Why Liberals Hate Free Speech

[PoliticalChic]

PC can't understand that when you ban the nation from declaring itself a ________ religious nation, Church and State have been separated. There's no hope she will understand that free speech doesn't mean all speech.

Seems they don't teach that, in Korea...

" when you ban the nation from declaring itself a ________ religious nation, ..."

Never happened.

Caught you lying again.

 

[thereisnospoon]

There are many laws limiting Free Speech, for good reason, although we want as few as possible.

Who doesn't want laws against treason? Libel? etc?

Gads, what an imbecile.

Treason, the only crime spelled out in the Constitution, has nothing to do with free speech.

How about libel? Valid restriction on free speech, or not? Yes or no, please...

Libel...is not restricted. The fact is any can write anything they choose. There are no criminal penalties for writing something that is not true that causes harm to another or a group.
Libel is a civil matter. The aggrieved party(ies) must present their case to a civil court and prove the written words caused them harm and to show how this harm resulted in damage or loss of reputation....
The answer to your pigeon hole question is "yes"..Libel or slander IS valid free speech. Speech that could result in civil penalties for the one providing the speech

So speech isn't restricted, it's just restricted?

There is a law which says that one person can sue another person for libel. Essentially this is saying that if you say this thing, it's not protected. Do people often get sued for doing something which is protected by a constitutional right? Er.... no....

You can murder someone. It's perfectly possible. You might even get away with it, but you've broken the law.

United States defamation law - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

False statements of fact - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"In United States constitutional law, false statements of fact are an exception from protection of free speech under the First Amendment. In United States law, a false statement of fact will not be exempt from some civil or criminal penalty, if a law has imposed one. "

So, the US govt, or a state govt, can make a law which allows people to be punished for saying something that isn't true. Therefore they don't have protections from the first amendment. Which therefore means they've restricted speech.

Oh but until the point at which any litigation resolves the issue, it IS protected free speech...
I cite the "Crucifix in Urine" case.
Christians were highly offended by this display.
There were lawsuits demanding the exhibit be removed. The courts ruled the display while offensive to some was indeed protected free speech
A more recent example it the ongoing issue with Westboro Baptist Church. Unfortunately, their right to free speech while offensive, untrue and harms others, is protected.
Has complainants prevailed in court in either one of these issues, the speech would then no longer be protected.

 

[thereisnospoon]

This thread is just a re-run of this one:

Only Fascists Assail Free Speech | US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum

...thus proving my point that the OP loses the argument in one thread, then runs off and waits awhile before starting the same thread over again.

Read the old thread, and enjoy how she gets demolished.

Gee....I sure hope so!

A couple of months have gone by, and you Liberal fascists still hate free speech!

253 responses in that thread, and you Liberals joined in with a chorus of "is not, is not...!"


I don't know how to thank you enough for helping me spread the truth!

I proved you wrong repeatedly.

I showed you that Bob Jones University officially condemns free speech in its handbook.

Show me where liberal colleges do that.

Did someone ask about how Liberal universities are raising another generation of anti-free speech fascists?



6. "[Thus] the response that some of the students at Swarthmore had recently to the presence of Robert George, a conservative academic, when he was on campus as part of a debate with Cornell West, a professor noted for his radical Left views. Note again that the debate itself featured one Righty and one Lefty – so both sides of the aisle were evenly represented. So what to make of the statement by Swarthmore student and left-wing catechumen Erin Ching,

"What really bothered me is, the whole idea is that at a liberal arts college, we need to be hearing a diversity of opinion...I don't think we should be tolerating [George's] conservative views because that dominant culture embeds these deep inequalities in our society."


Who would have thought that a liberal arts college, with its traditional ideals of open inquiry and the championing of unpopular beliefs, would ever need to be hearing a diversity of opinions?


