is the pledge unconstitutional?

@Thomas,

Nonsense . . . shrill? I suspect that you are attempting to make a case for secession by belittling any argument brought against it. If the commonwealth of Massachusetts were to secede, it would only be necessary for the Congress to do what it did on July 13, 1861 with regard to the southern confederacy, and declare Massachusetts to be in a state of insurrection. They could then exercise their power under Article One, Section 8, and call out the militia to suppress an insurrection. The Dick Act of 1903 makes the National Guard the organized militia of the United States, and the National Guard of the remaining 49 states would be more adequate to bring Massachusetts to a sense of its folly. Quite apart from that, realpolitik makes a mockery of the notion that any nation would be quiescent in the face of an attempt by any part of that nation to withdraw and set up on their own. I fully recognize that the United States and other nations have put pressure on other nations to accept the reality of such a situation, but i'd be interested to know who you think would come to the aid of Massachusetts with any realistic prospect of success.

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@Setanta,

I don't want to kick your crap; so don't feel you have to respond to any response of mine to yours... What the Senate does or does not do, whether constitutional or not has absolutely nothing to do with the justice of their actions which is the ultimate test of the legality of their action...

Many of our treaties do not protect the right of citizens just as many of our laws do not, and it is law that must often give way to treaties when there is a conflict... When the government tries to make injustice legal, it only deligitimizes itself; and no government falls on the basis of a single illegitmate act; but on a large accumulation of injuries laid upon the people, and so will ours...

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

Nonsense . . . shrill? I suspect that you are attempting to make a case for secession by belittling any argument brought against it.

I suspect you're taking this whole discussion more seriously than I do.

Setanta wrote:

I fully recognize that the United States and other nations have put pressure on other nations to accept the reality of such a situation, but i'd be interested to know who you think would come to the aid of Massachusetts with any realistic prospect of success.

That's a realistic assessment of the rest of the world's realpolitik. But from an ethical point of view, Massachusetts would still be America's Tibet.

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@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

Setanta wrote:
Nonsense . . . shrill? I suspect that you are attempting to make a case for secession by belittling any argument brought against it.

I suspect you're taking this whole discussion more seriously than I do.

Setanta wrote:
I fully recognize that the United States and other nations have put pressure on other nations to accept the reality of such a situation, but i'd be interested to know who you think would come to the aid of Massachusetts with any realistic prospect of success.

That's a realistic assessment of the rest of the world's realpolitik. But from an ethical point of view, Massachusetts would still be America's Tibet.

Try this on him: Lighten up before you give yourself a hernia... I swear to god... With Setanta it is as though world peace and prosperty hung on the spelling of a word or some such triffle... Where is the courage to be wrong??? Where is the magnaminity to be right??? It takes the fun out of shooting the breeze...

1 Reply

@Thomas,

I know that you're taking it more seriously than i do. Now i suspect that you're attempting that most puerile of rhetorical tricks, attempting to suggest that your interlocutor is emotionally wrought-up, while you are the calm voice of sweet reason. Silly boy.

You're not very strong on analogy. How would the Chinese invasion of Tibet be analogous to an attempt at secession by Massachusetts? One is the invasion of another nation, the other an attempt to break away on the part of a segment of a nation.

The analogy fails on a more basic level, though. Prior to the Chinese invasion, Tibet was a tragically impoverished nation, with no roads, no schools other than monastic schools for the lucky few who were admitted, no hospitals, no airports. It's citizens were the serfs of a theocracy. Materially, the Tibetans are far, far better off than they were under the Dalai Lama and his pack of sycophantic parasites. It would be difficult to make that case that Massachusetts were better off if occupied by the National Guard divisions of the rest of the union.

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@Fido,

Shooting the breeze is as good as it ever gets with the drivel you post.

Idiot.

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@Setanta,

What, Massachusetts wasn't a theocracy before it started up the United States with its 12 buddies?

Your point that Tibet never joined China voluntarily is well-taken, though.

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@Thomas,

Yes, certainly Massachusetts was a sort of theocracy. The same could be said for Connecticut, too. Both had Congregationalist establishments, and retained them well into the constitutional period. I don't know for how long Massachusetts maintained it's religious establishment, but when that old faker Thoreau allegedly went to jail for not paying his taxes, it had nothing to do with the Mexican war, as his fans would have you believe. He had refused to pay the church tax, and he didn't actually have to serve time for it, someone else paid it.

