I hate this state.

I don’t understand why they bother.  The real commandments they follow don’t look a whole lot like the ones they’re going to post anyway.  But I guess, “I am the Limbaugh thy god, and thou shalt have no other talk-radio hosts before me,” might be a little too honest.

I’m sure they’ll post the Wiccan Rede soon, too, just to be fair.

(Used to live in OK. It’s awful in places - worse than Texas, IMHO.)

Wow.  So apparently the state of Oklahoma is immune from the financial meltdown and has no pressing matters to deal with and thus they are deliberately setting themselves up to engage in the inevitable (expensive) legal battle over this.  Fiscal responsibility!  Unless posting the 10 Commandments is their economic plan.  Which does not seem beyond the realm of possibility.

Sometimes I think it would be better for everyone concerned if Texas and Oklahoma went ahead and secceeded.  Yeah it would be a dissaster for the people who stayed there but it would make the United States a much more rational place.

I wonder which version of the 10 commandments they are planning to use.  I bet they don’t even realize that different groups of Christians have slightly different versions.  I would like to see a big argument break out among different groups saying that the other doesn’t want to use the right 10 commandments, but places like this are rarely diverse enough to have groups of Christians that differ that much from each other.

I’m sure it’s no accident that it looks like something taken from a Technicolor movie.  I wonder if they have some grainy black and white newsreels playing nearby.

Pennylane, lol. Come to think of it, I HAVE sat through several sermons where the pastor insisted that if people would give MORE of their money to the church, God would save them from their financial problems by increasing their wages. Hmm.

John Rove, we’ve had that fight before. It wouldn’t just be a disaster for me an Amanda and the other liberal Texans - it’d be a disaster for the U.S. We aren’t equipped to handle that kind of massive displacement. Let’s STOP arguing about this every time TX and OK do stupid stuff, please?

Catgirl, I expect they aren’t going to post the extended version that says that disrespecting your parents gets the death penalty. Then again, maybe they will.

The 10 Commandments are all over the Supreme Court building.  However, they exist only in a representative state; i.e., ten roman numerals.  Moses was one of our great lawgivers and the 10 commandments do form part of the basis of our common law.  I would have no objection to a tablet with the numerals I through X on it, especially if it were flanked by Hammurabi’s Code and Justinian’s Code. 

The display as shown is going to be struck down.  The Court has been all over the map in these cases but this display is so blatetantly pedantic I can’t see how it will survive.

Ah, Oklahoma…I’ve driven across it more than once. Extremely nice people, if you’re white and middle-class or better, anyway. Collectively dumber than a box of rocks. You have to love the fact that the entire state is beautiful - green river valleys, rolling plains, lovely hills - except for one little patch in the middle which is an ugly scrub plain. That’s where they put the capital city, and all the people, naturally.

Moses was one of our great lawgivers and the 10 commandments do form part of the basis of our common law.

Eh, not really. The Code of Hammurabi is a lot better in some respects, as I recall.

The ten commandments don’t “form part of the basis of our common law” in any real sense as the commandments themselves have no penalties or legal repercussions attached. Seriously, it’s just “Thou shalt not X” for the most part, not “Thou shalt not do X, except under these circumstances, or else Y will happen.” (Which is where the CoH is more sophisticated.)

Even when you delve into the meat of the text surrounding the commandments, it’s all pretty crummy. Kick a man in the balls because he’s trying to kill your husband? You get mutilated. Get yourself raped in your own backyard? You get stoned. Good stuff like that. And there’s NO standing for “intent”, i.e. no manslaughter versus second degree murder.

And, frankly, “don’t kill people” was around LONG before Moses. So, no, I don’t see why it needs to be on our law-buildings, even with the “historical” reasons attached. IMHO.

Also: That picture is ugly. Really ugly. Is that seriously what they are going to put up? It’a crime against the eyes - looks like something out of a Sunday School nursery book.

Also, also: I can’t tell from the picture, but I’m curious to know what they do with the “kill / murder” issue. The KJV (which is heavy on the ‘thou shalts’ which I CAN see in the picture) says “kill”, but the newer versions refine that to “murder” which is a whole ‘nother kettle of fish.

Now, for me personally, I think the KJV is about as crappy a translation as one can get. But that’s not the POINT. If they are going to keep the KJV authoritative “thou shalts” they should keep the “kill”.

And that, friends, would crack me up.

Essie:

I think you greatly under-estimate the importance of the 10 Commandments on the history of our law.  They were the basis of Torah and Talmud.  The legalism of the Jews (over-legalism to some) greatly influenced Medieval Law.  The discussions in Talmud are evocative, to me, of stare decisis 

However, the whole idea of statutory law rather than precedence law was more influenced by the Hammurabi tradition.  That flowered finally in the corpus juris civilis of Rome.

My point was, however, that I have no objection to Moses being one of a series of historal characters on a freize on the USSC provided that the actual text is not displayed.

I think you greatly under-estimate the importance of the 10 Commandments on the history of our law.  They were the basis of Torah and Talmud.  The legalism of the Jews (over-legalism to some) greatly influenced Medieval Law.

