Conservapedia - User contributions [en]

Church of England

2007-03-02T22:58:12Z

Franklin.jefferson:

(or, ''Anglican Church'') . The English national church that traces its history back to the arrival of [[Christianity]] in Britain during the second century AD. The Church of England is a denomination of [[Protestant]]ism. It was formally organized by King [[Henry VIII]] of England, and the title "Defender of the Faith" remains one of the titles of the English monarch (currently, [[Elizabeth II]]). The American branch of the Anglican denomination is the [[Episcopalian]] church.

Talk:Creationism

2007-03-02T22:52:54Z

Franklin.jefferson: deleted material on Catholicism

== Added material about Dover Trial ==

Here is what I added: "However, the conservative publication WorldNetDaily wrote, "A historic judicial ruling against intelligent design theory hailed as a "broad, stinging rebuke" and a "masterpiece of wit, scholarship and clear thinking" actually was "cut and pasted" from a brief by [[ACLU]] lawyers and includes many of their provable errors, contends the Seattle-based Discovery Institute." [http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53330] "

== ID and creationism ==

The article discusses ID as if it was a form of creationism. It is not. It is a criticism of the theory of evolution. That is why the people referred to in the ID paragraph are able to simultaneously support ID while they hold differing views on creationism. --[[User:Horace|Horace]] 21:22, 25 February 2007 (EST)

The article explicitly says that "It is unclear if Intelligent Design amounts to a form of creationism and if so, where to place it in comparison to the other forms of creationism". Given the source material this seems like a reasonable description of the matter. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 22:06, 25 February 2007 (EST)

::What I am saying is that ID is not a form of creationism. It is not "unclear" at all. ID is more properly seen as an offshoot or product of creationism. It makes no attempt to describe how the world was created other than by saying that there was a designer. In that sense it just supports creationism. It really is merely a re-statement of the argument from incredulity (i.e. I don't understand how that could have happened, therefore it must be God). The problem with the particular paragraph in the article is that it indicates that there is a question surrounding the classification of ID where none in fact exisits. --[[User:Horace|Horace]] 22:21, 25 February 2007 (EST)

:::Horace, your vision of the article would include a bias, while saying that it is ''unclear'' whether Intelligent Design amounts to a form of Creationism yields no bias. --[[User:David R|David R]] 22:34, 25 February 2007 (EST)

::: Horace, I'm going to have to disagree here. At least one proponent of ID, Chris Buttars, a state senator of Utah repeatedly called it "Divine Design" and Dembski's Logos comment sounds very close to creationism- the Logos is (to many theologians, and arguably from a straight reading of the text of John) the creative spark. If ID is about the Logos, it is creationism. It seems clear to me that there is sufficient ambiguity that the current version should stand. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 22:37, 25 February 2007 (EST)

::::I am not sure that comments by state senators are in any way helpful (in this discussion anyway). I imagine you could find a state senator to say almost anything. You will have to help me out with you reference to the Logos. What is that? I was approaching this in what I intended to be a purely logical manner. The article suggests that there is some mystery surrounding the fact that several persons accept ID but hold different views on creation. There is no such mystery when you appreciate what ID is. It is not a version of creationism. It is a support to creationism. --[[User:Horace|Horace]] 22:53, 25 February 2007 (EST)
::::: Demsbki stated (in the source referenced in the article) "Intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory." The first verse of the John refers to the Logos, or "word" in Greek. A common translation of the verse is "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" Or alternatively, ""In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God" According to many Christian theologians (indeed, pretty much all the Catholics and as far as I'm aware, most of the Protestants) the Logos in John is intrisically connected to the creation ex nihilo as described in Genesis in which God speaks. Pope Benedict for example said that "Christianity must always remember that it is the religion of the `Logos.' It is faith in the "Creator Spiritus," in the Creator Spirit, from which proceeds everything tha" Indeed, looking at the next few verses, one sees the the strong connection between the Logos, creation and Jesus. The second verse is "He was in the beginning with God" and "All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being." (using the NAS translation here, but most translations will be substantially similar for our purposes). Claiming that ID is the Logos theology is to come about as close to identifying ID with creationism in the broad sense as one can without going out and saying it. Given that such claims came from William Dembski, one of the chief proponents of Intelligent Design, it is very hard to see this is as not strong evidence for the creationist nature of ID. There is a large body of evidence other than Dembski's comment, which if you want I can discuss. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 23:08, 25 February 2007 (EST)

::::::I am sure this Dembski fellow is as bright as the next creationist, but what do YOU think? It seems to me that we are talking about a matter of logic. You know what ID is. You tell me how the shared beliefs of Nelson and Behe in ID is in any way inconsistent with their differing views on creation. --[[User:Horace|Horace]] 23:19, 25 February 2007 (EST)
::::::: Hmm? I'm not sure what you mean. Are you arguing simply that we should remove the sentences noting that Nelson and Behe disagree on the age of the earth? [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 23:23, 25 February 2007 (EST)

::::::::My primary position is that references to ID ought be minimal. ID is not creationism. It is a tool of creationism. Unlike all other creation stories (careful Horace) it says nothing about creation other than that there was a designer. It has no creation week. It does not propose that the world is balanced on the backs of a tower of turtles. Nor that it was thought into existence by Tepeu and Gucumatz. It is really just a criticism of the theory of evolution. My secondary position is that the references to the difficulty of reconciling the beliefs of Nelson and Behe are misguided (no doubt those gentlemen will be relieved). When one thinks about what ID is, there is no logical contradiction in the both of them believing in ID at the same time as believing in their different versions of creation. --[[User:Horace|Horace]] 23:43, 25 February 2007 (EST)

::::::::: Ok, I propose that we split this into a variety of different issues: 1) Is there enough of a question about the nature of ID that we should discuss the matter? 2) If we do so, should we discuss that different proponents of ID have different opinions in regard to the details of creation- this second question only makes much sense in light of the first, so I suggest we resolve the first question before discussing the second. To the first question, I would answer yes, even given your phrasing, in that there was creation week, nor anything similar, you still call it a "creation story." Now, we are using the sourced defintion of creationism that "Creationism is the belief that the universe was originally created by God." Given the comments, whether ID is form of belief in the universe being created by God certainly seems to be under dispute. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 23:59, 25 February 2007 (EST)

:::::::::: I will contemplate the matter further overnight. Thanks for your considered views. --[[User:Horace|Horace]] 00:07, 26 February 2007 (EST)

== Problems with the section "Attempts to Criticize Creationism" ==

There are many problems with this section. It includes a high degree of imprecision and conflation between the different meanings of the term "creationist." There is very little criticism directed at creationism in the general sense (unless you count general arguments against religion). The vast majority of arguments are about YEC or various other forms of creationism.

1. The first section about Augustine seems to be grossly out of context. I'm not aware who argues that Augustine was not a creationist (nor for that matter, that it would make much sense someone to otherwise). This seems to be part of the general problem of conflating Young Earth Creationism with Creationism in general. Furthermore, as criticisms of creationism go, this would be very far down on the list (and again, isn't even much of a criticism of creationism but a criticism of insisting on certain close to literal Biblical interpretations)

2. The second refers to "Young-earth creationism, which holds that the earth is about 7000 years old, is consistent with many observations, such as the existence and nature of the freshwater Great Lakes, the young moon and the Grand Canyon." First, even if all of these were young features it would in no way argue for young earth creationism but rather that these specific features were old. Second of all, claiming that things are old doesn't make them so especially when there is a large disagreement with these claims by most relevant scientists. At minimum, some form of note that YECism argues that these objects are young would be necessary. Finally, I'm not sure if the writer of this read the above parts of the article where YECism is defined, since a repeated definition is uncessary (and the range given above of 6000-10000 is a bit more precise. In fact, the lower end seems to be about 5500 with the upper end of most creationists at 6500 and the only way one gets towards the upper end is by minor day lengthening generally).

3. "Creationism is accepted by most Americans and by the most significant scientists in history. Intolerance by opponents of creationism has led to a silencing of contemporary scientists on this issue, but many risk their careers by speaking out against theories that earth is somehow billions of years old." The first sentence has a multitude of problems. The sentence is true seems to confuse the matter of general creationism and young earth creationism. About half the US population are YEC, while about 90% acknowledge some form of creator deity. (According to the November 2004 Gallup Poll, the numbers are 45% answered yes to "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so?", 38% answered yes to "Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process" 13% believed that humans had evolved without divine intervention, and 4% were undecided (or gave an unclassifiable other answer)). Thus, if one means that most Americans are creationists in this very general sense then it is true. However, the fraction of the American population that believes in creation of any form is irrelevant in this context (which is a section on ''criticisms'' of creationism). If this is an attempt to argue for creationism, then it is an almost textbook example of ad populum falllacy. The claim about "the most significant scientists in history" is also interesting. Again, whether one is talking about YEC or some other form of creationism becomes highly relevant. If one is talking about creationism in general, this seems hardly relevant. If one is talking about YECism, then about whom we are talking becomes highly relevant. There are a fair set of standard lists of scientists who were YECs, and many of the standard individuals on the lists (such as Newton) were around well before any modern theories about the age of the earth or related issues. Furthermore, science is not decided by authority and so the presence of notable historical scientists who were creationists (of any sort) is simply irrelevant (and note also that in its more general forms, creationism is not a scientific claim at all but a religious one anyways). The final sentence is unsourced and most likely false. I'd love to see examples of this supposed "intolerance" and the assertion that many "risk their careers." I have trouble seeing Henry F. Schaefer who is an avowed and loud creationist and one of the world's most respected chemists as being silenced or having his career threatened.

If this is to include important, actually common criticism of Young Earth Creationism, it should discuss among other major issues, varves, the doublenested hierarchy, why creationists claim there is a clear cut line between apes and humans in the fossil record but can't agree with eachother which ones are apes and which are fossils. All of those would be good for starters. And all of that should go on the page for [[Young Earth Creationism]], not creationism in general . [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 23:54, 26 February 2007 (EST)

==Creationism as Myth==

Please do not remove this section unless you can provide appropriate references to show that the information within is incorrect. This is Conservapedia. We are interested here in the truth, not in bias. If you are looking for bias, your edits would be more welcome at wikipedia. If there are references that show that Creationism is indeed a science, you would serve the community better by posting them, rather than just deleting entries you do not like. It would be helpful if you read the guidelines for editing an entry before randomly deleting lines. --[[User:Neurocat|Neurocat]] 23:49, 26 February 2007 (EST)

== deleted material on Catholicism ==

Deleted a bunch of stuff about the position of the Catholic church because it's not very accurate.

I understand that Catholicism is hard to understand. If you can't get it right, don't write anything at all.

Creationism

2007-03-02T22:50:44Z

Franklin.jefferson:

Creationism is a term with a variety of meanings. Most generally, creationism is the belief that the universe was originally created by God.[http://www.creationism.org/english/index.htm]. Creationism can also mean a belief in a creation according to a literal interpretation of Genesis. Some forms of creationism (especially the more literal forms) conflict with [[evolution|evolutionary ideas]] while others do not.[http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v11/i4/christian.asp]. Not all Christian denominations embrace creationism with the more literal Genesis interpretations, but nearly all embrace the [[Crucifixion]] of [[Jesus]] as a redemption for the sin of [[Adam]]. Many non-Christian sects believe in a form of creationism, including American Indian religions, Hindus, and the Classical Greek and Egyptian polytheistic religions.

== Types of Creationists ==

There are many different types of creationism, and this list is not meant to be exhaustive but to deal with only the major categories.

*[[Young Earth Creationism|Young Earth Creationists]] generally accept a literal or nearly literal interpretation of Genesis and insist that the world is around 6000 years old. Traditionally, Judaism supported young earth creationism. [http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v26/i2/tradition.asp] In addition, a majority of the early [[church fathers]] supported the idea the young earth creationist view. [http://www.robibrad.demon.co.uk/Chapter3.htm] An example of a Young Earth Creationist ministry today is [[Answers in Genesis]].[http://www.answersingenesis.org/]

*[[Old Earth Creationists]] Agree with the common scientific age of the earth at around 4.5 billion years but generally do not accept that all life on earth evolved from a common ancestor. Old Earth Creationists generally reconcile the age of the earth with Genesis by positing that the days in Genesis were not 24 hour days or by inserting gaps between various verses in the Bible. There is no general agreement among Old Earth Creationists on whether or not there was a global flood. An example of a major Old Earth Creationist ministry is Reasons to Believe [http://www.reasons.org].

*[[Theistic Evolution]] is the belief that God created the universe and did not intervene directly in physical evolution. In general, theistic evolution accepts the age of the earth and common descent. Theistic evolutionists believe that at some point God intervened in a metaphysical fashion to give souls to some small group of human ancestors. This is the position proposed by a few Catholic theologians who do not speaking for the Catholic Church <ref>[http://www.catholic.net/RCC/Periodicals/Dossier/0102-97/Article3.html Mark Brumley, Evolution and the Pope]</ref>.

== Controversial Classification ==

It is unclear if [[Intelligent Design]] amounts to a form of creationism and if so, where to place it in comparison to the other forms of creationism. This is due to the concept having many different definitions and proponents espousing different ideas. For example, one major proponent of Intelligent Design is [[Paul Nelson]] who a Young Earth Creationist, while [[Michael Behe]], another major proponent, accepts common descent. [[William Dembski]] has stated unequivocally that Intelligent Design is not theistic evolution and they should not be considered the same<ref>''What every theologian should know about creation, evolution, and design'' Center for Interdisciplinary Studies Transactions 3(2), William Demsbki</ref> and that Intelligent Design is the [[Logos]] in terms of information theory<ref>[http://touchstonemag.com/archives/issue.php?id=49] ''Signs of Intelligence:
A Primer on the Discernment of Intelligent Design'' Touchstone Magazine, Volume 12, Issue 4 July-August 1999</ref>, while Dembski and others have given other definitions that do not include any specific theological references. Arguably, intelligent design can be summarized as the notion that at some point in the past, in some way, some entity(possibly God) created life, or altered life at some point, or created the universe to be compatable with life. Behe and others have stated that Intelligent Design is not religious in nature but in the [[Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District|Dover trial]], a [[US Federal District Judge]] (the lowest level federal judge of a general jurisdiction court) ruled as a one of his findings that Intelligent Design was essentially religious in nature. However, the conservative publication WorldNetDaily wrote, "A historic judicial ruling against intelligent design theory hailed as a "broad, stinging rebuke" and a "masterpiece of wit, scholarship and clear thinking" actually was "cut and pasted" from a brief by [[ACLU]] lawyers and includes many of their provable errors, contends the Seattle-based Discovery Institute." [http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53330]

==External links ==
*[http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/qa.asp Answers In Genesis - Get Answers]
*[http://www.creationontheweb.com/ Creation Ministries International]
*[http://www.icr.org Institute for Creation Research]
*[http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html Talk Origins - Creationist Claims]
*[http://creationwiki.org/Main_Page CreationWiki]
*[http://www.reasons.org Reasons To Believe]

==References and Footnotes==
<references/>

Talk:Dinosaur

2007-03-02T22:46:20Z

Franklin.jefferson: Catholic links deleted

How absurd!

What are "Old-Earth Evolutionists"? Is there another kind of "evolutionist"? Is evolutionist a word?

Why is the word "evolved" in inverted commas in the second sentence?

Why are the creationists referred to as scientists whereas the "Old-Earth Evolutionists" are not?

Why does it say that the "Creation scientists" have beliefs based on evidence when it says no such thing about the "Old-Earth Evolutionists"? (who you might think have a better claim to beliefs based on evidence).

Why doesn't the article tell me anything about dinosaurs?

I will be back to do some editing. --[[User:Horace|Horace]] 20:27, 22 February 2007 (EST)

:Note Horace's use above of the Britishism "inverted commas" instead of the proper American "quotation marks". This shibboleth makes his contributions look rather suspiciously like the work of a Wikipedia agitator. [[User:Rich P|Dr. Richard Paley]] 17:21, 23 February 2007 (EST)

::You, sir, are a bounder. Oops. Did it again. I would have thought that the substance of my contributions can speak for themselves. I am not any sort of agitator other than perhaps an agitator for accurate articles. --[[User:Horace|Horace]] 18:25, 25 February 2007 (EST)

There, that's a start. --[[User:Horace|Horace]] 20:49, 22 February 2007 (EST)

== Courtesy ==

How about some discussion before editing Rich? --[[User:Horace|Horace]] 21:45, 22 February 2007 (EST)

== Anti-Christian Bias ==

Why was all information based on the Creation worldview removed from this article? I thought this was precisely the sort of anti-Christian bias that Conservapedia was created to combat. Are people from Wikipedia trying to undermine this site? Well, nevermind; those interested to hear non-PC discussions of [http://creationwiki.org/Dinosaur dinosaurs] and Origins in general are welcome to come to [http://creationwiki.org/Main_Page CreationWiki] instead. [[User:Rich P|Dr. Richard Paley]] 01:41, 23 February 2007 (EST)

:I removed this information because it does not speak for all Christians, and none of the sources even claimed to speak for most Christians.

::Leaving aside the question of rampant apostasy in the modern Church re: Biblical Creation, I had originally clearly labeled those views as belonging to "Creation Scientists" -- for whom those sources do speak -- not "all Christians" or "most Christians". This was altered to "Creationists" in general (which is vague enough to include any number of errant views, including Hindu creation myths and Raelian extraterrestrial genetic-engineering delusions), and then the entire section was cut, leaving only the views of Darwinists. I do not see how these changes are consonant with the mission statement of Conservapedia (i.e. the elimination of Liberal bias which suppresses the Biblical worldview). Although it pains me to do so, I feel I must question whether those making these suspicious changes are working for the forces of Wikipedia to sneakily impose that project's PC, anti-Christian bias on this project. [[User:Rich P|Dr. Richard Paley]] 16:56, 23 February 2007 (EST)

::Furthermore, let me note that if this were merely a question of the views being presented in that paragraph only belonging to "some Christians", then why not ''add'' additional paragraphs explaining the views of the other so-called Christians instead of simply silencing the views of the (clearly labeled) subset of Christianity? Nothing is gained by this change except to give the false impression that all Christians agree with Darwinian views on dinosaurs. Was this the intent? [[User:Rich P|Dr. Richard Paley]] 17:08, 23 February 2007 (EST)

:::I am a Christian, and I accept evolution as a fact. I think that it is clearly demonstratable in the real-world. I know dozens of other Christians who also accept evolution. I think it is out of place for a website that is supposed to reflect all Christian views to only promote the views of a minority of Christians called "Creation Scientists". They should be relegated to the fringes, as they do not represent most Christians views.

:::Rich, there is a difference between writing from the creationist viewpoint and honesty. An article that claims, for instance, that Helder has documented "fresh" dinosaur remains may or may not be creationist in nature, but one thing it certainly is is dishonest, because no such documentation has stood up to any sort of scrutiny. Anyone can make claims, but if you don't care about the actual validity of those claims, only what views they purport to support, then you are not engaging in true scholarly citation practices.[[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 13:36, 1 March 2007 (EST)

== Catholic links deleted ==

Very odd, I'd put in some relatively straightforward links to some Catholic views, and it seems to have been deleted by somebody named "Aschlafly" who deleted them with the comment "deleted incorrect Catholic doctrine about evolution" and then added a bunch of stuff from what looks like Southern Baptist websites.
I don't know who this guy Aschlafly is, but I do not accept him as an authority on Catholicism. Is this conservapedia actually a "Southernbaptistapedia"? I would like to point out that not all conservatives are southern Baptists.
[[User:Franklin.jefferson|Franklin.jefferson]] 17:46, 2 March 2007 (EST)

Creationism

2007-02-28T22:22:41Z

Franklin.jefferson: Link typo corrected

Creationism is a term with a variety of meanings. Most generally, creationism is the belief that the universe was originally created by God.[http://www.creationism.org/english/index.htm]. Creationism can also mean a belief in a creation according to a literal interpretation of Genesis. Some forms of creationism (especially the more literal forms) conflict with [[evolution|evolutionary ideas]] while others do not.[http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v11/i4/christian.asp]. Not all Christian denominations embrace creationism, for example, Pope Pius XII stated that "there was no opposition between evolution and the doctrine of the faith" <ref>[http://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_jp02tc.htm John Paul II, "Truth Cannot Contradict Truth, 1996]</ref>. Many non-Christian sects also have creationist origin stories, including American Indian religions, Hindus, and the Classical Greek and Egyptian polytheistic religions.

== Types of Creationists ==

There are many different types of creationism, and this list is not meant to be exhaustive but to deal with only the major categories.

*[[Young Earth Creationists]] generally accept a literal or nearly literal interpretation of Genesis and insist that the world is around 6000 years old. Traditionally, Judaism supported young earth creationism. [http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v26/i2/tradition.asp] In addition, a majority of the early [[church fathers]] supported the idea the young earth creationist view. [http://www.robibrad.demon.co.uk/Chapter3.htm] An example of a Young Earth Creationist ministry today is [[Answers in Genesis]].[http://www.answersingenesis.org/]

*[[Old Earth Creationists]] Agree with the common scientific age of the earth at around 4.5 billion years but generally do not accept that all life on earth evolved from a common ancestor. Old Earth Creationists generally reconcile the age of the earth with Genesis by positing that the days in Genesis were not 24 hour days or by inserting gaps between various verses in the Bible. There is no general agreement among Old Earth Creationists on whether or not there was a global flood. An example of a major Old Earth Creationist ministry is Reasons to Believe [http://www.reasons.org].

*[[Theistic Evolution]] is the belief that God created the universe and did not intervene directly in physical evolution. In general, theistic evolution accepts the age of the earth and common descent. Theistic evolutionists believe that at some point God intervened in a metaphysical fashion to give souls to some small group of human ancestors. This is the position proposed by Catholic theologians <ref>[http://www.catholic.net/RCC/Periodicals/Dossier/0102-97/Article3.html Mark Brumley, Evolution and the Pope]</ref>: "The Roman Catholic Church has accepted evolution as long as it doesn't exclude God from the creative process, in particular from the creation of the human soul."

== Controversial Classification ==

It is unclear if [[Intelligent Design]] amounts to a form of creationism and if so, where to place it in comparison to the other forms of creationism. This is due to the concept having many different definitions and proponents espousing different ideas. For example, one major proponent of Intelligent Design is [[Paul Nelson]] who a Young Earth Creationist, while [[Michael Behe]], another major proponent, accepts common descent. [[William Dembski]] has stated unequivocally that Intelligent Design is not theistic evolution and they should not be considered the same<ref>''What every theologian should know about creation, evolution, and design'' Center for Interdisciplinary Studies Transactions 3(2), William Demsbki</ref> and that Intelligent Design is the [[Logos]] in terms of information theory<ref>[http://touchstonemag.com/archives/issue.php?id=49] ''Signs of Intelligence:
A Primer on the Discernment of Intelligent Design'' Touchstone Magazine, Volume 12, Issue 4 July-August 1999</ref>, while Dembski and others have given other definitions that do not include any specific theological references. Arguably, intelligent design can be summarized as the notion that at some point in the past, in some way, some entity(possibly God) created life, or altered life at some point, or created the universe to be compatable with life. Behe and others have stated that Intelligent Design is not religious in nature but in the [[Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District|Dover trial]], a [[US Federal District Judge]] (the lowest level federal judge of a general jurisdiction court) ruled as a one of his findings that Intelligent Design was essentially religious in nature. However, the conservative publication WorldNetDaily wrote, "A historic judicial ruling against intelligent design theory hailed as a "broad, stinging rebuke" and a "masterpiece of wit, scholarship and clear thinking" actually was "cut and pasted" from a brief by [[ACLU]] lawyers and includes many of their provable errors, contends the Seattle-based Discovery Institute." [http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53330]

== Attempts to Criticize Creationism ==
 (1) Some critics of creationism assert that [[St. Augustine of Hippo]] disfavored some literal interpretations of the Bible. For example, they claim that St. Augustine, in his [[On Christian Doctrine]], discussed the multiple layers that Biblical interpreters should sometimes engage in. Under the view of these critics, the seven-day creation in the Book of Genesis should be taken as symbolic.

 In fact, St. Augustine did not reject creation or creationism. He did not propose or accept any view of man as anything other than a creation of God in the image of God, exactly as the Bible says.

 (2) [[Young-earth creationism]], which holds that the earth is about 7000 years old, is consistent with many observations, such as the existence and nature of the freshwater Great Lakes, the young [[moon]] and the Grand Canyon. Opponents repeatedly attempt to censor the sale of publications by the U.S. Parks Service near the Grand Canyon containing differing views of its development.