... these same types of barely-educated, closed-minded children such as Ms. Ching mistakenly believe themselves to already be "diverse" because in the mantras of the left-wing cult, "diversity" means "whatever disagrees with traditional ideas," while "conformity" means "holding to traditional ideas."


Hence, when young puppies like Erin Ching and her enablers in [Liberal] university administrations rigidly enforce ideological conformity by punishing anyone who is pro-life, pro-traditional marriage, pro-capitalism, or pro-2nd amendment (all of which have happened on American campuses), they think they're being "diverse," while tolerating these things is viewed as "conformity" and "being dictated to by the Man."
Why Liberals Hate Freedom Of Speech - Conservative Crusader





Again?

"What really bothered me is, the whole idea is that at a liberal arts college, we need to be hearing a diversity of opinion...."


What?????

I asked you which liberal colleges have an official anti-free speech policy aimed at students who might criticize the college,

comparable to the policy CONSERVATIVE Bob Jones U. has?

Cut the crap.....You just were provided with one.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Here's a related article.

Free speech is flunking out on college campuses

Yup....

....and from your link:

"These threats to free speech peaked this week at Wesleyan University, a top-flight school in Middletown, Conn., where the student government voted to cut funding for the 150-year-old campus newspaper after it published a conservative op-ed."

Okay PC, let's see if you can put away your bias.

Ben Carson recently said that he would remove federal funding from colleges and universities if they had "extreme political bias".

Now, as a self-proclaimed staunch defender of Freedom of Speech, why should the government punish universities for having speech the current administration (let's assume Carson wins) disagrees with? Would that be censorship per se since it's effect would be preventing speech on college campuses?

Now back to the thread.

Actually having been to a university (and currently on one), universities do NOT prevent people from speaking. We have bible crazies coming out weekly talking on campus. Had liberal and conservatives on campus discussing issues in a very civil manner. Both sides are challenged and both are heard. So I don't see where any of this is coming from.

Now why would PC want to put away her bias when you lefties guard yours like a pit bull.

 

[NYcarbineer]

It's the Liberals who hate free speech?

On April 4 [2014], [Liberal] Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) signed a law authorizing outdoor areas of the state’s public college campuses as public forums for free speech. The bill, which was introduced by Del. Scott Lingamfelter (R), passed both houses of the Virginia General Assembly unanimously. Virginia’s new law goes into effect on July 1.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education was instrumental in advocating for the bill’s passage. After the bill was introduced, FIRE’s legislative and policy director, Joe Cohn, went to Virginia to explain the importance of college free speech rights to legislators.

Cohn told The College Fix in an interview that Virginia is the first state to pass such a law expanding free speech rights.

Hmmmm....first state to do this...Liberal Terry McAuliffe, Governor.

Virginia the First State to Ditch Free Speech 'Zones' Entirely - The College Fix

 

[thereisnospoon]

Why Liberals Hate Free Speech

Hate it? No, we invented it...

Classical liberals did not invent these freedoms. They simply decided to place on paper( The Constitution of the US) what was already a right.
Classical liberals believed in freedom and liberty for all. They also emphasized that freedom and liberty is for the individual. Not to be used to pit one group of people against another.
Modern liberals do this. They create conflict by herding people into groups, causing these groups to view each other in negative ways.

 

[thereisnospoon]

When are conservatives FOR free speech? They don't even understand the concept .

Dixie Chicks ring a bell?

You have nothing to add to this discussion. Bugger off.

 

[frigidweirdo]

1. "Oh my god. Have you seriously said what you've said."

Hmmmm.....let me think about it.....
OK....I've carefully considered what I said, and, yes....you are an imbecile.

To discuss 'treason', as an issue to be accepted as an element of free speech
I haven’t seen such contortions since you gave birth to yourself.


2. And, for your edification:

1. 
   Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
   Article III, Section 3, Clause 1: Treason - Heritage Foundation
   www.heritage.org/constitution/articles/3/.../treason
   The Heritage Foundation

I'm not really sure what you're getting at.

