(By the way, what’s a crude democracy? Does it have anything to do with Exxon-Mobil?)

I cannot find anything that supports your claim that Jefferson was anti-democracy (or, perhaps more accurately, anti-republic). On the other hand, I can probably find about 100 quotes right away that would demonstrate that Jefferson did believe most firmly in representative democracy. But I don’t need to go looking. I can find it in that same letter to Kercheval:

“But it will be said, it is easier to find faults than to amend them. … Only lay down true principles, and adhere to them inflexibly. Do not be frightened into their surrender by the alarms of the timid, or the croakings of wealth against the ascendancy of the people. … “I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependance for continued freedom. … “Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment.

If you want to insist upon secularism, you may well be doing so against the will of the people.

Gosh, that would suck. I mean, as opposed to the opposite, which never ever happens, right? Religion is hardly ever forced down the throats of those who believe differently.

For the odd “constructionist” / Founding-Fathers-Said-So/No-They-Didn’t debate, I add the following, taken from the Southeast wall of the Jefferson Memorial:

I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

That, I think, is truly telling.

And you, most of the quotes in that memorial that use the word “God” so frequently are actually cobbled together from many sources. The previous one appears in its entirety here, in a letter Jefferson wrote to Samuel Kercheval. You can only know context if you actually refer to it, so read and then judge for yourself the man’s opinions.

People often get confused when they read quotes by Jefferson, Lincoln and co. Indeed religious people often mention the Declaration, where we are “endowed by our creator,” as evidence that Christianity was the foundation of this country. This could not be further from the truth. In numerous writings of Jefferson it is clear that while he does believe in some sort of supernatural intelligence, he is certainly not religious and certainly not Christian. He was a Diest, which was fairly common amongst upper-class liberals of his day. In fact had he been alive today it is very doubtful whether his famously conflicted rational mind would believe in any sort of god at all. He is clear that he only believes in God because he ‘has no other explanation’ for how the incredibly intricate world that confronted him, came into being. Now he would have just the sort of explanation, Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, that would permit him to abandon the shell of ‘faith’ that he did have.

he’ll probably draw from baen people. whether that is good for bad depends on what you think of consultancies.

what poll/survey/study did you get this from?

from talking to atheists who are stupidly offended that some people think they are going to hell. i’ve been involved in ‘atheist groups,’ and i can tell you this is a surprisingly common emotional objection.

Although i think original intent has to be considered, i’m not really a strict constructionist, for many reasons including the fact that the founders themselves, jefferson and madison for example, had contradicory intentions. but i do think the document can and should be understood w/i the philosophical context it was written: classic liberalism, and when seen thru this lens a clear picture emerges, though some vagueness remains.

but i do think “separation of church and state” has been dangerously decontextualized, as if it exists in a vacuum as opposed to part of the general separation, or limited govt, that such thinkers as locke and hobbes advocated. in fact, one could argue the whole idea of enumerated federal powers (of defense, foreign policy, and interstate commerce) w/i the constitution represents a separation state and (fill in the blank). but to single out religion for separation while expanding government’s role into such areas as art, farm support, and retirement benefits strikes me as a contradiction.

but it is true that the establishment clause singles out religion in ways it does not other institutions. but even then, the primary purpose of the 1st amendment is to preserve freedom (of religion, speech, assembly, press, and petitioning govt) and the establishment clause should be understood w/i that context. thus the government cannot require its citizens to wear a burka, b/c that would impinge on their religious freedoms, thus constituting an establishment of religion.

more debatable is whether the govt could require citizens to wear a tuxedo. now i would argue such a law would be prevented by the 9th amendment but clearly the founders singled our religion b/c they knew, for all practical purposes, that religion posed a unique threat to liberalism. but that doesnt change fact that they wanted to separate all sorts of activities from government.

however, to interpret the establishment clause as a ban on saying “merry christmas” in govt offices, preventing church groups from using public schools, or citizens from using vouchers to attend religious schools, goes against the entire purpose of the 1st amendment. i’m also concerned about civil rights laws restricting religious freedom when it comes to the boy scouts banning gays, catholic groups like the st patty’s day parade doing the same, and recently foreign hate speech and libel laws making their way into the American system.

sadly, i think the republicans are better defenders of the first amendment that democrats, though I’m with the dems on flag burning.

Somehow from original post and others, it becomes an assumption that JFK’s catholicism didn’t affect his politics, which is dead wrong. It was his catholicism that guided his policy in Ireland and arguably Cuba and the communist bloc, and it was his role as the US president that did have an effect on the work of the second vatican council, particularly the Church decision that jews aren’t culpable for death of christ.

Further errors in Romney speech are that “In God We Trust” and “Under God” have been around for a long time when both the phrase on the money and the phrase in the pledge to flag came about only in 1950s.

“But he also wants to insist on the importance of keeping God in the political picture, and seemingly fudges over the fact that his concept of “God” is surely not the same as a Catholic’s, or a Jew’s, or a Buddhist’s.”

Presidents can be religious and they can and should be able to openly express their faith and reliance on their god without consideration for what their fellows think of god. His concept of god very well could be similar to a jew’s concept and different from a fellow mormon’s, either in his profession or in his own conscience.

It would seeem that the demand being set forth is for an athiest or at least for one who will stay quiet about what very well might be a major force that helps him think and act. It was finally very much Lincoln’s own growing religious reckoning (he never mentioned god in 1860 or in his first inaugural speech) that made him act properly and decisively in the civil war and such is reflceted in the unabashed religiosity of his second inaugural speech, the best ever given by a president:

…The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

razib,

aren’t we getting carried away with the relative value comparisons to Georgie? Now that his particular circus is seen to be leaving town, can we not make devise a method of describing Romney’s absolute value? I actually take comfort in the fact that he’s a consummate politician and is willing to make the cosmetic changes (Gays are bad! So’s abortion! Let’s not talk about evolution specifically, but traditional values are the bomb!) to get elected. GW fancied himself a decisive, perhaps ruthless (in Norman Podhoretz’s wet dreams), decider but proved to be more of a inept bungler than anything else. I just hope that Romney will also make the right staffing/appointment choices, if elected, to carry out workable policy rather than the political alchemy being attempted by our current prez overseas.

a surprising number of atheists seem to be offended by the nature of someone else’s delusions even if it has no material impact upon others

what poll/survey/study did you get this from? I thought the atheist’s main dilemma with any believing candidate, outside of those belonging to mainline congregations, was how far a candidate would use political appointees and the influence of the executive branch to advance the more illiberal mandates of their particular theology.

Manju: I see where you are going with the analogy. Economics is not a good analogy per se because they are numerous references in the constitution which both enable and disable various branches of the government on the economy but I understand what you are saying. I guess going by your logic, you might say that the constitution does not mandate a seperation of state and superstitious policy making because the constitution does not address superstition.

However, we do have something about the state and the church, aka the disabling establishment clause. If you believe in the original reading/intent of the establishment clause do you also believe that for example free speech can in fact be restricted by the City government or City Community College because the Anti-Federalists like Jefferson surely did not have the City in mind when they put restrictions on the ability of Congress to restrict speech. Also lets remember the Anti-Sedition Act of 1789 where Congress itself restricted speech and even Jefferson did not have a problem with that on First Amendment grounds.

My point is that all of us have become accustomed to a reading of the constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court over the last few decades or in cases like Marbury v. Madison for almost two centuries. Lets remember that before 1919, the US Supreme Court had not really considered restrictions on free speech by the Federal Government in any case. However, I dont see people railing against the modern understanding of free speech. Maybe you do, but most right wingers are very selective on where they want to see original intent/purpose/words and where they want to ignore it.