We the people of Earth will never win an argument with each other about whose imaginary friend is better.
Spain's National Intelligence Centre (CNI), which published a report in July, warning of tens of millions of dollars coming to Spain from Kuwait, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to support Muslims, and calling for close monitoring of these funds. The CNI's report hinted that the money would be used to promote Islamic courts, remove girls from schools, and encourage forced marriages. The Spanish government's response was to call for all donations from the Gulf Arab states to be channeled through a government- controlled "Islamic Commission of Spain". The CNI pointed to the Kuwaiti government's funding of the construction of mosques in Catalonia, from which Islamic preachers are "spreading a religious interpretation that opposes the integration of Muslims into Spanish society and promotes separation and hate towards non-Muslim groups. Qatari donations are made through the Islamic League for Dialogue and Coexistence in Spain, a group the CNI says is "linked to the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria".
The Moroccan government is aggressively implementing "a strategy of great magnitude" to exert control over the religious and cultural beliefs and practices of the nearly one million Moroccan immigrants who reside in Spain.
The strategy involves establishing a parallel Muslim society in Spain by discouraging Moroccans from integrating into their host country, and by encouraging them instead to live an Islamic lifestyle isolated from Spanish society.
Rabat is also financing the construction of hundreds of mosques in Spain whose imams are directly appointed by the Moroccan government. Moreover, the North African country is attempting to impose Muslim religious instruction in Spanish public schools, and is pressuring Moroccan families to remove their children from those schools that fail to comply
According to Noureddine Ziani, a Barcelona-based Moroccan imam: “It is absolutely necessary to accept Islamic values as European values and that from now on, Europeans should replace the term "Judeo-Christian" with term "Islamo-Christian" when describing Western Civilization.
Social Justice: Current Affairs, Business, Politics, and all the reasons in the world to Thrive on Creative Discontent!
Saturday, September 10, 2011
FDR stated that, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” And a “Do Nothing Congress?”(LBJ)
The American Jobs Act, if enacted, would be a very different kind of stimulus than the slow-burn one implemented back in 2009. Early forecasts suggest it could deliver the kind of swift, sharp shock the U.S. economy needs.
Economists at consultancy Macroeconomic Advisers estimate the combination of tax incentives and infrastructure spending would create at least 1.3 million jobs in 2012, boosting that year's economic growth by 1.3 percentage points. For 2013, they forecast the creation of an added 800,000 jobs, bringing the total to 2.1 million. All else equal, that's enough to shave more than a percentage point off the U.S. unemployment rate, which now stands at 9.1 percent.
The economists note that their estimate could actually be on the low side, because it doesn't account for the potential effect of the payroll-tax credit included in the package. It's hard to know how many businesses are in a position to take advantage of the credit, but experience suggests it will lead to increased hiring.
President Obama has put in the hands of Congress a plan that probably represents the country's best shot at fending off recession and reinvigorating the recovery. Whatever legislators decide, they will own the result.
Economists at consultancy Macroeconomic Advisers estimate the combination of tax incentives and infrastructure spending would create at least 1.3 million jobs in 2012, boosting that year's economic growth by 1.3 percentage points. For 2013, they forecast the creation of an added 800,000 jobs, bringing the total to 2.1 million. All else equal, that's enough to shave more than a percentage point off the U.S. unemployment rate, which now stands at 9.1 percent.
The economists note that their estimate could actually be on the low side, because it doesn't account for the potential effect of the payroll-tax credit included in the package. It's hard to know how many businesses are in a position to take advantage of the credit, but experience suggests it will lead to increased hiring.
President Obama has put in the hands of Congress a plan that probably represents the country's best shot at fending off recession and reinvigorating the recovery. Whatever legislators decide, they will own the result.
Ponzi Perry
Social Security is a government-run insurance program that provides the typical retiree with single-digit returns on contributions deducted from their paychecks over the course of their working lives. The program has operated for 76 years amid praise from presidents of both parties. In 1983, even as staunch a critic of big government as President Ronald Reagan vowed: “The Social Security system must be preserved.”
