Comments on: Palin vs. Obama: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

By: Rebecca

Rebecca — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 18:48:12 +0000

Ah, thanks for the clarification about your point.

I can’t think of a time, historically, when torture became a part of our defense, until recently. It is heinous, a reproach against everything good about our country.

By: akagaga

akagaga — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:24:28 +0000

But I think it’s a stretch to say that the Declaration and Constitution embraces everyone in every nation

I agree, but that wasn’t what I said. As someone who finds a huge divide between being an American patriot and being a Christian, I’m more concerned with who God embraces than who our legal documents embrace. I’m more concerned with Palin’s attitude that Americans, who by and large have rejected God, are somehow more “worthy” of the rights we declare that God has given to all.

I think the missing ingredient here is that we’re all sinners saved by grace. If we can’t extend that grace to all – at least to the point of treating people humanely – then we’re no better than the terrorists.

Imagine, if you can, a Christian spending some time with the “Christmas bomber.” I’m in no way excusing what he tried to do, but I also suspect that he’s been brainwashed his whole life into Islam. Let him pay the legal price for his actions, but let someone extend to him the love of Christ. Hard to do that with any credibility if he’s being tortured. Equally hard to claim we’re a Christian nation, whose laws come from God.

By: Rebecca

Rebecca — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 18:30:06 +0000

Well, yes, these truths are self-evident. And the United States has traditionally offered our liberty to anyone who would join us. But I think it’s a stretch to say that the Declaration and Constitution embraces everyone in every nation… on the contrary, the Declaration and Constitution bring up the fact that the people of their particular nation have the right to change their form of government if the government usurps their proper authority. I don’t think the Declaration is an all-reaching document that, with a broad sweep, guarantees or protects citizens of other countries.

The Declaration and the Constitution, like any other legal document, enumerates the legal boundaries of a government; but the Declaration explains it on a philosophical level, too. So while every human being should get humane treatment as a human being who has value in the eyes of God, you can’t say that it is the Declaration or the Constitution that makes it so.

It is not the Declaration or Constitution that gives humans their unalienable rights, it is God. (Of course you know that). In stating this fact, the Declaration in no way gives the United States authority to provide or deny anything to peoples of other nations.

The Declaration in no way grants the same benefits we citizens of the US receive (trial by jury, right to bear arms, etc etc) are to be given to citizens of other nations. The Declaration merely states that the people of a nation have the right to create a government that protects the God-given rights of liberty.