A World Quite Mad

Herman Cain is an (un)American idiot. If you recall back in July he was clamoring for religious tests before people can serve in government here. Any sixth grader who's taken government studies could tell you that that is unconstitutional, a violation of Article Six of our Constitution. Now he tells ordinary, average Americans that it's all their fault.

"Don't blame Wall Street, don't blame the big banks," he continued. "If you don't have a job and you are not rich, blame yourself!

Really? I wonder when Herman Cain last visited a ghetto. Maybe he should take a stroll through public housing. While he's there he'd do well to look at all the children living there. Children brought into this world, born into poverty, through NO FAULT OF THEIR OWN, who do not stand a chance with people like Herman Cain running things.

"While Cain dismissed the protests, he stressed in his interview with the Wall Street Journal that he's more in touch with the middle class than the GOP frontrunner, Mitt Romney."

O rly? Well, I suppose this could be factually accurate since there's not much of a middle class left here in the United States and what is left is on it's way out. I guess it's easy to be more in touch than your opponent with something that doesn't exist.

"And while Cain has been successful in business, he told the Wall Street Journal's Alan Murray, "Don't spread this perception I'm a kajillionaire.""

This is of course a lie. Only the rich can run for office in this country. I suppose an exception might be made if someone of lesser means sold out and was funded by a Corporate backer *cough* tea party candidates *cough*

Actually, Herman Cain's net worth is reported to be $18,000,000. How many years would you have to work to earn that much money? If I went by my last full-time job, which happened to pay ABOVE the median wage for an individual in the United States, I would have to work over four hundred years to earn what Herman Cain is worth. At the rate I'm going now, since I'm underemployed, it would probably take me closer to a few thousand years to earn that much. There's something wrong with that. But then again, Herman Cain is in the top 1% of people in this country. Besides the non-existant middle class, I'm sure he's in touch with his profit margin.

Judging from his self-serving demeanor, I dare say that Herman Cain would not want to raise taxes on the rich, unlike Obama, since Herman Cain acts like an entitlement whore, in that he's entitled and the rest of us are just SOL.* Herman Cain doesn't care about this country. He doesn't care about our Constitution either, and he doesn't care about you. Unless 'you' happen to be Herman Cain that is, or one of his cronies. And if Herman Cain reads this, since he claims to be Christian, maybe he ought to ponder the second half of the nineteenth chapter of the book of Matthew.

"You know, where it ends, usually depends on where you start." --Everlast, What it's Like

*Hint:Obama is rich too, but still raised taxes on himself.

A single snow flake can start an avalanche.

A single drop of rain can precede a flood.

One person can change the entire world.

I know what you're thinking. The first two are true and the third is bullshit. But it's not. Think about it for a minute. I'm sure you can come up with a handful of people who, if they had never lived, the world would not be the same place. Maybe more than a handful. They may have had help, they may not have done it alone, but without them, things would not be the way they are now.

The corporate media is determined to undermine the Occupy protests. They're dismissing it as a bunch of hipsters who don't want to work. Corporate shills Trolls online are calling them communists, as if they even comprehend the meaning of that word. Communist, liberal, socialist, fascist, conservative etc. have all lost their meaning because of the misapplying of these terms to things/people/movements that do not fit into their definition. The mainstream media are owned by powers that wish to see us made into serfs. If you think this is also bullshit, I suggest you turn off Faux News and take a look around. Corporate profits are up 22% since 2007. Why are so many people out of work? Because they're pocketing the money on the backs of their workers. But that's just the tip of the iceberg and only one of the many problems that are facing us today.

Why are CEOs making more than ever when the average American's salary has fallen? More importantly, why are so many Americans hoodwinked into thinking that if there is regulation of a system it won't benefit them? Why do these same people think that regulation equals communism? Or that providing for the poor equals communism? (Jesus was apparently a communist in that case.) Public education in this country is the first thing cut, and when you think about it, from an almost conspiracy-theory-esque sense, that's been a boon to the Corporatocracy. What better way to control the masses, to make them believe your propaganda newscasts than to give them a lackluster education and discourage critical thinking skills. I'd like to believe that it's a serendipitous by-product of unintended consequences, but after a while discounting the multiple "coincidences" tends to make one question their sanity anyway.

