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pecuniumI have a few. Hypocrisy is one, it comes in right behind double standards.
Separation of Church and State is another (perhaps because I see so much of the first two in the last).
Blatant falsity in public debate is another.
The story about the Cupertino, Calif. teacher who is suing because he was told to stop teaching the Declaration of Independence; for it's mention of a Creator, well it has most of those.
It's an inflammatory charge, and were it true, I'd be pissed as hell, because the documents which shape our nation are important, and the subversive ideas of the Declaration (I forget when it was that people were asked to read it, and most said it ought to be illegal, because it was seditious. Sometime in the early '80s, as I recall).
But even worse is that it isn't true, which means it is being used as propaganda. Timed perfectly too. The talking heads of the "Right" are going great guns about the horror of it, the liberals trying to sanitize the facts from the little children. With this being Thanksgiving, it will be Monday before any real news on it gets out, by which time the echo chamber will make the facts irrelevant. The idea of it (like some state making pi =3 because the Bible says so) will have made its way into the public mind, and the truth won't be able to set them free.
O'Reilly says this is, "Another ruling by an activist judge that puts us all in danger."
So, what; one wonders, caused this flap.
Seems a teacher in Cupertino was handing out supplemental readings, which included a passage from the Declaration. Those handouts also implied things which were historically innacurate about the founding of the nation. That the US is a Christian Nation. ``The Rights of the Colonists,'' by Samuel Adams, which includes passages excluding Roman Catholics from religious tolerance because of their ``doctrines subversive of the civil government under which they live." San Mateo County Times
How, one may ask did it come about that the teacher was told to stop using the handouts? A parent complained (If it were my kid, I'd've complained. Being told I ought to be excluded from religious tolerance tends to piss me off).
And now the Alliance Defense Fund, a group which holds that any restriction on proslytising is, "anti-Christian" has helped him file a suit. Drudge has published the principal's phone number, the pundits are weighing in, the "Conservative" bloggers are up in arms, and another lie about the "godless, anti-Christian, tolerate all but the Godly Left" has been introduced to the world.
But this sort of lie isn't hateful, nope. That is the perogative of the Left. The Right is just defending itself against the vast armies of unreal americans who happen to disagree with them.
So, since the kernal of the things he was handing out were appeals to the religious nature of the founders of the country. Excerpts from their private thoughts, I'll just post a few of the public thoughts they had, on the organisation of a State, not the conduct of a personal life.
"What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not."
James Madison
Thirteen governments [The original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind."
John Quincy Adams
And lastly... just in case there was any question
the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion
From the Treaty with Tripoli, 1796.
Separation of Church and State is another (perhaps because I see so much of the first two in the last).
Blatant falsity in public debate is another.
The story about the Cupertino, Calif. teacher who is suing because he was told to stop teaching the Declaration of Independence; for it's mention of a Creator, well it has most of those.
It's an inflammatory charge, and were it true, I'd be pissed as hell, because the documents which shape our nation are important, and the subversive ideas of the Declaration (I forget when it was that people were asked to read it, and most said it ought to be illegal, because it was seditious. Sometime in the early '80s, as I recall).
But even worse is that it isn't true, which means it is being used as propaganda. Timed perfectly too. The talking heads of the "Right" are going great guns about the horror of it, the liberals trying to sanitize the facts from the little children. With this being Thanksgiving, it will be Monday before any real news on it gets out, by which time the echo chamber will make the facts irrelevant. The idea of it (like some state making pi =3 because the Bible says so) will have made its way into the public mind, and the truth won't be able to set them free.
O'Reilly says this is, "Another ruling by an activist judge that puts us all in danger."
So, what; one wonders, caused this flap.
Seems a teacher in Cupertino was handing out supplemental readings, which included a passage from the Declaration. Those handouts also implied things which were historically innacurate about the founding of the nation. That the US is a Christian Nation. ``The Rights of the Colonists,'' by Samuel Adams, which includes passages excluding Roman Catholics from religious tolerance because of their ``doctrines subversive of the civil government under which they live." San Mateo County Times
How, one may ask did it come about that the teacher was told to stop using the handouts? A parent complained (If it were my kid, I'd've complained. Being told I ought to be excluded from religious tolerance tends to piss me off).
And now the Alliance Defense Fund, a group which holds that any restriction on proslytising is, "anti-Christian" has helped him file a suit. Drudge has published the principal's phone number, the pundits are weighing in, the "Conservative" bloggers are up in arms, and another lie about the "godless, anti-Christian, tolerate all but the Godly Left" has been introduced to the world.
But this sort of lie isn't hateful, nope. That is the perogative of the Left. The Right is just defending itself against the vast armies of unreal americans who happen to disagree with them.
So, since the kernal of the things he was handing out were appeals to the religious nature of the founders of the country. Excerpts from their private thoughts, I'll just post a few of the public thoughts they had, on the organisation of a State, not the conduct of a personal life.
"What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not."
James Madison
Thirteen governments [The original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind."
John Quincy Adams
And lastly... just in case there was any question
the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion
From the Treaty with Tripoli, 1796.
From Vanessa of APA-L and LASFS
Date: 2004-11-30 07:44 am (UTC)Re: From Vanessa of APA-L and LASFS
Date: 2004-12-01 08:07 am (UTC)Suspect? No. I don't suspect it, I flat out believe it. I think the choice of frame (that it was about the reference to a Creator in the Declaration of Independence) and the timing (before a four day weekend, when lots of people would be with family, and no way for valid refutation to be made, certainly not as publically as the allegation) was completely intentional.
TK