I can not WAIT for July 5th. It’s been going on since Memorial Day. I was woken up last night by the volume of the blast. I’m really tired of having my cats scared so some clown can go boom.
Claiming rights is a national pastime. Rights are as revered as Revere himself, the stuff of tricorn-hat cosplay and solemn citations to the Constitution.
But there is no federal, state or local law or constitutional provision that gives Americans a right to an unmasked taco order.
Americans have no constitutional right to get a haircut, or to have a beer at the bar, or to dine in at Applebee’s.
Many Americans seem impervious to this truth. We imagine ourselves cloaked in rights, even when we have very few compared with many other modern democracies.
“I’m proud to be an American,” the song goes, “where at least I know I’m free.” But the United States has the world’s highest per-capita prison population.
It is the only state in the Western hemisphere that executes its citizens.
One hundred fifty countries provide a right to a free education in their national constitution. Not ours.
✁
Americans are obsessed about rights, and yet our Constitution and our courts are rather sparing in granting them.
✁
Don’t blame the framers of the Constitution, who well understood that rights had inherent limits.
Rather, this absolutist posture toward rights reflects the bitter struggle against Jim Crow in the 1950s and 1960s, which defined in the popular culture what it meant to have constitutional rights.
✁
But it’s been too easy to jump from this brutal history to the conclusion that rights are, in their very nature, an exemption from the law —
…a “get-out-of-jail-free” card not so unlike the fake laminated cards many antimaskers have been brandishing.
That was the conceit of the “white rights” movement pushed by the Citizens’ Councils in the 1950s and 1960s.
It finds expression today in the rhetoric of “all lives matter” and in the failure of many to see any distinction between antimasking and antiracism protests.
The founders wanted us to take control of our rampaging government. The government created by and envisioned by our founders is far from what we have today.
“We the People” created our government and it is designed to function with the. “Consent of the people”, yet we as citizens have aborgated our reaponsibility to control the government we created. Now we speak of being “governed” and bending a knee to the arrogant elite and political class.
Celebrate your freedom America. Take control of your government again, show up at local government meetings and hold them accountable. Demand lower taxes, less regulation, more freedom and mor narrow scope of government control. Woek in your communities to grow virtue and teach your children, friends and colleagues to re-embrace good, moral behavior. We need to rmember what Adams said, and live this way again: “Our Constituion was made only for a moral and religous people, it is wholly inadequate to the government of any other”.
When America restores its covenant with God to be a righteous people, we will then enjoy His blessings again.
The next week was filled with phone calls and text messages about symptoms and tests and who had been exposed to who.
By midweek, we learned that the virus, which would eventually work its way through about half of our staff, had spread to some of our volunteers.
Almost two weeks after that first phone call, we are still waiting to find the end of the virus’ spread among our church family.
This has been extremely challenging as a pastor and leader, and I hope I can share my experience with others who might learn from our mistakes dealing with Covid-19.
Here are five lessons I learned.
~
1. There is a second wave. ✁
~
2. It happens fast. One week from the time I received the first phone call reporting symptoms, we were aware of more than a dozen people showing symptoms.
What was even more shocking was that we could track four generations of transmission from the original person.
We are two weeks in, and the numbers are growing at a faster rate now than they were last week.
~
3. Assume every sniffle is Covid-19, and act quickly. ✁
~
4. Covid-19 is a serious illness. Some of our staff experienced a day or two of mild symptoms, but several are still dealing with severe fever, fatigue, breathing problems, and other symptoms. ✁
~
5. Isolation and social distancing work. I’m convinced that one of the reasons the virus hasn’t spread faster and farther is that we have been following procedures designed to isolate sick people and keep everyone else socially distanced. ✁
The following men signed The Declaration Of Independence. Please forgive them for being born in the 1700’s
John Hancock (president of the Continental Congress), Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry, Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery, Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott, William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris, Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark, Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross, Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean, Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton, William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn, Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton, Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, and George Walton.
whahoppened over 4 years ago
Hmmm. They had access to BIG booms, but didn’t do it.
fuzzbucket Premium Member over 4 years ago
The founding fathers used every weapon they had. If they had a bomb like that, they’d have found a way to use it.
AlanM over 4 years ago
You mean like the British used small pox to kill off American prisoners during the American revolution?
Ignatz Premium Member over 4 years ago
I can not WAIT for July 5th. It’s been going on since Memorial Day. I was woken up last night by the volume of the blast. I’m really tired of having my cats scared so some clown can go boom.
Silly Season over 4 years ago
Claiming rights is a national pastime. Rights are as revered as Revere himself, the stuff of tricorn-hat cosplay and solemn citations to the Constitution.
But there is no federal, state or local law or constitutional provision that gives Americans a right to an unmasked taco order.
Americans have no constitutional right to get a haircut, or to have a beer at the bar, or to dine in at Applebee’s.
