John

"the only way to succeed in tough situations is to bring people together for a common purpose. That’s how you achieve greatness and accomplish your goals. Dividing people and pitting one side against another produces nothing but failure and mediocrity."

-- Mitt Romney; at Latino Coalition Economic Summit (May 23, 2012)

Isn't that the same argument that Lenin made against competition?

like the U.S. does

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_...

"the Romans fought for Empire. The Pride of that haughty people was to domineer over the rest of Mankind. But this is not our Object."

-- Samuel Adams; from letter to Alexander McDougall (May, 13, 1782)

and, if so, why did he say things like this?

"He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."

-- John 8:7

"I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law--a man's enemies will be the members of his own household."

--Matthew 10:35-36

"Woe unto the world because of occasions of stumbling! for it must needs be that the occasions come; but woe to that man through whom the occasion cometh!"

-- Matthew 18:7

"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

-- Mark 10:25

Don't they realize that anyone who defends the murder of hoody wearers here, is no different that the Islamists that hate America

Can one call these "tort reform" advocates anything but fascist?

They account for around 1% of the population, and I keep hearing these politicians demonizing them. A couple years back, the rabble even protested in the streets about them. Why do they even make it a class warfare argument?

"the only question which remains is, whether those who make polygamy a part of their religion are excepted from the operation of the statute. If they are, then those who do not make polygamy a part of their religious belief may be found guilty and punished, while those who do, must be acquitted and go free. This would be introducing a new element into criminal law. Laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices. Suppose one believed that human sacrifices were a necessary part of religious worship, would it be seriously contended that the civil government under which he lived could not interfere to prevent a sacrifice? ...To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself. Government could exist only in name under such circumstances. '

-- Chief Justice Morrison Waite; from Reynolds v. United States (1879)

[found unanimously against polygamy being protected by freedom of religion]

http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=110464...

If you ask me, the only practicable moral absolute is to harm no one who does no harm. Isn't anything beyond this the stuff of relativism?

"Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith."

-- Adolf Hitler; at Nazi-Vatican Concordat (April 26, 1933)

"Instead... of putting the Bible and Testament into the hands of the children at an age when their judgments are not sufficiently matured for religious inquiries, their memories may here be stored with the most useful facts from Grecian, Roman, European, and American history. The first elements of morality too may be instilled into their minds; such as, when further developed as their judgments advance in strength, may teach them how to work out their own greatest happiness"

-- Thomas Jefferson; from 'Notes on Virginia' Query XIV

Should our politicians agree with Jefferson, or Hitler?

"Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion & Govt in the Constitution of the United States the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated ...in Kentucky for example, where it was proposed to exempt Houses of Worship from taxes."

-- James Madison; from 'Detached Memoranda'

"By its decision to carry out the political and moral cleansing of our public life, the Government is creating and securing the conditions for a really deep and inner religious life... And it will be concerned for the sincere cooperation between Church and State."

-- Adolf Hitler; from speech to the Reichstag on (March 23, 1933)

Which is American, and which is unAmerican?

"The expectation of God's own reorganization when the time came and the exclusive transfer of all action and thought to the future Kingdom of God, made Jesus's teaching utterly negative. He rejects everything that exists without offering anything to replace it. He arrives at dissolving all existing social ties. The disciple shall not merely be indifferent to supporting himself, shall not merely refrain from work and dispossess himself of all goods, but he shall hate "father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life."[9] Jesus is able to tolerate the worldly laws of the Roman Empire and the prescriptions of the Jewish Law because he is indifferent to them, despising them as things important only within the narrow limits of time and not because he acknowledges their value. His zeal in destroying social ties knows no limits. The motive force behind the purity and power of this complete negation is ecstatic inspiration and enthusiastic hope of a new world. Hence his passionate attack upon everything that exists. Everything may be destroyed because God in His omnipotence will rebuild the future order. No need to scrutinize whether anything can be carried over from the old to the new order, because this new order will arise without human aid. It demands therefore from its adherents no system of ethics, no particular conduct in any positive direction. Faith and faith alone, hope, expectation—that is all he needs. He need contribute nothing to the reconstruction of the future, this God Himself has provided for. The clearest modern parallel to the attitude of complete negation of primitive Christianity is Bolshevism. The Bolshevists, too, wish to destroy everything that exists because they regard it as hopelessly bad. But they have in mind ideas, indefinite and contradictory though they may be, of the future social order"

-- Ludwig von Mises; from 'Socialism'

"Compare the results achieved by these “shopkeepers’ ethics” with the achievements of Christianity! Christianity has acquiesced in slavery and polygamy, has practically canonized war, has, in the name of the Lord, burnt heretics and devastated countries. The much abused “shopkeepers” have abolished slavery and serfdom, made woman the companion of man with equal rights, proclaimed equality before the law and freedom of thought and opinion, declared war on war, abolished torture, and mitigated the cruelty of punishment."

--Ibid

http://mises.org/daily/5863/Liberty-Is-Not-Complic...

When Keystone Pipeline builders TransCanada are seizing private lands?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/18/us/transcanada-i...

"We must not conclude merely upon a man's haranguing upon liberty, and using the charming sound, that he is fit to be trusted with the liberties of his country. It is not unfrequent to hear men declaim loudly upon liberty, who, if we may judge by the whole tenor of their actions, mean nothing else by it but their own liberty, — to oppress without control or the restraint of laws all who are poorer or weaker than themselves"

-- Samuel Adams; from an untitled essay in the Independent Advertiser (1748)

"MANKIND being originally equals in the order of creation, the equality could only be destroyed by some subsequent circumstance: the distinctions of rich and poor may in a great measure be accounted for"

-- Thomas Paine; Common Sense (1776)

do most people understand that intuitively?

If everyone worked equally hard, or approximately as hard, could they all be prosperous? or would some have to fall by the way-side anyway?

Since we have never had a financial panic, recession or depression that was not caused by the irresponsibility of business leaders and speculators, is lowering their taxation in response to their corrupt actions is a form of PERVERSE INCENTIVIZATION?

That the persons protected could only be human beings?

To prevent this judicial activism that extends those protections to non-human fictitious persons?

would you vote for such a candidate?

why did it take until 1864 for the phrase to be placed on U.S. Coinage

http://www.treasury.gov/about/education/Pages/in-g...

And why wasn't it made the US official motto until 1956

http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/re...

Could our founders have had a good reason for never considering such a thing

"all knowledge will be subdivided and extended; and knowledge, as Lord Bacon observes, being power, the human powers will, in fact, be enlarged; nature, including both its materials, and its laws, will be more at our command; men will make their situation in this world abundantly more easy and comfortable; they will probably prolong their existence in it, and will grow daily more happy, each in himself, and more able (and, I believe, more disposed) to communicate happiness to others. Thus, whatever was the beginning of this world, the end will be glorious and paradisaical, beyond what our imaginations can now conceive... Government being the great instrument of this progress of the human species towards this glorious state, that form of government will have a just claim to our approbation which favours this progress, and that must be condemned in which it is retarded"

-- Joseph Priestley, from 'An Essay on the First Principles of Government' (1768)

and if so, what does that tell us about them?

If people can't be held accountable, why would we expect them to act responsibly?