very simple

I voted bright and early this morning.  There wasn’t really a wait, but people were pretty steadily streaming in and out of my polling place (one of the workers told me that they haven’t had downtime all morning).  So that was cool.  Looking at the little pile of green (democratic) and pink (republican) cards that indicate who voted next to the machine, there appeared to be about 50 green cards to each pink card.  Of course, I live on the upper west side, which is the liberalist liberality around. 

And ultimately, I did vote for Obama (Edwards was still on the ballot, and I thought about pulling that lever for a few seconds, but then I snapped back to reality).

By the way, even though apparently millions of dollars have been poured into improving voting technologies, we’re still voting on the antiquated lever machines.  While I personally love them in a nostalgic sort of way (I learned how to vote on them, when my junior high school would "borrow" the county machines for school elections), I can’t help wondering where all of the money has gone.

The NY Times this weekend had an article on my absolutely favorite property class topic ever – adverse possession. 

Essentially, if you take certain steps, you can claim title to someone else’s property without, you know, paying for it:

Under the current law, as articulated by the Court of Appeals in June 2006 in the case of Walling v. Przybylo, a claim of adverse possession can be made if an individual “openly, notoriously and exclusively” uses someone else’s property continuously for 10 years, believing he has the right to do so.

It’s a favorite of law school professors, particularly around exam time, and one of the property professors at my law school (not mine) was actually attempting to adversely possess a neighboring piece of property and would discuss it in class. 

So anyway, why did I love this subject?  Because I actually investigated at one point the possibility of having my dad adversely possess the land across the road from our old house in the Berkshires.  The owner was absentee, the house was an eyesore (including a bright orange tarp instead of a roof), and I figured, if we could spend enough time fixing things up and generally using the property as our own, we could, eventually, lay claim to it outright.  However, as I ALSO learned, you cannot claim adverse possession over property of someone who is in prison.  And yep, the owner was apparently put in jail for arson, when he tried to burn down the house for the insurance money.  It may seem silly now, but the attempt to practically apply this esoteric section of property law to my own life actually helped me understand and remember the concept.  Which came in really handy at exam time.

(by the way, the law actually varies depending on the state – in some, it only takes five years.  In others, you need to also make "substantial improvements" to the property). 

Oh, and the next time you’re walking around New York City, keep an eye out for little plaques embedded in the sidewalk on streetcorners, that say things like "property of…", particularly where buildings, for decorative reasons, don’t extent all the way to the property line.  These are there to give pedestrians "permission" to cross into the space.  Because explicit permission to enter property automatically defeats claims of adverse possession.  After learning this little fact from my professor, I’ve noticed hundreds of these while walking down manhattan streets.

You know, I used to be somewhat sympathetic to the plight of pedicab owners in the city (and I still think that they should be encouraged given the city’s pollution and congestion issues), but the idea that vehicles, simply because they’re human-powered, shouldn’t be subject to regulation? Um, no.

But then again, I could just be projecting because I almost got run over yesterday by one of these guys pulling a left turn onto sixth avenue while very much not watching for the pedestrians (read: me) who had the right of way.

From keeping up with my RSS reading, I saw that Doppleganger over at 50 Books had posted another of her famous lists, this time in connection with Freedom to Read week in Canada. It’s similar to Banned Books Week in the US, except that it’s occurring now, instead of the last week of September. Since I didn’t feel like waiting until September to see how many books I had read, I thought I’d add them up now. The list is derived from a variety of banned book sites, including those cited at 50 Books, the ALA and Wikipedia. My list is only at 70, but I’m sure that I’ve read other banned books that just weren’t listed.