 (3) Creationism is accepted by most Americans and by the most significant scientists in history. Intolerance by opponents of creationism has led to a silencing of contemporary scientists on this issue, but many risk their careers by speaking out against theories that earth is somehow billions of years old.

==External links ==
*[http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/qa.asp Answers In Genesis - Get Answers]
*[http://www.creationontheweb.com/ Creation Ministries International]
*[http://www.icr.org Institute for Creation Research]
*[http://creationwiki.org/Main_Page CreationWiki]
*[http://www.reasons.org Reasons To Believe]

==References and Footnotes==
<references/>

Creationism

2007-02-28T22:18:30Z

Franklin.jefferson:

Creationism is a term with a variety of meanings. Most generally, creationism is the belief that the universe was originally created by God.[http://www.creationism.org/english/index.htm]. Creationism can also mean a belief in a creation according to a literal interpretation of Genesis. Some forms of creationism (especially the more literal forms) conflict with [[evolution|evolutionary ideas]] while others do not.[http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v11/i4/christian.asp]. Not all Christian denominations embrace creationism, for example, Pope Pius XII stated that "there was no opposition between evolution and the doctrine of the faith" <ref>[http://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_jp02tc.htm John Paul II, "Truth Cannot Contradict Truth, 1996]</ref>. Many non-Christian sects also have creationist origin stories, including American Indian religions, Hindus, and the Classical Greek and Egyptian polytheistic religions.

== Types of Creationists ==

There are many different types of creationism, and this list is not meant to be exhaustive but to deal with only the major categories.

*[[Young Earth Creationists]] generally accept a literal or nearly literal interpretation of Genesis and insist that the world is around 6000 years old. Traditionally, Judaism supported young earth creationism. [http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v26/i2/tradition.asp] In addition, a majority of the early [[church fathers]] supported the idea the young earth creationist view. [http://www.robibrad.demon.co.uk/Chapter3.htm] An example of a Young Earth Creationist ministry today is [[Answers in Genesis]].[http://www.answersingenesis.org/]

*[[Old Earth Creationists]] Agree with the common scientific age of the earth at around 4.5 billion years but generally do not accept that all life on earth evolved from a common ancestor. Old Earth Creationists generally reconcile the age of the earth with Genesis by positing that the days in Genesis were not 24 hour days or by inserting gaps between various verses in the Bible. There is no general agreement among Old Earth Creationists on whether or not there was a global flood. An example of a major Old Earth Creationist ministry is Reasons to Believe [http://www.reasons.org].

*[[Theistic Evolution]] is the belief that God created the universe and did not intervene directly in physical evolution. In general, theistic evolution accepts the age of the earth and common descent. Theistic evolutionists believe that at some point God intervened in a metaphysical fashion to give souls to some small group of human ancestors. This is the position proposed by Catholic theologians <ref>[[http://www.catholic.net/RCC/Periodicals/Dossier/0102-97/Article3.html]]</ref>: "The Roman Catholic Church has accepted evolution as long as it doesn't exclude God from the creative process, in particular from the creation of the human soul."

== Controversial Classification ==

It is unclear if [[Intelligent Design]] amounts to a form of creationism and if so, where to place it in comparison to the other forms of creationism. This is due to the concept having many different definitions and proponents espousing different ideas. For example, one major proponent of Intelligent Design is [[Paul Nelson]] who a Young Earth Creationist, while [[Michael Behe]], another major proponent, accepts common descent. [[William Dembski]] has stated unequivocally that Intelligent Design is not theistic evolution and they should not be considered the same<ref>''What every theologian should know about creation, evolution, and design'' Center for Interdisciplinary Studies Transactions 3(2), William Demsbki</ref> and that Intelligent Design is the [[Logos]] in terms of information theory<ref>[http://touchstonemag.com/archives/issue.php?id=49] ''Signs of Intelligence:
A Primer on the Discernment of Intelligent Design'' Touchstone Magazine, Volume 12, Issue 4 July-August 1999</ref>, while Dembski and others have given other definitions that do not include any specific theological references. Arguably, intelligent design can be summarized as the notion that at some point in the past, in some way, some entity(possibly God) created life, or altered life at some point, or created the universe to be compatable with life. Behe and others have stated that Intelligent Design is not religious in nature but in the [[Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District|Dover trial]], a [[US Federal District Judge]] (the lowest level federal judge of a general jurisdiction court) ruled as a one of his findings that Intelligent Design was essentially religious in nature. However, the conservative publication WorldNetDaily wrote, "A historic judicial ruling against intelligent design theory hailed as a "broad, stinging rebuke" and a "masterpiece of wit, scholarship and clear thinking" actually was "cut and pasted" from a brief by [[ACLU]] lawyers and includes many of their provable errors, contends the Seattle-based Discovery Institute." [http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53330]

== Attempts to Criticize Creationism ==
 (1) Some critics of creationism assert that [[St. Augustine of Hippo]] disfavored some literal interpretations of the Bible. For example, they claim that St. Augustine, in his [[On Christian Doctrine]], discussed the multiple layers that Biblical interpreters should sometimes engage in. Under the view of these critics, the seven-day creation in the Book of Genesis should be taken as symbolic.

 In fact, St. Augustine did not reject creation or creationism. He did not propose or accept any view of man as anything other than a creation of God in the image of God, exactly as the Bible says.

 (2) [[Young-earth creationism]], which holds that the earth is about 7000 years old, is consistent with many observations, such as the existence and nature of the freshwater Great Lakes, the young [[moon]] and the Grand Canyon. Opponents repeatedly attempt to censor the sale of publications by the U.S. Parks Service near the Grand Canyon containing differing views of its development.

 (3) Creationism is accepted by most Americans and by the most significant scientists in history. Intolerance by opponents of creationism has led to a silencing of contemporary scientists on this issue, but many risk their careers by speaking out against theories that earth is somehow billions of years old.

==External links ==
*[http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/qa.asp Answers In Genesis - Get Answers]
*[http://www.creationontheweb.com/ Creation Ministries International]
*[http://www.icr.org Institute for Creation Research]
*[http://creationwiki.org/Main_Page CreationWiki]
*[http://www.reasons.org Reasons To Believe]

==References and Footnotes==
<references/>

Creationism

2007-02-28T22:10:22Z

Franklin.jefferson:

Creationism is a term with a variety of meanings. Most generally, creationism is the belief that the universe was originally created by God.[http://www.creationism.org/english/index.htm]. Creationism can also mean a belief in a creation according to a literal interpretation of Genesis. Some forms of creationism (especially the more literal forms) conflict with [[evolution|evolutionary ideas]] while others do not.[http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v11/i4/christian.asp]. Not all Christian denominations embrace creationism, for example,

== Types of Creationists ==

There are many different types of creationism, and this list is not meant to be exhaustive but to deal with only the major categories.

*[[Young Earth Creationists]] generally accept a literal or nearly literal interpretation of Genesis and insist that the world is around 6000 years old. Traditionally, Judaism supported young earth creationism. [http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v26/i2/tradition.asp] In addition, a majority of the early [[church fathers]] supported the idea the young earth creationist view. [http://www.robibrad.demon.co.uk/Chapter3.htm] An example of a Young Earth Creationist ministry today is [[Answers in Genesis]].[http://www.answersingenesis.org/]

*[[Old Earth Creationists]] Agree with the common scientific age of the earth at around 4.5 billion years but generally do not accept that all life on earth evolved from a common ancestor. Old Earth Creationists generally reconcile the age of the earth with Genesis by positing that the days in Genesis were not 24 hour days or by inserting gaps between various verses in the Bible. There is no general agreement among Old Earth Creationists on whether or not there was a global flood. An example of a major Old Earth Creationist ministry is Reasons to Believe [http://www.reasons.org].

*[[Theistic Evolution]] is the belief that God created the universe and did not intervene directly in physical evolution. In general, theistic evolution accepts the age of the earth and common descent. Theistic evolutionists believe that at some point God intervened in a metaphysical fashion to give souls to some small group of human ancestors. This is the position proposed by Catholic theologians <ref>[[http://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_jp02tc.htm John Paul II, "Truth Cannot Contradict Truth, 1996]]</ref>: "The Roman Catholic Church has accepted evolution as long as it doesn't exclude God from the creative process, in particular from the creation of the human soul."

== Controversial Classification ==

It is unclear if [[Intelligent Design]] amounts to a form of creationism and if so, where to place it in comparison to the other forms of creationism. This is due to the concept having many different definitions and proponents espousing different ideas. For example, one major proponent of Intelligent Design is [[Paul Nelson]] who a Young Earth Creationist, while [[Michael Behe]], another major proponent, accepts common descent. [[William Dembski]] has stated unequivocally that Intelligent Design is not theistic evolution and they should not be considered the same<ref>''What every theologian should know about creation, evolution, and design'' Center for Interdisciplinary Studies Transactions 3(2), William Demsbki</ref> and that Intelligent Design is the [[Logos]] in terms of information theory<ref>[http://touchstonemag.com/archives/issue.php?id=49] ''Signs of Intelligence:
A Primer on the Discernment of Intelligent Design'' Touchstone Magazine, Volume 12, Issue 4 July-August 1999</ref>, while Dembski and others have given other definitions that do not include any specific theological references. Arguably, intelligent design can be summarized as the notion that at some point in the past, in some way, some entity(possibly God) created life, or altered life at some point, or created the universe to be compatable with life. Behe and others have stated that Intelligent Design is not religious in nature but in the [[Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District|Dover trial]], a [[US Federal District Judge]] (the lowest level federal judge of a general jurisdiction court) ruled as a one of his findings that Intelligent Design was essentially religious in nature. However, the conservative publication WorldNetDaily wrote, "A historic judicial ruling against intelligent design theory hailed as a "broad, stinging rebuke" and a "masterpiece of wit, scholarship and clear thinking" actually was "cut and pasted" from a brief by [[ACLU]] lawyers and includes many of their provable errors, contends the Seattle-based Discovery Institute." [http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53330]

== Attempts to Criticize Creationism ==
 (1) Some critics of creationism assert that [[St. Augustine of Hippo]] disfavored some literal interpretations of the Bible. For example, they claim that St. Augustine, in his [[On Christian Doctrine]], discussed the multiple layers that Biblical interpreters should sometimes engage in. Under the view of these critics, the seven-day creation in the Book of Genesis should be taken as symbolic.

 In fact, St. Augustine did not reject creation or creationism. He did not propose or accept any view of man as anything other than a creation of God in the image of God, exactly as the Bible says.

 (2) [[Young-earth creationism]], which holds that the earth is about 7000 years old, is consistent with many observations, such as the existence and nature of the freshwater Great Lakes, the young [[moon]] and the Grand Canyon. Opponents repeatedly attempt to censor the sale of publications by the U.S. Parks Service near the Grand Canyon containing differing views of its development.

 (3) Creationism is accepted by most Americans and by the most significant scientists in history. Intolerance by opponents of creationism has led to a silencing of contemporary scientists on this issue, but many risk their careers by speaking out against theories that earth is somehow billions of years old.

==External links ==
*[http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/qa.asp Answers In Genesis - Get Answers]
*[http://www.creationontheweb.com/ Creation Ministries International]
*[http://www.icr.org Institute for Creation Research]
*[http://creationwiki.org/Main_Page CreationWiki]
*[http://www.reasons.org Reasons To Believe]

==References and Footnotes==
<references/>

Big Bang theory

2007-02-28T21:41:14Z

Franklin.jefferson:

The Big Bang is a theory that the universe was once in a very hot, dense state and then expanded outwards, approximately 14 billion years ago. It is the most popular theory about the origin of the universe, widely accepted in the scientific community. It was first proposed by [[Georges-Henri Lemaitre]]. More evidence for the Big Bang was found by [[Edwin Hubble]] and [[Bell Labs]]. Later [[George Gamow]] predicted that the Big Bang would leave an observable microwave background radiation. This radiation was subsequently discovered and found to be close to that predicted by Gamow (Gamow predicted a background radiation level equivalent to a 3 K black body object, and the observed level is that of a 2.725 K body).

It is interesting to note that the [[Genesis]] account of creation, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and God said, "let there be light," and Lo, there was light," could be a literal description of the big bang as understood by current cosmologists; in this way, the big bang theory can be seen as a validation of biblical text..

Young-Earth creationists hotly contest the Big Bang Theory because they believe that the Bible proves that the Earth is far younger than 14 billion years.

Dinosaur

2007-02-28T21:38:56Z

Franklin.jefferson: typo corrected

[[Image:StockDinosaur.jpg|right|Biblical evidence suggests that people and dinosaurs coexisted.]]

The word '''dinosaur''' was coined in 1841 by creationist Richard Owen<ref>http://www.trueauthority.com/dinosaurs/about.htm</ref>, from the [[Latin]] for "terrible lizard". Dinosaurs were a group of large [[lizards]] that previously lived in abundance on Earth.

Darwinists believe that dinosaurs lived from 230 million until 65 million years ago and that they are all currently extinct (except for [[birds]], which many scientists consider to be descended from early [[therapod]] dinosaurs). They claim the [[fossil]] evidence supports their beliefs.

Some [[Christians]] reject the [[Theory of Evolution]] and the mainstream scientific consensus of the age of the earth. (Other Christians have no problem with Evolution; for example, [[Pope John Paul II]] has proclaimed that the theory is 'more than just a hypothesis' and that evolution is compatible with Christian faith <ref>John Paul II, [http://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_jp02tc.htm Address Oct. 1996, "Truth Cannot Contradict Truth"]</ref>.) Of those Christians who reject evolution, the [[Creationism | Young Earth Creationists]] believe, based primarily on Biblical [[evidences]], but also drawing on [[archeological]] and fossil evidence, that dinosaurs were created on the 6th day of the [[Creation Week]]<ref>''Genesis'', 1:25</ref>, between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago; that they lived in the [[Garden of Eden]] in harmony with other animals, eating only plants<ref>''Genesis'' 1:29-30</ref>; that pairs of various dinosaur [[baramin]]s were taken onto [[Noah's Ark]] during the [[Great Flood]] and were preserved from drowning<ref>[http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2001/dinos_on_ark.asp "Were dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark?"], ''Answers in Genesis''</ref>; that fossilized dinosaur bones originated during the mass killing of the Flood<ref>[http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v21/i1/dinosaurbones.asp "Dinosaur bones—just how old are they really?"], ''Creation'' 21(1):54–55, December 1998</ref>; and that some descendants of those dinosaurs taken aboard the Ark still roam the earth today<ref>[http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v15/i4/dinosaurs.asp "Are dinosaurs alive today?"], ''Creation'' 15(4):12–15, September 1993</ref>.

Because the term only came into use in the 19th century, the [[Bible]] obviously does not use the word "dinosaur." However, they are mentioned in numerous places throughout the Good Book. For example, the '''behemoth''' in [[Job]]<ref>[http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v15/i2/behemoth.asp "Could Behemoth have been a dinosaur?"], ''TJ'' 15(2):42–45, August 2001</ref> and the '''leviathan''' in [[Isaiah]] are almost certainly references to dinosaurs.

==References==
<references/>

Big Bang theory

2007-02-28T21:36:17Z

Franklin.jefferson:

The Big Bang is a theory that the universe was once in a very hot, dense state and then expanded outwards, approximately 14 billion years ago. It is the most popular theory about the origin of the universe, widely accepted in the scientific community. It was first proposed by [[Georges-Henri Lemaitre]]. More evidence for the Big Bang was found by [[Edwin Hubble]] and [[Bell Labs]]. Later [[George Gamow]] predicted that the Big Bang would leave an observable microwave background radiation. This radiation was subsequently discovered and found to be close to that predicted by Gamow (Gamow predicted a background radiation level equivalent to a 3 K black body object, and the observed level is that of a 2.725 K body).

It is interesting to note that the [[Genesis]] account of creation, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and God said, "let there be light," and lo, there was light," could be a literal description of the big bang as understood by current cosmologists; in this way, the big bang theory can be seen as a validation of biblical text..

Young-Earth creationists hotly contest the Big Bang Theory because they believe that the Bible proves that the Earth is far younger than 14 billion years.

Dinosaur

2007-02-28T21:31:07Z

Franklin.jefferson: links

[[Image:StockDinosaur.jpg|right|Biblical evidence suggests that people and dinosaurs coexisted.]]

The word '''dinosaur''' was coined in 1841 by creationist Richard Owen<ref>http://www.trueauthority.com/dinosaurs/about.htm</ref>, from the [[Latin]] for "terrible lizard". Dinosaurs were a group of large [[lizards]] that previously lived in abundance on Earth.

Darwinists believe that dinosaurs lived from 230 million until 65 million years ago and that they are all currently extinct (except for [[birds]], which many scientists consider to be descended from early [[therapod]] dinosaurs). They claim the [[fossil]] evidence supports their beliefs.

Some [[Christians]] reject the [[Theory of Evolution]] and the mainstream scientific consensus of the age of the earth. (Other Christians have no problem with Evolution; for example, [[Pope John Paul II]] has proclaimed that the theory is 'more than just a hypothesis' and that evolution is compatible with Christian faith <ref>John Paul II, [http://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_jp02tc.htm Address Oct. 1996, "Truth Cannot Contradict Truth"</ref>.) Of those Christians who reject evolution, the [[Creationism | Young Earth Creationists]] believe, based primarily on Biblical [[evidences]], but also drawing on [[archeological]] and fossil evidence, that dinosaurs were created on the 6th day of the [[Creation Week]]<ref>''Genesis'', 1:25</ref>, between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago; that they lived in the [[Garden of Eden]] in harmony with other animals, eating only plants<ref>''Genesis'' 1:29-30</ref>; that pairs of various dinosaur [[baramins]] were taken onto [[Noah's Ark]] during the [[Great Flood]] and were preserved from drowning<ref>[http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2001/dinos_on_ark.asp "Were dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark?"], ''Answers in Genesis''</ref>; that fossilized dinosaur bones originated during the mass killing of the Flood<ref>[http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v21/i1/dinosaurbones.asp "Dinosaur bones—just how old are they really?"], ''Creation'' 21(1):54–55, December 1998</ref>; and that some descendants of those dinosaurs taken aboard the Ark still roam the earth today<ref>[http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v15/i4/dinosaurs.asp "Are dinosaurs alive today?"], ''Creation'' 15(4):12–15, September 1993</ref>.

Because the term only came into use in the 19th century, the [[Bible]] obviously does not use the word "dinosaur." However, they are mentioned in numerous places throughout the Good Book. For example, the '''behemoth''' in [[Job]]<ref>[http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v15/i2/behemoth.asp "Could Behemoth have been a dinosaur?"], ''TJ'' 15(2):42–45, August 2001</ref> and the '''leviathan''' in [[Isaiah]] are almost certainly references to dinosaurs.

==References==
<references/>

Dinosaur

2007-02-28T21:22:48Z

Franklin.jefferson:

[[Image:StockDinosaur.jpg|right|Biblical evidence suggests that people and dinosaurs coexisted.]]

The word '''dinosaur''' was coined in 1841 by creationist Richard Owen<ref>http://www.trueauthority.com/dinosaurs/about.htm</ref>, from the [[Latin]] for "terrible lizard". Dinosaurs were a group of large [[lizards]] that previously lived in abundance on Earth.

Darwinists believe that dinosaurs lived from 230 million until 65 million years ago and that they are all currently extinct (except for birds, which they consider to be descended from dinosaurs). They claim the [[fossil]] evidence supports their beliefs.

Some Christians reject the [[Theory of Evolution]] and the mainstream scientific consensus of the age of the earth. (Other Christians have no problem with Evolution; for example, Pope John Paul II has proclaimed that the theory is 'more than just a hypothesis' and that evolution is compatible with Christian faith.) Of those Christians who reject evolution, the [[Creationism | Young Earth Creationists]] believe, based primarily on Biblical [[evidences]], but also drawing on [[archeological]] and fossil evidence, that dinosaurs were created on the 6th day of the [[Creation Week]]<ref>''Genesis'', 1:25</ref>, between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago; that they lived in the [[Garden of Eden]] in harmony with other animals, eating only plants<ref>''Genesis'' 1:29-30</ref>; that pairs of various dinosaur baramins were taken onto [[Noah's Ark]] during the [[Great Flood]] and were preserved from drowning<ref>[http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2001/dinos_on_ark.asp "Were dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark?"], ''Answers in Genesis''</ref>; that fossilized dinosaur bones originated during the mass killing of the Flood<ref>[http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v21/i1/dinosaurbones.asp "Dinosaur bones—just how old are they really?"], ''Creation'' 21(1):54–55, December 1998</ref>; and that some descendants of those dinosaurs taken aboard the Ark still roam the earth today<ref>[http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v15/i4/dinosaurs.asp "Are dinosaurs alive today?"], ''Creation'' 15(4):12–15, September 1993</ref>.

Because the term only came into use in the 19th century, the [[Bible]] obviously does not use the word "dinosaur." However, they are mentioned in numerous places throughout the Good Book. For example, the '''behemoth''' in [[Job]]<ref>[http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v15/i2/behemoth.asp "Could Behemoth have been a dinosaur?"], ''TJ'' 15(2):42–45, August 2001</ref> and the '''leviathan''' in [[Isaiah]] are almost certainly references to dinosaurs.

==References==
<references/>

Protestantism

2007-02-24T20:40:13Z

Franklin.jefferson:

Protestants are the biggest Christian [[denomination]]s in America. They split off from the Catholic church in Europe in 1514 because of the [[Reformation]] (see [Martin Luther], and 1533 in England, by decree of King [Henry VIII]. The conflict between protestant and Catholic views of christianity was the subject of several wars, notably the [[http://xenophongroup.com/montjoie/albigens.htm Albigensian Crusade]] (1209-1255) and the [Hundred-years war]] (1328-1453)

Some kinds of Protestant are [[Lutheran]], [[Methodist]], [[Baptist]]s, and [[Episcopal]] (known in England as Anglican, or "Church of England"). The opposite of Protestant are the [[Catholic]] and [[Orthodox]] churches.

Homosexuality

2007-02-24T20:28:48Z

Franklin.jefferson:

Homosexuality is a sexual attraction between members of the same sex.

The origin of homosexuality is currently a matter of scientific debate, with arguments that it has genetic origins, that it has origins in the biolochemistry of early development, or that it is an effect of upbringing.

== Biblical Views on Homosexuality ==

Homosexuality has comparatively few references in the Bible; it is not a topic mentioned by Jesus in the four gospels, and the only reference in the New Testament is in the letters of Paul.

All references in Amplified Version

=== Old Testament ===
* Leviticus 18:22 - ''You shall not lie with a man as with a woman; it is an abomination.''

=== New Testament (Epistles) ===
* 1 Corinthians 6:9 - Do you not know that the unrighteous and the wrongdoers will not inherit or have any share in the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived (misled): neither the impure and immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor those who participate in homosexuality
* Romans 1:26-27 - 26 For this reason God gave them over and abandoned them to vile affections and degrading passions. For their women exchanged their natural function for an unnatural and abnormal one, 27 and the men also turned from natural relations with women and were set ablaze (burning out, consumed) with lust for one another--men committing shameful acts with men and suffering in their own bodies and personalities the inevitable consequences and penalty of their wrong-doing and going astray, which was [their] fitting retribution.

== Homosexuality and Marriage==

The American Psychiatric Association de-listed homosexuality as a mental disorder in 1973.[http://www.apa.org/pi/reslgbc.html] Since that time, homosexuals have advocated for recognition of their civil rights and for equal protection under the law.

Legal marriage between same-sex couples is now recognized in several European nations as well as in Canada, South Africa and [[Massachusett]]s. In some other states such as Connecticut a more limited recognition of same-sex relationships is available, called a "civil union". Many other states have passed constitutional amendments banning recognition of same-sex marriages performed anywhere and some groups have pushed for Constitutional amendment barring the legal recognition of same-sex marriages.

== Supposed Homosexuality in Nature ==

Anybody who has lived on a farm is aware of homosexuality in animals. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the argument that because animals do it, this means it is "natural" is a specious argument, since humans follow much stricter moral codes which do not apply to animals.

