buzzvert: If I don't believe in a Creator, do I still have certain unalienable rights?

well..since the Creator still believes in you, i'd say 'yes'.

What's fascinating is that the "life,liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" thing was lifted from the French, but was "life,liberty,property".

So you have no right to property in the USA, but have the right to something as vague as "the pursuit of happiness".

Happy 4th everyone!

buzzvert: If I don't believe in a Creator, do I still have certain unalienable rights?

Of course. Does the sun care whether you believe in it? It shines on the believers and nonbelievers alike.

Lord Snoopy's G.P.E.H.: There's no hate like revolutionary hate.



/happy birthday y'all

unalienable Rights

Weaver95: with the philosophies of the Founding Fathers.

They managed to reconcile slavery. I'm with what_now, there's 364 days for political nihilism. Today is a good day to set that aside. We've never been a perfect republic, and we never will be. Now go set something on fire.

They got Thomas Paine, we get:

Happy birthday America!

We all know our governmnent isn't perfect but that isn't for lack of effort but raher because it is made up of people who themselves aren't perfect. But we try.

For today let us celebrate who we are and what we have become. Let us celebrate our history and our future. The birth of our nation was a wonderful thing that many paid the ultimate price to accomplish. Let us remember those who died so that we may enjoy freedom and the right to pursue happiness.

With all its problems, still no place I'd rather live.

/time to get drunk on piss beer and burn things
//just like the founders would have wanted

Weaver95: I have great difficulty reconciling concepts such as the Patriot act, seatbelt legislation, wall street bailouts, RIAA's perversion of US copyright law and the entire War on Drugs with the philosophies of the Founding Fathers.

If you ask me, we've lost our way. we're no longer 'free'. we've been TOLD we're free, but we need permits for everything and today we're going to have to run a gauntlet of drunk driving checkpoints to get around town. Not to mention the fact that the NSA and DHS are going to tap our phones to make sure nobody blows up the statue of Liberty tonight. So I don't think we're 'free'. I think we decidedly less free than we've ever been at any time before in the history of this country.

just my .02 cents.

Freedom is an illusion. It's just how much they let us think we have.

Hells yeah I said that.

buzzvert: If I don't believe in a Creator, do I still have certain unalienable rights?

Apparently the Creator believes in you, so you still have the rights.

evilgreg: Of course. Does the sun care whether you believe in it? It shines on the believers and nonbelievers alike.

Well, that's the problem... the whole statement assumes the existence of a Creator, which quite frankly, can't stand up in a court of law due to lack of even circumstantial evidence.

Jefferson: *licks stamp, drops Declaration of Independence in mail box*

Slave: Do Massa want tea now?

Jefferson: *does Scooby-Do double-take* "Yoinks!"

That night--

Jefferson: "Dear France, here are my "Notes on Virginia". About that all "men" are created equal bit in the DOI? The 100 or so that I own might not quite be men after all..."

"We were not at war"

really?

our foreign policy begs to differ.

since ww2, and probably well before that...our 'foreign policy' has been to wage a covert war of conquest and empire.

where have you been?

-on the sleepboat?

it's business as usual...under the dome.

DarnoKonrad: Weaver95: with the philosophies of the Founding Fathers.

They managed to reconcile slavery. I'm with what_now, there's 364 days for political nihilism. Today is a good day to set that aside. We've never been a perfect republic, and we never will be. Now go set something on fire.

I have lighter fluid, charcoal in a pyramid, have been drinking for an hour, and the guests aren't showing up till 2.


If I have eyebrows on Monday it will be a farking miracle.

Mentat: what_now: No. Stop. this is the 4th of July thread, and it shouldn't have political fights unless you're a Tory.

God save the Queen! Never forget!

Yes, by all means. Save "her".

Weaver95: today we're going to have to run a gauntlet of drunk driving checkpoints to get around town.

Those checkpoints are mislabeled, they are really "4th amendment circumvention checkpoints", look at the stats of the people that are arrested for being under the influence vs everything else, then consider the kickbacks they get for each towed car, as well as the fines they get and everything else. Its a fund raiser and has nothing to do with drivers under the influence.

