"The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries."
All of the founders of this nation were familiar with the two centuries of religious warfare that had prevailed in Europe. They saw the destructive forces that different religious beliefs (in this case Protestantism vs. Catholicism) wreaked upon Europe. That lesson is alien to the white Protestant Christian Nationalists here today who want to replace our democratic republican form of government with a Christian theocratic one, a white theocratic one.
Yes, Vance claims to be a Roman Catholic. So much for claims, just as the white Protestants claim to be Christians. "By their fruits, so shall you know them." Today the term used for these folks is "Chinos."
Are you surprised that a Catholic identifies himself as a Christian? He is likely over compensating for his base since many Protestant Christians see Roman Catholics as outside the true faith, but they are most certainly Christian. I am not defending JD though!
Correct. I suspect that most Evangelical Protestants, including those in the crowd he addressed, probably don't look too favorably on the Pope. In addition, J.D.'s wife is a Hindu.
I did a Wikipedia check on Pilgrims. There was a time when all English subjects were required to attend the English church. There were fines for missing, and even jail. The Crown used religion to extend their power. Just what HCR is writing about. Churches are often the home of some of the worst bigots. Why in some small towns are there churches on every block? They can't get along with each other. Which is the central message of Christ: love thy neighbor as thyself.
And, talk about bigotry: the Insurrection. Excellent point about all of the churches. The Center for Global Christianity estimates that there are over 47,000 Christian denominations worldwide, with a large part being Protestant. 47,000!!! Even God is now confused about who or what he is.
Richard, 'their' view of what God's words are about is truly nauseating! Jesus was not white. The majority of people are not white so, these Nationalists should, I hope, have an impossible task ahead to convert us to their viewpoint.
Richard; Don't fail to mention united christianity vs islam vs judaism. Those crusades still exist in my opinion. Religiosity's of near most all sorts clash for dominion; Great tool when it's wielded as it has always.
Exactly! I think ALL religion should be banned...radical I know but think of all the wars started in the name of religion. Think of the subjugation of women, children, Black and Brown people and poor people - would the rape of children be allowed in this society without christianity, one of the most perverse religions ever...
Our constitution specifically declined to dedicate itself to any one religion, believing that people have a right to choose, and that religion should be held separate from politics. It's not religion that's corrupt; it's the fanatics that seem to endlessly ooze out of the muck to pervert it for their own grotesque gains. Even if religions were banned, the same people would find a way to do their evil. Let's find ways to stop the madmen instead. Like creating laws that actually stop fascism, for instance.
They exist with the intent to increase wealth and power by sowing the seeds of superstition, demanding fealty, inhibiting free thought, and creating hierarchies. I'm with Hitchens on this one.
".... believing that people have a right to choose..." Yes, in other words 'their conscience' - each and every human being, has their own individual conscience; "An unalienable right." Just as equally as the "right" of a woman - female of the species, to bear or not, for medical, emotional, psychological, or reasons of her conscience; Another unalienable right.
Well, if maga, republicans and members of their cult believe in the ten commandments, they would honor "thy shalt not kill" by removing guns and amending the second amendment; "thy shalt not lie or commit adultery or covet they neighbor's wife" by removing the president.
Terry, I don't think all religions should be banned. After all, religion is a choice, or as some may claim, a "calling." Who are we to decide. The battle is in the ideas, not in the battle to summarily ban them. My preference is to prove the worth of atheism, of which I happen to belong. Some will ask me what my "argument with God is?" I have no argument with God as I don't believe God exists. No, my argument is not with God, it is with religion.
I'm spiritual but not religions. I see the creator in the wonders of nature. All religions are a creation of man...imperfect, just ideas. And generally corrupt - for money and power over...
Well Riad that demonstrates that the founders got it right. Church and state should by their natures be separate. Citizens of the newly found radical nation should be free to believe in the inalienable rights of their fellow citizens.
Yea, well, people don't want to be assimilated out of their beliefs. In fact, some religions enable violence - as you suggested above - like flying airplanes into buildings...
The problem with religion, as Ms Crawford states below is not religion itself, but what human beings all too often make of.
Each of us, in this Republic is allowed, even encouraged to discover and to place his or her faith in whatever sense of meaning we find best suited to our purposes. For many, that is some form of religious faith. Such believers, like those who have placed their faith in other areas, have over the course of our history have done both individually and together some of both the best and the worst human actions.
The real problem is that in the case of far too many of those who claim to be people of faith, their actions are quite far removed from the tenets of the faith in which they claim to believe. JD Vance is a clear example. His words and actions are often in total contradiction of the tenets of Christianity as Christ described them.
It is only too true that since the dawn of organized religion, individuals and groups seeking power have used religion as a way of gaining, exercising, and maintaining temporal power. But that does negate the power of faith to do works of great beauty and exceptional good.
It is not faith that enables great works. It the human imagination, deep empathy, the dedication to a goal and the perseverance to complete the work. All these things exist in humanity without faith.
Where are these great works you speak of : in towering cathedrals built by regular crafts people...where is the exceptional good that religion does that cannot be accomplished by regular caring people and always has. These so called christians of today, even priests, telling their parishioners to vote for a felon and child rapist, these evangelicals believing rich white people are preferred by god, and thinking they are better that others - I don't buy it.
Terry, all of the bad things you have mentioned here would have happened without religion. All it does is provide some kind of divine excuse. Also I think spirituality which is different from religion is important. It helps us know our place in the world and the universe for me connects me to all life and the universe.
Our forefathers were a curious combination of significant political sagacity, hard-headed practicality, and a kind of remarkable idealism. I’d point you to Dr Jill LaPore’s recent work, We the People, for a thorough and sober look at the process they went through.
The VA. state flag has on it the words "Sic semper tyrannis." This is a timely reminder to MAGA republicans what those words mean. Tyrants like Vance and Trump have historically had no place in our nation. And it is this reminder that showed Glenn Youngkin's republican party in VA. the door on the way out. Make no mistake: had democrats behaved as MAGA did, they too would be out the door. With Winsome Sears running for the state leadership, she didn't stand a chance in the last election. She can thank her empty rhetoric and ideas, and Donald Trump, for her loss and the loss of much of the republican legislature.
horhai, good reminder to review the history of some of the groups coming to America to escape religious tyrants in Europe. And, here we are, setting up to be as bad as history reads.
John Adams stated: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." I think what he meant is that our govt works best when moral and religious citizens participate in it, and in civil society. This is not in conflict with what Madison wrote. Adams is not endorsing one particular religion.
Is there an amendment we could write to the Constitution?
I just read an article in Forbes that says the prediction markets, that Don Jr. is an investor in, allow people to bet on the outcome of battles in Ukraine and other places around the world using real-time AI assessments from "observers."
Soldiers can look at battle maps and make bets on what is essentially their own chances of survival.
Betting among the military in Ukraine is at the level of $228 million a month. That is one quarter of the monthly target for the PURL initiative for the coalition of the willing to provide Ukraine with arms.
This is real-world Hunger Games with an aerial view.
It is so off the charts to me that if it were in a dystopian novel, it would come just before the society collapsed.
The Founders seem to have had another failure of imagination. Or we humans have malignantly evolved.
The carny barkers are loose. These are same that grew up in casino hustling and fleecing their marks. They have no friends - only “business” relations.
I did a little more research on bets on the Polymarket prediction market, the prediction platform that Don Jr. invests in. It uses a blockchain called Polygon for its ledger.
Polygon (the Ethereum layer-2 scaling network) does not require KYC (Know Your Customer accounts) as it is a decentralized blockchain protocol where users interact directly via self-custodial wallets without centralized identity verification., All that is ever exposed is the wallet number.
So Russia could be holding the other side of the bets and no one would ever know because of the use of "self-custodial wallets.)
I think we can be forgiven if we see Russia lurking behind every algorithm or computer code. When you have an enemy that destroys hospitals, schools and energy plants...rockets apartment buildings, rapes, murders and steals children...one could legitimately see that enemy using every imaginable tool available to conquer, to vanquish...to exterminate.
And the fact that one of those tools sits in the Oval Office should be so freaking obvious now that he should be carted away in shackles.
Addendum: please sub the word Putin for Russia. While I am sure the KGB Agent is quite popular, I don't believe that we should assume that his approval rating could ever be accurately measured. I must believe that just as millions of Americans are disgusted and appalled by their president, there are Russian mothers and fathers who are furious about the pointless loss of their sons in a manufactured war.
I have read estimates that Russia's economy is about the size of Italy. Which makes it clear that the only reason Putin has been as successful as he has in stealing land is the lack of will on the part of the US. Again I refer everyone right back to the Oval Office.
How would Putin's invasion of Ukraine be going right now if our president was Kamala Harris? How powerful would NATO be? Would we be targeting Russian ghost ships filled with sanctioned oil instead of little motor boats with small time drug runners (or fisherman)?
Why is the US grabbing Venezuelan oil tankers when there are internationally recognized as sanctioned ships loaded with oil providing Putin with what is his only significant source of revenue? Again, ask the creep in the Oval Office.
Is the creep occupying the Oval Office really in charge? Are the two trump lackeys sitting in the majority leader positions in the House and Senate even in charge of what they do, or don't do as the case really is? Or is there a faction in control of all of them that are laughing at all of us as bitch about trump? I keep wondering if they all have guns to their heads. If it's these buffoons that are actually in charge shouldn't someone be going to jail? But no one does How can this be ?
The entire story reads like propaganda, so I am not surprised at your followup. It is exactly the sort of "fling shit at the wall and see what sticks" mendacity the Kremlin deals out.
Ouch! Georgia, the facts and your report feed the disgust I feel. Let's forgive all Founders any failure of imagination by focusing on ways we can empower our imaginations to percolate into the pores of our stratified society with democracy-defending force. As usual, I applaud Apache whose reply includes "The Creator Created The Heyokas...". Consider, spend time wondering what she means; I will.
AI says: "The statement "the creator created the heyoka" reflects a common understanding in Lakota Sioux culture that the Heyoka, a sacred contrarian clown or shaman, is chosen by the Creator (Wakan Tanka) and the Thunder Beings (Wakinyan) for a unique spiritual role, not self-appointed, serving as a healer and truth-teller through reversed actions and humor to challenge norms and bring wisdom. While some modern spiritualists use the term loosely for empaths, traditionally, the Heyoka's calling is a profound spiritual gift and responsibility from the divine, working to facilitate change and healing."
it would have been quite a leap for the founders to have imagined the world today. They were wary of long standing proclivities of human nature, but in their day, the resources of the world might have seemed endless, and the press was diverse and locally owned. Computers in laps and in pockets were unlikely to have occurred to them.
Romans made bets on gladiators in the Colosseum. What is morally acceptable in society ebbs and flows. I just do not, at the moment, have confidence that the tide is turning yet.
The Founders indeed imagined the consequences of a populist ideologue achieving the presidency. However, over time people amended the Constitution and SCOTUS rendered findings that perverted their intent.
That sounds rather like Donald Trump Sr.’s thinking. He was raised Presbyterian and his family attended Marble Collegiate Church when Norman Vincent Peale was pastor.
Kathy, I think it's a stretch to state that Donald was "raised Presbyterian." Mary Ann Trump occasionally took her kids to Marble Collegiate because it was socially beneficial to be seen there. She and Fred were desperate to be accepted by NYC aristocracy, so they made a point of being seen in all the right places.
As often happens with large churches, Marble Collegiate was light on doctrine and heavy on the clergy's "star power." It could have been affiliated with any denomination because Peale's uncontroversial sermons were about the success and positive thoughts. He knew one doesn't build large, generous congregations by offending people.
I see. Mary recalled that Fred liked Peale’s emphasis in positive thinking and success. Donald and his first wife Ivana married at Marble Collegiate in 1977. His Bible was his confirmation Bible from Marble Collegiate, as he did get confirmed there.
Great line — “Is there a right to be morally repugnant?” This is a great moral question — where is the line between acceptable behavior and moral repugnance, and who polices it? This is why the Founding Fathers felt that each citizen had the responsibility to seek enlightenment and virtue. These are monumental questions we should be discussing more deeply.
Georgia, the founder's imagination is not a failure; the failure lies in mutation of the genetic underpinnings of ideas on which this nation was founded. We had many chances to invoke gene therapy, and to this day, largely succeeded in spite of the self-inflicted disabilities many of our past leaders made. Today the malignancy, as you put it, is at its height. I would hope that radical surgery would not be needed; however, we're on a runaway train. I won't go any further than to say that.
Tonight, at the stroke of midnight, the Ten Commandments appeared before J.D. Vance in his sleep. Casting cold, hard stares, they filed out, one by one, in silent condemnation. Numbers 1, 2, 6, 8, 10 ( and possibly 7) left their calling cards...
yeah...now we can be just like Trump...making up ridiculous names to call each other...that's probably the equality that HCR speaks about in these articles...
"and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity toward each other.” James Madison
Last week Cardinal Dolan of New York "resigned." Cardinal Timothy Dolan referred to Charlie Kirk as a "modern-day St. Paul" and praised him as a "hero" and "evangelist" following Kirk's tragic death. Dolan was famously anti-LGBTQ+ and hopefully he goes on to spend eternity in hell along with his buddies JD Vance and Kirk. Pope Leo announced his replacement to be Bishop Ronald Hicks.
As Dr. R points out, Madison was only 21 when he wrote these words. Today, it is the Gen-Z generation that we all need to practice love and tolerance and shun misogyny and xenophobia. As a professor Dr. Richardson has access to the Gen-Zs and hopefully has more influence on them than the misguided Turning Point disciples.
It was a flip remark meant to give conservatives Christians warm fuzzies. He didn’t spend a lot of time in theological thinking about it, imo. And that’s a problem. He will still be a regular on Fox News and EWTN, unless he gets too outrageous at which point Leo will find a “job” for him in the Vatican making those appearances much more difficult.
To clarify: every bishop MUST submit his resignation as he approaches 75. Sometimes the pope does not accept it immediately and sometimes when he does, it could take a year or more to find a replacement. In this case, Pope Leo apparently had Dolan’s replacement waiting in the wings. (IMO, this is good management by PL, just unusual.)
When Dolan compared Kirk to St Paul, I lost my s!#t. Last evening I talked to a former colleague of Dolan’s from St Louis. He told me Dolan probably said that so as to keep conservative Catholics happy (though he may also believe it). From their time in STL, He liked Dolan: said he was kind and conservative then. I’ve never been a fan.
One of my cousins married a "Catholic boy" when it was not acceptable for a Lutheran to marry a Catholic. They had 3 lovely girls none of whom chose to be Catholics when they grew up.
My cousin and her husband have been Trumpanzees since he came down the golden elevator in 2015. Their kids have all tried to convert them away from Catholicism. That ain't ever going to happen.
Plenty of us Catholics despise Trump because his policies are in direct violation of Catholic Social Justice principles. It is maddening to us that folks like your cousin and her husband just ignore them. One of the first popes to write about these principles (all based on Scripture) and apply them to modern society was Pope Leo XIII, just over 100 years ago. I knew when Robert Prevost took the name Leo XIV we were getting the pope that we needed.
Your cousin doesn’t need to leave Catholicism; they need to learn the church’s teachings on Social Justice, embrace it and LEAVE TRUMP!!
I was glad when the Pope chose "Leo" as his papal name. My wife's great great great......uncle was Pope Leo X who was one of the Medicis. Her great great ..... grandfather was the eldest of the Medicis and as the eldest inherited the family fortune. Bummer it didn't trickle down to us. 😎
There's an article in the Post today about the federal government's relinquishing its historic duty of providing accurate and timely data. Well ....who needs data when you got prayer???
