A Message for Independence Day By Joel Price Published 7/1/2012* Reprinted by permission of the author As we approach the Fourth of July and we anticipate the ubiquitous flag waving, the parades, politicians’ patriotic prattle, and sky-filled fireworks, I am reminded that: It is often proclaimed, “America is the greatest nation ever!” I actually recoil …
Category Archive: Law
Permanent link to this article: http://freethoughtalmanac.com/?p=5267
Mar 15
March 15: Cesare Beccaria
Cesare Beccaria (1738) It was on this date, March 15, 1738, the famous Italian legal reformer Cesare, Marquis of Beccaria-Bonesana, was born in Milan. He opposed the death penalty and believed education would reduce crime – a belief borne out in practice so frequently to this day that only a Christian Dominionist would dispute it. …
Permanent link to this article: http://freethoughtalmanac.com/?p=4332
Oct 30
October 30: John Adams
John Adams (1735) It was on this date, October 30, 1735, that the second president of the United States, John Adams, was born in Braintree (now Quincy), Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard, where he first intended to study for the orthodox ministry, but the reality of orthodoxy sobered him and he turned to the law. …
Permanent link to this article: http://freethoughtalmanac.com/?p=3737
Oct 26
October 26: Georges Danton
Georges Danton (1759) It was on this date, October 26, 1759, that French revolutionist Georges Jacques Danton was born in Arcis-sur-Aube. Though not from a wealthy family, he got a good education and became a lawyer before deciding the legal structure of France was inimical to freedom. He abandoned the law for revolutionary activities and, …
Permanent link to this article: http://freethoughtalmanac.com/?p=3598
Sep 25
September 25: A Secular Bill of Rights
Bill of Rights Passed by the U.S. Congress (1789) It was on this date, September 25, 1789, that the U.S. Congress passed and sent for ratification the first ten amendments to the Constitution, which came to be known as the Bill of Rights. To Freethinkers, the most important amendment is the first, yet when most …
Permanent link to this article: http://freethoughtalmanac.com/?p=3240
Sep 19
September 19: Religious Persuasion by Torture
Giles Corey Pressed to Death (1692): Churches and Torture It was on this date, September 19, 1692, during the Salem Witch Trials in Massachusetts colony, that sentence was carried out on Giles Corey (or Choree or Cory) that he be pressed to death for witchcraft. Corey was a prosperous farmer and 80 years old – …
Permanent link to this article: http://freethoughtalmanac.com/?p=3202
Sep 01
September 1: Alan M. Dershowitz
Alan M. Dershowitz (1938) It was on this date, September 1, 1938, that Harvard law professor and civil liberties lawyer Alan Morton Dershowitz was born in Brooklyn, New York. First in his class at Yale Law, he was appointed to the Harvard Law faculty at age 25 and became the youngest full professor in the …
Permanent link to this article: http://freethoughtalmanac.com/?p=3062
Aug 11
August 11: Robert Green Ingersoll
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833) It was on this date, August 11, 1833, that the most eloquent advocate of Freethought, Robert Green Ingersoll, was born in Dresden, New York, the son of a Congregationalist minister. In Peoria, Illinois, he trained in the law before enlisting in the Union Army during the Civil War, where he was …
Permanent link to this article: http://freethoughtalmanac.com/?p=2881
Jul 25
July 25: Churches v. Medicine
Church opposition to surgery, dissection and the study of anatomy slowed the development of medicine.
Permanent link to this article: http://freethoughtalmanac.com/?p=2724
Jul 21
July 21: Insulting Monkeys
The famous 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial was a publicity stunt that exposed the imbecility of fundamentalism.
Permanent link to this article: http://freethoughtalmanac.com/?p=2682
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