Quote from: Ian AbsentiaWell, you still.  Jackson was influential, yes, but not a serious contender.  But you'll turn a blind eye to the fact that history clearly established that fact.  And please don't go quoting Wikipedia.

Baloney.  In the mid-1980s, Jackson was considered every bit as serious as Obama is now.  You are looking at Jackson with hindsight and Huckabee early in the race.  Look at what they were saying about Jackson at the same point in 1988.  How about the Encyclopedia Britannica?

In 1984 and 1988 Jackson entered the Democratic presidential primary, becoming the first African American man to make a serious bid for the U.S. presidency; he received 6.7 million votes in 1988.

Or maybe you could just tell me what sources you'd consider valid?

Of course I don't really need Wikipedia or Britannica to tell me that he was considered a serious candidate or that there was talk about him being the first black President.  I remember the "history" you seem to think doesn't exist.

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaAh, here we are.  Contemporary, mainstream commentators who are questioning both Huckabee currently and Jackson historically.  You do enjoy stacking the deck, don't you?

No.  What I'm trying to avoid is you finding a right-wing critic of Jackson being an ordained minister where their argument is really that they don't like Jackson, not that he's a minister.  What I'm looking for is someone who is consistently against an ordained minister becoming President, whether the candidate is on the left (Jackson) or on the right (Huckabee).  That is, someone how is speaking from principle rather than political bias.

But let's start out easy if that's what you really want.  Find me any quotes of commentators in the mid-1980s who were troubled by the fact that Jackson is an ordained minister and running for President.

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaYes, they could.  And every candidate should be judged on his or her potential conflicts of interest.  This is Huckabee's.

So do you think it's fair for white people to not vote for Barak Obama if they are sufficiently concerned about his race creating a conflict of interest that will work against them?

Quote from: Kyle AaronI believe church and state ought to be separate, that's why. I'm not going to explain that in detail anymore than I'd explain why the judiciary and legislature ought to be separate, it's just a defining axiom of "democracy". If you're not comfortable with democracy, fine by me.

The "defining axiom of 'democracy'" is voting.  That's about it.  The judiciary has little to do with democracy and is often a quote undemocratic institution.  They are no more necessary than an executive branch is.  Those are implementation details of a particular sort of republic.  You can certainly believe that separation of church and state are the best way to implement democracy or a republic, but please don't pretend that it's a necessary condition of democracy.  After all, the place that invented the idea, Athens, only allowed a select group of male citizens to vote and didn't separate the judiciary and legislature in quite the same way most modern countries do (Socrates faced a jury of 500 citizens).

Quote from: Kyle AaronIt's relevant in that it when we tried an ordained minister as our head of state, he brought quite some baggage with him. That ought to serve as a caution for you lot.

The baggage he brought with him had nothing to do with the fact that he was a member of the clergy, per se, any more than Huckabee's pardon of a convicted rapist had to do with the fact that he was an ordained minister.  It had to do with the fact that he had administrative authority over an organization.  There are college administrators who have covered up campus rapes for much the same reason the clergy have covered up child molesters in their ranks.  If one college administrator who had covered up an on-campus rape became head of state and had to resign because of such a cover-up, would it follow that college administrators should never be heads of state?

Quote from: Kyle AaronIt's not a state religion in our country, since we have none - like the US. The situation's analogous, then, between us having an ordained minister as Governor-General, and you lot having one as a President. It's bringing an ordained minister to head of state position in a country whose constitution allows for no establishment of religion, and which therefore can be said to hold to a principle of separation of church and state.

Did your Governor-General retain his administrative and authoritative role as an archbishop while he served?  

Quote from: Kyle AaronYes, they do. However, while their head of state is also the head of the Anglican Church, their head of state does not at any time actually exercise her powers except on the advice of the Prime Minister (for political stuff) or the Archbishop of Cantebury (for Anglican stuff). The last time the British head of state vetoed legislation from the legislature was about 1707. When was the last time the US head of state vetoed legislation?

Actually, one of the bigger complaints leveled at George W. Bush was that he rarely used the veto.  In fact, he didn't use it at all until 2006 (into his second term).  And, of course, a Presidential veto in the United States can be overturned by super majority legislative votes, so no American President could implement any sort of establishment of religion without substantial legislative support.

Quote from: Kyle AaronThe separation of powers and church and state are less important when the person they're mixed in does not ever exercise any powers. It's when they exercise those powers that the separation becomes important. Had the GG or PM called out the army and they responded, I have no doubt that we'd since then have rethought the position of the GG as head of the military. But in the end nothing was decided so it didn't matter.

