It Takes An Act Of Congress to Display The Ten Commandments
H.Con.Res. 12 (ih) Requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in the United States Capitol. [Introduced in House]
There is absolutely no benefit, to the citizenry, for 95% of what goes on in Washington or in most of our state capitals. The fact that Congress has to legislate permission to display the Ten Commandments is only symbolic, after the attorneys get the issue into their “court” the whole issue becomes doubtful and could take years of litigation to go nowhere.
Imagine our capitalist upbringing where improving, growing, doing-better and thinking outside-the-box has replaced a slow built-on-fundamentals approach. Add that entrepreneurial dynamism to years of advocacy legal training and you start to get a feel for our current legal system. At one time we could brag about our legal professionals that would defend the guilty with the same efficacy as the innocence, advocate for the weak with the same audacity as the strong. But as causes for various individual rights issues gained in popularity, funding improved, allowing their positions to be championed by the best and the brightest.
The American people have always shown their resiliency to overcome and conquer the many obstacles that circumstances have thrown our way. Depressions, wars and diseases are easy to identify and Americans have always stiffened, pooled their resources, and prevailed. But what about a threat we can’t identify, a threat that works from the inside and whose only goal is to win.
Does an atheist have rights, absolutely. The exact same rights as any other recognized religious group. If having the Ten Commandments on the wall of a Capital building is in support of a religion and offensive to atheists then NOT having it on the wall is in support of Atheists and equally offensive to someone else. This argument can go on forever and everyone loses, but it’s the lawyers from both sides that gain in stature, obtain lucrative commissions and what is most important, create a never ending argument.
It’s this advocacy training that prepares attorneys to do so well in politics, the ability to aggressively debate an issue or put into contention an issue that they don’t want action to be taken on. The will of the people or even personal opinion has nothing to with it, the first priority is self-interest, the next is party politics, then there are the needs of the special interests, and lastly come the constituents.
Even it they lose on an issue it is still not over. Look at the issue of the “Border Fence”. Congress passes a bill to build the fence, then passes a bill to fund it and the President reluctantly signs both bills. Does that mean we have a fence? No. The funds are not going to be appropriated and if they are, a court will find an excuse to block it. The will of the people is unimportant, it is all politics.
fredaa is the author of the thin gray line blog
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It sounds as if your jaded about our political system. To qualify, our political system was designed so that things don\'t easily get done. In fact, it was intentional that things move at an incremental and slow pace.
With that said however, I do believe that good things have and do (and will) come from government. After all, it was government that created the Social Security Act, it is government that operates the military that keeps us safe. And it was government that created the land-grant college system for which most of us were educated by.
To your point, yes - government does things it ought not to, like get involved in a family\'s right to die case (Terri Shiavo), and it was government that got us in our current quagmire.
I think you overstate the case when you say that 95% of what goes on in Washington has no effect on (or provides any benefits) to the people of this country. On the contrary, 95% of what goes on in Washington and in our state capitals has a direct impact on us.
Certainly the decision to go to war has an impact. As do decisions on agricultural price supports that keeps our produce prices low, funding decisions on home land security and safety infrastructure (imagine the levy\'s that could have been built if New Orleans had been given money to build higher and better levy\'s!).
Even decisions on (dare I say it) religion and abortion have an impact. Imagine if the government passed a constitutional amendment bannning abortion. Someone\'s wife or girlfriend gets pregnant and they\'re not ready or there may be complications or someother unforseen difficulty. Would she have to go a backroom alley or out of the country that Roe was designed to circumvent by making it safe and legal.
The same with religion - not everyone believes in the same god, but if we put up a stone sculpture of the 10 commandments, then government should be forced to put of statues of equal stature of every other religion (the Budda, the Prophet Mohammed, and so on and so on).
The best way to not offend someone is sometimes to offend everyone so that no one group of people is receiving special treatment. I think that this was precisely what Madison was trying to say when he wrote the Federalist papers.
So I would say, a little less cynicism and a lot more activism if you want to change the country!
One other thing - Lawyers get a bad and undeserving rap. Our political system is complicated, but so is our legal system.
Without government, there would be no law. If there was one thing that I learned from my pre-law days, it\'s that it is the law that gives us our freedoms.
Advocacy and debate training are highly valuable and essential skills of the legal trade and should be taught for all subjects and trades.
Lawyers fight to protect our rights by subjecting the written word to a living interpretation just as other lawyers try to reign in those interpretations if the law goes to far.
Don\'t give lawyers a bad rap - You never know, someday you might need one.
It sounds as if your jaded about our political system. To qualify, our political system was designed so that things don’t easily get done. In fact, it was intentional that things move at an incremental and slow pace.
