DO YOU NOTICE THE CRUCIAL DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE PHRASE MISSING FROM THIS SAMUEL ADAMS COMMERCIAL? Sam Adams is probably spinning in his grave wishing he could come back and kick someone’s ass at a certain beer company. I’m actually related to Sam (my great grandmother was an Adams). By doing this they have no right to call their beer Samuel Adams. I’m going to email them and suggest I hope they change the name to Barack Hussein Obamabeer.
This post was last modified on January 26, 2021
View Comments (52)
Nice to see you again.
These are all good theological questions but I think you have to look at why the DOI was written in the first place. The first part of it addresses certain rights that are inalienable (in other words, common to every person) because the colonists were under the thumb of the Crown. Jefferson is arguing that all of us are born with natural rights but THEY CAN be taken away by man as he illustrates in the second part of the document where the list of offenses are listed. Jefferson knows full well our inalienable rights can be suppressed.
As for the Constitution, it was written by we the people but if you look at how limited government power is under the document it is clear that natural law trumps the rule of man in the eyes of the Framers. Secondly, the DOI was never meant to be any legal codification but simply a declaration to King George III that the colonists were detaching themselves from the British Empire. The Constitution was bothered with to establish the supreme law of the land and ensure that most legal authority rested with the States as later stated in the 9th and 10th Amendments.
I can't answer your last question other than to say that Sam Adams needlessly created controversy. If any company is going to use a founding document as a prop to sell its product, then I have to wonder to what level will that company pander and if the patriot is the target audience, why would the company intentionally misquote or omit key phrases? That makes no sense to me.
Now I know you can come back with Jefferson was a slave owner so how could he really believe in inalienable rights. Legitimate question but I think the Founders did enough mental gymnastics just to get their revolution and later country off the ground while simultaneously satisfying the political needs of 13 separate colonies/states. No easy task and unfortunately it led to the Civil War and ultimately to the usurpation of the country by Barack Obama and his handlers who have masterfully exploited white guilt to tear down this country one institution at a time. Hyperbole? Not a chance. Example: in Afghsnistan the service members are not to display Bibles or crosses for fear of offending the locals. That didn't stop the DOD from sanctioning a LGBT pride march in Kandahar recently. You tell me why this happened?
When you want to have some fun with a liberal, tell him or her that you agree with JFK on "rights": "The rights of man come not from the generosity of the State but from the hand of God."
Or even better, ask the liberal why he or she disagrees with JFK.
I'll bet the Pro-Abortionists call for a boycott of Samuel Adams beer because they say "life" is one of our "inalienable rights".
1) Doesn't strike me as an attempt to directly quote the DOI. Other words are omitted as well. Not much rests on this point, however.
2) God/Gods/Creator permits the denial of Inalienable Rights all the time, even this very day. Consider young girls born to the Taliban.
3) If these Rights are Inalienable only because a Creator endowed them, what good are these words then, if such rights can be taken away by men on earth (either within or without this nation)? Why bother with the Constitution later on, if expression of those words in the DOI carries force? Why doesn't the Constitution explicitly derive any of its authority from said Creator, instead of We The People?
4) Who would permit their faith to be afflicted by a beer commercial (or sensibilities wounded, if afflicted is too strong a word?)
Spending quality summer time with the little Alien Momsters.
Hey hey @ghost & @poppa..! Yeah, summer kid infestation per annum, getting ready to move into a new house, and been working on a mobile wargame on the side. I've been apolotical for a lot of months now, so as to free up abused brain cells. Pretty out-of-touch with news nowadays beyond headlines.
But i do miss hanging out here more. You all have widened my perspective over the years
"4) Who would permit their faith to be afflicted by a beer commercial (or sensibilities wounded, if afflicted is too strong a word?)"
Precisely. I am no more offended by the omission than I would be if they had left the phrase in. I'm difficult to offend. To do that, they would have had to mention Allah in a good light.
As it is, I will drink exactly as much Samuel Adams beer as I drink other beer. Zero.
I was just wondering where you have been.
2 things:
1. In a company issued statement:
"The Beer Institute Advertising Code says, 'Beer advertising and marketing materials should not include religion or religious themes.' We agree with that and try to adhere to these guidelines."
2. Any mention of the Constitution, or even more so, any quote therefrom, is already a positive, notwithstanding what they omitted. I will take this and not be an ungrateful giftee. Doing otherwise would be like someone bringing me a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black as a gift, and I get all bent out of shape because it wasn't Balvenie. I say thanks and move on.
