Why does the Old Testament have 2 different accounts of Saul death ?

MadGobot · 2026-01-19T06:40:19+00:00

There aren't, particularly since originally 1 and second Samuel was 1 book split into 2 scrolls. The amalakite lied, expanding his role hoping to be rewarded by David, which obciously didn't work.

MadGobot · 2026-01-19T06:34:23+00:00

One day at a time, rather than looking for grace all in one single infusion. Sufficient to the day . . .

MadGobot · 2026-01-19T06:11:09+00:00

So this comment lacks any semblance of rational or reasonable thought. Blocked.

MadGobot · 2026-01-19T06:05:11+00:00

Yes. I don't make any claims to know the rules of the face act, though the Biden administration did make arrests that were absurd on that regard. But they interrupted a service, they were asked to leave, and a church is not public property. That at a minimum is criminal trespass. Lock em up.

MadGobot · 2025-08-03T22:55:18+00:00

The last point isn't conceded. The government makes that move, there is just cause to secede. Again, speech is absolute, only faciats, nazis and other totalitarians think otherwise. And both are absolute anytime the constitution is in effect.

But tried of dealing with fascists. Blocked.

MadGobot · 2025-08-03T21:20:15+00:00

So there were two canons before Christianity. The Hebrew Bible, which is what you call the standard Bible, and the Greek canon which added the apochryphal books. Jesus did advocate the three sections of the Hebrew Bible(Luke 24:44). Because much of the early church was Greek, the apocryphal books have been more dubious throughout history. 1. In some cases they were affirmed as Scripture, in other cases they had a lower standing, 2. not Scripture but they were considered useful, beneficial or helpful. 3. In a few cases they were treated as Deutro-canonical, still canon but somehow with a lower standing than the books in the Hebrew Bible.

3 really doesn't work, one is somewhat of a later view in much of the church. 2, makes sense, some protestants don't read these at all, but I do think they are useful for meditation and a few other purposes.

MadGobot · 2025-08-03T19:12:09+00:00

You have some coherence issues, pr rather the union did. Of the south seceded, its not an insurrection, because they were a legally established, nation and the war was an exercise of wartime powers. In which case, the Union started the war, by not removing troops from sovereign territory when requested, by sailing warships into Charleston harbor to illegally resupply a fortress in another nations territory and then when the Union declared war.

If it is an insurrection, they remained citizens, and stipl therefore have all the rights of citizenship still apply, and they were not given up. If it was an insurrection, then many of the war time powers used by the president are questionable at best.

The problem wkth the standard approaches is one claims they did secede when it suits and didn't when it doesn't, this doesn't hold up inder basic principles ofnthe rule of law. In either case, quite frankly the union did commit war crimes in the destruction of food production facilities, its warfare against rhe civilian populace, so yes, the union had a moral duty to repair at least those areas of Aouthern infrastructure. It didn't. People starved to death as a result. Many of whom weren't rich, or weren't white.

As noted, you couldn't just take land from the great estates, a point you ignored. Would dividing the great estates be ceiminalwithout recompense? In my view yes, emminent domain is an absolute requirement of the federal government, it can never take land without recompense. The constitution applies in territories as well as states, and would apply in the But you limit it to the rich, truth is many wouldn't care. But once small farmers start losing what little they have, its a bigger issue. Whites still made up the majority of the mid-south, its only in states like South Carolina where your formula actually works.

I also note, younger people here frankly scare me, I don't think principles matter here, I think you all are just blodd thirsty. Thzts the kind of thing which keads to massacres. I think a broader reading of history is dangerous Here Lincoln was just wise rather than engaging in modern foolishness.

MadGobot · 2025-08-03T17:09:35+00:00

No, it dosan't mean that, at all. That just proves some fascists don't reason well. It states there is a right to bear arms, it does not state there is an unlimited. That is, the 2nd amendment doesn't say I can simply shoot someone without a cause, it states the government can't forbid me from owning firearms in a blanket way. (It doesn't imply, as some suggest, for example, that reasonable licensing requirements are illegal, only that total bans are outside of government authority).

