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"But that would seperate the kid from his peers and possibly lead to him beind ostracised by the rest of the class, and we can't let that happen. That sort of thing should be reserved for the godless commies who refuse to say the "under God" part in the Pledge of Allegiance."

If your a fundementalist christian, that would seperate you from the rest humanity well enough that you needn't fear being ostrizied because you missed a field trip. I am a evangelical christian but fundementalism bothers me.

...rights from statute only ...

Unless you ignore the whole Declarations of the Rights of Man thing. The French go through constitutions every two weeks or so, and it's easier for them to just attach that particular piece of boilerplate instead of cut-and-paste all the time. It's only mentioned in the very first sentence of the (current) French Constitution, after all...

I was referring to the source of the rights (not whether or not the are inalienable or not). Please go back and read the French Constitution and the TDoRoM again, carefully. You'll see that although the rights are incorporated, the current constitution (article 34, as I mentioned), says they come from statute. TDoRoM lists some rights, but does't say the rights come from God. It just says they exist, and mentions God in passing.

Even if TDoRoM did say the rights come from God (which it doesn't), that would make Article 34 of the constitution nonsensical. You have to figure that the people who signed off on #34 wanted it that way.

..."So Civil Code countries don't have the concept of divine-enshrined or individual liberty."...

Yeah, those godless commies!

The divine-enshrined nature of things merely ensures that the rights can't be taken away by statute. That's my point, not how religious or communist the French (or Continental Europeans in general) are. The secular nature of the French constitution allows them to take away rights many different way. E.g. a statue could make French rites contingent on whatever the UN declared them to be. Such is impossible in the US.

Alternatively, there are no similar invokations of the Declaration of Indepence codified in the United States Constitution. The US Constitution only points to itself as the "supreme law of the land" and constitutional amendments can be ratified that violate the spirit or even the letter of the Declaration of Independence, and the only way to fix it would be another amendment repealing it, or 3/4 of the state legislatures getting together and writing a new federal constitution entirely.

Indeed the Declaration of Independence is not part of the Constitution. That's not so important when it is clear where the rights come from, and people believe that they have the rights no matter what the government says. The people Continental Europe have the mindset that this week they have certain rights, and depending on what the EU or their government says next week, they have different rights. E.g. one week a political party is legal, the next week its banned. So this week you've got your TDoRoM rights, but maybe not next week.

Also, the TDoRoM doesn't even include the right to life. That omission was on purpose; they clearly knew about our Declaration of Independence. But anyway, it doesn't really matter; TDoRoM is a relic of the early part of the French Revolution. Those guys lost in the end to Napoleon, who got rid of the rights in his 1799 constitution. So apparently those rights are not so inalienable after all (and apparently, for the French, the right to life was never in there anyway, so who cares).

The fact that Napoleon took away the rights of TDoRoM makes me think that Article 34 really is correct -- the rights come from statute, not some power outside the control of government.

I mean, have you seen the Eighteenth Amendment?

Yes, I have.

I'd say though, that at least back then, people understood that there needed to be an amendment to take away alcohol, and an amendment to tax income.

These days, in contrast, people accept the government banning/taking things under the commerce clause, or propose taxing things or otherwise regulating things out of existence. E.g. a $10 tax per bullet, whose effect would be to destroy the 2nd Amendment.

(I just ranted in defense of the French... I feel so dirty...)

I am not anti-French per se. E.g. the Germans have a similarly unfree system.

But that would seperate the kid from his peers and possibly lead to him beind ostracised by the rest of the class, and we can't let that happen. That sort of thing should be reserved for the godless commies who refuse to say the "under God" part in the Pledge of Allegiance.

That's pretty mild as far as fundie double-think goes...

All we can do is point out that the 4000 years bit was not actually in the bible. Pointing out that it was the raving of a medieval monk who decided to average things due to lack of information would be counterproductive, as is obvious stuff like pointing out that Jesus was jewish and that our zero date on the calender is a convenience since the guys that set it didn't have accurate information.

We are living in a surprisingly superstitious and ignorant age - people are taken in by all kinds of cons - even mesmerism as debunked by Benjamin Franklin has resurfaced in the form of magnetic blanket underlays. It should not be surprising that all kinds of weird ideas are held - for instance beleiving in a book with far more certainty than the guys who wrote it. Life isn't certain, and looking for hidden meanings in numbers of words in something that has been translated a few times is pointless.

Interesting cafeteria comment from years back: "What would Jesus do?" "I think Jesus would eat the beans".

The thing I really hate is the fools that insist that science is a religeon of its own. I suppose if all you have is a hammer ...

Maybe you should read a bit of history. Roosevelt passed legislation in 1939 that kept the US out of the war until attacked by the Japanese in 1941.

I think I am a little farther along than you in the readings. You confuse what FDR said and what FDR did. He desparately wanted to aid Britain and stretched the limits of the law as far as he could, lend-lease for example, and actually authorized US Naval attacks on German submarines prior to Pearl Harbor. The laws were passed to fulfill campaign promises and FDR soon, if not all along, considered them to be obstacles to doing what is right.