You may also think that everyone is just too lazy or too comfortable to do anything about it. After all when we can sit around and poke at facebook or lose ourselves in online games, why would we want to put ourselves in danger of being arrested, pepper-sprayed by police or worse? But always, always throughout history, there comes a tipping point. Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that, "all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed." What happens when everyone has had enough? What happens when a military you have equipped and trained (and that qualifies for food stamps with what they are paid) have themselves had enough?

The congressmen and women in Washington are no longer working for We the People. They have been bought by the Corporations. They have turned their backs on the Constitution of the United States in exchange for thirty pieces of silver. Except the thirty pieces of silver wasn't enough for them, and the billions weren't enough for their Corporate masters. It's never enough; they must have more. And that "more" comes at the expense of the middle class. At the expense of US. And that is why things have gone they way they have. People may have been willing to forget about it if it hadn't gone so far, if they were able to have a decent life, send their kids to college and have a nest egg for retirement. Instead they have seen their wealth vanish and the price of their home plummet. They give up 40% of their income in taxes, and their children graduate from college tens of thousands of dollars in debt and are not able to find a job. They have seen their hopes and dreams evaporate. And meanwhile, the super rich are getting richer and pay no or few taxes by taking advantage of loopholes in the tax code.

Every single politician in Washington ought to be recalled and sent home. And every single lobbyist should be standing in the unemployment line. Free elections should be called with NO CORPORATE SPONSORSHIP AND NO CORPORATE MONEY. We the People want our country back. We want our Constitutional rights restored to Individuals and stripped from Corporations. We want our jobs back. Those are our demands. We may not be able to Occupy Wall Street because of distance, but we can Occupy our towns. And when we can't do that, we can Occupy the Internet. We are here and we aren't going away. We aren't shutting up. We aren't going to accept serfdom so that 1% can accumulate more and more. We're fed up and we've had it.


"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." --Margaret Mead

PS. As an aside, if you had asked me in 1995 what the greatest threat to this country was, I'd have told you it was religious fundamentalists. And maybe it still is to some degree because they are the ones who have been hoodwinked by these Corporate bastards. They are the teabaggers and their hangers-on, funded by Corporations. I however would never have thought that business would become so corrupt, and our politicians so enamored by their money, that our very democracy could hang in the balance over money. Ideology yes. But money? It seems so ridiculous. As they say, truth is stranger than any fiction.

...like a bad penny! Because when you don't have truth on your side, you fight by using lies.

Racial firestorm surrounds USDA employee's ouster

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said that he would reconsider the department's decision to ask Shirley Sherrod to resign. Sherrod, the director of rural development in Georgia, was asked by department officials to leave her job on Monday after conservative bloggers posted an edited video of her saying that she initially didn't give a white farmer as much help as she could have 24 years ago, when she was working for a nonprofit farm aid group.

Sherrod says the video distorted her full speech, which described how she came to realize the white farmer needed her help and which she says was intended to promote racial reconciliation.

...

The two-minute, 38-second clip posted Monday by BigGovernment.com was presented as evidence that the NAACP was hypocritical in its recent resolution condemning what it calls racist elements of the tea party movement. The website's owner, Andrew Breitbart, said the video shows the civil rights group condoning the same kind of racism it says it wants to erase. Biggovernment.com is the same outfit that gained fame last year after airing video of workers at the community group ACORN counseling actors posing as a prostitute and her boyfriend.

What I want to know, are the people who made this decision so stupid that they believe anything that comes out of Breitbart or any of his associates' mouths? Really? Because, if you have any sense you should never believe a liar. Once someone has lied to you, you can never believe anything they say ever again.

I've been a little busy with things, and so I haven't even read the news lately, and so I have nothing to write about. I realized while on my trip to Europe that I enjoyed not knowing what was going on. The world kept on going without me knowing anything about all the crap I can't change or do anything about. You can read about all these politicians, and the things they do to muck up the world. You can read about all the crazy fundamentalist fanatics that are burning books or lashing women in some backwater in Afghanistan or beating their wives right here in the good ol' US of A. And I can't do shit about any of it. I sometimes question whether or not it's even worthwhile to know about all of the travesty that goes on in this world.