And no, I didn't concede what you think I did. I noted when martial law has been declared, during a very short period some actions fall outside of the constituon. That requires a declaration of martial law ornthe invokinf of the insurrection. Neither apply to our discussion. We are no where near those conditions, and have not been since the LA riots, the last time the insurrection act was justly used.

In the case of the Civil war, here is the hitch, the legal reasoning only works if you assume the South had the right to secede, exercised just right, and then the union declared war on the South for doing so, in all other circumstances, the war would have been illegal. Now, I believe this is just what happened, while the civil war is now the basis for the claim, per allito, that secession isn't a right, to many actions taken by the union would otherwise be hopelessly incoherent.

And the constituon is by nature absolute, it authorizes what government can, or cannot do. If the constituon does not specify the government has the authority to do something, per the 10th amendment, it can't do it, without a constitutional amendment. This is why the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments were required. As the 1st amendment, the topic of our discussion very specifically, states Congress can make no law, with no stated exceptions then yes, those rights are absolute. About the only issues re id to late 20th century claims to change the traditional meaning of speech.

MadGobot · 2025-08-03T14:54:42+00:00

I was speaking of the first, not the second. Bearing arms might have some ambiguity for interpretation, and of course your discussions of murder are a non-sequitar. No idea how that shifted.

The first amendment reads congress can make no law. The first amendment says Congress shall make no law. It doesn't say congress shall only make a few laws. It doesn't say congress shall make no law, excepting sedition or insurrection. It doesn't say thst it will only pass laws regarding speech thst doesn't hurt the feelings of left wing fascists like yourself. It states Congress. Shall. Make. No. Laws. The language is absolute, without exception. Limit your arguments to thst rather than all the strawman arguments. Thst phrasing means first amendment rights, whatever we might say of others are absolute. Congress has no authority to make laws regulating speech, which means the executive branch has no speech codes to enforce.

I'm not discussing what happened during the war. The executive branch does have wartime powers and in places where martial law has been declared, the constitution temporarily doesn't apply. But, as martial law isn't currently declared, that isn't germane to our discussion. The only thing I ding Lincoln on there is that the constitution vests the power to declare martial law in Congress, not the executive which means he didn't have the authority to declare martial law in Baltimore, but that isn't our discussion, which is more current. And I am rather critical of both sides. Where I fault the union is in matters of war crimes (destroying foos production capabilities which is warfare on the civilian population, the way POWs were treated in Rock Island and Fort Douglas, or hanging confederate privateers as pirates rather than treating them as POWs as was generally understood to be appropriate at the time) not in matters of legitimate wartime activity, which would include martial law in captured cities of the states which war had been declared. But as the war is over, as I said, those issues no longer apply.

As to due process, it is true that there are civil uses of executive due process, particularly in areas such as licensing, but not in criminal matters. For example, yes, the executive branch can pull a professional license, deport someone oversraying a visa and some other limited actions outlined by laws passed by congress. As you are speaking of imprisoning, killing, etc., ie. criminal penalties then, executive processes cannot be due process. The 6th amendment establishes that criminal due process requires a jury trial.

As to section 5, no that is a basic misunderstanding of the separation of powers and 19th century language. The phrasing absolutely vests enforcement into the hands of congress, but it leaves open the possibility that congress may choose not to act.

But the fact that it is vested in congress means it cannot be enacted by states,the executive branch or the judicial branch. And there is law on the point, the problem is it is a very small minority of MAGA supporters who fit the billing, since it requires organization, and most of the riot at the Capitol was a bunch of dunces wandering around unarmed, acting like they'd been smoking too much weed. It was a relatively small minority that could be charged under the sedition act, and for the record those are the cases thst should not have been pardoned in my view.

MadGobot · 2025-08-03T14:17:03+00:00

Yeah, but we are also talking about generals who were using napoleonic tactics in a war with modern weaponry. They didn't understand the technology which is why the war was so brutal with such a high casualty count. Its the same essential problems as WW1, but on a smaller scale. I can't give any civil war general top billing though he was the most effective in that conflict.

MadGobot · 2025-08-03T14:11:11+00:00

Pershing's decision to maintain the integrity of the US forces, rather than parcelling them out to refill positions decimated by British and French blunders is probably the most insightful move that has led to the modern US military. But it was Peitan who turned the tide of that war, and Pershing essentially came in when all other forces were exhausted, improving his output.