* [[Bonobos]],<ref>Parker, Sue Taylor,Robert W. Mitchell, H. Lyn Miles (1999), ''The Mentalities of Gorillas and Orangutans: comparative perspectives.'' Cambridge University Press. [http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0521580277&id=h4_VnW-HGAcC&pg=RA1-PA54&lpg=RA1-PA54&dq=bonobo+homosexual&sig=rdHH7YmjFiR7x5ONwt2e1EdfrBk p. 54]
</ref>
* [[Dolphins]]<ref>Smith, Dinitia (2004), "Central Park Zoo's gay penguins ignite debate," ''The New York Times,''
Saturday, February 7, 2004, as published on the San Francisco Chronicle website[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/02/07/MNG3N4RAV41.DTL]: "Bonobos, apes closely related to humans, are wildly energetic sexually. Studies show that whether observed in the wild or in captivity, nearly all are bisexual and nearly half their sexual interactions are with the same sex... 10 to 15 percent of female western gulls in some populations in the wild are homosexual... male and female bottlenose dolphins frequently engage in homosexual activity, both in captivity and in the wild"</ref> and other vertebrate species. See also [[http://www.livescience.com/bestimg/index.php?url=&cat=gayanimals livescience]]
* [[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/07/0722_040722_gayanimal.html National Geographic]] link

==References==

[[http://www.amazon.com/Biological-Exuberance-Homosexuality-Natural-Diversity/dp/0312192398 Biological Exhuberance]], by Bruce Bagemihl
<references/>

Objectivism

2007-02-23T19:22:50Z

Franklin.jefferson:

A philosophy developed and advocated by [[Ayn Rand]].

Affirmative Action

2007-02-23T19:21:04Z

Franklin.jefferson:

'''Affirmative action''' is an area in which government policy is contradictory.

The law of America is non-discrimination: the concept that race, sex, ethnicity, skin color, or country of national origin are not criteria which should be used in job selection. The original concept of affirmative action was that it is desirable to not merely act on non-discrimination passively (i.e., saying "this job is open to any applicant", but then making no efforts to find minority applicants), but should also be done ''affirmatively'', by taking definite actions to find applicants from minorities. This would be, in its way, admirable.

However, in current use, affirmative action goes beyond this, often mandating the use of quotas for setting aside jobs for each minority (including also some "minorities" which are actually majorities). In effect, this means selecting applicants by the color of their skin, precisely what the original concept of non-discrimination forbids. This is sometimes called "reverse discrimination," although this term is rather contradictory-- discrimination remains discrimination.

In short, "affirmative action" is an action that had an admirable origin, but has been taken to the point where it enforces the very discrimination that it had been intended to prevent.

Association of American Physicians and Surgeons

2007-02-23T19:12:46Z

Franklin.jefferson: formatting typo changed

The '''Association of American Physicians and Surgeons''' (AAPS) is the oldest active conservative and [[libertarian]] group in the world. Founded in 1943, AAPS is a membership-based physician organization that does not accept funding by corporations or government, thereby ensuring AAPS's independence. It may be the largest physician organization funded virtually entirely by membership dues. Rival organizations, such as the American Medical Association, are funded primarily by revenue from business ventures and payments by pharmaceutical companies.

For over 60 years AAPS has remained dedicated to the preservation of the ethical practice of private medicine. It adheres to the [[Oath of Hippocrates]]. The motto of AAPS is "omnia pro aegroto," which is Latin for "all for the patient." AAPS has about 4,000 members, including members in every state and virtually every specialty of medicine.

AAPS files more legal briefs on behalf of physicians and their patients than most medical societies combined, and is often successful. In 2006, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit sided with AAPS and cited its ''amicus curiae'' brief in the first paragraph of the decision. ''Springer v. Henry'', 435 F.3d 268, 271 (3d Cir. 2006). Later in 2006, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit agreed with an argument advanced by AAPS in its ''amicus curiae'' brief in overturning a highly publicized conviction and 25-year sentence of Dr. William Hurwitz for treating pain in his patients.

In ''Stenberg v. Carhart'', 530 U.S. 914 (2000), U.S. Supreme Court Justice Kennedy frequently cited material provided in a submission by AAPS. In ''United States v. Rutgard'', 116 F.3d 1270 (9th Cir. 1997), the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed a lengthy sentence as urged by an ''amicus curiae'' brief submitted by AAPS. In ''Veeck v. Southern Building Code Congress Int'l, Inc.'', 293 F.3d 791 (5th Cir. 2002), the ''en banc'' Court of Appeals for the Fifth Court adopted an argument urged by AAPS in establishing that no one may own the law.

AAPS has also been successful on issues of policy. It reviewed the approval data for Wyeth's rotavirus vaccine and declared it to be unsafe before the FDA ultimately came to the same conclusion and pulled it from the market. AAPS is the only entity to have defeated the FDA twice in litigation, in both cases establishing limits on its power.

More recently, AAPS spoke out against the mandate for the [[HPV vaccine]]. Subsequently the Texas Medical Association and a broad coalition of organizations also opposed this mandate.

Neoconservatism

2007-02-23T19:11:24Z

Franklin.jefferson:

A '''neoconservative''' (colloquially, ''neocon'') is a [[Republican]] voter who opposes [[affirmative action]] and supports [[free enterprise]], but is not motivated by religious values. Neoconservatives tend to support [[free trade]] and immigration. Prior to 2000, neoconservativism held the position that "nationbuilding" was an inappropriate activity for America, but after the beginning of the 2003 [[Iraq]] war, neoconservatives have increasingly taken the position that democracy can and should be installed in Muslim countries such as Iraq, [[Iran]], and [[Saudi Arabia]], and hence neoconservatives support foreign wars such as the War in Iraq.

The leading publications of neoconservatives are Commentary and The Weekly Standard. Many Washington, D.C. think tanks, such as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), are dominated by neoconservatives.

Neoconservatives take [[libertarian]] positions on social issues, and are unlikely to agree with Christian conservatives on issues like abortion, prayer in school and same-sex marriage. In recent years, however, libertarians have broken away from the neoconservative position, citing the tendency of neoconservatives to increasingly adopt [[Big government]] policies and to support erosion of American liberty by [[Patriot act]] and other measures.

Neoconservatives are small in number but dominate television talk shows and advisory positions in Republican Administrations.

Hillsdale College

2007-02-23T19:03:02Z

Franklin.jefferson: link added

Hillsdale College is a highly ranked small college known for its superb economics program. It is [[libertarian]] in ideology and it publishes a widely read ''Imprimis'' newsletter. Hillsdale College has a beautiful campus is in Michigan.

Hillsdale College is one of only two major colleges that has remained completely outside of federal regulations by declining federal funding and federally guaranteed student loans. This gives Hillsdale College the advantage of being able to decide what is best for its programs and students without worrying about complying with non-Christian and non-conservative rules imposed by the federal government. The other major college that is outside of federal regulations is [[Grove City College]].

Association of American Physicians and Surgeons

2007-02-23T19:02:22Z

Franklin.jefferson: links added

The '''Association of American Physicians and Surgeons''' (AAPS) is the oldest active conservative and [libertarian] group in the world. Founded in 1943, AAPS is a membership-based physician organization that does not accept funding by corporations or government, thereby ensuring AAPS's independence. It may be the largest physician organization funded virtually entirely by membership dues. Rival organizations, such as the American Medical Association, are funded primarily by revenue from business ventures and payments by pharmaceutical companies.

For over 60 years AAPS has remained dedicated to the preservation of the ethical practice of private medicine. It adheres to the [[Oath of Hippocrates]]. The motto of AAPS is "omnia pro aegroto," which is Latin for "all for the patient." AAPS has about 4,000 members, including members in every state and virtually every specialty of medicine.

AAPS files more legal briefs on behalf of physicians and their patients than most medical societies combined, and is often successful. In 2006, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit sided with AAPS and cited its ''amicus curiae'' brief in the first paragraph of the decision. ''Springer v. Henry'', 435 F.3d 268, 271 (3d Cir. 2006). Later in 2006, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit agreed with an argument advanced by AAPS in its ''amicus curiae'' brief in overturning a highly publicized conviction and 25-year sentence of Dr. William Hurwitz for treating pain in his patients.

In ''Stenberg v. Carhart'', 530 U.S. 914 (2000), U.S. Supreme Court Justice Kennedy frequently cited material provided in a submission by AAPS. In ''United States v. Rutgard'', 116 F.3d 1270 (9th Cir. 1997), the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed a lengthy sentence as urged by an ''amicus curiae'' brief submitted by AAPS. In ''Veeck v. Southern Building Code Congress Int'l, Inc.'', 293 F.3d 791 (5th Cir. 2002), the ''en banc'' Court of Appeals for the Fifth Court adopted an argument urged by AAPS in establishing that no one may own the law.

AAPS has also been successful on issues of policy. It reviewed the approval data for Wyeth's rotavirus vaccine and declared it to be unsafe before the FDA ultimately came to the same conclusion and pulled it from the market. AAPS is the only entity to have defeated the FDA twice in litigation, in both cases establishing limits on its power.

More recently, AAPS spoke out against the mandate for the [[HPV vaccine]]. Subsequently the Texas Medical Association and a broad coalition of organizations also opposed this mandate.

Adam Smith

2007-02-23T19:02:21Z

Franklin.jefferson: links added

Adam Smith was born in Kirkcaldy, [[Scotland]] in 1723 and was raised by his widowed mother. Smith entered the [[University of Glasgow]] at the age of fourteen and then attended [[Balliol College]] at [[Oxford]] for six years until he graduated at the age of twenty-three. Adam returned to Scotland, and delivered a series of lectures which were very well-received. Smith was appointed first chair of logic in 1751 at the University of Glasgow and later then chair of moral philosophy in 1752. In 1764, Adam Smith left the academy to tutor the young Duke of Buccleuch. They lived and traveled in [[France]] and [[Switzerland]] for two years. The duke had given his teacher a comfortable life pension, so Adam Smith retired to Kirkcaldy and began writing his book, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. In 1778 Smith was appointed to a post as commissioner of customs in Scotland and went to live with his mother in Edinburgh. He died there on July 17, 1790, after a painful illness and was buried in the Canongate Kirkyard, Royal Mile, Edinburgh. Smith is hailed as the one who discovered the [[Invisible Hand]]

== Links ==
*[[Economics Lecture One]]
*[[Libertarian]] thinking

Manny's Law

2007-02-23T19:01:43Z

Franklin.jefferson: links added

'''Manny's Law''' is a New York law (effective Jan. 2007) that conditions state funding to hospitals on their termination of overcharging the uninsured who earn less than three times the poverty level. Its citation is NY CLS Pub Health § 2807-k.

This new law conditions state funding to hospitals on their ending overcharges of the uninsured who earn less than three times the poverty level. This new law probably protects far more than half of all hospital patients in New York. These patients cannot be charged more for medical care than the hospital would charge an insurance company ("highest volume payor"), Medicare or Medicaid. This new law also prevents aggressive collection practices, such as foreclosing on someone's home.

Hospitals that fail to comply will lose $850 million in state funds for charity care. For non-emergency cases, a proposed regulation would limit application of this law to those patients who use their local hospital.

This law should discourage health insurance companies, which are [[oligopolies]], from continuing to force or persuade hospitals to overcharge the uninsured. Insurance companies like hospital overcharging of the uninsured because it drives more people to buy full insurance.

With this new law, there should be less economic pressure to buy low-deductible insurance, and there should be an increase in self-paying patients in New York.
There is a risk that hospitals will continue to overcharge the uninsured, particularly those above three times the poverty level. But many patients below the threshold opt should now opt for self-payment rather than costly insurance premiums.

[[Libertarian]] think tanks, such as the Mises Institute and CATO and perhaps Heritage, support [[oligopoly]] and [[monopoly]] power by hospitals and others. But abuse of monopoly power by hospitals in the form [[sham peer review]] to impose [[exclusive contracts]] can occur.

Austrian School of Economics

2007-02-23T18:58:41Z

Franklin.jefferson: links added

The '''Austrian school of economics''' is the [[libertarian]] philosophy applied to the field of economics: reduce government involvement in everything. It views all value as subjective, and that efficiency consists of maximizing value as sought by each individual. It avoids mathematics because it does not feel math can capture the complexities of the economic world, which it thinks are due to trial-and-error processes. Like libertarians, Austrian economists are very much in favor of the individual and against government, even to the point of opposing tariffs and [[Antitrust law]]s.

The Austrian school of economics opposed the inflationary approach of Keynesian economics, and thus is favored by many conservatives on that basis. But Austrian economists also typically oppose government attempts to maintain or defend morality, as in traditional marriage.

The founder of the Austrian school of economics was [[Carl Menger]], who published in German in 1871 its leading text, ''Principles of Economics''. In the 1920s through 1940s, [[Ludwig von Mises]] and [[Friedrich A. Hayek]] advanced the movement by declaring the impossibility for socialism to succeed and also explaining the nature of the business cycle.

Economics Lecture Two

2007-02-23T18:55:53Z

Franklin.jefferson: links added

Economics
Second Lecture – Supply and Demand
Instructor, Andy Schlafly

Outline of Lecture:
 I. Introduction
 II. Supply and Demand
 III. Equilibrium & Information
 IV. Price Discrimination
 V. Minimum Wage and Price Controls
 VI. Socialized Medicine
 VII. Assignment

I. Introduction

We’ve had our first introduction to economics and are ready explore the topic in greater detail. Remember that this course is about the purchase and sale of goods and services in free enterprise. By “free enterprise” I mean business transactions with little or no government interference.

The first obvious question about the purchase and sale of goods is this: what determines the price and quantity of goods sold?

We could spend the remainder of this course on that simple question. Thousands of people and factors affect the pricing of a good or service, so this question is not as simple as it looks. Assumptions have to be made in order to draw conclusions. In some cases, price behavior baffles even the greatest experts in the field.

For example, the pricing of stocks freely traded on the stock exchanges is often a mystery. The value of a company’s stock reflects how much people are will to pay for it. A company that has one billion shares of stock in the market, valued at $15 per share, has a market value of $15 billion. Logic dictates that when a stock increases its value, then the company is increasing its overall value.

During the internet “dot-com” boom of the late 1990s, stock prices of companies that were losing money seemed to disprove every basic principle of economics. Sometimes it seemed like the more a dot-com company lost money, the higher its stock would go!

But that was an exception that could be understood by questioning typical assumptions. It was also highly unusual. More often, stock value in a company that consistently loses money declines to approach zero. The stock value in a company that increases its profits each year increases to reflect those higher profits.

Stock prices on the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ (the stock exchange for new and often high-tech companies) are determined entirely by “bid” and “ask” prices of the buyers and sellers. Someone will “bid” a certain amount to buy a stock, and a seller will “ask” for a certain price. When the bid and ask amounts equal, then a sales transaction occurs. Prices can move very quickly and unpredictably when millions of people are involved.

The price that a stock trades on the exchange is where the “supply” by sellers equals the “demand” by buyers. When a seller of stock asks too high a price, then there are no buyers and the stock does not trade. When a buyer of stock offers too little a price, then there are no sellers and the stock does not trade. The transaction only occurs when SUPPLY EQUALS DEMAND.

Today we will discuss this important principle of economics and many of the surrounding issues.

II. Supply and Demand

For any given good or service, there is a supply and demand. The supply consists of quantity and price. The price has enormous influence over the quantity. No company can afford to build cars to sell at a price of only $1. But at a sales price of $30,000, a vast number of cars can be built. The cause is price, and the effect is quantity.

The demand for a good can be described in terms of price and quantity also. At a given price, there is an amount of demand by the public for the good. A billion people might buy a car if the price were only $1. At a much higher price of $30,000, the demand drops to a quantity in the millions range. At a still higher price of $100,000, the demand falls much further to the thousands range.

Because supply and demand can both be expressed in terms of price and quantity, they can be plotted on the same graph. The y-axis is typically price, and the x-axis is usually quantity. The supply curve is usually upward sloping: the higher the sales price, the higher the quantity that companies can produce for sale. That is because higher sales prices bring in greater revenue to fund the production costs.

The supply and demand is the most basic relationship in all of economics. It usually looks like this:<ref>The graphs here use Wikipedia open source images.</ref>

[[Image:Supply_and_demand.gif]]

The above model for supply and demand helps us to consider the effect of shifts in demand and supply. First consider an increase in demand:

[[Image:Demand_curve_shift.gif]]

An increase in demand causes price to rise. The new equilibrium is at a point with higher price and greater quantity than before.
What could cause an increase in demand? For gasoline, more people driving would cause an increase in demand. For heating oil, a colder winter would cause an increase in demand. For sports entertainment, a close rivalry can cause an increase in demand (spectators). In all those cases, price and quantity tend to rise. If there is a decrease in demand, then the opposite is generally true: prices and quantity tend to decrease.
Next consider an increase in supply. Suppose farmers have better weather, for example, causing more crops at the harvest. Or suppose there is discovery of huge new oil reserves underground. Or suppose a new invention, such as Eli Whitney’s cotton gin, increases the production of a good (cotton). This curve shows what happens when there is an increase in supply:

[[Image:Supply_curve_shift.gif]]

Can you interpret that? When the supply curve shifted downward as supply increased, the price decreased but the quantity increased. The new equilibrium is at lower price and greater quantity than before. Consumers are happier as supply increases. The discovery of new oil reserves, or inventions like the cotton gin, make consumers better off.

III. Equilibrium & Information

Consider these three basic principles of economics:

I. When demand exceeds supply at a given price, the price tends to rise. Likewise, when supply exceeds demand, the price tends to decrease.
II. A rise in price tends to increase supply and decrease demand. Conversely a fall in price tends to decrease supply and increase demand.
III. Price tends to move towards the amount at which the quantity in demand is equal to the quantity in supply: SUPPLY EQUALS DEMAND.

Note the use of the verb “tend” in the laws of economics cited above. Companies that consistently lose money “tend” to go bankrupt and out of business. But it does not happen immediately, especially if the company is large. It takes time for the market to come to equilibrium. Ultimately supply does equal demand, but only after enough time and activity passes for the conditions to attain equilibrium.

“Equilibrium” is “where things are going” or where they have already arrived. The equilibrium for the universe is complete disorder and chaos, with every creature extinct. A constant increase in entropy is what drives situations to their equilibrium. (Devolution is the process, not the so-called evolution.) Economic equilibrium is when all the imbalances in selling and buying prices have disappeared and there are no more trends to different price levels. Randomness and profit-making pressures drive pricing towards equilibrium.

The ultimate equilibrium when there is perfect competition occurs when the marginal revenue to the seller equals its marginal cost of the product. In other words, the supplier keeps producing more and more goods until its marginal profit on each extra good falls to very close to zero. That profit decline may be because the goods are not selling as quickly or due to unsold goods. For example, the first SUV produced by Ford may sell at a high price, but its last SUV in a given year will have to be discounted heavily. Ford doesn’t want to make any more SUVs in a given year that it might have to take a loss on. It produces just enough so that marginal revenue falls to marginal cost, as best as can be predicted.

Imbalances in information are a reason for the delay in pricing to reach equilibrium. Buyers do not immediately realize when they can obtain the same good more cheaply another way. For many years people continued to pay high costs for renting telephones after it became legal to buy inexpensive ones. The effects of competition are not often felt overnight. A lower-priced competitor has to educate the public of the availability of its goods, and that takes time.

There is also a more permanent imbalance in information between the buyer and seller of a good. The seller always knows more about his good than the buyer does. The seller does not want to disclose the disadvantages, weaknesses, defects, and outright dangers of his good. The buyer has to beware in paying money to the seller for a good: caveat emptor (Latin for “let the buyer beware”).

Tobacco companies did not want to disclose that cigarettes cause cancer. Abortion providers do not want to disclose that abortions cause cancer. Used car dealers do not want to disclose that a car is a lemon (i.e., constantly needs fixing). Food manufacturers do not want to disclose all the fat and artificial ingredients in their products.

Governmental regulations require some of these disclosures. This may be the best and only effective type of governmental regulation. Food packaging now must state what the ingredients are and how much fat is contained. The buyer doesn’t have to guess about this information. The buyer must still beware, but can do so with more information than before.

IV. Price Discrimination

The term “price discrimination” sounds ugly, but it means selling the same good or service at different prices to different people. It is an attempt by a seller to capture additional money from buyers who are willing to pay more.

Airline tickets are an example. Businesses are willing to pay more for airline tickets for their employees to travel to business meetings than tourists are. Why? Because the businessmen are traveling to make more money for their company, and the airline ticket can be paid out of their profits. If they are flying to do a deal worth $100,000, then they’re willing to pay many thousands of dollars for the airline ticket. Not so for tourists who fly.

The airline wants to sell the same seat at a price low enough for the tourist to pay, and then at a different, much higher price for the businessmen. This is price discrimination, because it distinguishes or discriminates based on who the buyer is. “Perfect price discrimination” sells each unit of a good at the maximum amount each individual buyer is willing to pay.

There are laws against price discrimination, but most sellers find clever ways to do it anyway. Airlines distinguished between business customers and tourists by its “Saturday night stay-over” rule. If the traveler reserves the return flight to include staying over at least one Saturday night, then he is likely a tourist. If he flies out and back in the same week without staying through the weekend, then he is likely a businessman. So the airline tickets were then priced much more cheaply for those who stay over at least one Saturday night.

In general, price discrimination depends on the existence of obstacles to prevent buyers from reselling their goods to other buyers. If the same good is sold at $X to person A and $Y to person B, and X<Y, then person A could buy an extra good and sell it to person B at less than $Y. The price discrimination would collapse due to the resale market.

But some goods cannot be resold. Goods that are personal to the buyer, like a tailored suit or dress, cannot be resold. Price discrimination works fine for personalized goods or exclusive markets, because there is not a resale market to destroy the discrimination.

V. Minimum Wage and Price Controls

So far we have been talking about economic exchanges in the absence of government controls. But the government does interfere in many ways in our economy. America enjoys more free enterprise than any other large country, but we are still heavily regulated.

During World War II, the government imposed controls to prevent companies from raising prices during the war. The needs of our military for goods increased demand that would ordinarily shift the demand curve and increase prices. But the government prohibited this from happening by limiting price increases.

Controls on prices (and also wages) were also imposed to control inflation in the early 1970s. A war in the Middle East, and assistance in that war by the United States of Israel, caused the Arab nations to reduce their supply of oil to us. That created gasoline shortages and increased energy costs, which then drove up inflation. Price controls were designed to limit the increases.

Today, the government prohibits employers from paying wages below a certain amount per hour, called the “minimum wage.” It is now $7.15 per hour in New Jersey, but only $5.15 per hour nationwide. If you work 40 hours a week for 50 weeks, or a total of 2000 hours, then that translates to a yearly salary of $10,300. It is nearly impossible to support a family that amount in most areas of the country, and many politicians are constantly demanding an increase in the minimum wage.

Unfortunately, it is even more difficult to survive without a job at all, which is what happens to many people (particularly teenagers) when the minimum wage is increased. Employers who would hire someone to work at $4 per hour might not be able to hire them at $5.15 per hour. Isn’t a job at $4 an hour better than none at all?

Moreover, illegal aliens find a wage of even $2 an hour better than what they could make in their homeland. Companies move operations offshore to take advantage of places that do not have minimum wages as high as ours. Alternatively, workers enter this country illegally to work at low wages and displace American workers, according to several lawsuits.

VI. Socialized Medicine

The single biggest industry in the United States is health care, and it is sharply increasing in expenditures each year. It has three major components: government-controlled (Medicare and Medicaid), insurance-controlled, and private pay or uninsured. Each year, the demands for the government to take over the field grow louder, as insurance costs skyrocket.

Most other countries have some form of socialized medicine. In the countries of Canada, North Korea and Cuba, it is actually illegal to pay money to a doctor simply to see you. The government control there is so great that you can only see a doctor paid by the government in those countries. In England, there is a two-tiered system: good care is provided to those who can afford to pay for it, and free but inferior care is provided by the government to those who cannot.

The Canadian government destroyed free enterprise in medicine there, and took over the health care system. The government now sets limits on wages and prices. Lowering the wages and prices prevents supply from rising to satisfy demand. Because demand is much greater than supply, patients have to wait a long time to see a doctor. There is a lower survival rate from cancer in Canada than the United States because of the delays in diagnosis and treatment there.

If an elderly Canadian is vacationing in Florida and falls and breaks his hip, which is very painful, the Canadian system of health care will not even reimburse the patient for surgery at the nearest hospital. Instead, the patient must fly back to Canada in excruciating pain to be operated on by a government-controlled doctor there.

In the United States, where health care still includes free enterprise, a patient can enter a doctor’s office or hospital at any time and receive services based on a promise to pay for them by check or cash. Prices vary, and it is worth shopping around. Immediate care always remains available at some price.

VII. Assignment.

Read, and reread, the lecture. Complete the homework assignments through the level in which you choose to enroll in this course:

Introductory: 1. In a free market, the price and quantity at which goods are sold are where __________ equals ___________.

