Recent Comments

1. about 16 hours ago on Calvin and Hobbes

   Since the Founders (and the vast majority of the American population) were Christian at that time, I’ll accept their understanding as referring to the Abrahamaic God, considered to be the universal God. They were not referring to some impersonal force, as if “Creator” was a word that meant little to them. Jefferson had written a clause blaming the King for encouraging the slave trade (which was struck from the final document, due to the insistence of some of the southern states that it be removed). In that clause, he referred to the King’s “cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain.” Jefferson and the other Founders were descendants of the largely Christian settlers of 17th century. Jamestown and Plymouth began a progression toward the liberty that Jefferson put to paper. This in no way forces the Christian religion on anyone. And it is also not to say that the settlers were perfect. (I challenge anyone to present a culture that was perfect.) But the ideals of liberty began at Jamestown and Plymouth. For Jefferson and the other Founders, it is simply a universal (“self-evident”) truth that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights.”

2. about 20 hours ago on Calvin and Hobbes

   I agree. But both Washington and Jefferson were lifelong Anglicans. Some try to twist Jefferson’s alleged deism into saying the Founders were not religious. (Jefferson never personally claimed to be a deist. Although his views were unorthodox, he claimed to be a follower of the morals of Jesus.) America was one of the first countries where denominations learned to live in peace. Jefferson and others had the Thirty Years War in Europe and other smaller conflicts in mind when they formulated the ideas behind freedom of religion. They rightly condemned such conflicts and believed “that the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds; that [Whereas] Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments, or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do, but to extend it by its influence on reason alone.” “Endowed by their Creator” refers clearly to God.

3. about 21 hours ago on Calvin and Hobbes

   Or stealing, or killing, or property damage, or slavery, or… I could go on. Intolerance is not always the motivation behind evil.

4. 1 day ago on Frank and Ernest

   Truth! I’ve gotten in the habit of getting there about 15 minutes after “starting” time. They’re usually still running previews or just starting the feature I came to see.

5. 1 day ago on Calvin and Hobbes

   The Declaration was the beginning of a “world turned upside down,” and Thomas Jefferson and others knew it when it was written.

   Fact: New Jersey’s constitution in 1776 allowed women to vote. This lasted for over 20 years, when that constitution was amended. Wyoming and Utah led the charge for nationwide suffrage for women. Fact: Black males, on paper, were granted the right to vote via the 15th amendment, although the struggle would continue against bigotry for another century. Fact: The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 granted Native Americans full U.S citizenship, while leaving it to the states to decide suffrage for those within their borders. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 finally settled the issue nationwide. Progress often comes in steps, rather than leaps.

   You have to remember that at the time of the Declaration, most countries did not allow anyone a say in their government or only allowed the rich and nobility to have a voice. The Declaration, and then the US Constitution, were the beginning of difficult, but needed, steps in living out the truths that “all men are created equal” and that “they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” That “the consent of the governed” should include more than just landowners was not immediately clear in the world of the Founders. Voting rights were left largely to the states to decide, as the body of the Constitution does not say much about it. Still, much progress has been made and, regardless of the progress, the large majority agree that there are rightful limits to voting, i.e., criminal activity or non-citizenship. Be thankful we live in a nation that has seen such progress and liberty, and yet has laws against those actions that would harm others or their property.

6. 1 day ago on Peanuts

   Snoopy’s second answer:

   не называй меня раздражительным

7. 1 day ago on Peanuts

   что ты делаешь со мной, малыш? Ты называешь это катанием?

8. 1 day ago on Peanuts Begins

   Prayers for your husband and for you.

9. 5 days ago on Red and Rover

   I think Rover swallowed the squeaker.

10. 7 days ago on Red and Rover

    Love it!