The Moral Liberal - Latest Comments

Re: Economics in Academia – Chris Clancy

Steve Farrell — Thu, 17 Oct 2013 12:11:58 -0000

Thanks Cowboydroid. I enjoyed it as well. :)

Re: Letters from a Farmer In Pennsylvania, Letter 4 – John Dickinson

Steve Farrell — Tue, 15 Oct 2013 12:50:56 -0000

John Dickinson reminds us to forget nuances, a tax is a tax, and to tax without direct consent, or without consent through representation is a violation of the constitution, and a basic right of man. He also warns against "work-arounds" to oppose the tax - for by accepting the precedent of the unconstitutional tax, the government will in turn, by way of precedent, then go after the workarounds as well. Lesson for us, vigorously oppose all infractions upon the Constitution and the inalienable rights of man, unrelentingly so, until victory is won, or reap the whirlwind of precedent accepted later on.

Re: Economics in Academia – Chris Clancy

Cowboydroid — Tue, 15 Oct 2013 11:46:47 -0000

An oldie, but a goodie. This is my second time in a year to stumble across this article.

Re: Bob Barr: Uncle Sam Sucker Punched By Lois Lerner

Steve Farrell — Wed, 09 Oct 2013 00:31:05 -0000

Thanks bflat for your insights!

Re: Con-Con Fight: Front and Center in Your State Legislature

Steve Farrell — Sun, 06 Oct 2013 01:12:24 -0000

I have to tell you - the current Constitution checks all the problems we currently face, and yet, it is ignored, ignored by a society poorly educated in the Constitution by our public schools, too busy being entertained to care even where there is education, a Congress to obsessed with power and too dominated by moral corruption to stand by the law, and a President, who rules by fiat and no one does a thing about it. And a media and academia (the same media and academia the people of each state are brainwashed by) who stand by every abandonment of the law, In this atmosphere, we will amend a Constitution which is already the most inspired instrument in the history of man, but duly ignored and so what of any future changes? No, this is an ill conceived event, or a set up. And by the way, this site opposes the anarchy of nullification, the same approach that gave us the civil war, the bloodiest war in our history. Besides, the President has shown us what the Spirit of Nullification brings about. He practices it every day. Is it not the Spirit of Tyranny?

Re: Soda Prohibition: Bloomberg’s Control of POP Culture

Steve Farrell — Sat, 05 Oct 2013 00:58:31 -0000

Thanks Maureen! Agreed!

Re: Soda Prohibition: Bloomberg’s Control of POP Culture

American Beverage Association — Wed, 02 Oct 2013 18:06:23 -0000

We
agree. Mayor Bloomberg may have had good intentions, but it’s not government’s
job to dictate what people eat or drink. Thankfully the ban was struck down by
the courts. The unanimous decision to
uphold the lower court’s ruling is laudable. This ruling is a victory for
consumer choice and the small businesses that would be disproportionately hurt
by the attempted soda ban. Bottom line: what we eat, drink and feed our
families is our own choice and does not need government control, oversight or
influence.- Maureen at American Beverage Association

Re: Thomas Jefferson Writes of Jesus Christ

Steve Farrell — Tue, 01 Oct 2013 09:35:58 -0000

Deleted were comments from the president of an online DEIST group. Since his object from the start was not to have a reasonable discussion, but to attack the faith of others - and that is one of the best ways to be banned from this site - his comments were deleted and his access blacklisted. We are open to all sorts of discussion here as to matters of faith, so long as the comments are honest and fair and respectful of others. But come here from the start just looking to promote ONES AGENDA against Christianity or against any other faith then sorry, bye bye. We want to learn from each other, not undermine the sacred feelings of the heart, nor undermine the founding principles of this nation, nor promote hatred and division among our readers. The gentlemen has his own site. He can engage in that kind of behavior there. We are dedicated to something different.

Re: How Much Natural Liberty is Given Up to Enter Into Civil Society?

Steve Farrell — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 12:30:23 -0000

Rambler: Thanks for your comments!

Of course, what is declared by Elisha Williams has nothing to do with the current Administration's, and the one before it, and before it, and before it - that have assumed role's for government that have gone far beyond protecting our inalienable rights to the reverse, of dictating what rights we have, if any. Agreed.