I saw a story that said the 3rd quarter GDP increase was more like .8% instead of 4.3%. I doubted the accuracy of the number when I first heard Scott Pissant report it.
We continue to pay the for the failure to mete out justice to the traitors of the Confederacy. One can only hope that the same mistake will not be repeated once power is wrested from the hands of the MAGAts.
All due respect…and I get where you are coming from with Garland..we need to recognize if AMERICA had been better, it wouldn’t even have been an issue Harland needed to handle.
Everyday Americans were the ones buying into all this bull shit, attacking Mr. Pelosi, swatting judges, sending pizzas to yheir homes with their kids names on the order saying, “I’ll get to your kid if you do t back our illegal shit.”
Had the American people shown an interest in the future of this country, the Congress would have impeached Trump. Had the SCOTUS shown any sort of serious thought beyond their own personal gains, Trump would never have been allowed to run. Not only did they allow it, most likely praying the public would do their job for them, they granted him carte blanche to commit crime after crime. Biden had no fight left in him. Garland should have worked after but where were we, the people? We walked on egg shells around our MAGA friends, neighbors sand family. Just trying to change the subject instead of standing up and saying…”that’s bat shit crazy.”
We didn’t. These people who are elected, who are appointed by the people we elect reflect us, WE THE PEOPLE. Anything we look at a JD Vance, a Trump, a Witkoff, Bondi, Hegseth, Patel, we need to look in the mirror.
If there was a family of rats outside my door, whose fault would it be that I left the door ajar and food strewn all over the kitchen, if the arts came in and infested my house and sickened my children?
The rat, who is just being a rat and carries disease? Or me? Me, who knows that my carelessness, my in attention to protecting my environment, my disregard for the safety of my children bevause I KNOW these rats are diseased and UNDP’s Ave and will multiply and take over my home?
The good news is that we are to blame which means we can change this.
Millions of people simply didn’t vote a little over a year ago. Millie s voted, foolishly, a single issue. Millions voted with misinformation or complete lies in their arsenal of reason. We left the door ajar since 2015. People voted for Jill Stein (who? You might ask…) to “teach” democrats a lesson. That’s like Chopin Goff your pinky to teach your hand a lesson. Garland had no backing from the country to go after Trump. Even from his own party.
Bondi is doing what she is doing or more accurately, Blanche is doing what he’s doing because he knows he’ll be pardoned. Of course, he’ll do whatever illegal, vindictive shit his boss wants because there will be no consequences. Biden, due to age or his own hubris of what he remembered as being a respected Senator and VP, in a US that no longer existed, was restrained.
It’s 2025, we have slept walked or fully raced into an authoritarian regime and that’s the reality. No amount of wishful thinking or Monday morning (do we need to say Tuesday now?) quarterbacking will get us out of it. It is importantly to know history so we can either repeat what worked, pivot from what didn’t or strategize for what’s to come five steps ahead. How do we counter this as best we can? Newsom seemed to be gaining traction with yroloing Trump, same for Pritzker. I’m sorry about Charlie Kirk but considering his wife is bringing the movement along with Megan Kelly into GIANT anti semitic circles for money and power means Newsom should never have been cowered into letting up the media campaign.
We need to be as relentless as them…daily blasts to get through to the public. I would love if we could have an adult conversation, pass out Thomas Paine style pamphlets to change the American mindset but that’s not happening. We need to get dirty digging into every play on the field while playing clean. We need to point out to our children how incredibly unhappy these people seem. How delighting I a weaker person is not masculine. It’s sniveling and petty. That real men tell the truth, take ownership, respect their mothers, wives, sisters, friends. They use their brains and conscience, not their fists and cauliflowered ears. That building character is more important than taking steroids and building muscle.
We should have let the Deep South go. The ruling elites have always, from the get-go, disfavored and rejected the idea of equality. Yes, we needed to defeat the Confederate army, but we should have redrawn our borders, with them on the outside. How to make one country out of antagonistic forces?
Like the author, I see the big connection between Southern slaveholder Christianity and that of today’s Christian Nationalists. Many of us who are Christians want no part of Christian Nationalism as we respect the rights of freedom of conscience. There is no religious test for citizenship or religion. Nor should there be one.
If nothing else proves the wisdom of the Founders….today’s warped….in fact antietical to the teachings of the “ Christ “ they claim to represent….than the constant demonstration of the danger of allowing those claiming to instill “god’s” laws in our government, which was wisely designed to serve a multicultural society.
Although letting the Confederacy cede would have created a white Christian nationalist oligarchy that Lincoln simply didn't want to be responsible for. He saw all of the American people as his people, so he wanted to protect them from a government that would subject them to the kind of petty nouveau aristocracy the South imagined for itself.
Yup. Just a fantasy artistocracy where people who had no ancestral claim invented one and filled in "the lower orders" with people they could control because they had no rights. I despise them and their cosplay regency.
Given the under-development of the South (baked in by the choices the slave-holding overlords made) it would have been a weak foe. As it is, we have had a foe within our borders, holding us back every step of the way. The South voted Democratic until the mid-60s-- but they were Dixiecrats, segregationists to the death. They have had the parking brakes on since forever. Now corporations are finding that the educated workers they need to recruit aren't willing to move to Texas. Ditto the exit of medical personnel from red states, where women of childbearing age are dying because doctors are worried about being sued and imprisoned because l ignorant politicians (or snitchy neighbor) thinks they know what "God" wants.
Lincoln was a great man, but he called it wrong on this one.
I know. I know, and it was a decision I don't understand. I haven't read of his reasoning. From this safe remove of time, it lands for me in the same range as an unhappy marriage of two antagonistic value systems. They don't want to live in a country with voting rights, public education, social services and freedom of speech. I don't want to live under the Christian Taliban--especially as they have absolutely nothing to do with anything Christ ever taught!
It is human nature to be about control. There is nothing in the teachings of Jesus, for example, that was about controlling others. The opposite, in fact. It was human social norms-- domination, patriarchy-- that warped the earlyChristian church after it was coopted by the empire.
The real, actual , practiced religion of the US is extractive capitalism, dominating nature, powered by insatiable greed.All sorts of faith traditions actually line up against that.
Millions of people have continued in near slavery anyway, have you noticed? The federal government did not protect Southern blacks for one minute after the infamous "compromise of 1877, " which ushered in a reign of terror that lasted for about 90 years.
And democracy hasn't perished from the earth, although it is under serious assault--from the same forces that wanted to go their own way 160 years ago.
We can WANT to protect people, but we have to be willing to shoulder the burde of doing so.
In the 1850s discussions about separating, making new federations rather than one big one. The reason that the big one was formed in the first place was to throw off British imperial control. They didn't like each other way back in colonial days, by the mid 19th century they were discussing the problem again. And then the idiot hot headed Confederate attacked the federal Fort Sumter, starting a war they could not win.
The south wanting to leave was the whole reason for the war in the first place. If they had won, we would have two countries today. Whether that would have been for the better is a different question. Certainly it wouldn’t have been a better result for the millions who were oppressed by antebellum southern and then incompetent Confederate governance. It was a war for the Union yes, but also a war for justice.
You might like reading "American Nations" by Colin Woodard. Mostly it is about the substantially different cultures of the 11 groups that colonized what is now the United States. He makes the point--based on the history--that our notion of the Civil War as North v. South does not explain the data. New York/Manhattan was anti-abolition, because it's merchants worked with the southern plantation owners. Big stretches of Appalachia, in our modern south, were anti-slavery because they hated the plantation owners.
There were discussions ongoing about negotiating the federations of the US. Lincoln might have wanted war--but you recall he did not abolish slavery until long into the war. And northern sentiment was not pro-war (and not just the big business interests of NY).
Then the South attacked, and immediately public opinion in the geographic north backed war.
For the Southern leaders, it was all about slavery. For the North it was about defending itself and preserving the union.
Certainly there was a vocal minority concerned about justice issues--very like today's environmental activists. Loud, moral, attacked, and not actually powerful.
Very interesting, Charlie. Thanks for sharing. I’d like to read that. What I find most interesting about your comment is that like today, there were “blue” and “red” dots alike in each of the warring territories. Today of course it is even more territorially diluted and because of that the regions break seems much less likely. A civil war today would literally be neighbor vs. neighbor in some places.
That said, we seem to have irreconcilable differences at this point and a “divorce” often feels like the only reasonable solution. Speaking just for myself, I am less interested in “preserving the union” at this point than in living in a country that values all its people and centers the principle of justice for all first above everything else.
equality? do you, aside from basic human rights, consider yourself equal to much of maga? it's not as simple as 'we think differently on important subjects'...it's that we will act on how/what we think...or am i missing some important parts when i think about 'equality'...? i'm not 'equal' to a woman, considering what they can do biologically and i can't...and on and on...so the notion of 'equality' is baffling to me, and HAS been for more than most of my life...
It's about equal opportunities and equal treatment, equal under the law. For women equality means having control over our own bodies, our own decisions to reproduce or not, to marry or not, to love who we love without some made up god or some man deciding for us and treating us like children. No people are not equal in terms of abilities, or birth but after birth we should have the same rights and opportunities regardless of sex, gender money, religion or where we were born or to whom we were born.
right. i guess my problem is that what you've mentioned here were always givens to me(but not, necessarily, given to me)...no matter what is written anywhere...
You would have to cuts states like North Carolina, and many other states up into many little pieces to isolate the “confederate thinkers” from the Madisonian thinkers. There is no state that is free from the people who believe that they are entitled to force their beliefs, either religious or political on everyone.
It is not as fine-grained as you suggest, for obvious reasons. The North Carolina legislature for instance just redistricted the Black Belt out of existence. Will the blue dots of North Carolina link arms for the massive voter engagement needed to overcome this anti-democratic MAGA maneuver? It can be done, but will the blue dots of North Carolina throw their all into it?
I would love to see centrist dems step up, but have not seen that happen yet. My opinion is they need to unlatch from the tit of american oligarchy , drive election reform ( nearly every American wants this), step away from “woke ideology while not abandoning persecuted minorities ( totally possible) , solve healthcare ( single payor), and reach out to working Americans in a real fashion that they can see in their lives.
He may be cancerous, but he's also a piss-ant. He might have Charlie Kirk's widow and Satan himself backing him, but even Beelzebub needs worthy vessels to do his bidding. This cranky little cracked pot ain't one of them. To use a technical term, he's a small shitgibbon with the personality of used blotting paper, as charming as a pot of cold eels.
I hope you are right but the maga party has the power and he doesn't need to be charismatic and he can still complete the destruction initiated by trump even without the vessels to do his bidding and a charm of a pot of cold eels.
If that's the case, and "in the works" jd is the forever opportunist as in ingratiating himself to 'the widow kirk' and a flip-flopper as in when he was against tRvmp and is now his vp. What a slimy, evil 'thing' he is.
Once in power he doesn't need showmanship and crowd appeal Kathy, he is disciplined, determined and fanatic. He'll have all the money he might need from Musk and the political philosophy of Thiel. And a good percentage of the maga horde will follow. Tragic but very possible.
That is why I am petrified by the possibility of Vance assuming the presidency early ahead of 2028, even if Democrats won both houses of Congress at the mid-terms. They would have to have veto-proof majorities to stop him.
I would prefer a "Weekend at Bernie's" DJT to Vance.
Unbelievable Georgia that decent, intelligent people have to be in the situation you clearly described. Picking the lesser terrible option. In this case, trump. 🤮
I agree, he has the billionaire backers. It doesn't matter if he "isn't charismatic" if he is already in power. The Tech bros will keep him in power, it's literally been their plan. To scoff him off is a mistake. After the Trump regime is dismantled, we will be in a more difficult battle with the oligarchs that are amassing their power right now.
I recall a few year back hearing some right wing politician saying the opposite, that freedom of religion was not freedom from religion, which the Constitution supposedly prohibits. But that seems to be the kind of self-serving logic at which the Roberts court excels.
My Mom, now long gone, reminded us repeatedly as children that 'freedom of religion' meant 'freedom from religion' as well. She was raised Presbyterian, shifted to the Unitarian Church and then decided that the real religion for her was the natural world and not a patriarchal figure in the sky or any institution. I thank her for that.
I agree with your mom . My parents immigrated from Northern Ireland to leave behind, not only the monarch and it’s church, but the so-called ‘troubles’ between the Catholics and the protestants.
''One Nation, Under Which God, Exactly?'' (satire)
A Helpful Guide to Vice President Vance’s Selective Christianity
“The moment the state declares itself Christian, democracy stops being a shared project and becomes a theological enforcement exercise, run by whichever faction shouts ‘God’ the loudest.”
Vice President J.D. Vance recently assured a cheering crowd that America has always been, and must forever remain, a Christian nation. This was delivered with the confidence of a man who has apparently solved two hundred and fifty years of constitutional debate during a coffee break.
The claim has a certain comforting simplicity. It suggests a single faith, a shared creed, a unified moral compass. Unfortunately, it collapses the moment it encounters either history or arithmetic.
The United States currently contains roughly 200 to 250 Christian denominations. That number does not include the countless independent churches that answer to no higher authority than a strip mall lease and a podcast microphone. If America is a Christian nation, then it is one with more doctrinal disagreement than a theology faculty meeting that has run out of coffee.
Which Christianity, exactly, does Vice President Vance have in mind?
The Christianity that baptizes infants or the one that insists baptism only counts if you remember it? The Christianity that treats women as moral equals or the one that thinks leadership looks suspiciously like Eve’s fault? The Christianity that welcomes immigrants or the one that wants to build a wall high enough to block the Sermon on the Mount?
History is unhelpful to Vance here. The architects of the American system, especially James Madison, were quite explicit. The problem was not religion itself. The problem was what happens when the state claims the authority to decide which version of God is correct. Madison understood that once the government can dictate conscience, it can dictate everything else. Tyranny does not arrive waving a pitchfork. It arrives holding a Bible and a law book, insisting it knows how to combine them properly.
George Washington made the same point more gently, assuring Jewish Americans that the government of the United States gives to bigotry no sanction and to persecution no assistance. Thomas Jefferson put it bluntly, building a wall between church and state because he trusted neither institution to behave well once they started sharing power.
Vice President Vance’s nostalgia skips all of this. His version of history resembles a theme park attraction where complexity has been removed for safety reasons. It invites Americans to imagine a past that never existed, where Christianity spoke with one voice and democracy obediently nodded along.
There is, of course, a reason this fantasy keeps returning. Declaring the nation Christian is not about faith. It is about authority. It offers a shortcut around the inconvenience of pluralism. If God has already decided the political questions, then elections become ceremonial, and dissent becomes disobedience.
That logic has been tried before. It did not end well.
The genius of the American experiment was not that it was godless, but that it was humble. It refused to pretend that any faction, religious or political, could safely claim divine endorsement. Instead, it trusted argument, compromise, and the messy will of the people.
Vice President Vance calls that weakness. The Constitution calls it liberty.
And history, stubborn as ever, keeps siding with the Constitution.
Thank you, Michael C, for this recital of the "inconvenience of pluralism." It's hard to abide our neighbors' ways of living and believeing when we don't understand them. Simplistic thinking is convenient. That's why both ends of the spectrum (JD's view and the view that religion should be banned) are both wrong. Simplistic thinking does not get at the truth.
The Church has held through millenia that heretical assertions are those that offer simplistic views. The Church councils that convened to address tough issues (f.ex., Nicea and Constantinople), in the end, embraced the more complex ideas.