That's almost anathema to what I believe, that knowledge is important, it gives you power. I don't know what kind of power that is exactly though. The power to drive yourself quite mad at the craziness of humanity, both in the past and now, and I'm sure into the future. The entire world is quite mad. And that's why I named this blog that. Humanity is really fucked up on so many levels.

So why am I writing this? I don't even know, something to do with the fact that I realized I hadn't written in a few days, and realized also that I didn't know what to write about. That and it's late, I'm rambling and I should go to bed, but I'm procrastinating about that.

And here we have, in a mere one week, another shamed Republican presidential 2012 hopeful. Laid low by the strict moral view espoused by their twisted interpretation of ancient manuscripts, they fail to see the irony that is their life. While insisting that everyone else live up to a certain moral, they themselves fail the proverbial hypocrite test, of failing to practice what one preaches.

Personally, I don't give a damn if he had an affair with someone. IMHO, that's between him and his wife. The problem is, these politicians scream for morality, and then when they don't practice what they preach, it's because they're "just human." Well yes, they are just human, which is why they fuck up. So why can't that be a lesson to politicians, that we're not interested in your morality. Just do your damned job of representing the people, and don't worry about how I live my life and I won't worry about how you live yours. So long as no laws are broken, who cares? Instead, I'm sure Mr. Ensign and Mr. Sanford are blaming Satan, the scapegoat for everything, for their failings. That's the problem with religions like Christianity. They promote the belief that one is not responsible for their actions, that bad things are done by the devil (or by people influenced by the devil) and that if they only put aside their reason, that Jesus will make it all better by a simple thought in their head that he's a god and came to earth to save them, like some kind of superhero.

The 2012 election is going to be interesting. When your most likable (as in likable by those who have no thoughts in their head) is a dumb bitch from Alaska, you have problems. You see, the GOP has been the party of anti-intellectualism for the last three plus decades, and the lack of viable candidates that have half a thought in their head, shows us that this strategy has finally come home to roost for them. So not only do they now have a bunch of followers who are unthinking hypocrites, the core of their leadership is made up of much the same.

Not surprising that the anchor at Faux News didn't insist she answer the question. Indeed, I'm surprised they even asked it. The appropriate answer would have been "I'm an idiot."

I wound up with another right-wing wacko newsletter in my inbox this morning, this one from Townhall. Titled "Stop Janet Napolitano's War Against Americans and Our Constitution," it says that the Thomas More Law Center has filed a suit against Janet Napolitano for infringing on their first and fifth amendment rights (huh?), and they'd like for you to send them money, it's tax deductible. You know, I really think that some people should have their tax exempt status revoked when they pull shit like this. But whatever, the point is, they're mad because they lost and there's a black guy in the White House, so now they have to go and waste money on frivolous lawsuits over perceived slights against their freedom. The rant is long, incoherent and convoluted, but here's a snippet of it:

Why has Janet Napolitano diverted public attention from the real acts of terrorism in our country, which she now refers to as "man-caused disasters"? And why is she so willing to use the word "terrorist" to describe law-abiding Americans?

The truth is that Janet Napolitano is threatening Americans who disagree with the policies of the Obama administration to "Shut Up or else."

Would you ever have imagined our own government targeting as terrorists our returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan who placed themselves in harms way to defend our country?

Would you ever have imagined our own government would target citizens based on their political and moral beliefs such as opposition to abortion, same-sex marriage, or the social programs of the Obama administration?

Gee, that's really funny. I seem to remember G.W. Bush's supporters calling people unpatriotic when they questioned the un-Constitutional things that he did. Now that we have a chance to undo the damage the neo-Cons did to the Constitution, that's suddenly against the Constitution. Yeah. Thinking about it will make your head hurt. G.W. Bush can wipe his ass with our Constitution and use the DHS to strip us of our constitutional rights such as with the warrantless wiretapping and the use of torture, and these bastards didn't care about that, but warn that some right-wing wackos á-la-Timothy-McVeigh might have cause to do others harm, and oh-my-god-the-government-is-going-to-take-away-our-rights!