Williams, who for instance, taught that the right to self defense, when under attack as an individual, is first exercised by the citizen, but in the case of one arrested already, the right he turns over to the state is the right to administer justice to him directly, but rather by those laws he has consented to through his legislatures, has the judicial system try him, i.e., with his rights in place as well, like the right to a trial before a jury, the right to witnesses for one's defense, the right to face one's accuser. These things, which we supposedly give up, in such a case, are not really something we are giving up at all, but an improvement toward impartial justice. But again, we retain the right in the original. The improvement is that when one can be charged and put under arrest without the need for violent self-defense (though a man retain's that right if necessary), the accused (which could be any one of us) is treated as we would want to be treated if accused and brought to trial, with various rights (almost all of them biblically based - and note the date - we all know the system is messed up today) guaranteed to us. This then is about limited government, and yet, for government indeed. For without it we have anarchy, the forerunner and partner of tyranny, or the rule of the strong/jungle.

Re: John Locke on Parents Poisoning the Fountain

Steve Farrell — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 12:18:25 -0000

Thank you Max! Anything Prof. Weisman recommends, it is a great idea to check it out!

Re: John Locke on Parents Poisoning the Fountain

Max Weismann — Sun, 29 Sep 2013 12:11:00 -0000

Hello,

We are a not-for-profit educational organization founded by
Mortimer Adler and we have recently made an exciting discovery—three years
after writing the wonderfully expanded third edition of How to Read a Book,
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Britannica. For reasons unknown, sometime after their original publication,
these videos were lost.

Three hours with
Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren, lively discussing the art of reading, on
one DVD. A must for all readers, libraries and classroom teaching the art of
reading.

I cannot exaggerate how instructive these programs are—we
are so sure that you will agree, if you are not completely satisfied, we will
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Please go here to see a clip and learn more:

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ISBN:
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Thank you,

Max Weismann

Re: In the Land of Invented Languages, by Arika Okrent

Steve Farrell — Thu, 26 Sep 2013 19:19:59 -0000

Interesting. Thank you Hillary.

Re: Thomas Jefferson Writes of Jesus Christ

Steve Farrell — Thu, 26 Sep 2013 19:17:26 -0000

Bob, thank you for your comments:

But let's not try to twist this beyond reason here. First of all Jefferson point blank defined himself as a Christian here, and he uses that term as he defines it, and in the way he personally felt at the time (though don't pass over the note in that same letter wherein he said these points were not intended to decide upon Jesus as Savior or not).

Next, this is 1803 - he made some stronger statements later such as in a letter to Martin Van Buren wherein he called Jesus "Our Lord" - look it up.

Next, if Jefferson referred himself by any other name as to his beliefs during his life it was to call himself a Theist, not a Deist, as a reflection of his rejection of the 3 in 1 God of Catholicism. Most Christians of his day rejected that same doctrine - and from the 1820's forward he predicted what he described as the Universalist movement (also a Theist movement) sweeping across the United States.

The Deism of the Jews is what had evolved - through apostasy and thus the loss of prophets for some 400 hundred years prior to Christ - of an uninvolved God in man's affairs. Jefferson's speaking of Jesus talking about the after life and of accountability before that God is a different matter, of a God that has specific moral laws, not just things discoverable in the cosmos of signs of his existence, for which he expects men to live by, and for which he will hold them accountable. Remember also, that one of their sects denied the resurrection, and any after life.

Jefferson's teaching elsewhere that America would pay a price for perpetuating slavery is just such an instance of a God who is involved in the affairs of man, who teaches men moral laws, who holds them accountable. Let's read, in fact, let's read more than is usually quoted:

"Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God ? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever; that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an. exchange of situation is among possible events; that it may become probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest."

Note also, as to the supposed Deism of Jefferson that he advised Paine not to publish his Age of Reason. Unfortunately a hotheaded Paine rejected his counsel, and quite rudely. Nevertheless, Paine was not a Deist in the modern sense in that he speaks of Providential interventions throughout his writings. I.e. in Common Sense that God moved upon Columbus to discover America as if by divine intent to open up a place of refuge for the fleeing victims of the Protestant Reformation. Meanwhile, that Paine's motives for teaching a morality without religion were better than some supposed; it was simply, because he may have believed in his heart of hearts that Burke was right about what the results of a godless revolution would be, blood and terror, and a liberty resembling something like madmen and murderers being set "free" from prison to then burst upon their countrymen in pursuit of victims. So Paine tried to give a middle ground to the revolution, to help guide them in their rejection of the corrupt European church, not to reject the principles of morality with it. So he gave them a different sort of evidence of God, Nature, and Reason. But remember, to the Founders, Reason too was a form of revelation from the mind of God to man, and so taught Jefferson.

