And We Call Ourselves A Christian Nation?
You could expect the things that are coming from the liberals to happen in some foreign nation, but not in our America. Hey, we are a Christian nation (?), and a ‘land of the free’,right? Does that freedom give us the right to demoralize others that have just as much right to this earth as we do? Does it give us the right to be racists simply because a human (OF ANY COLOR) steps out of the mold that tradition has carved for him or her? God forbid had we been cut from the same cloth, and stepped out of the ditches with the same pants on! But, folks, it’s happening right here in our back door.
We have a black man (AN AMERICAN, mind you!) from Maryland, Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, who is making a bid for the Senate. But, he’s been hounded, called an Uncle Tom, Sambo– and many other things, by his peers and by Democrats who think it’s so terrible for him to be black AND a Republican. I thought we were passed the assumption that black is second-rate, and that this is a nation ‘by the people, for the people’. But, there are still some out there that harbor bad feelings against others, when that mold is broken and they step out into the ‘foreign world’ of the Republicans! Gosh! This is ‘forbidden’ (not in my book) to happen in this day and time of political correctness!
Over at Captain’s Quarters, Captain Ed writes:That shows the leadership of the Democrats as they truly are -- a hate-based faith system that takes any means necessary to win elections. Cheating, violence, smears, and now racism are all acceptable as long as Republicans are the targets. If the Republicans happen to be members of minority communities, so much the better.
After all, it's not discrimination when you hate someone more because of the color of their skin or their ethnic background, is it?
I would like to know, for my own personal knowledge, how many of these people who have taken it upon themselves to persecute Steele, call themselves ‘Christian’. The words, ‘what would Jesus do’ comes to mind! I sort of think the tables would be turned! He may be giving them some of their ‘own medicine’ – calling them pharisees or hypocrites, or, better still, ‘you generation of vipers’.
You must read Michelle Malkin’s article today: The Vile Bile We Have To Put Up With! She has many other links to sites with their take on this hatred we now see running through the political spectrum.
Spreading the Word at GM's Corner
Wednesday's Open Trackbacks at Cao's Blog
Wednesday's Open Trackbacks at Oblogatory Anecdotes
Middle Of The Week Open Trackbacks at Stop The ACLU
Covered Dish Supper at Basil's Blog
Tags| Christian, Persecution, Politics, Liberals, Democrats, Peers
8 Comments:
I find a world of difference in those who call themselves Christian and those who show themselves Christian.
The former, Christian-in-fact and the later, Christian-in-name.
It is pretty obvious what the people in this case are.
What is the REAL, but unstated, reason Democrats hate Michael Steele enough to engage in a
racist, hate campaign against him?
FEAR and a desperate need to distract the press and the public from focusing on how the
Democrats have sold Maryland Blacks down the river.
Michael Steele is a native of, and lives in, Prince George's County, Maryland.
EVERY county and state level elected official in Prince George's County is a Democrat.
The majority of them are Black.
Half of the non-Black minority are Hispanic.
Top school adminsitrators are predominately Black.
If you believe the Democrat's rhetoric, you would expect Prince George's County to be a
paradise, especially for "minorities."
You would be wrong.
Prince George's County's rapidly increasing murder rate is second highest in Maryland and the
highest in the Washington, DC, suburbs.
Prince George's County's schools are the second worst in Maryland and the worst in the
Washington, DC, suburbs. The Black school chief recently resigned while being investigated by
the FBI; one of his top assistants ($130,000 per year) has just been convicted on federal drug
laundering charges and has been indicted on witness tampering charges.
Prince George's County has more car thefts and violent carjackings than all the rest of Maryland
and the DC suburbs put together.
Attacking Michael Steele is just part of the Democrats scheme to distract the public and the
press from their ongoing abysmal failure to either protect or educate the people of Prince
George's County.
Unfortunately, the GOP will not field, much less effectively support, respectable alternatives to
the failing Prince George's County Democrats.
What version of the Constitution do you use to back up the idea (lie) that we are a 'Christian nation'? No version that I have ever seen says anything remotely similar to that. There are also a few million non-Christian Americans who would beg to differ with you on this point.
If you are one of the 'good' Christians, then why would you lie publicly about this when you know it isn't true?
Russell, thanks for the run down on Maryland. I'm surprised to find this one Republican among all the Democrats in Maryland. Doesn't look like he has a chance in his pursuit for the Senate suit, unless things change in the minds of the people there, does it.
Alan, if you re-read my post, you'll see that I put a question mark after Christian nation.
I did not lie about thinking this was a Christian nation, since I believe it was found on Christian principles. By the way, remember - the people came here because they wanted freedom from religious persecution. But, over the many years, people have drifted away from religion. And, I believe this is one of the reasons our country is in the shape it is today.
But, you are entitled to your opinion.