Many Americans seem impervious to this truth. We imagine ourselves cloaked in rights, even when we have very few compared with many other modern democracies.
“I’m proud to be an American,” the song goes, “where at least I know I’m free.” But the United States has the world’s highest per-capita prison population.
It is the only state in the Western hemisphere that executes its citizens.
One hundred fifty countries provide a right to a free education in their national constitution. Not ours.
✁
Americans are obsessed about rights, and yet our Constitution and our courts are rather sparing in granting them.
✁
Don’t blame the framers of the Constitution, who well understood that rights had inherent limits.
Rather, this absolutist posture toward rights reflects the bitter struggle against Jim Crow in the 1950s and 1960s, which defined in the popular culture what it meant to have constitutional rights.
✁
But it’s been too easy to jump from this brutal history to the conclusion that rights are, in their very nature, an exemption from the law —
…a “get-out-of-jail-free” card not so unlike the fake laminated cards many antimaskers have been brandishing.
That was the conceit of the “white rights” movement pushed by the Citizens’ Councils in the 1950s and 1960s.
It finds expression today in the rhetoric of “all lives matter” and in the failure of many to see any distinction between antimasking and antiracism protests.
“Where’s my exemption? I have my rights.”
~
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-07-02/coronavirus-masks-rights-refusals-law
willkepley over 4 years ago
It is Winslow: “I see fireworks; I see the pageant, pomp & parade. I hear the bells ringing out. I hear the cannon roar.” – John Adams
Brain Pudding over 4 years ago
The founders wanted us to take control of our rampaging government. The government created by and envisioned by our founders is far from what we have today.
“We the People” created our government and it is designed to function with the. “Consent of the people”, yet we as citizens have aborgated our reaponsibility to control the government we created. Now we speak of being “governed” and bending a knee to the arrogant elite and political class.
Celebrate your freedom America. Take control of your government again, show up at local government meetings and hold them accountable. Demand lower taxes, less regulation, more freedom and mor narrow scope of government control. Woek in your communities to grow virtue and teach your children, friends and colleagues to re-embrace good, moral behavior. We need to rmember what Adams said, and live this way again: “Our Constituion was made only for a moral and religous people, it is wholly inadequate to the government of any other”.
When America restores its covenant with God to be a righteous people, we will then enjoy His blessings again.
Silly Season over 4 years ago
The next week was filled with phone calls and text messages about symptoms and tests and who had been exposed to who.
By midweek, we learned that the virus, which would eventually work its way through about half of our staff, had spread to some of our volunteers.
Almost two weeks after that first phone call, we are still waiting to find the end of the virus’ spread among our church family.
This has been extremely challenging as a pastor and leader, and I hope I can share my experience with others who might learn from our mistakes dealing with Covid-19.
Here are five lessons I learned.
~
1. There is a second wave. ✁
~
2. It happens fast. One week from the time I received the first phone call reporting symptoms, we were aware of more than a dozen people showing symptoms.
What was even more shocking was that we could track four generations of transmission from the original person.
We are two weeks in, and the numbers are growing at a faster rate now than they were last week.
~
3. Assume every sniffle is Covid-19, and act quickly. ✁
~
4. Covid-19 is a serious illness. Some of our staff experienced a day or two of mild symptoms, but several are still dealing with severe fever, fatigue, breathing problems, and other symptoms. ✁
~
5. Isolation and social distancing work. I’m convinced that one of the reasons the virus hasn’t spread faster and farther is that we have been following procedures designed to isolate sick people and keep everyone else socially distanced. ✁
~
https://www.al.com/coronavirus/2020/07/mobile-church-hit-with-coronavirus-cancels-services-moves-back-online.html
RobinHood over 4 years ago
The following men signed The Declaration Of Independence. Please forgive them for being born in the 1700’s
John Hancock (president of the Continental Congress), Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry, Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery, Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott, William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris, Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark, Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross, Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean, Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton, William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn, Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton, Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, and George Walton.
Bookworm over 4 years ago
“This is the way the world ends / This is the way the world ends / This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper.”
― T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men
nosirrom over 4 years ago
Will anti-vaxxers have COVID-19 parties?
sandflea over 4 years ago
Might as well just blow it up and start over from scratch.
mauser7 over 4 years ago
The original 4th of July was celebrated by firing of Rifles and Cannon’s. Fireworks didn’t come until much later.
braindead Premium Member over 4 years ago
From two months ago:
Still no testing plan from Trump, no data collection, no data analysis.
’Course the virus has been around only 3 – 4 months.
.
“We’re on the other side of the medical aspect of this. The federal government rose to the challenge, and this is a great success story.”
“Anyone who wants a test can get a test.”
“I take no responsibility for any of it!”
===
Now let’s assess what a bigly, beautiful, incredible job that Trump (and his dog Pence) have done in two f… months.
.
All The Disciples agree — but Hillary’s emails…