2. Suppose the price demand curve is P = $20 - Q, where P is price and Q is quantity. Also suppose the price supply curve is P = $4 + Q. At what price and quantity will the good be sold?

Intermediate: 3. Draw the supply and demand for air. In addition, draw the supply and demand for a good that costs $10000000000000000000000000 trillion dollars.

4. Suppose 1000 persons in a town each have the following weekly demands for gas, and the gas stations have the following weekly supplies:

Gallons Demand Price/gallon Supply Price/gallon
10 $2.50 $.50
20 $2 $.75
30 $1 $1
40 $.75 $1.50

(A) What is the price and overall quantity of gas sold each week?
(B) Suppose Congress declares war and imposes a price control of $.75 per gallon. At what price and overall quantity will gas sell each week?

5. Suppose the government limits the supply of Toyota cars that can be imported in 2008 to a certain quota. What effect does this have on the supply curve, and on the equilibrium price? Who is helped by this import quota, and who is hurt? Be as specific as possible.

6. Suppose you went to see the opening of your favorite new movie, but it is sold out. However, there are four independent scalpers are (illegally) reselling their tickets outside. Four strangers are each willing to pay the scalpers at most $15, $10, $9 and $8 for a ticket. The scalpers are initially willing to sell each of their tickets for at least $7, $8, $9, and $12. The eight of you get together and bargain, and then tickets are sold at a common price. What is the price and how many tickets sell at that price? Should scalping be illegal in New Jersey?

Honors: Write an essay of about 300 words total on one or more of the following topics:
 7. Should government regulations require and monitor honest and full disclosure of information by sellers to buyers?
 8. Should price discrimination be illegal?
 9. What is an economic incentive for excluding homeschooled athletes from high school sports? Should that be legal?
 10. Describe your view of if or how government should regulate medical prices.
 11. “Economic theory of law and the public domain - When is Piracy Economically Desirable?” See http://lexnet.bravepages.com/media1.html

----

'''Sources:''' <references/>

== Links ==
*[[Libertarian]] thinking
*[[Adam Smith]]

Economics Lecture One

2007-02-23T18:54:47Z

Franklin.jefferson: links added

Economics
First Lecture – Overview and Scarcity
Instructor, Andy Schlafly

Outline of Lecture:
 I. Introduction
 II. Definitions
 III. Scarcity
 IV. Transaction Costs
 V. Invisible Hand
 VI. Charity
 VII. “I, Pencil” By [[Leonard E. Read]]
 VIII. Assignment

 I. Introduction

This course will require more thinking and less reading than other courses. My goal is to give you time to re-read materials and let them sink in. Constantly question yourself whether you really understand the concepts. Test yourself with your own examples. The problems are designed to provoke reflection on the material covered in the lectures.

It is worth starting the problems early in the week, so that you can ponder them a while before answering. Answers may not occur to you until days after you first see the problems. Give yourself time to think up answers by starting early.

Why should we spend a semester learning economics? Why is it important? And what is economics, anyway?

We all need goods and services. The goods that are essential include food, clothes, cars, and books. The services that we need include help by doctors, dentists, teachers, lawyers and barbers.

But we also want goods and services beyond our basic needs. We sometimes go to restaurants even though they are more expensive than eating at home. We pay money for entertainment, such as movies. We buy food that we like more often than food that we absolutely need. We pay for luxury items to enjoy and sometimes even impress others, such as fancy clothes or cars.

Each day billions of buying and selling decisions are made in America. Economics consists of studying those decisions. If the price of meat is doubled, will more or less meat be sold? (Less.) We will be analyzing pricing and buying behavior throughout this course.

Economics is basic to our freedom, and is very influential in determining who we elect. Countries that lack economic freedom often lack religious freedom. If we lack rights in deciding what career to go into, then we will lack rights of worship also.

How we buy and sell things is almost as important as which goods we choose. Since nearly the beginning of the world, something called “[[money]]” has been the medium for buying and selling [[goods]] and [[services]]. The “money” itself has only the value that people assign to it. It can be made of a worthless material, such as green paper.

Money is not essential to a society. When we buy food, we could offer to work in exchange. Or we could grow our own food and trade the excess of our crop for the excess of someone else’s crop. This is known as “bartering”. American Indians lived well for long time without any money. So have many societies. A great deal of bartering still occurs today. The Amish are known to barter when they need services from outsiders today.

But money makes transactions more efficient. Imagine loading up your shopping cart with groceries and then trying to barter with the owner of the store. You may not have any goods or services that the owner really wants. You may be a teacher, but he may not be interested in learning. Or you may be professional football player, and he may not be a fan. Others are willing to pay to watch you play, but this grocer is not. Both of you are then stuck, and you might as well unload your shopping cart and try another store.

Money solves this inefficiency. You accumulate dollars by doing work for someone who wants or needs it, and then use those dollars to buy the goods and services that you desire. The person or company who receives your dollars can then spend it in yet another way.

Money is, in many ways, a form of communication. Donating money to a political candidate or a charity makes a statement. Buying expensive clothes, a luxury car, or a certain houses is like free speech. We often judge the value of something by looking at its price. We expect a car that costs $30,000 to have higher quality than a car that costs $15,000. We don’t even have to look at the two cars to have a high probability of being correct in that conclusion. Sometimes the price can be misleading, of course. But often it is a good indicator.

Money can be used to obtain food for starving people and for other good deeds. Or money can promote evil, as when communist countries build armies to suppress freedom. Then money becomes necessary to combat the enemy.

When asked how much more money people want, most say they would be happy with 20-100% more money than they have. This answer is the same from the poorest to the wealthiest persons. In absolute terms, the more money someone has, the more money he wants. There are exceptions. [[Andrew Carnegie]] acquired and hoarded one of the greatest amounts of wealth in the history of the world, wrote the “Gospel of Wealth,” and then gave it all away before he died. Carnegie Hall, the first 39 branches of the [[New York Public Library]], and Carnegie-Mellon University are the products of just a few of his gifts.

Freedom depends on the free exchange of money. Communism and other totalitarian systems consist of government control over how money is earned, saved and spent. Loss of this freedom inevitably results in the loss of freedoms of religion and speech too.

 II. Definitions.

Our “economy” is our system of earning, saving and spending money on goods (like food) and services (like teaching or entertainment). “Economics” is the study of the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services. We will refine our definition of “economics” throughout the course.

“Macroeconomics” uses the Greek root “macro-“, which means “big”. Macroeconomics is the study of the big picture of economics on the national level. It includes analysis of the total money supply of dollars, the Gross National Product (total dollar value of all goods and services), and the national unemployment rate (the percentage of Americans who recently lost their job).

“Microeconomics” uses the Greek root “micro-“, which means “small”. Microeconomics is the study of individual decisions about goods and services. It includes issues like how much a barber should charge for a haircut, or how much a grocery store should charge to sell a loaf of bread. Microeconomics includes the study of your decisions in buying a good or service.

“Net benefits” are total benefits minus total costs.

“Opportunity cost” is the value lost in order to do something. Doing a job that pays only $5 per hour when you could have taken a different job at $12 per hour has an opportunity cost of $7 per hour. Wasting three hours stuck in traffic has an opportunity cost of the money you could have been making for those three hours.

“Marginal analysis” consists of looking at an incremental change in terms of costs and benefits rather than the overall average costs and benefits. For example, if you are driving by a 7-11 the marginal cost of stopping in to buy a carton of milk is only a few minutes of your time. But if you are sitting at home, then the marginal cost of buying a carton of milk is much greater: you must get into your car and drive all the way to a grocery store, which takes much longer and consumes more gas.

“Positive” statements in economics are testable claims of fact, without any moral judgment. For example, “most people watch many hours of television a day” is a positive statement. It can be tested by doing a survey. The people are spending their time poorly, but it is a fact that they act that way. The remark that “fish live in trees” is also a positive statement. The statement is false, but it is still a positive statement. (Thanks to Tim S. for making this insightful point on conservapedia.com).

In contrast, “normative” statements are judgments about whether something is good or bad. People should not watch as much television or smoke cigarettes. That is a normative statement. People should pray more. That is also a normative statement.

Sometimes we use the word “net”, as in “net benefits.” What that means is the total benefit minus the total cost. For example, the net benefit of working at McDonalds is your salary minus your taxes and expenses in getting there and back each day.

We will also use the word “rational”, as in “rational choice.” That means the choice or decision that maximizes the net benefit. A rational action, in economic terms, would be to accept the job with the highest net benefit (salary minus taxes and expenses). You may not actually want that job for other reasons, such as working for a company that profits from addiction (e.g., a casino in Atlantic City). But those reasons would have to be translated into economic terms to be counted as part of your economically rational decision.

Finally, there is the concept of “redistribution”. That is the concept that government should try to even out the wealth in society, taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor. The process inevitably causes a loss in total societal wealth. Some visualize redistribution as a leaky bucket taking water from one pool and putting it into another, with water leaking out during the transfer. The leak in the bucket corresponds to the direct and indirect costs of the transfer, including salaries for people to do the transfer and disincentives to those affected by it.

These concepts will become clearer for you as the course progresses.

 III. Scarcity.

“Scarcity” is when the available good or service is not enough to satisfy everyone’s needs or wants. There is a scarcity of oil and gasoline, for example. Gas is expensive because there is not enough easily available to completely satisfy everyone’s desire for it in fueling their cars and supplying their other energy needs. Drinking water is scarce also, and more scarce in western states like Arizona and California.

Note that the economic definition of scarcity includes far more goods than the ordinary meaning of the term. Economists would say that television shows are scarce, while most of us would not ordinarily say that. Economists would say that beer is scarce, while most of us would say there is too much it. Economists would say that fatty foods are scarce, even though that sounds odd.

The reason for the broad definition of scarcity in economics is to include any good or service that can be bought and sold. If an item is so plentiful that everyone’s needs are satisfied, then there is no market to buy or sell it (e.g., air). Once a price can be put on a scarce good or service, then some will not be willing or able to afford it. Often people will not be able to obtain all of the good or service that they want. They may be better off without (e.g., fatty desserts at restaurants), though economists don’t address how we are better off with scarcity sometimes.

“The best things in life are free!” True, but even free things can be considered scarce. If the New Yankees gave away some free tickets to a World Series game, they would still be very scarce. People would wait for days in line to get a chance to grab those tickets. However, many other items of great value are not scarce. There is no scarcity of prayer, for example. It’s available to anyone at any time without charge. Exercise, in some form, is not scarce either. But many types of exercise are scarce, such as memberships in a health club.

Goods that no one wants are not scarce. For example, a new deodorant that smells like a skunk would not be a scarce good. You could charge nothing for it and supply would still far exceed demand. Toothpaste that turns your teeth yellow would not be scarce either. How about hairspray that makes your hair fall out?

Based on our definition of scarcity, we can now refine our definition of “economics”. “Economics” is the study of the purchase and sale of goods and services when there is scarcity. If there is no scarcity, then everyone has what they want. For example, there is no scarcity of air, so economics does not study the everyday uses of air. But there is a scarcity of land and oil, so we do study how they are bought and sold.

In fours words, “scarcity” consists of “wants greater than means.”

 IV. Transaction Costs.

Whenever we buy something, there are incidental charges known as “transaction costs.” These are the annoying burdens of time and money that interfere with our buying what we need or want. When you buy clothes, you have to spend time finding something you like. No one is going to pay you for that time you spend. You also have transportation costs. Then, when you finally find what you want, you have to pay extra for it to fund the salary of the sales clerk at the store. You also have to pay sales taxes on the purchase.

If you buy clothes over the internet instead, then you avoid some transaction costs but also take a risk that you might not like it when it arrives. Also, you have to pay for shipping when you buy over the internet, and the shipping costs are transaction costs.

“Transaction costs” are defined as the time, effort and added expense associated with the purchase of a good or service. Look around, and you will start noticing them everywhere. Almost nothing can be bought without all sorts of middlemen tacking on extra costs. Effort is also required by you when you buy almost anything. Some entire professions are built on transaction costs. Most attorneys, for example, make their entire living as transaction costs. People hire an attorney to help them obtain what they want. Salesmen, too, live off of transaction costs.

We will be referring to transaction costs throughout this course. They are one of the most basic concepts in economics. Often transaction costs are obstacles to the efficient purchase and sale of goods.

 V. Invisible Hand.

Have you ever heard of the “invisible hand”? The most famous economist of all time, the Scottish philosopher Adam Smith, coined this term in his breakthrough tome called “The Wealth of Nations.” The “invisible hand” is the unseen force that guides individuals, who are acting to help themselves, to work in ways that benefit society. For example, the businessman who keeps his store open longer each day to make more money for himself ends up helping customers who need to buy his goods late at night.

When the early Jamestown settlers were on the brink of failure because no one was working, John Smith arrived and instituted a new rule: “He who does not work, will not eat.” Each individual then began working just to feed himself. The community soon became very successful. The invisible hand is the force that guides people to do work that is needed such that others benefit.

The opposite of the “invisible hand” is government control. In dictatorships like communist Russia under Josef Stalin, the government dictates what people will and will not do. There is no “invisible hand.” The result is often disastrous. Tens of millions of people starved to death under Stalin’s rule due to the improper government planning. Stalin may have even starved them intentionally.

 VI. Charity.

A force perhaps even stronger than the “invisible hand” is charity. The desire to give something of benefit to others, without demanding as much in return, is enormous. “Give and ye shall receive” is an economic lesson from the Bible. Look around, and you will notice numerous important charitable acts by others and yourself.

America’s health care system, by far the greatest in the world, was built on a foundation of charity. People and religious organizations giving time, money and expertise to care for individuals who could never afford to pay all the costs. Education, too, was developed in this country largely through charity. In recent years, both health care and education have lost their charitable identities, and the results are not encouraging. Both are weakening.

Most economics courses avoid charity entirely. When charity is mentioned, it is described as a minor add-on to the invisible hand of self-interest. But is this backwards? Is the invisible hand of self-interest actually a wrapper around a basic foundation of charity? These are thoughts to consider throughout this course.

The size and importance of charitable institutions in the world is immense. All religious institutions are charitable, as are nearly all private schools. Many hospitals are still charitable, including the Seventh-Day Adventist hospital in Hackettstown, New Jersey. On a recent trip to Orlando, I saw another Seventh-Day Adventist hospital there. Many religious organizations operate hospitals through the United States, just as they built most of our leading universities. Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Columbia, for example, were all built by charitable religious organizations.

The renowned Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, for example, was built with the generosity of Alfred Sloan and Charles Kettering. They acquired wealth as senior executives of General Motors and ultimately donated their money to the cause of medicine. It has operated on a non-profit basis to this day.

The first private medical clinic in the United States was the Mayo Clinic, established by the Mayo family of physicians in 1889. Their sponsor was the Sisters of St. Francis, which built St. Mary’s Hospital in Rochester, Minnesota.

Likewise, the successful American colonies were initially more religious and charitable than commercial. Pennsylvania was founded on religious principles by the Quaker William Penn, who in turn established Philadelphia as the City of Brotherly Love. Within a few decades it grew to become the second most populated city in the British Empire, after London.

It was only on the solid foundation of the brick houses of hardy Quakers and their strict moral rules that the flower of free enterprise blossomed there. The same could be said for Boston, where Puritans served as the anchor.

The Virginia colony was purely commercial at first, but it only survived by turning to tobacco and slavery. It suffered so many problems that King James revoked its charter and took control less than two decades after its founding.

The colony of Georgia was subsidized by the British Parliament but was essentially charitable in nature. General James Oglethorpe established it as a haven for impoverished Brits languishing in debtors' prison. It was, in a sense, an antithesis to a capitalistic venture, featuring nothing but those who failed in the free market. It barred liquor and slavery, reflecting its idealism.

Over 150 years ago, [[Alexis de Tocqueville]] observed that “despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot. ... How is it possible that society should escape destruction if the moral tie is not strengthened in proportion as the political tie is relaxed?” Perhaps charity is the economic manifestation of that “moral tie,” upon which economic liberty and free enterprise rely.

We will be discussing charity at several points during the course.

 VII. “I, Pencil” By [[Leonard E. Read]]
 See http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=3308
 

VIII. Assignment.

Read and reread the above lecture. Complete the homework assignments at the level in which you choose to enroll in this course: introductory (questions 1-3), intermediate (questions 4-6) and honors (questions 7-10). Feel free to use the resources (and improve the resources) available at http://www.conservapedia.com .

Introductory: 1. In three sentences or less, what do you hope to learn in this course?

2. Give two short examples each of “normative statements” and “positive statements.”

3. Describe a few transaction costs associated with buying something.

Intermediate: 4. Give some examples of scarcity created entirely by man (rather than nature), such as a ticket on the maiden voyage of the Titanic. Why do people create and emphasize scarce things? Does the illusion of scarcity increase the price? Does television prefer talking about scarce items? Why?

5. What do you think are the main reasons that the “invisible hand” is preferable to government dictating how a pencil should be made? Rank your reasons in order of importance.

6. Why can volunteer work sometimes be more efficient and productive than hired labor? Where is the invisible hand for volunteer work?

Honors: Write an essay of about 300 words on one or more of the following topics:
 7. Read the account of the multiplication of the loaves by Jesus. Matthew 14:13-21. After reading that, do you think scarcity really does exist?
 8. What is money, really?
 9. Should spending money be protected by the free speech clause?
 10. Does the U.S. Constitution protect private property?

== Links ==
*[[Libertarian]] thinking
*[[Adam Smith]]

Predatory pricing

2007-02-23T18:49:26Z

Franklin.jefferson: added link to libertarian thought

Predatory pricing is when a company sells a product at a very low price, lower than its cost, in order to drive away the competition and enable the company to take advantage of greater [[market power]] in the future. This is illegal under the antitrust laws.

For example, Microsoft initially gave away its Internet Explorer for free and destroyed the browser leader, Netscape. However, the illegality of predatory pricing can be difficult to prove.

[[Libertarian]] thinking is that, since the free market leads to efficiencies and hence to lower prices and benefits to consumers, predatory pricing is not a major issue.

Libertarian economics

2007-02-23T18:48:18Z

Franklin.jefferson: link added, Adam Smith references added

The [[libertarian]] position on economics is that private monopolies are fine and antitrust laws, since they represent government intrusion on private business, should not exist. Libertarian economics is based very often on the discussion of wealth and how it is created in [[Adam Smith]]'s book ''Wealth of Nations,'' although the books is famous as being one that many people discuss, but few people have actually read. Adam Smith, in fact, devotes considerable discussion to monopolies, and the effects of them on pricing and the consumer. One can scroll through the articles on the websites of the libertarian Mises Institute and Cato organizations and find page after page defending private monopolies or pretending they don't exist or can't survive. For example, the Mises Institute website and found this statement about its leader, Murray Rothbard:

"Thus, for Rothbard there is no social 'problem' associated with monopoly in a free market."<ref>http://www.mises.org/story/1800</ref>

Another page of the Mises Institute it defends exclusive contracts.<ref>http://blog.mises.org/archives/005459.asp</ref>

In this book featured by the Mises Institute, the author advocates the "total abolition of antitrust" laws.<ref>http://www.mises.org/store/Antitrust-and-Monopoly-Anatomy-of-a-Policy-Failure-P296C1.aspx</ref>

'''Sources:''' <references/>

Vaccine

2007-02-23T18:41:39Z

Franklin.jefferson:

A weakened or inactive version of a pathogen that stimulates the body's production of antibodies which can destroy the pathogen.<ref>Wile, Dr. Jay L. ''Exploring Creation With General Science''. Anderson: Apologia Educational Ministries, Inc.

2000</ref>. Older vaccines got rid of smallpox and polio, which was good. Newer vaccines are being developed for use against sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). This is wrong, as it frees children to behave irresponsibly by removing the consequences of their actions. Vaccines against STDs are unnecessary for those who live Godly Christian lives (i.e., practicing monogamy and avoiding use of injected illegal drugs); such diseases are the just punishment of those who are un-Godly. While it is true that such vaccination may prevent infection of innocent lives (for example, a monogamous woman may be infected with AIDS, and pass the disease along to her children, due to a husband's use of drugs before marriage) some amount of loss of innocent life must be accepted as ''collateral damage'' for morality.

==References==
<references/>

Ayn Rand

2007-02-23T17:17:28Z

Franklin.jefferson: added link to libertarianism article

'''Ayn Rand''' (1905-1982) was a Russian-born philosopher, screenwriter, and novelist, who used her novels to promote her philosophy, known as [[Objectivism]]. Her best-known novels are ''Atlas Shrugged'' and ''The Fountainhead.'' Although her philosophy differs in many respects from [[Libertarianism]], it also emphasized invidual freedom, and her novels, particularly ''Atlas Shrugged,'' contain lectures that are considered touchstones for libertarian thinking.

F.A. Hayek

2007-02-23T17:11:51Z

Franklin.jefferson: link added

F.A. Hayek (1899-1992) was a free-market economist and the most prominent member of the [[Austrian School of Economics]], a [[libertarian]] movement. Hayek emphasized our limited knowledge of the markets (and other subjects), and thus our need for the price mechanism to communicate essential information about supply and demand. No centralized planner or government can manage the economy as well as the invisible hand. Only a free market can attain an efficient allocation of resources.

Hayek has been compared to the philospher [[David Hume]] with respect to his insistence that we should be "sensible of our ignorance."

Talk:Jury trial

2007-02-23T16:58:06Z

Franklin.jefferson:

I moved three cases from this "trial by jury" page over to the "[[impeachment]] page: the impeachment trials of Chase, Johnson, and Clinton. The text was well written, but impeachment trials are not properly listed as trial by jury-- trial by the Senate is really a completely different thing. (I put the text of all three of these into the article labelled "impeachment" without changes).
[[User:Franklin.jefferson|Franklin.jefferson]] 11:58, 23 February 2007 (EST)

Talk:Jury trial

2007-02-23T16:55:24Z

Franklin.jefferson:

I moved three cases from this "trial by jury" page over to the "impeachment" page: the impeachment trials of Chase, Johnson, and Clinton. The text was well written, but impeachment trials are not properly listed as trial by jury-- trial by the Senate is really a completely different thing. (I put the text of all three of these into the article labelled "impeachment" without changes).
[[User:Franklin.jefferson|Franklin.jefferson]] 09:23, 23 February 2007 (EST)
[[User:Franklin.jefferson|Franklin.jefferson]] 11:55, 23 February 2007 (EST)

Jury trial

2007-02-23T16:43:09Z

Franklin.jefferson: moved Chase and Johnson to impeachment article; added link

A jury trial is a trial by one's peers. The term usually applies to a jury composed of random citizens in the community where the crime occurred.

The right to trial by jury is part of the American constitution, and is one of the legal defenses put in place to keep a tyrannical government from using a court of law as a means of enforcing a dictatorship. In some countries with totalitarian governments, "show trials" have been used with no jury to put a false appearance of post-facto legitimacy to dictatorial opression; the rights to trial by jury and the right of a defendent to hear the charges against them and challenge the evidence serves as a check against totalitarian power.

Both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams felt strongly that jury trials were the best defense against government. Thomas Jefferson considered "trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution." John Adams said it was a jury's "duty ... to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court." In recent times, the right to trial by jury has been under attack in America, most notably in the [[Patriot act]] and the "war on terror", where the executive branch has argued that persons accused of terrorism are not guaranteed the right to a trial by jury.

Here are the list of influential jury trials affecting American history:

# [[William Penn]] (1670)
# [[John Peter Zenger]] (1735)
# [[Boss Tweed]] (1873)
# [[Sacco and Vanzetti Trial|Sacco & Vanzetti]] (1921)
# [[John Scopes]] (1925)
# Colonel [[Billy Mitchell]] (1925)
# [[Alger Hiss]] (1949)
# O. J. Simpson (two trials)
# "Scooter" Libby (2007)

Half of these important trials resulted in convictions; the other half resulted in acquittals. (A related topic is ''impeachment'', where the "jury" comprises the United States Senate, rather than a selection of randomly chosen citizens. A summary of important impeachment trials can be found in the article on [[impeachment]].) Here is a summary of the cases and their influence:

1. William Penn joined the [[Quakers]] in [[London]], a religion disliked by the King. In 1670, Penn held a worship service and was arrested allegedly for disturbing the King's peace At trial, the jurors heard testimony and the judge, as is still the custom, delivered jury instructions prior to its deliberations. The jury instructions included an order to find the Penn guilty.

