Conservatism To A Knuckle-Head Artist Like Me

Way to go Zo!! Please do more of these. Love you baby.

Nice. He's a good guy and that 'uncomfortable pause' thing was pretty funny–but then again, I wasn't uncomfortable!

Zo, where have you been hiding. I need more Zo!

preach it, brutha from a different mutha. snaps. and asatru … nice try to rework hx … don't see a lot of evidence of representative democracy in the archives of Norse hx. but they did carry gnarly axes and love the horned hats and mead.

The more I see of Zo the more I like, He is becoming my favorite Comic.

So you are saying that our Constitution and our legal system is NOT based on the English Common Law? Are you saying that the Magna Carta was not used to force the English King back to the rights and responsibilities of free men as expressed under English Common law? Are you saying that the SAxons and the Danes did not introduce their legal system to the conquered Brits? Are you saying that they did not worship the Old Gods of Northern Europe. If so, I'm afraid that it is YOUR understanding of European history that is embarrassingly flawed. Everything I just quoted is an historical FACT.

I'm not denying that the founding fathers were religious men, nor that they were Christians. I'm saying that the government that they gave us is NOT founded in Judeo-Christian values, but those that predated the coming of Christianity to England.

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are fundamentally antithetical to concepts of freedom and responsibility. They are based on a rigged game where the demanded outcome is impossible to achieve without divine interference. It is based upon the slavery of mankind to a distant, self centered, deity as a dysfunctional father figure. It is not about personal responsibility but about "turning over your sins" to this God and having them washed away. Freedom and responsibility mean owning one's actions and the consequences thereof.

I consistently see so called conservative Christians who say they believe in smaller government trying to use its power to enforce THEIR religious beliefs on others. (Anti-gay marriage, blue laws about selling liquor on Sundays). They are no better than the Environazis who try to use the government to enforce their religious beliefs about "Mother Earth" on society.

Yes, Conservatism is about smaller government, about essentially life, liberty, and property. But with the exception of Life, those concepts are not Judeao-Christian concepts.

In the end, I am right. Historically, our government is based on English Common Law, and that came to England through the followers of the Old Gods or Northern Europe, NOT Christianity. Christianity, in its early days did every thing it could to wipe those concepts out.. Again, I am not denying that the Founding Fathers were Christians (for the most part), nor am I denying that they were religious men (again for the most part)., I am saying that the blue-print they used for our government WAS NOT AND IS NOT Judeo-Christian. If it were, we'd have an official church, and a king who ruled by divine right.

The Normans ie (Northmen) helped codify what was already introduced by the Saxons. The set up the precedent that was known as "time immemorial" that the Normans codified. And even then, they were reaching back to their Nordic roots to the freedoms that they found there. Catholicism was never about the rights of freemen, but was about the power of the church and the crown.

Because of Royal Absolutism, France (the Normans) had nothing like English Common Law. They were working with what was already there. The Romans supressed Celtic culture and the Anglo-Saxon s supressed Roman culture, including Roman law. Thus English common law is less influenced by Roman law than is the case of continental Europe. Thus English common law has a Germanic rather than a Roman foundation. Its origins are the legal concepts of the Anglo-Saxon invasions (5th century AD). King Alfred the Great (849-99 AD) reportedly translated thelimited legal texts of the day into English. To this Anglo-Saxon based was grafted Danish (Viking) legal traditions, most importantly the principle of trial by jury, William the Conqueror's victory at Hastings (1066) ended Anglo-SAxon rule. It did not, however, end Anglo-Saxon law. William combined Anglo-Saxon law with Norman law. William had ulterior motives. If he had completely supressed Anglo-Saxon institutions, his rule would have been dependent on the Norman barons. By wining over Anglo-Saxon England, the English crown could draw on a much wider base of support. The coimbination of Anglo-Saxn and Norman law emerged as English commn law.

Sorry, you're just not going back far enough. Again, if you want to trace our the roots of our legal and governmental systems back to a religion, they lie with Odin, and Thor, not with Yahweh and Jesus.

Zo once again speaks truth.

Keep up the good work.

And your last line makes my point. It is far too simple to say that this country was founded on Judeo-Christian ideas. Again, I'm not saying that the founding fathers weren't Christian nor religious. I'm saying that the backbone of the governmental system they developed has its roots in pre-Christian society. The Allthing for one. The idea that free men had certain rights that even the king can't take away. (Based on the Jarl/Thane relationship) Also the idea of religious freedom is a PAGAN tradition, not a Christian one as demonstrated by Queen Sigrith and Olaf the Lawbreaker. She offered him religious freedom and equality and he returned the offer with a slap.

