Working Together: The Mayflower Compact

[Cecilie1200]

And SO DID Jefferson, Madison and our founding fathers...

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Why do doofuses like you always rush to include Jefferson in with the Framers of the Constitution? This completely aside from your illiteracy in understanding the meaning of the First Amendment.

Well Cec, if you're going to call me a doofus, and then go off on a long diatribe dissecting each and every word in the Bill of Rights...start HERE:

I SAID founding fathers...
YOU SAID framers of the Constitution...

I said "Framers of the Constitution" because you then went on and specifically referenced the Constitution, which means you were incorrectly using the more general term of "Founding Fathers". If you want to talk about Thomas Jefferson as a Founding Father, feel free, but that would require you to include a reference to a document he actually had some involvement with.

NOW, tell me Thomas Jefferson is not one of our founding fathers......

As I said, if you wanted to talk about Thomas Jefferson, you should have used a reference he was involved with. Listing him and then referring to the Constitution makes you sound, at best, vague and unclear, and at worst, ignorant and confused.

The first amendment and the Establishment Clause...gee, I bet this is the first time this subject has ever been discussed in our nation's history....

Of course not. I suspect, however, that prior to the twentieth century, it wasn't discussed with such incredible, willful ignorance of the meanings of words.

Well, we could take a doofus approach...go off on a long diatribe dissecting each and every word in the Bill of Rights using 21st century word definitions, oblivious to the evolution of language...or...maybe there are MORE resources to digest and consider? Better get out your thesaurus Cec and use it on The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom and Jefferson’s Letter to the Danbury Baptists...Our founding fathers wrote letters and papers that gave us further insight into their beliefs and intent...

All right, dumbass. If you're going to try this approach, you're going to have to do better than a faux-lofty "21st century definitions, evolution of language" and show me some evidence that those words didn't mean EXACTLY what I said they did back in 1787.

The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom? All righty, Mensa Boy. Let's hear EXACTLY how that changes the meanings of the words in the First Amendment. As for Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists, I don't give a hot damn WHAT his private, personal opinions and viewpoints were, or how he expressed them in a private, personal letter, especially since, as previously mentioned, it was concerning a law he had no hand whatsoever in drafting. That doesn't change the meanings of the words of the First Amendment, either.

So you'd better get on your horse and start providing me something concrete, because your standard leftist talking points of "No, really, they WANTED government hostility to religion" aren't going to cut it.

BTW, Thomas Jefferson, while U.S. Minister to France at the time, wrote James Madison that he was concerned about "the omission of a bill of rights." Madison took Jefferson's notes and shared them with Hamilton, Adams, Mason, and others, and then sent a letter to Jefferson outlining the objections to a Bill of Rights that had been raised by the members of the constitutional convention.

Oh, gee. Jefferson was concerned about the omission of a Bill of Rights, along with thousands of other people in the country at the time, including the acknowledged father of the Bill of Rights. And gosh, he sent a personal letter about it, which people read. I guess that must mean that the First Amendment reflected nothing but Jefferson's personal viewpoints, and therefore the actual language that got passed should be ignored in favor of what a bunch of 21st century leftists WISH it said.

Or not.

Now Cec, I want you to consider the word "privacy" in the context of it's meaning in Thomas Jefferson's day...and why that word doesn't appear in the Bill of Rights...please don't be a doofus and knock over any chamber pots...

I'll consider the word "privacy" when you consider telling me why it matters in the context of this discussion, since you've just admitted it doesn't appear anywhere in the Bill of Rights.

Please don't be a doofus and stop wearing your chamber pot as a hat.

Oh, by the way. In English, not only do words have specific definitions and meanings, but punctuation has specific uses, and ending all sentences is not the use for ellipses. For that, we use just one dot, known as a "period". I wouldn't mention it, but the glaring illiteracy is getting annoying.

 

[Bfgrn]

All right, dumbass. If you're going to try this approach, you're going to have to do better than a faux-lofty "21st century definitions, evolution of language" and show me some evidence that those words didn't mean EXACTLY what I said they did back in 1787.

Now Cec, I want you to consider the word "privacy" in the context of it's meaning in Thomas Jefferson's day...and why that word doesn't appear in the Bill of Rights...please don't be a doofus and knock over any chamber pots...

I'll consider the word "privacy" when you consider telling me why it matters in the context of this discussion, since you've just admitted it doesn't appear anywhere in the Bill of Rights.

