30 June 2022

"I'm tired of this separation of church and state junk"

The extremist Colorado Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert won her primary on Tuesday night, shortly after attacking the separation of church and state under the US constitution.

I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk,” she said.

On Sunday, two days before the primary and in comments first reported by the Denver Post, Boebert told a religious service: “The church is supposed to direct the government. The government is not supposed to direct the church. That is not how our founding fathers intended it.”..

Boebert, however, said she was “tired of this separation of church and state junk that’s not in the constitution. It was in a stinking letter, and it means nothing like what they say it does”.

The “stinking letter” seemed to be one written by Thomas Jefferson to the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut, in 1802.

The third president referred to the constitution establishing “a wall of separation between church and state”.
More at The Guardian.  Image cropped for size from one at Salon.

18 comments:

  1. WilliamRocket says - Coming soon, The United States of ... Afghanistan !

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  2. The more appropriate comparison is Iran, 1978-1979. A thoroughly modern, forward-thinking country fell into religious tyranny practically overnight, destabilizing the world in ways we're still dealing with today. It happened, there, then. It's happening here, now. In exactly the same pattern.

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    1. Yes. The on et of tyranny in Iran began when the CIA overthrew Iran's democratically-elected Mohammed Mosaddegh and installed the Shah and his SAVAK -

      https://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-cia-confirms-it-overthrew-irans.html

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    2. MNn: Thank you for reminding us of that history. One of many examples. I fear the chickens have come home to roost as our own democratic institutions fail from within.

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  3. Times like these make me want to sign up as a priest in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Only $49!

    https://order.spaghettimonster.org/ordination/

    But then I remember I don't want to be part of an organized religion. I'm busy doing other stuff.

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  4. OK, lets tax the churches on all the property they own as well as all income (donations) they receive.

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    1. Good idea. We should also tax as income all donations received by political candidates and political parties, as well as other organizations such as the NRA and Planned Parenthood, NPR, MADD, the list is endless. I see a revenue windfall in our future!

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  5. This person is actually "tired" of democracy and instinctively drawn to authoritarianism and, given all that, why not combine church and state?

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  6. I'll be holding a wake for our country on the 4th.

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  7. We survived a civil war, the Great Depression, slavery, Jim Crow, an insurrection, 9/12, a pandemic…and Boebert and MTG are going to bring down our country? If that is true, I suppose we get what we deserve.

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    1. It's worth remembering that Hitler was elected in a fair and undisputed election, then the people who voted for him allowed all the atrocities which followed. I fear that the era of fair elections in America may be at an end. Certainly the Nazi-style manipulation of the ignorant public is well under way here.

      If you feel the need for a bit of amusement at this point, look up Romana Didulo, the QAnon Queen of Canada.

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    2. It is worth remembering that Hitler came to power before he was ever elected to anything, when he was appointed chancellor of Germany by Hindenburg. His election to president 2 years later was undisputed (and virtually uncontested), but could hardly be termed as fair. The Nazi party used intimidation, fear, and threats of reprisals to ensure that Hitler won 90% of the vote. They also played on the fear of the rising power of the communist party. Most important, they had the press on their side. The German population was not ignorant, they were tired of the rampant inflation. lack of jobs, worthless pensions, and the measures they suffered for being blamed for causing WWI.

      In my view, using the Nazis/Hitler in an argument about politicians or political parties in the USA is weak and disingenuous. Mr. Biden is no Hindenburg, and Mr. Trump is not Hitler. Our press and other media can hardly be termed as pro-conservative, quite the opposite. The only real similarity, and it is worrisome, is the division among our people and the extremes of both parties getting more attention than the "silent majority" in the middle.

      People like Didulo are not new, what is new is the platform they get via social media. 50 years ago she would have shown up somewhere, stapled some posters around town and 20 or 25 people would have come to see what the fuss was about, most of them wandering away after a few minutes.

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    3. Our press and other media can hardly be termed as pro-conservative, quite the opposite.