In December 2010, 54 million Americans received either retirement or disability payments under the Social Security program.
Poverty among elderly Americans was endemic before the program was created in 1935. The first benefit checks weren’t issued until 1940, and as late as 1959 more than 35 percent of the elderly were living below the poverty line, according to the Social Security Administration. In 2009, the most recent Census Bureau data available shows, the figure was 8.9 percent.
To presidential hopeful Texas Governor Rick Perry, however, the country’s most expensive entitlement program is a financial con that would have made Charles Ponzi blush. “It is a Ponzi scheme to tell our kids that are 25 or 30 years old today, you’re paying into a program that’s going to be there,” Perry said during a Sept. 7 debate of the Republican presidential candidates, reprising a theme from his 2010 book “Fed Up.”
Experts on both Ponzi schemes and Social Security say Perry is wrong. “Ponzi schemes are, by definition, fraud,” said Mitchell Zuckoff, author of “Ponzi’s Scheme: The True Story of a Financial Legend.”
“Social Security is above board,” he added. “We can argue about whether it’s a good system. But you can’t call it a fraud.”
The Social Security and Medicare Trustees project a deficit this year of $46 billion and continuing annual shortfalls until the $2.5 trillion fund is exhausted in 2036. Beyond that point, the program is expected to have sufficient funds from continuing infusions of payroll taxes to pay about 75 percent of promised benefits.
Perry’s aversion to the program is nothing new. In his 2010 book “Fed Up,” he lambastes Social Security as a “crumbling monument to the failure of the New Deal” and likens it to “a bad disease.”
Democrats crowed over a statement they regarded as political gold. “Ponzi Perry just lost the general election,” former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm tweeted during the debate.
In December 2010, 54 million Americans received either retirement or disability payments under the Social Security program.
Poverty among elderly Americans was endemic before the program was created in 1935. The first benefit checks weren’t issued until 1940, and as late as 1959 more than 35 percent of the elderly were living below the poverty line, according to the Social Security Administration. In 2009, the most recent Census Bureau data available shows, the figure was 8.9 percent.
To presidential hopeful Texas Governor Rick Perry, however, the country’s most expensive entitlement program is a financial con that would have made Charles Ponzi blush. “It is a Ponzi scheme to tell our kids that are 25 or 30 years old today, you’re paying into a program that’s going to be there,” Perry said during a Sept. 7 debate of the Republican presidential candidates, reprising a theme from his 2010 book “Fed Up.”
Experts on both Ponzi schemes and Social Security say Perry is wrong. “Ponzi schemes are, by definition, fraud,” said Mitchell Zuckoff, author of “Ponzi’s Scheme: The True Story of a Financial Legend.”
“Social Security is above board,” he added. “We can argue about whether it’s a good system. But you can’t call it a fraud.”
The Social Security and Medicare Trustees project a deficit this year of $46 billion and continuing annual shortfalls until the $2.5 trillion fund is exhausted in 2036. Beyond that point, the program is expected to have sufficient funds from continuing infusions of payroll taxes to pay about 75 percent of promised benefits.
Perry’s aversion to the program is nothing new. In his 2010 book “Fed Up,” he lambastes Social Security as a “crumbling monument to the failure of the New Deal” and likens it to “a bad disease.”
Democrats crowed over a statement they regarded as political gold. “Ponzi Perry just lost the general election,” former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm tweeted during the debate.
Friday, September 9, 2011
UAE: Sheikh arrested in India for taking a Child Bride
The Hyderabad Police today arrested a UAE Sheikh for allegdly marrying a 12 year-old girl in vicinity of the Old City. According to the sources a team of Santoshnagar Police headed by Inspector Sudarshan Reddy raided a house in the Moinbagh area in Santoshnagar, and took 47 year old Sheikh Hilal Sayeed Mahammed Hilal an UAE National hailing from Sharjah into custody for allegedly marrying a minor girl who is identified as Sana Sultana.