Normally to pull you over they have to have a reason (or make one up) and cannot ask you to produce documentation without probable cause. But at a DUI checkpoint those 4th amendment rules go out the window. Given how frequently they arrest people for things that have nothing to do with being under the influence I think that we should make a conscious effort to properly label them as "4th amendment circumvention checkpoints".

Some references to what I was saying (new window)

F-bear: I won't listen to anything that Thomas Hussein Jefferson has to say until I see a birth certificate.

AND he's Muslim as all hell.

006andahalf: kronicfeld: *Except for negroes and women.

and the gheys
and in certain cases, mesicans, japs, chinks, wops, spics, jews, and greasers.

¨Hey, come on now. If you kick out the gooks, the next thing, you have to kick out the chinks, the spicks, the spooks and kikes. All that's gonna be left in here are a couple of brain-dead rednecks. And what fun would that be?¨

buzzvert: If I don't believe in a Creator, do I still have certain unalienable rights?

Then you were at the very least created by your parents, and they endowed you with certain unalienable rights.

/and a very small penis

Lack of "Fascist" PITA thermometer in this thread is surprising.

what_now: I have lighter fluid, charcoal in a pyramid,

Once you get one of these, you'll never go back to hydrocarbons (new window)

Tho it's not nearly as exciting.

"self evident then?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1Txi1687wo

//best thing on tv in years

buzzvert: If I don't believe in a Creator, do I still have certain unalienable rights?

actually, YES. Not believing in a Creator IS one of your inalienable rights. Go figure.

In 2001, I went to New York City with my parents and brother for a dance convention during the week of the 4th of July. While Mom and my brother hung out with dancer-folk, Dad and I saw all the sights, including the Manhattan Library.

On display was a handwritten copy of the Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson, himself. Underlined in red were the passages cut by the Second Continental Congress. Jefferson had copied out his original and marked the cut sections like DVD extras and then mailed them out to his friends.

Even at the age I was, I could tell from these 'DVD extras' of democracy that any neoconservative touting Jefferson as their movement's godfather had clearly not read his work. Just as John Adams had moments of blazingly liberal thought and moments of near-fascist thought policing, Thomas Jefferson's range of political opinion was a wide and a varied one, marked with genius, hypocrisy and the sort of little mistakes all humans make.

The point my father made to me at the age of 15, in our nation's first makeshift capital, was that the men who founded our country were just that, men. Mortals called upon to do an extraordinary job, yes, but still men, fallible, mortal and with the capacity to hold a range of opinions such that no political faction save that of one person could hold them without disagreement in some quarter. The Federalist Papers were right in that the cure for factional politics was, simply, more factions within each us-or-them side of the oversimplified coin. I still have the copy my dad gave me that Fourth of July on the Brooklyn Bridge, where we had mistakenly gone to watch fireworks.

And it was thus, two months later when all nationalist, phony-patriotic and national-security hell broke loose, I was able to recognize that my country was still great, despite its' sudden descent into paranoia and madness. America is, after all, full of mortals, and the sooner we get past our factions to the people within, the sooner we can aspire to greatness beyond our mortality.

Bauer: -naked is...as naked does.

Dashes do not start off sentences. Capital letters start off sentences.

Please tell me you just don't know any better. The alternative would be a failure at being pretentious. Obvious ploy is obvious.

"The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings capable of law, where there is no law, there is no freedom."

-John Locke (from whom Jefferson cribbed that whole "Life, Liberty, etc." business)

Weaver95: just my .02 cents.

You might be able to get a job at Verizon.

Weaver95: I have great difficulty reconciling concepts such as the Patriot act, seatbelt legislation, wall street bailouts, RIAA's perversion of US copyright law and the entire War on Drugs with the philosophies of the Founding Fathers.

If you ask me, we've lost our way. we're no longer 'free'. we've been TOLD we're free, but we need permits for everything and today we're going to have to run a gauntlet of drunk driving checkpoints to get around town. Not to mention the fact that the NSA and DHS are going to tap our phones to make sure nobody blows up the statue of Liberty tonight. So I don't think we're 'free'. I think we decidedly less free than we've ever been at any time before in the history of this country.

just my .02 cents.


