A Health Care reform bill recently passed the House of Representatives, with one Republican backer.  The bill is now set to move on to the Senate where it will sit and die because Democrats are too scared to do anything good for the country, for fear of losing their seats.  It appears they do not realize they will lose their seats regardless if they do not do anything and look weak.

When did this country stop listening to the VOTERS and start listening to the nutjobs that show up at Town Hall meetings?  If these people were so passionate about not having health care reform, they had their chance to show up and vote for the ‘other guys’ when the elections were going on.  They didn’t, we elected a President and Congress on health care reform platforms, then our elected leaders start listening to the minority and decide they are no longer in support of health care.

So why again do we even have elections?  Let’s just randomly pick some guy to go to DC, when he is there, whoever yells the loudest can have what they want.

The “fear” of Obama indoctrination was in the news again recently.  This time not for something he was going to do, or had recently done, but something that happened over nine months ago.

A school in New Jersey ( B. Bernice Young Elementary School )  Taught their children songs that were “Pro-Obama” after sending home and receiving back permission slips from the parents of those involved.  The amount of media coverage, and outcry at the time of the production – Zero.

The media outlet reporting on this “affront” was none other then Fox News.

Some further reading on this topic, that was written after Fox made a big deal out of it, the best part are the ignorant comments at the bottom.

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/09/24/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5335819.shtml

(Intentionally posted late to coincide with the amount of time it took Fox to report on this tragedy)

Tin Foil Hats Arm Up!

Well the day has finally come. Today Obama will indoctrinate your children in his liberal ways. Ensuring the survival of his cause, and moving toward your feared world of “White slavery.”

In other news… The President is going to speak to the school children of the United States in a non-partisan way, that other Presidents before him have done on more then one occasion. Put on your tinfoil hats people, someone from Texas said that he will be placing subliminal socialist messages in with the video!

When will the conservatives realize that making your fringe right-wing popular isn’t the best idea? Everyone knows there are fringe left-wing nuts, but there aren’t (Fox) news stations out there agreeing with them and giving them legitimacy. Therein lies the difference.

There are many arguments for and against the separation of Church and State in the United States. Some focus on what our Founding Fathers wanted, others focus on what is best for the country, and others believe that God has no place in our current government. No matter what your faith, or lack of, there has been evidence throughout history that mixing faith with government is generally a bad idea. Our current government is one that attempts to keep most matters of state separate from religion, but there have been times that those lines seem to be blurring and coming together. This is something that cannot continue for the success of our way of life, and our freedoms that we enjoy in the United States of America.

So-called “Christian Nationalists” believe that the United States should support their Christian religion nationally and in government. They argue that the founding fathers wanted a Christian society, and would be for religion in government. The fundamental flaw in this argument being that the founding fathers specifically worded the constitution in a way that there could not be a national religion. The founding fathers were immigrants from European countries that a majority decided to leave because of their countries oppressive religious governments.

As stated by Austin Cline, “The American government was not designed or set up in any way, shape, or form under the guidance of heaven or in the service of any gods. Government is instituted by humans and for humans, not by gods and for gods. The authority of government stems from the authority of human beings, not from the authority of churches, church leaders, self-proclaimed spokesmen for gods, or indeed any gods themselves.” (1) Which is referencing many written thoughts of our founding fathers that believed religion should be freely practiced in the privacy of ones own home or church. Forcing people to live under one religion is not living in a state of nature, as the founding fathers intended for the United States.

As a matter of public policy in the support of human rights, the United States attempts to promote the freedom of religion with other nations. This might actually be more successful if our own President were promoting the same here at home. In his 2004 State of the Union address, President Bush made a new call for Congress to make his faith-based proposals permanent that would allow religious organizations to compete for more government grants and contracts without a separation between their religious activities and social programs. In essence giving religious groups funding to promote their religion at the same time as helping the population, giving the impression that they have the backing of the United States government. Although the administration has not admitted to backing a specific religion, President Bush has made it clear that he is a Christian and is working for their support. Supported by his first act during his administration as stated by Alan Dershowitz from the Los Angeles Times “The very first act of the new Bush administration was to have a Protestant Evangelist minister officially dedicate the inauguration to Jesus Christ, whom he declared to be ‘our savior.’ Invoking ‘the Father, the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ’ and ‘the Holy Spirit,’ Billy Graham’s son, the man selected by President George W Bush to bless his presidency, excluded the tens of millions of Americans who are Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Shintoists, Unitarians, agnostics, and atheists from his blessing by his particularistic and parochial language.” Our President, arguably the most powerful man in the world, promoting the Christian religion in public speeches, doesn’t sound like he supports freedom of religion.