Please don't be a doofus and stop wearing your chamber pot as a hat.

...there's good reason to believe - as the majority of the Supreme Court did in the Griswold case, the Texas sodomy case, and at least a dozen others - that the Founders and Framers did write a right to privacy into the Constitution. However, living in the 18th Century, they never would have actually used the word "privacy" out loud or in writing. A search, for example, of all 16,000 of Thomas Jefferson's letters and writings produces not a single use of the word "privacy." Nor does Adams use the word in his writings, so far as I can find.

The reason is simple: "privacy" in 1776 was a code word for toilet functions. A person would say, "I need a moment of privacy" as a way of excusing themselves to go use the "privy" or outhouse. The chamberpots around the house, into which people relieved themselves during the evening and which were emptied in the morning, were referred to as "the privates," a phrase also used to describe genitals. Privacy, in short, was a word that wasn't generally used in political discourse or polite company during an era when women were expected to cover their arms and legs and discussion of bedroom behavior was unthinkable.

It wasn't until 1898 that Thomas Crapper began marketing the flush toilet and discussion of toilet functions became relatively acceptable. Prior to then, saying somebody had a "right to privacy" would have meant "a right to excrete." This was, of course, a right that was taken for granted and thus the Framers felt no need to specify it in the Constitution.
http://www.libertymulch.org/articles/030703_hartman_thom.html

... Ellipsis (plural ellipses; from the Greek: ἔλλειψις, élleipsis, "omission") is a mark or series of marks that usually indicate an intentional omission of a word or a phrase from the original text. An ellipsis can also be used to indicate a pause in speech, an unfinished thought, or, at the end of a sentence, a trailing off into silence (aposiopesis) (apostrophe and elipsis mixed). The ellipsis calls for a slight pause in speech.

The most common form of an ellipsis is a row of three periods or full stops (...) or pre-composed triple-dot glyph (…). The usage of the em dash (—) can overlap the usage of ellipsis.

The triple-dot punctuation mark is also called a suspension point, points of ellipsis, periods of ellipsis, or colloquially, dot-dot-dot.

 

[Liberalism]

I hope this clarifies the language of the First Amendment for you.

Listing the words of an amendment itself is not explaining what you think the meaning of the amendment is. Why can you not explain what you think the meaning is?

So basically, you're stupid. Glad we cleared that up.

Continuing my bad habit of casting pearls before swine, let me explain the painfully obvious fact that I didn't "list the words of the Amendment". That would be just repeating the Amendment itself. What I did was tell you the definitions - known to literate people as "meanings" - of the words, and then paraphrase them - known to literate people as "restating to give the meaning" - both as clauses and then as a whole.

In other words, Brain Trust, I explained, in excruciating detail with simple words, what the Amendment ACTUALLY MEANS. Which, just so I don't confuse you again, is also what I think it means, since as a literate person, I think words mean what they actually, in fact, mean.

I realize that in your illiterate leftist Bizarro World, explaining what you think something means involves making up definitions on the spur of the moment, according to how you feel and what you really wish was true. I, however, live in the real world, and speak an actual language which requires hard, clear word definitions.

Hope your head doesn't implode from the contact with reality and logic.

Listing the amendment and the definitions of words contained in the amendment does not explain what you think the meaning of the amendment is.

I did not ask you to clarify what the first amendment says. I know what it says. I've read the constitution.

Here is what I asked you "...could you please lay out your understanding of the meaning of the First Amendment?" as a question. If you are incapable of this I apologize. I did not mean to tax your brain and overburden you with a simple question.

Your perceptions of who I am and what I think and do would be amusing if you were not such a crude prude. You may want to sit in a courtroom some day and listen to people far more educated in the meanings of words than you are, argue over what the definition of is is.

 

[Samson]

Why do doofuses like you ......

Well Cec, if you're going to call me a doofus, ....
Now Cec, I want you to consider the word "privacy" in the context of it's meaning in Thomas Jefferson's day...and why that word doesn't appear in the Bill of Rights...please don't be a doofus and knock over any chamber pots...

So basically, you're stupid. Glad we cleared that up.

........

Hope your head doesn't implode from the contact with reality and logic.

.... you sound, at best, vague and unclear, and at worst, ignorant and confused.

.....All right, dumbass......
Please don't be a doofus and stop wearing your chamber pot as a hat.

Oh, by the way. In English, not only do words have specific definitions and meanings, but punctuation has specific uses, and ending all sentences is not the use for ellipses. For that, we use just one dot, known as a "period". I wouldn't mention it, but the glaring illiteracy is getting annoying.