But the jury refused to find Penn guilty. The judge angrily sent them back to continue deliberations. The jury returned again with its same verdict. The judge demended "a verdict that the court will accept, and you shall be locked up without meat, drink, fire, and tobacco .... We will have a verdict by the help of God or you will starve for it." The jury went out three more times, and returned with the same verdict each time. Then it refused to deliberate any more and the judge fined and imprisoned them. Penn was also fined and imprisoned on a scurrilous new charge invented at trial (for donning a hat in the courtroom).

On appeal, the jurors won their independence and were released from jail, though that did not help Penn.

The impact of the Penn trial has been enormous in two respects. First, it established freedom of religion, which Penn brought to America in founding Pennsylvania a decade later. Philadelphia became the most populous city in the colonies, and the location for drafting the Constitution.

The case also established the principle of "jury nullification," whereby a jury’s decision is final and dispositive even if it rejects the law. Jury nullification has been used frequently, as in acquitting defendants accused of violating the Alien and Sedition Act and the Fugitive Slave Act.

2. The John Peter Zenger trial in 1735 is the most important case ever for newspapers. He was a publisher accused of the crime of harshly criticizing the colonial New York governor. Zenger's defense was that he (and everyone else) has the right to print the truth. But the judge instructed the jury that the law did not recognize truth as a defense to the charges. Under the law at the time, the jury had no authority to acquit Zenger based on the truth of his statements.

The jury acquitted him anyway, thereby establishing freedom of the press. This was another important example of jury nullification.

3. William Marcy "Boss" Tweed began as a volunteer fireman in New York who worked his way to the top of the Democratic New York City political machine by 1863. He developed a corrupt system known as the "Tweed Ring" that faked leases, demanded kickbacks, performed unnecessary repairs and generated other phony expenses that cost New York City from $75 million to $200 million, a huge amount of money at the time. Famed cartoonist Thomas Nast, who created Uncle Sam and the elephant and donkey for the Republican and Democratic Parties, frequently attacked Tweed in his cartoons.

Eventually, Democratic federal prosecutor Samuel Tilden brought an indictment against Tweed, who was defended at trial by wealthy Republican Elihu Root in 1872. Tilden defeated Root and obtained the conviction, which catapulted Tilden to national prominence and became the Democratic nominee for president in 1876. He won the popular vote by a hefty 250,000, but the Republicans maneuvered to give Rutherford Hayes the White House based on a narrow lead in electoral college votes and a promise to end Reconstruction. Elihu Root, meanwhile, became an imperialist who later advocated entry by the United States into the League of Nations.

4. Sacco and Vanzetti were two anarchists from Italy. They had dodged the draft for World War I and were tried in 1921 for an afternoon robbery and murder of a shoe factory paymaster and a security guard as they carried a $16,000 payroll. Liberals in America decried trying individuals for their beliefs rather than their actions, and questions about the fairness of such a trial in Boston were raised from the beginning. They had skilled defense counsel in a famous labor attorney, but no Italians were included in the jury (none may have been in the jury pool). The defense counsel eliminated every businessman from the jury. Witnesses for the prosecution were weak, with one testifying that the murderer spoke good English (the defendants did not). The prosecution only identified one bullet as being from Sacco’s gun, with no explanation as to the source of the other three bullets found at the scene. The stolen money was never found.

The defendants took the witness stand in their defense, but were subjected to relentless questioning about their political beliefs. Defense counsel repeatedly objected to such questions, but the judge overruled the objections and allowed them. There is widespread agreement that the judge never should have permitted so much questioning about political beliefs at the trial.

The jury returned a guilty verdict after more than a day deliberations. (At an earlier trial, a different jury had convicted them of a similar crime.) Faced with international protests against the prosecution, the Massachusetts governor appointed a commission to examine the trial and evidence. Throughout the 1920s the case was a flashpoint for protests. Finally, after the commission announced it agreed with the verdict, Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in 1927.

Vanzetti, who sported a distinctive handlebar mustache, maintained his innocence to the end. His final words to the judge before execution were these: "I would not wish to [a dog or snake] what I have had to suffer for things that I am not guilty of. But my conviction is that I have suffered for things that I am guilty of. I am suffering because I am a radical and indeed I am a radical; I have suffered because I was an Italian, and indeed I am an Italian; I have suffered more for my family and for my beloved than for myself; but I am so convinced to be right that if you could execute me two times, and if I could be reborn two other times, I would live again to do what I have done already." Not entirely convincing, is it?

Among liberals, sympathy has continued for Sacco and Vanzetti ever since. Much is made of a confession by another death row inmate to having perpetrated the crime. But the judge found that unreliable. However, the judge had earlier criticized a jury for acquitting an anarchist, and seemed determined to do what he could to end anarchy in America.

Fifty years after the executions of Sacco and Vanzetti, in 1977, Massachusetts Democratic governor and future presidential candidate Michael Dukakis signed a resolution apologizing to them and establishing a day in honor of them. However, he did not pardon them, and many remain convinced of their guilt. Dukakis' soft position on crime was a major reason for his defeat by the first President George Bush in 1988.

5. John Scopes was just a young teacher in Tennessee when he unwittingly became a test case for promoting evolution in American schools. Tennessee had a law against teaching human evolution, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) wanted to overturn it. It enlisted the top criminal attorney of the day, Clarence Darrow, to serve as Scopes attorney. As crafty as the day is long, he arrived in Tennessee armed with his bag of tricks.

William Jennings Bryan, the former presidential candidate and Secretary of State, had oratorical skills second to known. His "Cross of Gold" nomination acceptance speech in 1896 is considered one of the greatest political works in American history. He united the Populist and Democratic Parties then and laid the foundation for the takeover by the Democratic Party of American politics 36 years later.

After witnessing the horrors of World War I, Bryan became convinced that the teaching of evolution was leading society to ruination through war. "Survival of the fittest" provided an intellectual justification for the brutal killing of other nationalities and races. Bryan foresaw the ethnic cleansing that grew to its horrible culmination in the Holocaust.

Bryan defended the Tennessee law and its application to Scopes, with its mere $100 fine as the penalty for teaching evolution. Darrow agreed to take the witness stand in favor of teaching evolution if Bryan took the witness stand against it. Bryan then testified and performed well. So well, in fact, that Darrow reneged on his promise and forced Scopes to plead guilty to end the case. With that the trial ended, and Tennessee's law remained in effect for another half century. To this day, Tennesee schools teach little evolution, and George W. Bush won the presidential election by carrying this home state of his opponent, Al Gore.

A famous liberal reporter at the trial, H.L. Mencken, published such one-sided articles that it would make today's media blush. He excoriated Bryan at every possible turn, trying to make him look foolish. When Hollywood got into the act with a movie called "Inherit the Wind," it imitated Mencken's bias. Misinformed, many think Scopes and the evolutionists won the trial, but conservative rule in Tennessee today reflects the true outcome.

6. Colonel William "Billy" Mitchell dropped out of college in 1898 to serve in the Spanish-American War. Afterwards, America stayed out of wars until 1917, when Mitchell was touring Europe as an observer. By then he was considered too old to be trained on the new airplanes that were just being considered, but he learned to fly through private lessons of his own. When the United States entered World War I, Mitchell was the first American to fly over enemy lines. In 1918, he led a large bombing attack on St. Mihiel.

After the war he devoted his efforts to advocating greater use of aviation in the military, and criticizing those who resisted the change. In 1921 and 1923 he bombed old American and captured German battleships to demonstrate how easily air power could sink them, which he did. The embarrassed military brass sent him on a trip to Asia, but when Mitchell returned he predicted that Japan would ultimately attack us as it did at Pearl Harbor.

In September 1925 a military airship crashed and killed many on board. Mitchell published a diatribe harshly criticizing his superiors, even accusing them of treason in ignoring the need for good military aviation. He was swiftly brought before a military court, known as a court-martial, for insubordination. He was tried for seven weeks.

Military courts lack the protections guaranteed to civilians in ordinary courts. The jury could not reach a unanimous verdict, which in a federal criminal case would prevent conviction. One juror, widely thought to be the future General Douglas MacArthur, voted for acquittal. But he was outvoted and Mitchell was convicted and sentenced to a humiliating loss of rank and pay. President Coolidge intervened to restore half his pay, but Mitchell quit the military instead.

After Japan's air power attacked and sunk our fleet at Pearl Harbor, Mitchell's views were vindicated. By then he had passed away, but the military restored his rank and President Truman honored him with a medal.

7. Alger Hiss had denied he knew Whittaker Chambers, a former American communist who claimed that Hiss had been passing him State Department secrets for years. Obscure Congressman Richard Nixon was convinced that Hiss was lying and questioned him when he appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee during the Cold War in 1948. Nixon intensely disliked Hiss, who came from the wealthy background of political connections that Nixon initially lacked. Nixon's pursuit of Hiss catapulted Nixon's career on a path that would eventually land him in the White House.

Both Hiss and Chambers testified before the House Committee, contradicting each other. One had to be lying. When Chambers ultimately produced typed documents of State Department information and claimed they came from Hiss, a federal prosecutor in Manhattan indicted Hiss for perjury.

But Hiss could afford the best attorney and had the most impressive array of character witnesses ever assembled. It included two U. S. Supreme Court justices, a former Solicitor General, a former Democratic presidential candidate (John W. Davis) and a future one (Adlai Stevenson). Hiss' jury selection was also superb: the foreman proved to be sympathetic to the liberal and perhaps even communist movement in America.

Hiss did well on the witness stand in his defense, but his attorney probably erred in putting his wife on. His defense counsel was scathing in his attack on the prosecution's star witness, Chambers himself, who admitted that he worked for the communist cause in America.

The jury could not agree on a verdict, splitting with eight in favor of conviction and four against it. Despite testimony that the unlawfully leaked documents were typed on Hiss' typewriter, the four were not convinced beyond reasonable doubt.

As is typical, the government then brought the case for retrial. Prosecutions do better the second time, learning from its mistakes. The judge allowed a broader range of questioning. New defense counsel was weaker, conceding that the leaked documents were typed by the typewriter found in Hiss' possession, but disputing that he typed them. Inexplicably, Supreme Court Justice Frankfurter did not testify for Hiss in the second case.

The defense relied heavily on testimony by a expert witness who was a psychiatrist, who painted Chambers as a pathological liar. But the prosecutor destroyed the witness in one of the most famous cross-examinations in American legal history.

Hiss maintained his innocence until he died, despite the eventual release of secret Soviet files apparently identifying him as a spy. Perhaps Hiss felt he could not go back on his prior statements, or perhaps he remained true to communism in protecting the movement. The case helped define American politics for forty years, propelling Nixon to the Vice Presidency in 1952, Barry Goldwater to the Republican nomination for president in 1964, Nixon to the White House in 1968, and ultimately Ronald Reagan to the White House in 1980, where he awarded Chambers a posthumous Medal of Freedom.

8. In a famous recent trial, former football star O. J. Simpson was acquitted by a jury of the crime of murdering his wife. The key argument in the trial was that the prosecutions' key witness, the policeman who gathered most of the evidence in the case, was shown to have lied, and the jury apparently found the argument that he may have tampered with the evidence credible, at least to the extent of giving them a "reasonable doubt." In an apparently contradictory finding, a different jury found in a civil case ("lawsuit") that O. J. Simpson was responsible for the death of his wife, and assessed civil penalties. Since the standards of proof is "preponderance of evidence" in a civil case, however, it is much easier to prove civil liability to a jury than it is to prove criminal guilt, and hance these results are not necessarily contradictory.

9. In 2007, vice-presidential aide Lewis "Scotter" Libby was accused of perjury for lying to a grand jury hearing testimony about the "leak" that resulted in revealing the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame. (It is important to note that he was not accused of illegally revealing the identity of Plame, potentially a much serious charge if he had deliberately revealed her as a CIA agent while knowing her identity was covert; in fact this was shown to be a non-issue). Like the Clinton impeachment trial years earlier, the charge was lying to a grand jury over a matter that was not in itself illegal. The jury verdict will tell much about the responsibility and immunity of the executive branch.

Impeachment and removal

2007-02-23T16:37:30Z

Franklin.jefferson: added 19th century cases (moved from Jury trial article)

The removal from office, and disqualification from holding any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States. Technically "impeachment" refers to bringing charges up against a high official, and then "conviction" refers to removal from office.

[[The United States House of Representatives|The House of Representatives]] has "sole power of impeachment." The House has to vote on articles of impeachment. If they pass, the President "has been impeached" but is not yet removed from office. The case is sent to the [[The United States Senate|Senate]] for trial. If the Senate votes by a two-thirds majority to convict, then the person will be removed from office.

In impeachment cases against the [[President of the United States|President]], the Chief Justice of the [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]] shall preside.

==Impeachment in 19th Century America==

By 1804, Jeffersonian [[Democratic-Republicans]] had control of [[Congress]] and set their sights on removing Federalist Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase. The House of Representatives impeached him, and trial began with the Senate as the jury. His prosecutor was [[John Randolph]], a partisan Jeffersonian who was distantly related to the Federalist Chief Justice [[John Marshall]]. 25 out of 34 Senators were Jeffersonians, so conviction and removal of the Federalist Chase for his political biases seemed likely.

But the effort failed. During the trial Randolph himself criticized Jefferson over a separate issue, the infamous [[Yazoo land fraud]] in [[Georgia]], an issue that split Jeffersonians. Meanwhile, the case against Chase amounted to little more than some intemperate remarks he made while sitting as trial judge in a grand jury proceeding. The Senators were unimpressed, and at most 19/34 voted to convict on any of the charges, far short of the requisite 2/3rd.
The independence of the judiciary was established by this failed effort to remove a Supreme Court justice. However, the episode did encourage future justices not to engage directly in politics. No effort to impeach a Supreme Court justice has since made any progress.

After the [[Civil War]], President Andrew Johnson became the enemy of Radical Republicans who controlled Congress. President Johnson vetoed their legislation and even called their leaders "traitors". Flush from winning the war, the likes of Republican Senators Thaddeus Stevens (PA) and Charles Sumner (MA) were not about to back down. Sumner, after all, was the fellow who once delivered an unconscionably disrespectful speech against elderly South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler, whereupon his outraged nephew Preston Brooks beat Sumner senseless with a cane.

When the House of Representatives impeached President Johnson by an overwhelming vote of 126 to 47, his ouster appeared to be a fait accompli. President Johnson had violated the Tenure in Office Act by dismissing his Secretary of War, and he had been intemperate in his name-calling of key senators. In addressing the jury of 54 senators, the prosecutor referred to President Johnson as an "accidental Chief" and "the elect of an assassin." Witnesses testified for both the prosecution and the defense.

The prosecutors – called “managers” in impeachment trials – were confident of victory. Manager Thaddeus Stevens described President Johnson as the "wretched man, standing at bay, surrounded by a cordon of living men, each with the axe of an executioner uplifted for his just punishment." Manager John Bingham brought the public galleries to their feet with his oratory: "May God forbid that the future historian shall record of this day's proceedings, that by reason of the failure of the legislative power of the people to triumph over the usurpations of an apostate President, the fabric of American empire fell and perished from the earth."

2/3rd vote was necessary for conviction, and it all turned on Senator [[Edmund Ross]] of Kansas. Like real jurors, he spoke to no one during the proceedings and no one knew which was he was leaning. But he voted "not guilty," and President Johnson was acquitted by one vote. The Radical Republicans were defeated, and never again enjoyed their unprecedented power.

==Impeachment in recent history==

In 1974, no impeachment proceedings had occurred since the Johnson trial over a hundred years earlier). Most Americans thought of impeachment as something quaint and bizarre in the history books.

In the House of Representatives decided to begin impeachment proceedings against [[Richard M. Nixon]], on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in connection with the Watergate affair. At the time, congressmen and their staffs were unfamiliar with the law and precedings involved with impeachment, and needed to research the question.

On July 27, 1974 the Committee on the Judiciary voted to recommend three articles of impeachment. The articles concerned his obstruction of justice during the Watergate investigations. Before his near-certain impeachment and conviction could occur, Nixon resigned from the presidency on August 9, 1974. Thus, Nixon was never actually impeached.

[[Bill Clinton]] was impeached by the House of Representatives on December 19, 1998, on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice relating to a scandal involving his personal conduct with a woman. He was acquitted by the Senate on February 12, 1999 on a party-line vote.

President Clinton was riding his in the polls and ready to pick his successor for the White House by late 1998. His leadership enabled the Democratic Party to do surprisingly well in the mid-term elections, and President Clinton was seeking to leave a lasting legacy.

Then the House of Representatives impeached him for making false statements under oath, which is perjury, and trial was scheduled for the Senate in 1999. First Lady Hillary Clinton accused her opponents of being part of a "vast right-wing conspiracy" against her husband. The Democratic Senators all lined up behind President Clinton, promising to vote for acquittal.

Republicans enjoyed a majority in the Senate but lacked votes anywhere close to the requisite 2/3rd majority to convict. President Clinton was a lame-duck at that point anyway, and the real battle was over his ability to influence politics beyond his term.

The managers of the impeachment presented their case, but the Senate prevented them from calling key witnesses such as Clinton’s closest aids. The procedural rules hamstrung the trial and served to protect the president. Without the presentation of the full case, President Clinton easily survived the final vote.

But the victory was Pyrrhic. The Democratic presidential nominee in 2000, Al Gore, felt he had to distance himself from Clinton and that probably made the difference on Election Day. Since then, Clinton has had little success in campaigning for candidates, recently failing with Governor Gray Davis in California in the recall. [[Hillary Clinton]], pollsters choice to run in 2004, apparently feels it is too soon to make an attempt. The political ramifications of the impeachment trial continue.

Jury trial

2007-02-23T16:09:35Z

Franklin.jefferson: typo corrected

A jury trial is a trial by one's peers. The term usually applies to a jury composed of random citizens in the community where the crime occurred.

The right to trial by jury is part of the American constitution, and is one of the legal defenses put in place to keep a tyrannical government from using a court of law as a means of enforcing a dictatorship. In some countries with totalitarian governments, "show trials" have been used with no jury to put a false appearance of post-facto legitimacy to dictatorial opression; the rights to trial by jury and the right of a defendent to hear the charges against them and challenge the evidence serves as a check against totalitarian power.

Both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams felt strongly that jury trials were the best defense against government. Thomas Jefferson considered "trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution." John Adams said it was a jury's "duty ... to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court." In recent times, the right to trial by jury has been under attack in America, most notably in the [[Patriot act]] and the "war on terror", where the executive branch has argued that persons accused of terrorism are not guaranteed the right to a trial by jury.

Taking a broad view of "jury" to include any panel of people (other than a judge) to pass judgment on an accused, here are the top ten most influential trials affecting American history:

# [[William Penn]] (1670)
# [[John Peter Zenger]] (1735)
# Supreme Court Justice [[Samuel Chase]] (1804)
# President [[Andrew Johnson]] (1868)
# [[Boss Tweed]] (1873)
# [[Sacco and Vanzetti Trial|Sacco & Vanzetti]] (1921)
# [[John Scopes]] (1925)
# Colonel [[Billy Mitchell]] (1925)
# [[Alger Hiss]] (1949)
# O. J. Simpson (two trials)

Half of these important trials resulted in convictions; the other half resulted in acquittals. Here is a summary of the cases and their influence:

1. William Penn joined the [[Quakers]] in [[London]], a religion disliked by the King. In 1670, Penn held a worship service and was arrested allegedly for disturbing the King's peace At trial, the jurors heard testimony and the judge, as is still the custom, delivered jury instructions prior to its deliberations. The jury instructions included an order to find the Penn guilty.

But the jury refused to find Penn guilty. The judge angrily sent them back to continue deliberations. The jury returned again with its same verdict. The judge demended "a verdict that the court will accept, and you shall be locked up without meat, drink, fire, and tobacco .... We will have a verdict by the help of God or you will starve for it." The jury went out three more times, and returned with the same verdict each time. Then it refused to deliberate any more and the judge fined and imprisoned them. Penn was also fined and imprisoned on a scurrilous new charge invented at trial (for donning a hat in the courtroom).

On appeal, the jurors won their independence and were released from jail, though that did not help Penn.

The impact of the Penn trial has been enormous in two respects. First, it established freedom of religion, which Penn brought to America in founding Pennsylvania a decade later. Philadelphia became the most populous city in the colonies, and the location for drafting the Constitution.

The case also established the principle of "jury nullification," whereby a jury’s decision is final and dispositive even if it rejects the law. Jury nullification has been used frequently, as in acquitting defendants accused of violating the Alien and Sedition Act and the Fugitive Slave Act.

2. The John Peter Zenger trial in 1735 is the most important case ever for newspapers. He was a publisher accused of the crime of harshly criticizing the colonial New York governor. Zenger's defense was that he (and everyone else) has the right to print the truth. But the judge instructed the jury that the law did not recognize truth as a defense to the charges. Under the law at the time, the jury had no authority to acquit Zenger based on the truth of his statements.

The jury acquitted him anyway, thereby establishing freedom of the press. This was another important example of jury nullification.

3. By 1804, Jeffersonian [[Democratic-Republicans]] had control of [[The United States Congress|Congress]] and set their sights on removing Federalist Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase. The House of Representatives impeached him, and trial began with the Senate as the jury. His prosecutor was [[John Randolph]], a partisan Jeffersonian who was distantly related to the Federalist Chief Justice [[John Marshall]]. 25 out of 34 Senators were Jeffersonians, so conviction and removal of the Federalist Chase for his political biases seemed likely.

But the effort failed. During the trial Randolph himself criticized Jefferson over a separate issue, the infamous [[Yazoo land fraud]] in [[Georgia]], an issue that split Jeffersonians. Meanwhile, the case against Chase amounted to little more than some intemperate remarks he made while sitting as trial judge in a grand jury proceeding. The Senators were unimpressed, and at most 19/34 voted to convict on any of the charges, far short of the requisite 2/3rd.

The independence of the judiciary was established by this failed effort to remove a Supreme Court justice. However, the episode did encourage future justices not to engage directly in politics. No effort to impeach a Supreme Court justice has since made any progress.

4. President Andrew Johnson became the enemy of Radical Republicans who controlled Congress after the Civil War. President Johnson vetoed their legislation and even called their leaders "traitors". Flush from winning the war, the likes of Republican Senators Thaddeus Stevens (PA) and Charles Sumner (MA) were not about to back down. Sumner, after all, was the fellow who once delivered an unconscionably disrespectful speech against elderly South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler, whereupon his outraged nephew Preston Brooks beat Sumner senseless with a cane.

When the House of Representatives impeached President Johnson by an overwhelming vote of 126 to 47, his ouster appeared to be a fait accompli. President Johnson had violated the Tenure in Office Act by dismissing his Secretary of War, and he had been intemperate in his name-calling of key senators. In addressing the jury of 54 senators, the prosecutor referred to President Johnson as an "accidental Chief" and "the elect of an assassin." Witnesses testified for both the prosecution and the defense.

The prosecutors – called “managers” in impeachment trials – were confident of victory. Manager Thaddeus Stevens described President Johnson as the "wretched man, standing at bay, surrounded by a cordon of living men, each with the axe of an executioner uplifted for his just punishment." Manager John Bingham brought the public galleries to their feet with his oratory: "May God forbid that the future historian shall record of this day's proceedings, that by reason of the failure of the legislative power of the people to triumph over the usurpations of an apostate President, the fabric of American empire fell and perished from the earth."

2/3rd vote was necessary for conviction, and it all turned on Senator [[Edmund Ross]] of Kansas. Like real jurors, he spoke to no one during the proceedings and no one knew which was he was leaning. But he voted "not guilty," and President Johnson was acquitted by one vote. The Radical Republicans were defeated, and never again enjoyed their unprecedented power.

5. William Marcy "Boss" Tweed began as a volunteer fireman in New York who worked his way to the top of the Democratic New York City political machine by 1863. He developed a corrupt system known as the "Tweed Ring" that faked leases, demanded kickbacks, performed unnecessary repairs and generated other phony expenses that cost New York City from $75 million to $200 million, a huge amount of money at the time. Famed cartoonist Thomas Nast, who created Uncle Sam and the elephant and donkey for the Republican and Democratic Parties, frequently attacked Tweed in his cartoons.

Eventually, Democratic federal prosecutor Samuel Tilden brought an indictment against Tweed, who was defended at trial by wealthy Republican Elihu Root in 1872. Tilden defeated Root and obtained the conviction, which catapulted Tilden to national prominence and became the Democratic nominee for president in 1876. He won the popular vote by a hefty 250,000, but the Republicans maneuvered to give Rutherford Hayes the White House based on a narrow lead in electoral college votes and a promise to end Reconstruction. Elihu Root, meanwhile, became an imperialist who later advocated entry by the United States into the League of Nations.