As if that is not enough we are also subjected to comments from other political figures, including the attorney general John Ashcroft who stated that America has “no king but Jesus.” Or another John Ashcroft quote “We are a nation called to defend freedom- freedom that is not the grant of any government or document, but is our endowment from God.” When you have an entire administration that is blatantly going against the constitution by basically creating a national religion through comments and the overt backing of certain religious beliefs, it becomes a lot harder to maintain any type of separation between church and state.

Keeping the government separated from matters of religion is one of the most important issues we have today. Without a separation we cannot truly be a free society. Would it be freedom to be forbidden from speaking out against a god that you do not believe in? Freedom has to allow for the population to practice whichever religion they choose to, or choose not to. If we start backing specific religions over others we will end up no better off than countries like Saudi Arabia, that have to fear for their life if they choose not to believe in Islam. Saudi Arabia and Iran should be considered a standard for what can happen when religion and politics mix together unabashed. Their streets are filled with religious police, and just about every law they follow comes from their religious doctrine. According to the State Department website, Mutawwa (or Religious Police) in Saudi Arabia, can request proof that a couple is married or related and if not and they deem it appropriate a woman can be arrested for socializing with a man who is not a relative and charged with prostitution.

It is clear that our society necessitates a separation of church and state. If we want to continue to live in our free society, with standards of conduct above those of most civilized nations, we should continue to promote the separation that our founding fathers intended. When we fall victim to certain sects of society and abandon our minority groups and other free thinkers we will erode into a society where free thought is a crime. Continuing to separate our churches from our government is essential for our children and grandchildren.

References

1. http://atheism.about.com/b/a/258197.htm
2. Alan M Dershowitz, in “Bush Starts Off by Defying the the Constitution,” Los Angeles Times, January 24, 2001
3. Christopher Hutchens “God is not Great” Page 49
4. Sam Harris “The End of Faith” Page 154
5. http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1012.html

Republicans claim to want health care reform. Yet they don’t actually want any reform, they just want to look like they agree with reform because they know the public wants it, and voted for it. If they just keep saying the plan is bad for the people, they want everyone to agree with them. Hopefully the Democrats in Congress don’t roll over and take out the good parts of the reform.

How does anyone still take these people seriously? Orly Taitz has proven time and again to be a moron in a class of her own. With a “gimme” degree in law, she keeps filing claims that have no basis in reality in a court of law.

Her latest stunt was filing as evidence an obviously faked Birth Certificate for Barack Obama. What she is doing with her “law license” is a shame to California and a shame on attorneys that actually worked to get where they are. She should be disbarred and thrown in prison. Not for speaking out against the President, but for filing obviously false claims in court without actual evidence.

Any person that isn’t insane could see that she doesn’t have all pistons firing.

Who didn’t see this one coming? Details are still sparse on exactly why Sarah Palin has ‘decided’ to resign, but rumors are spreading across the internet that it could be related to a yet to be announced indictment.

This is no loss for the political community as a whole, and in the end probably the best thing to happen to the Republicans since the election.

Why do people insist on ‘faith’ in Religion? If God, or the Gods, are so special, and care about humans so much, why would they refuse to make themselves known?

Using your definition of a ‘miracle’ and saying that is the way the Gods make themselves known is fallacy. Every one knows so-called ‘miracles’ have no relation to a higher power, if you believe they do then you are a pretty cruel person.

If a plane crashes and 300 people die, one child survives, and you call that a miracle, you’re basically telling the families of the 300 that their God didn’t find any of them worthy enough to survive. Or that in a strange bit of happenstance it was time for 300 people to go to the “After-life” but not for that 1 child, even though 10 other children were on the plane.

Countless times it has been pointed out that almost every religious story is a repeat of an older religions story. Everything from the resurrection to walking on water has been told before. With different casts of characters.

