Misquoting the Presidents

To the Editor:

For a number of generations, many Americans, especially those who resided in states outside the old Confederacy of the old South, celebrated Abraham Lincoln's birthday on Feb. 12 and George Washington's birthday on Feb 22.

While in recent years New York state de-emphasized the remembrance of Lincoln's birthday, and federal legislation moved the Washington's birthday holiday to the third Monday of February, the critical importance of these two great American leaders to this country's existence cannot be over emphasized.

Although these two presidents did a great deal to build, to protect and to preserve the United States, fewer and fewer Americans seem to know or remember these men's words or actions.

Many of the issues they spoke and wrote about are still important to people today in this country and even to people around the world. For example, both Lincoln and Washington spoke of faith, slavery and freedom.

In regards to faith Washington said that, "It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and Bible." While Lincoln said, "I am much indebted to the good Christian people of this country for their constant prayers and consolations."

It is important to remember these two outstanding American presidents not because their birthdays are remembered as holidays or some store sales are named after them, but because their leadership, their lives and their words were a very critical part of this country's history and it's survival.

Robert

I almost abridged today's letter, because let's face it, 80 percent of it is unnecessary. The whole letter appears to serve no purpose outside of providing a long-winded frame for the two quotes, both of which are horribly out of context. I think it's rather inappropriate to misuse the words of two great leaders, the greatest accomplishments of both stemming from their successes in uniting the nation, to underhandedly promote a shift away from the secular government that Washington helped create and Lincoln protected. In the end, I included the letter in its entirety only to illustrate exactly how much space was wasted to get these quotes printed.

Does anyone really argue that the importance of Washington or Lincoln has been exaggerated? How many birthdays of American leaders do we celebrate on a national level? There have been 43 presidents in the nation's history, and only two of them are remembered by a national holiday. Washington and Lincoln are both covered extensively in high school history classes. The argument that these two men are fading into history holds about as much water as a plastic sieve. If anything, they are over exalted, their actual accomplishments overshadowed by legend and mythology that raises them from mere mortals of the highest caliber to omnipotent, flawless American deities. If fewer and fewer Americans remember the histories of these two men, it reflects more on the educational failures of American culture than it does on the relative importance of the men themselves. Frankly, nobody needs Robert to tell them that George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were very important American leaders, so one wonders why he employed so many words to do just that.

Well, one wonders until one gets to the fifth paragraph. Washington's quote is not presented as an adage on faith, despite the awkward segue; instead, without context, it appears that George Washington was calling for a government based on Christianity. Never mind that Washington was a member of the convention that drafted the constitution without so much as one contextual reference to religion or God, and was one of the drafters of the Treaty of Tripoli that clearly stated the American government was in no way rooted in the Christian religion. In fact, the quote is bogus, and has never been successfully tracked down in any of Washington’s speeches or writings. One will find that while this quote is quite often attributed to Washington, it is never done so to include a source. It is most probably a misquotation of Washington’s official proclamation, "… it is in an especial manner our duty as a people, with devout reverence and affectionate gratitude, to acknowledge our many and great obligations to Almighty God and to implore Him to continue and confirm the blessings we experience." While still a statement of faith, the actual quote is not nearly as sectarian or severe. Washington also believed that religion was a deeply personal thing, and in fact never spoke openly about his own beliefs. He was not a churchgoer, nor did he follow any organized Christian denomination. Interestingly, despite being a man of faith, the policies advocated by Washington are in sharp contrast with those forwarded by today's Religious Right, as Washington believed in limited government role in social issues and a policy of global isolationism. One need only refer to Washington's farewell speech in which he warns of the dangers of "foreign entanglements" to realize his was not the Christianity of global crusades.