The sources further told that on a tip-off information the police raided the residence of Sana Sultana but by the time police raided the house UAE shaikh Sayeed Mohammed had got married. The police brought the UAE national to the police station and sent the girl to the Government Maternity Hospital for the Age Determination Test.
The Police further told that after the report of the test a case would be booked against Sayeed. The investigation is on.
The sources further told that on a tip-off information the police raided the residence of Sana Sultana but by the time police raided the house UAE shaikh Sayeed Mohammed had got married. The police brought the UAE national to the police station and sent the girl to the Government Maternity Hospital for the Age Determination Test.
The Police further told that after the report of the test a case would be booked against Sayeed. The investigation is on.
UAE: Rape someone leave your business card....
“In the UAE rape is not a crime unless it is witnessed by four adult male Muslim witnesses. Alicia wasn't told this. She certainly wasn't told that if she reported the brutal rape to the police that she ran the risk of being jailed for 12 months.”
A Brisbane woman jailed for adultery in Dubai after she complained of being drugged and raped by four co-workers .
Alicia Gali's lawyer Michelle James, a principal at Maurice Blackburn Lawyers, said Australian embassy staff failed to warn the 29-year-old that a complaint of rape in the United Arab Emirates could lead to her being jailed.
Ms Gali was charged with adultery and sentenced to 11 months in prison, serving eight, after bringing the incident to the attention of the UAE police
Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/she-wasnt-warned-rape-victim-to-sue-government-20110607-1fqcz.html#ixzz1XWju4tAB
A Brisbane woman jailed for adultery in Dubai after she complained of being drugged and raped by four co-workers .
Alicia Gali's lawyer Michelle James, a principal at Maurice Blackburn Lawyers, said Australian embassy staff failed to warn the 29-year-old that a complaint of rape in the United Arab Emirates could lead to her being jailed.
Ms Gali was charged with adultery and sentenced to 11 months in prison, serving eight, after bringing the incident to the attention of the UAE police
Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/she-wasnt-warned-rape-victim-to-sue-government-20110607-1fqcz.html#ixzz1XWju4tAB
Bachmann & Perry Dominionists?
First the American Constitution is clear…..church and state are separate.
Second 24% of Americans are not Christian, 25% are Catholic and 51% Protestant (10 denominations).
So to think that a Christian movement will dominate the USA = unlikely. And given there are 4 billion non-Christians worldwide the Global domination is unlikely.
But somehow in the midst of an economic crisis, horrible job market, no social safety net; the Republican front-runners are both making religion central to their platform.
I would really like to leave religion to families, government to government, and business to business, military to military, and weather to weatherpersons.
Nonetheless let’s explore what some of this might mean:
Bachmann is close to Truth in Action Ministries; last year, she appeared in one of its documentaries, Socialism: A Clear and Present Danger. In it, she espoused the idea, common in Reconstructionist circles, that the government has no right to collect taxes in excess of 10 percent, the amount that believers are called to tithe to the church. On her state-senate-campaign website, she recommended a book co-authored by Grant titled Call of Duty: The Sterling Nobility of Robert E. Lee, which, as Lizza reported, depicted the civil war as a battle between the devout Christian South and the Godless North, and lauded slavery as a benevolent institution. “The unity and companionship that existed between the races in the South prior to the war was the fruit of a common faith,” the book said.
One could go on and on listing the Dominionist influences on Bachmann’s thinking. She often cites Francis Schaeffer, the godfather of the anti-abortion movement, who held seminars on Rushdoony’s work and helped disseminate his ideas to a larger evangelical audience. John Eidsmoe, an Oral Roberts University professor who, she’s said, “had a great influence on me,” is a Christian Reconstructionist. She often praises the Christian nationalist historian David Barton, who is intimately associated with the Christian Reconstructionist movement; an article about slavery on the website of his organization, Wallbuilders, defends the institution’s biblical basis, with extensive citations of Rushdoony. (“God's laws concerning slavery provided parameters for treatment of slaves, which were for the benefit of all involved,” it says.)