To compare Bush and Roosevelt ...

Actually my post included something like "by your logic, not mine".

The reasons for the invasion are many and complicated but what it boils down to is an oil grab by the US.

How can it be an oil grab if the oil is not in our hands, and if the money is going to an elected Iraqi governmant rather than Saddam, the UN, the French, and various others?

PS: I am decidedly not anti-US. Far from it, I stayed for a while in that fine country in 1996, and loved every minute of it. I am however appalled at what the Bush Administration has turned it into.

You can't imagine how funny that is to us old farts who recall the same end-of-the-world nonsense when Reagan was president. The lunatic left said Reagan would turn the US into a theocracy, much as they do with Bush today, the lunatic right said Clinton would turn the US in a godless socialist centrally planned state, ...

Not only the godless science, but the abortion, too. It's eyes glow with the fire of a thousand burning human fetuses and umbilical cords in little jars full of ungodly preservatives!

Repent now!

Because everyone knows the fangfish is an agent of Beelzebub.

You can see the homosexual agenda and godless science in its eyes.

"In France, it is more simple -- rights come from statute, only."

Unless you ignore the whole Declarations of the Rights of Man thing. The French go through constitutions every two weeks or so, and it's easier for them to just attach that particular piece of boilerplate instead of cut-and-paste all the time. It's only mentioned in the very first sentence of the (current) French Constitution, after all...

"you can't see the effects of Lousiana law as clearly as you could before."

Many people praticing law in Louisiana, who are painfully aware of living on "a civil law island in a common law sea" may disagree with you.

"So Civil Code countries don't have the concept of divine-enshrined or individual liberty."

Yeah, those godless commies!

They have no concept of "the natural, inalienable and sacred rights of man," there isn't anything in French law stating that "the exercise of the natural rights of each man has only those borders which assure other members of the society the enjoyment of these same rights," there aren't any checks on the legislature, such as something saying "law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society," and there certainly isn't anything in French constitutional law saying that property is an "inalienable" right, let alone "sacred!"

Oh, wait...

"If the government chose to take it away (constitutional amendment), many would argue that that was illegal according to natural law."

Alternatively, there are no similar invokations of the Declaration of Indepence codified in the United States Constitution. The US Constitution only points to itself as the "supreme law of the land" and constitutional amendments can be ratified that violate the spirit or even the letter of the Declaration of Independence, and the only way to fix it would be another amendment repealing it, or 3/4 of the state legislatures getting together and writing a new federal constitution entirely.

I mean, have you seen the Eighteenth Amendment?

(I just ranted in defense of the French... I feel so dirty...)

I've read that it costs $8000 (of course in US dollars, you godless heathen!) to replace the batteries for electric and hybrid cars. And furthermore, they need to be replaced every three years.

If that is true, (please tell me it's not true) how in the heck are you ever supposed to sell them in a used market?! They would essentially all become scrap, sort of like a two year old iPod. How is that environmentally sound?!

It's not true. With the current hybrid cars, batteries are lasting over twice as long in tests as they're warranted for. And by the time these cars start needing new batteries (a few years from now), prices will have fallen considerably -- both from dealer/stealer/OEM, and the aftermarket too (which is bound to kick in).

The beauty of hybrids is that they employ standard, commodity battery technology, as used in power tools and flashlights. In fact the original Prius pack was a bundle of standard "D" cells. So there's no reason not to have aftermarket suppliers entering the market when the demand appears, nor would battery replacement be too difficult for a DIY'er.

"I've read that it costs $8000 (of course in US dollars, you godless heathen!) to replace the batteries for electric and hybrid cars. And furthermore, they need to be replaced every three years. "

Err... NO...

First, Toyota warrants the expensive nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) Prius batteries for 10 years and 100,000 miles (160,930 km), and Honda warrants the batteries on the Civic Hybrid for eight years and 80,000 miles (128,744 km). Note: In California, there is no millage limit. For the most part Hybrids limit the State of Charge of the NiMH Battery pack which extends life cycle considerably. And a very good reason why they can offer these long warranties without losing their shirt.

Second.. the NiMH hybrid battery packs aren't all that big.. around a 100 lbs. You could build a replacement NiMH pack for about a dollar per watt or around 1500$. As volume ramps up, one should expect the price of the components to drop even further.

(of course in US dollars, you godless heathen!)

I'm an atheist, you insensitive clod!

I've read that it costs $8000 (of course in US dollars, you godless heathen!) to replace the batteries for electric and hybrid cars. And furthermore, they need to be replaced every three years.

If that is true, (please tell me it's not true) how in the heck are you ever supposed to sell them in a used market?! They would essentially all become scrap, sort of like a two year old iPod. How is that environmentally sound?!