Matt,
I'm not nuts, although I am a grandmother of five, but that doesn't make me a 'little ole granny' with a cane and a lost memory! And, I haven't put on a self-righteous act.
By the way, the last time I looked, ROVE and McCAIN were white. I was speaking to racism toward blacks. I thought we were to have come a long way since the 60's, but apparently not. It's gotten worse, with blacks turning on blacks. And, as Russell said, Democrats have sold the blacks down the river! But, what else could you expect, when they know, if they lost their vote, they'd never get in office in most places?
"What version of the Constitution do you use to back up the idea (lie) that we are a 'Christian nation'?"
There are no 'versions' of the Constitution.
A Godless Constitution?: A Response to Kramnick and Moore
by Daniel L. Dreisbach
In their provocative polemic The Godless Constitution: The Case Against Religious Correctness (W. W. Horton, 1996), Cornell University professors Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore argue that the God-fearing framers of the U. S. Constitution "created an utterly secular state" unshackled from the intolerant chains of religion. They purportedly find evidence for this thesis in the constitutional text, which they describe as radically "godless" and distinctly secular. Their argument, while an appealing antidote to the historical assertions of the religious right, is superficial and misleading.
There were, indeed, anti-Federalist critics of the Constitution who complained bitterly that the document's failure to invoke the Deity and include explicit Christian references indicated, at best, indifference or, at worst, hostility toward Christianity. This view, however, did not prevail in the battle to ratify the Constitution. The professor's inordinate reliance on the Constitution's most vociferous critics to describe and define that document results in misleading, if not erroneous, conclusions. Furthermore, like the extreme anti-Federalists of 1787, the professors misunderstand the fundamental nature of the federal regime and its founding charter.
The U. S. Constitution's lack of a Christian designation had little to do with a radical secular agenda. Indeed, it had little to do with religion at all. The Constitution was silent on the subject of God and religion because there was a consensus that, despite the framer's personal beliefs, religion was a matter best left to the individual citizens and their respective state governments (and most states in the founding era retained some form of religious establishment). The Constitution, in short, can be fairly characterized as "godless" or secular only insofar as it deferred to the states on all matters regarding religion and devotion to God.
Relationships between religion and civil government were defined in most state constitutions, and the framers believed it would be inappropriate for the federal government to encroach upon or usurp state jurisdiction in this area. State and local governments, not the federal regime, it must be emphasized, were the basic and vital political units of the day. Thus, it was fitting that the people expressed religious preferences and affiliations through state and local charters.
Professors Kramnick and Moore find further evidence for a godless Constitution in the Article VI religious test ban. Here, too, they misconstrue the historical record. Their argument rests on the false premise that, in the minds of the framers, support for the Article VI ban was a repudiation of state establishments of religion and a ringing endorsement of a radically secular polity. The numerous state constitutions written between 1776 and 1787 in which sweeping religious liberty and nonestablishment provisions coexisted with religious test oaths confirm the poverty of this assumption. The founding generation, in other words, generally did not regard such measures as incompatible.
The Article VI ban (applicable to federal officeholders only) was not driven by a radical secular agenda or a renunciation of religious tests as a matter of principle. The fact that religious tests accorded with popular wishes is confirmed by their inclusion in the vast majority of revolutionary era state constitutions.
Professors Kramnick and Moore also blithely ignore Article I, sec. 2 of the U. S. Constitution, which deferred to state qualifications for the electors of members of the U. S. House of Representatives. This provision is significant since the constitutional framers of 1787 knew that in some states--such as South Carolina--the requisite qualifications for suffrage included religious belief.
Significantly, there were delegates at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia who endorsed the Article VI ban but had previously crafted religious tests for their respective state constitutions. The constitutional framers did not appreciate this apparent contradiction, which arises under a secular construction of Article VI. The framers believed, as a matter of federalism, that the Constitution denied the national government all jurisdiction over religion, including the authority to administer religious tests. Many in founding generation supported a federal test ban because they valued religious tests required under state laws, and they feared that a federal test might displace existing state test oaths and religious establishments. In other words, support for the Article VI ban was driven in part by a desire to preserve and defend the instruments of "religious establishment" (specifically, religious test oaths) that remained in the states.
The late-eighteenth-century view of oaths and religious test bans is illustrated in state constitutions of the era. The Tennessee Constitution of 1796 included the language of the Article VI test ban; however, the same constitution states that "no person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this State." Adopting a standard definition of oaths, the Kentucky Constitution of 1792, which omitted an express religious test but prescribed a basic oath of office, stated that required oaths and affirmations "shall be esteemed by the legislature [as] the most solemn appeal to God." This understanding of oaths, which was largely unchallenged in the founding era and frequently repeated in the state ratifying conventions, suggests that the U. S. Constitution, contrary to Professors Kramnick and Moore, was not entirely devoid of religious affirmations and did not create an utterly secular polity. The argument was made in ratifying conventions that the several constitutionally required oaths implicitly countenanced an acknowledgment of God (which, in a sense, constituted a general, nondenominational religious "test"), while the Article VI test ban merely proscribed sect-specific oaths for federal officeholders.