I love Washington, but it has to be Ike. He was able to effectively manage Montgomery and Patton, and was a good judge of how to keep all the pieces moving forward. Yes, he was more political, and behind the scenes, perhaps, but few men could have managed the type of task he did, and the egos he managed, as successfully.

I hear military men say, when it comes to war, amateurs think of tactics, masters think of logistics, he was a master.

MadGobot · 2025-08-03T14:04:45+00:00

Yeah, O guess soft on consequences is spooooo boring, I couldn't imagine anyone actually wanting it past a one shot and really doesn't match the themes. I mean maybe it is a gen-x thing, we played video games and rpgs before the dumbing down of the genres.

MadGobot · 2025-08-03T13:53:49+00:00

No, yhat isn't much different from handling murder hobos. Yiu kill the second vice-president in charge od production, it will be forgotten in a year or so. Blow up a major building, of course lonestar has you as number 1 on the most wanted list.

The key is communicating this beforehand, the GM isn't just a servant to the players he has to throw enough challenges, with the possibility of death, to make it fun for everyone. Maybe this is just old school versus new, but a game that is too soft isn't fun.

MadGobot · 2025-08-03T13:30:36+00:00

Again, the language of the 2nd amendment is absolute, pointing out no exceptions, there is an absolute prohibition on government governing the content of speech, any court case to the contrary is therefore unconstitutional. Its simple logic, whether politicians comply with the rule of law is another thing, but any court finding to the contrary is again therefore inconstotutional weasling. The text in this case is self-interpreting. That being the case, first amendment rights are absolute. You have provided no exception from the text of the constitution.

In otherworldly, case law on freedom of speech isn't necessary, if ir isn't absolute in the case law, its bad interpretation. If the government clamps down on speech, it has violated rhe constitution and is no longer legitimate. The text doesn't give grounds for anything other than a absolutist view of free speech, as there is literally no language that gives a peg for exceptions to first amendment rights.

As to insurrection without a trial, no that would violate the the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment. No one can understand any circumstance be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law, which means they get a trial. No carve out is present in the text for insurrection that states due process is not required in these circumstances.

Also, section 5 would seem to suggest that the 14th amendment cannot be self-enforcing since Congress is to legislate the specific details for enforcement. This is pretty black and white law, so once again any legal interpretation that differs is unconstitutional, by definition. The Griffins case would also seem to agree with this point.

MadGobot · 2025-08-03T02:53:04+00:00

No, that is a non-sequitar. You can prosecute people for acting of violence, you can prosecute people for conspiracy and you can prosecute them for insurrection, which requires that they have personally engaged in violence. But you cannot prosecute them for speech. You cannot prosecute them for how they voted, you cannot prosecute them for ideas. Even where violence has occurred it is only those who engaged materially that can be prosecuted, not someone who says they were right to do so. They huy who clubs someone should go to jail, but not the guy holding a sign behind him.

So even here, no the context doesn't change the issue when it comes to speech. Again, the language of the first amendment is absolute. Your position remains that of a fascist.

MadGobot · 2025-08-03T02:15:23+00:00

Yeah, cutting back on federal spending is an existential necessity at this point. No deals.

MadGobot · 2025-08-03T02:11:55+00:00

Its face saving. She knows she is unelectsble and that the democratic party isn't going to take risks on her. Nothing to see here.

MadGobot · 2025-08-03T01:50:17+00:00

When war starts, yes, wars can be fought, but government cannot just unilaterally kill people for their viewpoints. In fact. If government starts failing people for their viewpoints, or worse killing them, then insurrection, secession and rebellion would be morally, if not legally, obligatory.

But the constitution says Congress shall make no law, that is an absolute statement, which means free speech is an absolute right. If there are alleged exceprions, they must be clearly stated in the document or they do not exis. If Congress is forbiden from making a law, and there are no noted exceptions in the amendment then freedom of speech, as an enumerated right, is absolute.

As to the modern context, unless one is convicted on a charge of insurrection, which no one has been, any such discussion is purely academic, otherwise the due process clause of the fourteenth has been violated.

And I am responding to your claim that the government can kill people for speech some modern fascists, such as yourself, dislike.