There's speech. Free speech doesn't cover all this speech, does it? So........ What are you talking about?

 

[PaintMyHouse]

PC can't understand that when you ban the nation from declaring itself a ________ religious nation, Church and State have been separated. There's no hope she will understand that free speech doesn't mean all speech.

Seems they don't teach that, in Korea...

" when you ban the nation from declaring itself a ________ religious nation, ..."

Never happened.

Caught you lying again.

See the First Amendment, the one that bans the US from declaring itself a _____ religious nation.

Jefferson, Madison, and the "wall of separation"
The phrase "[A] hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world" was first used by Baptist theologian Roger Williams, the founder of the colony of Rhode Island, in his 1644 book The Bloody Tenent of Persecution.[13][14] The phrase was later used by Thomas Jefferson as a description of the First Amendment and its restriction on the legislative branch of the federal government, in an 1802 letter[15] to the Danbury Baptists (a religious minority concerned about the dominant position of the Congregationalist church in Connecticut):

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which 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 and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

Jefferson's letter was in reply to a letter[16] that he had received from the Danbury Baptist Association dated October 7, 1801. In an 1808 letter to Virginia Baptists, Jefferson would use the same theme:

We have solved, by fair experiment, the great and interesting question whether freedom of religion is compatible with order in government and obedience to the laws. And we have experienced the quiet as well as the comfort which results from leaving every one to profess freely and openly those principles of religion which are the inductions of his own reason and the serious convictions of his own inquiries.

Jefferson and James Madison's conceptions of separation have long been debated. Jefferson refused to issue Proclamations of Thanksgiving sent to him by Congress during his presidency, though he did issue a Thanksgiving and Prayer proclamation as Governor of Virginia.[17][18] Madison issued four religious proclamations while President,[19] but vetoed two bills on the grounds they violated the first amendment.[20] On the other hand, both Jefferson and Madison attended religious services at the Capitol.[21] Years before the ratification of the Constitution, Madison contended "Because if Religion be exempt from the authority of the Society at large, still less can it be subject to that of the Legislative Body."[22] After retiring from the presidency, Madison wrote of "total separation of the church from the state."[23] " "Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion & Govt in the Constitution of the United States," Madison wrote,[24] and he declared, "practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government is essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States."[25] In a letter to Edward Livingston Madison further expanded, "We are teaching the world the great truth that Govts. do better without Kings & Nobles than with them. The merit will be doubled by the other lesson that Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Govt."[26] Madison's original draft of the Bill of Rights had included provisions binding the States, as well as the Federal Government, from an establishment of religion, but the House did not pass them.[citation needed]

Jefferson's opponents said his position was the destruction and the governmental rejection of Christianity, but this was a caricature.[27] In setting up the University of Virginia, Jefferson encouraged all the separate sects to have preachers of their own, though there was a constitutional ban on the State supporting a Professorship of Divinity, arising from his own Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom.[28] Some have argued that this arrangement was "fully compatible with Jefferson's views on the separation of church and state;"[29] however, others point to Jefferson's support for a scheme in which students at the University would attend religious worship each morning as evidence that his views were not consistent with strict separation.[30] Still other scholars, such as Mark David Hall, attempt to sidestep the whole issue by arguing that American jurisprudence focuses too narrowly on this one Jeffersonian letter while failing to account for other relevant history[31]

Jefferson's letter entered American jurisprudence in the 1878 Mormon polygamy case Reynolds v. U.S., in which the court cited Jefferson and Madison, seeking a legal definition for the word religion. Writing for the majority, Justice Stephen Johnson Field cited Jefferson's Letter to the Danbury Baptists to state that "Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere opinion, but was left free to reach actions which were in violation of social duties or subversive of good order."[32] Considering this, the court ruled that outlawing polygamy was constitutional.
Separation of church and state in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[PaintMyHouse]

Why Liberals Hate Free Speech

Hate it? No, we invented it...