People are more likely to follow the beliefs of their parents and not some belief that comes to them in a vision or a feeling, yet people still like to claim that God talks to them. But then they call others wrong for having their beliefs even those that never claim to ‘talk directly to God’.

One problem with religions is that they are all mutually exclusive. If you believe in one way, you cannot believe in another. So which one would be right? None of them. They all spring from some human urge to feel they need a purpose. They can’t accept that their life could just end when they die. Even if there is an afterlife and a “God” there, do you really want to meet him? The ‘being’ would like you to worship him every day. You’re supposed to believe in him without anything in return except supposedly when you die, if you believe then he will be kind enough not to send you to a fiery hell for all eternity.

God really must have wanted to test the Catholic’s faith when he thought it best that his men molest young boys.

Maybe he wasn’t home at the time and couldn’t see it happening, he was visiting his neighbor planet Kolob and just couldn’t stop it in time.

Or he was providing the 70 virgins for a terrorist that had died that day.

It could have been that he was working up the right words on how to tell the President of the United States that he needed to invade Iraq.

Oh those that wish to keep living their happy little lives, write off all of the ‘bad things’ that happen related to God, or told by God, or supposedly ‘done’ by God, to different things. Satan made them do it. Those people weren’t true believers. We don’t follow the old testament anymore. The list goes on.

Religion is a farce.

It’s getting a little old hearing hourly about the supposed ‘Swine Flu’ sweeping the nation and world.  A strain of flu that is misnamed after Swine that shows all indications of not being very deadly, is moving slowly through the nation.  We all feel for those that have died or have family that have died during this ‘outbreak’, but for something that does not appear to be any more deadly the the common flu, and actually maybe even less deadly,  the media really needs to stop scaring the public.

You tell people it’s the ‘Swine’ flu so everyone stops eating pork when they have no reason to.  Some countries ignorantly discuss slaughtering all of their pigs.  People run around wearing masks and freaking out.  Has anyone heard of the boy who cried wolf?  Sars, Bird Flu, Swine Flu..  The H1N1 flu has shown no indications of being something the average person needs to worry about.

Shut up already CNN, Fox etc. and go back to reporting real (or in Fox’s case Fake) news.

Tea-baggers have been out in force today promoting their ignorance to the public.  An interview of an organizer in Syracuse revealed that she was currently on medicare and had retired on disability, but didn’t want this nation becoming a nanny-welfare state where people accept government money.  I’m guessing she doesn’t include herself as one of the participants as she doesn’t understand that all of her programs are government subsidized as she didn’t pay enough taxes over her lifetime to cover what she is now receiving monthly.

Most of these “Tea-baggers” also fail to realize that they aren’t protesting Obama’s “Tax” but George W. Bush, whom many of them approved of while he was in office.  Obama hasn’t made a single change to this years tax code, he also wasn’t the only President to sign a stimulus bill.

As the country slowly moves toward recovery, it’s nice to see people still getting out there to claim that they know the stimulus plan will not work.  Because they are all economists themselves, obviously, except most economists say the best way out of a recession, when everyone else stops spending is for the Government to spend.

If everyone stops spending at the same time, which would have happened if the Government hadn’t upped their amount of spending, then NOTHING would be spent and the wheels of “Capitalism” would grind to a halt.

For those that claim that giving the money directly back to the taxpayers is the best plan, you also need to re-think things in the eyes of a larger economy that doesn’t necessarily include you getting everything you would like. Giving “Joe the Taxpayer” the money directly doesn’t help very much in the overall picture.  Having an extra $500 in your pocket when everyone says times are “tough” would cause you to place the money away for a time when it is really tough, which doesn’t help the economy one bit.

Giving the money to banks so that they don’t collapse, and can turn around and lend that money out to current and new businesses will help create jobs or retain jobs that would have been lost.

Once the widespread panic slows down, companies will also stop using the excuse of a recession to fire people they wanted to fire before, but didn’t have a good enough excuse, and they will start hiring as sales pick up again.

Fox news promoted this Tea-Bag Initiative and took it as their own, whether they started it in the first place, or just used the Pirates to take over the steaming ship, it has now become a Fox Right-Wing Media Extravaganza.

Nice going participants.