A Bible question!!

[SlowwHand]

You know, coming here and asking a religious question is like going on PETA's site and asking how they like their steak cooked.

[Ben Kenobi]

Not if you forgive me... And you didn't answer the questions, if you punch me and I forgive you, does that mean I'm now required to punch you back?

How is repaying someone 'eye for an eye'? It's not.

Eye for an eye would be me stealing what you took from me, not you willinging returning what you stole.

Forgiveness first - then restitution. Forgiveness must always came first. Where have I said otherwise?

Who said we pay back what other people owe?

If everyone owes money how can that money be repaid? You can't borrow from each other, because everyone is in the hole.

You cannot pay back God for the debts of your sins. That's the problem. God can forgive you but the debt remains and the debt had to be dealt with.

This is why Christ had to die on a Cross in order that our debts incurred may already be paid off, now and for forever.

But it appears God does want "restitution" - he wants us to forgive others. You've been arguing that sinners must pay restitution, but then you argue we cant pay restitution because we're sinners - then why are we to forgive trespassers to obtain God's forgiveness? Why does God need someone without sin (himself ) to pay for our sins?

Forgive others as he forgave us. That is why. Parable of the faithless servant is a good place to see this.

Why Christ? Because Christ wasn't in debt to anyone, because he was sinless. He could pay the debt through death on a cross.

I hope that's clear. These are really important questions and I'm not sure I'm explaining them well enough to be clear.

Yes, that's the other part of it, not only is Jesus, God, but he is God's son.

Remember how you asked about Isaac and his son? Well that is what God himself did with Jesus, but Jesus chose to come to earth to become Man as we are and to suffer death on the cross.

Not only was Jesus fully God and fully Man, he suffered temptations from Satan, betrayal of his allies, scourging, crucifixion and then at the very last, loss of the presence of God.

Again, sin isn't God's fault, but our fault. We chose to sin, and hurt other people, not God.

God chose to die for us, because he loves us. But it was not God who put Christ on the cross. We did that. "Crucify him! Crucify him!"

You called drug dealers scum because a drug dealer stole a snowblower from your father

No, I call dope pushers scum because they sell crack to kids.

One of the ways they have personally hurt me, is stealing my father's snowblower to feed their habit.

That, is not the only thing they have done to me, far from it. As I said they have cost me, personally, dearly.

but most kids get their drugs from family and friends

As I said I know many dope pushers personally. I'm very well aware of this, and I don't make a distinction between a pusher who isn't friends or family, and between a pusher who is both.

How can other people pay you restitution for what he did?

Stop dope pushing.

Spend a year serving at a crack rehab unit at the hospital. Having to wash addicts and change bedpans is excellent restitution for a crack dealer. Especially ex-customers.

[MrFun]

I was just yanking MrFun's chain, to be honest.

[grumbler]

Yeah, it says "previous courts made stuff up, so we can too based on the stuff they made up." No non-fanciful constitutional grounding, my original, facetious point stands, and if you don't like it I stand on my 9th Amendment right to not be bothered by obtuse pedantry on the internet.

So you were not, in fact, making an argument at all, but rather engaging in an extensive troll?

Cool. Your "logic" was so pathetic that I am glad to find that it doesn't represent the results of serious human thought at all. Well-done.

[grumbler]

Forgiveness first - then restitution. Forgiveness must always came first. Where have I said otherwise?

Kinda curious about this bit; you are saying that if someone cannot find it in themselves to forgive, they must forgo restitution. Is that really how you think Christian justice works?

[Elok]

Oh, crikey. If you lost patience in an argument with me simply because I employed hyperbole, you do not--repeat, NOT--want to argue with BK. You were warned.

EDIT: In all seriousness, you seem to be new to the OT, even if you've been registered since 1999. Sincere word of advice: try to mellow out, or your time here is likely to prove one long headache. I'm not the only one here who uses rhetorical flourishes, including hyperbole, and if you're going to be saying things like "It's not [X], it's [explanation concluding with something functionally identical to X, only phrased differently]"...well, I don't think that'll get you very far with anyone else. Do what you want; I'm just saying, you're doing this:

[Elok]

I'd wager that Grumbler's area of expertise is lex avis.

Sorry, I don't get it, and the Wiki and the Google have failed me. "Law of birds"? Wuzzat?