6. Sacco and Vanzetti were two anarchists from Italy. They had dodged the draft for World War I and were tried in 1921 for an afternoon robbery and murder of a shoe factory paymaster and a security guard as they carried a $16,000 payroll. Liberals in America decried trying individuals for their beliefs rather than their actions, and questions about the fairness of such a trial in Boston were raised from the beginning. They had skilled defense counsel in a famous labor attorney, but no Italians were included in the jury (none may have been in the jury pool). The defense counsel eliminated every businessman from the jury. Witnesses for the prosecution were weak, with one testifying that the murderer spoke good English (the defendants did not). The prosecution only identified one bullet as being from Sacco’s gun, with no explanation as to the source of the other three bullets found at the scene. The stolen money was never found.

The defendants took the witness stand in their defense, but were subjected to relentless questioning about their political beliefs. Defense counsel repeatedly objected to such questions, but the judge overruled the objections and allowed them. There is widespread agreement that the judge never should have permitted so much questioning about political beliefs at the trial.

The jury returned a guilty verdict after more than a day deliberations. (At an earlier trial, a different jury had convicted them of a similar crime.) Faced with international protests against the prosecution, the Massachusetts governor appointed a commission to examine the trial and evidence. Throughout the 1920s the case was a flashpoint for protests. Finally, after the commission announced it agreed with the verdict, Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in 1927.

Vanzetti, who sported a distinctive handlebar mustache, maintained his innocence to the end. His final words to the judge before execution were these: "I would not wish to [a dog or snake] what I have had to suffer for things that I am not guilty of. But my conviction is that I have suffered for things that I am guilty of. I am suffering because I am a radical and indeed I am a radical; I have suffered because I was an Italian, and indeed I am an Italian; I have suffered more for my family and for my beloved than for myself; but I am so convinced to be right that if you could execute me two times, and if I could be reborn two other times, I would live again to do what I have done already." Not entirely convincing, is it?

Among liberals, sympathy has continued for Sacco and Vanzetti ever since. Much is made of a confession by another death row inmate to having perpetrated the crime. But the judge found that unreliable. However, the judge had earlier criticized a jury for acquitting an anarchist, and seemed determined to do what he could to end anarchy in America.

Fifty years after the executions of Sacco and Vanzetti, in 1977, Massachusetts Democratic governor and future presidential candidate Michael Dukakis signed a resolution apologizing to them and establishing a day in honor of them. However, he did not pardon them, and many remain convinced of their guilt. Dukakis' soft position on crime was a major reason for his defeat by the first President George Bush in 1988.

7. John Scopes was just a young teacher in Tennessee when he unwittingly became a test case for promoting evolution in American schools. Tennessee had a law against teaching human evolution, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) wanted to overturn it. It enlisted the top criminal attorney of the day, Clarence Darrow, to serve as Scopes attorney. As crafty as the day is long, he arrived in Tennessee armed with his bag of tricks.

William Jennings Bryan, the former presidential candidate and Secretary of State, had oratorical skills second to known. His "Cross of Gold" nomination acceptance speech in 1896 is considered one of the greatest political works in American history. He united the Populist and Democratic Parties then and laid the foundation for the takeover by the Democratic Party of American politics 36 years later.

After witnessing the horrors of World War I, Bryan became convinced that the teaching of evolution was leading society to ruination through war. "Survival of the fittest" provided an intellectual justification for the brutal killing of other nationalities and races. Bryan foresaw the ethnic cleansing that grew to its horrible culmination in the Holocaust.

Bryan defended the Tennessee law and its application to Scopes, with its mere $100 fine as the penalty for teaching evolution. Darrow agreed to take the witness stand in favor of teaching evolution if Bryan took the witness stand against it. Bryan then testified and performed well. So well, in fact, that Darrow reneged on his promise and forced Scopes to plead guilty to end the case. With that the trial ended, and Tennessee's law remained in effect for another half century. To this day, Tennesee schools teach little evolution, and George W. Bush won the presidential election by carrying this home state of his opponent, Al Gore.

A famous liberal reporter at the trial, H.L. Mencken, published such one-sided articles that it would make today's media blush. He excoriated Bryan at every possible turn, trying to make him look foolish. When Hollywood got into the act with a movie called "Inherit the Wind," it imitated Mencken's bias. Misinformed, many think Scopes and the evolutionists won the trial, but conservative rule in Tennessee today reflects the true outcome.

8. Colonel William "Billy" Mitchell dropped out of college in 1898 to serve in the Spanish-American War. Afterwards, America stayed out of wars until 1917, when Mitchell was touring Europe as an observer. By then he was considered too old to be trained on the new airplanes that were just being considered, but he learned to fly through private lessons of his own. When the United States entered World War I, Mitchell was the first American to fly over enemy lines. In 1918, he led a large bombing attack on St. Mihiel.

After the war he devoted his efforts to advocating greater use of aviation in the military, and criticizing those who resisted the change. In 1921 and 1923 he bombed old American and captured German battleships to demonstrate how easily air power could sink them, which he did. The embarrassed military brass sent him on a trip to Asia, but when Mitchell returned he predicted that Japan would ultimately attack us as it did at Pearl Harbor.

In September 1925 a military airship crashed and killed many on board. Mitchell published a diatribe harshly criticizing his superiors, even accusing them of treason in ignoring the need for good military aviation. He was swiftly brought before a military court, known as a court-martial, for insubordination. He was tried for seven weeks.

Military courts lack the protections guaranteed to civilians in ordinary courts. The jury could not reach a unanimous verdict, which in a federal criminal case would prevent conviction. One juror, widely thought to be the future General Douglas MacArthur, voted for acquittal. But he was outvoted and Mitchell was convicted and sentenced to a humiliating loss of rank and pay. President Coolidge intervened to restore half his pay, but Mitchell quit the military instead.

After Japan's air power attacked and sunk our fleet at Pearl Harbor, Mitchell's views were vindicated. By then he had passed away, but the military restored his rank and President Truman honored him with a medal.

9. Alger Hiss had denied he knew Whittaker Chambers, a former American communist who claimed that Hiss had been passing him State Department secrets for years. Obscure Congressman Richard Nixon was convinced that Hiss was lying and questioned him when he appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee during the Cold War in 1948. Nixon intensely disliked Hiss, who came from the wealthy background of political connections that Nixon initially lacked. Nixon's pursuit of Hiss catapulted Nixon's career on a path that would eventually land him in the White House.

Both Hiss and Chambers testified before the House Committee, contradicting each other. One had to be lying. When Chambers ultimately produced typed documents of State Department information and claimed they came from Hiss, a federal prosecutor in Manhattan indicted Hiss for perjury.

But Hiss could afford the best attorney and had the most impressive array of character witnesses ever assembled. It included two U. S. Supreme Court justices, a former Solicitor General, a former Democratic presidential candidate (John W. Davis) and a future one (Adlai Stevenson). Hiss' jury selection was also superb: the foreman proved to be sympathetic to the liberal and perhaps even communist movement in America.

Hiss did well on the witness stand in his defense, but his attorney probably erred in putting his wife on. His defense counsel was scathing in his attack on the prosecution's star witness, Chambers himself, who admitted that he worked for the communist cause in America.

The jury could not agree on a verdict, splitting with eight in favor of conviction and four against it. Despite testimony that the unlawfully leaked documents were typed on Hiss' typewriter, the four were not convinced beyond reasonable doubt.

As is typical, the government then brought the case for retrial. Prosecutions do better the second time, learning from its mistakes. The judge allowed a broader range of questioning. New defense counsel was weaker, conceding that the leaked documents were typed by the typewriter found in Hiss' possession, but disputing that he typed them. Inexplicably, Supreme Court Justice Frankfurter did not testify for Hiss in the second case.

The defense relied heavily on testimony by a expert witness who was a psychiatrist, who painted Chambers as a pathological liar. But the prosecutor destroyed the witness in one of the most famous cross-examinations in American legal history.

Hiss maintained his innocence until he died, despite the eventual release of secret Soviet files apparently identifying him as a spy. Perhaps Hiss felt he could not go back on his prior statements, or perhaps he remained true to communism in protecting the movement. The case helped define American politics for forty years, propelling Nixon to the Vice Presidency in 1952, Barry Goldwater to the Republican nomination for president in 1964, Nixon to the White House in 1968, and ultimately Ronald Reagan to the White House in 1980, where he awarded Chambers a posthumous Medal of Freedom.

10. In a famous recent trial, former football star O. J. Simpson was acquitted by a jury of the crime of murdering his wife. The key argument in the trial was that the prosecutions' key witness, the policeman who gathered most of the evidence in the case, was shown to have lied, and the jury apparently found the argument that he may have tampered with the evidence credible, at least to the extent of giving them a "reasonable doubt." In an apparently contradictory finding, a different jury found in a civil case ("lawsuit") that O. J. Simpson was responsible for the death of his wife, and assessed civil penalties. Since the standards of proof is "preponderance of evidence" in a civil case, however, it is much easier to prove civil liability to a jury than it is to prove criminal guilt, and hance these results are not necessarily contradictory.

Impeachment and removal

2007-02-23T16:03:34Z

Franklin.jefferson:

The removal from office, and disqualification from holding any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States.

[[The United States House of Representatives|The House of Representatives]] has "sole power of impeachment." The House has to vote on articles of impeachment. If they pass, the President "has been impeached" but is not yet removed from office. The case is sent to the [[The United States Senate|Senate]] for trial. If the Senate votes by a two-thirds majority to convict, then the person will be removed from office.

In impeachment cases against the [[President of the United States|President]], the Chief Justice of the [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]] shall preside.

==Impeachment in recent history==

In 1974, no impeachment proceedings had occurred since the Johnson trial over a hundred years earlier (discussed in Kennedy's book ''Profiles in Courage''). Most Americans thought of impeachment as something quaint and bizarre in the history books.

In the House of Representatives decided to begin impeachment proceedings against [[Richard M. Nixon]], on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in connection with the Watergate affair. At the time, congressmen and their staffs were unfamiliar with the law and precedings involved with impeachment, and needed to research the question.

On July 27, 1974 the Committee on the Judiciary voted to recommend three articles of impeachment. The articles concerned his obstruction of justice during the Watergate investigations. Before his near-certain impeachment and conviction could occur, Nixon resigned from the presidency on August 9, 1974. Thus, Nixon was never actually impeached.

[[Bill Clinton]] was impeached by the House of Representatives on December 19, 1998, on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice relating to a scandal involving his personal conduct with a woman. He was acquitted by the Senate on February 12, 1999 on a party-line vote.

President Clinton was riding his in the polls and ready to pick his successor for the White House by late 1998. His leadership enabled the Democratic Party to do surprisingly well in the mid-term elections, and President Clinton was seeking to leave a lasting legacy.

Then the House of Representatives impeached him for making false statements under oath, which is perjury, and trial was scheduled for the Senate in 1999. First Lady Hillary Clinton accused her opponents of being part of a "vast right-wing conspiracy" against her husband. The Democratic Senators all lined up behind President Clinton, promising to vote for acquittal.

Republicans enjoyed a majority in the Senate but lacked votes anywhere close to the requisite 2/3rd majority to convict. President Clinton was a lame-duck at that point anyway, and the real battle was over his ability to influence politics beyond his term.

The managers of the impeachment presented their case, but the Senate prevented them from calling key witnesses such as Clinton’s closest aids. The procedural rules hamstrung the trial and served to protect the president. Without the presentation of the full case, President Clinton easily survived the final vote.

But the victory was Pyrrhic. The Democratic presidential nominee in 2000, Al Gore, felt he had to distance himself from Clinton and that probably made the difference on Election Day. Since then, Clinton has had little success in campaigning for candidates, recently failing with Governor Gray Davis in California in the recall. [[Hillary Clinton]], pollsters choice to run in 2004, apparently feels it is too soon to make an attempt. The political ramifications of the impeachment trial continue.

Jury trial

2007-02-23T14:36:22Z

Franklin.jefferson: added OJ, moved clinton text to a different page

A jury trial is a trial by one's peers. The term usually applies to a jury composed of random citizens in the community where the crime occurred.

The right to trial by jury is part of the American constitution, and is one of the legal defenses put in place to keep a tyrannical government from using a court of law as a means of enforcing a dictatorship. In some countries with totalitarian governments, "show trials" have been used with now jury to put a false appearance of post-facto legitimacy to dictatorial opression; the rights to trial by jury and the right of a defendent to hear the charges against them and challenge the evidence serves as a check against totalitarian power.

Both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams felt strongly that jury trials were the best defense against government. Thomas Jefferson considered "trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution." John Adams said it was a jury's "duty ... to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court." In recent times, the right to trial by jury has been under attack in America, most notably in the [[Patriot act]] and the "war on terror", where the executive branch has argued that persons accused of terrorism are not guaranteed the right to a trial by jury.

Taking a broad view of "jury" to include any panel of people (other than a judge) to pass judgment on an accused, here are the top ten most influential trials affecting American history:

# [[William Penn]] (1670)
# [[John Peter Zenger]] (1735)
# Supreme Court Justice [[Samuel Chase]] (1804)
# President [[Andrew Johnson]] (1868)
# [[Boss Tweed]] (1873)
# [[Sacco and Vanzetti Trial|Sacco & Vanzetti]] (1921)
# [[John Scopes]] (1925)
# Colonel [[Billy Mitchell]] (1925)
# [[Alger Hiss]] (1949)
# O. J. Simpson (two trials)

Half of these important trials resulted in convictions; the other half resulted in acquittals. Here is a summary of the cases and their influence:

1. William Penn joined the [[Quakers]] in [[London]], a religion disliked by the King. In 1670, Penn held a worship service and was arrested allegedly for disturbing the King's peace At trial, the jurors heard testimony and the judge, as is still the custom, delivered jury instructions prior to its deliberations. The jury instructions included an order to find the Penn guilty.

But the jury refused to find Penn guilty. The judge angrily sent them back to continue deliberations. The jury returned again with its same verdict. The judge demended "a verdict that the court will accept, and you shall be locked up without meat, drink, fire, and tobacco .... We will have a verdict by the help of God or you will starve for it." The jury went out three more times, and returned with the same verdict each time. Then it refused to deliberate any more and the judge fined and imprisoned them. Penn was also fined and imprisoned on a scurrilous new charge invented at trial (for donning a hat in the courtroom).

On appeal, the jurors won their independence and were released from jail, though that did not help Penn.

The impact of the Penn trial has been enormous in two respects. First, it established freedom of religion, which Penn brought to America in founding Pennsylvania a decade later. Philadelphia became the most populous city in the colonies, and the location for drafting the Constitution.

The case also established the principle of "jury nullification," whereby a jury’s decision is final and dispositive even if it rejects the law. Jury nullification has been used frequently, as in acquitting defendants accused of violating the Alien and Sedition Act and the Fugitive Slave Act.

2. The John Peter Zenger trial in 1735 is the most important case ever for newspapers. He was a publisher accused of the crime of harshly criticizing the colonial New York governor. Zenger's defense was that he (and everyone else) has the right to print the truth. But the judge instructed the jury that the law did not recognize truth as a defense to the charges. Under the law at the time, the jury had no authority to acquit Zenger based on the truth of his statements.

The jury acquitted him anyway, thereby establishing freedom of the press. This was another important example of jury nullification.

3. By 1804, Jeffersonian [[Democratic-Republicans]] had control of [[The United States Congress|Congress]] and set their sights on removing Federalist Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase. The House of Representatives impeached him, and trial began with the Senate as the jury. His prosecutor was [[John Randolph]], a partisan Jeffersonian who was distantly related to the Federalist Chief Justice [[John Marshall]]. 25 out of 34 Senators were Jeffersonians, so conviction and removal of the Federalist Chase for his political biases seemed likely.

But the effort failed. During the trial Randolph himself criticized Jefferson over a separate issue, the infamous [[Yazoo land fraud]] in [[Georgia]], an issue that split Jeffersonians. Meanwhile, the case against Chase amounted to little more than some intemperate remarks he made while sitting as trial judge in a grand jury proceeding. The Senators were unimpressed, and at most 19/34 voted to convict on any of the charges, far short of the requisite 2/3rd.

The independence of the judiciary was established by this failed effort to remove a Supreme Court justice. However, the episode did encourage future justices not to engage directly in politics. No effort to impeach a Supreme Court justice has since made any progress.

4. President Andrew Johnson became the enemy of Radical Republicans who controlled Congress after the Civil War. President Johnson vetoed their legislation and even called their leaders "traitors". Flush from winning the war, the likes of Republican Senators Thaddeus Stevens (PA) and Charles Sumner (MA) were not about to back down. Sumner, after all, was the fellow who once delivered an unconscionably disrespectful speech against elderly South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler, whereupon his outraged nephew Preston Brooks beat Sumner senseless with a cane.

When the House of Representatives impeached President Johnson by an overwhelming vote of 126 to 47, his ouster appeared to be a fait accompli. President Johnson had violated the Tenure in Office Act by dismissing his Secretary of War, and he had been intemperate in his name-calling of key senators. In addressing the jury of 54 senators, the prosecutor referred to President Johnson as an "accidental Chief" and "the elect of an assassin." Witnesses testified for both the prosecution and the defense.

The prosecutors – called “managers” in impeachment trials – were confident of victory. Manager Thaddeus Stevens described President Johnson as the "wretched man, standing at bay, surrounded by a cordon of living men, each with the axe of an executioner uplifted for his just punishment." Manager John Bingham brought the public galleries to their feet with his oratory: "May God forbid that the future historian shall record of this day's proceedings, that by reason of the failure of the legislative power of the people to triumph over the usurpations of an apostate President, the fabric of American empire fell and perished from the earth."

2/3rd vote was necessary for conviction, and it all turned on Senator [[Edmund Ross]] of Kansas. Like real jurors, he spoke to no one during the proceedings and no one knew which was he was leaning. But he voted "not guilty," and President Johnson was acquitted by one vote. The Radical Republicans were defeated, and never again enjoyed their unprecedented power.

5. William Marcy "Boss" Tweed began as a volunteer fireman in New York who worked his way to the top of the Democratic New York City political machine by 1863. He developed a corrupt system known as the "Tweed Ring" that faked leases, demanded kickbacks, performed unnecessary repairs and generated other phony expenses that cost New York City from $75 million to $200 million, a huge amount of money at the time. Famed cartoonist Thomas Nast, who created Uncle Sam and the elephant and donkey for the Republican and Democratic Parties, frequently attacked Tweed in his cartoons.

Eventually, Democratic federal prosecutor Samuel Tilden brought an indictment against Tweed, who was defended at trial by wealthy Republican Elihu Root in 1872. Tilden defeated Root and obtained the conviction, which catapulted Tilden to national prominence and became the Democratic nominee for president in 1876. He won the popular vote by a hefty 250,000, but the Republicans maneuvered to give Rutherford Hayes the White House based on a narrow lead in electoral college votes and a promise to end Reconstruction. Elihu Root, meanwhile, became an imperialist who later advocated entry by the United States into the League of Nations.

6. Sacco and Vanzetti were two anarchists from Italy. They had dodged the draft for World War I and were tried in 1921 for an afternoon robbery and murder of a shoe factory paymaster and a security guard as they carried a $16,000 payroll. Liberals in America decried trying individuals for their beliefs rather than their actions, and questions about the fairness of such a trial in Boston were raised from the beginning. They had skilled defense counsel in a famous labor attorney, but no Italians were included in the jury (none may have been in the jury pool). The defense counsel eliminated every businessman from the jury. Witnesses for the prosecution were weak, with one testifying that the murderer spoke good English (the defendants did not). The prosecution only identified one bullet as being from Sacco’s gun, with no explanation as to the source of the other three bullets found at the scene. The stolen money was never found.

The defendants took the witness stand in their defense, but were subjected to relentless questioning about their political beliefs. Defense counsel repeatedly objected to such questions, but the judge overruled the objections and allowed them. There is widespread agreement that the judge never should have permitted so much questioning about political beliefs at the trial.

The jury returned a guilty verdict after more than a day deliberations. (At an earlier trial, a different jury had convicted them of a similar crime.) Faced with international protests against the prosecution, the Massachusetts governor appointed a commission to examine the trial and evidence. Throughout the 1920s the case was a flashpoint for protests. Finally, after the commission announced it agreed with the verdict, Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in 1927.

Vanzetti, who sported a distinctive handlebar mustache, maintained his innocence to the end. His final words to the judge before execution were these: "I would not wish to [a dog or snake] what I have had to suffer for things that I am not guilty of. But my conviction is that I have suffered for things that I am guilty of. I am suffering because I am a radical and indeed I am a radical; I have suffered because I was an Italian, and indeed I am an Italian; I have suffered more for my family and for my beloved than for myself; but I am so convinced to be right that if you could execute me two times, and if I could be reborn two other times, I would live again to do what I have done already." Not entirely convincing, is it?

Among liberals, sympathy has continued for Sacco and Vanzetti ever since. Much is made of a confession by another death row inmate to having perpetrated the crime. But the judge found that unreliable. However, the judge had earlier criticized a jury for acquitting an anarchist, and seemed determined to do what he could to end anarchy in America.

Fifty years after the executions of Sacco and Vanzetti, in 1977, Massachusetts Democratic governor and future presidential candidate Michael Dukakis signed a resolution apologizing to them and establishing a day in honor of them. However, he did not pardon them, and many remain convinced of their guilt. Dukakis' soft position on crime was a major reason for his defeat by the first President George Bush in 1988.

7. John Scopes was just a young teacher in Tennessee when he unwittingly became a test case for promoting evolution in American schools. Tennessee had a law against teaching human evolution, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) wanted to overturn it. It enlisted the top criminal attorney of the day, Clarence Darrow, to serve as Scopes attorney. As crafty as the day is long, he arrived in Tennessee armed with his bag of tricks.

William Jennings Bryan, the former presidential candidate and Secretary of State, had oratorical skills second to known. His "Cross of Gold" nomination acceptance speech in 1896 is considered one of the greatest political works in American history. He united the Populist and Democratic Parties then and laid the foundation for the takeover by the Democratic Party of American politics 36 years later.

After witnessing the horrors of World War I, Bryan became convinced that the teaching of evolution was leading society to ruination through war. "Survival of the fittest" provided an intellectual justification for the brutal killing of other nationalities and races. Bryan foresaw the ethnic cleansing that grew to its horrible culmination in the Holocaust.

Bryan defended the Tennessee law and its application to Scopes, with its mere $100 fine as the penalty for teaching evolution. Darrow agreed to take the witness stand in favor of teaching evolution if Bryan took the witness stand against it. Bryan then testified and performed well. So well, in fact, that Darrow reneged on his promise and forced Scopes to plead guilty to end the case. With that the trial ended, and Tennessee's law remained in effect for another half century. To this day, Tennesee schools teach little evolution, and George W. Bush won the presidential election by carrying this home state of his opponent, Al Gore.

A famous liberal reporter at the trial, H.L. Mencken, published such one-sided articles that it would make today's media blush. He excoriated Bryan at every possible turn, trying to make him look foolish. When Hollywood got into the act with a movie called "Inherit the Wind," it imitated Mencken's bias. Misinformed, many think Scopes and the evolutionists won the trial, but conservative rule in Tennessee today reflects the true outcome.

8. Colonel William "Billy" Mitchell dropped out of college in 1898 to serve in the Spanish-American War. Afterwards, America stayed out of wars until 1917, when Mitchell was touring Europe as an observer. By then he was considered too old to be trained on the new airplanes that were just being considered, but he learned to fly through private lessons of his own. When the United States entered World War I, Mitchell was the first American to fly over enemy lines. In 1918, he led a large bombing attack on St. Mihiel.

After the war he devoted his efforts to advocating greater use of aviation in the military, and criticizing those who resisted the change. In 1921 and 1923 he bombed old American and captured German battleships to demonstrate how easily air power could sink them, which he did. The embarrassed military brass sent him on a trip to Asia, but when Mitchell returned he predicted that Japan would ultimately attack us as it did at Pearl Harbor.

In September 1925 a military airship crashed and killed many on board. Mitchell published a diatribe harshly criticizing his superiors, even accusing them of treason in ignoring the need for good military aviation. He was swiftly brought before a military court, known as a court-martial, for insubordination. He was tried for seven weeks.