In elaborating Bachmann’s Dominionist history, though, it’s important to point out that she is not unique. Perry tends to be regarded as marginally more reasonable than Bachmann, but he is as closely associated with Dominionism as she is, though his links are to a different strain of the ideology.
The Christian Reconstructionists tend to be skeptical of Pentecostalism, with its magic, prophesies, speaking in tongues, and wild ecstasies. Certainly, there are overlaps between the traditions—Oral Roberts, where Bachmann studied with Eidsmoe, was a Pentecostal school. But it’s only recently that one group of Pentecostals, the New Apostolic Reformation, has created its own distinct Dominionist movement. And members see Perry as their ticket to power.
“The New Apostles talk about taking dominion over American society in pastoral terms,” wrote Wilder in the Texas Observer. “They refer to the ‘Seven Mountains’ of society: family, religion, arts and entertainment, media, government, education, and business. These are the nerve centers of society that God (or his people) must control.” He quotes a sermon from Tom Schlueter, New Apostolic pastor close to Perry. “We’re going to infiltrate [the government], not run from it. I know why God’s doing what he’s doing ... He’s just simply saying, ‘Tom I’ve given you authority in a governmental authority, and I need you to infiltrate the governmental mountain.”
According to Wilder, members of the New Apostolic Reformation see Perry as their vehicle to claim the “mountain” of government. Some have told Perry that Texas is a “prophet state,” destined, with his leadership, to bring America back to God. The movement was deeply involved in The Response, the massive prayer rally that Perry hosted in Houston earlier this month. “Eight members of The Response ‘leadership team’ are affiliated with the New Apostolic Reformation movement,” wrote Wilder. “The long list of The Response’s official endorses—posted on the event’s website—reads like a Who’s Who of the apostolic-prophetic crowd, including movement founder C. Peter Wagner.”
We have not seen this sort of thing at the highest levels of the Republican Party before. Those of us who wrote about the Christian fundamentalist influence on the Bush administration were alarmed that one of his advisers, Marvin Olasky, was associated with Christian Reconstructionism. It seemed unthinkable, at the time, that an American president was taking advice from even a single person whose ideas were so inimical to democracy. Few of us imagined that someone who actually championed such ideas would have a shot at the White House. It turns out we weren’t paranoid enough. If Bush eroded the separation of church and state, the GOP is now poised to nominate someone who will mount an all-out assault on it.
We need to take their beliefs seriously, because they certainly do.
Second 24% of Americans are not Christian, 25% are Catholic and 51% Protestant (10 denominations).
So to think that a Christian movement will dominate the USA = unlikely. And given there are 4 billion non-Christians worldwide the Global domination is unlikely.
But somehow in the midst of an economic crisis, horrible job market, no social safety net; the Republican front-runners are both making religion central to their platform.
I would really like to leave religion to families, government to government, and business to business, military to military, and weather to weatherpersons.
Nonetheless let’s explore what some of this might mean:
Bachmann is close to Truth in Action Ministries; last year, she appeared in one of its documentaries, Socialism: A Clear and Present Danger. In it, she espoused the idea, common in Reconstructionist circles, that the government has no right to collect taxes in excess of 10 percent, the amount that believers are called to tithe to the church. On her state-senate-campaign website, she recommended a book co-authored by Grant titled Call of Duty: The Sterling Nobility of Robert E. Lee, which, as Lizza reported, depicted the civil war as a battle between the devout Christian South and the Godless North, and lauded slavery as a benevolent institution. “The unity and companionship that existed between the races in the South prior to the war was the fruit of a common faith,” the book said.
One could go on and on listing the Dominionist influences on Bachmann’s thinking. She often cites Francis Schaeffer, the godfather of the anti-abortion movement, who held seminars on Rushdoony’s work and helped disseminate his ideas to a larger evangelical audience. John Eidsmoe, an Oral Roberts University professor who, she’s said, “had a great influence on me,” is a Christian Reconstructionist. She often praises the Christian nationalist historian David Barton, who is intimately associated with the Christian Reconstructionist movement; an article about slavery on the website of his organization, Wallbuilders, defends the institution’s biblical basis, with extensive citations of Rushdoony. (“God's laws concerning slavery provided parameters for treatment of slaves, which were for the benefit of all involved,” it says.)