You are circling something important here. Simplistic thinking feels efficient, but it almost always distorts reality. When we reduce our neighbors to caricatures, whether as irredeemably religious or irredeemably secular, we stop understanding them and start managing abstractions. That is where polarization thrives. Historically, serious theological traditions understood this danger well. What councils resisted was not complexity, but reduction. Truth was assumed to be layered, paradoxical, and resistant to slogans. That insight still applies outside religion. Banning belief is as shallow as enforcing belief. Both confuse coercion with understanding. Real discernment takes patience, humility, and the willingness to sit with tension. It asks us to resist the comfort of certainty long enough to encounter reality as it actually is, complicated, relational, and human.
Done. Shared on Facebook in my feed and on HRC's Facebook comments. Added to my comment about my current protest sign aimed at churchgoers: "Separation of Church and State Protects Both". The flip side reads: DEMOCRACY Needs Your Faith and Action." All in four-inch-tall letters on a 5x4 foot sign.
Here is Google AI's information on when the words 'under god' were added to the Constitution:
"The words "under God" were added to the Pledge of Allegiance on Flag Day, June 14, 1954, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the bill into law, a change prompted by Cold War fears and efforts to distinguish the U.S. from the atheistic Soviet Union. This addition followed lobbying by groups like the Knights of Columbus and was intended to emphasize America's belief in a higher power, contrasting with communism."
PS Don't tell trump it was added that day, that date happens to be his birthday,* you can be sure he'd take credit for that too since it was signed on his b'day! * Not his Date of Birth just his birthday!
I remember having to add that line to the pledge we said every school day, also adding stars to the flag. In my later youth, I was troubled by the seeming lack of constitutionality. The pledge, and the recognition that the flag was a pointer to the republic still sits well with me, especially the part about "liberty and justice for all". Why the hell not??
Eisenhower was responsible for bringing a lot of religious practices into the government, such as prayer breakfasts, and adding Under God to the currency.
Of course the main problem with most of the communist nations was that they were aggressive and totalitarian, but so too were the Nazis who claimed that God was with them.
That phrase was only added in the 1950s. I remember in elementary school when our teacher told us about the change. We said the pledge every morning (and this was public school) and all of a sudden we had to say "underGod" before the phrase "with liberty and justice for all."
It was added in the Cold War as an effort to differentiate the US and the communist regime of the USSR which espoused an ideology that actively excluded religion and its practice.
Yes and I thank Heather for illuminating the progression of things, and how people are repeatedly trying to turn the US into a Christian nation. If we were to do that, we would lose the intended freedom of conscience and I suppose there would once again be religious wars.
I think Vance's announcement should be considered a moral and intellectual emergency. How dare he impose on me the idea that Christianity is an unrivaled source of goodness, compassion and the perfect guide to morality...my god while his president is the source of indecency, lies, fury toward immigrants, women and blacks .... religious beliefs are no way to govern or instruct a modern, progressive world. It's possible to be sincere and virtuous and unbelieving!!
Yes, and "freedom" is also one of the words that is sometimes used in the 2500-year-old tradition of Buddhism to describe the "enlightenment" experience, which is also said to be beyond language, the primordial wisdom that is not found contained in thoughts but is found at the very root of all thought. We humans can (as corroborated by neuroscientific evidence) access and thus be guided by that freedom/wisdom through the practice of "mindfulness meditation" (See Jon Kabat-Zinn's "The Mind's Own Physician"). I don't say this to in anyway promote the Buddhist teachings, although I'm very grateful that they have provided me personally a great deal of benefit. It's just not a part of our tradition. The Buddha himself said, "Don't believe anything just because I say it's true - try it yourself (if you want to) and experience for yourself if it is beneficial; and it's also a good idea to test what any teacher asserts in the same way." I just found that attitude to be very refreshing after my childhood experience with a different sort of religion. And yes, indeed it's quite important to respect those who choose to refrain from any "religion."
Our tradition is also neither theistic nor atheistic; it's called "the middle path - not overly self-indulgent nor self-deprecating - healthy self-interest that realizes that having a balanced altruistic attitude is "the best way to be a human being" - this is the attitude that I think those involved in making, enforcing, and interpreting our laws should take - not "Buddhist" per se, but open, realistic, and taking the complete panoramic view of every situation encountered. What do you think? Thanks for your input here...
I made a poster which says, "Equal rights for all, under law. Democracy! No Dick-taters!" And the extreme right wingers are trying to dictate that people must think in a closed-minded, ignorant, obedient, foolish, detrimental way.
We must not allow the likes of JD Vance and MAGA to prevail. We must protect our right to be free from religion, as well as to practice religion if we choose. This is a fundamental, foundational right of Americans.
JD Vance just converted to Catholicism in 2019, simply saying, “I really liked that the Catholic Church was just really old". If that's the case then he could have easily converted to his wife Usha's religion, Hinduism, which is over 4000 years old.
JD can preach to the MAGA crowd all he wants but he's not going to force religion on us or even attempt to portray this Nation as a Christian theocracy when it's been a constitutional republic since its founding 250 years ago.
JD's christian nationalist moral conscience (oxymoron for a moron) will have him splitting with the inconveniently brown and Hindu Usha, to form a perfect maga christian union with Erica Kirk. It'll sell, and that's all it needs to do. White Nationalists who, like Vance, cozy up to Nick Fuentes (who has stated that both Hitler and Heinrich Himmler were "cool a f") will love it.
I agree as one who knows we don’t all share the same spiritual philosophies. I don’t preach, I simply try and sometimes fail to set a good example. I’ve seen religion or the lack thereof doesn’t correspond with a sense of ethics.
Agreed Kathy, there is good factual evidence to prove secular ethical behavior at least equal, but likely more prevalent than religious morals/ethics in human behavior.
And their "religion" is nothing but cover for their authoritarianism and their desire to return to a society where women and people of color are second or third class citizens -- if they be citizens at all.
As President Thomas Jefferson wrote way back in 1802, the 1st Amendment is absolutely clear and direct, that in this republic there is “a wall of separation between Church & State”!
And just what is their vision of “Christianity?” I’m a practicing Christian, and I don’t recognize it. This is just one of the glaring problems in trying to establish ANY religion - it seems the most zealous (and arrogant) ideologues try to impose their own version on the rest of us. No thank you, I prefer to follow the Constitution and let you “do you.”
I'm starting to realize just how much our democracy has been a stroke of good luck, with the right people somehow converging in the American colonies in the 1700s. They might not have believed in full-on democracy, and they made a lot of mistakes, but they were ready to take a leap into the unknown. Back then, there must have been grasping creepy opportunists like JD Vance, Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and others; but they didn't have Fox News, Russia, broligarchs, and social media to promote themselves and their causes.
Happily, the good guys still outnumber Vance and his ilk. So we must work together to oust the goons and restore decency, respect, and the rule of law to government by standing up for democratic, liberal values and electing good people to office. Please get active with a democracy group like Indivisible, Public Citizen, MoveOn, and many more.
I think it is better to recognize that our country has been a progression, mostly relying on "good guys" but often falling back because of the advance of one of the "not so good guys". It is a failing to recognize that the Founders, while supporting freedom of (and from) religion, didn't recognize the freedom to be of a different race, and sanctioned, for over 75 years, the enslavement of blacks in the South. And women struggled for well over a century and a half to even attain the right to vote.
Yes, our founding fathers had many good ideas, but they weren't all good, and failing to recognize that our founding days weren't great for all. And in fact, even today, our days aren't great for all. That is something we need to continue to address as we proceed forward with this "noble experiment" in democracy.
There's nothing in the comment above that fails to recognize the inequality that was present during our founding. She's making an entirely different point which you ignored. I think it's one that should be emphasized. We could have had a government where opportunism was rewarded by design. By its basic acceptance of aristocracy, every other government at the time did so. Ours did not. And our Revolution, however imperfect, did not later dissolve into a pile of blood and restored monarchy, as did France's in 1789, something many at the time no doubt took note of.
Jon, I generally agree. But also remember they compromised to create 'what could be' at that moment which does not necessarily reflect what many thought should-could-eventually must be. Some raised the issue of slavery and the future Confederate states all said they would walk out and start their own country. Interesting counterfactual. As Alexis de Tocqueville noted in Democracy in America in 1831, slavery was a yoke on the productivity of the south which was readily apparent by seeing the lack of productivity across the Ohio river in Kentucky where masters chained working slaves compared to the productivity immediately across the river in Ohio. Question: Would the south and slavery generally have collapsed naturally once Europe started to look to India and other countries for the cotton that formed the basis of their industrial revolution and if so, what would North America look like today?
We have strayed from their proclamations about religion. Religious vipers are always ready to ooze into the cracks and disagreements. Time to be reminded from whence we came. Not perfect but way better than we have done. Thank you HCR.
But Dems will likely “kumbaya” them, as they are family and neighbors. And how to separate good Christian’s from the posers? We don’t have the will to destroy them. But they have the will to call us traitors and dole out the ultimate punishment. Christian “charity” is a double-edged sword.
How to tell the good Christians? After the siege and fall of the heretic-held city of Beziers (1209, near Carcassonne) the Papal Legate was asked, "How can we tell the heretics from the good Christians?"
The Legate's answer: "Kill them all, God will know His own."
Laurie, I once thought like you, but at a book reading I posed your question to Senator-Rhodes Scholar-Hall of Fame basketball player Bill Bradley. He laughed and said 'politics is sooo much cleaner, honest, fairer and tame in today's world. Go back and look at what people and papers said about politics in Colonial days and it was much worse.' He said when politics gets discouraging in the 21st century he is heartened to remember how much worse it was in colonial days! Following his insight, a read of Chernow's Hamilton book (think that's the book) notes that Thomas Jefferson, while Sec. of State, drew up Articles of Succession for the Virginia legislature and told President George Washington that Hamilton (while Sec. of Treasury) was planning a coup to put the King's brother on an American throne. BTW, Hamilton was an orphan, looked to Washington as a father figure and was his chief Aide de Camp during the war! I mean, think about it, when was the last time the Vice President shot the Sec. of Treasury to death?
Nicely put. I wish for lots of community service from the goon squads using their ill-gotten gains. Probably at least a trillion! Vote 'em out then charge 'em, if not already charged sooner.
They'll all be pardoned before any justice department can get their hands on 'em. One thing is certain, Trump learned a lot during Trump 1 and he is using that knowledge to make sure this time around, he at least has all his bases covered. That is why the cabinet looks like the Keystone Cops (never put competent people in charge of things for you because they will ultimately turn on you) today.
I dislike ALL religions that actively seek to convert others. The most notable being Evangelical Christianity and Islam.I have no prejudice against religion as such. Why would I?
I do, however, have strong objections to anyone pushing their religion on me. In the United States, we are perilously close to this, the threat coming from a strain of Christianity. But in other parts of the world the religious threat comes from fundamentalist Islam.
My rejection is not a phobia, whether the offense comes from Christians or Muslims. It is an assertion of my right as a human being to make sense of the world as I see fit. It is not the religion that concerns me. It's the evangelism. I assure you I will not try to convert you to agnosticism.
The problem is Fundamentalism, which is its own religion, perverting "christianity", "judaism," "islam," and "hinduism" - all of the fundamentalists who claim membership in those religions have more in common with each other - patriarchy, misogyny, violence, the subjugation of women, and racism - than they do with actual practitioners of those religions.
True. History of religion writer Karen Armstrong has discussed this in one of her books. Fundamentalism comes about when some people feel threats from change. Christian Nationalists as well as Islamist movements fear these changes.
The Quakers speak of "Friendly Persuasion" and I can live with that. Genuine liberty embraces an expansive array of perspectives and among them is the choice of belief. That said, society has a right to prohibit behaviors that impose demonstrable, empirical harm to others or shared circumstances. And the Constitution specifies intervention with evidence-based harm. "Enlightenment" based rather than medieval thinking.
Jesus reportedly said that the "greatest commandment" was to love God and they neighbor as thyself. MAGAs seen not to have heard of that one. Then Jesus pointed to a member of a hated tribe, Samaritans, as a example of a neighbor. Vainglorious right wing religion is an imposter of what it claims to be. I only see narcissism in those of whatever opinion that try to impose their will on others, especially by force. It seemed to me that what Jesus encouraged was compassion and humility.
There is a division between Christians who emphasize the Great Commandment (love one another) and those who emphasize the Great Commission (make converts among all nations.) I am a Great Commandment person, Christian Nationalists are Great Commission types.
There is NOTHING of Christ in Christian Nationalists. They aren’t making disciples except to build a following for their own twisted version of weaponized Scripture. No Jesus to be found.
Yes, the Quakers have my vote….granting each of us the right to use “Friendly Persuasion”. Then the burden of self-sovereignty is on each of us.
Former SC Justice Kennedy stands out in my mind as having wrestled with the question of conscience with integrity and come as close to truth as I can find. His multiple interviews and writings are enlightening.
I don't dislike religions, I have distain people that use it as a weapon. I recall a bumper sticker I saw one day; "Science flies planes to the moon, Religion flies them into buildings" A bit crass yet some what on target, pardon the pun. I was raised in the Catholic faith & I believe I learned some good values from it. I've also spent a lot of my Navy career in the western Pacific & exposed to the cultures of indigenous people. It is the culture & 'mana' (Hawaiian for spirit) of the Hawaiian people that I learned respect for land (āina) & the people of the community. In the end with respect to religion, I try to live by the words of Tecumseh, and the maga cults is making it very hard on me... "Trouble no one about their religion; Respect others in their views & demand that they respect yours." One last thought, If Jesus did come back to us today, I believe his 1st words would be, "Whiskey-Tago-Foxtrot, over ...
Live and let live works, as does the golden rule. Neither are popular with the greedy, power-hungry bastards. If they did, they wouldn’t be trying to suck the tit dry.
The problem arises when a group decides. They have the truth, the only truth, and nothing but the truth. Then they want to make everybody else join their cult, or be gone so to speak. I have said for years and years that evangelistic religions are dangerous for that exact reason. Eventually, they will want to take over.
Truly any religion can be barbaric and misguided by zealous fellow humans. Respecting others must occur when demanding actions of them. Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is a fun alternative (Ra-men).
I have never understood Christians’ obsession with imposing their will on others. The same thing applies to any religion that seeks to do the same. If what they’re dishing up is so damned tasty, won’t people request a plateful?
One of my late father's most memorably profound statements was his answer to me when, at about age 11, after a violent confrontation with fanatically hateful Southron Baptists, I asked this very question. He was silent for a moment, then said they are made violent by fear and insecurity. "They are so insecure in their beliefs," he said, "they don't feel safe unless everyone around them believes exactly as they do."
Your father gave us an excellent summation of the problem which is therefore older than religion itself. If your upbringing gave you basic love and a modicum of security, or you have the temperament snd the luck to grow beyond your early circumstances, you will be a civil and tolerant neighbor. If not, we have all kinds of mayhem and fanaticisms to deal with. Therefore basic living standards and safety nets seemingly have a role in growing strong stable societies because cared for people don’t grow into those who wreck society. One could extrapolate that it is wonderfully selfish to have societal basic safety nets in place because it lessens fear, greed and the desperation that creates fanaticism.
I concur with Justice House, yet write separately to emphasize another point.
The "Christianity" of faux Christians like the Hillbilly Fallacy or Speaker Johnson is not a true Christianity. Rather, it is a selective hodgepodge of political and cultural markers and dog-whistles that comprise a very conservative and deeply tribal view of the world. The clear principles of Christianity, as set forth by Christ himself in the Gospels include the Nativity of Jesus which we celebrate in few days, the birth of an undocumented Galilean in Judea, who had to escape with his courageous parents to Egypt, so as to avoid persecution and worse by the King Trump, er, Herod of his time.