However, it must have been slipping for quite some time, and not truly a theocracy. Either in the late 1840s or the early 1850s, Massachusetts voters elected a Baptist (Gasp!) governor.

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@Setanta,

They must have gotten tired of the Congregationalists' prudishness. Wasn't it you who told me that the Baptists used to practice group sex and group marriage as a matter of theology?

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@Thomas,

You seem to have recalled it imperfectly. That is what was alleged against them by other Protestants--the Lutherans, the German Reformed Church and the Calvinists were at each others throats as much as they were against the Catholics, but the Anabaptists (as they called themselveds) were everyone's favorite whipping boys. In fact, there was at least one pogrom against them, perhaps more. In the mid-sixteenth century, Anabaptist seize control of Münster, and held it for a year and half. They were then violently suppressed, and the name Anabaptist was even banned. Some of the more extreme sects of Anabaptists avowed polygamy, although i don't know that they ever effectively practiced it. (I can't say if they did nor didn't.) Many Anabaptists "went underground" thereafter and posed as Lutherans or Catholics depending upon their circumstances.

Most people trace the modern Baptists to a sect started in Holland early in the 17th century. Whether or not it is fair to identiby them with the Anabaptists, it is fair to point out that many of the German Anabaptists, and in particular the Münsterites, had fled to Holland, where they were tolerated, so long as they didn't challenge the civic authority. Modern Baptists disavow the association, but i find it hard to believe that such a wide-spread and vigorous movement which had in common with the modern Baptists the core concept of their religious confession (they were opposed to infant baptism, saying that only an adult with the conviction of his or her confession should be baptized--hence the name Anabaptist) did not coalesce into the group founded in Holland.

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@Setanta,

So the free love thing was already over when Massachusetts elected its first Baptist governor? Bummer.

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Seventeenth century England was a fertile ground for bizarre and extremist religious sects, such as the Ranters, the Seekers, the Quakers (who can reasonably be said to have grown out the Seekers), the Fifth Monarchy men, many flavors of Millenarians and the Muggletonians. (I've often wondered if the last group inspired the author of the Harry Potter novels to adopt the term Muggles.) There were some pretty wild versions of these, most of which were antinomian, and some pantheistic. The more extreme sects advocated plural marriage, or at least tolerated it, as a part of their antinomian beliefs. The Ranters had a "summer of love," but i haven't been able to find an online reference for it.

There is an excellent book which reviews religious and political notions in mid-17th century Englad through the tracts, pamphlets and broadsheets which circulated as censorship broke down. That is The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution, by Christopher Hill. Mr. Hill can be considered the modern authority on christian splinter groups and christian anarchists, especially in England, and especially in the period of the civil wars. He describes one group which openly advocated "free love" and an end to marriage, but i'll be damned if can remember the name of the group or the demagogue.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

Shooting the breeze is as good as it ever gets with the drivel you post.

Idiot.

What are you afraid of besides me???

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@Fido,

That's hilarious. You couldn't inspire fear in the second string of a high school debate team. As i've said repeatedly, if you don't respond to my posts, and you don't quote me, i'll leave you alone.

Idiot.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

You seem to have recalled it imperfectly. That is what was alleged against them by other Protestants--the Lutherans, the German Reformed Church and the Calvinists were at each others throats as much as they were against the Catholics, but the Anabaptists (as they called themselveds) were everyone's favorite whipping boys. In fact, there was at least one pogrom against them, perhaps more. In the mid-sixteenth century, Anabaptist seize control of Münster, and held it for a year and half. They were then violently suppressed, and the name Anabaptist was even banned. Some of the more extreme sects of Anabaptists avowed polygamy, although i don't know that they ever effectively practiced it. (I can't say if they did nor didn't.) Many Anabaptists "went underground" thereafter and posed as Lutherans or Catholics depending upon their circumstances.

