The "assumptions" I made were not, in fact, drawn from just this comment, but endless interactions and debates we have had in the past on a wide, wide range of political issues. By brute force, I meant far more than just the police, I meant economic power as well. The government is the only human institution that can tell us to obey its will or it will drag us off in chains to prison at gunpoint. The government is the only human institution that can take our money without permission and not. be punished for it (this is known as taxation, or LEGALIZED THEFT. That's all part of… Read more the brute force equation. A progressive tax system is not fair in any sense of the word, as it punishes hard workers, who tend to be more successful, and subsidies through the Welfare State lazy crackheads and drug addicts easily bribed by the political ruling class. I never said we were, in fact, a true Republic, I was merely explaining to you what we were originally, from 1776 to 1861, when Lincoln invaded the South.
Where did you get your BS ideas about the Founders not wanting religious morality to have an influence in government? CNN? Howard Zinn? Because it's laughably false. Here's George Washington:
“[T]here is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage, between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity: Since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven, can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained [see Proverbs 14:34]: And since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.”
"While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of
Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian."
AND Patrick Henry: "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here."
"The Bible ... is a book worth more than all the other books that were ever printed."
And here's John Adams:
"Suppose a nation in some distant Region should take the Bible for their only law Book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited! Every member would be obliged in conscience, to temperance, frugality, and industry; to justice, kindness, and charity towards his fellow men; and to piety, love, and reverence toward Almighty God ... What a Eutopia, what a Paradise would this region be."
"The general principles, on which the Fathers achieved independence, were the only Principles in which that beautiful Assembly of young Gentlemen could Unite, and these Principles only could be intended by them in their address, or by me in my answer. And what were these general Principles? I answer, the general Principles of Christianity, in which all these Sects were United: And the general Principles of English and American Liberty...
"Now I will avow, that I then believe, and now believe, that those general Principles of Christianity, are as eternal and immutable, as the Existence and Attributes of God; and that those Principles of Liberty, are as unalterable as human Nature and our terrestrial, mundane System."
And Thomas Jefferson: "God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever..."
"I am a real Christian – that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus Christ."
Samuel Adams : "And as it is our duty to extend our wishes to the happiness of the great family of man, I conceive that we cannot better express ourselves than by humbly supplicating the Supreme Ruler of the world that the rod of tyrants may be broken to pieces, and the oppressed made free again; that wars may cease in all the earth, and that the confusions that are and have been among nations may be overruled by promoting and speedily bringing on that holy and happy period when the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ may be everywhere established, and all people everywhere willingly bow to the sceptre of Him who is Prince of Peace."
Benjamin Rush – "The gospel of Jesus Christ prescribes the wisest rules for just conduct in every situation of life. Happy they who are enabled to obey them in all situations!"