Classical liberals did not invent these freedoms. They simply decided to place on paper( The Constitution of the US) what was already a right.
Classical liberals believed in freedom and liberty for all. They also emphasized that freedom and liberty is for the individual. Not to be used to pit one group of people against another.
Modern liberals do this. They create conflict by herding people into groups, causing these groups to view each other in negative ways.

A modern liberal is the same as a liberal 230 years ago, only much smarter and dealing with a much different world.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Liberals are the power in the political realm....and they illustrate what Lord Action meant about power absolutely corrupting those who control it.



1." ...do any of you actually remember a time when liberals truly supported and believed in freedom of speech.... genuine,bona fide agreement with the principle that liberty includes allowing those with whom you disagree to have access to the marketplace of ideas, and that this marketplace itself will decide which are the best ones. You know, Voltaire's "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it," and all that?

I can't either. Probably nobody can who was not born during or before World War II,



2.... those on the Left do not believe in free speech. They simply do not accept the fundamental principle that people of all opinions ought to be able to express those opinions without being punished for it, or at least hindered to the greatest degree possible in their ability to express themselves.



3. [Thus the] editorial in Harvard's student newspaper The Crimson, in which Sandra Korn, a student columnist and "women's studies" major (who didn't see that one coming?) obligingly calls for academic totalitarianism,

"Yet the liberal obsession with 'academic freedom" seems a bit misplaced to me. .... No academic question is ever 'free' from political realities. If our university community opposes racism, sexism, and heterosexism, why should we put up with research that counters our goals simply in the name of "academic freedom"?



"Instead, I would like to propose a more rigorous standard: one of 'academic justice. When an academic community observes research promoting or justifying oppression, it should ensure that this research does not continue.



"The power to enforce academic justice comes from students, faculty, and workers organizing together to make our universities look as we want them to do. Two years ago, when former summer school instructor Subramanian Swamy published hateful commentary about Muslims in India, the Harvard community organized to ensure that he would not return to teach on campus. I consider that sort of organizing both appropriate and commendable. Perhaps it should even be applied more broadly...


There, in a nutshell, is the modern liberal attitude toward freedom of speech, and by extension freedom of thought. If research doesn't substantiate the cultural goals and priorities of today's Neo-Fascists, then we must ensure that it "does not continue." Why liberals hate freedom of speech



If speech refutes the Left's positions on any number of issues, then it has to be silenced. "Academic justice" means suppression of all those naughty things that people might say that contradict us.


As far as speech is concerned, the Left definitely prefers a command economy over the free market.

1. Havard's a private university, you nitwit.

2. Do you understand that the Bill of Rights applies to citizens and their GOVERNMENT?

3. Harvard can censor, edit, kill any story they damn please.

4. So can any privately owned newspaper, TV station, or radio--censor/edit their own content.

Genius......Just because a school labels itself as "private" does not necessarily mean it does not accept taxpayers dollars..
Once again, a liberal posts and they are WRONG....
Harvard Braces for Decline in Federal Funding | News | The Harvard Crimson

 

[frigidweirdo]

Oh but until the point at which any litigation resolves the issue, it IS protected free speech...
I cite the "Crucifix in Urine" case.
Christians were highly offended by this display.
There were lawsuits demanding the exhibit be removed. The courts ruled the display while offensive to some was indeed protected free speech
A more recent example it the ongoing issue with Westboro Baptist Church. Unfortunately, their right to free speech while offensive, untrue and harms others, is protected.
Has complainants prevailed in court in either one of these issues, the speech would then no longer be protected.

So, basically murder is protected free speech up until the point where the judge says "you murdered someone and you're sentenced to death" then?

Your "Crucifix in Urine" case would be an example of where the courts have ruled that someone is protected. If they had ruled otherwise then it wouldn't have been protected. No one is saying that libel isn't tricky. It's basically self censorship, but censorship it is. Often law is judged by humans who aren't the most consistent of animals.