And in what way can an ordained minister exercise powers as an American President and violate the Constitution to mix church and state?  What, exactly, are you worried about someone like Huckabee doing?

Quote from: Kyle AaronI never said it was. These discussions would be much simpler if you'd address only what the person said, rather than some imagined argument they made, or some nonsense some other idiot said years ago in some other discussion you had.

You claim, "Both religion and the military should participate in a democracy, but they should not determine things in a democracy."

How does one participate in a democracy (where participating means determining things via voting) yes not determine things (i.e., participate) in a democracy?  The participate in a democracy is to exercise the power of the vote.  Can you give some examples of what you think is allowed and not allowed?  

Is it OK for a religious person who, say, opposes the death penalty on religious grounds to vote for a candidate who opposes the death penalty and not for a candidate that is for the death penalty?  Is it OK for an elected official to vote to make the death penalty illegal if they personally oppose the death penalty for religious reasons?  Or should they be obliged to vote for something that they don't agree with if they don't have a secular reason to oppose the death penalty?

Quote from: Kyle AaronAgain, there's a difference between funding a religious school, having an official state religion, and having an ordained minister as head of state. Separation has degrees.

You started this reply by claiming, "I believe church and state ought to be separate, that's why. I'm not going to explain that in detail anymore than I'd explain why the judiciary and legislature ought to be separate, it's just a defining axiom of 'democracy'. If you're not comfortable with democracy, fine by me."  Now you say that separation has degrees.  Is it a defining axiom of "democracy" or a matter of degree?  And who gets to decide what degree is acceptable?

Quote from: Kyle AaronWhen I speak of "separation of church and state, and separation of powers", that does not mean I am speaking of complete separation. You are confusing separation and alienation.

No, but a lot of people who advocate the separation of church and state seem to.  If your position is more nuanced than that, can you be more specific about how you draw the line between what's permissible and what's not?

Quote from: Kyle AaronConsider the military. The government funds the military, members of the military vote, and there are even military Reserve officers in the various state and federal parliaments. But no full-time soldier may be elected to parliament, nor may they wear their uniform in parliament, and serving full-time officers, soldiers, sailors and airmen are prohibited from making public political comments, and part-time ones while in uniform. In this way the military is largely kept out of political affairs, as it should be in a democracy.

Correct.  But that's because the military is already a part of the government.  But veterans can serve in office, correct?

If you want to argue that a member of the clergy who wants to serve in political office should not hold a position of authority in a church or religious hierarchy while they are in office, I'd agree with you, just as a soldier should not serve nor should a CEO remain the CEO of a company while serving as President.  But ordination is not like being a CEO or a soldier.  How exactly should Huckabee stop being an ordained Baptist minister?

Quote from: Kyle AaronLikewise, in a good and healthy democracy, religion. Both religion and the military should participate in a democracy, but they should not determine things in a democracy.

What does it mean to participate in a democracy but not determine things in a democracy?  To participate in a democracy is to exercise power and determine things.

Quote from: Kyle AaronI would not have a religious test to hold government offices. But I would have a test by position. It's long been a principle of parliamentary government that to become a candidate for MP, Senator, etc, you should not hold an office of profit under the Crown. To stand for election you must resign that position, and divest yourself of any shares, etc. We could have a similar principle for religious offices. This would in no way impinge on the person's personal exercise of their religion, only on their leadership in the religion.

I agree with that.  But the conflict of interest is more one of leadership and control than religion, per se.  As you point out, it applies to the military and business world, as well.

I'm not sure that I'd consider ordination, alone, to qualify as a position of leadership.  Huckabee, to my knowledge, has no congregation, role in his church's hierarchy, or leadership powers of any significance.

Quote from: Kyle AaronBut whatever the various laws you choose, it is unwise for the people to vote for an ordained minister as their head of state, just as it was unwise for our PM to appoint one as Governor-General. His doing that eroded the prestige and position of the Governor-General, and contributed strongly to a growing apathy and cynicism about public affairs. It harmed our democracy.

As far as I can tell, Australian democracy endured it.  Did the Governor-General actually do anything to try to establish his religion while he was in office?

Quote from: John MorrowFind me any quotes of commentators in the mid-1980s who were troubled by the fact that Jackson is an ordained minister and running for President.

No, John, the burden is upon you to support your statement regarding Jackson.  And the fact that neither your nor I can find an online source for a  possible statement that pre-dates the Internet by a good decade one way or the other is no proof at all.