As for Lincoln, the quote is not at all out for character for the man, though again, out of context, it represents a sense of Christian exceptionalism that I do not believe Lincoln held. Lincoln was a deeply spiritual man, and it was in his religion that he found his dedication and strength at a time when this nation needed strong leadership more than it ever had previously or ever has since. One can point out that Lincoln saw religion as a framework for good character and not a yardstick with which to measure others. It was in part because of this that Lincoln was not popular with the most fervent of Christians in his own day, and in fact Lincoln himself refused to join a church or participate in organized religion at all. When this was leveled against him in 1846, Lincoln replied by saying, "That I am not a member of any Christian Church, is true; but I have never denied the truth of the Scriptures; and I have never spoken with intentional disrespect of religion in general, or any denomination of Christians in particular." Of particular note was Lincoln’s belief that with faith came enormous responsibility and deep humility, something often missing from the arrogance of politicians who evoke the name of God today. Of the American Civil War, he once said, "Sir my concern is not whether God is on our side. My great concern is to be on God's side." This is quite a departure from leaders today who seem able to claim without reservation that God sides with America in all of her endeavors.

In both cases, we have great American leaders who were men of faith, but men of quiet, respectful faith. Neither ever called for any church or religion to have a deeper root in American government. If nothing else, the Religious Right would do well to study these two men, able to project staunch faith without appealing to the basest emotions, and to carry themselves with both reverence and respect for others.

"The blessed Religion revealed in the word of God will remain an eternal and awful monument to prove that the best Institutions may be abused by human depravity; and that they may even, in some instances be made subservient to the vilest of purposes." – George Washington, Proposed Address to Congress, April 1789

Fair Warning

Okay, seriously, if I ever shoot you in the face with birdshot, then sit and eat quail while you're in the hospital, and immediately upon being released you make a statement to the press apologizing to me for what you've put me and my family through, I will shoot you again.

This thing has been blown out of proportion, admittedly. Still, the cult of personality is getting embarrassing.

It's a Twofer!

To the Editor:

My hat is off to William Davies' article on Jan. 30 for bringing Hillary Clinton's hypocrisy to light.

If my memory is accurate, I recall her husband's near impeachment. Hillary's haughtiness knows no bounds. How dare she accuse the Bush administration of corruption - the Clinton's' invented the word! They couldn't even leave the White House without taking some souvenir furniture.

Vicki

---------------------------------------------

To the Editor:

The world is laughing as the media destroys our country with this current character assassination. I laugh as I see reference to our "stumbling economy," Mr. Clinton being so truthful and his humble beginnings.

What more do we need to make people realize which party is the party of the people?

Stephen

Two letters in the same entry? Anarchy! Chaos! Well, no, just two letters that show similar examples of what happens when people react emotionally instead of thinking critically, both published on the same day. Both letters attempt to use misdirection to deflect criticism of the current administration. I'm not sure whom Vicki and Stephen are attempting to convince; theirs are not exactly strong arguments, and are unlikely to persuade anyone who didn't agree with them already. Their letters almost sound like schoolyard taunts, and carry no real weight of political argument in defense of their party or the Bush administration. What they make obvious is that they have bought into the neoconservative strategy of attacking the person instead of the politics, eliciting a stronger visceral response without the need for uncomfortable reflection on the actual issues at hand.

I am the first to admit that I was not a supporter of the Clinton presidency. I felt that Clinton's demeanor was unbecoming in a national leader, and that he pandered when he should have been making principled stands. Regardless, everything that I held against Clinton pales in comparison with the arrogance, opacity, and duplicity of the Bush White House. What would the reaction from the far right have been if Bill Clinton had been discovered circumventing the law to wiretap American citizens? Don't kid yourself for even a second; the man was brought up for impeachment for getting a blowjob. Had he done anything on par with the Bush administration's misdeeds, he'd have been crucified. Yet Bush is forgiven; we accept and even expect duplicity from him. I don't believe this is indicative of actual public support for things like domestic espionage, security leaks for political purposes, or institutionalized torture. Instead, it shows a conflict in the American psyche: the desire for loyalty and acceptance versus the desire for justice and ethics. Being social creatures, it's not surprising that sometimes the former wins out. Ultimately, however, this is not an excuse for blindly following corruption for the sake of personal safety and national pride.

