Could Barbary Pirates hijack the Ten Commandments case?

This is why I love history. Who would have thought a band of scurvy pirates from the 18th century could impact a Supreme Court case? But check out Article 11 of the 1796 Treaty of Tripoli, passed unanimously by the U.S. Senate and signed by President John Adams:

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; (emphasis added) as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen (Muslims); and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

Full story: http://reidreport.com/blog/reidblog.html though credit goes to the Al Franken show for finding this one.

Things that make you go "hmmmmm...."

This is a good find.

about every six months someone "discovers" it, and John Adams was, without any question, a founder of this country.

Problem is that this treaty wording isn't really law. It isn't really even history. The wording had no bearing on US law or history, but was inserted for purely political reasons to assure the Ottomans, or whoever the hell was running Tripoli back then, that we had no "Crusading" designs on them.

A bit closer to the truth, although possibly too complex for the typical kneejerk flag and cross waver to understand, would be Jefferson's Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. Google it, and read some of the commentary about it, if you already haven't. Madison championed it through the Virginia legislature. The stature became the basis for the First Amendment, and the backstory about it is interesting.

Adams, Madison, Jefferson, and Washington had some things to say about state religion, along with many others back then, and they just didn't like the idea. Franklin REALLY didn't like it. There was some sentiment for more religion in government by quite a few at the Constitutional Convention, but the heavyweights won out with their clear reasoning and sense of history that showed religion to have been used far too many times as a means of division and a path to war.

Government is simply an invention of man to bring order into his doings. It has nothing to do with God, who has more important things on his mind and did, after all, tell us to "render unto Caesar..."

was whatever Supreme Being you went into the brotherhood believing in, as long as you believed in a Supreme Being. The Great Architect of the Universe is the generic name given by these morphed former Knights Templar, as described in the book "Born In Blood: The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry" by John J. Robinson. Another of his books, "Dungeon, Fire, and Sword: The Knights Templar in the Crusades" would also make good historical reading for those interested in how Muslims see us, as Crusaders.

(A word of caution on reviews of these books on Freemasonry, consider the source of some of the bad reviews, not many but a few...Georgetown Univ. as one employer of one bad reviewer on Amazon.com when most other critiques are glowing...hmmm...maybe an ax to grind ?).

Light, more light !....Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. Masonic origins mon freres...

Yup, that's the case though the history of Freemasonry in the US is just as elitist and upper-class as it was/is in Europe and other places. Still and all, when it came to issues growing out of the Enlightenment (freedom, equality, etc.) they were the ice-breakers on the political scene of the time.

Jefferson, by the way, was NOT a Freemason--apparently he just wasn't a "joiner"--but Franklin and Washington and a whole slew of others whose names fill our history books were.

The last Freemason to be elected President, of course, was Harry S Truman. Things sure have gone to hell in a handbasket since his day.

Maybe we ought to look to the East for our future Chief Executive.

There is a private joke among the brethren, as it happens, that says lots of people think we run the world, when we have a hard time just running a meeting. STill, being able to poke fun at yourself can't be a bad thing, at least not when you're surrounded by people who just can't seem to think of any mistake they might have made.

And no, none of the Bush family are Masons.

the election to bring it to bear on discussions i was having with righties that were espousing the 'christian basis' of the founding fathers. too bad the msm didn't have this reply for all those man-in-the-street interviewees that spouted this stuff. lots of good articles on the faiths of our fathers . . . deism, unitarianism, even atheism but not specifically christianity. jefferson, in particular, abhorred organized religion.

check out this website for a little insight into our founding fathers' thoughts on religion . . . Quotes

ellen fl

It has been book marked.

...patriot, Massachusetts delegate to the Continental Congress, co-author and signer of the Declaration of Independence, Ambassador to the Court of St. James, Vice-President & President of the United States.

I think he would know what he was signing.

Put that in your pipes and smoke it, rethugs.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/ja2.html




John Adams

Learned and thoughtful, John Adams was more remarkable as a political philosopher than as a politician. "People and nations are forged in the fires of adversity," he said, doubtless thinking of his own as well as the American experience.

Adams was born in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1735. A Harvard-educated lawyer, he early became identified with the patriot cause; a delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses, he led in the movement for independence.

During the Revolutionary War he served in France and Holland in diplomatic roles, and helped negotiate the treaty of peace. From 1785 to 1788 he was minister to the Court of St. James's, returning to be elected Vice President under George Washington.

Adams' two terms as Vice President were frustrating experiences for a man of his vigor, intellect, and vanity. He complained to his wife Abigail, "My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived."

