Bottom line here is that you have pushed this conversation away from Barton’s misrepresentation of the facts relating to the Kaskaskia Indians. Jefferson did not send missionaries to evangelize the Indians and then built them a church after they were converted.

You can argue your points about natural rights all day but it will not make Barton correct.

oft – we agree that there was no violation of church and state by Jefferson’s actions. However, we think it was ok for different reasons. I see no problem with it because the Kaskaskias were not citizens subject to the First Amendment and Jefferson was making a deal. Why you think it was ok, I am not sure. Your answer to Ken will help me figure that out.

You are correct that Jefferson did not believe personally in meddling in the religious affairs of other nations. Just as he did not attempt to tell the Kaskaskias what religion to believe in. Jefferson was not a fan of Catholicism as I am sure you know. If he would have sent missionaries to the Kaskaskia, no doubt he would have sent Unitarian ministers. You know he hoped they would come to Virginia. However, Jefferson recognized what the sovereign Kaskaskias wanted – which was a way to pay their priest and worship as Catholics – and he gave it to them as a part of the trade. Nothing more, nothing less.

November 20, 2012 at 2:37 pm

“You need written proof the framers denied unalienable rights to non citizens, otherwise Natural Law rules.”

No, because I, nor anyone else here, made any claims about the framers “denying unalienable rights” to anyone. that was YOU who brought that up when you were twisting the arguments others here have given. What Warren originally said was that Barton mis-represented what Jefferson was doing (and thereby Jefferson’s opinion on the separation of church and state) in the Kaskaskia treaty.

Further, Madison opinion is relevant (regardless of whether he was retired or not) because Doug was arguing the Rehnquist was wrong about Madison’s views on religion (and the 1st amendment).

the rest of your post didn’t make any sense to me.

That Rehnquist, like you, fails to distinguish between an appropriation for a treaty and a regular appropriation by Congress and offers no explanation is hardly an argument in support of your view. Rehnquist’s foregoing assertions about history, moreover, have been shown to be off in critical respects. See Chris Rodda, Liars for Jesus: The Religious Right’s Alternate Version of American History (2006) 86-122 (available free on line http://www.liarsforjesus.com/)

The quotation by Rehnquist is interesting in that it comes from his dissent in Wallace v. Jaffree. For his claims regarding the intended scope of the First Amendment, Rehnquist recites the various revisions of the precursors of the First Amendment and the debates on those in the First Congress and then simply asserts that “[i]t seems indisputable from these glimpses of Madison’s thinking, as reflected by actions on the floor of the House in 1789, that he saw the Amendment as designed to prohibit the establishment of a national religion, and perhaps to prevent discrimination among sects.” Rehnquist’s conclusions, though, hardly follow from the evidence he recites. Indeed, the opposite conclusion is more logical. Madison initially doubted the need for any amendment on the subject because he considered the matter beyond the government’s power anyway; since others insisted on it, though, he was persuaded to introduce a proposed amendment. During the discussion in the First Congress, some expressed a desire to focus the amendment on establishment of a national religion by law. Madison was generally comfortable with much of what others proposed, including that, and he actually made a motion to add the term “national” to a precursor of what later became the First Amendment. As it turns out, though, those versions of the proposal were rejected. The term “national” was omitted and broader phrasing was employed in the First Amendment as ultimately adopted. The explicit consideration and rejection of language focusing the amendment on establishment of a national religion suggests that the ultimately adopted version is not so focused. Not only does Rehnquist’s conclusion not logically follow from the evidence he offers, but Madison, the very founder whose intent he purports to champion, repudiates Rehnquist’s views in other documents Rehnquist simply ignores. See Madison’s Detached Memoranda. In any event, it bears noting that Rehnquist’s is a dissenting opinion of a single justice who failed to persuade even one of his colleagues to join him. Note too that Rehnquist is the only justice to voice such views. The irony is that by offering such a full throated, yet obviously weak argument for the just-no-national-religion claim, Rehnquist effectively undercut it by making so plain the relative strength of the evidence and argument favoring the contrary view.

November 16, 2012 at 7:39 pm

“If the Congress makes Treaty’s (Federalist 75), and they are the Supreme Law of the Land, how are one group of people exempt from a part of the law, and others aren’t?”

“the Land” refers to the U.S and its territories, not the world. A treaty means that congress is dealing with another nation for which the US congress is NOT the “supreme law.” Thus the law may not apply to the citizens of another nation.

The burden of proof is still on your side. You need written proof the framers denied unalienable rights to non citizens, otherwise Natural Law rules. In that sense a retired founding President’s opinion is irrelevant IF he no longer represents the people. Roe is unconstitutional; murdering babies was a felony penalized by prison and fine. Everson is also unconstitutional; religion is left to the States. Lawrence decision; the Founding Fathers punished with execution, hard labor, and castration.

Reinquist is in-line with the Founding Fathers, activist judges are not. You will need written proof from the founding to support your interpretation. Reinquist, and myself, make this assertion because it’s consistent with unalienable rights, couched in Natural Law, and the fact it is illogical (giving taxpayer money for nations to build churches, but not for our own citizens), otherwise Reinquist would not have used this in his dissent.