The French still wouldn't except this sort of God and they had him scheduled to be executed. Paine biography states that Paine claimed to have been delivered from prison by an "angel." Another evidence that separates Thomas Paine from today's Deism, if he ever was a Deist in this other sense of the word.

My personal "opinion" after having studied that situation closely, and it is my opinion, is that Paine's pride let that Age of Reason book get out of hand. Washington was against it, Adams against it, Franklin (his sponsor) against it, and Jefferson (his other big fan) against it - and so he struck back rather than taking counsel. Nevertheless, the points he makes against the Bible have been answered in modern times, at least in my faith, and were legitimate doctrinally, but it was the nasty, nasty tone that got him in trouble, and made him an enemy of the faith, or as Adams put it, a "blackguard." And I think it pride, not disbelief in Christianity as a whole.

But back to Jefferson, and this is really about Paine too, both of them, and this is true of many other good Christian men, distrusted the hands the Bible had traveled through. There was a period following the death of the Apostles, where the early church had fallen, and men had taken over, and with that, and end came to priesthood and miracles. The state Church created by Rome, picking up the pieces, creating something new, went through a period of fabricating miracles, bringing about relic worship, and other odd things, even as it actually rejected the moral law of Christ (another of Jefferson's and even John Adams problems with all of the European state church's - that state sponsorship stripped Christianity of one of its key purposes, to provide the moral law to man, and thus stretch and lead him to that Higher Law of love of God and love of neighbor. Jefferson couldn't know, without the aid of a special dispensation of direct spiritual revelation (which he thought possible in rare instances with Reason being the common way God communicated with man, i.e., via what Jefferson also called the "moral sense") what had been changed by the Romans, and what was definitely just Christ's words. He determined to stick with the moral teachings, since perhaps that's what the Roman Church rejected the most, and which through reason is provable anyway, as the most authentic (hence the Jefferson Bible).

It simply is not honest to call these men Deists.

Even Paine in his Age of Reason opens with a very peculiar statement about it being revealed to him back in the day when he was writing "Common Sense" that as a result of religious freedom, and the Bible being freely read for the first time in history (something along this line went his thought) there would come in America the restoration of the true belief in One God.

There are many who will testify that this occurred in the United States. And as to Paine's statement, I think it a personal revelation from that living, active, involved Father in Heaven to him.

Re: With Friends Like These: Beware Faculty Who Try to Censor Their Colleagues

Steve Farrell — Thu, 26 Sep 2013 18:25:07 -0000

This is "education"? Crushing every point of view which is not politically or morally correct as determined by who????

Re: How Much Natural Liberty is Given Up to Enter Into Civil Society?

Steve Farrell — Wed, 25 Sep 2013 16:58:42 -0000

Sometimes we hear arguments that it is wrong to give up any liberty to achieve liberty - when we ought to know that liberty, lasting liberty, can only be achieved within the bounds of law. But just what was meant by the term give up some liberty to enjoy the rest. Take a look at this 1774 Sermon for the answer.