When Adams became President, the war between the French and British was causing great difficulties for the United States on the high seas and intense partisanship among contending factions within the Nation.

His administration focused on France, where the Directory, the ruling group, had refused to receive the American envoy and had suspended commercial relations.

Adams sent three commissioners to France, but in the spring of 1798 word arrived that the French Foreign Minister Talleyrand and the Directory had refused to negotiate with them unless they would first pay a substantial bribe. Adams reported the insult to Congress, and the Senate printed the correspondence, in which the Frenchmen were referred to only as "X, Y, and Z."

The Nation broke out into what Jefferson called "the X. Y. Z. fever," increased in intensity by Adams's exhortations. The populace cheered itself hoarse wherever the President appeared. Never had the Federalists been so popular.

Congress appropriated money to complete three new frigates and to build additional ships, and authorized the raising of a provisional army. It also passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, intended to frighten foreign agents out of the country and to stifle the attacks of Republican editors.

President Adams did not call for a declaration of war, but hostilities began at sea. At first, American shipping was almost defenseless against French privateers, but by 1800 armed merchantmen and U.S. warships were clearing the sea-lanes.

Despite several brilliant naval victories, war fever subsided. Word came to Adams that France also had no stomach for war and would receive an envoy with respect. Long negotiations ended the quasi war.

Sending a peace mission to France brought the full fury of the Hamiltonians against Adams. In the campaign of 1800 the Republicans were united and effective, the Federalists badly divided. Nevertheless, Adams polled only a few less electoral votes than Jefferson, who became President.

On November 1, 1800, just before the election, Adams arrived in the new Capital City to take up his residence in the White House. On his second evening in its damp, unfinished rooms, he wrote his wife, "Before I end my letter, I pray Heaven to bestow the best of Blessings on this House and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise Men ever rule under this roof."

Adams retired to his farm in Quincy. Here he penned his elaborate letters to Thomas Jefferson. Here on July 4, 1826, he whispered his last words: "Thomas Jefferson survives." But Jefferson had died at Monticello a few hours earlier.

on one of the talk shows. His point, if my memory serves me, was that the muslims have not bothered or attacked us since the Barbary Pirates! Does anyone else remember that?

http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=4894

February 21, 2005
Baiting a Trap for Bush?
by Patrick J. Buchanan

If Syria's Bashar Assad was behind the assassination of ex-Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri of Lebanon, he is, in the edited version of Gen. Tommy Franks' phrase, "the dumbest … man on the planet." The Beirut car bombing that killed Hariri smashed Assad's hope of any rapprochement with the United States, forced him into a collision with President Bush, united the Lebanese in rage at Damascus and their own pro-Syrian government, and coalesced world pressure on Assad to get his 15,000 troops out of Lebanon.

The blowback from this atrocity, fully predictable, is Syria's isolation. Hence, it makes no sense for Bashar to have done it. Nor is this his style. Unlike his father, Bashar Assad has no history of ordering terror attacks. Cui bono – Who benefits? – is a question that must ever be asked about Middle Eastern terror. Did those who planned and perpetrated this atrocity seek not only the elimination of the pro-Saudi and pro-American Hariri, but a U.S.-Syria confrontation that immediately followed?

<snip>

But the losses are known. Two years after invading, we have 1,500 dead, 10,000 wounded, and no end in sight to the fighting and dying. We have killed scores of thousands of Iraqis, crippled our alliances, and bred hatred of America across the Islamic world. We are $300 billion deeper in debt. And the War Party, which was 100 percent wrong about Iraq, is telling Bush the right thing to do is to attack Syria and Iran. To double one's energy when one has lost sight of his goal is a definition of fanaticism. For America's good and his own legacy, President Bush must cease listening to those who have an agenda – ideological or otherwise – other than the national interests of the United States.

There is no vital U.S. interest in Lebanon. There is no vital U.S. interest in the Gulf other than oil, which the Arabs and Iran have to sell to us and wish to sell to us. No Arab nation has attacked the United States since the Barbary pirates, and none wants war with America. Only Osama, Sharon, and the neoconservatives look longingly to a "World War IV" and a "clash of civilizations" between America and Islam. If FDR can negotiate with Stalin and Nixon with Mao, and this White House can deal with Gadhafi and Kim Jong Il, George Bush can talk with Assad of Syria and Khatami of Iran to prevent a wider war for which the costs in blood and treasure would be far higher and the benefits even less than from this misbegotten war in Iraq.