True Christianity, as set forth by the Life and Works of Jesus, is an affirmative religion as demonstrated by befriending those whom society mocks and casts out, feeding the hungry, assisting the poor, and critiquing the wealthy and privileged who speak loudly of God, yet disdain their fellow humans of lesser means.
The faux Christianity of which I speak fetishizes the negative and condemnatory, and among its many objects one can most jarringly find those whom society in general has historically given shorter shrift when political power was allotted: Women, gay and transgender people, immigrants, the disabled, and those who would raise a contrary voice, whether poetically or politically.
Irrespective of their faux Christianity, the MAGAs--- including the Hillbilly Fallacy whose raw and crude ambition is so perfectly divorced from both principle and logic---are, as Heather so adroitly points out, missing the boat entirely when they sing "Onward Christian Soldiers" from the same perverse hymnal.
We, the US of A, are a Secular Republic, and we thank God for it!!
Religion is historical fiction high lighted by the dead. The historical abundance being the insanity of those indeed slaughtered under the various banners of Righteousness.
The evangelicals read the section of the Gospels where Jesus sends his disciples out to spread his teachings and stop there. They do not read the part where Jesus tells them what to if the people don’t want to hear the message….”shake the dust from their sandals” and move on. Quakers call that “friendly persuasion”.
I'm not sure what you don't get. HCR said it upfront: Christianity as a hierarchical structure with the white (propertied) man on top and every else subjugated or in his/her place. Isn't that essentially what the Crusades were about? Like MAGA, which is a cultural movement, a sizable section of Christianity is about white supremacy and power. And every religious group has its share of the same.
Perhaps a start toward understanding The Great Commission in Christianity is reading about what Christians call The Great Commission. Like any religious or political movement, there can be an emphasis on bringing into the “fold” new converts. It’s not the converting that is the problem, the natural human push to make relationships based on common understanding, but rather the content of and level of fanaticism to convert.
It is one thing for Joe Blow to express the belief that the US is a christian nation but to have the VP who swore an oath to the Constitution public acknowledge that he does not honor his oath of office is betrayal.
Franklin Graham recently addressed U.S. military members at a Pentagon Christmas service, delivering a sermon emphasizing that God is both loving and a "God of war," referencing biblical passages about destruction, while also sharing the Christmas message of Jesus saving people from sin. This event, platformed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, is part of a push for a Christian-focused chaplaincy, a shift from previous instances where Graham's presence at military events sparked controversy due to his views on Islam.
Hegseth needs to be stuffed in a weighted seabag and thrown out of the airplane mid-Atlantic. He belongs to a "church" that would deny women the right to vote, and sentence gays to jail.
Translation, Kegseth wants more Dominionist and Christian Nationalist chaplains. Mikey Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation has fought these people for years. They help people of various faiths or no faiths with some members of the military who think part of their obligation includes proselytizing to people under their command. It’s a violation of the First Amendment.
This push towards establishing Christianity as the nations religion concerns me personally. I would probably not exist if the nation adopted the above as a national religion as my mom was Catholic and my dad Jewish.
Seeing the push for Christian nationalism reminds me that my dad always told us it was not if but when Jewish persecution would begin again. I’m sad that I am glad he did not live to see this thinking starting up again and becoming more mainstream.
Thanks for the historical info and I’m glad you got an early night.
Some additional history of Jewish congregations in our country. This is what AI wrote: The first synagogue in America was Congregation Shearith Israel, founded in New Amsterdam (now NYC) in 1654 by Sephardic Jews fleeing Brazil, but its first dedicated building, the Mill Street Synagogue, was consecrated in 1730, marking the first structure built specifically as a synagogue in North America. While Shearith Israel has the oldest congregation, the oldest existing synagogue building in the U.S. is the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, dedicated in 1763.
The first Jews here were Sephardim, and they often used Portuguese in services and prayer. Ashkenazim came later, first with German Jews, later from Eastern Europe. Tsarist persecution often drove Easter European Jews here. Social discrimination came after the Civil War.
Just Dumb Vance has his head so far up his own ass that he can’t see basic things like is it day or night. His opinions are ill informed and he speaks with a certainty that belies his ignorance. The insipid orange turd picked him for a reason, he is a major suck up.
Please do not underestimate our enemy. Vance is not "dumb"; he is morally imbecilic, ecogenocidally cunning, infinitely ambitious and therefore bottomlessly dangerous -- far more so than dwindling Donald the Demented, whom he will probably soon succeed.
Those who speak of righteousness always cause my ears to perk and point in the same direction. It confuses me because at the same time my feet prepare to run.
Peter Thiel got Vance at a bargain rate. One thing to remember, Vance grew up in Middletown, about 17 miles south of me, and lived there, he only visited Kentucky in the summer.
Yes it is. The 1st Amendment is first for a reason.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances"...
JD Vance is an amoral, soulless, empty shell. He has used many names, but has no identity of his own. He has been bought and paid for by Peter Thiel, whom I believe will come to have buyer’s remorse. He is a liar, a grifter, a racist, a hypocrite, and he will say, or do, whatever he is told to. He is one of, if not the most hated “Vice Presidents” in modern history. He will go down in history as nothing. A bought and paid for shill, a morally bankrupt hillbilly who couldn’t find himself in a funhouse of mirrors.
The clarity of your letter this evening strikes at the core that this is not faith versus secularism. It’s about the power that flows downward from a chosen few who speak for God, the white man. It’s not about any upward flow from the citizens that compose of people of color, women, and any other faith. That the chosen few, white men, rule.
Additionally JD Vance in his speech today, and I quote: "In the United States of America, you don’t have to apologize for being white anymore.”
As a white woman am appalled and disgusted at this blatant racial statement of absurdity. Good God what a dog whistle that could awaken Hitler and Mussolini.
Point to the decade. Circle the year. Highlight the moment in recorded human history when anyone, ANYBODY, ever stood up and demanded that white people apologize for being white.
I'll wait ...
Nobody EVER asked white people to apologize for being white. Not once. Not during colonization. Not during the Middle Passage. Not during centuries of slavery. Not during Reconstruction. Not during Civil Rights. Not during desegregation. Not during Black Lives Matter. Not yesterday. Not today. Not tomorrow or they day after.
Sir, being white has NEVER been under attack. NEVER.
Now JD, who has no clue as to history. Bases an entire political narrative on bigotry, prejudice and hate. Using a blatant lie, that he even admitted to, about a group of people in Springfield Ohio. That caused a mass of fear and retribution from outside forces coming into that community which resulted in businesses closing, and lost revenue. Multiple school closings due to bomb threats. And in September 2024, Governor DeWine had to send the Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers, to Springfield schools following additional threats for over three weeks.
JD needs to apologize because he’s a blithering idiot, a bigot and an as$hole who just so happens to be white and a man.
JD Vance aka (James Donald Bowman) is the epitome of this quote —
“We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid" ~ Benjamin Franklin
Somedays as well feel the need to apologize for the fluidity of ignorance, stupidity and hate because those as JD speak this language infuriates the hell out of me. He needs to apologize to his wife, but we already have an idea where that until will end and his kids. He’s an opportunist and conspiracy theorist and as he said he “only believes theories that are true” so he must think in his sick mind this to be true. He’s a sick thing who should apologize for breathing that just so happens to be white and a man..
oh how would hope that people would see the so many similarities versus the differences. To better days
As a white woman, I don't ever have to apologize for being white, and nobody has ever asked me to do that. I DO have to apologize (and seek to make amends) any time I do something racist.
Agree have never been told I “need” to apologize for being white. Will apologize for errors made but for being white - never
JD is admittedly an opportunist and even admitted to being a conspiracy theorist as he but it “if those conspiracies are true” he is stepping into taking this ride.. here’s looking forward to him running into his bosses nightmare of wind turbines..
Use/share this spreadsheet (bit.ly/Nokings) as a resource to contact members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Call. Write. Email. Protest. Unrelentingly.
Reach out (beyond your own) to as many in the Senate and House as you can. All of this is bigger than “I only represent my constituents” issues.
Add a comment to help keep this bumped ✊ New eyes seeing this means new ripples for change! 🤞
^ bumping is purely for more people to see the resource. I’m not receiving anything from clicks or downloads (some have been concerned recently)
The church has never been shy of its desire to be the ultimate authority. Both Hamilton and Grant pushed back in moments of crisis. In the future religion must be completely restrained .
Freedom of religion is freedom from religion!
Heather reminds us of our history, humanity, and human rights. We must continue to resist Christofascists like JD Vance. I wrote a song for Heather, inspired by her wisdom and bravery: https://democracydefender2025.substack.com/p/heather-cox-richardson-song-letters
I like the way Madison expresses it: the right of conscience.
"The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries."
--James Madison
All of the founders of this nation were familiar with the two centuries of religious warfare that had prevailed in Europe. They saw the destructive forces that different religious beliefs (in this case Protestantism vs. Catholicism) wreaked upon Europe. That lesson is alien to the white Protestant Christian Nationalists here today who want to replace our democratic republican form of government with a Christian theocratic one, a white theocratic one.
isn't JD a Catholic?
Yes, Vance claims to be a Roman Catholic. So much for claims, just as the white Protestants claim to be Christians. "By their fruits, so shall you know them." Today the term used for these folks is "Chinos."
You can't put a flower in an asshole and call it a vase.
Are you surprised that a Catholic identifies himself as a Christian? He is likely over compensating for his base since many Protestant Christians see Roman Catholics as outside the true faith, but they are most certainly Christian. I am not defending JD though!
Correct. I suspect that most Evangelical Protestants, including those in the crowd he addressed, probably don't look too favorably on the Pope. In addition, J.D.'s wife is a Hindu.
Oh my yes as are all manner of sinners:-)
Many Christians are forgiven for they know not what they do.
I did a Wikipedia check on Pilgrims. There was a time when all English subjects were required to attend the English church. There were fines for missing, and even jail. The Crown used religion to extend their power. Just what HCR is writing about. Churches are often the home of some of the worst bigots. Why in some small towns are there churches on every block? They can't get along with each other. Which is the central message of Christ: love thy neighbor as thyself.
And, talk about bigotry: the Insurrection. Excellent point about all of the churches. The Center for Global Christianity estimates that there are over 47,000 Christian denominations worldwide, with a large part being Protestant. 47,000!!! Even God is now confused about who or what he is.
There are a lot of white Protestants, including me, who don't want to replace our form of govt with a theocratic one. Just so you know.
Richard, 'their' view of what God's words are about is truly nauseating! Jesus was not white. The majority of people are not white so, these Nationalists should, I hope, have an impossible task ahead to convert us to their viewpoint.
Richard; Don't fail to mention united christianity vs islam vs judaism. Those crusades still exist in my opinion. Religiosity's of near most all sorts clash for dominion; Great tool when it's wielded as it has always.
Exactly! I think ALL religion should be banned...radical I know but think of all the wars started in the name of religion. Think of the subjugation of women, children, Black and Brown people and poor people - would the rape of children be allowed in this society without christianity, one of the most perverse religions ever...
Our constitution specifically declined to dedicate itself to any one religion, believing that people have a right to choose, and that religion should be held separate from politics. It's not religion that's corrupt; it's the fanatics that seem to endlessly ooze out of the muck to pervert it for their own grotesque gains. Even if religions were banned, the same people would find a way to do their evil. Let's find ways to stop the madmen instead. Like creating laws that actually stop fascism, for instance.
Nah, religion is by its nature corrupt.
They exist with the intent to increase wealth and power by sowing the seeds of superstition, demanding fealty, inhibiting free thought, and creating hierarchies. I'm with Hitchens on this one.
".... believing that people have a right to choose..." Yes, in other words 'their conscience' - each and every human being, has their own individual conscience; "An unalienable right." Just as equally as the "right" of a woman - female of the species, to bear or not, for medical, emotional, psychological, or reasons of her conscience; Another unalienable right.
Well, if maga, republicans and members of their cult believe in the ten commandments, they would honor "thy shalt not kill" by removing guns and amending the second amendment; "thy shalt not lie or commit adultery or covet they neighbor's wife" by removing the president.
and stop blowing up boats with people who have not been offered due process or proven guilty of a crime...
As a hindered spirit banning may not be the answer, why they get tax breaks is beyond me.
Terry, I don't think all religions should be banned. After all, religion is a choice, or as some may claim, a "calling." Who are we to decide. The battle is in the ideas, not in the battle to summarily ban them. My preference is to prove the worth of atheism, of which I happen to belong. Some will ask me what my "argument with God is?" I have no argument with God as I don't believe God exists. No, my argument is not with God, it is with religion.
I'm spiritual but not religions. I see the creator in the wonders of nature. All religions are a creation of man...imperfect, just ideas. And generally corrupt - for money and power over...
Well Riad that demonstrates that the founders got it right. Church and state should by their natures be separate. Citizens of the newly found radical nation should be free to believe in the inalienable rights of their fellow citizens.
Yea, well, people don't want to be assimilated out of their beliefs. In fact, some religions enable violence - as you suggested above - like flying airplanes into buildings...
...or honor killings, genital mutilations of girls, slavery, intolerance...
The problem with religion, as Ms Crawford states below is not religion itself, but what human beings all too often make of.
Each of us, in this Republic is allowed, even encouraged to discover and to place his or her faith in whatever sense of meaning we find best suited to our purposes. For many, that is some form of religious faith. Such believers, like those who have placed their faith in other areas, have over the course of our history have done both individually and together some of both the best and the worst human actions.
The real problem is that in the case of far too many of those who claim to be people of faith, their actions are quite far removed from the tenets of the faith in which they claim to believe. JD Vance is a clear example. His words and actions are often in total contradiction of the tenets of Christianity as Christ described them.
It is only too true that since the dawn of organized religion, individuals and groups seeking power have used religion as a way of gaining, exercising, and maintaining temporal power. But that does negate the power of faith to do works of great beauty and exceptional good.
James, see my response to Ms. Crawford.
It is not faith that enables great works. It the human imagination, deep empathy, the dedication to a goal and the perseverance to complete the work. All these things exist in humanity without faith.
Where are these great works you speak of : in towering cathedrals built by regular crafts people...where is the exceptional good that religion does that cannot be accomplished by regular caring people and always has. These so called christians of today, even priests, telling their parishioners to vote for a felon and child rapist, these evangelicals believing rich white people are preferred by god, and thinking they are better that others - I don't buy it.
Terry, all of the bad things you have mentioned here would have happened without religion. All it does is provide some kind of divine excuse. Also I think spirituality which is different from religion is important. It helps us know our place in the world and the universe for me connects me to all life and the universe.
Our forefathers were brilliant. Our leaders today are morans.
Our forefathers were a curious combination of significant political sagacity, hard-headed practicality, and a kind of remarkable idealism. I’d point you to Dr Jill LaPore’s recent work, We the People, for a thorough and sober look at the process they went through.
The VA. state flag has on it the words "Sic semper tyrannis." This is a timely reminder to MAGA republicans what those words mean. Tyrants like Vance and Trump have historically had no place in our nation. And it is this reminder that showed Glenn Youngkin's republican party in VA. the door on the way out. Make no mistake: had democrats behaved as MAGA did, they too would be out the door. With Winsome Sears running for the state leadership, she didn't stand a chance in the last election. She can thank her empty rhetoric and ideas, and Donald Trump, for her loss and the loss of much of the republican legislature.
horhai, good reminder to review the history of some of the groups coming to America to escape religious tyrants in Europe. And, here we are, setting up to be as bad as history reads.