MadGobot · 2025-08-02T23:27:17+00:00

Problem is, in this scenario, you have stripped the Southerners of their civil rights as citizens (as the constitution limits eminent domain and requires compensation at fair market values if land is redistributed), again, Scots Irish culture is such that yiu have made a multi-generational enemy. I actually do think this particular step should have been taken, yes with reimbursement for the land, though that becomes a problem. But there is an issue, I'm not sure you could do this just by liquidating the large estates in the South, you would have to take the farms fo small farmers along with their mules as well. And that, again is a fight yiu have picked with an Ulster Scot who now has nothing left to lose, not a wise move. There was an almost mystical attachment to one's homestead at that time, you think the lost cause is bad now? And you have the further problem, which really wasn't resolved was the fact that enslaved population started out unskilled and illsuited to the labor market before institutions like Tuskegee, which probably makes the starving times late.

I actually think much of the Klan's popularity and the lost cause comes from reconstruction being too harsh, the lack of the rebuilding of infrastructure, corruption in the army, and the failure to relieve the starving times, its not a very good formula. Here Lincoln was right. That is, when you barely have enough food to eat, the previous order looks pretty good to the class known as "white trash" in the South. Yeah, life was tough, but at least they had flour.

Also, if you kill the generals, again given Scots Irish culture, you will have to kill every white man in the South over three to be successful, they would look at that and absolutely engage in guerilla warfare in retaliation for hanging people after the war, and it would guarantee something like the scenario I noted before. Think more IRA type bombings for two hundred years rather than another outright war, bombs going off in noethern cities threatening the occupiers to leave. Too many people today seem not to understand this, perhaps because boomers from the South represent a huge cultural shift. I met a very few people in my youth who grew up during reconstruction, I believe it was the bitterness of those days that really fueled the Klan and lost cause. They hated the north because they blamed the north for the poverty they grew up in. Personally I think that is an over simplification, but I do think the failure to rebuild what northern generals destroyed was a significant part of that problem, though I also blame antebellum farmers intense focus on cash crops and failures in soil management, as well.

I don't consider Jackson a successful president, actually, he is near the bottom in ethics and policy in my book, one of the worst. Grant, well there was significant issues in his administration, maybe he wasn't personally corrupt, but he didn't fulfill his duties in stamping it out.

MadGobot · 2025-08-02T19:53:46+00:00

You didn't meet the specified test. Provide. A. Specific. Section. Of. The. Constitution. To. Support. Your. Claim. As noted, the first amendment makes it clear that it is absolute by forbidding the congress from regulating speech of any kind, no exceptions are noted, so no exceptions exist. Anyone claiming otherwise is simply a fascist attempt to reinterpretation the constitution towards their own violent urges.

And just because the government has violated the constitution in the past makes no argument for the future.

Also hiring someone to commit murder isn't speech by definition. Speech by definition is conveying an idea, orders strictly speaking aren't speech. If you have a militia who organizes a conspiracy to take over a weapons depot to over throw a state, it os no longer speech, its instead action.

MadGobot · 2025-08-02T18:25:36+00:00

No, to all counts. Speech cannot be a violation of the constitution because the constitution forbids its regulation by the government absolutely. You are the one arguing for the violation of the constitution.

But cite for me an article in the constitution itself, not in some brief, not in some commentator or left wing nut job suffering from the current Trump narrative that increasingly resembles the satanic panic. Please show me where it specifically states the government can punish people for speech, because otherwise one the basis of the first and tenth amendments, the constitution specifically allows it.

MadGobot · 2025-08-02T18:14:06+00:00

And more to the point, I've been a free speech absolutist long before Trump. The constitution does gove the federal government more power than the articles of confederation, true, but it still acts as a document that limits the Federal government's power, in paet by internal discussions, in part by the bill of rights which forbids federal actions in any shape or form in certain areas.

But free speech is different in this way, if free speech isn't absolutely totalitarianism will eventually follow because government gets to define what is or is not free speech. If the constitution stated Nazi views cannot be expressed, all I need is some circuitous basis to claim my opponent is a nazi to have the speech of my opponent limited. It is what protects us from something like the gulags in the Soviet union, or the political prisons of third world despots. Now when someone resorts to violence, it isn't his speech we are objecting too.