[grumbler]

Oh, crikey. If you lost patience in an argument with me simply because I employed hyperbole, you do not--repeat, NOT--want to argue with BK. You were warned.

I have not at all lost patience. I simply pointed out that hyperbole isn't actual argument. You were the one to lose patience, I think.

EDIT: In all seriousness, you seem to be new to the OT, even if you've been registered since 1999. Sincere word of advice: try to mellow out, or your time here is likely to prove one long headache. I'm not the only one here who uses rhetorical flourishes, including hyperbole, and if you're going to be saying things like "It's not [X], it's [explanation concluding with something functionally identical to X, only phrased differently]"...well, I don't think that'll get you very far with anyone else. Do what you want; I'm just saying, you're doing this:

Been a member here for donkey's years, but have only stopped by six or so times since 2003, and haven't stayed long.

Rhetorical flourishes can enhance intellectual arguments, but cannot replace them. I would agree with you that many people here cannot tell the difference, and that is why I seldom stay here very long at any given time: when regurgitation of rhetoric floods out intellectual discourse, threads turn into flame wars, and I am here just for the intellectual side of the debates. AM radio has much more articulate people spouting rhetorical cant like "the courts make up laws" than this place does.

Oh, and I don't play the game of "well, I wrote that the RvW decision was functionally identical to a decision that people had a legal right to light fires anywhere they please, but everyone knows I didn't really mean that, but actually meant something far more intelligent, though unwritten." If you don't want me to hold you to some words, don't write them.

And don't worry about me getting too frustrated. I belong to any number of internet discussion groups, and when I tire of one, I just stop posting there for a while. I feel some sense of loyalty to this place just because I have been here for so long and, as importantly, some other posters have been here for as long and I like to come back and see their work once in a while, even though I don't post every time I visit.

[Elok]

What the hell, let's try it one more time. Here's the argument I made, or tried to make, stripped of every exaggeration and put as literally as I am capable of (with some augmentations):

1. The Constitution contains no mention of abortion.

2. The Ninth Amendment does contain references to "other rights," but this is so vague as to be effectively meaningless. Any right derived from that, or from the equally-vague due process clause of the fourteenth, is for all purposes being made up by the court on the spot, using one amendment or the other as license for the invention. Perhaps this is a longstanding legal custom; if so, that custom is irrelevant to the central fact that the right remains wholly concocted by whatever court. The custom only means that it is the latest in a long line of invented rights.

3. You argue, IIUC, that there is an ongoing understanding that the Ninth Amendment refers to a number of longstanding ideas, such as privacy. It is my understanding that in legal circles "privacy" entails "the government doesn't learn things about you without your permission, or generally meddle in your business without need." No, that's not legal terminology, but that's the thrust of it. Again, this is a very broad concept, only a little more narrow than the ninth. It could encompass abortion, but it could also encompass a theoretically infinite number of other rights, whether the deliberately outrageous ones I suggested or more tame ones. Whether you base a right to abortion on this, nine or fourteen, the degree of license taken is so extreme as to make the "right" a pure invention. Perhaps this, too, is common legal practice, but you cannot say convincingly that it has anything to do with the Constitution.

4. If the right is based on a precedent, which is based on another precedent, and so on back to somebody who "interpreted" it from 9 or 14, this is also irrelevant. The court is simply passing the buck to a previous generation.

5. In addition, the whole process of deriving rights from the ninth/fourteenth is highly problematic because it, in effect, gives five SC justices an essentially unlimited veto of most laws by extending a shield of "privacy" in whichever direction they please--a veto which is in practice almost impossible to override without packing the court for a generation. Beyond that, the detailed guidelines given in RvW make it basically a "law" written by the judiciary. It seems bizarre that anyone would go to the trouble to, first, construct an elaborate system of checks and balances and second, enumerate eight amendments full of distinct rights, only to then overturn the first and make the second a waste of time, with a single sentence.

6. In all fairness, this veto has not been used too extensively, for a number of complicated reasons. Also, it can only be used to grant people greater freedom (at least, as it has been used in the past), not deny them. So it's not too dangerous. But I maintain that it is more than a little screwy.

There. I admit I am not a lawyer, and I am using layman's terms much of the time. I don't think my posts in this thread, while much briefer, were all that unclear. But there's my beef. If you have an objection to it, please reply in a detailed and substantive form, or not at all. No more vague remarks that I need to "learn about the law." Thank you.