John Adams stated: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." I think what he meant is that our govt works best when moral and religious citizens participate in it, and in civil society. This is not in conflict with what Madison wrote. Adams is not endorsing one particular religion.
And other nations of the world with their various religions....
Or the right to have no conscience at all?
Is there a right to be morally repugnant?
Is there an amendment we could write to the Constitution?
I just read an article in Forbes that says the prediction markets, that Don Jr. is an investor in, allow people to bet on the outcome of battles in Ukraine and other places around the world using real-time AI assessments from "observers."
Soldiers can look at battle maps and make bets on what is essentially their own chances of survival.
Betting among the military in Ukraine is at the level of $228 million a month. That is one quarter of the monthly target for the PURL initiative for the coalition of the willing to provide Ukraine with arms.
This is real-world Hunger Games with an aerial view.
It is so off the charts to me that if it were in a dystopian novel, it would come just before the society collapsed.
The Founders seem to have had another failure of imagination. Or we humans have malignantly evolved.
How deranged. Everything is a reality show to these perverts. When you have no soul I guess that’s entertainment. Pathetic.
The carny barkers are loose. These are same that grew up in casino hustling and fleecing their marks. They have no friends - only “business” relations.
I did a little more research on bets on the Polymarket prediction market, the prediction platform that Don Jr. invests in. It uses a blockchain called Polygon for its ledger.
Polygon (the Ethereum layer-2 scaling network) does not require KYC (Know Your Customer accounts) as it is a decentralized blockchain protocol where users interact directly via self-custodial wallets without centralized identity verification., All that is ever exposed is the wallet number.
So Russia could be holding the other side of the bets and no one would ever know because of the use of "self-custodial wallets.)
Russia is hard up for cash...
Just thinking
Thanks for your reporting and thoughts Georgia,
I think we can be forgiven if we see Russia lurking behind every algorithm or computer code. When you have an enemy that destroys hospitals, schools and energy plants...rockets apartment buildings, rapes, murders and steals children...one could legitimately see that enemy using every imaginable tool available to conquer, to vanquish...to exterminate.
And the fact that one of those tools sits in the Oval Office should be so freaking obvious now that he should be carted away in shackles.
Addendum: please sub the word Putin for Russia. While I am sure the KGB Agent is quite popular, I don't believe that we should assume that his approval rating could ever be accurately measured. I must believe that just as millions of Americans are disgusted and appalled by their president, there are Russian mothers and fathers who are furious about the pointless loss of their sons in a manufactured war.
I have read estimates that Russia's economy is about the size of Italy. Which makes it clear that the only reason Putin has been as successful as he has in stealing land is the lack of will on the part of the US. Again I refer everyone right back to the Oval Office.
How would Putin's invasion of Ukraine be going right now if our president was Kamala Harris? How powerful would NATO be? Would we be targeting Russian ghost ships filled with sanctioned oil instead of little motor boats with small time drug runners (or fisherman)?
Why is the US grabbing Venezuelan oil tankers when there are internationally recognized as sanctioned ships loaded with oil providing Putin with what is his only significant source of revenue? Again, ask the creep in the Oval Office.
Your comments made me realize all the countless deaths of this regime would have been avoided if voter apathy had not been so strong in 2024.
Is the creep occupying the Oval Office really in charge? Are the two trump lackeys sitting in the majority leader positions in the House and Senate even in charge of what they do, or don't do as the case really is? Or is there a faction in control of all of them that are laughing at all of us as bitch about trump? I keep wondering if they all have guns to their heads. If it's these buffoons that are actually in charge shouldn't someone be going to jail? But no one does How can this be ?
The entire story reads like propaganda, so I am not surprised at your followup. It is exactly the sort of "fling shit at the wall and see what sticks" mendacity the Kremlin deals out.
Brer’ Bill like to ‘word salad bomb’ Heather’s newsletter!
Sadly, just thinking corectly.
Nothing Is Written In Ukraine... That Is Why The Creator Created The Heyokas...
Wisdom from another tradition
It Is Mutual Respect For Diversity That Helps Make This A Great Country...
I don't minimize how important a source for balance in Heyoka spirits, even, as only, in my imaginings......
Hello Joan... Thanks... How do you know of the Heyokas?...
Ouch! Georgia, the facts and your report feed the disgust I feel. Let's forgive all Founders any failure of imagination by focusing on ways we can empower our imaginations to percolate into the pores of our stratified society with democracy-defending force. As usual, I applaud Apache whose reply includes "The Creator Created The Heyokas...". Consider, spend time wondering what she means; I will.
AI says: "The statement "the creator created the heyoka" reflects a common understanding in Lakota Sioux culture that the Heyoka, a sacred contrarian clown or shaman, is chosen by the Creator (Wakan Tanka) and the Thunder Beings (Wakinyan) for a unique spiritual role, not self-appointed, serving as a healer and truth-teller through reversed actions and humor to challenge norms and bring wisdom. While some modern spiritualists use the term loosely for empaths, traditionally, the Heyoka's calling is a profound spiritual gift and responsibility from the divine, working to facilitate change and healing."
One of the roles of Trickster is to teach the hard lessons when we are too pig-headed to learn any other way.
it would have been quite a leap for the founders to have imagined the world today. They were wary of long standing proclivities of human nature, but in their day, the resources of the world might have seemed endless, and the press was diverse and locally owned. Computers in laps and in pockets were unlikely to have occurred to them.
Romans made bets on gladiators in the Colosseum. What is morally acceptable in society ebbs and flows. I just do not, at the moment, have confidence that the tide is turning yet.
You are part of the "tide turning" - stay strong...
The Founders indeed imagined the consequences of a populist ideologue achieving the presidency. However, over time people amended the Constitution and SCOTUS rendered findings that perverted their intent.
Yup, it's our fault, not theirs.
That sounds rather like Donald Trump Sr.’s thinking. He was raised Presbyterian and his family attended Marble Collegiate Church when Norman Vincent Peale was pastor.
Norman Vincent Peale- the father of the Prosperity Gospel.
Kind of the opposite of Christ's parable of a rich man's chances of getting into heaven.
My Dad had a copy of "The Power of Positive Thinking"
He also kept saying "God never intended me to be a rich man...."
Hmmm....
Yes. Mary Trump seemed to be critical of him in her first book, but his message was very attractive to Fred Trump, Sr.
The "Power of Positive Thinking" guy? Are you thinking wealth manifestation?
You just provoked a random thought though--Why doesn't DJT sign as Donald J. Trump, Sr.?
Oh wait....
Donald’s mother was a Presbyterian, and Fred Trump Sr. liked Peale’s messages about positive thinking and worldly success.
Kathy, I think it's a stretch to state that Donald was "raised Presbyterian." Mary Ann Trump occasionally took her kids to Marble Collegiate because it was socially beneficial to be seen there. She and Fred were desperate to be accepted by NYC aristocracy, so they made a point of being seen in all the right places.
As often happens with large churches, Marble Collegiate was light on doctrine and heavy on the clergy's "star power." It could have been affiliated with any denomination because Peale's uncontroversial sermons were about the success and positive thoughts. He knew one doesn't build large, generous congregations by offending people.
I see. Mary recalled that Fred liked Peale’s emphasis in positive thinking and success. Donald and his first wife Ivana married at Marble Collegiate in 1977. His Bible was his confirmation Bible from Marble Collegiate, as he did get confirmed there.
Great line — “Is there a right to be morally repugnant?” This is a great moral question — where is the line between acceptable behavior and moral repugnance, and who polices it? This is why the Founding Fathers felt that each citizen had the responsibility to seek enlightenment and virtue. These are monumental questions we should be discussing more deeply.
There is precedent for that - the early Rhode Island Colony.
Georgia, the founder's imagination is not a failure; the failure lies in mutation of the genetic underpinnings of ideas on which this nation was founded. We had many chances to invoke gene therapy, and to this day, largely succeeded in spite of the self-inflicted disabilities many of our past leaders made. Today the malignancy, as you put it, is at its height. I would hope that radical surgery would not be needed; however, we're on a runaway train. I won't go any further than to say that.
I like the way he expressed himself, full stop. And so young.
And so tiny....
Tho she be but little, she is fierce (in this case, he)
The only problem is those in this administration don’t have a conscience!
And by removing the Secretary of Let's Make War Not Love.
Tonight, at the stroke of midnight, the Ten Commandments appeared before J.D. Vance in his sleep. Casting cold, hard stares, they filed out, one by one, in silent condemnation. Numbers 1, 2, 6, 8, 10 ( and possibly 7) left their calling cards...
Brilliant!
Smart man, that James Madison. JD Wanker? Not so much.
Love that JD Wanker.....
yeah...now we can be just like Trump...making up ridiculous names to call each other...that's probably the equality that HCR speaks about in these articles...
Maybelline Fucker? Eyeliner Asshole? Litle Dipshit?
"and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity toward each other.” James Madison
Last week Cardinal Dolan of New York "resigned." Cardinal Timothy Dolan referred to Charlie Kirk as a "modern-day St. Paul" and praised him as a "hero" and "evangelist" following Kirk's tragic death. Dolan was famously anti-LGBTQ+ and hopefully he goes on to spend eternity in hell along with his buddies JD Vance and Kirk. Pope Leo announced his replacement to be Bishop Ronald Hicks.
As Dr. R points out, Madison was only 21 when he wrote these words. Today, it is the Gen-Z generation that we all need to practice love and tolerance and shun misogyny and xenophobia. As a professor Dr. Richardson has access to the Gen-Zs and hopefully has more influence on them than the misguided Turning Point disciples.
I hope Dolan was referring to St Paul as a persecutor of Christians, if not he has some explaining to do the Almighty!
Christine. Good point.
I was always hoping that trump would have the experience of Paul and fall off his high horse!
It was a flip remark meant to give conservatives Christians warm fuzzies. He didn’t spend a lot of time in theological thinking about it, imo. And that’s a problem. He will still be a regular on Fox News and EWTN, unless he gets too outrageous at which point Leo will find a “job” for him in the Vatican making those appearances much more difficult.
My friend also reminded me Dolan was once in charge of the North American College in Rome and likes Rome, so maybe he will go back there.
I hope so, because he still has a vast audience here.
To clarify: every bishop MUST submit his resignation as he approaches 75. Sometimes the pope does not accept it immediately and sometimes when he does, it could take a year or more to find a replacement. In this case, Pope Leo apparently had Dolan’s replacement waiting in the wings. (IMO, this is good management by PL, just unusual.)
When Dolan compared Kirk to St Paul, I lost my s!#t. Last evening I talked to a former colleague of Dolan’s from St Louis. He told me Dolan probably said that so as to keep conservative Catholics happy (though he may also believe it). From their time in STL, He liked Dolan: said he was kind and conservative then. I’ve never been a fan.
Please! Dolan’s words and actions, protecting pedophile clerics, ‘speak’ for themselves! No need for a trump-like interpreter ‘what he meant…’!
One of my cousins married a "Catholic boy" when it was not acceptable for a Lutheran to marry a Catholic. They had 3 lovely girls none of whom chose to be Catholics when they grew up.
My cousin and her husband have been Trumpanzees since he came down the golden elevator in 2015. Their kids have all tried to convert them away from Catholicism. That ain't ever going to happen.
Plenty of us Catholics despise Trump because his policies are in direct violation of Catholic Social Justice principles. It is maddening to us that folks like your cousin and her husband just ignore them. One of the first popes to write about these principles (all based on Scripture) and apply them to modern society was Pope Leo XIII, just over 100 years ago. I knew when Robert Prevost took the name Leo XIV we were getting the pope that we needed.
Your cousin doesn’t need to leave Catholicism; they need to learn the church’s teachings on Social Justice, embrace it and LEAVE TRUMP!!
Excellent post Kimberly. I should be talking to her in the next week or so and I will ask her about that. Thanks.
So, did Dolan get a call from our wonder-full Chicago Pope?
I was glad when the Pope chose "Leo" as his papal name. My wife's great great great......uncle was Pope Leo X who was one of the Medicis. Her great great ..... grandfather was the eldest of the Medicis and as the eldest inherited the family fortune. Bummer it didn't trickle down to us. 😎
WOWOW! Actually glad you got the poor side and ended up pontificating (sorry) here for us!!
🙂👍
Madison was 25 when he wrote those words.
jd nationalist so called christian - nat c for short - and a liar...
A two faced liar.
Love this song. Thank you.
There's an article in the Post today about the federal government's relinquishing its historic duty of providing accurate and timely data. Well ....who needs data when you got prayer???
I saw a story that said the 3rd quarter GDP increase was more like .8% instead of 4.3%. I doubted the accuracy of the number when I first heard Scott Pissant report it.
We continue to pay the for the failure to mete out justice to the traitors of the Confederacy. One can only hope that the same mistake will not be repeated once power is wrested from the hands of the MAGAts.
Do the centrist Democrats have what it takes?
Hello Stephen... We are also paying for failing to mete out Justice to the Jan 6th Traitors... Are You Listening Merrick Garland?....
Mr. Garland has turned out to be one of the greatest disappointments in my life!
Hello Janis... Yes, The Irony is that now DJT wants to Prosecute Garland For Treason.... The Gods Love Irony...
The scales of justice are severely unbalanced. No good deed has gone unpunished. Just as every evil deed has been lauded by the self-righteous vipers.
Hello J D... Yes, We Live In Times That Try Men's, and Women's, Hearts... Keep The Faith... Tao Is Supreme...
Further evidence that there is no God.
With that being said Janis, would Roe have been overturned if McConnell had allowed Garland to become an Associate Justice?
I have cautious optimism that Amy will come around when she begins to see what the courts hard line attitude is causing our citizens.
One can only hope.
She has shown the tiniest sliver of independence and a conscience.
Yes, bc the vote would have been 5-4. Garland wouldn’t have made a difference.
Even farther back, Ford's pardon of Nixon laid the modern foundation that certain people are above the law.
All due respect…and I get where you are coming from with Garland..we need to recognize if AMERICA had been better, it wouldn’t even have been an issue Harland needed to handle.
Everyday Americans were the ones buying into all this bull shit, attacking Mr. Pelosi, swatting judges, sending pizzas to yheir homes with their kids names on the order saying, “I’ll get to your kid if you do t back our illegal shit.”
Had the American people shown an interest in the future of this country, the Congress would have impeached Trump. Had the SCOTUS shown any sort of serious thought beyond their own personal gains, Trump would never have been allowed to run. Not only did they allow it, most likely praying the public would do their job for them, they granted him carte blanche to commit crime after crime. Biden had no fight left in him. Garland should have worked after but where were we, the people? We walked on egg shells around our MAGA friends, neighbors sand family. Just trying to change the subject instead of standing up and saying…”that’s bat shit crazy.”
We didn’t. These people who are elected, who are appointed by the people we elect reflect us, WE THE PEOPLE. Anything we look at a JD Vance, a Trump, a Witkoff, Bondi, Hegseth, Patel, we need to look in the mirror.
If there was a family of rats outside my door, whose fault would it be that I left the door ajar and food strewn all over the kitchen, if the arts came in and infested my house and sickened my children?
The rat, who is just being a rat and carries disease? Or me? Me, who knows that my carelessness, my in attention to protecting my environment, my disregard for the safety of my children bevause I KNOW these rats are diseased and UNDP’s Ave and will multiply and take over my home?
The good news is that we are to blame which means we can change this.