And all of this because she said that right-wing extremists might *try* to recruit veterans. This would seem like a joke if it weren't so troubling. The judge will probably throw it out as groundless, but you have to ask yourself this, why are these people so upset over the assessment that right-wing extremists are a danger to our democracy and safety? Unless Napolitano hit a nerve. Actually if you take into consideration all the right-wing wackos screaming for secession and the violent overthrow of a duly elected government, and thinly or not-at-all-masked neo-Nazi militias who want a white Christian America, you might see that perhaps Napolitano isn't so far off the mark.

If I hear one more time that Fascism is a left-wing ideology, I think my head might explode. So, I decided to make a political spectrum chart, for dummies. I was going to do it as a line, as that would be simplest, but it's too simple. In reality, even a graph like this is too simple. No one is in one particular spot on everything. I had difficulty placing people. This is all my opinion, based on what I know of the people here.

I was going to put Ron Paul on here, but couldn't. That man is a contradiction of himself. I'm sorry, but he says that the government shouldn't interfere in people's lives, but he's for the government telling me I must carry a pregnancy to term as he thinks abortion should be illegal. Psst, the Nazis did that too. He's also mixed on business, sometimes for it, sometimes for unions. You know, I just couldn't figure him out. All I know, is that I think he's a bit of a kook. Sure, some of the things he says seem reasonable, but he invariably will say something that makes me think he's an idiot.

So, you know, American politics tend to be sort of toward the middle. I think that G.W. Bush polarized everyone, and threw all of that off. And Clinton a liberal? Ha! Sure, on the personal level, but he was very pro business too.

It's not easy to put people in one particular spot, so keep that in mind before you flame me on where I put someone. Like Marx. While his ideas were taken and terrible things were done with them, his ideas are actually more democratic, in that the masses are in charge, not a single ruler. So that's why he's on the left of authoritarian, whereas Stalin, who claimed to be Marx's heir, was a totalitarian bastard.

As for Che, I think he was pretty anarchist, despite his support and work for Castro. It seems he didn't get along with anyone very well. He was also pretty ruthless, which IMHO, being a ruthless asshole doesn't really help your cause. But perhaps, he did what he had to, which I suppose is what any of us do. That still doesn't excuse killing people.

So where the hell am I on here? Like I don't even know. I'm definitely liberal, in the sense that the government should be regulating banks and corporations, not my life. I'm liberal also in the sense, that if you want to believe that the Flying Spaghetti Monster will save the world, I'm cool. I don't really give a damn what you believe, so long as you leave me and everyone else in peace.

As for corporations, I think they're mostly bastards and that CEOs make way too much in comparison to the people who do the actual work. I think that people should make more money, I don't think they pay people enough for the jobs they do. It's caused us to prop up our economy on credit, because the people making $8 an hour at Wal-Mart can't afford to buy anything. They can barely get by, and so as cheap and easy as it was to get credit until recently, well, we know where that went. It's gotten us into what may be a depression, of course that'll be hindsight. Henry Ford, as much as an anti-Semitical bastard that he was, paid his workers enough to buy his product. If you don't pay people enough, they can't buy your shit. Or they buy it with credit as I said, and well, that only props everything up so long.

Did I mention regulation. That should be the role of the Federal government. Regulating banks. Seriously. That and providing social security, highways, and money for public works and the arts and humanities, and research. Hey, I work on a government funded research project, I'll not bite the hand that feeds me. I really think the government should regulate business. Not people.

But I can't label myself a communist, because I think communism, while it looks great on paper, especially a lot of things that Marx thought, is an EPIC FAIL in reality, because people are greedy. The collective, the people are never in charge in those cases, it's always some dictator. Why exactly that is, I'm not entirely sure. I guess it could be because people can't work together without leadership. That would be anarchy, which apparently has never been tried in a peaceful setting. People think of anarchy as violent, but it could be peaceful I suppose. If people weren't assholes.

So there we come to the crux of the matter. Whatever political or moral ideology you subscribe to, people in general are stupid bastards. And some people are determined to be leaders and utilize their power and money to gain more power and more money. Sometimes it's under the guise of organized religion. In fact, that's probably most of the time.