The point here is that free speech IS limited and it's limited by laws on libel.
Just as laws on murder mean if you murder someone you're supposed to get locked up for life or frazzled. However various people go to court and they get off. Doesn't mean murder is legal until you get proven guilty. It's illegal no matter what. You just might not get caught, you might not get convicted etc.

Libel is illegal, however you might not get caught, you might not get sued, you might not end up paying anything.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Why Liberals Hate Free Speech

Hate it? No, we invented it...

Classical liberals did not invent these freedoms. They simply decided to place on paper( The Constitution of the US) what was already a right.
Classical liberals believed in freedom and liberty for all. They also emphasized that freedom and liberty is for the individual. Not to be used to pit one group of people against another.
Modern liberals do this. They create conflict by herding people into groups, causing these groups to view each other in negative ways.

A modern liberal is the same as a liberal 230 years ago, only much smarter and dealing with a much different world.

That's not even close to accurate. In fact its LIE...
The two are so far apart in their agendas, they are mutually exclusive.
Enough nonsense. Move on to something that has a basis in fact.


s

 

[thereisnospoon]

Oh but until the point at which any litigation resolves the issue, it IS protected free speech...
I cite the "Crucifix in Urine" case.
Christians were highly offended by this display.
There were lawsuits demanding the exhibit be removed. The courts ruled the display while offensive to some was indeed protected free speech
A more recent example it the ongoing issue with Westboro Baptist Church. Unfortunately, their right to free speech while offensive, untrue and harms others, is protected.
Has complainants prevailed in court in either one of these issues, the speech would then no longer be protected.

So, basically murder is protected free speech up until the point where the judge says "you murdered someone and you're sentenced to death" then?

Your "Crucifix in Urine" case would be an example of where the courts have ruled that someone is protected. If they had ruled otherwise then it wouldn't have been protected. No one is saying that libel isn't tricky. It's basically self censorship, but censorship it is. Often law is judged by humans who aren't the most consistent of animals.

The point here is that free speech IS limited and it's limited by laws on libel.
Just as laws on murder mean if you murder someone you're supposed to get locked up for life or frazzled. However various people go to court and they get off. Doesn't mean murder is legal until you get proven guilty. It's illegal no matter what. You just might not get caught, you might not get convicted etc.

Libel is illegal, however you might not get caught, you might not get sued, you might not end up paying anything.

Holy shit....Can you come up with a better disconnect than that?
How in the hell can you make the great leap from speech or written word to murder is a mystery.
That isn't a straw man argument. You used an entire hay field for that one

 

[PaintMyHouse]

Why Liberals Hate Free Speech

Hate it? No, we invented it...

Classical liberals did not invent these freedoms. They simply decided to place on paper( The Constitution of the US) what was already a right.
Classical liberals believed in freedom and liberty for all. They also emphasized that freedom and liberty is for the individual. Not to be used to pit one group of people against another.
Modern liberals do this. They create conflict by herding people into groups, causing these groups to view each other in negative ways.

A modern liberal is the same as a liberal 230 years ago, only much smarter and dealing with a much different world.

That's not even close to accurate. In fact its LIE...

Nope. I'm a liberal so I would know.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Oh but until the point at which any litigation resolves the issue, it IS protected free speech...
I cite the "Crucifix in Urine" case.
Christians were highly offended by this display.
There were lawsuits demanding the exhibit be removed. The courts ruled the display while offensive to some was indeed protected free speech
A more recent example it the ongoing issue with Westboro Baptist Church. Unfortunately, their right to free speech while offensive, untrue and harms others, is protected.
Has complainants prevailed in court in either one of these issues, the speech would then no longer be protected.

So, basically murder is protected free speech up until the point where the judge says "you murdered someone and you're sentenced to death" then?