QuoteSo do you think it's fair for white people to not vote for Barak Obama if they are sufficiently concerned about his race creating a conflict of interest that will work against them?

Please, John.  Do you still beat your wife?

White people's uninformed fears that Obama might play favorites isn't the same as concern over him voicing an explicit platform to that effect, is it?  And that's the essence of what we're talking about here with Huckabee, as much as you're trying to make this an issue of partisan hypocrisy -- Huckabee's explicitly religious platform.

Make what you will of that, John.  You've resorted to your typically tedious line-by-line quotes and refusal to accept argument without cited reference.  If that's what it takes for you to feel you've succeeded in making your point, so be it.

!i!

I´d like to have a regular Freemason as US President, like in the olden days.

Because those who bankroll him have instructed him to be so.

They purchased "Candidate Package 17-C", and by God, "Candidate Package 17-C" is what they want.

The problem isn't whether he is a social conservative or not. The problem is that conservative, liberal or whatever, people accept that it is the president's prerogative to legislate their vision of society, rather than leaving folks alone to make their own choices as individuals and communities on a sub-national scale.

Except for Ron Paul. He happens to be a socially conservative Christian who believes that if you want to smoke marijuana or marry people of the same sex, that's your affair, and perhaps the business of the state legislature if so deemed by the Constitution, but certainly no business of the president whose constitutional role is essentially to break legislative deadlocks and meet and greet foreign leaders.

John's politics are very much different from mine, but I agree with the basics of what he's saying.

Jesse Jackson was very much a serious candidate for president.  And the only focus I remember at the time was on his race, not his religion.

I agree that it is dumb to judge a candidate based on whether or not they are an ordained minister.  I think it's dumb to judge a candidate based on their religion at all.  Whether or not Mitt Romney would make a good president has nothing to do with him being Mormon, just like Huckabee being Southern Baptist or JFK being Catholic or Thomas Jefferson being a Deist.

I do think it's fair not to vote for Huckabee because he wants to oppress gay rights or to not vote for Jackson because he wanted large reparation payments or whatever.  

Candidates should be judged on their statements and actions, not on religion or race.  Pre-judging a candidate based on their religion is bigotry, pure and simple (and I say that as someone who disagrees with 99% of Huckabee's views).

I agree with jgants.  Separation of church and state is a good policy, in my opinion, but that doesn't mean we should bar clergy or religious people from our government -- far from it.  

I do think that a candidate's religion does have some relevance in a similar manner to their profession, their personality, their educational background, and so forth.  Religious beliefs can and do overlap with political issues.

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaNo, John, the burden is upon you to support your statement regarding Jackson.  And the fact that neither your nor I can find an online source for a  possible statement that pre-dates the Internet by a good decade one way or the other is no proof at all.

And do you think that nothing that got said before the Internet (which does extend well back into the 1980s, by the way).  Try Google Groups, for example, which goes back to 1981.  It didn't take me long to find, for example, a person complaining about Jesse Jackson being a minister here.  But of course that message can't exist according to you because you believe it is a "act that neither your nor I can find an online source for a  possible statement that pre-dates the Internet by a good decade".  How old are you, by the way?  You do realize that there was Internet in the 1980s, right?  (Go ahead and be a pedant and tell me that it wasn't called the Internet back then. :rolleyes: )

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaPlease, John.  Do you still beat your wife?

Having fun skipping down the yellow brick road with that straw man, Dorothy?

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaWhite people's uninformed fears that Obama might play favorites isn't the same as concern over him voicing an explicit platform to that effect, is it?

No, but then the problem isn't his race but the platform he's espousing.  I don't have a problem with you saying that you don't like Huckabee because of the ideas and agenda he's voicing.  My problem is with the claim that the problem is that he's ordained.

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaAnd that's the essence of what we're talking about here with Huckabee, as much as you're trying to make this an issue of partisan hypocrisy -- Huckabee's explicitly religious platform.

No, it's not the same thing.  What a person is (e.g., black, a minister) is not the same thing as the ideas that they espouse.  My problem is with rejecting a candidate for what they are instead of what they say or even what you believe they'll do, unless you believe that no ordained minister can be trusted to not tear down the walls of Church and state, which sounds a bit like worrying that Kennedy is going to be taking orders from the Pope because he's Catholic.

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaMake what you will of that, John.  You've resorted to your typically tedious line-by-line quotes and refusal to accept argument without cited reference.  If that's what it takes for you to feel you've succeeded in making your point, so be it.