In elaborating Bachmann’s Dominionist history, though, it’s important to point out that she is not unique. Perry tends to be regarded as marginally more reasonable than Bachmann, but he is as closely associated with Dominionism as she is, though his links are to a different strain of the ideology.
The Christian Reconstructionists tend to be skeptical of Pentecostalism, with its magic, prophesies, speaking in tongues, and wild ecstasies. Certainly, there are overlaps between the traditions—Oral Roberts, where Bachmann studied with Eidsmoe, was a Pentecostal school. But it’s only recently that one group of Pentecostals, the New Apostolic Reformation, has created its own distinct Dominionist movement. And members see Perry as their ticket to power.
“The New Apostles talk about taking dominion over American society in pastoral terms,” wrote Wilder in the Texas Observer. “They refer to the ‘Seven Mountains’ of society: family, religion, arts and entertainment, media, government, education, and business. These are the nerve centers of society that God (or his people) must control.” He quotes a sermon from Tom Schlueter, New Apostolic pastor close to Perry. “We’re going to infiltrate [the government], not run from it. I know why God’s doing what he’s doing ... He’s just simply saying, ‘Tom I’ve given you authority in a governmental authority, and I need you to infiltrate the governmental mountain.”
According to Wilder, members of the New Apostolic Reformation see Perry as their vehicle to claim the “mountain” of government. Some have told Perry that Texas is a “prophet state,” destined, with his leadership, to bring America back to God. The movement was deeply involved in The Response, the massive prayer rally that Perry hosted in Houston earlier this month. “Eight members of The Response ‘leadership team’ are affiliated with the New Apostolic Reformation movement,” wrote Wilder. “The long list of The Response’s official endorses—posted on the event’s website—reads like a Who’s Who of the apostolic-prophetic crowd, including movement founder C. Peter Wagner.”
We have not seen this sort of thing at the highest levels of the Republican Party before. Those of us who wrote about the Christian fundamentalist influence on the Bush administration were alarmed that one of his advisers, Marvin Olasky, was associated with Christian Reconstructionism. It seemed unthinkable, at the time, that an American president was taking advice from even a single person whose ideas were so inimical to democracy. Few of us imagined that someone who actually championed such ideas would have a shot at the White House. It turns out we weren’t paranoid enough. If Bush eroded the separation of church and state, the GOP is now poised to nominate someone who will mount an all-out assault on it.
We need to take their beliefs seriously, because they certainly do.
Where is Barry Goldwater when you need him???
President George Washington
In this enlightened age and in this land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a man’s religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the highest offices that are known in the United States
President John Adams
"Nothing is more dreaded than the national government meddling with religion."
Alexander Hamilton
When Alexander Hamilton was asked why the U.S. Constitution made no mention of God, he said the country did not require 'foreign aid'
Benjamin Franklin
The Constitution fashioned in 1787 is a secular document. There is no mention of God, Jesus Christ, or a supreme being anywhere in the document.
President James Madison
Strongly guarded . . . is the separation between religion and government in the Constitution of the United States
President Ulysses S. Grant
"Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church and the private school supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate."
President Theodore Roosevelt
"I hold that in this country there must be complete severance of Church and State; that public moneys shall not be used for the purpose of advancing any particular creed; and therefore that the public schools shall be nonsectarian and no public moneys appropriated for sectarian schools."
President John F. Kennedy
"I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute –
Martin Luther King Jr.
(The 1962 U.S. Supreme Court decision prohibiting state-supported prayer in public schools was) "sound and good, reaffirming something basic in the Nation’s life: separation of church and state."
Senator Barry Goldwater
"Can any of us refute the wisdom of Madison and the other framers? Can anyone look at the carnage in Iran, the bloodshed in Northern Ireland or the bombs bursting in Lebanon and yet question the dangers of injecting religious issues into the affairs of state?"