I've been accused of being atheist because I can't or won't tell people what I think "god" is. As if some mere mortal could define a supreme being, bind him/her up into a book, market it to the masses and call it infinite. We ain't got a fucking clue one about the nature of our planet or life here, much less the divine or the universe. It's like a blind man trying to describe to another blind man what the ocean looks like. "It's very wet," he says. But he can't see it. And even that's an overstatement. Because we usually can't feel or hear "god", whatever that is, and I daresay if you're hearing "god" you should probably go take your medication. I suppose sometimes we might sort of feel something that feels like the divine, but that doesn't mean we know what it is. Does this make me an agnostic? Some might think so. Except that if there is a "god", it might as well not exist, as it seems that "god" has done little for this planet, except in the promotion of genocide, murder and despotism. Oh sure, some people have done good and been motivated by their religion, but more often than not people have done bad and/or used religion as an excuse to do bad, or have lived in absolute fear because their neighbors would kill them if they found out they didn't believe the same way they do. Basically, an uneducated and ignorant people who believe that what amounts to fables, is inerrable truth, are not long for a democratic republic.

Well, this turned into a long rant and it is quite late. On that last note, I think of this...

"The epitaph [of Simon de Montfort] says, for those who can read it, that he is a saint and a martyr... And I have heard it said that this must be so -- if by killing men and shedding blood, and damning souls and causing deaths... by killing women and slaughtering children, a man in this world can win Jesus Christ, certainly Count Simon wears a crown and shines in heaven above." --Song of the Cathar Wars

Oh, and PS, I added Olbermann because I can. I don't claim to know where he actually stands on these things, but he seems pretty liberal so I just picked a spot.

For all these morons who are holding "teabagging" parties tomorrow, I think it will blow up in their faces, pun intended. I don't know what they're smoking, but I make above the median income for the United States, and I got a tax cut. I am paying less in taxes right now with Obama than I was under G. Dubya Bush. Republicans don't cut taxes, unless you're rich. So, why am I paying less taxes now? Could it be because the Republican party is comprised of a bunch of lying bastards? Nah, couldn't be.

They want to complain about our government spending money? I'm glad the government spends money. *I* am the face of government spending. I am a private contractor on a research project that is being funded by our government. If the government stops spending money, I lose my job. And the thought of that pisses me off. What do these idiots think the government spends money on? Yes, I'm sure some of it is wasteful, but not all of it. They spend money on road work, building projects, and on research projects that are working to better everyone's lives. They spend money giving grants so students, who otherwise wouldn't be able to, can go to college.

You know the one thing I wish. I wish I made more money so that I would have the priveledge of paying more taxes. Pay me $300k a year, I'll pay the taxes on it! I wouldn't know what to do with that kind of income, but I'm sure I could think of a few things.

These sheeple can take their tea bags and shove them where the sun don't shine. As for me, I'll take my tea black, with sugar.

You know, I think that Mrs. Clinton should really watch those Freudian slips or perhaps just shut the hell up. Why? Because every time she speaks, she manages to say something that makes my respect for her go one notch lower.

Today for instance it was reported that she said while speaking about China:

"But our pressing on [human rights] can't interfere on the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crisis..."

Yes, because money is always more important than life or human rights. I mean, think of all the things you can buy with money. Whereas, what can you buy with some China man's life half a world away? A life is obviously worth nothing to the politically powerful and wealthy. These are the same personality types that ruled Medieval Europe from their castles while the serfs who were practically slaves, did all the work and suffered.

Same shit, different day.

You may have heard about the row over the NY Post publishing a comic yesterday, depicting the writer of the Stimulus Package as a crazed chimpanzee. While I'm all for artistic freedom and against censorship, if the editor of said paper didn't see the firestorm that was going to ensue from it, they're an idiot.

And it *is* racist. If the President were a white guy, well, then the comic wouldn't have been offensive. But the President is black, and since historically black people have been depicted as monkeys, it's a racist comic. It doesn't take a genius to figure that one out.

Should they not publish it? Well, I say that's their prerogative, but they have to be willing to live with the fallout from it.

Lay the blame anywhere but where it belongs.

http://michellemalkin.com/2009/02/17/president-obamas-2000-point-tumble/

Ms. Malkin seems to think it's all Obama's fault that the stock market is in a free fall. She states that it's fallen 2k points since he was elected, never mind that he wasn't even in office for a majority of that time.

