-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War! * Veritas Vos Liberabit * THE FEDERALIST(r) BRIEF The Conservative e-Journal of Record Date: 20 February 2001 Federalist #01-08.brf To retrieve today's Brief as HTML printer-friendly text, link to -- http://www.Federalist.com/current2001.asp To support or sponsor The Federalist, link to -- http://www.Federalist.com/support.asp ______--------********O********--------______ THIS WEEK'S FEATURED SITE "'Inclusiveness,' one of today's values, is served by Presidents Day, which renders the Father of Our Country an equal ingredient with Warren Harding in a bland pudding of presidents." --George Will February 22 is George Washington's Birthday. To fully appreciate this most remarkable of our Founders, link to our Historic Docs page and scroll down to the section featuring President Washington's speeches. Visit -- http://www.federalist.com/historic.asp CONTENTS: The Founders Insight Good News ICTUS Imprimis Faith & Family Culture Liberty Opinion in Brief Editorial Exegesis The Gipper Government Political Futures For the Record Policy Pages Reader Comments The Last Word ______--------********O********--------______ THE FOUNDERS "It is impossible to govern the world without God. He must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligation." --George Washington ______--------********O********--------______ INSIGHT "Let it simply be asked, 'Where is the security for prosperity, for reputation, for life; if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in the Courts of Justice?'" --George Washington ______--------********O********--------______ GOOD NEWS "Honor the LORD with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine." (Proverbs 3:9-10) ++ "A generous man will himself be blessed, for he shares his food with the poor." (Proverbs 22:9) ++ "He who gives to the poor will lack nothing, but he who closes his eyes to them receives many curses." (Proverbs 28:27) ______--------********O********--------______ ICTUS IMPRIMIS "Of all the dispositions which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who would labor to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness.... The mere Politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and cherish them." -- George Washington ______--------********O********--------______ FAITH & FAMILY "It is not possible to understand the actions or motives of the leading patriots in the American Revolution without taking into consideration their religious faith and world-view. To a man, the founding fathers were men who had been shaped by the morality and theology of the Bible. Of the 53 men who signed the Declaration of Independence, only two, Franklin and Jefferson, had no denominational affiliation. And yet even they accepted the basic presupposition of a Christian world-view." --David J. Vaughan "Families do shape character, and thus directly impact crime. The empirical evidence supporting this view is overwhelming. For example, researchers at the National Institute of Mental Heath studied high-risk inner-city neighborhoods. They found that when kids grow up in safe, stable families, only about six percent of them will become delinquent. Contrast that with kids raised in unstable, one-parent families: Ninety percent of them will become delinquent. Clearly, it's not poverty or race that is the chief cause crime; it's the lack of moral training during morally formative years.... Most Americans don't know about the connection between family and crime -- which is why the Church must issue a wake-up call. Our children deserve better than to be surrendered to settings that prepare them for a life of crime. The only institution than can provide this crucial moral training is the fragile, but irreplaceable, family." --Charles Colson ______--------********O********--------______ CULTURE "Racial charges by many black politicians, civil-rights spokesmen, self-appointed black leaders and guilt-ridden whites are just plain nonsense. [Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Kweisi Mfume, the Black Caucus, et al.] get away with them because we're ill-informed or are too timid to question their assumptions and assertions. ... At one time, black Americans didn't enjoy constitutional protections. Today, we do. As such, the civil-rights struggle is over and won. That doesn't mean that there aren't other problems, but they are not civil-rights problems. If we diagnose them incorrectly as civil-rights problems, however, their solutions will remain illusive." --Walter Williams ______--------********O********--------______ LIBERTY "The old federal republic is well on its way to becoming a monolith. The centralization of power, the evisceration of the Constitution, the issuing of funny money, and the expansion of the welfare state are some of the insidious steps by which we have moved from freedom to tyranny without realizing it. The word 'tyranny' sounds melodramatic. Americans think their political system is immune to it. They associate it with stereotypes of nasty dictators, forgetting the many other forms it may take. But the authors of the Constitution recognized tyranny as the prevalent condition of mankind and a constant danger even to free men, especially when they forget how fragile freedom really is." --Joseph Sobran ______--------********O********--------______ OPINION IN BRIEF Worth Repeating... Excerpts from Official Opinion 2000-9 To: State School Superintendents From: Georgia Attorney General Thurbert E. Baker "You have asked for my opinion whether [Georgia law 50-3-4.1] allowing the display of the motto 'In God We Trust' in public school classrooms, is in violation of the Georgia or United States Constitution. You have also asked whether the 'respect for the creator' portion of the character education program authorized by [Georgia Law 20-2-145] and the Georgia Board of Education's curriculum violates either the state or federal constitutional principles of [religious freedom]. It is my opinion that neither [Georgia law 50-3-4.1] nor [Georgia Law 20-2-145] on its face violates [religious freedom] provisions of either the Georgia or the United States