Military courts lack the protections guaranteed to civilians in ordinary courts. The jury could not reach a unanimous verdict, which in a federal criminal case would prevent conviction. One juror, widely thought to be the future General Douglas MacArthur, voted for acquittal. But he was outvoted and Mitchell was convicted and sentenced to a humiliating loss of rank and pay. President Coolidge intervened to restore half his pay, but Mitchell quit the military instead.

After Japan's air power attacked and sunk our fleet at Pearl Harbor, Mitchell's views were vindicated. By then he had passed away, but the military restored his rank and President Truman honored him with a medal.

9. Alger Hiss had denied he knew Whittaker Chambers, a former American communist who claimed that Hiss had been passing him State Department secrets for years. Obscure Congressman Richard Nixon was convinced that Hiss was lying and questioned him when he appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee during the Cold War in 1948. Nixon intensely disliked Hiss, who came from the wealthy background of political connections that Nixon initially lacked. Nixon's pursuit of Hiss catapulted Nixon's career on a path that would eventually land him in the White House.

Both Hiss and Chambers testified before the House Committee, contradicting each other. One had to be lying. When Chambers ultimately produced typed documents of State Department information and claimed they came from Hiss, a federal prosecutor in Manhattan indicted Hiss for perjury.

But Hiss could afford the best attorney and had the most impressive array of character witnesses ever assembled. It included two U. S. Supreme Court justices, a former Solicitor General, a former Democratic presidential candidate (John W. Davis) and a future one (Adlai Stevenson). Hiss' jury selection was also superb: the foreman proved to be sympathetic to the liberal and perhaps even communist movement in America.

Hiss did well on the witness stand in his defense, but his attorney probably erred in putting his wife on. His defense counsel was scathing in his attack on the prosecution's star witness, Chambers himself, who admitted that he worked for the communist cause in America.

The jury could not agree on a verdict, splitting with eight in favor of conviction and four against it. Despite testimony that the unlawfully leaked documents were typed on Hiss' typewriter, the four were not convinced beyond reasonable doubt.

As is typical, the government then brought the case for retrial. Prosecutions do better the second time, learning from its mistakes. The judge allowed a broader range of questioning. New defense counsel was weaker, conceding that the leaked documents were typed by the typewriter found in Hiss' possession, but disputing that he typed them. Inexplicably, Supreme Court Justice Frankfurter did not testify for Hiss in the second case.

The defense relied heavily on testimony by a expert witness who was a psychiatrist, who painted Chambers as a pathological liar. But the prosecutor destroyed the witness in one of the most famous cross-examinations in American legal history.

Hiss maintained his innocence until he died, despite the eventual release of secret Soviet files apparently identifying him as a spy. Perhaps Hiss felt he could not go back on his prior statements, or perhaps he remained true to communism in protecting the movement. The case helped define American politics for forty years, propelling Nixon to the Vice Presidency in 1952, Barry Goldwater to the Republican nomination for president in 1964, Nixon to the White House in 1968, and ultimately Ronald Reagan to the White House in 1980, where he awarded Chambers a posthumous Medal of Freedom.

10. In a famous recent trial, former football star O. J. Simpson was acquitted by a jury of the crime of murdering his wife. The key argument in the trial was that the prosecutions' key witness, the policeman who gathered most of the evidence in the case, was shown to have lied, and the jury apparently found the argument that he may have tampered with the evidence credible, at least to the extent of giving them a "reasonable doubt." In an apparently contradictory finding, a different jury found in a civil case ("lawsuit") that O. J. Simpson was responsible for the death of his wife, and assessed civil penalties. Since the standards of proof is "preponderance of evidence" in a civil case, however, it is much easier to prove civil liability to a jury than it is to prove criminal guilt, and hance these results are not necessarily contradictory.

Talk:Jury trial

2007-02-23T14:23:33Z

Franklin.jefferson: re-file Clinton

I don't think that the Clinton trial can properly be listed as a famous jury trial-- trial by the Senate is really a completely different thing. I will write a new article labelled "impeachment" and move this text (without changes) there, and add something else here.
[[User:Franklin.jefferson|Franklin.jefferson]] 09:23, 23 February 2007 (EST)

Nanjing Massacre

2007-02-23T00:27:13Z

Franklin.jefferson:

The Rape of Nanjing (aka Nanking), also known as The Nanjing massacre, was a war crime committed by the Japanese military. the Japanese army exploited and killed thousands of helpless prisoners of war and civilians.

Libertarian Party

2007-02-23T00:26:14Z

Franklin.jefferson: link to libertarianism article

The Libertarian Party is a political [[party]] advocating [[libertarian]] political views (although many libertarians are not members of the Libertarian party]. It has existed since 1971 and reached its peak in popularity in the 1980 election, receiving only about 1% of the vote. This political party is on the ballot in only 27 out of 50 states.

The most effective leader of the Libertarian Party was Congressman Ron Paul, M.D., who switched from the [[Republican]] Party and ran for president on the Libertarian ticket in 1988. Dr. Paul subsequently became a Republican again and was elected to Congress from Texas, where he is considered one of the best conservatives in Congress, although current Republicans have mostly repudiated libertarianism and libertarian philosophy on such matters as fiscal conservatism.

ACLU

2007-02-23T00:16:30Z

Franklin.jefferson: links corrected and added

The '''American Civil Liberties Union''' ('''ACLU''') is a major [[United States|American]] [[non-profit]] [[organization]] with headquarters in [[New York City]], whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the [[United States]]".<ref name="about">{{cite web | title=About Us
| work= American Civil Liberties Union web site | publisher =ACLU
| url=http://www.aclu.org/about/ | accessdate =2006-05-03 }}</ref>
It works through litigation, legislation, and community education.<ref name="about" /> The ACLU reported over 500,000 members at the end of 2005.

[[Lawsuit]]s brought by the ACLU have been influential in the evolution of [[U.S. constitution]]al law.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.aclu.org/scotus/index.html|title=ACLU Supreme Court Cases | accessdate =2006-10-14 }}</ref> The ACLU provides legal assistance in cases in which it considers civil liberties to be at risk. Even when the ACLU does not provide direct legal representation, it often submits ''[[amicus curiae]]'' [[brief (law)|briefs]].

Outside of its legal work, the organization has also engaged in [[lobbying]] of elected officials and political [[activism]].<ref>{{cite news | last =Saunders | first =Dylan
| title =Mock filibuster cut short after Senate calls it quits
| work =Michigan Daily | publisher =University of Michigan | date =[[2006-01-31]]
| url =http://www.michigandaily.com/news/2006/01/31/News/Mock-Filibuster.Cut.Short.After.Senate.Calls.It.Quits-1545353.shtml | accessdate =2006-08-16 }}</ref>
The ACLU is independent and hard to classify on the left/right political spectrum. The ACLU has been critical of elected officials and policies of both [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democrats]] and [[Republican Party (United States)|Republicans]]. However, Republicans consistently rank lower than Democrats in regard to supporting ACLU goals as seen in ACLU voting guides. [http://www.vote-smart.org/issue_rating_detail.php?sig_id=003415M] [[Libertarian]]s have mixed opinions of the ACLU, in general applauding its support of individual liberty, but decrying its support of [[Big government]] policies such as affirmative action.

==Organizational history==
[[Roger Nash Baldwin]] became head of the [[National Civil Liberties Bureau]] (NCLB) in 1917. An independent outgrowth of the [[American Union Against Militarism]], the Bureau opposed American intervention in [[World War I]]. The NCLB provided legal advice and aid for [[conscientious objector]]s and those being prosecuted under the [[Espionage Act of 1917]] or the [[Sedition Act of 1918]]. In 1920, the NCLB changed its name to the American Civil Liberties Union, with Baldwin continuing as its director. [[Helen Keller]], [[Jeannette Rankin]], [[Jane Addams]], [[Crystal Eastman]] and [[Albert DeSilver]], along with other former members of the NCLB, assisted Baldwin with the founding of the ACLU.<ref name="about" />

In the year of its birth the ACLU was formed to protect aliens threatened with [[deportation]], along with U.S. nationals threatened with criminal charges by [[U.S. Attorney General]] [[Alexander Mitchell Palmer]] for their [[communist]] or [[socialist]] activities and agendas<ref name="history">http://www.aclu-cu.org/history.html</ref> (see [[Palmer Raids]]). It also opposed attacks on the rights of the [[Industrial Workers of the World]] (IWW) and other [[trade union|labor union]]s to meet and organize.

In 1940, the ACLU formally barred communists from leadership or staff positions, and would take the position that it did not want communists as members either. The board declared that it was "inappropriate for any person to serve on the governing committees of the Union or its staff, who is a member of any political organization which supports [[totalitarian dictatorship]] in any country, or who by his public declarations indicates his support of such a principle."<ref>{{cite web | url=http://infoshare1.princeton.edu/libraries/firestone/rbsc/finding_aids/aclu1920/ | title=American Civil Liberties Union: The Roger Baldwin Years (1917–1950)}}</ref> The purge, which was led by Baldwin, himself a former supporter of Communism, began with the ouster of [[Elizabeth Gurley Flynn]], a member of both the [[Communist Party of the USA]] and the [[IWW]].<ref>http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/unitarians/baldwin.html</ref>

In the 1988 presidential election, then-[[Vice President]] [[George H.W. Bush]] called then-[[Governor]] [[Michael Dukakis]] a "card-carrying member of the ACLU," which Dukakis proudly acknowledged.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.pbs.org/newshour/debatingourdestiny/dod/1988-broadcast.html | title=Debating Our Destiny: The 1988 Debates}}</ref> The phrase now serves as part of a jocular recruitment slogan for the ACLU.

The [[September 11, 2001 attacks]] and the ensuing debate regarding the proper balance of civil liberties and security including the passage of the [[USA PATRIOT Act]] led to a 20% increase in membership between August 2001 and December 2002, when total enrollment reached 330,000.<ref>http://www.post-gazette.com/localnews/20021202aclusidebarp8.asp</ref> The growth continued, and in August 2004, ACLU membership was at 400,000.<ref>http://www.madison.com/tct/news/images/index.php?ntid=7175&ntpid=0</ref>

==Leadership, funding and organizational structure==
===Leadership===
Currently, the leadership of the ACLU includes Executive Director [[Anthony D. Romero]]<ref>http://www.aclu.org/about/staff/13279res20030205.html</ref> and President [[Nadine Strossen]].<ref>http://www.aclu.org/about/staff/13278res20020211.html</ref> The national board of directors consists of representatives elected by each state affiliate as well as at-large delegates elected by boards of each affiliate. Each state affiliate has an Executive Director and Board of Directors.

Notably, [[Ruth Bader Ginsburg]], a current Justice of the [[Supreme Court of the United States|U.S. Supreme Court]], was the first director of the ACLU's Women's Rights Project.<ref>{{cite news
| title = Ruth Bader Ginsburg
| work =The Oyez Project | date =[[2006-01-31]]
| url =http://www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/legal_entity/107/biography | accessdate =2006-10-06 }}</ref> And [[Judith Krug]], Director of the [[American Library Association]]'s<ref>http://www.ala.org/template.cfm?Section=oif Office for Intellectual Freedom</ref> since 1967,<ref>{{cite web | last =Berry III, Editor-in-Chief | first =John N. | authorlink = | coauthors = | year =Jun. 15, 2005 | url =http://libraryjournal.com/article/CA606394.html | title =The Krug Contribution; She Convinced ALA to Put Its Money Where Its Mouth Is | format = | work =Library Journal | publisher =ALA | accessdate =2006-11-19}}</ref> was for three years concurrently on the Board of Directors of the Illinois Division of the ACLU. "She has been very successful in promulgating the ACLU's views within the country's libraries, and the ACLU has honored her with awards."<ref>{{cite web | last =Biehle | first =Helen Chaffee | authorlink = | coauthors = | year =Jan. 15, 2000 | url =http://www.fflibraries.org/biehle.htm | title =The Internet and the Seduction of the American Public Library | format = | work = | publisher =Family Friendly Libraries | accessdate =2006-11-19}}</ref>

===Funding===
The ACLU receives funding from a large number of sources. The distribution and amount of funding for state affiliates varies from state to state. For example, the ACLU of [[New Jersey]] reported $1.2 million in income to both the ACLU-NJ and its affiliated tax-exempt foundation in the 2005 fiscal year. Of that income, 46% came from contributions, 19% came from membership dues, 18% came from court awarded attorney fees, 12% came from grants, 4% came from investment income and the remainder from other sources. Its expenses in the same period were $800,000, of which 12% went to administration and management {{cite|author=ACLU-NJ|title=Annual Report|publisher=ACLU-NJ|date=2005}} Smaller affiliates with fewer resources, such as that in [[Nebraska]], receive subsidies from the national ACLU.<ref>http://www.aclunebraska.org/faq.htm#10</ref>

====Foundations====
The ACLU and its affiliated tax-exempt foundation receive annual support from the [[Ford Foundation|Ford]], [[Rockefeller Foundation|Rockefeller]], [[Carnegie Corporation of New York|Carnegie]], [[Field Foundation|Field]], [[Tides Foundation|Tides]], [[Gill Foundation|Gill]], [[Arcus Foundation|Arcus]], [[Horizons Fund|Horizons]], and other foundations.<ref>http://www.capitalresearch.org/search/orgdisplay.asp?Org=ACL100</ref>

In October of 2004, the ACLU rejected $1.5 million from both the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations. The Foundations had adopted language from the USA PATRIOT Act into their donation agreements, including a clause stipulating that none of the money would go to "underwriting terrorism or other unacceptable activities." The ACLU views this clause, both in Federal law and in the donors' agreements, as a threat to civil liberties.<ref>http://www.aclusc.org/Page/Clipping/NYTimes/041019Strom.html</ref>

====Court awarded attorney's fees====

The ACLU periodically receives court awarded legal fees. For example, the New Jersey chapter reported receiving 18% for awarded legal fees in the fiscal year 2005. In 2004, these awards made up 3% of their ACLU Foundation funding and 0% of the ACLU.<ref>http://www.acluprocon.org/pop/ACLUStructure.html#budget</ref> The Public Expression of Religion Act of 2005, introduced by Representative [[John N. Hostettler]], seeks to alter prior civil rights legislation to prevent monetary judgements in the particular case of violations of church-state separation.<ref>http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.2679:</ref> Also, groups such as the [[American Legion]] have taken stances opposing the ACLU's right to collect fees under such legislation.<ref>http://www.legion.org/word/aclu.rtf</ref>

Recovery of legal fees by non-profit legal advocacy organizations is common practice. The [[pro-life]] [[Thomas More Law Center]], for example, generally seeks, and is successful in, recovery of legal fees in the same manner as the ACLU.<ref>http://www.thomasmore.org/news.html?NewsID=227</ref><ref>http://www.thomasmore.org/news.html?NewsID=383</ref>

Due to the nature of its legal work, the ACLU is often involved in litigation against governmental bodies, which are generally protected from adverse monetary judgements: a town, state or Federal agency may be required to change its laws or behave differently, but not to pay monetary damages except by an explicit statutory waiver.<ref>http://www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/case/959/</ref><ref>http://www.chainyounger.com/pa_cases_against_government.html#1</ref>

In some cases, the law permits plaintiffs who successfully sue government agencies to collect money damages or other monetary relief. In particular, a 1976 federal law (amended in 1988), the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act leaves the government liable in some civil rights cases. Fee awards under this civil rights statute are considered "equitable relief" rather than damages, and government entities are not immune from equitable relief.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode42/usc_sec_42_00001988----000-.html | title=Title 42 , Chapter 21, Subchapter I, § 1988. Proceedings in vindication of civil rights}}</ref> Under laws such as this, the ACLU and its state chapters sometimes share in monetary judgements against government agencies.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/in08_hostettler/090706peramarkup.html | title=House Judiciary Committee Passes Hostettler's Public Expression of Religion Act}}</ref>

The ACLU has prevailed in numerous church-state cases. The Georgia chapter was awarded $150,000 in fees after suing a county for the removal of a [[Ten Commandments]] display from its courthouse;<ref>http://www.acluga.org/press.releases/0507/barrow.county.html</ref> a second Ten Commandments case in the State, in a different county, led to a $74,462 judgment.<ref>http://www.acluga.org/docket.html</ref> Meanwhile, the State of [[Tennessee]] was required to pay $50,000, the State of [[Alabama]] $175,000, and the State of [[Kentucky]] $121,500, in similar Ten Commandments cases.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2003/07/09/loc_kytencommandments09.html | title=State pays ACLU $121,500 in Ten Commandments fight}}</ref><ref>http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_10cb.htm</ref>

===Organizational structure===
The ACLU has its national headquarters located in New York City. The organization does most of its work through 53 locally based affiliates chapters. The chapters generally correspond to state lines, but [[California]] has three affiliates, [[Pennsylvania]] has two, and [[The Dakotas]] share one. These affiliates maintain a certain amount of autonomy from the national organization, and are able to work independently from each other. Many of the ACLU's cases originate from the local level and are handled by lawyers from the local affiliates.


Affiliates (the state organizations) are the basic unit of the ACLU's organization. In a twenty-month period beginning January 2004, the ACLU's [[New Jersey]] chapter, to take one example, was involved in fifty-one cases according to their annual report -- thirty-five cases in state courts, and sixteen in federal court. They provided legal representation in thirty-three of those cases, and served as amicus in the remaining eighteen. They listed forty-four volunteer attorneys who assisted them in those cases.

Each affiliate is registered as both a 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) entity. All membership dues and tax-deductible donations are shared between the affiliates and the national office. 

==Positions==
While the bulk of the ACLU's cases involve the [[First Amendment]], [[Equal Protection]], [[Due Process]], and the [[Privacy|right to privacy]]<ref>see, ''e.g.'', the [[Louisiana]] chapter's [http://www.laaclu.org/Complaints/complaints.html "Complaint Guidelines"]</ref>, the organization has taken positions on a wide range of issues. Broadly, the ACLU supports:
[[Image:Antonio Villaraigosa.jpg|right|thumb|260px|[[Los Angeles]] Mayor [[Antonio Villaraigosa]] speaking at an [[ACLU]] event. Villaraigosa is a former board member and president of the ACLU Southern California affiliate.]]
*[[Status of religious freedom in the United States|Religious Liberty]]: Defends the individual right of Americans of all religions to practice and/or display affirmations of their faith in public, but not on public property with government sponsorship or endorsement.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.aclu.org/religion/govtfunding/26527res20060824.html | title=The Mt. Soledad Latin Cross: Q&A | accessdate =2006-10-21 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.aclu.org/religion/tencomm/16254res20050302.html | title=ACLU's Defense of Religious Liberty: Q&A | accessdate =2006-10-21}}</ref>
*[[Separation of church and state in the United States|Separation of church and state]]; under this mandate, the ACLU:
**Opposes the government-sponsored display of religious symbols on [[public property]];
**Opposes official prayers, religious ceremonies, and some kinds of "[[moment of silence|moments of silence]]"<ref>http://www.aclu.org/religion/gen/16039res20020311.html</ref> in public schools or schools funded with public money;
*Full [[freedom of speech]] and of the press, including school [[newspaper]]s;
*[[Reproductive rights]], including the right to use [[contraception]] and to have an [[abortion]];
*Full civil rights for [[Lesbian]], [[Gay]], [[Bisexual]] and [[Transgender]] people, including government benefits for homosexual couples equal to those provided for heterosexual ones;
*[[Affirmative action]] as a means of redressing past discrimination and achieving a racially diverse student body;<ref>http://www.aclu.org/RacialEquality/RacialEqualityMain.cfm</ref>
*The rights of [[defendant]]s and suspects against [[Constitutionality|unconstitutional]] [[police]] practices;
*The [[decriminalization]] of [[recreational drug use|drugs]] such as [[heroin]], [[cocaine]] and [[cannabis (drug)|marijuana]];<ref>http://www.aclu.org/DrugPolicy/DrugPolicy.cfm?ID=12401&c=19</ref>
*[[Privacy]] as it "works to preserve the American tradition that the government not track individuals or violate privacy unless it has evidence of wrongdoing."<ref>http://aclu.org/privacy/index.html</ref>
*[[Immigration|Immigrants']] rights by "challenging unconstitutional laws and practices, countering the myths upon which many of these laws are based."<ref>http://aclu.org/immigrants/index.html</ref>

The ACLU has opposed some campaign finance laws such as the [[Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act]], which it considers an inappropriate restriction upon freedom of expression. It does not have a policy of blanket opposition to all laws on campaign finance.<ref>http://rules.senate.gov/hearings/2000/042600murphy.htm</ref>

While the ACLU does oppose the use of crosses in public monuments,<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040331/news_7m31soledad.html | title=Mt. Soledad cross case seems settled}}</ref><ref>http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43799</ref> there have been false allegations that the ACLU has urged the removal of cross-shaped [[headstone]]s from federal [[cemetery|cemeteries]] and has opposed prayer by [[soldier]]s; such charges have been deemed to be [[urban legend]]s.<ref>http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/cemetery.asp</ref>

==Notable historical cases==
Since its founding, the ACLU has been involved in many cases (see the [[List of ACLU Cases]] for a more complete list). A few of the most significant are discussed here.

===1920–1960===
In 1925, the ACLU persuaded [[John T. Scopes]] to defy [[Tennessee]]'s anti-[[evolution]] law in a [[Scopes Trial|court test]]. [[Clarence Darrow]], a member of the ACLU National Committee, headed Scopes' legal team. The ACLU lost the case and Scopes was fined $100. The Tennessee Supreme Court later upheld the law but overturned the conviction on a technicality.<ref>http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/scopes.htm</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/scopeschrono.html | title=The Evolution-Creationism Controversy: A Chronology}}</ref>


In 1954, the ACLU filed an amicus brief in the case of ''[[Brown v. Board of Education]]'', which led to the ban on racial segregation in U.S. [[public school]]s.<ref>http://www.aclu.org/racialjustice/gen/15901lgl19521011.html</ref>

===1960–1990===
In 1968, the ACLU successfully argued against state bans on [[interracial marriage]], in the case of ''[[Loving vs. Virginia]]''.<ref>http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/loving.html</ref>

In 1973, the ACLU was the first major national organization to call for the [[impeachment]] of President [[Richard M. Nixon]], giving as reasons the violation by the Nixon administration of civil liberties.<ref name="history" /> That same year, the ACLU was involved in the cases of ''[[Roe v. Wade]]'' and ''[[Doe v. Bolton]]'', in which the Supreme Court held that the constitutional right of privacy extended to women seeking [[abortion]]s.