Millions of people simply didn’t vote a little over a year ago. Millie s voted, foolishly, a single issue. Millions voted with misinformation or complete lies in their arsenal of reason. We left the door ajar since 2015. People voted for Jill Stein (who? You might ask…) to “teach” democrats a lesson. That’s like Chopin Goff your pinky to teach your hand a lesson. Garland had no backing from the country to go after Trump. Even from his own party.
Bondi is doing what she is doing or more accurately, Blanche is doing what he’s doing because he knows he’ll be pardoned. Of course, he’ll do whatever illegal, vindictive shit his boss wants because there will be no consequences. Biden, due to age or his own hubris of what he remembered as being a respected Senator and VP, in a US that no longer existed, was restrained.
It’s 2025, we have slept walked or fully raced into an authoritarian regime and that’s the reality. No amount of wishful thinking or Monday morning (do we need to say Tuesday now?) quarterbacking will get us out of it. It is importantly to know history so we can either repeat what worked, pivot from what didn’t or strategize for what’s to come five steps ahead. How do we counter this as best we can? Newsom seemed to be gaining traction with yroloing Trump, same for Pritzker. I’m sorry about Charlie Kirk but considering his wife is bringing the movement along with Megan Kelly into GIANT anti semitic circles for money and power means Newsom should never have been cowered into letting up the media campaign.
We need to be as relentless as them…daily blasts to get through to the public. I would love if we could have an adult conversation, pass out Thomas Paine style pamphlets to change the American mindset but that’s not happening. We need to get dirty digging into every play on the field while playing clean. We need to point out to our children how incredibly unhappy these people seem. How delighting I a weaker person is not masculine. It’s sniveling and petty. That real men tell the truth, take ownership, respect their mothers, wives, sisters, friends. They use their brains and conscience, not their fists and cauliflowered ears. That building character is more important than taking steroids and building muscle.
Yes, what you said, Marcus.
I await the resurrection of democratic fervor and determination. There are stirrings, but Chuck as leader is anemic at best. Get out of the way Chuck.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Get on board or get outta the way!!!!!!!!!
Enough dem dead wood
We should have let the Deep South go. The ruling elites have always, from the get-go, disfavored and rejected the idea of equality. Yes, we needed to defeat the Confederate army, but we should have redrawn our borders, with them on the outside. How to make one country out of antagonistic forces?
Like the author, I see the big connection between Southern slaveholder Christianity and that of today’s Christian Nationalists. Many of us who are Christians want no part of Christian Nationalism as we respect the rights of freedom of conscience. There is no religious test for citizenship or religion. Nor should there be one.
If nothing else proves the wisdom of the Founders….today’s warped….in fact antietical to the teachings of the “ Christ “ they claim to represent….than the constant demonstration of the danger of allowing those claiming to instill “god’s” laws in our government, which was wisely designed to serve a multicultural society.
Although letting the Confederacy cede would have created a white Christian nationalist oligarchy that Lincoln simply didn't want to be responsible for. He saw all of the American people as his people, so he wanted to protect them from a government that would subject them to the kind of petty nouveau aristocracy the South imagined for itself.
@#$%& feudalism without the supposed responsibilities. Happy sociopaths in regal estates while slaves did all the work.
Yup. Just a fantasy artistocracy where people who had no ancestral claim invented one and filled in "the lower orders" with people they could control because they had no rights. I despise them and their cosplay regency.
Lincoln so did not want an implacable foe on his doorstep.
Given the under-development of the South (baked in by the choices the slave-holding overlords made) it would have been a weak foe. As it is, we have had a foe within our borders, holding us back every step of the way. The South voted Democratic until the mid-60s-- but they were Dixiecrats, segregationists to the death. They have had the parking brakes on since forever. Now corporations are finding that the educated workers they need to recruit aren't willing to move to Texas. Ditto the exit of medical personnel from red states, where women of childbearing age are dying because doctors are worried about being sued and imprisoned because l ignorant politicians (or snitchy neighbor) thinks they know what "God" wants.
Lincoln was a great man, but he called it wrong on this one.
Lincoln so wanted to preserve the Union.
I know. I know, and it was a decision I don't understand. I haven't read of his reasoning. From this safe remove of time, it lands for me in the same range as an unhappy marriage of two antagonistic value systems. They don't want to live in a country with voting rights, public education, social services and freedom of speech. I don't want to live under the Christian Taliban--especially as they have absolutely nothing to do with anything Christ ever taught!
Religion was always about control, especially of women and our reproductive abilities.
It is human nature to be about control. There is nothing in the teachings of Jesus, for example, that was about controlling others. The opposite, in fact. It was human social norms-- domination, patriarchy-- that warped the earlyChristian church after it was coopted by the empire.
The real, actual , practiced religion of the US is extractive capitalism, dominating nature, powered by insatiable greed.All sorts of faith traditions actually line up against that.
Religion again hamstrings, go back to Madison “it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity toward each other.”
The challenge for earthlings…
especially as they have absolutely nothing to do with anything Christ ever taught!
again...the irony...
We should have cut the South loose in 1860.
And let millions of people have continued in slavery?
Abandoned the idea that a government of the people, by the people, for the people, should perish from the earth?
I dunno know...
Millions of people have continued in near slavery anyway, have you noticed? The federal government did not protect Southern blacks for one minute after the infamous "compromise of 1877, " which ushered in a reign of terror that lasted for about 90 years.
And democracy hasn't perished from the earth, although it is under serious assault--from the same forces that wanted to go their own way 160 years ago.
We can WANT to protect people, but we have to be willing to shoulder the burde of doing so.
In the 1850s discussions about separating, making new federations rather than one big one. The reason that the big one was formed in the first place was to throw off British imperial control. They didn't like each other way back in colonial days, by the mid 19th century they were discussing the problem again. And then the idiot hot headed Confederate attacked the federal Fort Sumter, starting a war they could not win.
Totally agree!
The south wanting to leave was the whole reason for the war in the first place. If they had won, we would have two countries today. Whether that would have been for the better is a different question. Certainly it wouldn’t have been a better result for the millions who were oppressed by antebellum southern and then incompetent Confederate governance. It was a war for the Union yes, but also a war for justice.
You might like reading "American Nations" by Colin Woodard. Mostly it is about the substantially different cultures of the 11 groups that colonized what is now the United States. He makes the point--based on the history--that our notion of the Civil War as North v. South does not explain the data. New York/Manhattan was anti-abolition, because it's merchants worked with the southern plantation owners. Big stretches of Appalachia, in our modern south, were anti-slavery because they hated the plantation owners.
There were discussions ongoing about negotiating the federations of the US. Lincoln might have wanted war--but you recall he did not abolish slavery until long into the war. And northern sentiment was not pro-war (and not just the big business interests of NY).
Then the South attacked, and immediately public opinion in the geographic north backed war.
For the Southern leaders, it was all about slavery. For the North it was about defending itself and preserving the union.
Certainly there was a vocal minority concerned about justice issues--very like today's environmental activists. Loud, moral, attacked, and not actually powerful.
Very interesting, Charlie. Thanks for sharing. I’d like to read that. What I find most interesting about your comment is that like today, there were “blue” and “red” dots alike in each of the warring territories. Today of course it is even more territorially diluted and because of that the regions break seems much less likely. A civil war today would literally be neighbor vs. neighbor in some places.
That said, we seem to have irreconcilable differences at this point and a “divorce” often feels like the only reasonable solution. Speaking just for myself, I am less interested in “preserving the union” at this point than in living in a country that values all its people and centers the principle of justice for all first above everything else.
Agree 100%, the confederates aka MAGAts rear their ugly heads…
equality? do you, aside from basic human rights, consider yourself equal to much of maga? it's not as simple as 'we think differently on important subjects'...it's that we will act on how/what we think...or am i missing some important parts when i think about 'equality'...? i'm not 'equal' to a woman, considering what they can do biologically and i can't...and on and on...so the notion of 'equality' is baffling to me, and HAS been for more than most of my life...
It's about equal opportunities and equal treatment, equal under the law. For women equality means having control over our own bodies, our own decisions to reproduce or not, to marry or not, to love who we love without some made up god or some man deciding for us and treating us like children. No people are not equal in terms of abilities, or birth but after birth we should have the same rights and opportunities regardless of sex, gender money, religion or where we were born or to whom we were born.
right. i guess my problem is that what you've mentioned here were always givens to me(but not, necessarily, given to me)...no matter what is written anywhere...
You would have to cuts states like North Carolina, and many other states up into many little pieces to isolate the “confederate thinkers” from the Madisonian thinkers. There is no state that is free from the people who believe that they are entitled to force their beliefs, either religious or political on everyone.
It is not as fine-grained as you suggest, for obvious reasons. The North Carolina legislature for instance just redistricted the Black Belt out of existence. Will the blue dots of North Carolina link arms for the massive voter engagement needed to overcome this anti-democratic MAGA maneuver? It can be done, but will the blue dots of North Carolina throw their all into it?
I like this idea! They are still sucking the money from the more prosperous states!
No, but the rest of us do.
highly doubt the dems have the ovaries to go after magats...sadly
Will America finally put their big boy pants on?
I would love to see centrist dems step up, but have not seen that happen yet. My opinion is they need to unlatch from the tit of american oligarchy , drive election reform ( nearly every American wants this), step away from “woke ideology while not abandoning persecuted minorities ( totally possible) , solve healthcare ( single payor), and reach out to working Americans in a real fashion that they can see in their lives.
That would do the trick !
Easily said, and truly difficult….
Theresa, Vance is more cancerous than trump.
He may be cancerous, but he's also a piss-ant. He might have Charlie Kirk's widow and Satan himself backing him, but even Beelzebub needs worthy vessels to do his bidding. This cranky little cracked pot ain't one of them. To use a technical term, he's a small shitgibbon with the personality of used blotting paper, as charming as a pot of cold eels.
To quote SNL “dimmer than a small appliance bulb”
I hope you are right but the maga party has the power and he doesn't need to be charismatic and he can still complete the destruction initiated by trump even without the vessels to do his bidding and a charm of a pot of cold eels.
ICTT, my Texan bred soul loves a good & funny logical comeback. Thanks!
I predict Vance divorces his wife and takes up with 'the widow' Kirk. That would be something.
If that's the case, and "in the works" jd is the forever opportunist as in ingratiating himself to 'the widow kirk' and a flip-flopper as in when he was against tRvmp and is now his vp. What a slimy, evil 'thing' he is.
I suspect it’s already in the works.
That ball is already rolling ..
Vance shopped around for a religion like he shopped around for a name!
He’s such a phony!
He’s also not very well liked by members of Congress. They would not do his bidding like they do for Trump!
Wow - didn’t think of that, but wouldn’t be surprised.
He seems to be setting the stage for that!
As long as the widow is a Christian and stays quiet....why not Janis 😉
Were he to get any traction I see him as more dangerous.
Yes J L.
And he will likely live a lot longer.
And the damage will be proportional Georgia.
Georgia Fisanick, when I leave my house to go wherever, and my housemate says ‘See you later’, I respond ‘Maybe’.
Same with ‘’Good night, See you tomorrow.’
And so it goes ….
Very true, but he lacks Trump’s showmanship or crowd appeal. Vance is just plain obnoxious.
Once in power he doesn't need showmanship and crowd appeal Kathy, he is disciplined, determined and fanatic. He'll have all the money he might need from Musk and the political philosophy of Thiel. And a good percentage of the maga horde will follow. Tragic but very possible.
That is why I am petrified by the possibility of Vance assuming the presidency early ahead of 2028, even if Democrats won both houses of Congress at the mid-terms. They would have to have veto-proof majorities to stop him.
I would prefer a "Weekend at Bernie's" DJT to Vance.
Unbelievable Georgia that decent, intelligent people have to be in the situation you clearly described. Picking the lesser terrible option. In this case, trump. 🤮
You do have a point there.
I welcome Vance as President because "he lacks DJT's showmanship or crowd appeal." He is no leader and intellectually inferior even to Trump.
I don’t think he would attract MAGA groupies like Trump.
My neighbors in FL swooned over Trump during Trump 1. Maybe it was just because they thought of him as a celebrity?? Hard to know.
He is and muskrat has allied with Vance, chump is vulnerable the shift in flux.
I agree, he has the billionaire backers. It doesn't matter if he "isn't charismatic" if he is already in power. The Tech bros will keep him in power, it's literally been their plan. To scoff him off is a mistake. After the Trump regime is dismantled, we will be in a more difficult battle with the oligarchs that are amassing their power right now.
I recall a few year back hearing some right wing politician saying the opposite, that freedom of religion was not freedom from religion, which the Constitution supposedly prohibits. But that seems to be the kind of self-serving logic at which the Roberts court excels.
My Mom, now long gone, reminded us repeatedly as children that 'freedom of religion' meant 'freedom from religion' as well. She was raised Presbyterian, shifted to the Unitarian Church and then decided that the real religion for her was the natural world and not a patriarchal figure in the sky or any institution. I thank her for that.
My mom, a devout Catholic, always said: First Amendment keeps the government out of the church and the church out of the government.
I agree with your mom . My parents immigrated from Northern Ireland to leave behind, not only the monarch and it’s church, but the so-called ‘troubles’ between the Catholics and the protestants.
They ignore actual history at their peril.
Amen to that, sister!
''One Nation, Under Which God, Exactly?'' (satire)
A Helpful Guide to Vice President Vance’s Selective Christianity
“The moment the state declares itself Christian, democracy stops being a shared project and becomes a theological enforcement exercise, run by whichever faction shouts ‘God’ the loudest.”
Vice President J.D. Vance recently assured a cheering crowd that America has always been, and must forever remain, a Christian nation. This was delivered with the confidence of a man who has apparently solved two hundred and fifty years of constitutional debate during a coffee break.
The claim has a certain comforting simplicity. It suggests a single faith, a shared creed, a unified moral compass. Unfortunately, it collapses the moment it encounters either history or arithmetic.
The United States currently contains roughly 200 to 250 Christian denominations. That number does not include the countless independent churches that answer to no higher authority than a strip mall lease and a podcast microphone. If America is a Christian nation, then it is one with more doctrinal disagreement than a theology faculty meeting that has run out of coffee.
Which Christianity, exactly, does Vice President Vance have in mind?
The Christianity that baptizes infants or the one that insists baptism only counts if you remember it? The Christianity that treats women as moral equals or the one that thinks leadership looks suspiciously like Eve’s fault? The Christianity that welcomes immigrants or the one that wants to build a wall high enough to block the Sermon on the Mount?
History is unhelpful to Vance here. The architects of the American system, especially James Madison, were quite explicit. The problem was not religion itself. The problem was what happens when the state claims the authority to decide which version of God is correct. Madison understood that once the government can dictate conscience, it can dictate everything else. Tyranny does not arrive waving a pitchfork. It arrives holding a Bible and a law book, insisting it knows how to combine them properly.
George Washington made the same point more gently, assuring Jewish Americans that the government of the United States gives to bigotry no sanction and to persecution no assistance. Thomas Jefferson put it bluntly, building a wall between church and state because he trusted neither institution to behave well once they started sharing power.
Vice President Vance’s nostalgia skips all of this. His version of history resembles a theme park attraction where complexity has been removed for safety reasons. It invites Americans to imagine a past that never existed, where Christianity spoke with one voice and democracy obediently nodded along.
There is, of course, a reason this fantasy keeps returning. Declaring the nation Christian is not about faith. It is about authority. It offers a shortcut around the inconvenience of pluralism. If God has already decided the political questions, then elections become ceremonial, and dissent becomes disobedience.