The reality of the situation is that there is no "party of the people," and frankly, I'm a little bit shocked to hear neoconservative supporters so easily borrow from the soviet communist lexicon. Both of the major political parties in this country, at their core, are founded on the principles of serving the people. Neither party can claim a monopoly on serving the people or concern for the welfare of the country, and believing that one does is buying into the laziest, weakest, most reprehensible of political fantasies. There are dedicated men and women of public service in both parties, just as there are self-serving, corrupt career politicians in both parties. It's barely worth addressing the baseless personal attacks that have become the weapon of choice for the most vicious of the right-wing activists, though Clinton's rise from poverty to Rhodes Scholar is well documented, and the source of the furniture-theft story has already admitted that he was instructed to report the story, which began as an e-mail joke, by the current administration. I wonder if, when laughing at the "stumbling economy," Stephen laughs at the growing number of unemployed Americans, or those in the lowest income bracket, who have seen their incomes steadily decline over the last six years while oil companies and defense contractors have posted profits unprecedented in modern history. I can assure him that he doesn't laugh with them. It is this callous, arrogant attitude that best shows what has become of our political system. Defense of values and ideals comes a distant second to self-righteous posturing and personal attacks against those who dare to disagree. Instead of defending the president's actions from the criticism leveled by Senator Clinton and some of the media, both Vicki and Stephen ignore the base issues of dishonesty and incompetence without even appearing to notice they're doing it. Their letters are evidence of the success of the neoconservative movement in their attempt to drain intellectual debate from the realm of government, and replace it with easily controlled emotional response.

The Clinton White House, while far from the paragon of ethical leadership some would make it out to be, was nonetheless plagued by far fewer scandals and improprieties than the Bush Administration, if for no other reason than they were hindered by a Congress controlled by the opposing party. A better comparison to the Bush Administration would be the Nixon presidency, which pursued similar attempts to increase executive power, something Clinton never advocated for. It was from the arrogance of executive power that Nixon's scandals originated, just as we see happening now. If you support the shift in American government towards authoritarian control as pushed by the Bush administration, that's fine, but at least have the courage and conviction to admit that you do and stand by it. If you do not wish to see America become more authoritarian, and you believe that the President is still a public servant in the employ of the American people, than it is incumbent upon you to question why an employee would strive so hard to work in secrecy and dismantle the systems of oversight and accountability you've set up for him. Just liking the man is no excuse for turning a blind eye to his actions. As American citizens, we have a responsibility to ask the tough questions and, if necessary, act on them.

Would You Like To Play a Game?

To The Editor:

Mark Ford's comments in response to David Blanchard's recent "fasting for peace" column were exactly right.

War is and always has been terrible. Having been a combat infantryman, I've see war up close and it's not pretty. My infantry company was the first ashore on D-Day in France. There were 9,000 Allied casualties in the first 24 hours on the Normandy beaches.

Blanchard is "stunned" when he equates military deaths with people on his block vanishing. He mourns our soldiers and dead Iraqis - although he apparently neglects to mourn the innocents around the world killed and maimed by radical Islamists.

I do not agree with Blanchard and the Peace Council on how peace and justice can be attained. They feel by laying down our arms we can accomplish peace. They must realize there are bad people in the world who would destroy this country.

Blanchard refuses to acknowledge that no amount of yearning or withdrawal of troops will accomplish the peace he seeks. Our current enemy is as ruthless as the Japanese suicide bombers or the German storm troopers in World War II.

I want peace as much as Blanchard; but as Mark Ford articulates, symbols and fasting and yearning and talking to madmen will not accomplish peace. It is the height of naivete to think if we left Iraq, the terrorists would back off. If we don't confront them in the Middle East, we will continue to pay a terrible price here and around the world.

We live by standards of good and evil, and our war on terror will determine which we choose. With people like Blanchard espousing anti-war paranoia, I fear we will lose the war at home, not on the battlefield.