Andrews, V.C.: Flowers in the Attic
Angelou, Maya: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Atwood, Margaret: The Handmaid’s Tale
Blume, Judy: Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
Blume, Judy: Blubber
Blume, Judy: Superfudge
Blume, Judy: Tiger Eyes
Bradbury, Ray: Fahrenheit 451
Capote, Truman: In Cold Blood
Carroll, Lewis: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Carroll, Lewis: Through the Looking Glass
Dahl, Roald: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Dahl, Roald: James and the Giant Peach
The Daily Show with John Stewart: America (The Book)
Fitzgerald, F. Scott: The Great Gatsby
Frank, Anne: The Diary of a Young Girl
Haddon, Mark: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Handford, Martin: Where’s Waldo?
Golding, William: Lord of the Flies
Grimm Brothers, Little Red Riding Hood
Hinton, S.E.: The Outsiders
Huxley, Aldous: Brave New World
King, Stephen: Carrie
King, Stephen: Christine
King, Stephen: Cujo
King, Stephen: The Dead Zone
King, Stephen: Different Seasons
King, Stephen: Firestarter
King, Stephen: It
King, Stephen: Pet Sematary
King, Stephen: The Shining
King, Stephen: The Talisman
Lawrence, D.H.: Lady Chatterly’s Lover
Lee, Harper: To Kill a Mockingbird
L’Engle, Madeleine: A Wrinkle in Time
Lewis, C.S.: Chronicles of Narnia (series)
London, Jack: The Call of the Wild
Miller, Arthur: The Crucible
Miller, Arthur: Death of a Salesman
Mitchell, Margaret: Gone With the Wind
Moore, Michael: Stupid White Men
Morrison, Toni: The Bluest Eye
Orwell, George: Animal Farm
Orwell, George: 1984
Proulx, Annie: Brokeback Mountain
Rowling, J.K.: Harry Potter (the series)
Salinger, J.D.: The Catcher in the Rye
Sebold, Alice: The Lovely Bones
Shakespeare, William: Hamlet
Shakespeare, William: Romeo and Juliet
Shelley, Mary: Frankenstein
Silverstein, Shel: A Light in the Attic
Silverstein, Shel: Where the Sidewalk Ends
Steinbeck, John: Of Mice and Men
Stowe, Harriet Beecher: Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Twain, Mark: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Various: The Bible
Vonnegut, Kurt: Slaughterhouse Five
Walker, Alice: The Color Purple

What really amazes me is that I’m fairly certain that at least 80% of these books were read for school. I’m also kind of amazed that the bulk of the list consists of books that I read when I was younger – I suppose as I’ve gotten older, the books I’m interested in aren’t targeted to kids in the first place, making them less likely to be the target of wrath by bizarre closed-minded parents. And I don’t even mean that as a dig against right-wingers. Huck Finn gets banned regularly for the use of the N-word, even though it’s clearly literary irony, since Jim is by far the best individual in the book (and it’s Huck’s recognition of that throughout their journey). Gone with the Wind was banned for depicting slavery in a positive light. Now, I’m obviously sympathetic to the sentiments of the people who don’t like the book for that reason, but banning books is never the answer. The answer, first and foremost, is to read the book and try to understand it. Not to agree with it, but to understand it.

In college, I took a core class in american studies. Since it was taught by a literature professor, we basically read a variety of books (most of which are on this list) throughout the semester. I was apalled at reading the Great Gatsby’s intensely anti-semitic characterizations of jews in the book, but that didn’t mean that the book should be burned. It meant that we had some really deep discussions about Fitzgerald’s anti-semitism and the society at the time the book was written.

Then, of course, there were the bannings that can only be described as ironic. Anne Frank? sure, let’s supress a book by a girl that was murdered by one of the most oppressive governments in history. 1984 and Brave New World? Let’s control and limit peoples’ access to books about future dystopias where every thought and action is controlled! And of course, the granddaddy of all ironic book banning, Fahrenheit 451. I know it’s pretty much a cliche at this point, but banning a book about…banning books! That’s how we teach our children that we live in a free and open society!!

And then there’s just the silly stuff. Judy Blume is one of the most banned authors in history. I read her by the truckload as a kid, and somehow I didn’t end up entirely warped. Shel Silverstein gets banned because he apparently teaches kids to misbehave. in a book. I agree that books can be powerful and life altering, but come on!

So. When I get home next week, there’s clearly going to be another trip to the bookstore to pick up a few suggestions off of one of the lists. I’ve never read Lolita. or Heart of Darkness. Those may have to get added to the “to read” pile shortly.

Remember how I said earlier that people in Italy don’t talk about politics? That it’s considered rude? Well it’s certainly true. The Italian government basically collapsed yesterday, and the only reason I even found out about it was that I read about it in the NY Times.

