Neualtenburg: History?

How did Gov Linden end up owning Anzere Simthe phase one?

And the history of both groups continues. Hint hint.

At the end of the initial four month lease, LL indicated that the lease would be renewed once and then terminated (in May 2005). This was what precipitated the move to the private island.

Doesn't the Constitution trump a couple of slogans? "Congress shall make no law...."

not any more.

The constitution says we can't recognize God in Government? Certainly the "Congress shall make no law...." amendment doesn't apply to anyone outside congress. If the president wants a Christmas tree on the White House lawn, so be it. If the Supreme court wants to have Moses and the commandments on their building, I see nothing in the constitution saying they can't. "Congress shall make no law...." establishing a religion or prohibiting the free exercise there of..... and that's all it says.

It actually says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

So yes --it is unconstitutional to place one religion (or no religion) above another.
Further it says "establishment of religion" not a religion.

This phrase, oft misquoted or left intentionally incomplete by bible thumpers, demonstrates clear purpose of seperation of State and Religion.

You and I are having a classic debate, this is nothing new.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution states that:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion"
Together with the Free Exercise Clause, ("or prohibiting the free exercise thereof", these two clauses make up what are commonly known as the religion clauses.

This has been interpreted as the prohibition of 1) the establishment of a national religion by Congress and 2) the preference of one religion over another or of religion over non-religious philosophies in general. The first approach is called the "separationist" or "no aid" interpretation. In separationist interpretation, the clause, as historically understood, prohibits Congress from aiding religion in any way even if such aid is made without regard to denomination. The second approach is called the "non-preferentialist" or "accommodationist" interpretation. The accommodationist interpretation prohibits Congress from preferring one religion over another, but does not prohibit the government's entry into religious domain to make accommodations in order to achieve the purposes of the Free Exercise Clause. The clause itself was seen as a reaction to the Church of England, established as the official church of England and some of the colonies, during the colonial era.

You are setting up a strawman here, Kevn.

As is typical you offer me a Hegelian dialectic where you create 2 polar ideas that can only be answered by a pre determined answer.

It is quite clear that it means that Congress shall make no law that positions religion as being State sponsored (not "a" religion).

Further it states that the Government has no business preventing private worship (as it has no right to do so)

The seperation of Government and Religion was equally based on the principal of not ruining religion with Government interference as it was not crippling Government with religious dogmatism.

Wikipedia opinion notwithstanding

There is no straw-man here. If wiki bothers you, try this one...

".....

At an absolute minimum, the Establishment Clause was intended to prohibit the federal government from declaring and financially supporting a national religion, such as existed in many other countries at the time of the nation's founding. It is far less clear whether the Establishment Clause was also intended to prevent the federal government from supporting Christianity in general. Proponents of a narrow interpretation of the clause point out that the same First Congress that proposed the Bill of Rights also opened its legislative day with prayer and voted to apportion federal dollars to establish Christian missions in the Indian lands. On the other hand, persons seeing a far broader meaning in the clause point to writings by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison suggesting the need to establish "a wall of separation" between church and state.

...."

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/estabinto.htm

I can post a hundred more that agree.

Exactly. Thank you.

Wonderful, then you agree with me.

Historically, as I understood it, the motivation behind the *federal* separation of church and state was purely political.

The colonies that unified to become the United States had radically different religious views, but often relatively uniform ones by state. Think: Rhode Island -vs- Massachussetts -vs- Pennsylvania.

The fear was that a few states would gang up on the others and force religion X down the throats of the other states via federal powers. No other reason.



Of course separation of church and state, equality, and other high-minded ideals have pretty much evaporated over the past 200 years.

Instead, since then, the halls of power have sounded more like this:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5079259/site/newsweek

Well it's Neufreistadt now! Does that shorten to Neuf? : P

Cow, you've seen a wide range of responses here. As my original post suggests, I agree with Pel on the deleterious effects of forum drama. Still it's hard to blame people for losing their tempers when a cherished project seems to be going awry.

One thing to keep in mind is there's a lot of good will behind the scenes. I check the Neufreistadt forum occasionally, know several of the long-term participants, and attend the occasional event in the sim so I know how dedicated this group is. It's a big undertaking to build a balanced democratic system that works in an online world where identity is hidden.

The town hall meeting mentioned in a previous post is an excellent example of community building. I attended to find out if the group was considering a major rework of the sim layout and zoning, something which I feel is necessary to do a first-class job of adding an adjacent new sim. (I'm a professional architect and sim developer in SL, starting on my fifth full-sim job). The overall consensus at that meeting tended to favor patching and piecewise replacement, rather than major restructuring. This consensus revealed the strong bonds participants have to the actual structures and layout of that sim. This is very rare in SL, where much of the built environment seems transient.

We in Neualtenburg have taken to referring to the two groups as Burgers(us) and Fries (them)

Burgers and Fries indeed. That's hilarious. Or is it Freis? Like Freedom Freis?
I grew up in Canada, maybe we're "Newfries". (No disrespect intended to my fine friends from Newfoundland).

Burgers and fries go great together! It's a heart attack of resident run gov't on a plate. LOL.

Trade agreements cannot be far away

If it shortens to Neuf, I call conspiracy on the part of Newfie.

You might think its goofie, but the man in the moon is a Newfie
And he's sailin on to glory, away in the golden dory....

Codfish Dan from Newfoundland he dreamt that he had tree wishes
And he took mars and all the stars and he turned them into big fishes
He said the sky was much too dry and he made a wavy motion
And the moon like a boat began to float upon the starry ocean

- Stompin' Tom Conner


It annoys me to not find Tom on Napster...

I can't believe I missed this entire thread. I was so busy last week. Oh well!

In brief, I'd like to say that there's a lot of discussion about the relative success of Neufreistadt (NFS) and Celladon. In my eyes they are very similar projects that have followed different albeit parallel paths. I see N'burg Phase II/NFS as a creative political endeavor that thrived early on due to the creative skills of its founders but soon was stunted due to obstructionism, unethical behavior, and political infighting enabled by the democratic process. Celladon on the other hand, maintained an autocracy longer, allowing it to grow larger quicker, and is just now experimenting with a transition to a republic.

I imagine NFS will continue on in some fashion, although its members are entrenched in groupthink, communicate in doublespeak, and are outwardly hostile. They also still have hanging over their heads unresolved issues (kangaroo trials, state-sponsored piracy, violations of their bill of rights, IP violations, unpaid work) that will haunt them for quite some time. My hope is that the current oligarchy pulling strings behind the scenes dissolves, allowing the citizens to have a go at running the sim themselves for a change. Celladon, conversely, is in the honeymoon period where the ugly side of democracy has not yet manifested itself. I personally recommend having the autocracy maintain absolute power, providing it with the option to reset the republic if things go awry like they did in NFS.


Anyways, since there have been new developments, it looks like the wiki pages will be able to be updated soon. The Neualtenburg Projekt will be described in its three phases (Anzere, the Cooperative, and the Port) by myself with links placed to NFS in the wiki. I will work amicably with those in NFS to make sure we create fair and balanced content out of respect for our wonderful SL history wiki admins.

~Ulrika~

If you're not gonna call it Caledon --I can't make you my ambassador there

Caledon -- take me away!

~Ulrika~

want some Fries with that?