Abrahamic faiths are by their nature the antithesis to freedom of religion, and the freedom of the individual, two of the root causes for the migration of Europeans to the the Americas. It says a great deal about the character of our Founding Fathers that they could put aside their religion to create a country that celebrates the rights of the individual to worship the God(s) he/she chooses, or not at all.

You are wrong. The ""We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" is what the founder fathers wrote. Why would a christian sin and talk about another god in document they wrote. They would not and it is illogical to even suppose so. Sure some of the ideas may have come from somewhere else, but the founding principle is Christian.

But the Syrians, the Jews, and such did not have an influence on ancient Britain where the origins of our government begins. Also their government did not suggest the idea of the rights of the individual that could not be taken away by the king. These are the origins of our government and they are rooted in the traditions of the culture of Northern Europe, not in North Africa.

I'm writing about the pillars of our government. It is incontroversial that it comes from English common law, and THAT comes from the Norse/Saxons/Frisians/Celts/etc..

You can claim that this country is founded on Judeo-Christian values all you want, but it's simply not a historical fact. It was founded by good Christian men, but their blueprint for our government comes from the culture predating the Christian invasion of Europe.

Thanks again Zo!

Check him and others out at pjtv.com

"agnostic" simply means you aren't sure one way or the other. If you are being "excluded" for NOT believing in God that makes you an atheist, not an agnostic. Not all atheists hate Christians, that's just the predominant hype. The 9/12 project doesn't exclude you, you are choosing to exclude yourself. Check it out anyway, keep an open mind. They could use the help, and you might learn something. Oh, and if you were to believe in God because "someone told you you had to," God would not be happy with that!

good points, but that's the whitest black dude evea.

Again, the libs have the cool factor, Conservz just come off corny and lamers.

Oh, for a Zo'nation instead of an 0bamanation!!

No…thats a black dude that get's it . Zo is way to intelligent to stay in the "woe is me" mindset that the poverty pimps and race hustlers of the past and present have preached.

You are unbelievably daft. First of all, freedom of religion is a product of the Enlightenment, which marked the exhaustion of Europeans of all the fighting that broke out after the Reformation. People just decided religion wasn't worth fighting over anymore (it helped that each side made whatever various gains it was going to make by that time and didn't look to make more). Pre-Enlightenment, religion was sufficiently bound up with politics that religious disagreements justified political conflict in that the religion of a region pretty much determined who its princes would be.

Moreover, the Common Law is NOT codified law but judge made law. It is law "discovered" by judges on a case-by-case basis and developed over centuries, resulting in the reliance by subsequent judges on the precedent established by their predecessors. The theory (if not necessarily the reality) was that the judge would reason his way into discovering a sort of universal principle "expressed in the usage of the people, and accepted by the tacit unwritten consent of men" and apply it to the facts at hand. This way of establishing and developing law thru judges rather than codes was pretty much unique to England and was shepherded through first by Catholics and later carried on by Anglicans. While judicial decisions were recorded for use by lawyers and other judges, the common law is not a codified (i.e. statutory) system of law. Circa 890, Alfred the Great did compile a book of English usages and customs called "Liber Judicialis," which one might call a codification of sorts, I suppose, but it is nothing like a group of statutes. Its main emphasis seems to be to promote judicial fairness. It began with the Ten Commandments followed by Christ's remark, "Do not think that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets; I am not come to destroy but to fulfill." So much for Thor.

As for freedom of speech, what Nordic document contains that? Concerning property, ownership of private property is certainly contemplated in the Bible, with its frequent pokes at tax collectors and in the well-known parable of talents (maybe the first written reference to the basic law of trusts).

If free speech, the right to worship and property ownership were antithetical to Christianity, they would never have appeared in the Founding Fathers' writings. You are a fool.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…

Can you point out where this all encompasing founding principal is to be found in English Common Law?

I understand your argument but it's weak – everything takes from everything that comes before, but your argument that our legal system is based on English Common Law has nothing to do with the fact that this country was founded with Judeo-Christian values. You are talking about a cold system of proceedure, Zo and myself are talking values, ethics, and warm blooded people.

Silly. The Pilgrims left England because of the restrictions of English Common Law. The Puritans came to America after the Restoration for the same reason. The Puritans were Calvinists. American law owes far more to John Calvin than to Thor, you silly boy.

It wasn't the common law which put restrictions on the Puritans. It was the Crown.

Agree Zo!!! That's why I am a Christian, Conservative, Republican.

ALL of the Gods have been around since before mankind. THEY created us. You're making an obvious point, with which I don't disagree. The Founding Fathers were very smart., so the created a form of government that was neutral toward all religions.

Yes, I'm crediting the Norsemen with the concept political freedom, and the rights of freemen. If you knew anything about the Nordic culture you would understand that. Go look up the Allthing, and see what I'm talking about.

