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BillP
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buffalo said:
I’ve read the book. Have you?
Should I open another topic to discuss the book?
When I asked if you had anything for me to read, I meant that you should write something explaining your position.
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ChrisR246
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Sorry - I should have quoted more. Going back to States insisting that employer provided health care include contraception or even more broadly, to EEOC and discriminating in employment, etc. As an employer, the wages and benefits I pay are my property. I have an inalienable right to give as much, however I want to whomever I choose without interference from the State.
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BillP
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I’m sorry that simply not true.
You don’t have the inalienable right to give cigarettes or alcohol to a minor.
You don’t have the inalienable right to give a firearm to a felon or a mentally ill person.
You don’t have the *inalienable right *to pay your employees less than the minimum wage or pay them less than overtime pay.
Your property rights are circumscribed in a whole host of ways for the public good. Ways that we as a society have reached a consensus on. That’s what democratic societies are all about.
Besides, who says your rights are “inalienable”?
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BillP
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So your entire position is based on one librarian at Vanderbuilt Diviinity School?
I read your articles despite the fact that you couldn’t be bothered to actually write anything.
I’m afraid your man is badly off-base on several key issues
First, the Jeffersonian concept of “natural law” has nothing whatever to do with the Catholic concept of “Natural Law”. The Jeffersonian concept is based on the utility of the “Social Contract” espoused by Locke, Roussseau and Montesquieu. This is why your man says
Second, your man ascribes an influence to Carroll that he simply didn’t have. I am unaware of any contemporaneous account of Carroll influencing the FF. Somewhat tellingly, your man doesn’t cite any either.
Last, he seriously misrepresents the Church’s position on political authority in the late 18th century. The Divine Right of Kings was NOT invented by the Stuarts although he might have been the first to use that term…
The concept, that political power flowed from God through the Catholic Church to the Temporal rulers, was invented and promulgated by the Church about 45 minutes after Constantine made Catholicism the State Religion of the Roman Empire. They maintained this position for over a thousand years right up to the middle of the 19th century.
I read your articles despite the fact that you couldn’t be bothered to actually write anything.
I’m afraid your man is badly off-base on several key issues
First, the Jeffersonian concept of “natural law” has nothing whatever to do with the Catholic concept of “Natural Law”. The Jeffersonian concept is based on the utility of the “Social Contract” espoused by Locke, Roussseau and Montesquieu. This is why your man says
He didn’t “distort” Catholic natural law, he espoused a completely different form of natural law.
Second, your man ascribes an influence to Carroll that he simply didn’t have. I am unaware of any contemporaneous account of Carroll influencing the FF. Somewhat tellingly, your man doesn’t cite any either.
Last, he seriously misrepresents the Church’s position on political authority in the late 18th century. The Divine Right of Kings was NOT invented by the Stuarts although he might have been the first to use that term…
The concept, that political power flowed from God through the Catholic Church to the Temporal rulers, was invented and promulgated by the Church about 45 minutes after Constantine made Catholicism the State Religion of the Roman Empire. They maintained this position for over a thousand years right up to the middle of the 19th century.
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ChrisR246
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There is a difference between political law (what is) and Natural Law (what should be - imo). Since you seek to interfere with me in these instances, I submit it is incumbent upon you to prove why you can do so.
You are right, I do not, because a child does not have all the rights of an adult. But this is between me and the child’s parents, the government has no place in it.
A felon who has repaid his debt should be allowed a firearm. A “mentally ill” person is admittedly a tough call, but unless or until they are a threat to someone else I don’t see how you can interfere with their rights.
wages are a contractual agreement between employee and employer - again none of anyone else’s business.
My rights are beibng circumscribed simply because the majority wishes to, is willing to use force to make me comply and can bring more force to bear than I can. It does not make it right.
My inalienable rights are based on my self ownership. Can we agree that each person owns themselves or does that need to be illustrated? If we can agree, then property rights are a natural and logical derivative of self ownership.