[grumbler]

What the hell, let's try it one more time. Here's the argument I made, or tried to make, stripped of every exaggeration and put as literally as I am capable of (with some augmentations):

1. The Constitution contains no mention of abortion.

Irrelevant. The Constitution contains no mention of US District Courts, the US Air Force, Washington, DC, television, and any number of other items and concepts, that, nonetheless, are not only existent, but part of or regulated by the US government.

2. The Ninth Amendment does contain references to "other rights," but this is so vague as to be effectively meaningless. Any right derived from that, or from the equally-vague due process clause of the fourteenth, is for all purposes being made up by the court on the spot, using one amendment or the other as license for the invention. Perhaps this is a longstanding legal custom; if so, that custom is irrelevant to the central fact that the right remains wholly concocted by whatever court. The custom only means that it is the latest in a long line of invented rights.

The Ninth Amendment is not vague at all. If you don't understand it, that is an issue for you, not the Founding Fathers.

3. You argue, IIUC, that there is an ongoing understanding that the Ninth Amendment refers to a number of longstanding ideas, such as privacy. It is my understanding that in legal circles "privacy" entails "the government doesn't learn things about you without your permission, or generally meddle in your business without need." No, that's not legal terminology, but that's the thrust of it. Again, this is a very broad concept, only a little more narrow than the ninth. It could encompass abortion, but it could also encompass a theoretically infinite number of other rights, whether the deliberately outrageous ones I suggested or more tame ones. Whether you base a right to abortion on this, nine or fourteen, the degree of license taken is so extreme as to make the "right" a pure invention. Perhaps this, too, is common legal practice, but you cannot say convincingly that it has anything to do with the Constitution.

I argue that the Ninth Amendment refers to pre-existing rights held by people before the Constitution, the United States, or even government itself existed. This isn't an "ongoing understanding" per se; it is what the Ninth itself says.

I don't understand the rest of your argument; are you arguing that you do not have a right to privacy? And I don't understand why you refer to a "right to abortion." From whence comes this right?

4. If the right is based on a precedent, which is based on another precedent, and so on back to somebody who "interpreted" it from 9 or 14, this is also irrelevant. The court is simply passing the buck to a previous generation.

I don't know of any rights that are "based on a precedent." Can you be more specific?

5. In addition, the whole process of deriving rights from the ninth/fourteenth is highly problematic because it, in effect, gives five SC justices an essentially unlimited veto of most laws by extending a shield of "privacy" in whichever direction they please--a veto which is in practice almost impossible to override without packing the court for a generation. Beyond that, the detailed guidelines given in RvW make it basically a "law" written by the judiciary. It seems bizarre that anyone would go to the trouble to, first, construct an elaborate system of checks and balances and second, enumerate eight amendments full of distinct rights, only to then overturn the first and make the second a waste of time, with a single sentence.

As your argument is premised on the false idea that there is some "whole process of deriving rights from the ninth/fourteenth," I am not certain how to respond to this. The Ninth Amendment merely acknowledges that rights are not granted or denied by the Constitution, and that those rights not mentioned in the Constitution have the same status as those enumerated therein. The Fourteenth merely confirms that the those rights cannot be denied by the states any more than they can be denied by the Federal government.

The courts interpret the law and create detailed instructions for the implementation of their decisions all the time. RvW is actually fairly light in this regard.

6. In all fairness, this veto has not been used too extensively, for a number of complicated reasons. Also, it can only be used to grant people greater freedom (at least, as it has been used in the past), not deny them. So it's not too dangerous. But I maintain that it is more than a little screwy.

Vetoes are possessed by the executive branch in the US, not the judiciary. There are, indeed, infrequent, for a number of reasons.

There. I admit I am not a lawyer, and I am using layman's terms much of the time. I don't think my posts in this thread, while much briefer, were all that unclear. But there's my beef. If you have an objection to it, please reply in a detailed and substantive form, or not at all. No more vague remarks that I need to "learn about the law." Thank you.

It isn't the layman's language (I am no lawyer myself, and use layman's language) that makes me say "learn a little bit about the law:" it is your bogus fundamental assumptions, like the one that the statement "the Constitution contains no mention of abortion" as though it meant anything about either the constitution or abortion, or that the idea that, if the right to privacy extends to medical decisions in which the state has no compelling interest, it must also extend to "a theoretically infinite number of other rights." Courts can only rule where they have jurisdiction, and the argument that their ability to arbitrate between the interests of the state and the rights of the individual gives them "a veto" of some sort is absurd.