With that said however, I do believe that good things have and do (and will) come from government. After all, it was government that created the Social Security Act, it is government that operates the military that keeps us safe. And it was government that created the land-grant college system for which most of us were educated by.
To your point, yes - government does things it ought not to, like get involved in a family’s right to die case (Terri Shiavo), and it was government that got us in our current quagmire.
I think you overstate the case when you say that 95% of what goes on in Washington has no effect on (or provides any benefits) to the people of this country. On the contrary, 95% of what goes on in Washington and in our state capitals has a direct impact on us.
Certainly the decision to go to war has an impact. As do decisions on agricultural price supports that keeps our produce prices low, funding decisions on home land security and safety infrastructure (imagine the levy’s that could have been built if New Orleans had been given money to build higher and better levy’s!).
Even decisions on (dare I say it) religion and abortion have an impact. Imagine if the government passed a constitutional amendment bannning abortion. Someone’s wife or girlfriend gets pregnant and they’re not ready or there may be complications or someother unforseen difficulty. Would she have to go a backroom alley or out of the country that Roe was designed to circumvent by making it safe and legal.
The same with religion - not everyone believes in the same god, but if we put up a stone sculpture of the 10 commandments, then government should be forced to put of statues of equal stature of every other religion (the Budda, the Prophet Mohammed, and so on and so on).
The best way to not offend someone is sometimes to offend everyone so that no one group of people is receiving special treatment. I think that this was precisely what Madison was trying to say when he wrote the Federalist papers.
So I would say, a little less cynicism and a lot more activism if you want to change the country!
One other thing - Lawyers get a bad and undeserving rap. Our political system is complicated, but so is our legal system.
Without government, there would be no law. If there was one thing that I learned from my pre-law days, it’s that it is the law that gives us our freedoms.
Advocacy and debate training are highly valuable and essential skills of the legal trade and should be taught for all subjects and trades.
Lawyers fight to protect our rights by subjecting the written word to a living interpretation just as other lawyers try to reign in those interpretations if the law goes to far.
Don’t give lawyers a bad rap - You never know, someday you might need one.
Tony – Thank you for your very well stated response. You are correct when you said that I seem “jaded”, that’s probably the next step after frustration. It’s a common malady amongst those who do care and believe that government is instrumental in determining our future.
My frustration is in watching issues of serious consequence be continually utilized as campaign rhetoric and then fall into that “intentional and incremental” category. I’m 58 and can not remember a congressional or presidential candidate that didn’t promise substantive Social Security reform, definitive and common sense approaches to the upgrading of our educational system, addressing the issues embroiling our health care system in a positive manner, bringing the national debt under control and becoming instrumental in the resurrection of a more responsible government.
Of course graft, corruption, kickbacks, influence peddling along with self-serving schemes and scams have been part of government since its inception, but through all this, they have managed to address the important issues of the day. Our congressional leaders can move legislation through the system, with purpose and efficacy, when they deem it important. I’m not even against the common practice of pork-barreling, there’s not a community that hasn’t benefited from it. I would prefer not paying the taxes in the first place and letting the money flow into the community by its residents, but that’s just one more issue that’s way down my priority list.
You mentioned several pieces of critical legislation, judicial precedent and government responsibilities; the Morrell Act of 1862, the Social Security Act of 1935, The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade that was signed into law in 1947, Roe v. Wade from 1973 along with our national defense and the failure of the Corp of Engineers to adequately anticipate Katrina. You could of also brought up the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 and the Federal Reserve Act in late 1913, those two pieces of legislation have had a much greater impact on todays society.
These examples of past government bodies addressing the important issues that they were confronting, only confirm my opinion that our current politicos are side stepping the very issues they continually promise to address. This isn’t icrementalism, if positive dialog was taking place and not partisan politics, my attitude would change.
Your statement; “Lawyers fight to protect our rights by subjecting the written word to a living interpretation…” brought to mind a famous quote by a famous attorney; “It all depends on the meaning of it.” If there were limits on malpractice suits in place, would we be hearing about John Edwards at this time. As in any profession, a few bad apples… We all know the stories. And you’re also correct that my future could well hold the need for an attorney, it’s next to impossible not too. But the threat of litigation is a major obstacle for every business. Even when you do everything right, the possibility of finding yourself in court is good.
When looking at passed legislation along with the 19,000 Amendments attached to them in 2006, 95% are addressing the specific desires of the various lobbying groups and even though they may “effect” many they have no “benefit” to most.
Besides the snippets I write on my blog (non political) I donate my time to a couple of charities, continually communicate my opinion on local and national legislation and I am in the process of forming a non-partisan non-profit.
My point in the article was that HCR 12 is only a symptom of the problem, because if passed, it would initiate years of litigation. If the “Ten Commandments” are or aren’t displayed is of little meaningful purpose to anyone but those waiting to bring the litigation.