The debates in Article VI in state ratifying conventions further indicate that few, if any, delegates denied the advantage of placing devout Christians in public office. The issue warmly debated was the efficacy of a national religious test for obtaining this objective.
The Godless Constitution's lack of clear documentation is a disappointment. In order to examine the book's thesis more fully, I attempted to document the claims and quotations in the second chapter, which sets forth the case that the "principal architects of our national government envisioned a godless Constitution and a godless politics." It was readily apparent why these two university professors, who live in the world of footnotes, avoided them in this tract. The book is replete with misstatements or mischaracterizations of fact and garbled quotations. For example, the professors conflate two separate sections of New York Constitution of 1777 to support the claim that it "self-consciously repudiated tests" (p. 31). Contrary to this assertion, neither constitutional section expressly mentions religious tests and, indeed, test oaths were retained in the laws of New York well into the nineteenth century. The Danbury Baptists, for another example, did not ask Jefferson to designate "a fast day for national reconciliation" (pp.97, 119).
The book illustrates what is pejoratively called "law office history." That is, the authors, imbued with the adversary ethic, selectively recount facts, emphasizing data that support their own prepossessions and minimizing significant facts that complicate or conflict with their biases. The professors warn readers of this on the second page when they describe their book as a "polemic" that will " lay out the case for one" side of the debate on the important "role of religion in public and political life."
The suggestion that the U. S. Constitution is godless because it makes only brief mention of the Deity and Christian custom is superficial and misguided. Professors Kramnick and Moore succumb to the temptation to impose twentieth-century values on eighteenth-century text. Their book is less an honest appraisal of history than a partisan tract written for contemporary battles. They frankly state their desire that this polemic will rebut the "Christian nation" rhetoric of the religious right. Unfortunately, their historical analysis is as specious as the rhetoric they criticize.
1. Daniel L. Dreisbach, D. Phil. (Oxford University) and J. D. (University of Virginia), is an associate professor at American University in Washington, D. C.. He is the author of Religion and Politics in the Early Republic (University Press of Kentucky, 1996), and Real Threat and Mere Shadow: Religious Liberty and the First Amendment (Crossway Books, 1987).
Copyright 1997 by Daniel L. Dreisbach. All rights reserved. Used by permission of the author.
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John Adams
Signer of the Declaration of Independence and Second President of the United States
[I]t is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue.
[W]e have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. . . . Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
John Quincy Adams
Sixth President of the United States
The law given from Sinai was a civil and municipal as well as a moral and religious code; it contained many statutes . . . of universal application-laws essential to the existence of men in society, and most of which have been enacted by every nation which ever professed any code of laws.
Fisher Ames
Framer of the First Amendment
Our liberty depends on our education, our laws, and habits . . . it is founded on morals and religion, whose authority reigns in the heart, and on the influence all these produce on public opinion before that opinion governs rulers.
James McHenry
Signer of the Constitution
[P]ublic utility pleads most forcibly for the general distribution of the Holy Scriptures. The doctrine they preach, the obligations they impose, the punishment they threaten, the rewards they promise, the stamp and image of divinity they bear, which produces a conviction of their truths, can alone secure to society, order and peace, and to our courts of justice and constitutions of government, purity, stability and usefulness. In vain, without the Bible, we increase penal laws and draw entrenchments around our institutions. Bibles are strong entrenchments. Where they abound, men cannot pursue wicked courses, and at the same time enjoy quiet conscience.
Pennsylvania Supreme Court
No free government now exists in the world, unless where Christianity is acknowledged, and is the religion of the country.
George Washington
"Father of Our Country"
While just government protects all in their religious rights, true religion affords to government its surest support.
[T]he [federal] government . . . can never be in danger of degenerating into a monarchy, and oligarchy, an aristocracy, or any other despotic or oppressive form so long as there shall remain any virtue in the body of the people.
Noah Webster
Founding Educator
The most perfect maxims and examples for regulating your social conduct and domestic economy, as well as the best rules of morality and religion, are to be found in the Bible. . . . The moral principles and precepts found in the scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws. These principles and precepts have truth, immutable truth, for their foundation. . . . All the evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible. . . . For instruction then in social, religious and civil duties resort to the scriptures for the best precepts.
I can continue but the bottom line is... Presidents, Congress and The Supreme Court of the United States have declared us a Christian peoples, Christian Nation with Christian principles.
Nice Blog Barbara!
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