The precedence is inherent in the statement; that was Jeffersons point. - Edit 1
Before modification by Joel at 15/11/2010 09:20:05 PM
"Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God" doesn't include any rules about what kind of "resistance" is OK. Resisting tyrants in the name of God is exactly what Al-Qaida is doing. What you are saying is exactly that it's wrong unless it's for a cause you support, by a method you condone. I'm not sure what you're getting at by saying "it's a question of precedence", or what the below is about. But the social contract depends on the consent of the governed. Your argument presupposes its conclusion.
Or are you suggesting the Stuarts be restored to the British throne (along with Catholicism as the state church) and Cromwell declared a traitor? Is one mans sedition anothers Glorious Revolution? I think not (in fact, I think the colonists had a much better list of greivances than did Cromwell and Parliament, let alone those who deposed Bonnie Prince Charlie). Surely I don't have to explain the concept of government as a social contract. 
Turn it around; show me where the British crown was murdering women and children (in America, anyway) and you might have some basis for rationalizing doing the same in resistance to them. Just because intolerance for abuse and tyranny isn't treason, or even IS obedience to God, doesn't mean you can justify any atrocity by saying, "The Lord made me do it". bin Laden's hardly the first to make the attempt and won't be the last, but the comparison simply isn't valid.
As to my argument presupposing my conclusion, take it up with Jefferson, Locke, Rousseau et alia, because they routinely argued that government is no more than a social contract, and loses its legitimacy when it defaults on that contract. Jefferson and his peers put into practice, but that doesn't mean every time you don't want to pay a speeding ticket you can storm the Bastille shouting, "Deus vult!" Is this REALLY so difficult to grasp...?
