posted
I found this article that claims that the whole controversy may have been fabricated. Unfortunately it seems that the source is likely biased and I haven't been able to verify the claims (i.e. that no religious book is used durring the swearing in) elsewhere. Can anyone here confirm or disprove this?
Posts: 148 | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
If he is a Muslim then swearing on the Qur'an will make more of an impact on him then swearing on the Bible. If the point of the oath is to instill some fear of God then using the Qur'an will serve as a better tool.
Plus having him do it will make more of a impact on his constituents. Perhaps the situation will not come up a second time.
Posts: 475 | Registered: Aug 2006
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posted
I think this is a pretty moot debate... the only person here who has any real problem with someone's swearing his oath of office upon the Qur'an is General Sax, and he seems just a mite imbalanced...
Posts: 5663 | Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
Wow, was your post wrong at the point of entry, to have the point fall so flat must hurt, ((David Bowles)) As I mentioned before your claim, I have no problem with it. Let him hang for what he believes in, if he wants to make his Muslim affiliation a major point who am I to stop him. There is even something honest about it.
Posts: 475 | Registered: Aug 2006
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quote:Originally posted by General Sax: We created the term 'Islamofacist' to give us plausable denial when accused of being 'Crusaders' I really rather like the term Crusader myself and feel no need to rename the age old enemy...
Neither do I. And people like you simply confirm that I'm right about it.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Heh, Sax, I've made a bigger fool of myself in the past than most could ever hope to, so, no, it didn't hurt. Your gleeful embracing of bigotry, on the other hand...
Posts: 5663 | Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
Yes, hello, David! I was thinking of you the other day, because I heard a name like yours called over the intercom at the Phoenix airport. How have you been?
Posts: 3546 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
General Sax, it must suck to be so fearful all the time. To see so many enemies waiting around every corner, ready to hurt you and everything you believe in. I dont envy you the existence you must lead, filled with anger and fear and ulcer inducing angst. Nor do I envy you your self righteous certainty that you can never be wrong. It must have led to some humiliating moments in your life that you've probably surpressed all memory of so as to maintain the fiction that...well, you can never be wrong. I DO envy you your amazing ability to remain willfully ignorant despite living in a world wherein your views are considered monolithic monstrosities composed of an earlier, unhappy era in human existence. That willful ignorance must come in handy with supressing those memories of being wrong.
Posts: 499 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Swearing an oath on the Silmarillion would be like sponsoring a vegan convention with Soylent Green. Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
What are the words of the oath of office this newly elected person must say?
Does the state's constitution, or the Federal constitution require an oath of office? Do any of these documents require that the oath be taken with the person's right hand on the Bible?
How have people who are atheists, Jews, or whatever...been sworn in in the past?
Did Joe Lieberman place his right hand on the Bible (complete with New Testament)?
For that matter, what if someone was Christian but didn't particularly like the version of the Bible put under their hand?
"I'm sorry, I don't hold with the Apocrypha, I'll just swear on the rest of it."
or
"Hmm...King James version, eh. Sort of a problem there. Just look at the horrible translation here on page 127!"
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
The Amish believe that we achieved maximum human happiness around 1880, and I somewhat agree with that. The only virtue of current times over that state of the art is in medicine and the possibility of achieving long term human survival. If it pans out then it is my hope that mankind finds a way back to a simpler lifestyle.
Still on the issue of personal fear, well it is hard to say, detachment can be almost automatic and it is pretty easy to achieve with a little practice, doing what needs doing with the smell of your burning friends in your nostrils makes life in the Midwest pretty unlikely to generate enough fear to blow the breakers.
[ December 02, 2006, 07:33 PM: Message edited by: General Sax ]
Posts: 475 | Registered: Aug 2006
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posted
Once again you demand my credentials, do you only have the one hand to play? You must have a lot of letters in front of your name to only feel comfortable in that game.
Still the simple answer is, enough. I can tell my butter churn from my soap cake cutter.
[ December 02, 2006, 07:32 PM: Message edited by: General Sax ]
Posts: 475 | Registered: Aug 2006
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posted
Ah. I'll clarify; I wasn't asking about the technology of the 1880s. I'm interested in hearing how much you know about the culture of the 1880s, and whether your opinion that that represented a high-water mark in human happiness and cultural development is actually an informed one.