This is a non-issue.
Well, screw the beer institute, too.
I tend to agree, but as a whole, that is a separate issue. Personally, IMO beer companies and actually all companies should be free to advertise however the hell they want. If the ad offends everyone, then that is their problem. On the other hand, it's not like it's the govt telling them what to do. If they choose to adhere to idiotic standards, then that is their choice.
and if they offend me I don't have to drink their swill.
Exactly. Blue Moon is getting my business these days despite how much I like other beers. At this point, for me, it is about good product and keeping the politics private. I have no clue about anything to do with the Blue Moon brewers and I hope I never do. It is about the beer. Sam Adams alienated a big portion of their customer base (for now) needlessly.
Fat Tire is pretty good, too.
A fox person made a good point this morning. Almost naked women? In primetime when kids can see it? That is all good! The mention of the word G-d? Ohhhh that is bad!!!!!!
Anyone's interested they're running a classic Twilight Zone marathon on SYFY channel. I'm all grilled out, in with a couple more other than Sam Adams, Happy Fourth everybody.
I don't drink their beers anyway so I'm not missing anything. Besides, I agree with psycodad, it's just a beer commerial so who cares? It wasn't nearly as bad as Lady Gagme finishing our national anthem with "home for the gays" instead of "home of the brave."
The authors of the documents that wrought our nation were very cautious and selective in the words they used. Imagine that. So when they talked about the laws of Nature and of Nature's God, only the most ardent atheists (and moslems, as it turns out) would call out an objection. Let them fight with all their might against that which they insist does not exist.
They probably just forgot the whole line.
Beer will do that to you.
That's why I avoid it.
That's why I drink it.
Well be fair, it's not like he's trying to quote a whole section verbatim and dropping that out. He's referring to some of the contents.
And -- IT'S A BEER AD.
Honestly, I can't see anything here to get worked up over.
Let me repeat that: IT'S A BEER AD.
Seems pretty intentional to me, but then the company is based in the progressive city of Boston. If progs had their way God would be removed from our currency and Pledge of Allegiance. Then again, it is a commercial and they can only squeeze so many words into 15 to 30 seconds.
I will leave a couple of quotes from the man himself...
"We have this day restored the Sovereign to Whom all men ought to be obedient. He reigns in heaven and from the rising to the setting of the sun, let His kingdom come." -- Samuel Adams
"There are instances of, I would say, an almost astonishing Providence in our favor; our success has staggered our enemies, and almost given faith to infidels; so we may truly say it is not our own arm which has saved us. The hand of Heaven appears to have led us on to be, perhaps, humble instruments and means in the great providential dispensation, which is completing. We have fled from the political Sodom; let us not look back, lest we perish and become a monument of infamy and derision to the world." --
Samuel Adams
Sorry for the edits but the first site where I got the second quote had left out this part...
"The hand of Heaven appears to have led us on to be, perhaps, humble instruments and means in the great providential dispensation, which is completing."
The "Freedom From Religion Foundation" bought a full page ad in the July 4th local paper with 6 quotes from people like Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson which suggest our beginnings as a nation were secular. But then Hobby Lobby had bought the entire back page with 21 quotes from Washington, Adams, and the Supreme Court about our nation having tolerance for everyone but with a strong foundation in Christianity and the Bible. Here are a couple of those quotes, one pre-1776.
"All the scholars are required to live a religious and blameless life according to the rules of God's word, diligently reading the Holy Scriptures, that fountain of Divine light and truth, and constantly attending all the duties of religion."
-Yale 1787 Student Guidelines
"Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well the main end of life and studies is God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life (John 17:3) and therefore to lay Christ in the bottom as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning. And seeing the Lord only giveth wisdom, let every one seriously set himself by prayer in secret to seek it of Him (Proverbs 2,3). Every one shall so exercise himself in reading the Scriptures twice a day that he shall be ready to give such an account of his proficiency therein."
-Harvard 1636 Student Guidelines
Harvard was established as a theological school for the New World.
"We have fled from the political Sodom; let us not look back, lest we perish and become a monument of infamy and derision to the world."
And it looks like a mere 237 years later, more and more folks think America should be the new Sodom. They have no concept of history or what it took for our Founding Fathers to create this great nation. Russia and China thumb their collective noses at us. European countries have no respect for us. "Change you can believe in. Forward!"
I consider it the unofficial beer of America, BECAUSE its named after the founder. Then they go and usurp his name with this, we don't want to offend anyone with God, BS!
You a defense lawyer?