Could you even imagine something of this level happening in the US and no one in your office discussing it? Granted, this sort of thing is a bit more common here in a fairly fragile coalition-based parliamentary system than in our country, but I’m pretty sure that if this happened at home, I wouldn’t be getting much work done because everyone in my office would be discussing this nonstop. Heck, we’d probably either take over a conference room to watch the proceedings on TV or head out to a bar somewhere to keep up. Regardless of what “side” we were on.

The closest that I’ve gotten to having a political conversation in the office in the past two months was when Berlusconi’s wife published a letter detailing his neglect and infidelities on the front page of one of the major newspapers. And it was about a five-minute conversation. Our country spent several years and something on the order of sixty million dollars going after Clinton for trying to hide an affair. Here? well, here Berlusconi is probably going to get his job back.

First, obviously, let me apologize for not updating for the past two months. Keeping up with a blog can be a bit difficult when the home internet access you insisted on as a condition of moving to another friggin’ country has yet to be installed.

Oh, they’ve been trying. Poor Alessandro, the IT guy in our Milan office, has quietly been losing his mind while trying to deal with the amount of red tape involved in getting internet into someone’s apartment. First, we had a contract with provider A, and we were told that it could take “up to a month” for the activation and the equipment. Now, a month seems a ridiculously long time to wait for me, but I was told by several people that this was pretty standard over there. So, a month goes by, and provider A never activates anything, and when Alessandro tries to find out where the modem is, it turns out that “they never ordered it.”

Needless to say, he cancelled the service contract. So then we decide to go with provider B. Now, provider B is actually a subsidiary of the incumbent telephone operator, so activation shouldn’t be a problem (cable TV infrastructure doesn’t exist in italy – everything is either run through satellite or the phone lines). Except, provider B screws up the contract, so they need to start over. Unfortunately, it takes at least a week to “cancel” the old contract and enter into a new one, even though the mistake was basically some data-entry lackey’s typo. So, we finally got the right “contract” about two weeks ago, meaning that activation should happen any day now. Alessandro was actually trying to get it done before I left, but that was probably wishful thinking on his part, so maybe (maybe!) when I get back it’ll be ready to hook up.

In the meantime I have some very funny e-mails from Alessandro, in broken english, that consist of him just not understanding why they don’t want to take our money.

Of course, I can’t actually deal with anything myself, because you need a codice fiscale to enter into any sort of agreement in Italy (it’s basically the Italian equivalent of a social security number, but it’s used for everything), and since I’m only technically a tourist, I can’t really qualify to get one.

So.

I actually wrote a bunch of posts on my computer, even knowing that I couldn’t post them, just to keep myself a bit current. But since they all basically consist of me bitching about the fact that I have no internet, and that I haven’t really done a whole lot other than work, I’ll try to summarize a bit.

I have no internet. I’ve been working too much. Milan is quite beautiful. The food is good. I’m really happy about the US election. I’ll be home for Thanksgiving.

So. The election. Needless to say I did a little dance in my chair at work on Wednesday morning. My dad (my dad!) sent me an e-mail that was practically giddy with excitement.

I actually wrote an entire post about this one right in the aftermath, so I’ll try to get that one up later, but I will say it’s been really interesting to see the reaction from an international perspective in particular. People in Italy normally don’t talk about politics. It’s considered rude. But I went to a meeting with a client on the Friday after the election, and when I mentioned that I was coming home for two weeks, he said, with a smile, “it’s like you’re going home to a different country now!” And I think that captures it pretty darn well. People here in the US can argue back and forth about the “meaning” of this election, but overseas, they all just think that we’ve finally come to our senses and given GWB the giant “fuck you” that he’s deserved for so long. More later.

But back to me…

I’m still jetlagged. I woke up yesterday to go to the airport at 5:30 in the morning, Italian time. then spent over 9 hours on a plane, with a crazy woman sitting behind me. No joke – she didn’t like her seat, so she threatened to get off the plane unless the stewardess forced someone else to move so that she could have the seat she wanted. Someone from ground crew and the pilot had to get involved. They were apparently about three seconds away from just letting her get off the plane when the girl behind me agreed to move. This woman tried to claim that they wouldn’t let her pick her seat when she booked the ticket, which is complete bullshit because everyone else pointed out, we all check the internet seat locater thing obsessively. Which means that she either booked her ticket at the last minute, or on something like priceline, where she thought she could have it both ways – book a super cheapskate restricted fare and then throw a fit until she got a premium economy seat.