It couldn't possibly be the failed economic policies of the last decade. Nah, it couldn't possibly be the corruption, the deregulation, the lack of government oversight with the banks and mortgage lending. It couldn't possibly be the Republicans allowing all of the high paying factory work to be shipped to China or Mexico so that their crony CEO friends could make record profits and take home record bonuses of hundreds of millions of dollars while using slave wage labor in third world countries. It couldn't possibly be a Republican's fault.

When G. Dubya took office we had a budget surplus, which he quickly squandered. He also squandered a lot of other things too. The friendship and trust of our allies and the wealth of this country are just the tip of the iceberg to what that man and his administration squandered.

Malkin must have a very short memory, because from May of 2008 until G.Dubya Bush exited office on January 20, 2009 the stock market fell over 5,000 points. It went from over 13k to under 8k. In fact, since January 20th when Obama took office, until today, the stock market had been up a little bit on average. Of course, today it fell a lot, and I suspect it's going to continue that trend, as reversing the mismanagement of the previous administration isn't going to happen overnight.

I have a good friend who told me right after the election that she figured that the Republicans would prop up the economy the best they could until Obama took office, then they would not cooperate, and would let everything collapse and blame it all on Obama and the Democrats. That makes for a nice excuse for all sorts of fascist aspirations. I'll leave your imagination to that one.

Perhaps Malkin and her ilk, if they want to know the reason for the state our economy is in, they can go and look in the mirror. They voted for it, and they continue to advocate for failed policies.

The blame lies at their own feet.

This isn't good for anyone.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090217/wl_time/08599187982000

The Pakistani government has given the northwest part of the country to the Taliban, citing that was what the residents of the area wanted. Codswallop. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled the region and some of the women who fled spoke out against it in Islamabad, insisting that it's not what the residents there want.

The Taliban there have torched schools and school girls, have murdered their opponents, and Pakistan's government thinks that the people there are going to speak out against the Taliban? It's like asking a hostage with a gun to his head whether or not he likes the hostage taker.

So what does some remote part of Pakistan have to do with anything or anyone, other than the unfortunate people stuck there? This is roughly 100 miles from Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. What no one in the press is saying, is that Pakistan has nuclear weapons. It has just conceded a large chunk of land as a safe haven, to a terrorist organization that would like nothing more than to have the entire world follow Sharia law and for women to be silent and hidden, or dead.

If the Taliban has a foot hold here, what prevents them from attempting to topple the government, or attempting to acquire nuclear weapons in Pakistan? Meanwhile we have squandered the goodwill of our allies, wasted money, time and resources fighting an unnecessary war in Iraq, when the real danger was in Afghanistan as a ton of military experts have been screaming for years. Now we have merely pushed these people over the border and have come closer to causing general upheaval in nuclear armed Pakistan.

The world, quite mad, sits by and does nothing, as usual.

I love history. A lot. It's like a drug for me. I read a ton of it. And when people take and twist history into something that it never was, it really pisses me off. I think that may well be an understatement.

So when I read this:

http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/swank/090212

I thought I might break my teeth from clenching my jaw.

These bastards, and yes that's exactly what they are for rewriting and covering up history (and the author of this piece isn't alone), get no respect from me. I can get past the fact that he doesn't like our new president, to the point of calling him by his middle name as an insult. I can get past the fact that he thinks the way things are going is wrong. You have an opinion, fine, but state it with the FACTS. I can disagree with you, you can disagree with me, and we can still get along. However I don't get along at all with LIARS. Because if you lie to me once, I have no further cause to *ever* believe anything you say to me at any later date.

This country was never a Christian nation. I know that these people wish that it had been, that was really why the Puritans came here, not for religious freedom for everyone, but for themselves. However, by the grace of whatever god you want to thank, the founders had a depth of sense and foresight rarely matched in any other age, including our own. I cannot reiterate this enough. They had something that only comes around every once in a great while. And I can tell you, it ain't here now.

While some of the founders were Christian, many weren't. Many were deists, and others such as Thomas Jefferson, were accused of being atheists for failing to mention or worship god enough to suit the preachers of their day. The Constitution of the United States, that document that all Presidents are sworn to "defend against all enemies, both foreign and domestic" was lambasted in newspapers while it was being ratified as an atheistic document because it failed to mention god. Jefferson caught most of the heat for it too.