Your "Crucifix in Urine" case would be an example of where the courts have ruled that someone is protected. If they had ruled otherwise then it wouldn't have been protected. No one is saying that libel isn't tricky. It's basically self censorship, but censorship it is. Often law is judged by humans who aren't the most consistent of animals.

The point here is that free speech IS limited and it's limited by laws on libel.
Just as laws on murder mean if you murder someone you're supposed to get locked up for life or frazzled. However various people go to court and they get off. Doesn't mean murder is legal until you get proven guilty. It's illegal no matter what. You just might not get caught, you might not get convicted etc.

Libel is illegal, however you might not get caught, you might not get sued, you might not end up paying anything.

Libel is NOT illegal. Neither is slander. The term "illegal" applies only to criminal statutes.
Here's an education for you....
If someone calls you an asshole and then through lets say social media, slanders you to the point where your reputation or you means to make a living have been harmed, you cannot seek the police to rectify the problem. You must seek redress in the civil courts. However, if you confront this person and punch him in the face, you could be held on criminal sanctions, because there exists statutes which bar one person from physically causing harm to another.
Now you do have the option outside of the criminal courts to seek damages from the RESULT of the punch, but the criminal courts handle the punch itself.
We can ratchet that up to murder. If someone kills another person, it is up to the criminal courts to determine if the killing was a crime. However, in order for the family to recover any damages, they again must seek a remedy in the civil courts.
The OJ Simpson lawsuit ( Goldman V Simpson) even though the criminal Part resolved the criminal case as a not guilty, in Goldman, the jury decided they Simpson was indeed liable for the deaths of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson. The jury awarded the Goldman's $33 million..To date, Simpson has never spent a single day in prison for the deaths of Goldman and Brown-Simpson

 

[thereisnospoon]

Why Liberals Hate Free Speech

Hate it? No, we invented it...

Classical liberals did not invent these freedoms. They simply decided to place on paper( The Constitution of the US) what was already a right.
Classical liberals believed in freedom and liberty for all. They also emphasized that freedom and liberty is for the individual. Not to be used to pit one group of people against another.
Modern liberals do this. They create conflict by herding people into groups, causing these groups to view each other in negative ways.

A modern liberal is the same as a liberal 230 years ago, only much smarter and dealing with a much different world.

That's not even close to accurate. In fact its LIE...

Nope. I'm a liberal so I would know.

You know nothing of classical liberalism. You are in fact a polar opposite of the concept.

 

[PaintMyHouse]

Why Liberals Hate Free Speech

Hate it? No, we invented it...

Classical liberals did not invent these freedoms. They simply decided to place on paper( The Constitution of the US) what was already a right.
Classical liberals believed in freedom and liberty for all. They also emphasized that freedom and liberty is for the individual. Not to be used to pit one group of people against another.
Modern liberals do this. They create conflict by herding people into groups, causing these groups to view each other in negative ways.

A modern liberal is the same as a liberal 230 years ago, only much smarter and dealing with a much different world.

That's not even close to accurate. In fact its LIE...

Nope. I'm a liberal so I would know.

You know nothing of classical liberalism. You are in fact a polar opposite of the concept.

How would you know? Oh wait, you don't.

 

[PoliticalChic]

PC can't understand that when you ban the nation from declaring itself a ________ religious nation, Church and State have been separated. There's no hope she will understand that free speech doesn't mean all speech.

Seems they don't teach that, in Korea...

" when you ban the nation from declaring itself a ________ religious nation, ..."

Never happened.

Caught you lying again.

See the First Amendment, the one that bans the US from declaring itself a _____ religious nation.