Joseph

I'm not going to lash out too hard at Joe here. I don't necessarily disagree with him at a very core level. We haven't reached a point, as a species, where we can realistically expect everyone to simply put down their AK-47s and sing Kum Bi Yah. I certainly don't think it's wrong to hope and to work towards such a goal, but there will be times when use of force is imposed on us. That's the key concept here, however. There is a world of difference between having war forced upon us and going out looking for trouble. One cannot wage war to promote peace any more than, to borrow an example from Action is Eloquence, one can fuck for virginity. Promoting peace is the only way to achieve peace, and while we might not be there yet, I applaud David Blanchard and the Peace Council for their efforts, if not for their choice of method.

It's no secret that our economy revolves tightly around the Pentagon, and that there is far more money to be made from that system if resources are being expended in a military effort. When we elect oilmen and defense contractors to positions of power, we cut out the middle-man, letting corporate interest directly decide our foreign policy. Should we be surprised that we end up in a state of constant conflict? These same corporations have spent the decades following the advent of television perfecting the art of consumer marketing, and just like a pair or jeans, the newest flavor of Coke, and a low-carb diet, they are marketing to us the need for preemptive war and sustained occupation. Joseph exemplifies the results of this marketing campaign in his letter.

Are there "bad people in the world who would destroy this country?" There are, though frankly, I would argue that more of them live within her borders than do outside them. Regardless, this is an example of a broad, blanket statement meant to divide the world into very black and white camps of 'good' and 'bad'. The purpose of spreading this type of sentiment is simple; it is an attempt to keep us from feeling empathy for those designated as 'enemies.' If we are sure that all Iraqi insurgents are 'bad,' we're not likely to raise a fuss over their abuse in army prisons. Of course, many Iraqi insurgents are simply staunch nationalists, not so unlike the Americans who advocate this kind of stark black and white division. Even more insidious is the quietly spread but ultimately more successful concept that Muslims are 'bad.' Radical Muslims certainly have killed and maimed, just as radical Christians have. However, when we let that fact guide our opinion of all Muslims, there is no outcry when an American missile kills 18 villagers, including 5 children, in a failed attempt to kill one al Quaida leader. Would we fail to react if police opened fire with automatic weapons in an American suburb, killing 18 Americans in an attempt to kill a serial killer? Of course not. Those white, Christian Americans were 'good,' but olive-skinned, Muslim Pakistanis were probably 'bad' anyway. We may not consciously make this statement, but our silence is deafening and damning.

Similarly, the concept that we have to confront the terrorists in the 'Middle East' is flawed on many levels. First and foremost, we will face the terrorists wherever they decide to engage us. They have no capital that we can siege and we can't seem to locate their leaders. If we choose to fight them in a 'war,' then we allow for them to play on their own terms. They are determined to win, and they will not expend human resources that they don't have to spare. We are fighting them in Iraq because they have chosen to come to Iraq, not because they were already established there. Remember, al Quaida had no presence in Iraq before the American occupation, and none of the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 were from Iraq. This may seem like an easy fact to shrug off, but again, if we propose to be a bastion of justice and fairness in the world, how can we justify punishing a nation for a movement and a terrorist attack they had nothing to do with? Why don't we engage the terrorists in Israel, which would motivate even more of them to come out in the open, or in Saudi Arabia, where Osama Bin Laden and most of the 9/11 terrorists were from? These questions may seem foolishly implausible, but if our goal is simply to engage terrorists in the Middle East, these locations would make far more sense than Iraq. It is naive to think that our occupation in Iraq is simply an attempt to draw out terrorists, and it is dangerous to believe that we are justified in creating a war and occupation in a sovereign nation simply to deflect our enemies from our own borders. How many innocent people living across the ocean can we cause to suffer in the effort to keep ourselves safe? Is that a question we want to have to answer? If the answer is even one, can we claim moral superiority?

As long as we treat terrorists as an enemy nation, we are giving them exactly what they want, which is simple legitimacy. They can easily convince new recruits that America has declared war on them, as we've given them television footage and photos that appear to prove just that. We are helping people like Osama Bin Laden unite the Middle East - Sunnis and Shiites, devout Muslims and secularists - under a banner of anti-Americanism. The option is not to simply 'cut and run,' despite what the corporate-funded right-wing spin machine would have you believe. The correct response is to treat the terrorists for what they are: organized criminals. We can hunt down and prosecute those who order and fund these criminal acts, or we can wage an unwinnable war against an entire region of the world. We can not successfully do both.