Most people trace the modern Baptists to a sect started in Holland early in the 17th century. Whether or not it is fair to identiby them with the Anabaptists, it is fair to point out that many of the German Anabaptists, and in particular the Münsterites, had fled to Holland, where they were tolerated, so long as they didn't challenge the civic authority. Modern Baptists disavow the association, but i find it hard to believe that such a wide-spread and vigorous movement which had in common with the modern Baptists the core concept of their religious confession (they were opposed to infant baptism, saying that only an adult with the conviction of his or her confession should be baptized--hence the name Anabaptist) did not coalesce into the group founded in Holland.

Very informative... I have read some on the Protestant Reformation... Bought a book on Erasmus for all of 3 dollars today covering much the same era, and subject, no doubt... I know the Anabaptists took a load of ****, most of which they never returned; but I can't tell if that information today is anything more than drivel... You can learn all your life and often, never learn more than will come up in casual conversation once in a million years or so, that is, knowledge otherwise useless, and you cannot tell in advance of knowing it that you should be blowing it off instead...

Back to your digression... What better reason can people find to kill each other than the prospects for their eternal souls???

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

That's hilarious. You couldn't inspire fear in the second string of a high school debate team. As i've said repeatedly, if you don't respond to my posts, and you don't quote me, i'll leave you alone.

Idiot.

I smell yard bird, feathers, ****, and all...Time to fire up the grill...

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As said, you're hilarious. It really cracks me up when you attempt to suggest that you are wise and truly understand complex events in a way that mere mortals such as i are incapable of appreciating. But as i also said, for as long as you post your drivel, in response to what i write, i will continue to point out that you are an . . .

Idiot.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

As said, you're hilarious. It really cracks me up when you attempt to suggest that you are wise and truly understand complex events in a way that mere mortals such as i are incapable of appreciating. But as i also said, for as long as you post your drivel, in response to what i write, i will continue to point out that you are an . . .

Idiot.

I do understand, but don't think I am alone in it... Instead, I think it is a group effort... Knowledge is culture, and without some body, and in fact, lots of some bodies actually learning about everything and passing it on to people, kid people, some will think only that the here and now was all there ever was and is all there is.... So no... I don't think I know it all, but my information is solid and wide spread on many subjects and facets of life... I know you know a lot... Knowledge alone is not enough to make a person a human being... It takes a combination of, for want of better words, heart and head...I am part Irish and part German...What I don't have on one side I have on the other... I am a human being... A poorly educated and uneducated human being... I know there are parts of my education you could drive a tractor through without hitting anything solid... I still have read a lot, and know a lot on a lot of different subjects; and I have figured out that if I die tomorrow, or in a hundred years there will be stuff left to learn... So; while I will try to learn everything and also learn where my weakest weakness lay, still I know enough to make some judgment on what is to be learned, what knowledge would be cool to have, and what is essential...

I have never found a use for most of what I have learned so my conclusion is that the value in most of it is in keeping a nimble mind... Do you know??? A keen mind... First it was applied to the warrior, and later it was applied to his weapon, his blade, and then later still, a word that applied only to people, dull was applied as well to the edges of blades... Who wants to be a pedant??? I don't... I look forward to learning and hope everyone does... So teach us... Teach me; and don't expect me to take any crap in the process...

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

As said, you're hilarious. It really cracks me up when you attempt to suggest that you are wise and truly understand complex events in a way that mere mortals such as i are incapable of appreciating. But as i also said, for as long as you post your drivel, in response to what i write, i will continue to point out that you are an . . .

Idiot.

My books, bought today were: The People's Liberation Army, by Griffith, Erasmus by Smith. The Study of History by Toyanbee, an abridgement of volumes I to VI, by Somervell, a Dictionary of Philosophy, edited by Runes; and The Nazi State, by Ebenstein... Eight dollars and change...
Me gonna be smart some day...

Why do you always sign your work: Idiot??? If you think humility is going to get you into heaven, you better start working on a back up plan...

1 Reply

@Fido,

As you're fond of pointing out, that won't do you any good if you don't understand the significance of what you're reading. The drivel you post here suggests to me that you won't.

Your little jibe about how i "sign" my posts doesn't work, because of the way i wrote my last post, proving once again that you are an . . .

Idiot.

1 Reply

is the pledge unconstitutional?

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