That, in turn, would inform my subsequent rebuttal.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I suspect that that the 1880s were, indeed, a redletter decade for those who believe as GS does. Considering that it was during this time period that the Chinese were severely persecuted throught the NW, our subjegation and destruction of Indian Culture was coming to a head, and our persecution of the Mormons was sanctioned by congress, I can completely understand why a religious and culteral bigot would hail it as a high point in our society. As far as the Amish beliefs about 1880, I havent been able to find anything to substantiate that. Shocking, I know.
Posts: 499 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Happiness is tricky to put ones finger on. Infant mortality, death in childbirth, sepsis, occlusions, but...
Larger families, literacy, and enough manual labor and a diet that made a farm man hard and strong and productive, a proud man.
Labor in factories was hard and getting harder, but that was for reasons of greed not necessity.
Cooking was done with care, clothing, soap, butter, the type of wood by the stove, all done with care. More then enough work for six sons and six daughters in one big farm house. Enough kids in one family for good game of anything, and dad counts for two.
If I could pick and choose, and I think in time we will be at a point to do so, but perhaps not in my lifetime, I would certainly choose many of those aspects. More home spun, larger family groups, more manual labor to do day to day things. A treadmill is not all that different from a bale elevator but the kids who train on the later seem harder and happier. I like the off the grid movement, I love books that were made with care like leather and gold jewels. I love old playing cards and chess sets.
There are technologies that fit into a lifestyle like that, electric vehicles, wind power, a cellular network, and bread machines... However the balance in our lifestyle is not happymaking, it is largely distraction until you start picking and choosing what you allow in. Then it is keeping the filters up and finding enough activity to burn off the kids energy, finding the time on top of ten hour days of sedentary brain work to stretch and work the muscles.
Work with purpose, items of craft and care. Families with cohesion and of course room to breath. These were nice things.
Of course it is obvious my roots are in the Midwestern rural lifestyle. I am certainly not the only one who feels that there were ideal elements of those times. You can see the Midwest in the face of one who grew up on a farm there. I can spot them and I have been picked out by them so I know they can spot me as well, without accents or a Hawkeye T-Shirt. There is balance to be found in that lifestyle, balance that stays with you.
[ December 02, 2006, 10:27 AM: Message edited by: General Sax ]
Posts: 475 | Registered: Aug 2006
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posted
Yet the Mormons have carried over more customs from that era then any other group but the Amish, perhaps you should not try to look for Amish websites Hmmm...
More Indians died from contact with Spanish pigs then from contact with the White Devils and the Chinese just kept coming.
Nobody wants a return to racial discrimination. However an affiliation, like Nazism, Islam or the Freemasons is a choice and judging men by the choices they make is the core value of democracy. The power to choose is sacred, the responsibility for the choices one makes is sacred. Forget those two things and things get bad in a hurry.
Posts: 475 | Registered: Aug 2006
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posted
Ok, I'm only going to respond to your first post, because it's the only one that doesnt make me want to... well, anyways.
I completely agree with you that all of those qualities you describe are desirable to have in your life. However, saying that we have to go back to the 19th century to attain them is simply not true. Everything you've described is attainable as a choice. It might not be the choice that the rest of the world is making, but it is a choice everyone has available to them. Quality of life doesnt really come from the people around you. It comes from(cue hokey music) inside yourself. The decisions you make are what define your life, right? So why not make decisions that lead to the type of life you want. I absolutely believe that the way of life you describe is still possible. You just have to create it for yourself instead of relying on society to change and make it easy for you.
edit: And I have to add this. Even in the 19th century, that way of life was actually available to VERY few people. For the most part, life was just as sordid, fast paced and shallow for them as it is for us. You've got a romanticized view of a specific time period, and it just doesnt mesh with the reality. However, that doesnt mean that the lifestyle you espouse didnt exist. It just isnt attached to a specific time period. It's attached to the people who chose to live that way, throughout time.
Posts: 499 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
I disagree on one point, quality of life is the people around you and being worthy of them. I never advocated going back to the 19th century, I pointed out what the Amish believe and pointed to some of the truth in it. Even they go to modern health care facilities and run freezers on kerosene.
I think I did point out that one can filter our society to make your personal world better. However what I think is really needed is a serious evaluation of what does and does not add value. An inventory and then an economics of quality of life, one that strips some of the romance and emotion and treats it mathematically. Then we can build toward it without all the following of prophets and guesswork and nostalgia blurring things.