No matter what we choose, however, we need to be vigilant in the fight for our minds, the battleground that has been mapped out by extremists right here in our own nation. Using the same techniques of advertising and marketing they've developed to sell products, they are now selling us ideas about what we need to be safe and what it means to be American. They want to paint the world in easily-digested black and white, good and evil. We know better than that. We know that the world is full of greys, and while it may be easier to simply see black and white, only by including the greys can we see all the detail. Conflicts don't always have a good side and a bad side, and even when they do, those labels usually apply only to leaders, not to entire populations. Who were the 'bad guys' in the American civil war? Did the entire population of Germany turn evil when Adolph Hitler took power? In a world of stark black and white, these questions would have easy answers, but history shows us that such easy answers are folly. We can employ the knowledge we've gained from history now and reject the catchy slogans of "The Terrorists Hate our Freedom" and "Support Our Troops" and "These Colors Don't Run," replacing them with meaningful discussion about what role we want to play in the world and what long-term effects our actions might have. In order to do that, however, we need to distinguish the sales pitches from the vital dialogue. If it fits on a bumper sticker, it's bullshit.

Recommended Reading: "Blinded by the Right," by David Brock. Brock was a participant in the formation of the right-wing spin machine and, among other things, was probably the person most responsible for the smearing of Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court Hearings. Here he describes in vivid, first-person detail how the neoconservative movement diverged from the classic values of Republicans and Conservatives, and how they've managed to take control through shadowy plotting and the marketing of false information.

Cal Thomas' Batshit Symphony in G major

Cal Thomas. He's a man on a mission, and that mission is apparently to prove that he's the most batshit person on the face of the planet. His most recent column can be found here, but I'll quote him as needed.

In fairness to Cal, the first sentence of his column is actually a perfectly viable question.

"What is it with evangelical Christians that so many of them need a cause beyond the commission they've been given?"

Now that's a fair criticism. To evangelize merely means to teach and spread the word of Christ. They've never actually been particularly good at that, frankly, which should come as no surprise to anyone who's ever seen a Chick Tract (my particular favorite is here). Instead of improving their technique, they've apparently decided to give up on the teaching thing and embrace ham-fisted moralizing. For people who believe that the fate of a person's soul is solely dependant upon that person's faith in the Resurrection, they sure seem overly concerned with sticking their nose in every aspect of people's lives.

"Having witnessed the damage to the church's fundamental message of redemption from a too-close association with the 'kingdom of this world' - first in the liberal National Council of Churches and World Council of Churches, and more recently with various conservative religious-political movements - some evangelicals have decided to give it another go. This time, the issue isn't abortion, gay rights, or cleaning up offensive TV programs. They want to clean up the planet."

Wait... what??? Okay, right off the bat, this guy was bitching about "Happy Holidays" along with the rest of his brood just a couple months ago. Environmental conservation is too trivial, but holiday greeting semantics isn't? More important here, though, is the fact that Cal is starting a column with a faulty premise, based on his mistaken concept of what "the World" means in a biblical sense. "The World" is the realm of man, as opposed to Heaven, the realm of God. Things "of the World" are constructs of man... things like politics and the stock market and medical industry lobbyists and Snickers bars. The Earth itself is actually not "of the World" because it is not a construct of man. If one believes God created the Earth, then one must grant the Earth the same divinity one grants any divine creation.

"Last October, it appeared the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), which claims 30 million members, was headed toward an alliance with the more liberal wing of Christendom over the environment. Rather than call it "environmentalism," which to some reeks of sensible shoes and reusing hotel towels, these evangelicals embraced a euphemism more to their liking. "Creation Care" they decided to call it, and solving "global warming" would be their objective.