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buffalo
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Yes.
It is a buffalo habit to only have one source for my argument. 
The founders did not write the Constitution in a vacuum. Their beliefs were influenced on what was before, and so on and so forth.
Protestantism is based on Catholicism. This is not even debatable.
I therefore continue to submit that Catholicism shaped the morals of founders of this country.
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BillP
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Are you speaking of the Catholic theological and philosophical construct of Natural Law or the Lockian, Rousseauean social contract one here?
There is no absolute right to anything. All societies have decided that the public good justifies curtailment of certain personal rights. There is simply a debate over the proper boundries of that restraint. Socialists attempt to draw the boundry widely in favor of the public good. Libertarians tend to draw it narrowly in favor of personal rights.
You’ve taken a set of hardcore Libertarian positions. I once subscribed to just such a belief system. In fact, I was a huge fan of Ayn Rand. It wouldn’t surprise me if you were as well. Although I wouldn’t assert it definitively.
Gradually, I personally came to see it as a very selfish philosophy inconsistent wiht Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular but YMMV.
I find it a bit ludicrous to describe rights as “inalienable” when they are so frequently circumscribed and limited.
No one says you don’t have property rights. They are simply not absolute and are, to some extent, subject to circumspection.
I assume that you believe that your rights are limited by the impact exercising those rights has on the rights of others e.g your right to extend your fist stops at the other fellows nose. Right?
If so, we’re simply haggling over where to draw that line.
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BillP
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Well, I’m not being psychic, I can only address what you cite.Yes.
I’m with you so far.
True enough but largely irrelevent. the philosophical underpinings of the US Constitution have almost nothing to do with Protestantism and everything to do with Locke, Rousseau and Montesquieu.
I notice that you’ve failed to address any of those facts. Any particular reason for that?
You are free to do so and better informed people are free to ignore your assertion.
I’m afraid I find argument by repeated assertion somewhat tiresome.
Thanks for your time.
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buffalo
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buffalo
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ChrisR246
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IF it is not absolute, than it is not a right.
not particularly.
BillPGradually said:
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masterjedi747
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Alright…but where, exactly, do you think Locke, Rousseau, and Montesquieu got all of their ideas on rights and morality from? I mean, I certainly appreciate where you’re coming from here, but I do think that, if you trace it back far enough, buffalo is making a valid point. It might not be entirely relevant, but it’s still true…technically. So to a certain extent, you’re both right.
So much stuff wrong here, I don’t quite know where to begin. I think I’ll focus on just one point: Freedom is not the ability to do what you want to do; it is the ability to do what you ought to do.
Just because you want to murder your neighbor, that doesn’t mean you have a right to do that. Just because you want to have an abortion (aka: murder your child), that doesn’t mean you have a right to do that either. Same goes for contraception and sodomy between consenting adults. Just because you want to do it, that doesn’t mean you have a right to do so.
Morals are objective and universal…they are not created by and/or merely dependent upon the individual. If one person believes that something is moral, and another person does not, then only one of them can ultimately be correct. The person who is wrong might not be guilty of immorality if they truly believe that what they say is true, but that doesn’t make them right, it doesn’t make it “moral for them”, and it doesn’t mean they have a right to do that action.
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michaelmac
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Hi all, we seem to have a conflict here between whats right and wrong ,there lots of words about morality ,only no one will come out and say neither the Church or State have a devine right to try teach what is moraly right when both are bankrupt , and there actions are moraly wrong,if Christ came back today he would not want to live in a country ruled by the Church or the American government ,i know i could not live under the yoke of either yours michaelmac
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Liberalsaved
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I’m tempted to kid you about your punctuation, but there is an important point to be made; people make or break everything. It’s individual people that give Catholicism a bad name. It’s the same for Islam. And it’s the same for all governments. An organization, except in certain instances, is not inherently good or bad. People make it that way. We as Americans should be talking about what we can do for the governing of our country, not just self-absorbed worrying about what the government can do for us.
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