Just keep rubbing Lincoln's head on those pennies.

Y'all wanted a strong Fed and you got it.

No point whining about it now.

Bauer: "We were not at war"

really?

our foreign policy begs to differ.

since ww2, and probably well before that...our 'foreign policy' has been to wage a covert war of conquest and empire.

where have you been?

-on the sleepboat?

it's business as usual...under the dome.

Eat an M-80 and die.

I thought the original line was ¨life, liberty and the pursuit of property¨

CommiePuddin: /and a very small penis

Well it USED to be small...

Weaver95

just my .02 cents.

I'd like to disagree with you......I'd like to, but I can't.

what_now
In case anyone was wondering, the USS Constitution is boring, and being the Navy would SUUUUUUCK,

Yes, it does.

evilgreg
Not a freakin' exhorbitant, useless monument.

The USS Arizona would like to give you a big old bag to keep all your fail in.

iceeofmn 2009-07-04 01:14:08 PM
"Happy birthday America!

We all know our governmnent isn't perfect but that isn't for lack of effort but raher because it is made up of people who themselves aren't perfect. But we try.

For today let us celebrate who we are and what we have become. Let us celebrate our history and our future. The birth of our nation was a wonderful thing that many paid the ultimate price to accomplish. Let us remember those who died so that we may enjoy freedom and the right to pursue happiness."

-no.

we are a farking joke.

and you don't get it.

that's "our" problem.

too many innocent people and blind drones gave their lives for a 'concept'.

-a concept they knew little about.

a concept that knew the rules...but did not play fair from the start.

we are the united states of little league baseball.

and your snowflake sucks...but made the all-star team.

and my 'stud' of a 14 year old, didn't.

-because he's not a mexican or a hooked up coaches kid.

there's your 'america'.

Weaver95: I have great difficulty reconciling concepts such as the Patriot act, seatbelt legislation, wall street bailouts, RIAA's perversion of US copyright law and the entire War on Drugs with the philosophies of the Founding Fathers.

If you ask me, we've lost our way. we're no longer 'free'. we've been TOLD we're free, but we need permits for everything and today we're going to have to run a gauntlet of drunk driving checkpoints to get around town. Not to mention the fact that the NSA and DHS are going to tap our phones to make sure nobody blows up the statue of Liberty tonight. So I don't think we're 'free'. I think we decidedly less free than we've ever been at any time before in the history of this country.

just my .02 cents.

Amen brother.

Bauer: "We were not at war"

really?

our foreign policy begs to differ.

since ww2, and probably well before that...our 'foreign policy' has been to wage a covert war of conquest and empire.

where have you been?

-on the sleepboat?

it's business as usual...under the dome.

where is this empire that we have built? I don't see it. Where are these lands that we have conquered??

corporate mustache: 006andahalf: kronicfeld: *Except for negroes and women.

and the gheys
and in certain cases, mesicans, japs, chinks, wops, spics, jews, and greasers.


Hey, don't forget us Micks.

You also left out the Catholics.

You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.
-Abbie Hoffman

corporate mustache: 006andahalf: kronicfeld: *Except for negroes and women.

and the gheys
and in certain cases, mesicans, japs, chinks, wops, spics, jews, and greasers.


Hey, don't forget us Micks.

Does not approve

/hot like ol' T.J.'s nappy-headed side action

SpiderQueenDemon: Just as John Adams had moments of blazingly liberal thought and moments of near-fascist thought policing, Thomas Jefferson's range of political opinion was a wide and a varied one, marked with genius, hypocrisy and the sort of little mistakes all humans make.

The point my father made to me at the age of 15, in our nation's first makeshift capital, was that the men who founded our country were just that, men. Mortals called upon to do an extraordinary job, yes, but still men, fallible, mortal and with the capacity to hold a range of opinions such that no political faction save that of one person could hold them without disagreement in some quarter. The Federalist Papers were right in that the cure for factional politics was, simply, more factions within each us-or-them side of the oversimplified coin. I still have the copy my dad gave me that Fourth of July on the Brooklyn Bridge, where we had mistakenly gone to watch fireworks.