It now appears that at least some cooler heads have prevailed over global warming. While some superstars of evangelicalism - including best-selling author Rick Warren ('The Purpose Driven Life') - have signed on to the global warming doctrine, many others have not. This division in evangelical ranks prompted the NAE to pull back from an expected endorsement of the issue following last October's statement that mankind has 'a sacred responsibility to steward the Earth and not a license to abuse the creation of which we are a part.' A statement issued Feb. 1 by NAE President Ted Haggard recognized 'the ongoing debate' on global warming and 'the lack of consensus among the evangelical community on this issue.'"

I am the first to admit that some environmental causes are over-the-top. A lot of your most hard-core environmentalist activists are a lot like your most vicious neoconservatives; they're young people who have embraced an ideology and now depend on it for their identity, unable to critically think about the issues because their very existence is dependant on the rightness of their cause. That said, people like Cal piss me off. People who prefer to ignore potentially dangerous environmental problems are not "cooler heads." At best, they're "apathetic marketing-susceptible consumers," and at worst they're "corporate whores." Global warming isn't really something you can deny anymore... you can argue about its cause, or the best way to handle the problem, but we know that the global temperature is rising. Some very intelligent, very well-educated people think that this could lead to some pretty nasty consequences, and I'm not convinced that they're just godless, America-hating socialists, despite the best attempts by people like Rush Limbaugh. Sorry, but I believe that Rush has more of a political axe to grind than environmental scientists do. I don't hold it against Cal, Rush, and the rest that they don't buy apocalyptic global warming theories, but I do find it suspicious that instead of countering such claims, they attack the intelligence and patriotism of the people making them. That's just lazy.

"A better objective would be to follow another statement made not by a committee but by a single individual who claims ownership of His church and requires obedience to all who would follow Him: 'Go and make disciples of all nations.' (Matthew 28:19) Jesus also called on His disciples - then and now - 'to obey everything I have commanded you.' A quick look does not reveal those teachings as having anything to do with global warming or the environment. Rather, He calls individuals to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit those in prison and pray for those who persecute them. Evangelicals should pursue these higher virtues instead of settling for the lower life of politics."

Okay, now see, here is where Cal sabotages his own argument. Feeding the hungry and clothing the naked are valid callings for evangelical Christians, but they also mandate an effort to keep people from being hungry and poor, or at least not fighting such efforts. No matter who you blame for global warming, there is pretty solid evidence that it is causing the expansion of deserts and increased drought conditions. Working to reduce or reverse global warming, then, is actually an attempt to keep entire regions of people from being poor and hungry. This is not an argument you can make for keeping homosexuals from legally marrying or teaching creationism in biology classes. Frankly, for the first time in a decade, the evangelicals may have found a cause that actually coincides with the tenets they profess to follow.

"Some evangelicals lift a verse from Genesis that speaks of being good stewards and 'taking care' of the earth. But that was before the fall of man, when sin and corruption entered the world."

So we're supposed to give up because the job has gotten too hard? Nice work ethic, jackass. We broke it, but we don't have to clean it up. That's got to be one of the worst biblical arguments I've ever read.

"I'm all for trying to keep the air and water as clean as possible, and I do not toss litter on the ground, but I worry that, having been mugged several times before at the end of the political alley, evangelicals may be setting themselves up for more damage to their credibility."

But you started this argument, Cal, by claiming that Evangelicals should stick with evangelism and not worry about politics. Why, then, should they refrain from pursuing a cause because it might be politically unpopular?

I can't believe that this column is syndicated. I don't mean that Cal's self-righteous pseudo-intellectualism should be censored. He should have the right to say whatever he wants. I simply mean that he is a poor writer and his arguments are frequently faulty, and therefore he is not qualified to take up space in serious newspapers. By giving space to someone who is nothing more than a poorly spoken shill for the corporate elite and the American nationalists, we're not only giving credence to his argument, but we're also lowering the expectations we have for people engaging in public debate.

Would the Real First Amendment Please Stand Up?

To the Editor:

I can't take it any more! I have grown weary of hearing people send up the battle cry that we must save our government from the influence of religion by saying that the Constitution (or its writers) supports this idea. Has anyone read the U.S. Constitution?

A recent letter in The Readers' Page scolded President Bush. The author wrote, "The framers of the Constitution intended government to be completely separate from the church . . .," implying that the Constitution protects government from religious influences.