Constitution. ... "Addressing first the issue of whether a poster may be displayed in the classroom with the motto 'In God We Trust,' I note that the motto appears on United States coins and currency and is recognized by federal statute as our national motto. See 36 U.S.C. -- 186. It has been upheld as constitutional in that context. ... "The more difficult question is whether the character curriculum is constitutional. Official Code of Georgia Section 20-2-145 requires the State Board of Education to develop a 'comprehensive character education program' for levels K-12 focusing on the students' development of 27 character traits including 'respect for the creator.' In August of 1997, shortly after the statute took effect, the State Board of Education developed a policy implementing this statutory requirement. This policy, entitled 'Values and Character Education Implementation Guide,' explains the character trait as follows: "Respect for the creator: our most basic freedoms and rights are not granted to us from the government but they are intrinsically ours; i.e., the Constitution does not grant Americans the right of freedom of speech, it simply recognizes that each of us is born with that right. This is to say that the founders of the republic recognized a higher authority, a power greater than themselves that endowed every human being with certain unalienable rights that no government or legal document could ever revoke or take away. In the Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson names this life force that permeates the universe and from which our unalienable rights stem the 'creator', 'nature's God', and the 'supreme judge of the world'. If we are to respect life, the natural rights of all people and the authority which the founders based their legal opinions on concerning our separation from Great Britain then there must be a respect for that creator from which all our rights flow. This cannot be interpreted as a promotion of religion or even as a promotion of the belief in a personal God, but only as an acknowledgment that the intrinsic worth of every individual derives from no government, person or group of persons, but is something that each of us is born with and which no thing and no one can ever deprive us of. "Although inclusion of the trait 'respect for the creator' in the character curriculum does not have the historic acceptance accorded to the national motto, it appears not to have a religious effect, especially as interpreted by the State Board's 'Values and Character Education Implementation Guide.' It does not endorse any particular theory of creation, nor does it disparage those who do not hold a belief in creation. ... "In addition, 'respect for the creator' is not misplaced in ethics or character education. In the study of comparative religion, the 'myths, stories or theories regarding the birth or creation of the universe' are termed 'cosmogony.' Eliade, The Encyclopedia of Religion, Macmillan, 1987, Vol. 4, p. 94. Cosmogonic or creation myths, stories and theories serve as a 'background and context for thinking about' ethics or the 'proper, appropriate and right conduct of a community.' Id. at 99. Thus, although beliefs may differ about creation, the subject itself supports character principles and ethics. "Based on the above discussion and analysis, it is my official opinion that neither [Georgia law 50-3-4.1] nor [Georgia Law 20-2-145] on its face, is in violation of the principles of [religious freedom] in either the Georgia or the United States Constitution." ______--------********O********--------______ EDITORIAL EXEGESIS "[Gore's] appointment at one of the most prestigious journalism schools in the country confirms what readers have known for years -- there is barely any separation between political reporters and the people they cover. That perception will be reinforced at political fund-raisers where Gore's title as a visiting professor of journalism will be duly noted on the dinner program." --Editor & Publisher, the antique media's journal of choice ______--------********O********--------______ THE GIPPER "We have gone so far that it almost seems a rule, originally designed to guard against violation of the Constitution, has become an aggressive campaign against religion itself. And isn't that the very thing we set out to guard against -- domination of religion by the state?" --Ronald Reagan ______--------********O********--------______ GOVERNMENT "...[I]t apparently takes an obsessive devotion to the Constitution to actually read it before issuing opinions. Judges are essentially government bureaucrats, and the natural tendency of all government bureaucrats everywhere is to continually arrogate more and more power to themselves. That's why the framers gave very little power to judges, sharply limiting the topics on which the judiciary is permitted to rule. That is also why judges are forever coming up with stratagems to ignore those limits. Inventing preposterous constitutional rights is evidently more fun than doing what judges are supposed to do...." --Ann Coulter ______--------********O********--------______ POLITICAL FUTURES "Here it is mid-February and we're still waiting for the disaster Al Gore's friends confidently predicted if George W. Bush prevailed in the Electoral College. There's no rioting in the streets (the Rev. Jesse Jackson having been busy changing diapers elsewhere). Small children have not been lashed to their factory looms, barefoot feminists pregnant or not have not been driven back to their kitchens (if any), the concentration camps for gays, lesbians and blacks are still under construction (if not still on the drawing boards), the new president is talking in dulcet tones to Democrats and the loudest weeping and wailing is coming from the generals at the Pentagon. The only visible threat to the nation's security on the eve of St. Valentine's Day is the continuing crime wave out of Chappaqua, N.Y., that has overwhelmed law-enforcement agencies across the Atlantic seaboard." --Wes Pruden *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. 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