      But this is simply not true. Foxnews is the most watched "news" network. All talk radio is conservative. And if you look at the most popular posts on social media they're all conservative. Rachel Maddow is no match for Tucker Carlson.

      And the NYTimes is so terrified of being called left-wing that they threw Hillary under the bus, and never really criticized TFG. Meanwhile, the WaPo is owned by a guy that regularly criticizes the left. Over on social media, we know that Zuckerburg regularly dined with TFG and that Musk is trying to buy Twitter because it's not right-wing enough. If that sales ever happens, both Twitter and the largest "news" network will be owned by self-declared conservatives.

      Where is that powerful left-wing media?

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    4. Look, someone assumed that I stated or even implied that there was a powerful left-wing media. Sorry, couldn't resist.

      The opposite of a pro-conservative media is not a powerful left-wing media (BTW, IMO, liberal does not = left-wing, but that is a discussion for another day). Media today is either anti-conservative or anti-liberal. Fox News Channel does not report news about conservatives in a neutral way. They report all of the negative news they can find about liberals, while pretty much ignoring anything negative about conservatives. MSNBC and CNN does the same in reverse: report negative news about conservatives, mostly ignore negative news about liberals. Not many in the media today are interested in what Carl Bernstein considers journalism’s prime objective: relaying “the best obtainable version of the truth.” Walter Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley, Roger Mudd...they would not recognize news media as it is today.

      Fox News Channel may be the most watched cable "news," but there is more to news than cable. Also, cables news programs are not regulated by the government, so they are not required to be fair. whatever that might mean today.

      CBS, NBC, ABC, MSNBC, CNN total daily average viewers in the past 12 months (ending May 2022) = 20,578,000

      Fox Broadcasting, Fox News Channel total daily average viewers in the past 12 months (ending May 2022) = 7,120,000

      https://www.alltopeverything.com/

      As far as major cable news: (for May 22)

      Fox: 1,360,000
      MSNBC, CNN: 1,314,000

      https://www.nationalmediaspots.com/us-cable-tv-network-and-program-rankings.php

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    5. "the NYTimes is so terrified of being called left-wing that they...never really criticized TFG." Really?

      When It Comes to Covering Trump, The New York Times Has Abandoned Any Distinction Between Reporting and Opinion https://tinyurl.com/bdhktdn5

      It appears the New York Times forgot a lesson of the Trump Years. https://tinyurl.com/5n8vxs7x

      END OUR NATIONAL CRISIS
      The Case Against Donald Trump
      https://tinyurl.com/yc4yeekc

      New York Times internationally prints antisemitic cartoon of Trump, Netanyahu
      https://tinyurl.com/mww759hk

      The Complete list of Trump's Twitter Insults
      https://tinyurl.com/4mrb3jfw

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  8. The Pilgrims, Puritans, and Quakers in New England wanted no part in a national government without the guarantee of religious freedom. The first amendment starts... Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;...
    Without the Bill of Rights the constitution would not have been ratified, they are definitely part of the constitution.

    Only someone as ignorant as Boebert (Sarah Palin Jr) would not know that.

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    1. The Puritans were not exactly for religious freedom. They enacted a law in 1631 establishing that only men who "are members of some of the churches" in the colony were eligible to become freemen and gain the vote. In 1641, the colony enacted the Massachusetts Body of Liberties, written by Nathaniel Ward, a strong proponent of theocratic government. The liberties applied to freemen, meaning Puritans. The Body of Liberties did include many of the rights currently embodied in our Bill of Rights, but religious freedom was not one of them. In fact, the persecution of Quakers in the colonies began in Boston in the1650s when English Quaker missionaries began preaching in the city. They were considered heretics because of their beliefs. Some Quakers were imprisoned and banished by the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Books were burned, and their property was confiscated. Some were deported.

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  9. On another note, someone should probably remind this 'lady' (and I use the term loosely) that her right to vote or hold office is not in the Constitution either. And the Bible, taken literally, states that no woman may hold authority over a man. So... yeah.

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