And it was thus, two months later when all nationalist, phony-patriotic and national-security hell broke loose, I was able to recognize that my country was still great, despite its' sudden descent into paranoia and madness. America is, after all, full of mortals, and the sooner we get past our factions to the people within, the sooner we can aspire to greatness beyond our mortality.

This is very well said. Someone should sponsor you for TotalFark and save you 5 bucks.

The founding fathers had the same disagreements about the role of government that we have today, and the constitution is surprisingly modern in that respect. What it says about the rights of individuals and govt. still apply to what we are doing today. Too many people are willing to pretend that the constitution is an anachronism to suit whatever political agenda they are promoting. It's not an anachronism, it's just imperfect, which is why they created a mechanism for changing it.

So if you don't like it, work to get it changed. But don't sit around demonizing or glorifying the people that created it, or trying to argue them into irrelevance. It won't work - these were an exceptional group of people who created an exceptional document that will remain so for centuries to come.

Wraithbane: Yes, it does.

Did you have to sleep in a little room with 160000 other dudes in stacks of three?

because that looks like it sucked.

/was on old destroyer from WW2.

buzzvert: If I don't believe in a Creator, do I still have certain unalienable rights?

What, you had no parents?

what_now: Weaver95: I have great difficulty reconciling concepts such as the Patriot act, seatbelt legislation, wall street bailouts, RIAA's perversion of US copyright law and the entire War on Drugs with the philosophies of the Founding Fathers.

If you ask me, we've lost our way. we're no longer 'free'. we've been TOLD we're free, but we need permits for everything and today we're going to have to run a gauntlet of drunk driving checkpoints to get around town. Not to mention the fact that the NSA and DHS are going to tap our phones to make sure nobody blows up the statue of Liberty tonight. So I don't think we're 'free'. I think we decidedly less free than we've ever been at any time before in the history of this country.

just my .02 cents.

You shush. Have a hot dog, a beer, and a sparkler.

Watch some reality tv. Do not question your leaders.

Milkbeer: That's not true, a hispanic women have better judgement than a white male.

Apparently they have a better grasp of singular vs. plural nouns.

Damn you all are buzzkills, can't we just BBQ and watch baseball and listen to Sinatra today?

Weaver95 [TotalFark] Quote 2009-07-04 10:31:06 AM
I have great difficulty reconciling concepts such as the Patriot act, seatbelt legislation, wall street bailouts, RIAA's perversion of US copyright law and the entire War on Drugs with the philosophies of the Founding Fathers.

If you ask me, we've lost our way. we're no longer 'free'. we've been TOLD we're free, but we need permits for everything and today we're going to have to run a gauntlet of drunk driving checkpoints to get around town. Not to mention the fact that the NSA and DHS are going to tap our phones to make sure nobody blows up the statue of Liberty tonight. So I don't think we're 'free'. I think we decidedly less free than we've ever been at any time before in the history of this country.

just my .02 cents.


Obama and the Democrats are in power. If it is okay for them, you should unquestionably accept it. the Declaration of Independence is just a piece of paper that is outdated. Move along.

Unknown_Poltroon: what_now: Weaver95: I have great difficulty reconciling concepts such as the Patriot act, seatbelt legislation, wall street bailouts, RIAA's perversion of US copyright law and the entire War on Drugs with the philosophies of the Founding Fathers.

If you ask me, we've lost our way. we're no longer 'free'. we've been TOLD we're free, but we need permits for everything and today we're going to have to run a gauntlet of drunk driving checkpoints to get around town. Not to mention the fact that the NSA and DHS are going to tap our phones to make sure nobody blows up the statue of Liberty tonight. So I don't think we're 'free'. I think we decidedly less free than we've ever been at any time before in the history of this country.

just my .02 cents.

You shush. Have a hot dog, a beer, and a sparkler.

Watch some reality tv. Do not question your leaders.

I spend most of my employer's time questioning my leaders on this website. It's July 4th.

It's a celebration, biatches.