Re: Thomas Jefferson Writes of Jesus Christ

Blast Dorrough — Wed, 25 Sep 2013 14:50:37 -0000

Great deistic comment, spiritual clone of Thomas Paine!! Jefferson also unleashed some enlightning thoughts in his letter of June 26,1822 to Dr. Benbjamin Waterhouse: "The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend all to the happiness of man.
1. That there is one only God, and he all perfect.
2. That there is a future state of rewards and punishments.
3.That to love God with all thy heart and thy neighbor as thyself, is the sum of relligion. These are the great points on whic he endeavored to reform the religion of the Jews. But compare with these the demoralizing dogmas of Calvin.
1. That there are three Gods.
2. That good works,or the love of our neighbor, are nothing.
3. That faith is every thing, and the more incomprehensible the proposition, the more merit in its faith.
4. That reason in religion is of unlawful use.
5. That God, from the beginning, elected certain individuals to be saved, and certain others to be damned; and that no crimes of the former can damn them; no virtues of the latter save.
Now, which of these is the true and charitable Christian? He who believes and acts on the simple doctrines of Jesus? Or the impious dogmatists, as Athanasius and Calvin? Verily I say these are the false shephers foretold as to enter not by the door into the sheepfold, but to climb up some other way. They are mere usurpers of the Christian name, teaching a counter-relilgion made up of the deliria of crazy imaginations, as foreign from Christianity as is that of Mahomet. Their blasphemies have driven thinking men into infidelity, who have too hastily rejeted the supposed author himself,with the horrors so falsely imputed to him. Had the doctrines of Jesus been preached always as pure as they came from his lips,the whole civilized world would now have been Christian. [Meaning a Christian Deist?] I rejoice that in this blessed country of free inquiry and belief, which has surrendered its creed and conscience to neither kings nor priests, the genuine doctrine of one only God is reviving and I trust that there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die an Unitarian." [Meaning a Unitarian Deist?]

Re: In the Land of Invented Languages, by Arika Okrent

Bill Chapman — Wed, 25 Sep 2013 12:41:13 -0000

I hope you'll allopw me to add that Esperanto continues to attract young learners to iots voluntary speech community. I see Esperanto as a remarkable success story. It has survived wars and revolutions and economic crises and continues to attract people. Esperanto works! I've used it in about
seventeen countries over recent years. I recommend it to anyone, as a way of making friendly local contacts in other countries.

I don't know about world peace, but Esperanto does contribute to harmonious relations between people of very different languages and cultures.

Re: In the Land of Invented Languages, by Arika Okrent

Steve Farrell — Tue, 24 Sep 2013 13:53:39 -0000

My wife, an avid Trekkie, would love this one!

Re: The Palpable Politicization Of Science By Global Warming Alarmists

Steve Farrell — Mon, 23 Sep 2013 16:51:22 -0000

Amen and Amen. Separation of Science and State, not a bad idea!

Re: Turning Smokers Into Criminals

Steve Farrell — Mon, 23 Sep 2013 01:34:50 -0000

Thank you Michael for your excellent work and for pointing our readers in the right direction!

Best, Steve Farrell

Re: John Locke on Parents Poisoning the Fountain

Steve Farrell — Fri, 20 Sep 2013 18:55:42 -0000

consistently .... I might add ... and that can be hard, especially when the hour is late and you're ready to collapse!

Re: John Locke on Parents Poisoning the Fountain

Steve Farrell — Fri, 20 Sep 2013 18:54:24 -0000

What can we learn from this fellow parents? Ever guilty of this? Well, I'll admit it, there have been times. I was reading "The Road Less Traveled yesterday, and the author mentioned how even good parents will slip into this mode at times out of laziness. His recommendation, follow Benjamin Franklin's idea that "Those things that hurt, instruct." Or in other words, parents, if we want good results, we have to do hard things, and teach our kids to do hard things.

Re: Turning Smokers Into Criminals

Michael J. McFadden — Fri, 20 Sep 2013 15:43:08 -0000

I'd like to thank Mr. Caruba for his warm words about my writing, and also add a note. A good friend from the Citizens Freedom Alliance has been working with me for the last few days on setting up a website that TobakkoNacht could call its home. If you are intrigued by Mr. Caruba's description, feel free to check it out at TobakkoNacht.com

:)
MJM

Re: Obamacare: The Ruling Class Versus Real America

Steve Farrell — Fri, 20 Sep 2013 13:18:30 -0000

Yes, missing in action is a fundamental understanding, belief in, and defense of the United States Constitution by almost all members of both political parties in Congress. Whatever happened to equality before the law, to the legal and moral commitment of our Founders to subject themselves to the very laws they made as a security against wicked, wrongful, and inane law?

Thank you for bringing this to our attention Chris.

Re: George Washington on the Doctrine of Providence

Steve Farrell — Fri, 20 Sep 2013 12:21:47 -0000

Again we confront the reality of the American Revolution, a Revolution fought by men who recognized and acknowledged the hand of God in their cause, its principles, its battles, and its successes.