Yes, we're a Republic. But the Roman influence was pretty much quashed when Rome pulled out and the Saxons invaded. The Catholic church was incapable of defending the area- ever heard of Lindisfarne? If the Catholic Church had been able to do anything, the English language wouldn't exist and it would simply be another Romance Language descended from Latin. I'm not arguing about literacy, I'm arguing about the idea that freemen have rights that neither the king nor the church can take away. That is NOT RC concept.

As for Ragnarok- you really don't understand it. Everyone doesn't die. Unlike the Christian Armageddon, which is the end of the world, Ragnarok is simply a reset button that starts the cycle over again.

You are welcome stick to Jesus, but don't delude yourself about why the Norse converted. It had a lot to do with Charlemagne executing 6000 Saxons for refusing to convert. You know all that Christian toerance and everything. Also remember that everytime you say the name of a day of the week, you honor my Gods. When you put up a Christmas tree, give gifts, have a yule log, eat ham at the holidays, hunt for easter eggs, you are following my faith not yours. The reason that you do these things is because Christianity kinda sucked so the only way they could sell it after a while was adopt the trappings of the old faith.

The Old Gods are awakening again, and they are reclaiming what is theirs. Paganism is one of the fastest growing faiths in the US. I'm not here to argue about religion. I'm just saying that historically the ideals upon which this country was based do NOT have their roots in Christianity but in the pre-christian peoples of Northern Europe.

? Sorry, didn't understand your point.

Let's have some quotes from these illustrious tomes.

It looks to me that you don't even know what the common law is, with all your references to "codes." The common law is, again, not code law. It is judge made law. So right there, you show you don't know what you are talking about.

Christianity has an undeniable egalitarian streak. This is why, for the first 300 years of its existence, it was exclusively the religion of society's losers: the poor, slaves and women. To the extent there were any Christians among upper classes at all, there was an occasional woman, as even upper class women in those days were second class citizens. Here are examples of Christian tolerance straight out of Jesus' mouth:

"Inasmuch as ye have done it [feed the hungry, clothe the naked, etc.] unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." Matt. 25:40.

"Thou shalt love . . . thy neighbor as thyself." Luke 10:27.

"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies[i] and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?" Matt. 5:43-47.

And the ever-popular formulation from St. Paul: "He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit. * * * * You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." Gal. 3:14, 26-29.

These passages show a clear disregard of status which laid the foundation of all that would follow later in the history of the west. The common law absorbed this mindset and held people to account based not on their status but on what they did and the deals they committed to. It gave us trial by jury (one guess where they got the idea for twelve jurors) to protect from overbearing judges, for additional assurance of fair treatment.

I have addressed every point you've made. Pretending otherwise does not make it otherwise. If your point were valid it would not bother my sensibilities. What bothers me is that it is bu!!sh!t. You have yet to show a grasp of what the common law even is. Catholicism never sanctioned a divine right of kings, whatever various monarchs may have claimed of themselves in their own self interest. St. Paul, Catholic saint he, posited that authority comes only from God. Sound familiar? Thomas Aquinas refined St. Paul with his meditations on natural law, showing that authority is of God inasmuch as it is an essential of the human nature which God has created. According to St. Thomas, "a tyrannical law, not being according to reason, is not, absolutely speaking, a law, but rather a perversion of law" (Summa Theol., I-II.92.1 ad 4). While man is a member of the State, he is also a member of something larger. "Man is not subservient to the civil community to the extent of his whole self, all that he is and all that he has" (Summa Theol., I-II.21.4 ad 3).

Neither St. Paul nor St. Thomas was a Saxon or an Anglo, but their ideas resonated through all of Christendom.

Magna Carta was also profoundly important and did influence subsequent developments in the common law (most significantly the right of habeas corpus), but it was a constitutional document which originated in a monarch's cave-in to political pressure. The "freemen" it referred to were not all men, but men who were not serfs. We are talking about maybe 10% of the population at the time. Overtaxed barons invaded London and forced John to sign the "Artlcles of Barons" in 1215, the original Magna Carta. The most significant clause for our purposes established a committee of 25 barons who could overrule the king. As soon as the barons left town, John renounced it. Re-issues of Magna Carta, after John's death, omitted this provision but still sought to strike some degree of balance of power. It was a document of political expediency and necessity forced on the king by those who'd simply had enough. The barons hadn't been sitting around reading old Nordic or Saxon myths (by the way, you do realize Saxons were from a region in Germany and not Scandinavia, right?) and thinking how Christianity had been keeping them down.

The founders would have ENSLAVED him.

Zo is such a badass. I wish I were that smooth when trying to verbally defend conservatism.