<<<<sigh>>>>>

Wow....I feel right at home in this Thanksgiving Thread!!

If anyone's still interested in the OP there's a [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Mayflower-Story-Courage-Community-War/dp/0143111973/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260151037&sr=1-1#noop"]GREAT book by Nathanial Philbrick[/ame]

Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War

The main thing I took away was the detailed description of, King Phillip's War, which produced the one of the highest casulty rates of any war in North America.

Merrry Christmas Everyone!!

 

[AVG-JOE]

November 11, 1620
When it was learned that the Mayflower was landing in New England, and not at the
Hudson River, as specified in their patent, there was great dissention between the Separatists (Pilgrims) and the Strangers. But it was agreed that the only way for the settlement to succeed was if everyone worked together, and that before they landed everyone had to sign a formal and binding agreement. Therefore they hammered out the Mayflower Compact, the first basis for written law in the new world:

"In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord, King James, by the Grace of God, of England, France and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, e&. Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia; do by these presents, solemnly and mutually in the Presence of God and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid; And by Virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions and Offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the General good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In Witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape Cod the eleventh of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord, King James of England, France and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth. Anno Domini, 1620."

John Carver was the agreed upon governor, and on the morning of November 11th, 1620, he led the group forty-one men signed the compact. Of the nine who did not sign, some were sailors signed on for one year, some were too sick.

A study in 2002 found that almost 10% of the population of America can trace their ancestry back to the Mayflower.

They HAD to let the goddamn lawyer write it.....

 

[dilloduck]

I think it's creepy to stalk your own ancestors---

 

[Cecilie1200]

Listing the words of an amendment itself is not explaining what you think the meaning of the amendment is. Why can you not explain what you think the meaning is?

So basically, you're stupid. Glad we cleared that up.

Continuing my bad habit of casting pearls before swine, let me explain the painfully obvious fact that I didn't "list the words of the Amendment". That would be just repeating the Amendment itself. What I did was tell you the definitions - known to literate people as "meanings" - of the words, and then paraphrase them - known to literate people as "restating to give the meaning" - both as clauses and then as a whole.

In other words, Brain Trust, I explained, in excruciating detail with simple words, what the Amendment ACTUALLY MEANS. Which, just so I don't confuse you again, is also what I think it means, since as a literate person, I think words mean what they actually, in fact, mean.

I realize that in your illiterate leftist Bizarro World, explaining what you think something means involves making up definitions on the spur of the moment, according to how you feel and what you really wish was true. I, however, live in the real world, and speak an actual language which requires hard, clear word definitions.

Hope your head doesn't implode from the contact with reality and logic.

Listing the amendment and the definitions of words contained in the amendment does not explain what you think the meaning of the amendment is.

Yes, defining the words of the Amendment DOES tell you what I think the Amendment means, because I think it means what the words actually mean. Duhh. Call me boring, but I thought it was better to go with the actual meaning, rather than making one up for myself. Pedantic, but useful.

I did not ask you to clarify what the first amendment says. I know what it says. I've read the constitution.

As is obvious from your posts, reading is not comprehending. Now you can attempt to do both. You're welcome.

Here is what I asked you "...could you please lay out your understanding of the meaning of the First Amendment?" as a question. If you are incapable of this I apologize. I did not mean to tax your brain and overburden you with a simple question.

Look at your question, dumbfuck. ". . . lay out your UNDERSTANDING of the meaning of the First Amendment?" (emphasis mine) My understanding of the meaning of the First Amendment is the actual definition of the words and phrases used. So, in fact, I am not only capable of doing so, I have done it. And for you to imagine that you somehow taxed my brain and overburdened it simply because you can't understand that you got the answer you asked for is hubristic as well as laughable.

I apologize, however, for understanding your question better than you did.

Your perceptions of who I am and what I think and do would be amusing if you were not such a crude prude. You may want to sit in a courtroom some day and listen to people far more educated in the meanings of words than you are, argue over what the definition of is is.

Yeah, I'm a prude. That is EXACTLY the problem here.

I have no desire to sit in any courtroom anywhere, but if I did, I would not be concerned about people more educated than I am, because I'm not you. And besides, it's idiots who argue over the definition of "is". Truly educated people already know what it means.

I'm very sorry if the idea that words have meanings and that there are people in the world who know the ones that you don't frightens you.