Thank you, Henry !
Maybe for the first time we agree with one another !

:D

from where my atheistic ass sits...
 

....it's not about religion, but only about employees doin’ the work they were hired to do.

Again...

Employers (of presidents, clerks of court, stewardesses, etc.):

Don't hire X if X can't do the job.

Fire X if X refuses to do the job.

Offer no accommodations that relieve X of work at the expense of other employees.


Potential and actual employees (wanna be presidents, clerks of court, stewardesses, etc.):

Don't apply for work you can't do.

Quit if the work becomes unacceptable.

Don't expect accommodations that relieve you of doing your job.

Scalia said the Constitution means what I say it means

Therefore

The Constitution means what Lamplighter says it means.

Q E fuckin' D people

"Maybe for the first time we agree with one another !"
 

HA!

from the wiki-piece...
 

The No Religious Test Clause of the United States Constitution is found in Article VI, paragraph 3, and states that:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.[a]

This has been interpreted to mean that no federal employee, whether elected or appointed, career or political, can be required to adhere to or accept any religion or belief. This clause immediately follows one requiring all federal and state officers to take an oath or affirmation of support to the Constitution, indicating that the requirement of such a statement does not imply any requirement by those so sworn to accept a particular religion or a particular doctrine. The option of giving an "affirmation" (rather than an "oath") can be interpreted as not requiring any religious belief or as a nod to Mennonites and Quakers who would not swear oaths but would make affirmations. This does not apply to voters, who are free to apply a religious test or any other test of their devising to their consciences before casting their secret ballot for a candidate for federal office; it only means that the federal government may not refuse to swear-in and seat an elected official based on a religious test of their devising.

The people who would risk boarding a leaky little boat, being devoured by dragons or falling off the end of the Earth, had to be pretty fucking desperate. They were, not just England but all of Europe was owned/controlled by the landed gentry. If you weren't born into it, or manage to marry into it, you lived by the grace of the gentry. Did the work they wanted you to, ate the food they allowed you to, and worshipped the God they told you to. You had no choice because they owned the land, all the land, plus every plant and animal on it. If you ate any of those plants or animals, you were a criminal. Since jails are costly, you were disposed of by execution, or sold into indentured service in the New World.

But once you get past the dragons, work out your indenture, things look better. Land is pretty much for the taking, England doesn't fuck with you too much, mostly indirectly through the merchants in Boston, New York, Philly. You can find an area where the people speak the same language and share the same God(s). Life isn't exactly easy but at least it's better than Europe if you're poor.

Now these Guys in Philly with their fancy britches, gold watches and book learning, not to mention scary big red headed General Washington, say here we go, one big government to bring us all together. What? Are you kidding? After the boats and dragons, and war, you want us to give it all up? To willingly submit to your will, your taxes, your choice of God(s)? I don't fucking think so. Even most of the people who felt they belonged to the religion which would be chosen as official, didn't think it was a good idea.

The dust up in England around changing the official state religion really didn't mean jack shit to the peasants, they were fucked either way. Whereas here there was more at stake for the little people... and they were armed. ;)

So the wig wearers in Philly heard their plan hooted down, and in order to calm the opposition and reassure the bumpkins out in the sticks, like Rhode Island, they wrote the no state religion guaranty into the Constitution. But that was immediately forgotten until the lawyers figured out how the make a buck off it after WW II. The reality was the communities were far enough apart that if some one with the wrong credentials showed up, the were sent packing. Religious discrimination was open and popular. Several states even wrote laws barring the wrong kind of people from holding public office.

Now, after 200 years of warm and fuzzy, the neighbors are just like us, you want to talk about the founding father's intentions? No, the founding fathers did what they had to do to finish the job, went home and didn't give a rat's ass about what was actually going on in the hinterlands. Look, if Delaware passes and lives happily with a law saying only certain kinds of Christians can hold office. And the Feds don't say anything for all that time, then quibbling over the wording and intentions of the founding fathers is mental masturbation. The feds can force people into the NSA's desert camps, but they can't force people to change their past.

No. I am not appealing to my own authority built by what I know, I am building it on specific pieces of information, statement's who's factual nature can be discussed and examined. I am not saying that "C is right because look how much I know", I am saying "I am right because based on the facts that I know, A & B, we can understand that C doesn't mean D".

Now, A & B can be disputed, and so can their relationship to C:
Perhaps I am wrong to think that america was a british colony that has recently gained independence at the time of writing the constitution, perhaps I am wrong to think that the concept of subjective weight in judging is one that has developed with post modernism, or perhaps I made some logical fallacy in connecting the pieces of information themselves to the context I described, and if one of those is the case, you could - quite easily - provide information to dispute it.

However, appealing to my own authority is not one of them, and let me make it clear that I have none - I am not american and it is quite likely you've learned plenty of things about american history that I did not). Frankly, in my experience the only people who's authority is worth anything are those that never need to appeal to it in the first place.

tldr - My arguments are built on bra sizes, not hat stores.

Apres le deluge, je serai roi.

:king:

.

Griff, maybe you should be prepared tonight to resume that discussion with your "younger".

Fiorina has been refusing to answer questions posed by the Press regarding her remarks
about those "Planned Parenthood videos", and the description of a fetus, etc. etc.
The "liberal press" immediate refuted her remarks, which in turn led to articles such as your link to The Federalist.

All this is just my way of saying that Fiorina is now being confronted in the press,
by the mother of the stillborn infant shown in the doctored videos.

This mother's story may well be a major issue in the next few days.

We're actually on the same side on planned parenthood. The original refutation, which i heard, was not correct since it said that Fiorina hadn't seen the footage. It turned out she had seen the footage but the footage was doctored. The problem for me is that journalists pick a side and work it until they have their facts but like the Federalist crowd they stop when they have the facts they want never looking deeper. UT looked deeper on the "invention" of a clock story but we didn't see that in the press. We saw two sides stopping with the facts they liked.

The following video wuz published 2 months ago, but it just appeared in my sidelist.

After watching the debates, I'm leaning toward Sanders. I know this is a radical shift for me from 4 years ago, but I feel we need it

A radical shift sounds like a good plan right now - the current direction of travel is not very inspiring.

The thing is - you were always a pretty sensible and reasonable republican (iirc) - unfortunately the Republican Party seems to have gone careening off into bizarroland and left behind all the sensible and reasonable republican supporters.

Scott Walker cured me of repubicanizm. I voted for him the first time, and I'm very sorry I did. The tea party republicans are the problem, being willing to bring down the whole thing over some stupid cause. These people are really fucked up.