I've refused to accept an argument that conflicts with my own experiences and understanding of the situation (which I remember fairly clearly).  Who should I trust?  Your unsupported assertions or my lying memory?  By asking you to provide some evidence (you do understand the value of evidence, don't you?), I'm giving you the opportunity to prove me wrong.  And I should add that it really doesn't help your credibility when you refuse to accept (or ignore when I've offered) exactly the sort of cited references that I'm asking you for in support of my position.

Jesse Jackson's "serious candidature" was a different level of seriousness than Obama's serious candidature.  Jackson never really had a real chance of winning the nomination of his party.   For starters, he had no experience in government.

RPGPundit

Morrow's previously said that he'd try to move away from line-by-line nitpicking, deliberate misunderstanding by extremes of what the other's saying, and calls for "evidence" for every minor statement made, and more towards dealing with the actual substance of people's arguments.

He's not done that. I discussed a couple of years ago on rpg.net about how the Forgers use semantics to avoid a discussion on the actual topic; Morrow uses not semantics, but line-by-line nitpicking, deliberate misunderstanding by extremes, etc. One of these days he'll ask us for proof that water is wet, and ask, "but surely if water is wet, every time it rains everyone would drown?"

I don't believe a productive discussion about political affairs can be had with him.

Quote from: Kyle AaronMorrow's previously said that he'd try to move away from line-by-line nitpicking, deliberate misunderstanding by extremes of what the other's saying, and calls for "evidence" for every minor statement made, and more towards dealing with the actual substance of people's arguments.

He's not done that. I discussed a couple of years ago on rpg.net about how the Forgers use semantics to avoid a discussion on the actual topic; Morrow uses not semantics, but line-by-line nitpicking, deliberate misunderstanding by extremes, etc. One of these days he'll ask us for proof that water is wet, and ask, "but surely if water is wet, every time it rains everyone would drown?"

I don't believe a productive discussion about political affairs can be had with him.

This from a man who said this:

Quote from: Kyle AaronI believe church and state ought to be separate, that's why. I'm not going to explain that in detail anymore than I'd explain why the judiciary and legislature ought to be separate, it's just a defining axiom of "democracy". If you're not comfortable with democracy, fine by me.

:rolleyes:

Quote from: RPGPunditJesse Jackson's "serious candidature" was a different level of seriousness than Obama's serious candidature.  Jackson never really had a real chance of winning the nomination of his party.   For starters, he had no experience in government.

RPGPundit

Jackson certainly surprised a lot of people.  And I, too, remember in 1988 when he was taken very seriously as a contender. It wasn't until he got beat in Wisconsin, IIRC, that he started his slide.

As for experience in government, I'm not sure 8 years as a State Senator in one of the worst run states (not to mention crooked!) in the Union is something I would point to with much pride. I'm not saying it's worthless; but I'd hardly say it makes him any more or less serious than Jackson was in 1988 - when he'd already run a relatively successful campaign in '84, was all over the place with PUSH and Rainbow, had been a major contributor to the original Civil Rights movement, etc.

Quote from: Kyle AaronMorrow's previously said that he'd try to move away from line-by-line nitpicking, deliberate misunderstanding by extremes of what the other's saying, and calls for "evidence" for every minor statement made, and more towards dealing with the actual substance of people's arguments.

And what exactly was the actual substance of the points I was disagreeing with, Kyle?  What, exactly, is it that I'm missing or avoiding here?

And when are you and others going to move away from ad hominem attacks?  You know, attacking the person making the argument and not their argument?  Given that the replies to me seem to spend more time whining about the style of my response or vague accusations that I'm not addressing the point while never actually explaining what the point is that I'm missing, I'm really left wondering exactly what it is that I'm supposed to be seeing or saying here.

Quote from: Kyle AaronHe's not done that. I discussed a couple of years ago on rpg.net about how the Forgers use semantics to avoid a discussion on the actual topic; Morrow uses not semantics, but line-by-line nitpicking, deliberate misunderstanding by extremes, etc. One of these days he'll ask us for proof that water is wet, and ask, "but surely if water is wet, every time it rains everyone would drown?"

OK, Kyle, what's the "actual topic" here?  Can you give me some examples of where I'm actually misunderstanding a point?  Or am I going to have to read another three paragraphs complaining that I'm not getting your point while you refuse to clarify what your point actually is?

Quote from: Kyle AaronI don't believe a productive discussion about political affairs can be had with him.

That's funny, Kyle, because several people here with whom I disagree fairly substantially on many political issues seemed to be able to agree with me on this one.  Perhaps the problem is you?