At that point, however, it’s just a continuum of human evolution. If Moses affected American law via a series of steps like this:

Moses—> Torah and Talmud—> Medieval Law—> British Law—> American Law

Then you’re just drawing an arbitrary line when you credit Moses. You can say that the guy before Moses had the same influence on American law, because Moses didn’t invent this stuff out of whole cloth. And, to me, “basis” implies a more causal relationship than the line above - which reminds me of the Telephone Game.

But that’s just me.

IIRC, Essie, the (most significant) guy (immediately) before Moses would be Akhnaten, and he was influenced by….

Please remind me again where and when it was that Jews played an influential role in the development of any post-Roman legal code during the Medieval period?  Gotta call the flag on this one.

Within “Christendom” that is…

Well, Dr. Psycho, I think my point is just that if we’re using “basis of our legal system” (or whatever) to actually mean “preceeded us and was part of our legal evolutionary development”, then I really must insist that our legal buildings also include a caveman with a picture depicting that taking food from your neighbor’s cave on the Holy Stormy Days will provoke the wrath of the Angry Thunder Gods and cause you to be smote.

Similarly, incest is wrong because it causes flooding in the low lands.

Again, it’s my opinion that the impact of the 10C’s on our current legal system is meaningful in any way other than just a historical, interest factoid. It’s certainly not close enough to our legal system today that I want the SC refering to the “wisdom of Leviticus” in their judgments, for cripes sake.

And, really, displaying for historical purposes is just a handy excuse to get your way. Says the woman who sees “historical” Confederate flags daily…

Catgirl, I expect they aren’t going to post the extended version that says that disrespecting your parents gets the death penalty. Then again, maybe they will.

I don’t just mean extreme stuff like that that people just like to ignore.  There are variations in wording, order, and even how the rules are divided up (for example, coveting your neighbor’s wife or his other possessions is sometimes one rule, sometimes two separate rules.  Then of course there is the kill vs. murder debate.  Anyway, this is what Wikipedia has to say about it (sorry I don’t know the HTML formatting for hyperlinks):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_commandments#Text_of_the_Ten_Commandments

Considering that only two of the commandments are actually current laws (stealing and murdering), it’s a stretch to justify using them as a symbol of the basis of our laws.  Sure, they originally played a part in shaping our laws, but I think our current laws are actually based on moving away from the ten commandments.  It’s no longer illegal to not worship the Christian God, and adultery is not illegal (although it can be grounds for divorce).  Lying is only illegal if it’s done under oath or to con someone out of money or health.  Business can now be open on Sundays, and I don’t think coveting was ever illegal, as it would be almost impossible to enforce.  So when it comes down to it, our laws line up with the 10 commandments only in that it’s illegal to murder and steal, and I certainly think we would have come up with those regardless of the historical religious influence on our laws.

Zerodivisor:

The influence on English commercial law was huge.  The credit agreement, the lein, etc., etc.  The Normans broght that stuff to England.

I don’t have an electronic copy, but:

The Shetar’s Effect on English Law
by Judith A. Shapiro
Georgetown Law Review
v. 71, pp 1179-1200

Catgirl:

And perjury and adultery (some jurisdictions).

You know, it always strikes me as odd that are some many fucked up wack jobs in OK. When I was younger, my uncle was a professor at OSU in Stillwater & we would visit him there at least once a year. I don’t seem to remember everybody being so jesusy.

The influence on English commercial law was huge.  The credit agreement, the lein, etc., etc.  The Normans broght that stuff to England.

None of which, however, is in the actual text of the 10C’s. I think we can all agree on that.

Anyway, I do agree with Magis’ main point which is (I think) that displaying a representation of the 10C’s (i.e. stone tablet with some Roman numerals on it) is a whole different thing than displaying the actual text of the 10C’s.

I too agree with the main point, but one law review article about how anglo-norman law adapted to deal with non-feudal debt contracts, particularly in the context of the longstanding goal of the Norman Dukes/Kings to break the independent power of their vassals, is a long way from “a huge influence on English commercial law”, which is itself a long way from “greatly influencing Medieval law”.  Apologies for the pedantry, that kind of hyperbole gets my goat sometimes.

Even representing the Ten Commandments is promoting Christianity.  The bullshit about it being a basis for civil law is, y’know, a huge steaming pile of bullshit.  Or maybe that’s just an atheist being too sensitive about being excluded from participating in the law.  Probably I’m just overreacting.

Well, kaninchen, as you know, all atheists lack basic morality and would break the law in a heartbeat if only there wasn’t the threat of punishment hanging over them at every moment. :-p

I’ve always been confused how something that says “you must follow X god”, posted prominently in an imposing government building, could be anything OTHER than political endorsement of that god.

To test my theory, I insist that OK put the gods on a trial rotation and see if the Christian’s mind when it’s Thor’s turn.

I’m just wondering if every time I go to the court house and say “Yes please I would like to serve on a jury I think it’s important as an American” only to be told “You don’t have any sense of right and wrong so no” means I have some kind of pre-existing M’Naghten thing going on and could slaughter anyone I felt like and only have to worry about incarceration in a mental hospital.