Finally, you argue that "[i]t seems bizarre that anyone would go to the trouble to, first, construct an elaborate system of checks and balances and second, enumerate eight amendments full of distinct rights, only to then overturn the first and make the second a waste of time, with a single sentence." I don't think you understand the purpose of that elaborate system and you certainly misunderstand what the Bill of Rights does. The purpose of the system is to transfer, from the people, sufficient power to the government that it can provide effective governance, without transferring so much that the government can abrogate rights. There are eight amendments full of specific examples of what the government cannot do, and the necessary ninth amendment to remind the government that the Founders had no intention of articulating every limit on the government's power; there was a courts system established to adjudicate those that the Founders did not enumerate.

So, the Ninth is an essential part of the system; far from acting to "overturn the first and make the second a waste of time," it makes the first tolerable, because limited, and the second effective, because incomplete. Had the proponents of the Constitution not agreed to include the language of the Ninth Amendment, it is entirely possible the Constitution itself would not have been ratified. The key to understanding the US constitution is to understand that it limits Federal powers as much as it describes it, and the Ninth is arguably the most important limit on government power in the Constitution.

[Ben Kenobi]

Kinda curious about this bit; you are saying that if someone cannot find it in themselves to forgive, they must forgo restitution. Is that really how you think Christian justice works?

Yep. You gotta forgive the other person.

[grumbler]

Yep. You gotta forgive the other person.

Okay, thanks. I've never heard that articulated, but on reflection I believe it is consistent with what little I know about Christian thought on justice.

[Elok]

Irrelevant. The Constitution contains no mention of US District Courts, the US Air Force, Washington, DC, television, and any number of other items and concepts, that, nonetheless, are not only existent, but part of or regulated by the US government.

All of those things are, in turn, irrelevant to the present argument. The Constitution does establish that there will be a judicial branch and a military, creates a government which presumptively would need a capital of some sort, and allows for the regulation of interstate commerce, which at least arguably allows for control over who gets one hunk of bandwidth or another, etc. All of those are, I suppose, open for debate, but my point with that first sentence was merely to establish that you can't argue for a constitutional right to abortion (or a right to privacy including abortion, same bloody thing) directly from the Constitution.

The Ninth Amendment is not vague at all. If you don't understand it, that is an issue for you, not the Founding Fathers.

Uh, you're not the Founding Fathers. The Ninth Amendment is a purely negative statement (A doesn't mean not-B) which has been taken to construe a positive power held by the courts without apparent reason (A, therefore feel free to speculate on B).

I argue that the Ninth Amendment refers to pre-existing rights held by people before the Constitution, the United States, or even government itself existed. This isn't an "ongoing understanding" per se; it is what the Ninth itself says.

No, the Ninth itself says "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." It says nothing about the origin of said rights. And the idea of natural rights predating government is a romantic Enlightenment fantasy. It sounds great, but has no grounding in reality. For a right to even exist in the absence of government is nonsensical--like a soap-bubble in the absence of soap. You don't want my religion in government? Neither do I--nor do I want yours.

I don't understand the rest of your argument; are you arguing that you do not have a right to privacy? And I don't understand why you refer to a "right to abortion." From whence comes this right?

Insofar as I have a right to privacy, it is the aggregate of details of the Constitution. My privacy is guaranteed by the limitations of government power enumerated in the BoR and other amendments; they can't search or take my stuff, hold me captive, gag me, etc. without reason. As for "right to abortion," are you being deliberately obtuse or what? The thing we've been talking about this whole bloody time. If you insist, read that as "the part of the right to privacy that deals with abortion," or whatever won't set off your incorrect terminology alarm. Same difference, dude.

I don't know of any rights that are "based on a precedent." Can you be more specific?

The thing the Supreme Court does all the time? RvW was based at least partially on the precedent set by Griswold--again, perhaps this is setting off your nitpick-sensor, but I hope you know what I mean. Do I have to use the exact words Thomas Jefferson would have in order to be understood here?

