Chief Justice Roy Moore claims that U.S. law is somehow based on the Ten Commandments. Seems that lots of people just assume that to be the case.
But is it? Does our civilization come from a small tribe of Asians, or some powerful Pagans?
Chew on this and then chime:
US law is based on the Ten Commandments.
US law is based on the Code of Hammurabi.
US law is based on Plato.
US law is based on Aristotle.
US law is based on St. Thomas Aquinas.
US law is based on St. Augustine’s City of God
US law is based on a lot of different things.
Democracy is Pagan.
I’m not aware of anything in the US Constitution that derives in any way from the Ten Commandments, in fact the First Amendment contradicts a bunch of the commandments.
I was always taught our nationhood grew from the political philosophy of John Locke. Not pagan, but then not especially noted for Christianity either. More of an Enlightenment figure, although he lived in the 17th century. The religious thought associated with the Enlightenment is called Deism, which is pretty well non-Christian.
Makes me wonder how ol’ Justice Moore would feel about a monument depicting the Code of Hammurabi in his court building… not quite as interested in protecting it as he is in the Ten Commandments, I expect.
Actually, that would be pretty cool.
In fairness, the Constitution and the “nationhood” (whatever that is) are not the whole-all of “our laws”. We do have laws and social customs (which can often be more powerful than law) with a judeochristian heritage (that they usually coincide with other sources of law, is a different story)
Moore’s (and others’) error lies in apparently believing that it’s somehow proven that the 10C trump everything else and that all Western Law derives therefrom and otherwise we’d be a bunch of lying, looting, killing, raping, coveting heathens w/o civil society. This is of course silly.
Well . . . at the least, Judge Moore’s an interesting sort, what with all of his talk about organic law and such.
He’s not nearly as menacing as Governor Wallace was when he tried this stunt way back when, but he does seem to have the same knack for dragging the hillbillies down from the hills and before the cameras to remind us all about the dangers of incest.
This whole aluhhhbama thing shows why electing judges is always a bad idea. Dumb people get to vote, and dumb people greatly outnumber intelligent ones. That messes up elections as it is, but we usually have the judiciary to fix the mistakes the elected idiots make. But when the judiciary itself is elected, we have nowhere to turn. Sad, sad, sad.
George Wallace may have been an amoral opportunist who evilly exploited racism. One thing he was not was a religious nut; in fact, the opposite. He insisted that no state funds would ever go to any religious activity. Wallace was from an earlier era of conservatism, before the fundie Christians took over.
Please keep your ethnic bigotry to yourself.
Posted by LonesomePolecat:
But why? Rednecks – i.e., Highland Southerners of English or Scotch-Irish ancestry – are the one ethnic subculture in America that is still fair game for bigotry! Just look at Jeff Foxworthy’s career!
A back-country farmer named Hollis
Used snakes and opossums for solace.
The offspring had scales
And prehensile tails
And voted for Governor Wallace.
-- Isaac Asimov
As for our “pagan heritage” – there is something to that. The whole set of liberal-humanist ideas that drove the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the American Revolution derived from reaching back through the centuries of medieval Christendom to the philosophers of pagan Greece and Rome. Check out this article [http://www.newamerica.net/index.cfm?pg=article&pubID=598 by Michael Lind. Excerpt:
Uhhhh, was this the John Locke who wrote THE REASONABLENESS OF CHRISTIANITY?
Skim Locke’s TWO TREATISES ON GOVERNMENT - a cursory glance will find tons of references to the Bible & the Christian faith as a source of authority for him.
Actually, there were many Deisms- not all of them non-Christian.
Just because someone wrote two books does not mean that the second book is based on the first.
I opened this thread in GQ to track the connection between the Decalogue and English common law. So far, the connection is tenuous, at best.
As for our Pagan heritage, while western society has been molded by Christian values for the past 1500 years, at least, there remains a strong current of Pagan symbols and ideas in our culture.
Actually, I don’t know that I’d call George Wallace a conservative at all. He was more of a Southern Populist/New Deal Democrat. Here, btw, is the 1968 Independence Party platform. It’s segregationist, and law and order (and sort of gives up on the inner cities), but it also calls for increasing Social Security, expanding job training for the poor, giving more aid to farmers, strengthening the power of labor unions, and negotiating a withdrawal from Vietnam.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/wallace/filmmore/reference/primary/68platform.html
My good friend is a Pagan, and he saw no problem with the 10 Commandment display.
He told me that those laws are not different than other laws from other faiths. And that are the basis for modern law
Sounds logical to me.
Funny how they saw the Christains are forcing the monuments to others… As a Jew I see it as a Jewish monument.
“When will people learn, democracy doesn’t work”
Homer Simpson
or
“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the rest”
Winston Churchill
hmm… don’t know how accurate that Winston Churchill quote was, but I know the Homer Simpson one is 
This current of Pagan symbols and ideas is certainly there, but these relics are as adapted for the prevailing mores of the last 1500 years, which were Christian… and the current has certainly had ebb and flow.
No society springs full-blown from some long-winded book. Progress is slow. It took about a thousand years to go from a state where most people where the chattel of others to the current state.
Because ethnic and racial slurs are not allowed on the SDMB, not even in the BBQ Pit. You and LyricalReckoner are ill-mannered louts.