In fact, the Constitution's intention is quite the opposite - to protect religion from government.

H.

Okay, see, this is the kind of thing that makes me want to do a headplant into my monitor. It's what drove me nuts about the Alito confirmation hearings; I simply can't stomach people who argue that they have some sort of monopoly on ultimate constitutional interpretation. How many times did we hear from Alito that he would make his decisions "based on the constitution," as if other Supreme Court justices are going to Beatrix Potter as a legal reference? Just saying that you're upholding the constitution doesn't cut it. It's a two-hundred-year-old document, and it has multiple interpretations. If you interpret the constitution to mean that African Americans are three fifths of a human being, I don't have a lot of time for your interpretation. Similarly, if you interpret the constitution as some sort of one-way valve that protects religion from the people, but not the people from religion, your interpretation is about as valuable to me as a door-sized poster of Pat Roberston, which is to say, as tinder.

The constitution says this regarding religion, in the first amendment of the bill of rights:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

That's it. That's the line. Yes, the constitution clearly says that Congress shall not prohibit the free exercise of religion. It would be nice for folks like H. if it ONLY said that, but it doesn't. It also states that Congress is not to make any laws that have anything to do with establishing state religion. Now, certainly, that is up for interpretation, but even the narrowest definition has to concede that this sentence is meant, to some degree, to keep religion out of the law. Arguing that the first amendment is meant only to protect religion from government displays just as selective a reading as maintaining that it is only meant to protect the government from religion. Most of the freedoms granted by the bill of rights are "freedoms to:" the right to free speech, the right to bear arms, the right to a fair trial, and so on. Culturally, however, we recognize a "Freedom of religion." Not to, but of. In this case, "of" implies both a freedom to and a freedom from. Yes, we are free to practice our religions (even Native Americans, who gained that right in the 1970's), but we are also protected from being subjected to the religion of others. This is a recurring theme in the constitution; the drafters believed that the minority must be protected from the tyranny of the majority.

If you need any further evidence that the drafters of the constitution did not intend any religion to influence the law, go ahead and flip through the document, counting the references to God. If you were very thorough, you found exactly one, that being the dating convention "Year of our Lord." That's it. That's where the argument ends for me. You simply can not realistically argue that a group of educated men, the majority of whom were devout Christians, meant to write a document establishing a government open the religious influence, but somehow forgot to make even one salient reference to their religion.

Thankfully, they didn't forget. They did it on purpose, because unlike so many of us today, these men understood that governments beholden to religion have historically been the most tyrannical, corrupt governments in existence, and Christianity is by no means immune to the trend. The Crusades, The Spanish Inquisition, and the Salem Witch Trials are all examples of what happens when the government is used as a puppet of the Christian church, and when the church is corrupted by the influences of government. In a sense, protecting the government from religion is protecting the religion too, since heavy participation in government has a tendency to corrupt religion. I contend you're already seeing this in America, as charismatic televangelists and religious media figures become wealthy by supporting corporate concerns and assisting in numbing the population through fear and hate. They will go on for hours about Muslims, homosexuals, and feminists, but they conveniently forget about scripture that promotes charity, kindness, and tolerance. Did you know that the Bible calls for the elimination of all debts every seven years, and the redistribution of wealth every fifty years? James Dobson does, but you'll never hear him mention it. That's not the kind of "Christian Government" he wants.

If you think that religion should have more influence in government, that's fine. I think you're fucking nuts, but you're allowed to be fucking nuts. If you want to argue your point, however, you're going to have to come armed with something a little more persuasive than a sub par understanding of constitutional text and your belief that the founding fathers were a bunch of puritans. Maybe the reason folks are "weary of hearing people send up the battle cry that we must save our government from the influence of religion by saying that the Constitution (or its writers) supports this idea" is that they keep arguing against it. I'd hate to be that firmly entrenched on the losing side of an argument too. Have I read the Constitution? Yep. Do I agree with you? Nope. Sometimes it's just not that simple. You can be as weary as you want to be, but if you want to shut us up, you'll need to be convincing as well. That's something you've not even begun to approach.