"By maintaining the separation of church and state, the United States has avoided the intolerance which has so divided the rest of the world with religious wars. Throughout our two hundred plus years, public policy debate has focused on political and economic issues, on which there can be compromise. . . ."
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
"I do not make decisions [as governor] based on what have I learned through my Bible studies, what have I learned in my religious classes in school. I'm a big believer in separation of church and state, and I think that's what . . . the law is."
Europe's bloody theocratic wars
This brings us, finally, to the serious discussions that dominionists and their enablers, like Miller, are trying to prevent. The first of those is about the very nature of American democracy. For nearly 200 years, Europe was torn apart by a series of religious wars and their bloody aftermath - the major reason that the United States was founded as a secular republic. We're potentially on the verge of forgetting all that history and suffering through it again, just as we're now suffering through forgetting the lessons of the Great Depression. Those centuries of war began with the German Peasants' War of 1524-26, in which more than 100,000 died; continued through the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years War on the European continent; and lasted until the end of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714). This was the bloody European history of religious intolerance and strife that many, if not most, American colonialists were fleeing from when they came to the New World.
It was also this bloody history that gave rise to the development of classical liberalism, affirming the individual right to religious liberty and replacing the top-down theocratic justification of the state with Locke's concept of the bottom-up social contract, based on the consent of the governed. The ideas that Locke perfected took generations to develop. Religious tolerance, for example, began as simply a matter of pragmatism: unless people stopped killing each other for differing religious beliefs, war in Europe would never end.
But gradually, the idea took hold that tolerance was a positive good, and key to this new perspective was the recognition that torturing someone to change their beliefs could not produce the desired result of a genuine heartfelt conversion. Thus, the moral rejection of torture - another feature of classical liberalism - had its roots in the evolution of the idea of religious liberty. The idea of utterly forgetting the prolonged bloody history that the United States was born out of is no laughing matter.
The same could be said of the myth that the United States was founded as a Christian nation, with laws based on the Bible. Of course most Americans were Christians at the time, but the leading intellects were decidedly less so, much more influenced by Enlightenment thought. There were many, such as Jefferson, who were better described as Deists, who believed that God had created a rational universe, but did not intervene supernaturally thereafter. They deliberately used terms like "the Creator" and "Nature's God" to affirm their distinctive, non-Christian view.
Moreover, God was not mentioned at all in the Constitution, and religion was only mentioned to exclude its influence, stating that no religious test should be required for office. Finally, US law was based on British common law, not the Bible. The Supreme Court itself is a common law court, following common law precedents and practices. And British common law traces back to Roman law, which first came to England centuries before Rome adopted the Christian religion.
Of course the intolerant religious right wants us to forget this. How else could they ever gain power, except through massive forgetting of who and what the United States really is? Not to mention who and what they are: the most fundamental enemies of the United States, who would, if they could, return us to the centuries of blood before the US was born, the nightmare out of which the United States awakened.
The Golden Rule:
"Attempts to unite church and state are opposed to the interests of each, subversive of human rights and potentially persecuting in character; to oppose union, lawfully and honorably, is not only the citizen’s duty but the essence of the Golden Rule – to treat others as one wishes to be treated." From "Statement of Principles," Liberty magazine, a publication of the Seventh-day Adventist Church
In this enlightened age and in this land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a man’s religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the highest offices that are known in the United States
President John Adams
"Nothing is more dreaded than the national government meddling with religion."
Alexander Hamilton
When Alexander Hamilton was asked why the U.S. Constitution made no mention of God, he said the country did not require 'foreign aid'
Benjamin Franklin
The Constitution fashioned in 1787 is a secular document. There is no mention of God, Jesus Christ, or a supreme being anywhere in the document.
President James Madison
Strongly guarded . . . is the separation between religion and government in the Constitution of the United States
President Ulysses S. Grant
"Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church and the private school supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate."