As your argument is premised on the false idea that there is some "whole process of deriving rights from the ninth/fourteenth," I am not certain how to respond to this. The Ninth Amendment merely acknowledges that rights are not granted or denied by the Constitution, and that those rights not mentioned in the Constitution have the same status as those enumerated therein. The Fourteenth merely confirms that the those rights cannot be denied by the states any more than they can be denied by the Federal government.

It seems, more and more, that this whole argument is based on your having some kind of vaguely Platonic understanding of rights, like they're always sitting there invisible until a court recognizes and elaborates them like an oracle. That's how they liked to think back in 1790, but as a practical matter, rights do not exist until asserted by a government. For you to claim otherwise is like Saudi Arabia claiming that a criminal they executed was "struck down by Allah." It's a very poetic way of speaking, but somebody swung a sword at the criminal and somebody, somewhere made up the rights. I sincerely hope I'm misunderstanding you here, and you mean something else...

The courts interpret the law and create detailed instructions for the implementation of their decisions all the time. RvW is actually fairly light in this regard.

And when the interpretation is somehow relevant to their constitutionally appointed powers, I'm fine with that. When they not only cross out a law without authority, but write a detailed new equivalent, that's adding insult to injury.

Vetoes are possessed by the executive branch in the US, not the judiciary. There are, indeed, infrequent, for a number of reasons.

Yes, I know that. But I'm saying that, if the courts can strike down any law that offends their ideas of "privacy," they have a de facto veto over any law, or at least any law that can be construed to deal with individual rights (can't think of one that couldn't be, offhand).

Courts can only rule where they have jurisdiction, and the argument that their ability to arbitrate between the interests of the state and the rights of the individual gives them "a veto" of some sort is absurd.

Because? It's a clumsy veto, requiring a case to be appealed all the way up to them, and then for five or more of them to agree. And of course it's not called a veto. But if they aren't limited to matters which are mentioned in some way by the Constitution, that's the only real difference between what they do and an actual veto.

Finally, you argue that "it seems bizarre that anyone would go to the trouble to, first, construct an elaborate system of checks and balances and second, enumerate eight amendments full of distinct rights, only to then overturn the first and make the second a waste of time, with a single sentence." I don't think you understand the purpose of that elaborate system and you certainly misunderstand what the Bill of Rights does. The purpose of the system is to transfer, from the people, sufficient power to the government that it can provide effective governance, without transferring so much that the government can abrogate rights. There are eight amendments full of specific examples of what the government cannot do, and the necessary ninth amendment to remind the government that the Founders had no intention of articulating every limit on the government's power; there was a courts system established to adjudicate those that the Founders did not enumerate.

There's also an amendment process, which makes a lot more sense than depending on the political inclinations of five to nine people to elaborate new rights. And the courts exist to keep the other two branches from violating the Constitution, in addition to the more mundane task of judging criminals. Late eighteenth-century political jargon, however inspiring, only obscures the real issue.

So, the Ninth is an essential part of the system; far from acting to "overturn the first and make the second a waste of time," it makes the first tolerable, because limited, and the second effective, because incomplete. Had the proponents of the Constitution not agreed to include the language of the Ninth Amendment, it is entirely possible the Constitution itself would not have been ratified. The key to understanding the US constitution is to understand that it limits Federal powers as much as it describes it, and the Ninth is arguably the most important limit on government power in the Constitution.

The "first" I referred to was not the Federal government, but the system of checks and balances. If the courts can smack down any law whatever, on the flimsiest of pretexts, that messes up the balance. The second was plenty effective without it, and if it weren't, we have amendments. I admit that it'd be nice to have a quicker way to do things, but if rights are only delegated by the people, wouldn't it be nice if which rights they had were not decided by the branch of government they have the least control over? I know that the Ninth was a vital compromise (and have alluded to that in this thread), though what the hell a modern man or woman is supposed to make of it is beyond me. Finally, no, the First is the most important check. The Ninth is just a fuzzy one-line disclaimer.

[Elok]

I should add that there's another problem with the idea that there are rights which predate government: not only is the concept itself a bit of a stumper, it's highly unlikely that there ever was a time "before government." Certainly not in the state-of-nature way they thought of things back in the 1700s. Humans are social animals, descended from other social animals, and while at the start we had only the group hierarchy of tiny hominid clans, there was never a point when we did not have a set group of individuals calling the shots for society as a whole. You'd have to go back to the time when we were little tree squirrels to see us without a government as such.

[Aeson]

In the way you're using "government", even tree squirrels would have government.