Establishment Clause Quotes

When economic interest is seen behind the political clauses of the Constitution, then the document becomes not simply the work of wise men trying to establish a decent and orderly society, but the work of certain groups trying to maintain their privileges, while giving just enough rights and liberties to enough of the people to ensure popular support.

The rules your parents teach you to live by are very different than the rules the world actually runs by. Most of the conventional wisdom is not only wrong, it's a lie told to us by people who want to control us. It doesn't help us, it helps them. Pretty much everything we're told as children (and adults, really) by the established power structures in our lives are made up fairytales us to reinforce that control: Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the tooth fairy, fat-free frozen dinners, religion, and metering lights on the highway--the list goes on

When the First Amendment was finally approved, it contained two separate clauses on religion, each with an independent scope of action. The first clause (called the Establishment Clause) prohibited the federal government from establishing a single national denomination; the second clause (called the Free Exercise Clause) prohibited the federal government from interfering with the people’s public religious expressions and acknowledgments.

There is no such thing as a relationship without a contract. All relationships are governed by contracts, be they implied or explicit. Relationship contracts are not legal contracts, though sometimes societal expectations of relationships get worked into law (this can come into play in situations like divorce as well as the legal establishment and relinquishment of paternity). The society in which you grew up provided you with a set of template contracts to which you implicitly agree whenever you enter a relationship, even a non-sexual one. For example, a common clause of many societal template contracts among friends involves agreeing to not sleep with a friend's recent ex. While you may never explicitly agree to not sleep with a friend's ex, your friend will absolutely feel violated if they discover that you shacked up with the person who dumped them just a week earlier. Essentially, these social contracts tell an individual when they have “permission” to have specific emotional reactions. While this may not seem that impactful, these default standards can have a significant impact on one’s life. For example, in the above reaction, a friend who just got angry out of the blue at a member of their social group would be ostracized by others within the group while a friend who became angry while citing the “they slept with my ex” contract violation may receive social support from the friend group and internally feel more justified in their retaliatory action. To ferret out the contractual aspects of relationships in which you currently participate, think through something a member of that relationship might do that would have you feeling justifiably violated, even though they never explicitly agreed to never take such action. This societal system of template contracts may have worked in a culturally and technologically homogenous world without frequent travel, but within the modern world, assumed template contracts cause copious problems.

We maintain therefore that in matters of Religion, no man’s right is abridged by the institution of Civil Society, and that Religion is wholly exempt from its cognizance. True it is, that no other rule exists, by which any question which may divide a Society, can be ultimately determined, but the will of the majority; but it is also true, that the majority may trespass on the rights of the minority. ...Because it is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of Citizens, and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The free men of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise, and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much soon to forget it. Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects? that the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever? ...Because experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of Religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution. ...What influence in fact have ecclesiastical establishments had on Civil Society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the Civil authority; in many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny: in no instance have they been seen the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty, may have found an established Clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just Government instituted to secure & perpetuate it needs them not. Such a Government will be best supported by protecting every Citizen in the enjoyment of his Religion with the same equal hand which protects his person and his property; by neither invading the equal rights of any Sect, nor suffering any Sect to invade those of another. [Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, 20 June 1785. This was written in response to a proposed bill that would establish 'teachers of the Christian religion', violating the 1st Amendment's establishment clause]

But in its extreme form, belief in the free market is as naive as belief in Santa Claus. There simply is no such thing as market free of all political bias. The most important economic resource is trust in the future, and this resource is constantly threatened by thieves and charlatans. Markets by themselves offer no protection against fraud, theft, and violence. It is the job of political systems to ensure trust by legislating sanctions against cheats and to establish and support police forces, courts and jails which will enforce the law.

The legal argument the ACLU used to support Engel and his fellow plaintiffs was that the Regents’ nondenominational prayer violated the Establishment Clause. The ACLU backed its argument not with a clause in the Constitution, but with a phrase taken from a private letter written by President Thomas Jefferson. In a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association of Connecticut on January 1, 1802, Jefferson wrote that the First Amendment, enacted on behalf of all the American people, “declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”7 Jefferson coined the metaphor of a wall of church-state separation to assure the Baptists in Connecticut that the government would never infringe on the free exercise of their religion. The ACLU stood Jefferson’s reassurance on its head, turning it into a rationale for suppressing the free exercise of religion. That phrase, “wall of separation between church and state,” became a bumper-sticker slogan for leftists and secularists who want to silence religious people and marginalize their beliefs.