Jefferson, Madison, and the "wall of separation"
The phrase "[A] hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world" was first used by Baptist theologian Roger Williams, the founder of the colony of Rhode Island, in his 1644 book The Bloody Tenent of Persecution.[13][14] The phrase was later used by Thomas Jefferson as a description of the First Amendment and its restriction on the legislative branch of the federal government, in an 1802 letter[15] to the Danbury Baptists (a religious minority concerned about the dominant position of the Congregationalist church in Connecticut):

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which 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 and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

Jefferson's letter was in reply to a letter[16] that he had received from the Danbury Baptist Association dated October 7, 1801. In an 1808 letter to Virginia Baptists, Jefferson would use the same theme:

We have solved, by fair experiment, the great and interesting question whether freedom of religion is compatible with order in government and obedience to the laws. And we have experienced the quiet as well as the comfort which results from leaving every one to profess freely and openly those principles of religion which are the inductions of his own reason and the serious convictions of his own inquiries.

Jefferson and James Madison's conceptions of separation have long been debated. Jefferson refused to issue Proclamations of Thanksgiving sent to him by Congress during his presidency, though he did issue a Thanksgiving and Prayer proclamation as Governor of Virginia.[17][18] Madison issued four religious proclamations while President,[19] but vetoed two bills on the grounds they violated the first amendment.[20] On the other hand, both Jefferson and Madison attended religious services at the Capitol.[21] Years before the ratification of the Constitution, Madison contended "Because if Religion be exempt from the authority of the Society at large, still less can it be subject to that of the Legislative Body."[22] After retiring from the presidency, Madison wrote of "total separation of the church from the state."[23] " "Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion & Govt in the Constitution of the United States," Madison wrote,[24] and he declared, "practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government is essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States."[25] In a letter to Edward Livingston Madison further expanded, "We are teaching the world the great truth that Govts. do better without Kings & Nobles than with them. The merit will be doubled by the other lesson that Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Govt."[26] Madison's original draft of the Bill of Rights had included provisions binding the States, as well as the Federal Government, from an establishment of religion, but the House did not pass them.[citation needed]

Jefferson's opponents said his position was the destruction and the governmental rejection of Christianity, but this was a caricature.[27] In setting up the University of Virginia, Jefferson encouraged all the separate sects to have preachers of their own, though there was a constitutional ban on the State supporting a Professorship of Divinity, arising from his own Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom.[28] Some have argued that this arrangement was "fully compatible with Jefferson's views on the separation of church and state;"[29] however, others point to Jefferson's support for a scheme in which students at the University would attend religious worship each morning as evidence that his views were not consistent with strict separation.[30] Still other scholars, such as Mark David Hall, attempt to sidestep the whole issue by arguing that American jurisprudence focuses too narrowly on this one Jeffersonian letter while failing to account for other relevant history[31]

Jefferson's letter entered American jurisprudence in the 1878 Mormon polygamy case Reynolds v. U.S., in which the court cited Jefferson and Madison, seeking a legal definition for the word religion. Writing for the majority, Justice Stephen Johnson Field cited Jefferson's Letter to the Danbury Baptists to state that "Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere opinion, but was left free to reach actions which were in violation of social duties or subversive of good order."[32] Considering this, the court ruled that outlawing polygamy was constitutional.
Separation of church and state in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is not in any of our founding documents.

It is only in Jefferson's letter to some fans, the Danbury Baptists, to assure them that the government would not ban their religious practices.

The 'wall' was meant as a one-way wall: no government interference in religious practice, as per the first amendment.


The letter in question:

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which 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. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.

Th Jefferson
Jan. 1. 1802.


So...once again, you prove the veracity of the great Ronald Reagan's comment:
“It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so.”


I love educating you....say thank you.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Why Liberals Hate Free Speech

Hate it? No, we invented it...

Classical liberals did not invent these freedoms. They simply decided to place on paper( The Constitution of the US) what was already a right.
Classical liberals believed in freedom and liberty for all. They also emphasized that freedom and liberty is for the individual. Not to be used to pit one group of people against another.
Modern liberals do this. They create conflict by herding people into groups, causing these groups to view each other in negative ways.

A modern liberal is the same as a liberal 230 years ago, only much smarter and dealing with a much different world.

Aha!

Your usual lie!

'Modern Liberal' refers to Socialists only.