The Second Ammendment Lobby and Police Safety

[TheCurmudgeon]

I'll just content myself with gazing at wonderment at your words:

"Freedom is not an individual thing; it's a collective thing."

Carl, in this case AP is right. After studying legitimacy for some time it is clear that the idea that freedom only exists in a group is well understood. A person alone on a desert island has no need to define freedom or liberty. These are terms that can have meaning in relation to other people or to a government.

Slap,

Jefferson was about as close to an atheist as you could get in the eighteenth century. He did not feel that religion had any business injecting itself in government.

In Query XVII of Notes on the State of Virginia, he clearly outlines the views which led him to play a leading role in the campaign to separate church and state and which culminated in the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom: "The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. ... Reason and free enquiry are the only effectual agents against error.[2] Jefferson's religious views became a major public issue during the bitter party conflict between Federalists and Republicans in the late 1790s when Jefferson was often accused of being an atheist.

As for the "Protestant ethic" idea, I can see why many people might feel that way. The Protestants were seen as being more industrious, but it had little to do with religion but had more to do with national identity. Check out Laih Greenfeld's "The Spirit of Capitalism". From a review.

Nationalism appeared in England during the sixteenth century, thereby “transforming social consciousness by 1600.” This developing sense of national identity, in turn, imbued the nation with a “new spirit” or “motive force,” thus giving England, despite its paltry resources, a competitive edge over other societies (p. 23). This is Max Weber with a twist. Nationalism, as defined by Greenfeld, replaces Weber’s “Protestant ethic” as the real spirit of capitalism and provides all the things that Weber’s Protestantism could not: egalitarian attitudes, social mobility, free labor markets, personal dignity, international competition, and a commitment to constant growth.

Of course, this is only a theory, but national identity was taking the place of religious identity in England and did the same in America. In America it did it with a vengeance. We even went to far as to attempt to create our own language by changing the spelling of certain words.

Webster believed that the fledgling country needed its own textbooks and a codified language around which to unite. He wrote, “Now is the time and this the country in which we may expect success in attempting changes to language, science, and government. Let us then seize the present moment and establish a national language as well as a national government.” His speller, later reader, and grammar all incorporated American heroes and authors with the goal of creating national symbols to galvanize the country. Between 1783 and the early 1900s it is estimated that Webster’s spelling book sold nearly 100 million copies. Over 30 influential textbooks followed, including History of the United States, the nation’s first full-length history. - See more at: http://connecticuthistory.org/noah-w....5spTfn0Z.dpuf