But in its extreme form, belief in the free market is as naïve as belief in Santa Claus. There simply is no such thing as a market free of all political bias. The most important economic resource is trust in the future, and this resource is constantly threatened by thieves and charlatans. Markets by themselves offer no protection against fraud, theft and violence. It is the job of political systems to ensure trust by legislating sanctions against cheats and to establish and support police forces, courts and jails which will enforce the law. When kings fail to do their jobs and regulate the markets properly, it leads to loss of trust, dwindling credit and economic depression.

But in its extreme form, belief in the free market is as naïve as belief in Santa Claus. There simply is no such thing as a market free of all political bias. The most important economic resource is trust in the future, and this resource is constantly threatened by thieves and charlatans. Markets by themselves offer no protection against fraud, theft and violence. It is the job of political systems to ensure trust by legislating sanctions against cheats and to establish and support police forces, courts and jails which will enforce the law. When kings fail to do their jobs and regulate the markets properly, it leads to loss of trust, dwindling credit and economic depression. That was the lesson taught by the Mississippi Bubble of 1719, and anyone who forgot it was reminded by the US housing bubble of 2007, and the ensuing credit crunch and recession.

But in its extreme form, belief in the free market is as naïve as belief in Santa Claus. There simply is no such thing as a market free of all political bias. The most important economic resource is trust in the future, and this resource is constantly threatened by thieves and charlatans. Markets by themselves offer no protection against fraud, theft and violence. It is the job of political systems to ensure trust by legislating sanctions against cheats and to establish and support police forces, courts and jails which will enforce the law. When kings fail to do their jobs and regulate the markets properly, it leads to loss of trust, dwindling credit and economic depression. That was the lesson taught by the Mississippi Bubble of 1719, and anyone who forgot it was reminded by the US housing bubble of 2007, and the ensuing credit crunch and recession. The

convened) against domestic Violence. ARTICLE V The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of it's equal Suffrage in the Senate. ARTICLE VI All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation. This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States. ARTICLE VII The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same. Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth. In Witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names, Go. WASHINGTON— Presid. and deputy from Virginia New Hampshire John Langdon Nicholas Gilman Massachusetts Nathaniel Gorham Rufus King Connecticut Wm. Saml. Johnson Roger Sherman New York Alexander Hamilton New Jersey Wil: Livingston David Brearley Wm. Paterson Jona: Dayton Pennsylvania B Franklin Thomas Mifflin Robt Morris Geo. Clymer Thos FitzSimons Jared Ingersoll James Wilson Gouv Morris Delaware Geo: Read Gunning Bedford jun John Dickinson Richard Bassett Jaco: Broom Maryland James Mchenry

But in its extreme form, belief in the free market is as naïve as belief in Santa Claus. There simply is no such thing as a market free of all political bias. The most important economic resource is trust in the future, and this resource is constantly threatened by thieves and charlatans. Markets by themselves offer no protection against fraud, theft and violence. It is the job of political systems to ensure trust by legislating sanctions against cheats and to establish and support police forces, courts and jails which will enforce the law.

The CIA was created by the NSA/47 and placed under the direction of the NSC, a committee. This same act had established the NSC at the same time. Therefore, the CIA’s position relative to the NSC was without practice and precedent; but the law was specific in placing the agency under the direction of that committee, and in not placing the Agency in the Office of the President and directly under his control. In conclusion, this act provided that among the duties the CIA would perform, it would: . . . (5) perform such other functions and duties related to intelligence affecting the National Security as the NSC may from time to time direct. This was the inevitable loophole, and as time passed and as the CIA and the ST grew in power and know-how they tested this clause in the Act and began to practice their own interpretation of its meaning. They believed that it meant they could practice clandestine operations. Their perseverance paid off. During the summer of 1948 the NSC issued a directive, number 10/2, which authorized special operations, with two stipulations: (a) Such operations must be secret, and (b) such operations must be plausibly deniable. These were important prerequisites.