(now, premium economy is exactly the same seat/same legroom as regular economy, except that it’s at the very front behind business class, meaning that you can get off the plane faster – you have to either pay a bit extra or be be a premium/elite flyer to get one).

So. that was self-absorbed bitch number one. The couple across the aisle from myself and I spent the entire flight pretty much making fun of her. really quietly. The flight attendants, needless to say, loved us (I’m not being sarcastic there – they actually gave us additional gossip about the whole situation when they got the chance).

Ordinarily, I would have been perfectly happy to see her get escorted off the flight, but these days, with the stepped up security, that would have meant also digging her bags out and getting them off the plane. Since we were about 10 minutes from our scheduled departure when this all started happening, it would have caused some pretty serious delays.

Self-absorbed bitch number two showed up when I arrived home and decided to go to the grocery store. At this point, I’ve been awake for at least 20 hours. I have a freshdirect delivery coming Sunday morning, but I still needed some real basics, like milk. So I dragged myself to the food emporium, bought the six things I needed, and got on the express line. where I waited patiently, and put my stuff on the conveyor belt when I got the chance. Then (and only then), the woman behind me on line, who is clutching a bag of goldfish crackers, pipes up in this super sweet voice to “request” that I let her go in front of me, seeing as she only has the one item. Now, on any other day, I probably would have let her without thinking about it, but I was pretty damn tired. and I thought for a second, and finally said back “you know, I don’t understand why you can’t just wait in line like everyone else.” It’s not like I had 100 items to ring up and she would have to wait very long, but she then starts responding, in this totally faux-sweet voice, about how she “really appreciates my kindness.” You know, trying to make me feel guilty because I wouldn’t let her cut the fucking line. I just ignored her at that point, but what I wanted to do was turn around and tell her to go fuck herself. Did I mention that I had been awake for, like, 20 hours at that point, and most of those had been spent in an airplane or Newark, New Jersey?

She didn’t know who I was, or whether I was actually in a hurry to get anywhere, or whether I was exhausted. She just assumed that her needs were somehow superior to mine and entitled her to special treatment, where she didn’t need to behave like everyone else at the damn supermarket. Now, if she had been holding, say, baby formula, or tampons, I might have assumed that she had some sort of emergency situation, but she could damn well wait 30 more seconds for her crackers (and don’t anyone tell me that maybe she was going into diabetic shock – if that were the case, no one would have objected to her eating some damn crackers in line and then paying for them after).

I know this pissed me off more than it should have, and I certainly have my own moments of selfishness, but yesterday I just seemed to encounter more than my usual share of people who seemed to think that the rules that apply to everyone else don’t apply to them. Maybe exhaustion and jet lag give me some sort of 6th sense for these things.

OK. A real entry later. I promise. Plus, I’ve read about 10 new books!

…because the next two weeks are (I think) going to be out of control.

Let’s start with last week though. I finally had jury duty on Wednesday (which was really convenient given the two deals I had closing on Friday). But it turned out to be quite easy. Apparently none of the judges want to start scheduling big trials and such the week before Labor Day, so there was no need for any juries all day, and they let us go completely after the first day (which is virtually unheard of in Manhattan). So, all in all, it was probably the best timing possible from a “I really don’t have time to actually serve on a criminal trial jury” perspective.

Of course, this still left the partner who was on vacation and the partner who was filling in because the other partner was on vacation dealing with some issues on Wednesday that I was obviously not available for. Oh well. I guess one of the good things about being a lawyer though, is that the bosses are always pretty understanding of the whole jury duty thing.

Now, as is usual, I’m in the Berkshires with my family…my dad’s birthday is the 5th, so I always try to make it up here for this holiday weekend even if I have other stuff going on…

Which, of course, leads me to the next two weeks…

I finally got my start date for Italy, and I booked plane tickets on Friday. I’m leaving on Friday the 15th, so that I can have the weekend to recuperate from jetlag before I start working in Milan on Monday the 18th. of September.

So. That’s, like, 11 days from now.

And I decided that it would be a really brilliant idea to have a going away party next Saturday night. Because apparently I’m a masochist. Maybe nobody will show up (actually, given the number of people I know will still be out of town on extended labor day holidays and such? It’s probably going to end up being more like 5 friends coming over to finally see my apartment).