That logic has been tried before. It did not end well.
The genius of the American experiment was not that it was godless, but that it was humble. It refused to pretend that any faction, religious or political, could safely claim divine endorsement. Instead, it trusted argument, compromise, and the messy will of the people.
Vice President Vance calls that weakness. The Constitution calls it liberty.
And history, stubborn as ever, keeps siding with the Constitution.
https://essayx.substack.com/p/one-nation-under-which-god-exactly
Thank you, Michael C, for this recital of the "inconvenience of pluralism." It's hard to abide our neighbors' ways of living and believeing when we don't understand them. Simplistic thinking is convenient. That's why both ends of the spectrum (JD's view and the view that religion should be banned) are both wrong. Simplistic thinking does not get at the truth.
The Church has held through millenia that heretical assertions are those that offer simplistic views. The Church councils that convened to address tough issues (f.ex., Nicea and Constantinople), in the end, embraced the more complex ideas.
Thank you for your insightful comment.
You are circling something important here. Simplistic thinking feels efficient, but it almost always distorts reality. When we reduce our neighbors to caricatures, whether as irredeemably religious or irredeemably secular, we stop understanding them and start managing abstractions. That is where polarization thrives. Historically, serious theological traditions understood this danger well. What councils resisted was not complexity, but reduction. Truth was assumed to be layered, paradoxical, and resistant to slogans. That insight still applies outside religion. Banning belief is as shallow as enforcing belief. Both confuse coercion with understanding. Real discernment takes patience, humility, and the willingness to sit with tension. It asks us to resist the comfort of certainty long enough to encounter reality as it actually is, complicated, relational, and human.
That was well written and beautifully argued. Thank you. May I share a portion?
Thank you, Barabara, and please do!
Done. Shared on Facebook in my feed and on HRC's Facebook comments. Added to my comment about my current protest sign aimed at churchgoers: "Separation of Church and State Protects Both". The flip side reads: DEMOCRACY Needs Your Faith and Action." All in four-inch-tall letters on a 5x4 foot sign.
Also, Christianity itself is clear. Jesus names love of God and love of neighbor as supreme, overriding all other laws.
I agree and how did the American Pledge of Allegiance include the phrase “under God”?
Here is Google AI's information on when the words 'under god' were added to the Constitution:
"The words "under God" were added to the Pledge of Allegiance on Flag Day, June 14, 1954, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the bill into law, a change prompted by Cold War fears and efforts to distinguish the U.S. from the atheistic Soviet Union. This addition followed lobbying by groups like the Knights of Columbus and was intended to emphasize America's belief in a higher power, contrasting with communism."
PS Don't tell trump it was added that day, that date happens to be his birthday,* you can be sure he'd take credit for that too since it was signed on his b'day! * Not his Date of Birth just his birthday!
It was put in by the Republicans. Every bad thing since 1868 is a Republican idea.
Maybe it's a good thing they haven't come up with a health care plan?
I can think of ONE good thing they came up with -- the EPA. But they have neutered it for the time being.
I remember having to add that line to the pledge we said every school day, also adding stars to the flag. In my later youth, I was troubled by the seeming lack of constitutionality. The pledge, and the recognition that the flag was a pointer to the republic still sits well with me, especially the part about "liberty and justice for all". Why the hell not??
Eisenhower was responsible for bringing a lot of religious practices into the government, such as prayer breakfasts, and adding Under God to the currency.
The addition of that phrase didn't happen until 1954, and it was due primarily to the Red Scare and fear of "atheistic Communists."
Of course the main problem with most of the communist nations was that they were aggressive and totalitarian, but so too were the Nazis who claimed that God was with them.
Some Nazis followed paganism, others were largely Lutheran or Catholic. Hitler was Catholic as he was raised in Austria. We don’t claim him.
True.
Some time in the fifties it was added to the pledge. Very poor judgement if you ask me.
That phrase was only added in the 1950s. I remember in elementary school when our teacher told us about the change. We said the pledge every morning (and this was public school) and all of a sudden we had to say "underGod" before the phrase "with liberty and justice for all."
It was added in the Cold War as an effort to differentiate the US and the communist regime of the USSR which espoused an ideology that actively excluded religion and its practice.
Great question!
Yes and I thank Heather for illuminating the progression of things, and how people are repeatedly trying to turn the US into a Christian nation. If we were to do that, we would lose the intended freedom of conscience and I suppose there would once again be religious wars.
I think Vance's announcement should be considered a moral and intellectual emergency. How dare he impose on me the idea that Christianity is an unrivaled source of goodness, compassion and the perfect guide to morality...my god while his president is the source of indecency, lies, fury toward immigrants, women and blacks .... religious beliefs are no way to govern or instruct a modern, progressive world. It's possible to be sincere and virtuous and unbelieving!!
Is it? As an atheist, I wonder.
Should references to a 'god' not be removed? Each to his or her own….or none.
Amen! Preach!
Yes, and "freedom" is also one of the words that is sometimes used in the 2500-year-old tradition of Buddhism to describe the "enlightenment" experience, which is also said to be beyond language, the primordial wisdom that is not found contained in thoughts but is found at the very root of all thought. We humans can (as corroborated by neuroscientific evidence) access and thus be guided by that freedom/wisdom through the practice of "mindfulness meditation" (See Jon Kabat-Zinn's "The Mind's Own Physician"). I don't say this to in anyway promote the Buddhist teachings, although I'm very grateful that they have provided me personally a great deal of benefit. It's just not a part of our tradition. The Buddha himself said, "Don't believe anything just because I say it's true - try it yourself (if you want to) and experience for yourself if it is beneficial; and it's also a good idea to test what any teacher asserts in the same way." I just found that attitude to be very refreshing after my childhood experience with a different sort of religion. And yes, indeed it's quite important to respect those who choose to refrain from any "religion."
Our tradition is also neither theistic nor atheistic; it's called "the middle path - not overly self-indulgent nor self-deprecating - healthy self-interest that realizes that having a balanced altruistic attitude is "the best way to be a human being" - this is the attitude that I think those involved in making, enforcing, and interpreting our laws should take - not "Buddhist" per se, but open, realistic, and taking the complete panoramic view of every situation encountered. What do you think? Thanks for your input here...
This is why my protest signs reads (in 4 inch lettering) : SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE PROTECTS BOTH. " And I'm personally athiest.
I made a poster which says, "Equal rights for all, under law. Democracy! No Dick-taters!" And the extreme right wingers are trying to dictate that people must think in a closed-minded, ignorant, obedient, foolish, detrimental way.
Theresa, I would only add to your statement, "Freedom of religion is freedom from religion 'as one's conscience dictates or not.' "
We must not allow the likes of JD Vance and MAGA to prevail. We must protect our right to be free from religion, as well as to practice religion if we choose. This is a fundamental, foundational right of Americans.
" ... leaders like Vice President J.D. Vance trying to rewrite American history." Not on Heather's real time watch.
Anti-republic "Republicans" try to rewrite the whole of reality. Orwell is saying "Told you so".
Orwell did indeed warn us.
Spot on. The mental pipsqueak Van e cannot and will not force is religious bigotry on us. Resist!
JD Vance just converted to Catholicism in 2019, simply saying, “I really liked that the Catholic Church was just really old". If that's the case then he could have easily converted to his wife Usha's religion, Hinduism, which is over 4000 years old.
JD can preach to the MAGA crowd all he wants but he's not going to force religion on us or even attempt to portray this Nation as a Christian theocracy when it's been a constitutional republic since its founding 250 years ago.
Wonder what Usha thinks of all this. I see an impending divorce in the making …
Well said horhai.👏
JD's christian nationalist moral conscience (oxymoron for a moron) will have him splitting with the inconveniently brown and Hindu Usha, to form a perfect maga christian union with Erica Kirk. It'll sell, and that's all it needs to do. White Nationalists who, like Vance, cozy up to Nick Fuentes (who has stated that both Hitler and Heinrich Himmler were "cool a f") will love it.
Vance's wife is a practicing Hindu-do as I say except my wife doesn't have to. I suspect her parents aren't Christian either.
JD has no Firm Foundations... JD has no 'Center'...
Ego
Hello J L... 'Ego' ?...
JD and ilk are egocentric.
Hello J L ... Yes, Delusions Of Grandeur...
Nope, he’s like a barnacle, has to have a main ship to attach to…
well... they don't refer to JDV as the furniture fornicator for nothing!
MAGA is a cult. We must continue to resist the christofascists like JD Vance. I wrote a song for Heather, inspired by her wisdom and bravery: https://democracydefender2025.substack.com/p/heather-cox-richardson-song-letters
MAGA is the "minority religion".
I agree as one who knows we don’t all share the same spiritual philosophies. I don’t preach, I simply try and sometimes fail to set a good example. I’ve seen religion or the lack thereof doesn’t correspond with a sense of ethics.
Agreed Kathy, there is good factual evidence to prove secular ethical behavior at least equal, but likely more prevalent than religious morals/ethics in human behavior.
And their "religion" is nothing but cover for their authoritarianism and their desire to return to a society where women and people of color are second or third class citizens -- if they be citizens at all.
As President Thomas Jefferson wrote way back in 1802, the 1st Amendment is absolutely clear and direct, that in this republic there is “a wall of separation between Church & State”!
And just what is their vision of “Christianity?” I’m a practicing Christian, and I don’t recognize it. This is just one of the glaring problems in trying to establish ANY religion - it seems the most zealous (and arrogant) ideologues try to impose their own version on the rest of us. No thank you, I prefer to follow the Constitution and let you “do you.”
Amen!
I'm starting to realize just how much our democracy has been a stroke of good luck, with the right people somehow converging in the American colonies in the 1700s. They might not have believed in full-on democracy, and they made a lot of mistakes, but they were ready to take a leap into the unknown. Back then, there must have been grasping creepy opportunists like JD Vance, Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and others; but they didn't have Fox News, Russia, broligarchs, and social media to promote themselves and their causes.
Happily, the good guys still outnumber Vance and his ilk. So we must work together to oust the goons and restore decency, respect, and the rule of law to government by standing up for democratic, liberal values and electing good people to office. Please get active with a democracy group like Indivisible, Public Citizen, MoveOn, and many more.
I think it is better to recognize that our country has been a progression, mostly relying on "good guys" but often falling back because of the advance of one of the "not so good guys". It is a failing to recognize that the Founders, while supporting freedom of (and from) religion, didn't recognize the freedom to be of a different race, and sanctioned, for over 75 years, the enslavement of blacks in the South. And women struggled for well over a century and a half to even attain the right to vote.
Yes, our founding fathers had many good ideas, but they weren't all good, and failing to recognize that our founding days weren't great for all. And in fact, even today, our days aren't great for all. That is something we need to continue to address as we proceed forward with this "noble experiment" in democracy.
There's nothing in the comment above that fails to recognize the inequality that was present during our founding. She's making an entirely different point which you ignored. I think it's one that should be emphasized. We could have had a government where opportunism was rewarded by design. By its basic acceptance of aristocracy, every other government at the time did so. Ours did not. And our Revolution, however imperfect, did not later dissolve into a pile of blood and restored monarchy, as did France's in 1789, something many at the time no doubt took note of.
100%
Jon, I generally agree. But also remember they compromised to create 'what could be' at that moment which does not necessarily reflect what many thought should-could-eventually must be. Some raised the issue of slavery and the future Confederate states all said they would walk out and start their own country. Interesting counterfactual. As Alexis de Tocqueville noted in Democracy in America in 1831, slavery was a yoke on the productivity of the south which was readily apparent by seeing the lack of productivity across the Ohio river in Kentucky where masters chained working slaves compared to the productivity immediately across the river in Ohio. Question: Would the south and slavery generally have collapsed naturally once Europe started to look to India and other countries for the cotton that formed the basis of their industrial revolution and if so, what would North America look like today?
de Tocqueville could have given us a viable roadmap as he saw from the outside what we could not. Or so it seems from hindsight…
We have strayed from their proclamations about religion. Religious vipers are always ready to ooze into the cracks and disagreements. Time to be reminded from whence we came. Not perfect but way better than we have done. Thank you HCR.
Putting Vance and the rest of the Trump traitors on trial for their treason in 2029 will be a good way to break MAGA. And then imprisoning them.
But Dems will likely “kumbaya” them, as they are family and neighbors. And how to separate good Christian’s from the posers? We don’t have the will to destroy them. But they have the will to call us traitors and dole out the ultimate punishment. Christian “charity” is a double-edged sword.
Don’t confuse all Christians with Christian Nationalists. We don’t think they have moral integrity at all.
My Methodist church was taken over by magats. Unitarian, not at all
Not surprised.
How to tell the good Christians? After the siege and fall of the heretic-held city of Beziers (1209, near Carcassonne) the Papal Legate was asked, "How can we tell the heretics from the good Christians?"
The Legate's answer: "Kill them all, God will know His own."
Sounds like cult logic, Lordy
I’m aware of this, it was during persecution of the Cathars.
Laurie, I once thought like you, but at a book reading I posed your question to Senator-Rhodes Scholar-Hall of Fame basketball player Bill Bradley. He laughed and said 'politics is sooo much cleaner, honest, fairer and tame in today's world. Go back and look at what people and papers said about politics in Colonial days and it was much worse.' He said when politics gets discouraging in the 21st century he is heartened to remember how much worse it was in colonial days! Following his insight, a read of Chernow's Hamilton book (think that's the book) notes that Thomas Jefferson, while Sec. of State, drew up Articles of Succession for the Virginia legislature and told President George Washington that Hamilton (while Sec. of Treasury) was planning a coup to put the King's brother on an American throne. BTW, Hamilton was an orphan, looked to Washington as a father figure and was his chief Aide de Camp during the war! I mean, think about it, when was the last time the Vice President shot the Sec. of Treasury to death?
They have the money, the American Taliban has morphed into our SC. Imagine us at the mercy of the SC Taliban.
Hardly takes any imagination at all; just open eyes
Amen brother, amen
Nicely put. I wish for lots of community service from the goon squads using their ill-gotten gains. Probably at least a trillion! Vote 'em out then charge 'em, if not already charged sooner.
They'll all be pardoned before any justice department can get their hands on 'em. One thing is certain, Trump learned a lot during Trump 1 and he is using that knowledge to make sure this time around, he at least has all his bases covered. That is why the cabinet looks like the Keystone Cops (never put competent people in charge of things for you because they will ultimately turn on you) today.
I dislike ALL religions that actively seek to convert others. The most notable being Evangelical Christianity and Islam.I have no prejudice against religion as such. Why would I?
I do, however, have strong objections to anyone pushing their religion on me. In the United States, we are perilously close to this, the threat coming from a strain of Christianity. But in other parts of the world the religious threat comes from fundamentalist Islam.
My rejection is not a phobia, whether the offense comes from Christians or Muslims. It is an assertion of my right as a human being to make sense of the world as I see fit. It is not the religion that concerns me. It's the evangelism. I assure you I will not try to convert you to agnosticism.
The problem is Fundamentalism, which is its own religion, perverting "christianity", "judaism," "islam," and "hinduism" - all of the fundamentalists who claim membership in those religions have more in common with each other - patriarchy, misogyny, violence, the subjugation of women, and racism - than they do with actual practitioners of those religions.
True. History of religion writer Karen Armstrong has discussed this in one of her books. Fundamentalism comes about when some people feel threats from change. Christian Nationalists as well as Islamist movements fear these changes.