President Theodore Roosevelt
"I hold that in this country there must be complete severance of Church and State; that public moneys shall not be used for the purpose of advancing any particular creed; and therefore that the public schools shall be nonsectarian and no public moneys appropriated for sectarian schools."
President John F. Kennedy
"I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute –
Martin Luther King Jr.
(The 1962 U.S. Supreme Court decision prohibiting state-supported prayer in public schools was) "sound and good, reaffirming something basic in the Nation’s life: separation of church and state."
Senator Barry Goldwater
"Can any of us refute the wisdom of Madison and the other framers? Can anyone look at the carnage in Iran, the bloodshed in Northern Ireland or the bombs bursting in Lebanon and yet question the dangers of injecting religious issues into the affairs of state?"
"By maintaining the separation of church and state, the United States has avoided the intolerance which has so divided the rest of the world with religious wars. Throughout our two hundred plus years, public policy debate has focused on political and economic issues, on which there can be compromise. . . ."
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
"I do not make decisions [as governor] based on what have I learned through my Bible studies, what have I learned in my religious classes in school. I'm a big believer in separation of church and state, and I think that's what . . . the law is."
Europe's bloody theocratic wars
This brings us, finally, to the serious discussions that dominionists and their enablers, like Miller, are trying to prevent. The first of those is about the very nature of American democracy. For nearly 200 years, Europe was torn apart by a series of religious wars and their bloody aftermath - the major reason that the United States was founded as a secular republic. We're potentially on the verge of forgetting all that history and suffering through it again, just as we're now suffering through forgetting the lessons of the Great Depression. Those centuries of war began with the German Peasants' War of 1524-26, in which more than 100,000 died; continued through the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years War on the European continent; and lasted until the end of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714). This was the bloody European history of religious intolerance and strife that many, if not most, American colonialists were fleeing from when they came to the New World.
It was also this bloody history that gave rise to the development of classical liberalism, affirming the individual right to religious liberty and replacing the top-down theocratic justification of the state with Locke's concept of the bottom-up social contract, based on the consent of the governed. The ideas that Locke perfected took generations to develop. Religious tolerance, for example, began as simply a matter of pragmatism: unless people stopped killing each other for differing religious beliefs, war in Europe would never end.
But gradually, the idea took hold that tolerance was a positive good, and key to this new perspective was the recognition that torturing someone to change their beliefs could not produce the desired result of a genuine heartfelt conversion. Thus, the moral rejection of torture - another feature of classical liberalism - had its roots in the evolution of the idea of religious liberty. The idea of utterly forgetting the prolonged bloody history that the United States was born out of is no laughing matter.
The same could be said of the myth that the United States was founded as a Christian nation, with laws based on the Bible. Of course most Americans were Christians at the time, but the leading intellects were decidedly less so, much more influenced by Enlightenment thought. There were many, such as Jefferson, who were better described as Deists, who believed that God had created a rational universe, but did not intervene supernaturally thereafter. They deliberately used terms like "the Creator" and "Nature's God" to affirm their distinctive, non-Christian view.
Moreover, God was not mentioned at all in the Constitution, and religion was only mentioned to exclude its influence, stating that no religious test should be required for office. Finally, US law was based on British common law, not the Bible. The Supreme Court itself is a common law court, following common law precedents and practices. And British common law traces back to Roman law, which first came to England centuries before Rome adopted the Christian religion.
Of course the intolerant religious right wants us to forget this. How else could they ever gain power, except through massive forgetting of who and what the United States really is? Not to mention who and what they are: the most fundamental enemies of the United States, who would, if they could, return us to the centuries of blood before the US was born, the nightmare out of which the United States awakened.
The Golden Rule:
"Attempts to unite church and state are opposed to the interests of each, subversive of human rights and potentially persecuting in character; to oppose union, lawfully and honorably, is not only the citizen’s duty but the essence of the Golden Rule – to treat others as one wishes to be treated." From "Statement of Principles," Liberty magazine, a publication of the Seventh-day Adventist Church
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