to America and from Europe; they were tired of living by another's leave and tired of being subjected to the morality and laws of others that infringed upon their rights.

If you had your way, the Constitution would be amended to comport to the religious beliefs of the masses; and the state constitutions likewise, correct?

So, what would you believe, then, if your religion was not the majority religion of the nation? Would you want the freedom from governmental intrusion to practice your religion in your own state, presuming that the religion was the majority there?

I am sure that you would.

But, what if your religion was not the majority in the state (say, for example, you lived in Catholic Massachusetts or Mormon Utah, or atheist Kalifornia)? Would you want the freedom to practice it in your area, free from governmental intrusion?

Of course, you would.

Your argument for comporting the laws of a nation to your religious ideals, essentially turning a nation into a caliphate, only works if you are a member of the majority religion, and is EXACTLY antithetical to the founding of this nation and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (which, btw, is identical in most regards to Amendments and protections in each state Constitution, and has been incorporated to the states by the 14th Amendment).

Take that one step further....

You base your abhorrence of a certain act or set of acts on the fact that it is antithetical to your religion. I cannot and will not disagree with you there.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that you get your wish and such actions are illegal. What then is the punishment, and what level is the crime?

Misdemeanor? Felony?

And, where do you draw the line? Is it just with sodomy? Or, are other sexual acts between heterosexual couples now illegal (as they still technically are in many states)? What then is the punishment? And, how do you enforce it? Is the state now mandated to intrude into a person's home to see whether or not they are breaking the law any given night?

Does the line go further? What about women who do not comport to the Old Testament clothing requirements? Are they now criminals?

How far do you go, and how close do you get, to Taliban-esque regimes?

And, how does this work, if you are a minority religion and the religious laws of the masses are abhorrent to your religious beliefs?

Again, I err on the side of more personal freedoms and liberties from governmental intrusion and governmental control over a person's life, than to the other.

Obviously, ymmv...

It was overturned, because it went against the ideals of greater freedom and liberty for individuals, and less authority and control by the government.

That you, TRH, don't see that when your support for similar ideals via the Paul campaign is so rabid, is rather interesting.....

I guess you don't follow my posts very often. I am a huge advocate for a limited Federal Government, according to the original intent of the Founding Fathers. Their vision was one where each state was, apart from a few minor restrictions explicitly found in the US Constitution, 100% self-governing. Each state was to be an experiment in a republican form of self-government, as explained by Federalist No. 45 which, I guarantee you, Ron Paul is as much an advocate of as am I.

Federalism is about decentralization and local self-government. Liberty is assured, first and foremost, by preventing the US Government (the main threat to personal liberty feared by the Founding Fathers) from interfering with same. Citizens are to secure their individual rightful liberties with respect to their own state governments on their own, and these state governments were to secure their citizens' liberties visa vis the US Government via the Bill of Rights, defended primarily by each state's US Senators, appointed to the US Government by each State's governor and legislature, and directly answerable to same.

The Founders didn't fear that tyranny would come from the states, but from a consolidated central government, where all decisions effecting the lives, liberties, and properties of the people were decided centrally, and uniformly for all. That, not Constitutional federalism, is the formula for tyranny, and the loss of individual liberty.

Correct.

HOWEVER, the states themselves cannot transgress upon the inherent rights of individuals within this nation or those several states.

THAT is the difference in my argument, and yours.

I could give two happy damns what another person does with a consenting adult in the privacy of their own home (thus negating your "murder analogy"). I believe that is a personal liberty and freedom from unreasonable governmental intrusions and that such liberties are among the rights inalienable to the people of this nation.

That it may not comport with a set of religious laws, is irrelevant.

We are talking the rights of free men, the laws and governments of men, and that is it.

Leave religion to the individuals and their churches, and judgment of God's Laws, to God.

Tyranny can come from all levels.

I know precisely where you stand on the issue of limited Federal government. You and I agree significantly on that issue.

That you do not support limited state government, but in fact, support state control and intrusion into the private lives of free people and consenting adults, because it does not fit within your religious beliefs, is baffling to me. How limiting one level of government, but allowing another to intrude to the Nth degree, increases personal freedom does not make sense.

But you are mistaken, my friend (and I call you my friend with all sincerity). You make a false assumption about me. I do not favor said government powers at the state level. My opinion is that what people consensually do behind closed doors is not any of government's business, nor anyone else's. Were federalism the law of the land, I would fight in opposition to any law granting my state the power to monitor what people do behind closed doors, and if I was unable to prevail in this, I might choose to move to a state more in line with my way of thinking on this matter.

That's the beauty of federalism, though. Each state would have a different character and set of values which prevails in their laws, allowing us to pick and choose from among them a place to call home, where the laws and government are such that we feel well served by the government which actually touches on our individual lives, and this is precisely what consolidating power in the central US Government destroys, virtually guaranteeing a nation full of folks highly divided and dissatisfied with the government which is touching on their individual lives.