FIGURE 5.1 Buying and closing checklist. 1. Identify a potential bargain purchase; ask questions. 2. Write down the one urgent problem you can solve for the seller. 3. Establish the fair market value, give or take 5 percent. 4. Research the market rent and likely net income the property will produce. 5. State your minimum acceptable profit on this house. 6. Formulate an offer that solves the seller's one urgent problem. 7. Make the offer. Insist on either an acceptance or a counteroffer (Don't tell me what you won't do; tell me what you will do). 8. Make another offer based on any new information. 9. If the seller is unresponsive but you remain convinced there is opportunity, go away and come back in a week with another offer. 10. Get the contract accepted-signed by all parties. 11. Make your earnest money deposit with the closing agent. 12. Retain rights to house inspector and termite inspector if needed. 13. Order a title search with a title company, attorney, or escrow company, and furnish these agents a copy of your fully signed contract. 14. Talk with the agent or attorney who will prepare the closing documents to alert him to any unusual clauses in the contract. 15. Get copies of any documents you will be required to sign the day before the closing, and get a copy of the title insurance commitment-read to check for exceptions. 16. Read closing documents (very carefully!!!). 17. Walk through the house the day of the closing after the sellers are completely out of the house. 18. Go to the closing, review the documents, and collect the appropriate items listed on the closing documents list, and get the keys and garage door opener. Note: When you are buying, take your time. Time is on your side. Having both the buyers and the sellers at the closing can work to your advantage. When you are selling, sign documents in advance. Only go to pick up your check after the buyer has signed everything and left. Source: Reprinted from John Schaub, "Making It Big on Little Deals," seminar by permission

In the West, marriage (gay or straight) is supposed to follow romance. People marry for love; they marry for happiness. When the conservative Theodore Olson and liberal David Boies argued that same-sex marriage was a constitutionally guaranteed right, they based their argument on the clause in the preamble of the constitution that secured "the pursuit of happiness." But marriage, like so much sexual policing, is not just about love; it's about money. Marriage determines rights to property. Marriage is a contract. Like other contracts, it is governed by the state. Laws tell us whom we can marry and whom we cannot. They tell us when we can marry (not, say, before the age of sixteen). The laws don't care much about happiness. They do care about sex (if it's useful to the state). Laws in Europe, if not the United States, rewards people who have children. Marriage, in all cases, directs the flow of money. Property flows as marriage directs: to a spouse or a partner, to children. Domestic partnerships and civil unions have the same ties to money. When American corporations began offering benefits to same-sex partners, they required people to establish they really were partners. This was not a matter of sex or love or romance. It was a matter of money. Partners had to demonstrate not that they have romantic or sexual ties but that they had financial ones. They had to show that they owned property together, that they were named in each other's wills or shared a bank account.

In 1947 Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black invoked Jefferson’s phrase in the landmark Everson vs. Board of Education case, arguing that the “wall of separation” must be kept “high and impregnable.”10 It was the first case to rule that the Bill of Rights’ “establishment” clause applied to states as well as the federal government.

The Texas declaration clauses read: “We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.

The Banking Act of 1933, also known as Glass-Steagall, regulated the stock market, separated securities dealers from banks, and established the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Though the SEC regulated many securities markets, government securities were considered exempt. That meant that federal securities laws did not apply. The thinking at the time was to let those markets operate free of government regulation, which would allow the Treasury and municipalities to sell debt at a lower cost. Oh, and one more thing. There was a clause known as Regulation Q, which prohibited banks from paying interest on savings accounts.

WHERE THESE RIGHTS COME FROM Yet what was the constitutional basis for these actions? Desegregation and anti-discrimination laws both relied on the notion that blacks weren’t slaves any longer; rather, they were free and could make their own choices. This freedom, however, had been secured for blacks by the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution which permanently abolished slavery. Thus, the Thirteenth Amendment was the original freedom charter for African Americans. The desegregation court rulings and the anti-discrimination provisions of the Civil Rights Act and the Fair Housing Bill were also based on the “equal protection” clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This Amendment granted citizenship to blacks and established equal rights under the law. It was the original social justice manifesto for blacks, women, and other minorities. Finally, the Voting Rights Act attempted to secure for blacks full enfranchisement, the right to vote. But blacks already had the right to vote. That right was specified in the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution. This amendment declared that, as citizens, blacks had the same prerogative to cast their ballots as whites and all others. The 1965 Voting Rights Act merely sought to enforce an equality provision that had been constitutionally affirmed much earlier.

Back at my motel, I mentally played back my interview with Boyd. I felt the same way he did: If the Jesus of faith is not also the Jesus of history, he’s powerless and he’s meaningless. Unless he’s rooted in reality, unless he established his divinity by rising from the dead, he’s just a feel-good symbol who’s as irrelevant as Santa Claus.