In 1977, the ACLU filed suit against the Village of [[Skokie, Illinois]], seeking an injunction against the enforcement of three town ordinances outlawing [[Nazism|Nazi]] parades and demonstrations. Skokie, Illinois at the time had a majority population of Jews, totaling 40,000 of 70,000 citizens. A federal district court struck down the ordinances in a decision eventually affirmed by the [[U.S. Supreme Court]]. The ACLU's action in this case led to a rift between the [[Jewish Defence League]] and the ACLU. According to
David Hamlin, executive director of the Illinois ACLU, "...the Chicago office which chose to provide legal counsel to neo-Nazis who have been planning to march in Skokie, has lost about 25% of its membership and nearly one-third of its budget." 30,000 ACLU members resigned in protest.<ref>http://www.kansaspress.ku.edu/strwhe.html</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=http://cdm.digitalpast.org/cgi-bin/showfile.exe?CISOROOT=/skokiepo001&CISOPTR=36 | title=Membership woes hurt ACLU while others gain}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=http://cdm.digitalpast.org/cgi-bin/showfile.exe?CISOROOT=/skokiepo001&CISOPTR=0 | title=2d suit to block Nazis from Skokie march fails}}</ref>

In his February 23, 1978 decision overturning the town ordinances, US District Court Judge Bernard M. Decker described the principle involved in the case as follows: "It is better to allow those who preach racial hatred to expend their venom in rhetoric rather than to be panicked into embarking on the dangerous course of permitting the government to decide what its citizens may say and hear ... The ability of American society to tolerate the advocacy of even hateful doctrines ... is perhaps the best protection we have against the establishment of any Nazi-type regime in this country."<ref>http://www.lib.niu.edu/ipo/1978/ii781111.html</ref>

In the 1980s, the ACLU filed suit to challenge the [[Arkansas]] 1981 [[creationism]] statute, which required the teaching in public schools of the biblical account of creation as a scientific alternative to evolution. The law was declared unconstitutional by a Federal District Court.<ref>http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mclean-v-arkansas.html</ref>

In 1982, the ACLU became involved in a case involving the distribution of [[child pornography]] (''[[New York v. Ferber]]'', 458 U.S. 747<ref>http://www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/case/279/</ref>) In an amicus brief, the ACLU argued that the [[New York state]] law in question "has criminalized the dissemination, sale or display of constitutionally protected non-obscene materials which portray juveniles in sexually related roles," while arguing that child pornography deemed [[obscene]] under the [[Miller test]] deserved no constitutional protection and could be banned.{{Fact|date=February 2007}}

In a 2002 letter, the ACLU stated that it "opposes child pornography that uses real children in its depictions," but that material "which is produced without using real children, and is not otherwise obscene, is protected under the First Amendment."<ref>http://www.aclu.org/Privacy/Privacy.cfm?ID=10364&c=252</ref>

===1990 to present===

In January 2006, the ACLU filed a lawsuit, [[ACLU v. NSA]], in a federal district court in Michigan, challenging government spying in the [[NSA warrantless surveillance controversy]].<ref>http://www.aclu.org/safefree/nsaspying/23491lgl20060117.html#attach</ref> On August 17, 2006, that court ruled that the warrantless wiretapping program is unconstitutional and ordered it ended immediately.<ref>http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,71610-0.html?tw=wn_index_3</ref><ref>[http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0B11FF3E5A0C7B8DDDA10894DE404482 "U.S. Judge Finds Wiretap Actions Violate The Law"]</ref>

The ACLU and other organizations also filed separate lawsuits around the country against telecommunications companies. The ACLU filed a lawsuit in Illinois (Terkel v. AT&T) which was dismissed because of the [[state secrets privilege]]<ref>http://www.aclu.org/safefree/nsaspying/26235prs20060725.html</ref> and two others in California requesting injunctions against [[AT&T]] and [[Verizon]].<ref>http://www.aclu.org/safefree/nsaspying/25685prs20060526.html</ref> On August 10, 2006, the lawsuits against the telecommunications companies were transferred to a federal judge in San Francisco.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/08/11/BAGRGKGL4S1.DTL&type=politics | title= Surveillance lawsuits transferred to judge skeptical of Bush plan}}</ref>

After the town of [[Hazleton, Pennsylvania|Hazleton]] in [[Pennsylvania]] passed an ordinance to punish landlords who rented to illegal immigrants and businesses who hired illegal immigrants, the ACLU and Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund sued Hazleton, saying the ordinance was unconstitutional.<ref>http://www.aclupa.org/legal/legaldocket/challengetohazletonimmigra.htm</ref><ref>http://civilliberty.about.com/od/historyprofiles/ss/news082206_3.htm</ref>

==Controversial stances==
===First Amendment rights===
The organization's policy is that free speech rights must be available to all citizens and residents of the United States. This policy sometimes leads to cases where the Union defends unpopular people and organizations. The Union has taken on cases to defend the free speech rights of clients as diverse as [[Ku Klux Klan]] members, [[neo-Nazi]] groups, [[North American Man/Boy Love Association]] (a group which promotes lifting all age restrictions on [[pederasty]]).
The ACLU defended [[Frank Snepp]], formerly of the [[Central Intelligence Agency]], from an attempt by the government agency to enforce a [[gag order]] against him.{{Fact|date=February 2007}} In these and other cases, the ACLU has defended the free speech rights of people and organizations even when the content of that speech is in conflict with the ACLU's own positions and goals.

The ACLU also defended Lieutenant Colonel [[Oliver North]],<ref>http://www.aclu.org/freespeech/protest/11289prs20000831.html</ref> whose conviction was tainted by coerced testimony—a violation of his [[Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution|fifth amendment rights]].{{Fact|date=February 2007}}

The ACLU has come out against [[Megan's Law|Megan’s Law]], a law designed to protect children from sex offenders.<ref>http://www.registeredoffenderslist.org/megans-law.htm</ref><ref>http://www.aclu-nj.org/issues/privacy/meganslawstillunderattack.htm</ref> Though the ACLU has fought Megan’s Law(s) in many states, it has been unable to attain significant victories in these cases.{{Fact|date=February 2007}}

George Mason University law professor [[David Bernstein]], in his book "You Can't Say That! The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws" expressly criticizes the ACLU. David Bernstein argues that the ACLU would choose to undermine expressive rights when they are found to be in conflict with antidiscrimination laws, as in the 2000 Supreme Court case of [[Boy Scouts of America v. Dale]].

The ACLU also fought for the [[Westboro Baptist Church]] and [[Shirley Phelps-Roper]] after legislation prevented the group from picketing outside of funerals. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/22/AR2006072200643.html] The Westboro Baptist Church is infamous for their picket signs that contain messages such as, "Thank God for Dead Soldiers" and "Thank God for 9/11". This was a very controversial backing from the ACLU that received much criticism, notably in the blogging world. [http://jonrowe.blogspot.com/2006/07/aclu-defends-phelps-hey-if-nazis-have.html] [http://shoe-fly-pie.blogspot.com/2006/07/aclu-sues-for-anti-gay-group-that.html]
[http://positiveliberty.com/2006/07/aclu-defends-phelps.html]
The ACLU issued a statement calling the legislation "law that infringes on Shirley Phelps-Roper's rights to religious liberty and free speech". [http://www.aclu.org/freespeech/protest/26265prs20060721.html]

===Affirmative action===
[[Civil libertarian]] and former ACLU member [[Nat Hentoff]] has criticized the ACLU for promoting [[affirmative action]] and for supporting speech codes on college campuses and in the workplace.<ref>{{cite news | last=Hentoff | first=Nat | title=ACLU better clean up its act | work=Michigan Daily | publisher=University of Michigan | date=2006-01-31 | url=http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/hentoff092099.asp | accessdate=2006-08-16}}</ref> Also, the organization's support for [[affirmative action]] has been criticized as disregarding the civil rights of those who are discriminated against whether in employment or school admissions.{{Fact|date=February 2007}}

===Gun control===
Although the ACLU categorically embraces a [[Second Amendment to the United States Constitution#Two models|States' Right Model]] interpretation of the [[Second Amendment to the United States Constitution|Second Amendment]], which only recognizes a state's right to possess firearms, the organization officially declares itself "neutral" on the issue of gun control, pointing to previous Supreme Court decisions such as ''[[United States v. Miller]]'' to argue that the Second Amendment applies to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia, and that "except for lawful police and military purposes, the possession of firearms by individuals is not constitutionally protected."<ref name="policepractices">{{cite web | url=http://www.aclu.org/PolicePractices/PolicePractices.cfm?ID=9621&c=25 | title=American Civil Liberties Union: Gun Control}}</ref>

Regarding [[Gun politics|gun control]] laws, the official policy of the national ACLU argues that the Second Amendment is "intended mainly to protect the right of the states to maintain militias to assure their own freedom and security against the central government" and is not intended to "confer an unlimited right upon individuals to own guns or other weapons." Furthermore, the ACLU states "The national ACLU is neutral on the issue of gun control. We believe that the Constitution contains no barriers to reasonable regulations of gun ownership."

The ACLU of Washington State and the [[Second Amendment Foundation]] jointly filed a lawsuit<ref>http://www.aclu-wa.org/detail.cfm?id=557</ref> in November [[2006]] against the North Central Regional Library District (NCRL) in Washington State for its policy of refusing to disable restrictions upon an adult patron's request. Library patrons attempting to access gun web sites such as [http://www.womenandguns.com/ Women & Guns] were blocked, and the library refused to remove the blocks.

===Spam===
The ACLU's stance on [[Spam (electronic)|spam]] is considered controversial by a broad cross-section of political points of view. In 2000 Marvin Johnson, a legislative counsel for the ACLU, stated that proposed anti-spam legislation infringed on free speech by denying anonymity and by forcing spam to be labeled as such: "Standardized labeling is compelled speech." He also stated, "It's relatively simple to click and delete."<ref>http://archives.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/06/09/amend.spam.idg/</ref> This analysis is rejected by many spam fighters as failing to address the effects of spam on network infrastructure and costs.<ref>http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/spam/chapter/ch01.html</ref> This debate found the ACLU joining with the [[Direct Marketing Association]] and the [[Center for Democracy and Technology]] in criticizing a bipartisan bill in the [[House of Representatives]] in 2000; already by 1997 the ACLU had taken a strong position that nearly all spam legislation was improper,<ref>http://www.anu.edu.au/mail-archives/link/link9709/0306.html</ref> although it has supported "[[opt-out]]" requirements in some cases. The ACLU opposed the 2003 [[CAN-SPAM Act of 2003|CAN-SPAM]] act<ref>http://www.aclu.org/freespeech/commercial/10953leg20030730.html</ref> suggesting that it could have a [[chilling effect]] on speech in cyberspace.

===Patriot Act I and II===

The ACLU has been a vocal opponent of the [[USA PATRIOT Act | Patriot act]] of 2001, the [[Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003|PATRIOT 2]] Act, and associated legislation made in response to the threat of domestic terrorism that it believes violates either the letter or the spirit of the [[United States Bill of Rights|U.S. Bill of Rights]]. In response to a requirement of the USA PATRIOT Act, the ACLU withdrew from the [[Combined Federal Campaign]].<ref name="cfc">http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/18526prs20040731.html</ref> The requirement was that ACLU employees must be checked against a federal anti-terrorism watch list. The ACLU has stated that it would rather "reject $500,000 in contributions from private individuals rather than submit to a government 'blacklist' policy."<ref name="cfc" />

''See also: [[American Civil Liberties Union v. Ashcroft (2004)]]''


== References ==
<div class="references-small" style="-moz-column-count:2; column-count:2;">
<references />
</div>

== Bibliography ==
*William A. Donohue, ''The Politics of the American Civil Liberties Union'' (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1985) ISBN 0-88738-021-2
*Peggy Lamson, ''Roger Baldwin: Founder of the American Civil Liberties Union'' (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1976) ISBN 0-395-24761-6
*Samuel Walker, ''In Defense of American Liberties: A History of the ACLU'' (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990) ISBN 0-19-504539-4

==See also==
* [[Freedom (political)]]
* [[Foundation for Individual Rights in Education]]
* [[Institute for Justice]]
* [[List of progressive organizations]]
* [[National Rifle Association]]
* [[Southern Poverty Law Center]]
* [[United States Constitution]]

==External links==
*ACLU sites:
**[http://www.aclu.org Official ACLU site]
**[http://www.aclu.org/2004memberconf/live/history.html Video history of the ACLU]
**[http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=12666&c=206 Freedom Under Fire: Dissent in a Post-9/11 America]
**[http://www.aclu.tv/ The ACLU Freedom Files TV series]
**[http://www.aclu.org/religion/govtfunding/26527res20060824.html Facts about the ACLU and the Public Square]
*Discussion of the ACLU:
**[http://www.topix.net/news/aclu ACLU News from Topix.net]
**[http://www.acluprocon.org/ Is the ACLU good for America?]
*Criticism of the ACLU:
**[http://www.acluvsamerica.com/ The ACLU vs America; Exposing the Agenda to Redefine Moral Values], by [[Alliance Defense Fund]], [[Alan Sears]], and Craig Osten, 2005. ISBN 0-8054-4045-3; 978-0-8054-4045-4
**[http://www.stoptheaclu.org/ Stop the ACLU] a website critical of ACLU positions and tactics.
**“[http://www.wallbuilders.com/resources/search/detail.php?ResourceID=142 Meet The ACLU]” by Wallbuilders

USA PATRIOT Act

2007-02-23T00:10:34Z

Franklin.jefferson: Redirecting to Patriot act

#Redirect[[Patriot act]]

Talk:Karl Popper

2007-02-23T00:04:47Z

Franklin.jefferson:

Deleted a paragraph stating that the statement "black hole exist" is an example of non-falsifiable. By that logic, any statement of existence is not falsifiable: "neutrinos have mass," for example. The inverse statement is certainly falsifiable-- "neutrinos have no mass" is falsifiable by measureing the mass of a neutrino. It is absurd to state that if two scientists make the same measurement, with one saying "I'm trying to see if neutrinos have mass" and the other one says "I'm trying to see if neutrinos have no mass", one is working on science and the other isn't.

Karl Popper

2007-02-22T23:44:17Z

Franklin.jefferson:

Sir Karl Popper (1902-1994) was an insightful Austrian-born philosopher who had an influence on science. Popper observed that science should only include a theory that is "[[falsifiable]]", which means capable of being proven false if it is false. Popper wrote that "the scientific status of a theory is its [[falsifiability]], or refutability, or testability."<ref>http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/popper_falsification.html</ref>

Popper proposed applying his theory of falsification to proposals in ethics and politics. Popper's approach even has merit in debunking claims that "if only ..." something happened, then everything would be better. "If only I were a wealthy man, then ...." There is no way to falsify such claims even if they were false, so there is no point in wasting any time thinking about them.

'''Sources:'''

<references/>

Libertarianism

2007-02-22T23:44:12Z

Franklin.jefferson:

'''Libertarianism''' is a political philosophy emphasizing ''liberty'' and ''property''. A libertarian believes in eliminating most laws concerning moral behavior, including laws against abortion, drug use, same-sex marriage, anticompetitive conduct, trade, and limits on immigration; and in enforcing laws concerning private use of private property. Libertarians tend to attracted to the logical simplicity of the ideas.

There are more libertarians than members of the [[Libertarian Party]]. Libertarians tend to use the word "libertarian" (small "l") to refer to the philosophy, and "Libertarian" (capital "L") to refer to the party.

Libertarianism is not the same as conservatism, although some conservatives have adoped libertarian financial rhetoric. Libertarians tend to view liberalism as a philosophy advocating less government interference in private morality and more government control of business, and view conservatism as a philosophy advocating more government interference in private morality and less government control of business, while they view libertarianism as advocating less government control, period. Neither the [[Democrat]] nor the [[Republican]] [[parties]] are particularly well aligned with libertarian thought. The Republican party, in particular, although adopting libertarian rhetoric of small government in the [[Reagan]] years, has been active in destroying liberty in the United States, implementing [[big government]] policies antithetical to the libertarian ideals. As an example, libertarians are in general opposed to the [[Patriot act]], which increases government power and removes protections on the liberty and privacy of Americans in the interests of enhancing security, while conservatives in general support the Patriot act, since security is seen as being more important than personal liberty and privacy.

While all libertarians agree in general on the principles of the desirability of maximizing individual liberty and avoiding excessive government intereference with the operation of the free market, individual libertarians have opinions that differ wildly within these general principles.

The novelist [[Ayn Rand]] advocated a philosophy of ''Objectivism'', embodying some libertarian thought, although differing from libertarianism in many ways. Some of her novels, such as ''Atlas Shrugged'', have become icons of the libertarian movement.

John McCain

2007-02-22T22:58:08Z

Franklin.jefferson:

'''John Sidney McCain III''' (born August 29, 1936) is the frontrunner to become the presidential nominee for the Republican Party in 2008, earned as a result being the runner-up in the last contested Republican presidential primary. Since at least 1976, the runner-up in the Republican primary has become the nominee in the next election cycle, as Republican primary voters respect seniority.

However, McCain may be weaker than prior front-runners. He skipped the first primary in Iowa in 2000 because he is weak there, and only did well in New Hampshire based on strong independent support. Those independents may flock to a more interesting Democratic primary in 2008. McCain is likely to be weak again in the following primary in South Carolina, where independents are not allowed to vote in the [[2008 Republican Primary]].

McCain is currently the senior U.S. Senator from Arizona. He was a prisoner of war (POW) in Vietnam and acquired wealth through his second marriage. He has curried favor with the media as an alternative to more conservative Republicans.

McCain's political record has been generally conservative, but he has alienated some conservatives on several important issues:

1. Immigration. In 2005-2006, McCain joined with liberal Senator Ted Kennedy to support a sweeping bill that reformed the tangled mass of immigration law, but in some ways was was favorable to illegal aliens. It has not passed.

2. Same-sex marriage. In 2006, McCain joined [[Democrat]]s and liberal Republicans in voting against the Federal Marriage Amendment, a proposed constitutional amendment to forbid non-traditional marriage. Later, on ''Hardball'', McCain took a [[Libertarian]] position, "On the issue of the gay marriage, I believe that people want to have private ceremonies, that's fine."
McCain's home state of Arizona was the only state to defeat a marriage referendum (in 2006), as McCain did nothing to support it.

3. "Gang of 14". On May 23, 2005, McCain was part of a group of 14 Senators who blocked the planned "nuclear option" for confirming blocked Republican nominees for the bench. Under this compromise a few judicial nominees were allowed to be confirmed (Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen and William Pryor), but others (e.g., Henry Saad) remained blocked and had to withdraw.

4. Campaign finance. McCain advocated campaign finance reform, something opposed by many conservative on [[Libertarian]] grounds that it interferes with the right to free speech. In 2002, McCain joined with liberal Democrat Russell Feingold to prohibit independent groups from advertising about a candidate within many weeks of an election. This law prohibits ads that do not even recommend for whom to vote, but merely urge people to contact their representatives concerning a vote that the representatives will make in Congress. A court recently declared this unconstitutional. Further, the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law allows Indian nations (which get nearly all their money from unregulated casinos) to make unlimited political donations, even though political donations by American citizens are strictly limited and political spending by corporations is prohibited.

5. Torture. McCain opposed renewal of the [[Patriot act]] on the grounds that it endorses use of torture, something which he opposes based on his experience as a POW in Vietnam. While he eventually removed his opposition to the renewal of the act, he added language to the renewal act prohibiting torture, despite threat of a presidential veto if such language was added. This position alienates many conservatives, who believe that torture is a tool that can and should be used against terrorists.

6. Tax cuts. McCain opposed President George W. Bush's tax cuts, on the argument that cutting taxes without also cutting spending was not actually a tax cut, but was a tax on future generations.

7. Criticism of the religious right. In his unsuccessful campaign in 2000, McCain criticized elements of the religious right in an attempt to attract voters.

8. Embryonic stem cell research. McCain supports embryonic stem cell research as a member of the Republican Main Street Partnership.

9. John McCain, like Gary Hart and John Tower before him, is at the complete mercy of the media. The media could destroy McCain's public reputation based on his role in the Keating Five scandal, and the media can be expected to do so in a general election.

10. An intangible, but a very important one, is the issue of trust. Many people, particularly evangelicals, do not trust McCain. That can be an insurmountable problem for a presidential candidate. However, recently, McCain has attempted to reach out to evangelical leaders to regain their trust. An example was his recent speech at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University.

John McCain

2007-02-22T22:45:24Z

Franklin.jefferson:

'''John Sidney McCain III''' (born August 29, 1936) is the frontrunner to become the presidential nominee for the Republican Party in 2008, earned as a result being the runner-up in the last contested Republican presidential primary. Since at least 1976, the runner-up in the Republican primary has become the nominee in the next election cycle, as Republican primary voters respect seniority.

However, McCain may be weaker than prior front-runners. He skipped the first primary in Iowa in 2000 because he is weak there, and only did well in New Hampshire based on strong independent support. Those independents may flock to a more interesting Democratic primary in 2008. McCain is likely to be weak again in the following primary in South Carolina, where independents are not allowed to vote in the [[2008 Republican Primary]].

McCain is currently the senior U.S. Senator from Arizona. He was a prisoner of war (POW) in Vietnam and acquired wealth through his second marriage. He has curried favor with the media as an alternative to more conservative Republicans.

McCain's political record has been generally conservative, but he has alienated some conservatives on several important issues:

1. Immigration. In 2005-2006, McCain joined with liberal Senator Ted Kennedy to support a sweeping bill that reformed the tangled mass of immigration law, but in some ways was was favorable to illegal aliens. It has not passed.

2. Same-sex marriage. In 2006, McCain joined [[Democrat]]s and liberal Republicans in voting against the Federal Marriage Amendment, a proposed constitutional amendment to forbid non-traditional marriage. Later, on ''Hardball'', McCain took the [[Libertarian]] position, "On the issue of the gay marriage, I believe that people want to have private ceremonies, that's fine."
McCain's home state of Arizona was the only state to defeat a marriage referendum (in 2006), as McCain did nothing to support it.

3. "Gang of 14". On May 23, 2005, McCain was part of a group of 14 Senators who blocked the planned "nuclear option" for confirming blocked Republican nominees for the bench. Under this compromise a few judicial nominees were allowed to be confirmed (Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen and William Pryor), but others (e.g., Henry Saad) remained blocked and had to withdraw.

4. Campaign finance. In 2002, McCain joined with liberal Democrat Russell Feingold to prohibit independent groups from advertising about a candidate within many weeks of an election. This law prohibits ads that do not even recommend for whom to vote, but merely urge people to contact their representatives concerning a vote that the representatives will make in Congress. A court recently declared this unconstitutional.

5. On gambling, the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law allows Indian nations (which get nearly all their money from unregulated casinos) to make unlimited political donations, even though political donations by American citizens are strictly limited and political spending by corporations is prohibited.

6. Tax cuts. McCain opposedPresident George W. Bush's tax cuts, on the argument that cutting taxes without also cutting spending was not actually a tax cut, but was a tax on future generations.

7. Criticism of the religious right. In his unsuccessful campaign in 2000, McCain criticized elements of the religious right in an attempt to attract voters.

8. Embryonic stem cell research. McCain supports embryonic stem cell research as a member of the Republican Main Street Partnership.

9. John McCain, like Gary Hart and John Tower before him, is at the complete mercy of the media. The media could destroy McCain's public reputation based on his role in the Keating Five scandal, and the media can be expected to do so in a general election.

10. An intangible, but a very important one, is the issue of trust. Many people, particularly evangelicals, do not trust McCain. That can be an insurmountable problem for a presidential candidate. However, recently, McCain has attempted to reach out to evangelical leaders to regain their trust. An example was his recent speech at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University.

Ronald Wilson Reagan

2007-02-22T22:31:36Z

Franklin.jefferson: removed silly additions

February 6, 1911- June 5, 2004. The fortieth President of the United States from 1981-1989, following [[Democrat]] [[Jimmy Carter]] and preceeding Republican [[George H. W. Bush]] and Democrat [[William J. Clinton]]. Considered by many to be the greatest American [[President]], Ronald Reagan's greatest accomplishments include leading America peacefully through the [[Cold War]], lowering [[taxes]], promoting a free economy, and staunchly opposing socialism and communism, and ending the Cold War in victory for the United States. Reagan was strongly opposed to the concept of [[Big government]], advocating a reduction in the size and budget of the federal government, although during his terms in office the government size and budget both increased rather than decreasing. During his terms in office, he faced a [[Divided government]] split between Republican and Democrat control. Reagan also served two terms as governor of [[California]] from 1967–1975.

In one of his most famous challenges to Soviet Communism in Europe, he publicly uttered the words, "Mr. [[Mikhail Gorbachev|Gorbachev]], tear down this wall," before the tearing down of the [[Berlin Wall]] separating East and West Germany. He also introduced the idea of "[[Reaganomics]]" in which the rich would spend money which would trickle down to the poor.

[[Image:Gorbachev reagan bush.gif]]

Patriot Act

2007-02-22T22:19:37Z

Franklin.jefferson:

The '''Patriot Act''' (formally, the `Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT ACT) Act of 2001') was an act passed by the [[Republican]] [[congress]] following the 2001 attacks on World Trade Center. It removed a certain number of liberties from American citizens, including such things as the right of habeas corpus and the requirement for a search warrent, since of course freedom might be used by terrorists against America, and hence freedom is the enemy of security.

Long ago patriots said things like "Give me liberty, or give me death", but today we say "take away my liberties, that's ok, patriotism means security not liberty."

==Links==
*[http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162.html Text of Patriot act]
*[http://www.aclu.org/safefree/resources/17343res20031114.html discussion of Patriot Act]
*[http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:h.r.03162: LIbrary of Congress info on Patriot Act]
*[http://www.ala.org/cfapps/archive.cfm?path=washoff/Patriotres.html view of American Library Association]
*[http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2006/01/patriot-games-terrorism-law-and.php view of the Jurist]

American Civil War

2007-02-22T22:06:37Z

Franklin.jefferson: removed silly additions

The American Civil War was a war in the [[United States of America]] between the North and the South. The North wanted the South to give up its slaves. The South wanted to keep its slaves and lower tariffs. The South had the upper hand at the beginning of the war, but the North came out the winner. Slavery was abolished for the most part and [[Reconstruction|reconstruction]] took over. One key battle and a bloody one was the [[Battle of Gettysburg]], following which [[Abraham Lincoln]] gave his [[Gettysburg Address]].

==Other Names==
In the South, it is known as the [[War of Northern Aggression]], although the war began when [[Fort Sumter]], a Northern outpost, was attached by Southern secessionists. It is also known as "The War between the States".