Zero:

After 1230, Maimonides is quoted increasingly by name, apparently first by Roland of Cremona, who was trained at Toulouse ca. 1230–34. Aspects of Maimonides’s thought were condemned in Giles of Rome’s Errores philosophorum, but this did not keep Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas from using his ideas for the development of their philosophical systems.

Arlo Vanderjagt

[Moyses] Maimonides is typically regarded as the greatest of the medieval Jewish philosophers. His work is unhesitatingly rationalist in spirit, both in his attempts to provide rational grounds for traditional Jewish law and in his picture of philosophy and rational inquiry as constitutive of the end of the perfection of the soul. Much of this stems from Maimonides’ being heavily influenced by the work of Aristotle. His influence has been vast, both on the Jewish and Christian traditions (ranging from Aquinas to Spinoza). By achieving a synthesis between Hebraism and Hellenism, revelation and reason, Maimonides laid the foundation for the extraordinary contribution that Jews made to Western literature, music, science, technology, law, politics, cinema, academia, commerce, finance, medicine and art.

New World Encyclopædia Online

Emphasis mine

A law review article and now an encyclopedia entry?  Seriously though…

I do not dispute that Maimonides (born 700 years into the medieval period, btw) is the greatest medieval Jewish philosopher.  Nor do I dispute that Jews have continued to make important contributions to Western civilization, including the law, in the subsequent 900 years after his death.  I merely claim that the medieval period in Europe was complex and variable, that your initial statement that Jewish legalism greatly influenced medieval law is at best hyperbole, and that strong claims should be backed by strong evidence.

From Richard the Lionheart (I):

Richard, by the grace of God, King of England, duke of Normandy, &c;., to his archbishops, bishops, &c;., greeting:

I.-Know ye that we have granted and, by the present charter, confirmed, to Ysaac,  son of Rabbi Joe, and his sons and their men, all their customs and liberties just as the Lord King Henry, our father, granted and by his charter confirmed to the Jews of England and Normandy, namely: to reside in our land freely and honorably, and to hold all those things from us which the aforesaid Isaac and his sons held in the time of Henry the King, our father, in lands, and fiefs, and pledges, and gifts, and purchases, viz., Hame, which Henry, our father, gave them for their service, and Thurroc, which the said Isaac bought of the Count of Ferrars, and all the houses, and messuages, and pledges which the said Isaac and his sons had in our land in the time of King Henry, our father.

[...]

VI.-Let them go whithersoever they will with all their chattels just like our own goods and let no one keep them or prevent them.  And if a Christian debtor dies, who owes money to a Jew, and the debtor has an heir, during the minority of the heir let not the Jew be disturbed of his debt unless the land of the heir is in our hands.

VII.-And we order that, the Jews through all England and Normandy be free of all customs and of tolls and modiation of wine just like our own chattels, and we command and order you to ward and defend and protect them, and we forbid any one against this charter about the aforesaid to put the said Jews into plea on our forfeit.

Hyperbole is it?

So you never heard of <u>The Merchant of Venice?</u>

So tell me this, you see no direct connection between the 3rd Commandment about doing no work and keeping the Sabbath holy and the various and sundry “Blue Laws?”  I still can’t buy a bottle of whiskey or buy a car on Sunday.  Honest.

btw
I haven’t seen you attempt to back your statements.

So you never heard of The Merchant of Venice?

Whoa, as a former English Major, I have to pull you over and give you a citation if you’re going to use Shakespeare as a historical argument.

An awesome writer, but extremely fast and loose with historical facts.

Essie:

True, but the point is the Jewish money lenders were well known enough to be the subject of the day’s popular fiction.

I started that off with a charter from Richard I.  Obviously some great favor had been done for the King.  Like maybe financing his Crusade adventure?  Dunno.

I say let them have their ten commandments showpiece but only if they agree to an animatronic Charlton Heston croaking them out “Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln” style.

Just one of my many reasons why I can’t wait to move from the Bible Belt. Kansas, where I currently reside, is no better. Not all, but a lot, actually believe this crazy notion that the U.S. is a “Christian nation.” If you do happen to drive through Kansas or Oklahoma, be prepared to see idiotic “Abortion is Murder” signs in BFE. On my drive through Texas, it wasn’t so bad, except the street signs that read “CHURCH” right next to one.

I think the English Common Law idea that really cropped up in the 1600s as a way of arguing that the English had rights that kings couldn’t take away has more to do with American law than the 10 commandments, which, as has been said, cover 10 crimes, only 2 of which are taken seriously under most circumstances today.
And the ‘common law’ referred to was pre-Norman customs, negating the references above to Jewish influence.

I prefer to look at the ten commandments as more of a code of ethics. I’m agnostic, but I still feel they are a good guide for living your life. Oh, and from what I understand, when the commandments were translated, the word that was translated as “kill” is actually closer in purpose to the word “murder.” If it was kill, it would kinda render the whole fuckin’ bible as hippocrytical and moot.