One country, one law; however, the Election Commission's returning officers have own rules, within each constituency since one candidate's nomination has approval in one constituency and other constituencies not, having the same information and documents. In such insight, it seems that the Election Commission fails to create a fair and clean way of decision. As a fact, it will be more questionable if the Armed Forces institutions determine to dig into this subject, for free and fair elections; whereas, it may damage and come to a question the credibility of such established institutions, which will be an awkward position, even a mistake. On such election issues, sober and visionary journalists and writers, express their concerns, executing the suitable ways, for fair and clean election, without distinction. There should be a clause of the present and fresh information, which would cover all things of the nominator, not only the previous one since that penetrates nothing. Nominators should have the second privilege, to clarify its information than direct rejection or unqualified hammer upon it. All the blunders that occurred in these days, show lack of fairness and accuracy, within the rule of justice. The elections require the right procedure; otherwise, cannot qualify, as the standard and fair elections

Neither the Lord Chancellor specifically nor, by implication, the Prime Minister could be Roman Catholics. The latter would be precluded by the clause which forbade any Catholic to advise on ecclesiastical appointments, a duty which comes to the Prime Minister of a country in which there is an officially Established Church.

the Fourteenth Amendment, which granted citizenship to former slaves and guaranteed, at least on paper, equal protection. The amendment established the principle of birthright citizenship (thus overturning Dred Scott and making blacks citizens), and, with its equal protection clause, put the idea of equality into the Constitution for the first time, making the federal government, not the states, the protector of Americans’ liberties.

To embarrass Madison, Elias Boudinot read aloud in Congress some passages about the “necessary and proper” clause from Federalist number 44, notably the following: “No axiom is more clearly established in law or in reason than wherever the end is required, the means are authorized; wherever a general power to do a thing is given, every particular power for doing it is included.” Hamilton probably tipped off his old friend that Madison had written these incriminating words.

The United Nations Organization requires amendments in its Charter for its effectiveness, global peace, and people's rights, to add two clauses in its rules and principles. First, Democratic Public Rights as Human rights and secondly, in its judicial organ, for the right of appeal against the illegally overthrown the democratic government by the Armed Forces, in the International Court Of Justice. As a fact, such amendments will establish the security of the public rights of the democratic system and its stability and respect. Breach of these clauses will result in a penalty, as trade and diplomatic ban and restrictions on the Military regimes until reinstate and reversion to a legitimate and democratic government.

The only way to prepare for the unexpected is to build into all of your plans a contingency clause that suggests what you would do if the unexpected happened. In that way you will have alternative routes ready to take in case the main route is closed unexpectedly, as well as established procedures for changing your plans with a minimum of chaos if they are undermined by unforeseen events. There is a further advantage to worst-case scenarios: if everyone else, as the Macrae quotation suggests, is going the way you were planning to, the worst-case scenario becomes a forecast that may be accurate simply because it is based on something other than commonly accepted assumptions. “Contrarian” investment strategies are based on precisely this approach.

quickly realized there was no clause in the Constitution that established the Union’s perpetuity.

Proclaiming Clean Slates to restore economic balance – annulling the accumulation of debts when they grew beyond the ability to be paid – kept pre-Roman civilization financially stables. Mosaic Law placed this principle at the core of Jewish religion (Leviticus 25). Yet modern Christianity all but ignores the fact that in Jesus’s first sermon (Luke 4) he unrolled the scroll of Isaiah and announced his mission to proclaim the Year of the Lord, as the Jubilee Year was known. Restoring the Jubilee Year became the basis for early Christians to break away from Rabbi Hillel, whose prosbul clause was used by creditors to force debtors to waive their rights to a Clean Slate. Jesus’s position – reflected also in the Dead Sea scrolls of the Essenes – prompted the wealthy establishment to fight so strongly against him.

This free-market doctrine is today the most common and influential variant of the capitalist creed. The most enthusiastic advocates of the free market criticize military adventures abroad with as much zeal as welfare programs at home. They offer governments the same advice that Zen masters offer initiates: just do nothing. But in its extreme form, belief in the free market is as naive as belief in Santa Claus. There simply is no such thing as a market free of all political bias. The most important economic resource is trust in the future, and this resource is constantly threatened by thieves and charlatans. Markets by themselves offer no protection against fraud, theft and violence. It is the job of political systems to ensure trust by legislating sanctions against cheats and to establish and support police forces, courts and jails which will enforce the law. When kings fail to do their jobs and regulate the markets properly, it leads to loss of trust, dwindling credit and economic depression. That was the lesson taught by the Mississippi Bubble of 1719, and anyone who forgot it was reminded by the US housing bubble of 2007, and the ensuing credit crunch and recession.