>>there are Christians who believe the whole point of their religion and following Christ is that if you love your fellow person and treat people well, the future, not to mention the present, will be better.

That plus the part about smiting all the godless pagan heretics who believe differently.

Luckily our overlord W has rid ourselves from godless science. We may die of diseases, but we'll live forever in Heaven!

I remember when a friend of mine working at IBM when they were in the process of chosing the name told be that he was pushing the "Blue Gene" name to piss off creation "scientists" and other religious nuts who don't believe in genes and the fact of evolution and speciation in the DarwinOS-style fashion. Just wait before "Dr." Richard Paley (a teacher of "Divinity" and "Theobiology" at Fellowship "University") will write another idiotic crackpot bullshit in his "Evolutionism Propaganda" column. Let me quote: However, these propagandists aren't just targeting the young. Take for example Apple Computers, makers of the popular Macintosh line of computers. The real operating system hiding under the newest version of the Macintosh operating system (MacOS X) is called... Darwin! That's right, new Macs are based on Darwinism! While they currently don't advertise this fact to consumers, it is well known among the computer elite, who are mostly Atheists and Pagans. Furthermore, the Darwin OS is released under an "Open Source" license, which is just another name for Communism. They try to hide all of this under a facade of shiny, "lickable" buttons, but the truth has finally come out: Apple Computers promote Godless Darwinism and Communism. People like "Dr." Richard Paley makes me proud to be an atheist, and the humor of IBM's and Apple's developers only keeps reminding me about it.

Face it, NASA's whole begining was a technology ego fueld race with the USSR

While I totally disagree with the point made, I was actually really surprised to find this premise much more supportable than I thought. Looking at the most well-known speech in its entirety, Kennedy's address at Rice there's much more 'we've got to beat the godless commies' than there is 'we do this because it's hard' so often quoted.

What I think is so funny is that as a child, all I heard was 'space is a challenge, we must explore' and nothing the adults were apparently really saying.

"Then we have the guy who heard a voice telling him to build a boat, put two of everything in it, and wait out a world flood which later no one else remembers happening, like, say, the Chinese, having been around for 4000 years or more."

Of course the Chinese don't have records of it, godless red communists don't float! ;P

Damn us godless barbarians who're interfering with god's work.

Driving simulator seeks godless heathens
I figure you're a good fit for an open source project like ours. We're developing an open source driving simulator and we've got some challenging math in the form of tire models etc. that you might find trivial to solve yet hugely beneficial for the OSS movement (entertainment software as a maketing vehicle).

Anyhoo, at your salary you can probably afford to buy the cars we're simulating but we need your brain if you can spare the time.

"Marx and Engels accepted evolution almost immediately after darwin published "The Origin of Species". Within a month, Engles wrote to Marx (Dec. 12, 1859): "Darwin, whom I am now reading is splendid" Evolution, of course was just what the founders of communisum needed to explain how man kind could have come into being without the intervention of any super natural force, and consequently it could be used to bolster the foundations of their materialistic philosophy. In addition, Darwin's interpretation of evolution-that evolution had come about through the operation of natural selection-gave them an alternative hypothesis to the prevailing teleological explanation of the observed fact that all forms of life are adapted to their conditions."

Zirkle, Evolution, pp. 85-86.

I did not deal with all your arguments in the last post since I felt Hitler was enough to prove my point. I believe the previous quote shows that communist nations find their justification in evolution, and are very much anti christian. Also I would point out that athiesm and evolution were around well before Darwin published The Origin of Species if not as refined.

You continue to miss my point. I am not blaming the hypothesis for the atrocities, I am blaming humanity. However it can not be denied that the "science" however misguided, provided justification for these people.

"If it is true that there can be no scientific base for racist policies, must it not be true that there can be no scientific base for advocating nuclear disarmament? Or must we not admit that the scientific findings of the natural science of sociobiology or the social science of biopolitics are as likely to be appropriated by interested parties, even scientists, to serve political ends as were the scientific findings of the German social Darwinists, racial anthropologists, and eugenicists? The history of scientific racism, ethnocentrism, and national xenophobia suggests that this is no mere academic question."

Stein, "Biological Sciences" p. 58

I'm certainly not making the argument that evolution is wrong because people have used it to justify horrible things. I think the facts speak for themselves. However, the claim that because people have done bad things in the name of religious causes creation is wrong, is equally as poor an argument, and is one I have seen over and over again on slashdot. Finally evolution is far more than a theory to many people it is the very basis of their Godless religion. The notion that the general theory of evolution can be disproven is laughable. Evolution is derived from the axiom that all things were created by natural process that are observable now. The very axiom that is the basis of evolutionary theory eliminates the possiblity of supernatural creation a priori. The explenation must be materialistic at all costs, not to mention that the hypothesis is so elastic it can explain anything which results in respectable scientists doing a lot of just so story telling. I don't think we need to get into why origins is not operational science but if you want to know my thoughts on it answers in genesis has a good explenation.