I did decide to take off starting on Wednesday the 13th, so that, at the very least, I’d have two days of just packing and turning stuff off.

Guys, I’m moving to Italy in 11 days.

I’m totally freaking out!

Everyone that finds out has had the first reaction of “aren’t you totally excited?!” Well yeah, but the initial excitement (back in friggin’ June!) has given way to the overwhelmingly not-done-ness of all the stuff I need to do before I leave.

But I’ve already decided that when I get back? I’m totally getting a swissy.

As is becoming tradition for me, I went to go break out my portable Thomas Jefferson, or perhaps my Federalist Papers, to find something pithy to quote on this July 4th. Unfortunately, I then remembered that I lent a whole bunch of these types of books to my brother before he went to the Pacific, because he was interested in that sort of thing (some of them may actually be sitting at my parents house in Massachusetts, but regardless, they’re not in my apartment, making them very hard to quote from).

Nevertheless, I was determined to find something inspiring, in these times. And then I remembered that I still have all of my law school textbooks (yes, I’m that kind of dork). So, without further ado, here’s selected portions of the incredibly timely Hugo Black in New York Times Company v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971) (particularly relevant portions bolded by me) (I should also point out that the “court’s” decision, was per curiam, meaning that it was an opinion of the court without specific authorship, and was very short – the individual justices then went on to write their own concurring opinions):

I adhere to the view that the Government’s case against the Washington Post should have been dismissed and that the injunction against the New York Times should have been vacated without oral argument when the cases were first presented to this Court. I believe that every moment’s continuance of the injunctions against these newspapers amounts to a flagrant, indefensible, and continuing violation of the First Amendment. Furthermore, after oral argument, I agree completely that we must affirm the judgement of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit for the reasons stated by my Brothers DOUGLAS and BRENNAN. In my view it is unfortunate that some of my Brethren are apparently willing to hold that the publication of news may sometimes be enjoined. Such a holding would make a shambles of the First Amendment. ***

***Both the history and the language of the First Amendment support the view that the press must be left free to publish the news, whatever the source, without censorship, injunctions or prior restraints.

In the First Amendment the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government’s power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.***

The Government’s case here is based on premises entirely different from those that guided the Framers of the First Amendment. The Solicitor General has carefully and emphatically stated:

“Now, Mr. Justice [BLACK], your construction of ***[the First Amendment] is well known, and I certainly respect it. You say that no law means no law, and that should be obvious. I can only say, Mr. Justice, that to me it is equally obvious that ‘no law’ does not mean ‘no law’, and I would seek to persuade the Court that this is true. ***[T]here are other parts of the Constitution that grant powers and responsibilities to the Executive, and *** the First Amendment was not intended to make it impossible for the Executive to function or to protect the security of the United States.”

And the Government argues in its brief that in spite of the First Amendment, “[t]he authority of the Executive Department to protect the nation against publication of information whose disclosure would endanger the national security stems from two interrelated sources: the constitutional power of the Presidency over the conduct of foreign affairs and his authority as Commander-in-Chief.”

In other words, we are asked to hold that despite the First Amendment’s emphatic command, the Executive Branch, the Congress, and the Judiciary can make laws enjoining publication of current news and abridging freedom of the press in the name of “national security.” The Government does not even attempt to rely on any act of Congress. Instead it makes the bold and far-reaching contention that the courts should take it upon themselves to “make” a law abridging freedom of the press in the name of equity, presidential power, and national security, even when the representatives of the people in Congress have adhered to the command of the First Amendment and refused to make such a law. See concurring opinion of Mr. Justice DOUGLAS. To find that the President has “inherent power” to halt the publication of news by resort to the courts would wipe out the First Amendment and destroy the fundamental liberty and security of the very people the Government hopes to make “secure.” No one can read the history of the adoption of the First Amendment without being convinced beyond any doubt that it was injunctions like those sought here that Madison and his collaborators intended to outlaw in the Nation for all time.

…and the kicker:

The word “security” is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment. The guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of informed representative government provides no real security for our Republic. The Framers of the First Amendment, fully aware of both the need to defend a new nation and the abuses of the English and Colonial governments, sought to give this new society strength and security by providing that freedom of speech, press, religion, and assembly should not be abridged. This thought was eloquently expressed in 1937 by Mr. Chief Justice Hughes – great man and great Chief Justice that he was – when the Court held a man could not be punished for attending a meeting run by Communists.