Frame this and spread it far and wide, maybe to the SC
The Quakers speak of "Friendly Persuasion" and I can live with that. Genuine liberty embraces an expansive array of perspectives and among them is the choice of belief. That said, society has a right to prohibit behaviors that impose demonstrable, empirical harm to others or shared circumstances. And the Constitution specifies intervention with evidence-based harm. "Enlightenment" based rather than medieval thinking.
Jesus reportedly said that the "greatest commandment" was to love God and they neighbor as thyself. MAGAs seen not to have heard of that one. Then Jesus pointed to a member of a hated tribe, Samaritans, as a example of a neighbor. Vainglorious right wing religion is an imposter of what it claims to be. I only see narcissism in those of whatever opinion that try to impose their will on others, especially by force. It seemed to me that what Jesus encouraged was compassion and humility.
There is a division between Christians who emphasize the Great Commandment (love one another) and those who emphasize the Great Commission (make converts among all nations.) I am a Great Commandment person, Christian Nationalists are Great Commission types.
There is NOTHING of Christ in Christian Nationalists. They aren’t making disciples except to build a following for their own twisted version of weaponized Scripture. No Jesus to be found.
That’s correct.
Yes, the Quakers have my vote….granting each of us the right to use “Friendly Persuasion”. Then the burden of self-sovereignty is on each of us.
Former SC Justice Kennedy stands out in my mind as having wrestled with the question of conscience with integrity and come as close to truth as I can find. His multiple interviews and writings are enlightening.
I don't dislike religions, I have distain people that use it as a weapon. I recall a bumper sticker I saw one day; "Science flies planes to the moon, Religion flies them into buildings" A bit crass yet some what on target, pardon the pun. I was raised in the Catholic faith & I believe I learned some good values from it. I've also spent a lot of my Navy career in the western Pacific & exposed to the cultures of indigenous people. It is the culture & 'mana' (Hawaiian for spirit) of the Hawaiian people that I learned respect for land (āina) & the people of the community. In the end with respect to religion, I try to live by the words of Tecumseh, and the maga cults is making it very hard on me... "Trouble no one about their religion; Respect others in their views & demand that they respect yours." One last thought, If Jesus did come back to us today, I believe his 1st words would be, "Whiskey-Tago-Foxtrot, over ...
Live and let live works, as does the golden rule. Neither are popular with the greedy, power-hungry bastards. If they did, they wouldn’t be trying to suck the tit dry.
An elk will fight for territory but does not try to rule the whole forest.
Yes, my bible is simply 'do unto others...'
Religion, unchecked, in my view is as dangerous as guns.
The problem arises when a group decides. They have the truth, the only truth, and nothing but the truth. Then they want to make everybody else join their cult, or be gone so to speak. I have said for years and years that evangelistic religions are dangerous for that exact reason. Eventually, they will want to take over.
Exactly
Truly any religion can be barbaric and misguided by zealous fellow humans. Respecting others must occur when demanding actions of them. Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is a fun alternative (Ra-men).
I have never understood Christians’ obsession with imposing their will on others. The same thing applies to any religion that seeks to do the same. If what they’re dishing up is so damned tasty, won’t people request a plateful?
Mark, that is one of my “I don’t get its” as well.
One of my late father's most memorably profound statements was his answer to me when, at about age 11, after a violent confrontation with fanatically hateful Southron Baptists, I asked this very question. He was silent for a moment, then said they are made violent by fear and insecurity. "They are so insecure in their beliefs," he said, "they don't feel safe unless everyone around them believes exactly as they do."
The MAGAt cult, as designed by Rupert and Ronnie before there was chump.
Your father gave us an excellent summation of the problem which is therefore older than religion itself. If your upbringing gave you basic love and a modicum of security, or you have the temperament snd the luck to grow beyond your early circumstances, you will be a civil and tolerant neighbor. If not, we have all kinds of mayhem and fanaticisms to deal with. Therefore basic living standards and safety nets seemingly have a role in growing strong stable societies because cared for people don’t grow into those who wreck society. One could extrapolate that it is wonderfully selfish to have societal basic safety nets in place because it lessens fear, greed and the desperation that creates fanaticism.
This is a phenomenon I’ve personally seen.
I concur with Justice House, yet write separately to emphasize another point.
The "Christianity" of faux Christians like the Hillbilly Fallacy or Speaker Johnson is not a true Christianity. Rather, it is a selective hodgepodge of political and cultural markers and dog-whistles that comprise a very conservative and deeply tribal view of the world. The clear principles of Christianity, as set forth by Christ himself in the Gospels include the Nativity of Jesus which we celebrate in few days, the birth of an undocumented Galilean in Judea, who had to escape with his courageous parents to Egypt, so as to avoid persecution and worse by the King Trump, er, Herod of his time.
True Christianity, as set forth by the Life and Works of Jesus, is an affirmative religion as demonstrated by befriending those whom society mocks and casts out, feeding the hungry, assisting the poor, and critiquing the wealthy and privileged who speak loudly of God, yet disdain their fellow humans of lesser means.
The faux Christianity of which I speak fetishizes the negative and condemnatory, and among its many objects one can most jarringly find those whom society in general has historically given shorter shrift when political power was allotted: Women, gay and transgender people, immigrants, the disabled, and those who would raise a contrary voice, whether poetically or politically.
Irrespective of their faux Christianity, the MAGAs--- including the Hillbilly Fallacy whose raw and crude ambition is so perfectly divorced from both principle and logic---are, as Heather so adroitly points out, missing the boat entirely when they sing "Onward Christian Soldiers" from the same perverse hymnal.
We, the US of A, are a Secular Republic, and we thank God for it!!
Christian Nationalism seeks to restore what we never really were.
They're not conservatives - they're reactionaries.
They make reactionaries look reasonable.
Closest I ever got across the bar and to the bench was as a bailiff. 😉
Religion is historical fiction high lighted by the dead. The historical abundance being the insanity of those indeed slaughtered under the various banners of Righteousness.
Let me know if you ever figure it out!
The evangelicals read the section of the Gospels where Jesus sends his disciples out to spread his teachings and stop there. They do not read the part where Jesus tells them what to if the people don’t want to hear the message….”shake the dust from their sandals” and move on. Quakers call that “friendly persuasion”.
True. Christian Nationalism cherry picks scripture too.
I'm not sure what you don't get. HCR said it upfront: Christianity as a hierarchical structure with the white (propertied) man on top and every else subjugated or in his/her place. Isn't that essentially what the Crusades were about? Like MAGA, which is a cultural movement, a sizable section of Christianity is about white supremacy and power. And every religious group has its share of the same.
Perhaps a start toward understanding The Great Commission in Christianity is reading about what Christians call The Great Commission. Like any religious or political movement, there can be an emphasis on bringing into the “fold” new converts. It’s not the converting that is the problem, the natural human push to make relationships based on common understanding, but rather the content of and level of fanaticism to convert.
Not all of us do, Christian Nationalists do this. They use religion as a political weapon, which is not what Christ taught.
Attraction, not promotion indeed.
It is one thing for Joe Blow to express the belief that the US is a christian nation but to have the VP who swore an oath to the Constitution public acknowledge that he does not honor his oath of office is betrayal.
Indeed. Were there any remaining justice in our Failed State, the entire Regime would be convicted of treason and punished accordingly.
Hegseth plans ‘cultural shift’ for military chaplains
AnalysisRick Pidcock | December 18, 2025
https://baptistnews.com/article/hegseth-plans-cultural-shift-for-military-chaplains/#:~:text=The%20next%20day%2C%20Hegseth%20hosted,significantly%20represented%20in%20that%20corps.
Franklin Graham recently addressed U.S. military members at a Pentagon Christmas service, delivering a sermon emphasizing that God is both loving and a "God of war," referencing biblical passages about destruction, while also sharing the Christmas message of Jesus saving people from sin. This event, platformed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, is part of a push for a Christian-focused chaplaincy, a shift from previous instances where Graham's presence at military events sparked controversy due to his views on Islam.
Hegseth needs to be stuffed in a weighted seabag and thrown out of the airplane mid-Atlantic. He belongs to a "church" that would deny women the right to vote, and sentence gays to jail.
I like way you think Palie..
Franklin Graham has evil dripping from every pore. A sure sign that evil seeks evil.
He wants power or proximity to power, just like his father Billy Graham had with Nixon.
May there be a hell especially for hypocrites
Translation, Kegseth wants more Dominionist and Christian Nationalist chaplains. Mikey Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation has fought these people for years. They help people of various faiths or no faiths with some members of the military who think part of their obligation includes proselytizing to people under their command. It’s a violation of the First Amendment.
This push towards establishing Christianity as the nations religion concerns me personally. I would probably not exist if the nation adopted the above as a national religion as my mom was Catholic and my dad Jewish.
Seeing the push for Christian nationalism reminds me that my dad always told us it was not if but when Jewish persecution would begin again. I’m sad that I am glad he did not live to see this thinking starting up again and becoming more mainstream.
Thanks for the historical info and I’m glad you got an early night.
My mother told me the same as what your dad told you. I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it. Yet, here we are.
When trouble starts, antisemitism goes with it, it’s a noxious reality all Americans must fight.
Similarly, and consistent with an old saying, when white people get uncomfortable, black people get hurt.
This is also unfortunately true as well.
Some additional history of Jewish congregations in our country. This is what AI wrote: The first synagogue in America was Congregation Shearith Israel, founded in New Amsterdam (now NYC) in 1654 by Sephardic Jews fleeing Brazil, but its first dedicated building, the Mill Street Synagogue, was consecrated in 1730, marking the first structure built specifically as a synagogue in North America. While Shearith Israel has the oldest congregation, the oldest existing synagogue building in the U.S. is the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, dedicated in 1763.
The oldest continuously operating religious institution in Florida is a synagogue in Jacksonville.
Much of north Florida was founded as a Jewish homeland.
The first Jews here were Sephardim, and they often used Portuguese in services and prayer. Ashkenazim came later, first with German Jews, later from Eastern Europe. Tsarist persecution often drove Easter European Jews here. Social discrimination came after the Civil War.
That's what they say, but there were Jews in Jamestown, 1619. Tough to get a minion, however.
Minyan.
I hate seeing your father was correct about this, but he was.
Vance and his views are corrupt and destructive to women’s rights— they would be destroyed further. We’re not going back
Just Dumb Vance has his head so far up his own ass that he can’t see basic things like is it day or night. His opinions are ill informed and he speaks with a certainty that belies his ignorance. The insipid orange turd picked him for a reason, he is a major suck up.
Please do not underestimate our enemy. Vance is not "dumb"; he is morally imbecilic, ecogenocidally cunning, infinitely ambitious and therefore bottomlessly dangerous -- far more so than dwindling Donald the Demented, whom he will probably soon succeed.
Those who speak of righteousness always cause my ears to perk and point in the same direction. It confuses me because at the same time my feet prepare to run.
JD Vance is absolutely NOT “misinformed.” He is lying.
He is bought, pure and simple. A transaction, no moral fiber can be found.
Peter Thiel got Vance at a bargain rate. One thing to remember, Vance grew up in Middletown, about 17 miles south of me, and lived there, he only visited Kentucky in the summer.
Separation of Church and State is critical to uphold
Yes it is. The 1st Amendment is first for a reason.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances"...
What theocratic state has not ruled but by coercion, persecution and inquisition?
The Christians in Jesus’ time? He kept them humble & in their lane.
He stated that the future kingdom he promised was ‘no part of this world’.
That is a lesson Christian Nationalists do not understand.
Sinclair Lewis saw this coming 90 years ago. “When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”
JD Vance is an amoral, soulless, empty shell. He has used many names, but has no identity of his own. He has been bought and paid for by Peter Thiel, whom I believe will come to have buyer’s remorse. He is a liar, a grifter, a racist, a hypocrite, and he will say, or do, whatever he is told to. He is one of, if not the most hated “Vice Presidents” in modern history. He will go down in history as nothing. A bought and paid for shill, a morally bankrupt hillbilly who couldn’t find himself in a funhouse of mirrors.
His awful lying claim that Haitians were “eating dogs and cats” - so damned unbelievable. He hasn’t one redeeming character trait. A complete asshole.
I wish the Kentucky Bar would go after him for that, but it’s unlikely they will,
Well said.
Thank you Professor HCR
The clarity of your letter this evening strikes at the core that this is not faith versus secularism. It’s about the power that flows downward from a chosen few who speak for God, the white man. It’s not about any upward flow from the citizens that compose of people of color, women, and any other faith. That the chosen few, white men, rule.
Additionally JD Vance in his speech today, and I quote: "In the United States of America, you don’t have to apologize for being white anymore.”
As a white woman am appalled and disgusted at this blatant racial statement of absurdity. Good God what a dog whistle that could awaken Hitler and Mussolini.
Point to the decade. Circle the year. Highlight the moment in recorded human history when anyone, ANYBODY, ever stood up and demanded that white people apologize for being white.
I'll wait ...
Nobody EVER asked white people to apologize for being white. Not once. Not during colonization. Not during the Middle Passage. Not during centuries of slavery. Not during Reconstruction. Not during Civil Rights. Not during desegregation. Not during Black Lives Matter. Not yesterday. Not today. Not tomorrow or they day after.
Sir, being white has NEVER been under attack. NEVER.
Now JD, who has no clue as to history. Bases an entire political narrative on bigotry, prejudice and hate. Using a blatant lie, that he even admitted to, about a group of people in Springfield Ohio. That caused a mass of fear and retribution from outside forces coming into that community which resulted in businesses closing, and lost revenue. Multiple school closings due to bomb threats. And in September 2024, Governor DeWine had to send the Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers, to Springfield schools following additional threats for over three weeks.
JD needs to apologize because he’s a blithering idiot, a bigot and an as$hole who just so happens to be white and a man.
JD Vance aka (James Donald Bowman) is the epitome of this quote —
“We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid" ~ Benjamin Franklin
Some days, I feel a need to apologize for being white.
Somedays as well feel the need to apologize for the fluidity of ignorance, stupidity and hate because those as JD speak this language infuriates the hell out of me. He needs to apologize to his wife, but we already have an idea where that until will end and his kids. He’s an opportunist and conspiracy theorist and as he said he “only believes theories that are true” so he must think in his sick mind this to be true. He’s a sick thing who should apologize for breathing that just so happens to be white and a man..
oh how would hope that people would see the so many similarities versus the differences. To better days
As a white woman, I don't ever have to apologize for being white, and nobody has ever asked me to do that. I DO have to apologize (and seek to make amends) any time I do something racist.
Agree have never been told I “need” to apologize for being white. Will apologize for errors made but for being white - never
JD is admittedly an opportunist and even admitted to being a conspiracy theorist as he but it “if those conspiracies are true” he is stepping into taking this ride.. here’s looking forward to him running into his bosses nightmare of wind turbines..
Typically ill-informed garbage from Vance.
We deserve better.
Use/share this spreadsheet (bit.ly/Nokings) as a resource to contact members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Call. Write. Email. Protest. Unrelentingly.
Reach out (beyond your own) to as many in the Senate and House as you can. All of this is bigger than “I only represent my constituents” issues.
Add a comment to help keep this bumped ✊ New eyes seeing this means new ripples for change! 🤞
^ bumping is purely for more people to see the resource. I’m not receiving anything from clicks or downloads (some have been concerned recently)
Thanks, Megan!
Bumping!
Thank you, Professor. Would you please send this to every member of Congress? ☮️❤️🌻
Mike, I think you can do it yourself with Megan's helpful address system above. In fact, lots of LFAA readers could....
The church has never been shy of its desire to be the ultimate authority. Both Hamilton and Grant pushed back in moments of crisis. In the future religion must be completely restrained .