[SpamCop-List] Re: SpamCop-List Digest, Vol 40, Issue 133

[Trish Roberts-Miller]

spamcop-list-request at news.spamcop.net wrote:

Message: 2 Date: Sat, 15 May 2004 17:25:49 -0700 From: N. Miller 
<tdy at blackhole.aosake.net> Subject: [SpamCop-List] Re: Snotty and his 
merry few. To: spamcop-list at news.spamcop.net Message-ID: 
<MPG.1b1054e563d1eec69896d5 at news.spamcop.net> Keywords: TENKODAA 
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" In article 
<pan.2004.05.15.13.54.09.850332 at satchell.net>, usenet at satchell.net says...

>> ANY system can be gamed by people who don't care about the "spirit" of the
>> rules.  RFC 1855 and the reaction by spammers is one example.  The Martha
>> Stewart incident is another.  
>  
>

>> The Founding Fathers did the best they could...
>  
>

I believe that one of those "Founding Fathers" supposedly stated that the 
form of government created was only suitable to governing a religious 
people, and would fail an unreligious people. I wonder if that is true (in 
both senses)?
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One thing I've noticed about the people who make the "the founding fathers were Christians" is that their definition of Christian/religious shifts around when it is convenient for their argument. I suppose it's the same issue being talked about in another thread--some people think that the ends justifies the means, and that their end is so good they are exempt from the rules that apply to others. It really frosts me when Christians do that, as there is no justification for it. (And, being Christian, I get mad when people discredit my religion.)

A fairly conventional argument was that religion is necessary for civil control--unreligious people will have no motivation to follow the law (Falwell still makes that argument). Non-religious people made that argument all the time, as did deists (whom one might or might not consider religious), and religious folks. So, you have folks ranging from Erasmus to Hume who said something along those lines.

Another slippery term is "founding fathers." I generally mean the people who wrote the constitution, but people include the New England Puritans when it helps their argument, and ignore the Georgia convicts, and so on.  So, did a founding father say that? I've never read that argument anywhere, but it wouldn't surprise me if one of them did. It also wouldn't surprise me if none of them did.



-- 
Trish Roberts-Miller 	redball at mindspring.com  
http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~robertsmiller/homepage.html
"Frantic impulsiveness was accounted a true man's part, but caution in deliberation a specious pretext for shrinking. The hot-headed man was always trusted, his opponent suspected." Thucydides