“The greater the importance of safeguarding the community from incitements to the overthrow of our institutions by force and violence, the more imperative is the need to preserve inviolate the constitutional rights of free speech, free press and free assembly in order to maintain the opportunity for free political discussion, to the end that government may be responsive to the will of the people and that changes, if desired, may be obtained by peaceful means. Therein lies the security of the Republic, the very foundation of constitutional government.”

It’s officially been three full weeks since I left for Rome. Which, I would like to point out, is about the same amount of time that I actually got to live in my new apartment before I left on this trip.

I’m starting to feel like I’m missing things…sure, the only channels on the TV that I understand are CNN International and BBC World News, and I have relatively unfettered internet access, but something is, just, well, off.

I’m somewhat of a loner generally – there are times when there’s nothing I enjoy more than spending an entire weekend by myself, running errands, not making any "plans", just, generally, taking it easy, but I generally don’t go for three full weeks without seeing either friends or family. And I’m certainly speaking to them less on the phone because, well, it’s not exactly a local call, even if it is on a work-provided cellphone. That, and the relative alienation of not understanding anyone around me.

Maybe I’m just feeling out of it because my friend had her baby the other day (everyone’s doing great!), and I’m not going to get to see any of them for at least a few more weeks, and I know that if I was home I would at least be calling her every day to check in (as opposed to once a week) for at least the first little while…

And that’s not even taking into account the weird political shift that’s happening, like, all of a sudden in my home country…and again, I can read about it, but I can’t spend a half an hour in a co-worker’s office or on the phone with a friend just trying to wrap my head around the things that have been going on lately. When I asked my dad to send me my mail the other day, I had to tell him that I really needed my back issues of the New Yorker, and not just my bills, because I need some cultural touchstones. I almost cried when I read the cover story in this week’s NY Times magazine, and it was just a story about NY politics. But it so captured so much about why I love New York, the idea that everything that happens, happens in New York first (for good and bad), and that we’re one of the only places that was founded as specifically commercial, with no time to waste on petty puritan religious "stuff"…it’s a reason a lot of people hate New York, but it’s a reason why I love it. Ric Burns captured that essence really well in his documentary history of New York, and this article does the same thing…I know that I’m not the only one who gets sentimental when I hear phrases like "cathedrals of commerce"…

Wow, now I’m getting off track. Can you tell that I’m a little bit homesick? That, and it’s getting significantly colder and rainier around here, making it just a tad less "fun" on the rare days when I’m not working around the clock…

I so shouldn’t have had that last espresso…

On this fourth of July, I decided to break out my portable Thomas Jefferson and skim a few things. Mainly to re-read the Declaration of Independence (annotated with Jefferson’s original version that also condemned slavery), but in my reading I also came across Jefferson’s original draft of "A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom". Eventually adopted in shorter form years later by the Virginia House of Delegates, his original version is still startlingly relevant for today. In reading it, it is important to always remember that Jefferson was a Deist, meaning that he believed in a "creator", but he did not believe in the more specific tenets of any particular "christian" faith. Anyway, here it is:

Well aware that the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds; that 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 tae 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 its influence on reason alone; that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallable and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallable, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time: That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical: that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness; and is withdrawing from the ministry those temporary rewards, which proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct, are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labours for the instruction of mankind; that our civil rights have no dependance on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry; that therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right; that it tends also to corrupt the principles of that very religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing, with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments, those who will externally profess and conform to it; that though indeed these are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way; that the opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous falacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own; that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail of left to herself; that he is the proper and sufficient antagoinst to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.

We the General Assembly of Virginia do enact that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinion or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

And though we well know that this assembly, elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding Assemblies, constituted with the powers equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this act irrevocable would be of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right.

I have no quarrel with the idea that as individuals, our founding fathers believed in god, but the notion that we were somehow founded as a "christian nation" is just not supported (and indeed, is contradicted) by the writings of those same founding fathers. Religion for men like Jefferson, Washington, Hamilton, Adams and the rest was an individual, personal issue, and one that they made great pains to separate from "civil" life.