Grant Swank, the writer of the above article, obviously hasn't studied the subject or read any of Jefferson's letters, which are available online or he would know that this wasn't a country founded as a Christian Theocracy. Some choice tidbits from Thomas Jefferson:

"I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between church and State." Letter to Danbury Baptist Association, 1 January 1802

"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes." Letter to Alexander von Humboldt, 6 December 1813

And those are just two small examples of what Jefferson thought about religion when used in conjunction with government. There are dozens more. There are also attacks on Jefferson in the opinion section of many papers of the day. See, nothing really changes! He wrote in 1800 in a letter to his friend Benjamin Rush that the preachers who were lambasting him in Sunday church services while he was running for president, did indeed have cause to fear him.

"The returning good sense of our country threatens abortion to their hopes, & they [the clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: & enough too in their opinion, & this is the cause of their printing lying pamphlets against me..."

The bolded phrase there is carved into marble on the rotunda of Jefferson's memorial in Washington D.C. When Jefferson speaks of tyranny, he doesn't just mean political tyrants, he also means religious ones as well. So, Jefferson is just one president, what about others? I think one of the most telling documents, and often quoted is the Treat of Tripoli. Article 11 states:

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

This treaty was to assure the citizens of Tripoli that we would not wage a religious war with them, as our government was not Christian and had nothing against the Muslims there. It was *unanimously* passed in the Senate of the United States on 7 June 1797 and signed into law by President John Adams. If it had been so abhorrent to said Senators, why was there not a single vote against it? Unless of course, they believed what the document said.

So the real question is, why did the founders and early law makers in this country shy away from religion in government? Notice, I didn't say shy away from religion in general. Many of them were religious. They didn't feel that religion had a place in government for more reasons than one. If you look back at history, it becomes startlingly clear as to why they didn't want religion in government. In Europe, religion was what ran the state and it didn't turn out well. Besides the specter of the Inquisition from the medieval period through the Renaissance, if you didn't belong to the official state religion, you couldn't hold office. Indeed, this was the case in many of the colonies, where in Massachusetts Bay Colony you had to be Puritan to hold office, which was the reason why Rhode Island was founded. In the south, especially in Virginia, you had to be Anglican or Episcopal to hold office, a hold-over from the Old World, as many of the colonist there were of English decent. But that was prior to the founding of the United States as a nation, and the founders upon uniting the colonies into the United States sought to do away with that.

Indeed the only mention of religion in the Constitution, is article six. "...no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." Soon after most states did away with the religious tests too.

These people who seek to institute theocracy in this country are traitors to the Constitution. I don't say that lightly, nor with any humor. It's not funny. One need only look at Iran and Saudi Arabia to see how theocracies work in the modern era. You don't even need a history book for that one. All one has to do is read Yahoo! news. In theocracies, the People are never in charge. It's always the clergy of the religion, and they choose the leaders. Or a dictator, who uses the clergy as his puppets. In theocracies, it is religious law that trumps any other law. Do we really want Biblical law in this country? Girls, do you want to be able to be sold into slavery? (Exodus 21:7) Are you a teacher and a female? Well, you're out of a job! A female student? Better shut the hell up! (1 Timothy 2:11-12)

If you think you'd like a Christian Theocracy, because well, you're a Christian, think again. Which version of Christianity? There's a ton of different sects in this country. Which one wins? Think about that.

Don't let it be too late.

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"I hated the growing atheistic movement, which was fostered and promoted by the Social Democrats and the Communists. Their hostility toward the Church made me pin my hopes on Hitler for a while... I am paying for that mistake now; and not me alone, but thousands of other persons like me."--Martin Niemöller

So, I've decided after a lot of posting at other people's blogs that I really ought to just start my own. This blog will be about politics and religion, and the massive disconnect that it causes between people. There are few other subjects that can get people so riled up and ready to burn and destroy things than those two subjects. It's as if people who are passionate about their party or their religion, the second they hear something that doesn't fit with what they want to hear, they shut their ears and scream bloody murder. It doesn't matter that most of the arguments put forth in no way effect them, it's enough that they perceive it as an affront to their public leader or to their god.

It also seems that there are certain powers that seek to divide us, the People of the United States, who are supposed to be in charge. Now, being the majority doesn't give you the right to run roughshod over the minority. Indeed, being the majority requires that you protect the minority, lest you lose all of *your* freedoms as well.