Posts: 475 | Registered: Aug 2006
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posted
No. No I didnt read your post. I was actually going off of assumptions in my head about what you were probably going to say next. I have to say, I think I did rather well, considering I was 99% accurate without ever having read a single post of yours. In fact, I didnt read the post that this post is directed at either. I'm just assuming your going to ask me a stupid question about having read your post. I'm right arent I???? I guess I'll never know for sure, unless someone whose posts I DO read bothers to tell me. That would be kind of them.
Posts: 499 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Oh no, it's OK. No need to apologize. I've already stated that your lack of comprehension is probably going to be a given in any conversation you take part in, so I've made allowances. Practice is always a good idea though. I'm really glad you've come to realize that. Gives me hope for the future.
Posts: 499 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
On topic, add my voice to the people who would hope a congressman would swear by what he holds most sacred. And, unlike probably everyone else in this thread, I voted for him.
And really, for people who want to make a stink about him, there are way easier targets than this. But they didn't work before the election, either, so I guess the right-wing nut-jobs have to grab what they can, huh?
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
I should think if we allow Quakers to abstain from swearing oaths for religious reasons, it would follow that other religions who are willing to swear oaths do so in the manner that suits them, so long as its more or less the equivalent to asserting their intent to be entirely honest in their testimony.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Sort of going back to the original point, I have to ask if anyone here has read the Koran, or Qur'an if you prefer? I'm reading it now, and though I have just gotten started, so far I have run across Adam & Eve, Moses, Noah, Abraham, David, Saul/Paul, the Apostles (collectively), and a few others.
The Muslim God is our God, just a different view of him. Just as the Jewish God is our God, but just a different (very generalized in this example) view of him.
So, considering this, since both books (Bible and Koran) are religious books at the foundation of the worship of the same God, I see no reason why one wouldn't be just as valid as the other.
Now the question I wonder about is what does a Buddhist swear on when he is elected???
Or Hindu, Taoist, Confucianist, or Shinto, etc....
posted
I've heard several people who have testified in L.A. courts recently say that they raise their hand and swear but do not swear on a bible. (My dad and some of his friends are doctors and are sometimes called to testify in malpractice suits against others.)
The last time I watched a local official sworn in, she didn't put her hand on anything, either, just right hand in the air.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
BlueWizard - If we're allowing people to swear on whatever text they feel is most sacred, then the answer would probably be different for a lot of Hindus, Taoists, etc.
Hindus I could see swearing on the Vedas, but also on some of the great epics (Ramayana), or later works. Taoists could swear on the Tao Te Ching, but also on Zhuangzi, etc.
Posts: 2409 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
I have never seen an oath given on a bible in court. I've been in multiple Superior and District courts in DC and Circuit, Juvenile, and General District courts in Lynchburg and Charlottesville. So it's a very small sample, and I do know it's done, but it's nowhere near universal. Especially considering that Lynchburg is where Liberty College is.
Judges are split on adding "so help me God" to the oath. Most in Lynchburg did it, about half in DC did it, and one in Charlottesville did it. Most swearing in is done en masse at the beginning, out of sight of the jury if there is one. I've seen one person object, and he was given the oath without the phrase. And the jury didn't see, so there was no impact.
The swearing in Representatives do on Bibles is not the official swearing in, as best I can tell from House rules and accounts of the ceremony. It is done en masse during the first session, except for the Speaker. Many have private ceremonies using a family Bible (or a constituent's Bible in at least one case I've heard of). I can't find any single article that puts all this together, so consider it surmise based on multiple sources giving part of the information.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
The two times I've served on a jury, the witnesses were sworn in in our presence, and neither case the witnesses swore on bibles. They raised their right hands. "So help me god" was not added.
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
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posted
Personally, I'm indifferent but leaning to saying "sure, go ahead." I mean, it's just a book, people. If anything, as others have said, swearing on oath on a book you truly believe in will make you want to follow through on the oath more than if you swore on a book that had no relevance.
Oh, and as an aside to General Sax, should I assume that your wish to return to a simpler, 19th century life also includes the social stances of that era on such things as segregation, sexism, gender roles, abortion, homosexuality? Sorry if this was already brought-up/asked (I haven't read the whole thread) or too off-topic.
