Jon Voight gives Obama a smackdown

Dang, I can never figure out which of the Hollywood elite we are supposed to listen to…

Personally, I disagree with Mr. Voight's letter because of our politics, but the idea that the Jewish people gave us most of our laws is a flat-out lie. While I respect the Ten Commandments as a moral code, our government is not based on them, what-so-ever.

Just look at the first commandment, "I am the Lord thy God, you shall have no other gods before me." Our Constitution directly contradicts this, "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion."

Remembering the Sabbath, honoring your parents, taking the Lord's name in vain, wanting your neighbor's things, none of these are remotely illegal in the United States. The only Commandments which are represented in US law are "Thou shall not kill;" "thou shall not steal;" and "thou shall not bear false witness". Murder, larceny, and perjury are illegal, but these laws are just 3 out of the 10 commandments, and are not "most laws we live by today." Sorry, it just bothers me when people make indefensible claims like this.

Braden - I would commend to you the following quote of Thomas Jefferson in an 1813 letter which is part of the noteworthy Jefferson/Adams correspondence which took place after each man had largely ended his public career: "In extracting the pure principles which he [Jesus] taught, we should have to strip off the artificial vestments in which they have been muffled by priests, who have travestied them in to various forms, as instruments of riches and power to themselves. . .There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man." Jefferson was referring to his manuscript which he completed in 1804 and entitled, "The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth. In 1820, Jefferson completed his reworked and revised 1804 manuscript into "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth." This was first officially published in 1904. The Smithsonian Insitution has the original cut and paste version of this manuscript, which was not discovered until 1895. You've likely heard of the "Jefferson Bible" which was Jefferson's distillation with scissors and paste of the King James Bible from 773,000 words down to 25,000 (eliminating the divinity, prophecy, trinity and miracles of Jesus). Jefferson wrote, "I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus." Now, let's turn to the Old Testament. You will find in the Torah (the first 5 Books of the Old Testament), the principles that form the foundation of our individual state's laws on contract, tort, property, debtor-creditor, agency, inheritance, trust and family law, not to mention criminal law as to property crimes and crimes against persons. You will even find the degrees of homicide, with lying in wait to murder someone (what we call premediation) as the most serious kind of murder. One of my most significant realizations after completing law school 28 years ago was the astonishing reality that Judaism is the basis for our American common and statutory law in the individual states. An exception needs to be noted for Lousiana whose state laws are based upon the Napoleonic Code. So, my friend, there is much for you to learn. One of the great pleasures I had many years ago was to attend a federal bankruptcy discharge hearing in which a group of persons who were completing their Chapter 7 bankruptcies were treated to a summary of the Hebrew origins of US federal bankruptcy law by federal bankruptcy Judge Peder K. Ecker. In explaining the right to file bankruptcy to discharge one's debts in bankruptcy, Judge Ecker explained the basis from the Bible of discharge of debts, the charging of interest and usury, foreclosure and the right to redeem property from one's creditors (which passed to the children of the debtor), and even the Year of Jubiliee every 50 years when foreclosed property was returned to the family of the persons from whom it had been taken by foreclosure. But in order to understand and realize all of this you would first have to be a student of the law, and then a student of the Bible. I commend both to you! Happy Fourth of July!

Those claims are easily defended. You just are circling so far around the issue (you hate religion, Christians or Jews) Taking the Lords name in vain was illegal. You could and would be fined and/or jailed. There is no such phrase in ANY government documents that says "separation of church and state." That is just some liberal mutterings, but you knew that. But I have heard "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their CREATOR with certain unalienable Rights, … Imagine that they believed we had a Creator. Just aggravates me when liberals deny God and the Word.