"The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion."
- Treaty of Tripoli, Article 11, ratified by the U.S. senate 1797

Indecision for teh win

Okay, yeah, I know what the site has said for the last few days. I meant it, too. The site, as it existed before, was not what I'd hoped it would become. A lot of ranting on my part, which while always justified, was not at all productive. I also got quite a few e-mails from people I'd responded to and was told, among other things, that I was a coward hiding behind the anonymity of the internet, which is, frankly, somewhat true. I published the names of the letter writers, but not my own. Shame on me. Full names from letters will never be posted here again unless the writer asks me to do so.

A lot of the content from past entries has been deleted, and most of the rest has been pared down to some extent. I think a lot of it is pretty good, and I stand behind it, but some of it was unjustifiably hostile, and that's gone. I don't wish to contribute to the kind of behavior that's really causing all the trouble we're in as a nation and culture. I may hate someone's opinion, but I refuse to hate someone for their opinions, and I resolve to bear that distinction in mind from now on.

I'm not entirely sure where things will go from here, but I figured a better explanation was in order, and not just a one-line shrug-off. To those I may have personally offended, I appologize. It wasn't my intent. To those I just generally offended, I do not appologize. To those who've enjoyed reading this blog, I hope I can continue to provide content worth a peek or two a week while changing my tone to be less directly confrontational.

I definitely invite anyone with concerns or opinions to contribute here. My original goal here was to engender discussion, and if anything can be salvaged, I hope that can be it. At very least, do drop me an e-mail; as you can see, I can handle and employ constructive criticism, even if my initial reaction is a bit overdramatic.

Eating Your Cake

Okay, the State of the Union address was a waste of time. No actual information, just a chance for the old rhetoric to be played back in the political version of syndication. However, something great did happen last night, and when I say 'something great', of course what I mean is 'something that perfectly illustrates what I've been talking about for the last few days.'

Two women were removed from the proceedings for messages written on their shirts. Cindy Sheehan, the anti-war activist mother of a soldier killed in action, wore a shirt that said "2,245 Dead. How many more?" Beverly Young, the wife of a Florida Congressman, wore a shirt that said "Support the Troops." Both women were brusquely escorted out of the building for wearing their respective shirts.

Now, I don't agree with either of these women, per se. I give Cindy Sheehan a bit more leeway because I have to imagine that having a son killed in the course of an immoral occupation has to be taxing on the emotional health, but I definitely don't agree with her about an immediate pull-out of Iraq. We shouldn't have been there in the first place, but unfortunately, we broke it, and it would irresponsible to drop it without doing everything in our power to hand control over slowly and carefully. Beverly Young is just a panderer sucked into the theme of Nationalism to garner votes for her husband... I don't question that she considers herself a patriot, but she doesn't have any excuse for being an extremist. It's not that I don't agree that we should support our troops; I just don't believe we should "Support or Troops" as translated to mean "Support This Failed Occupation," which is of course what the shirt really means. Looking at it from somewhere in the middle, though, I can say unequivocally that neither woman should have been removed from the proceedings, as neither woman was causing any sort of disruption.

I listened to a good variety of talk radio today, which was a mistake because six straight hours of State of the Union dissection caused my brain cells to leap lemming-like from my ears onto the hardwood floor surrounding my workstation. Both sides brought up this issue, but of course, both sides focused only on the woman whose statement most agreed with their message.

If you believe Cindy Sheehan should not have been ejected, then you must argue that Beverly Young was treated unfairly as well. If you agree with Young's husband that to throw out his wife was a "Shame. Shame," then you must also argue that Sheehan's ejection was equally shameful. If you can not bring yourself to do this, then you are part of the problem.

There was a whole lot of discussion today about what happened at the State of the Union, and you'd have thought the two sides had watched two different events. It boils down pretty quickly, though: Bush was disingenuous, and the Democrats were indecisive. There's nothing new to report. The T-Shirt Incident, however, may be one of the most salient political events to occur in a long time, if you look at it from the standpoint of what it really says about us as a society and individuals.