Posts: 208 | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote: Not all Nazi's gassed Jew's either, it was the hobby of a select few, yet if you are unwilling to leave the political party that is clearly up to some pretty harsh behavior you are tarred with the same brush. "Every man who eats meat is on the same moral level with the butcher"
So in other words, the pope should abandon christianity becasue the KKK is giving the entire religion a bad name. Good point .
Posts: 1401 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
Wow... I am sure none of the usual logic police will call you on that since they lean pretty hard to the Left but wow...
Posts: 475 | Registered: Aug 2006
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quote: Oh, and as an aside to General Sax, should I assume that your wish to return to a simpler, 19th century life also includes the social stances of that era on such things as segregation, sexism, gender roles, abortion, homosexuality? Sorry if this was already brought-up/asked (I haven't read the whole thread) or too off-topic.
First: I specifically listed the things from the eighteen hundreds I consider sad losses, at no time did I suggest that we could or should return to that way of life en mass. (That is twice I have clarified when someone missed the point in exactly the same way.)
Now as to the specific issues:
Segregation: Should be used only by minorities to preserve aspects of their unique culture that they value and that do not directly violate accepted human rights standards. Note that I said 'by' not 'on'
Gender Roles: I think traditional gender roles are more comfortable to both men and women. However I would certainly not roll back any women's rights or the concept of equal under the law. In fact I would do away with the laws that seem to institutionalize sexism by targeting men.
Abortion: I think that a pill that you take the next day is fine, I think that the sheer number and impact of abortion culture in our society (and even more so in Europe) is far larger then the Roe V Wade decision was sold as. It is certainly a topic that needs to be revisited. A male 'pill' holds promise since it will kick in quicker, leave fewer errors and put the responsibility in the hands of men who do not have a biological need to be pregnant. I makes no sense to me that people who fight for rights for seals and cows will gleefully flush human embryos...So I do not like abortion, it is not a choice that should be left in the hands of pregnancy hormone influenced teens for instance. It is a choice you should have to prove qualification to make...
Homosexuality: They are not hurting anybody but the kids they might have had. Do not expect to be considered married though because you are not, do not expect to act as guardian of my son if you are gay, do not expect me to let my daughters sleep over at your lesbian daughters house any more then I would let her spend the night with a boy. I have not yet formed an opinion on adoption by gay couples, since they are not married there is that issue, I do not have figures about what the effect on children's sexual orientation having gay adoptive guardians has. I do think that the future belongs to the heterosexuals, because their children inherit it.
As for Bi-sexuals who have open relationsips involving sex while maintaining stable marriage, no problem, lucky for them the have so many choices, however like all adult activities the kids need to be segregated from it until they are mature enough to make informed choices.
Posts: 475 | Registered: Aug 2006
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quote:They are not hurting anybody but the kids they might have had. Do not expect to be considered married though because you are not[...]
Well, of course someone can't be considered married if they're not allowed to. But why not let them marry?
quote:[...]however like all adult activities the kids need to be segregated from it until they are mature enough to make informed choices.
Wait, are you saying gay and bi kids should be segregated from straight kids? Or suggesting that being gay is a choice? I'm not being sarcastic; I'm unsure what you're saying.
Posts: 208 | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote: I do not have figures about what the effect on children's sexual orientation having gay adoptive guardians has.
What are your figures on heterosexual parents who produce homosexual children? Considering the vast, VAST majority of parents are heterosexual parents, and thus the homosexual kids have to come from somewhere, such as their hetero parents, I wonder where the opposing side really gets it's argument from, especially considering you have no numbers to support your claim.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Children should be "kept separate from" their parents sexual activity...
quote: What are your figures on heterosexual parents who produce homosexual children? Considering the vast, VAST majority of parents are heterosexual parents, and thus the homosexual kids have to come from somewhere, such as their hetero parents, I wonder where the opposing side really gets it's argument from, especially considering you have no numbers to support your claim.
"You" in your sentence seems to apply to me, I make no claims about it one way or another, I do not accept that homosexuality is purely biological (based on evidence), however as I stated I am unable to take a position without indications in numbers that point to us losing the genetic potential of more children by giving them to homosexual guardians at an early age. I am not the opposition... yet.
Posts: 475 | Registered: Aug 2006
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quote:I do think that the future belongs to the heterosexuals, because their children inherit it.
Um...isn't today the past's "future?"
How is it that there are ANY homosexuals given the millions of years of human evolution that have already been operating to hand the future to the heterosexuals?
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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