Once again, the Founders had it right, and those who thought they knew better have been proved wrong by the unintended consequences of their meddling with the system the Founders established for us.

So, I am confused as to how you find the Lawrence v. Texas ruling wrong, and the Bowers ruling right?

Wait..... because you see it as an intrusion of the federal into the domain of the state?

I can understand that argument.

However, I find it's flaw in that the state should not have that authority, EVER, as it is an unreasonable infringement upon the inalienable rights of the person. Those rights are protected on the fullest level by the individual, HOWEVER, they are also protected by the guarantees of what it means to be a person within the United States by the U.S. Constitution, from intrusions by the states.

The individual right, trumps all, and that the individual can appeal intrusions of those rights through the state and to the federal for greater protection of inalienable rights, is IMHO a beautiful thing of our system. And, a beautiful inclusion into the rights of the person as drawn up by the Framers when including the same into the Bill of Rights.

Essentially, my friend (the sentiment is likewise), we are arguing the minutia. The baseline is the same.

Yes, individual liberties are a priority for both you and I. I, however, go along with the Founders in believing that central consolidation of power (usurpation) over our lives is the primary threat to our individual liberties. Battles over our liberties should be fought at the state level, not Federal, unless it is the Federal Government which is the violator of our individual liberties. In the latter case, we were supposed to have US Senators overseeing (and highly motivated to do so, since they could be recalled and replaced instantly by each State's governor) Federal Court appointments, thus assuring that no Federal law which violates the US Constitution/Bill of Rights could prevail.

The individual right, trumps all
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I am not so sure that the founders argued that to the extent that you are arguing it. It might come as a shock and I am not saying I agree but John Locke himself, the great inspiration of Tom Jefferson and the man who penned the Declaration Of Independence through Jefferson's mind and hand argued for a limited franchise. He felt that govt was a covenant between good men and God and that the atheist could not swear any oath so he could not participate in the courts etc. That argument finds manifestation in the American experiment AFTER the revolution too, (I am not good at looking up and finding case law examples) but there was a judge who refused to allow an atheist to testify because his oath would mean nothing. This was even written into the constitution of Tennessee if I am not mistaken.

But here is my point....

Individual right trumps all????????

You cannot get around the fact that the Declaration of Independence makes a juxtaposition: God and the consent of the governed.

Governments are to sustain the inalienable rights that are given by God. In the context of the Declaration of Independence you cannot sustain godless rights. No way.

And I would argue that the argument that God is the one who gives us our inalienable rights was not simply a debaters invention of convenience. They didn't just latch onto a theoretical conception of God so as to have a counterweight to an all powerful government. It wasn't just an invention of fantasy to sustain a logical sequence of rational argument.

They took this person of God seriously. In the early histories of the revolution they attributed the fog shrouded escape from Brooklyn Heights to the interposition of the providence of God. I read a whole chapter once in a book that I let go, titled, "The Providences of God in War" Also consider how often in his writing and speaking Washington speaks of God's providence care and blessing. Freedom of conscience and religion yes; an atheistic state NO. See Scalia's argument above.

I fix my foot on the core premise of the Declaration of Independence and I will not move.

If your argument prevails, (and it is/has obviously) then we are headed for the French Revolution. A sodomy-is-an-inalienable-right secular state has NO internal compass.

I know full well that my belief system is the persecuted minority and that secular humanism is the dominant religion in America that is excluding all others. PA already has tried about 11 street preachers for hate crimes, because they preached in public the truth of Romans 1. They were facing long times in prison and huge fines until they appealed it up the chain and got it thrown out.

VANimrod...

You are arguing Locke, Burke, Adams, out of our society... most definitely Blackstone out of our society.

Do you realize what you are advocating? What the fruit of your sustained position is bringing/causing?

Barney Frank's civil rights for sodomites bill will almost make it to law under Bush but it will fail. Next go round under the dems it will win. I will move to any state in the union that will stand up to throw it off. They have pushed us too far. These issues will result in a shooting bloody kill or be killed civil war. I pray to God that He will allow me to be in it. If it is lawful, if an entire state will stand up, then I will move and throw in with them and GLADLY die on the honorable field of arms rather than languish in servitude under the despotism of a sodomite oligarchy.

I apologize if bumping this up annoys anyone, I wanted to find the link Steve had posted and I keep losing this thread.

TN & GA are getting ready to go to war over the boundry of the state line. GA wants to move the line a few miles North so that GA touches the TN river. GA will either build a pipeline or canal/ditch to divert the water to Atlanta.

Just like the Scots!

Bout ready to whup the English and so they start fighting each other... seems to be our achilles heel!

Now VA I like you but gotta throw the BS flag on that one. You are one of the MOST religious folks here. I challenge you to find anyone here who defends their belief system with any more zeal and fervor than you...............