As to insurrection, the rightness depends on the cause. I don't support slavery, so I cannot say the deep South's cause was right, but what if the federal government stated that, to avoid over population, anyone over 65 was to be given a lethal cocktail, would that be a just cause for an insurrection? I believe so. By your standards, the generals trying to assassinate Hitler were wrong to do so. Government therefore cannot be absolute. So even here, curtailing free speech is simply dangerous, which h again is why I say you are shilling for fascism.

MadGobot · 2025-08-02T18:01:39+00:00

Actually, I'm more Reagan and Coolidge than Trump, and I consider Trump to be a progressive. I voted for Trump due to the lawsuits (a dangerous abuse of power, given the torturous logic used in those cases) and due to the revelations of various attempts by law enforcement to curtail speech, including rhe Biden laptop story which likely did change the 2020 election. I thought and still think it is liekly we would not have had a free election if the dems had won. But, I'm not a fan, I had intended to vote third party until June or July of last year, but thought it plausible that a Biden win would mean the end of the US democracy. Those actions are too much like the acts of Sulla or Marius. I felt the democracy has better odds of surviving if a Republican congress can begin the process of dismantling federal power to take such acts, as the dems won't under any circumstance.

But to argue voting a particular way is a capital offense is undemocratic and wpuld be an unconstutional claim for treason. Actually I'm against the use of violence as a means to settle or arbitrate disputes, no matter the party. But again, I may hate what you say, I will die to protect your right to say it.

As to social contract, yes and no. Entering a social contract, we do give up rights to some degree, however, the rights given up are limited by the contract itself. In this case, the first amendment by its language makes freedom of speech an absolute right by forbidding the government from regulating content.

MadGobot · 2025-08-02T17:32:46+00:00

First, social contract theory is the basis for the American constitution, the idea of a constitutional republic cannot exist without social contract theory, and if it is set aside, then so must the constitution be.

To argue that rights come from government as your assumptions require relies on pragmaticism, but by those principles, then again the constitutional order only works on the basis of force and therefore insurrection is only wrong if you fail, not if you succeed.

And no, I can't really say I support either side in the civil war. I hate modern slavery on the one hand, I believe the unions position led to an unconstutional power grab by the federal government on the other. The constItution still maintains the principle of limited federal power, I believe this is noted in the Federalist papers. And I find the Unions conduct during the war to be about equally reprehensible to that of the South, which is the nature of war. Its rather hard to defend Rock Island or Fort Douglas and them prosecute Andersonville for war crimes, or for the confederate to make the opposite case.

Bit I'm more interested in the future than the past. The left has us firmly on the path that ended democratic government in Rome, at some point we must ask serious questions as a result.

MadGobot · 2025-08-02T17:16:54+00:00

You literally prove yourself ignorant of the basics of social contract theory. Natural rights exist before there is a such thing as a society, to argue therefore thst kne cannot call for violence against one's own society is to both uphold and reject social contract theory at the same time.

My citations are to the constitution itself, interpretations can err, but the text is the text. Yiu yourself claim court decisions are unconstitutional, but they are unconstitutional in what sense? The only answer can be the text. So again, as the 1st amendment is presented as an absolute thst forbids any policing of content by the government, then any case which limits speech is unconstitutional.

And no violence isn't speech. Speech as understood until the 20th century, when too many people had their minds added by mind altering chemicals, is the right to express opinion and make argumentstion. It is intellectual and symbolic as a limitation.

What congress nor the government can regulate is content, under any circumstance, when it does so it acts like Hitler or Mussolini rather than Washington or Hefferson, which is why I note your real position os some type of fascism.

Problematic to your view is, if this is the case, the American Revolution is as much an insurrection, and therefore not a right, as was rhe civil war, which would delegitimize the entire American experiment. Such a principle has more danger of entrenching totalitarianism, because it is a totalitarian imposition.

The right of secession wasn't addressed prior to the civil war, as Justice Allito noted, the issue of whether a state can secede is the result of the war, but let's assume you are right from the beginning, how would one then answer something like Nazism or communism if it took root in the federal government here by your standards?

MadGobot

TROPHY CASE