American Religious Insaanity and Politics

MAD AS HELL: Keeping the Faith in God's Own Party

By CHERI DELBROCCO

As we all know, the president of the United States is elected and swears to serve all citizens of this nation by protecting and defending the Constitution rather than the Bible or any other religious text. America, founded by men who in some instances proclaimed Jesus as their God, was created to assure the freedoms of religion and conscience without regard to an individual's personal beliefs, creed, or worship practices.

The Republican Party appears to have abandoned any commitment to this tenant of the Constitution and is positioned to elect a preacher-in-chief whose first loyalty will be to the dogmas of Christian Fundamentalism.

And they have a constituency. Across the country sprawling corporate religious "lifestyle centers" serving more as Christian country clubs than as houses of worship have produced congregations who foster a blend of ostentatious piety, self-righteous intolerance, and unyielding arrogance. For these parishioners, voting Republican is de rigueur.

Unprecedented amounts of wealth have been amassed in many of these churches, not in small part as a result of the wealth-redistribution policy of the Bush and Republican faith-based government programs established in this century. The threat of losing this power and money may in fact be looming large in the selection of the party's nominee and in the desperately pious tone, manner, and attitude of the Republican presidential acolytes.

Not to be outdone, the media, particularly cable television punditry and radio talk show hosts, are reliably helping to advance the idea of establishing a religious test. Although the last Republican debate fielded questions created by viewers of You Tube, those questions were vetted and selected by officials at CNN. Thus, all Republican presidential candidates were asked by Wolf Blitzer if they believed in the inerrancy of the Bible. (Any guesses as to how the pack of them answered?)

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, a proud member of God's Own Party and an ordained Baptist minister, may be the most flagrant offender against the Constitution. Mr. Huckabee recently told a group of students at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University that his astonishing rise in the Iowa polls is an act of God. He has also received letters of endorsement from Tim LaHaye, author of the Left Behind series which extols the Rapture as an imminent end-of-the-world phenomenon. (The rapture, by the way, is mentioned no where in the Bible) Huckabee has stated on the record that he does not believe in evolution and lists among the most urgent issues facing the country the perils of abortion and gay marriage, as well as threats to the unlimited rights of gun-owners. His frequent statements of religiosity are delivered with a jocular smile and a sense of humor -- designed apparently to seem non-threatening to anyone who is not a believer.

As if this country hasn't suffered enough division, enough religious hypocrisy, and enough self-righteous intolerance in the last seven years, now we have former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, an ex-moderate of sorts, hastening to join the ranks of Christian soldiers in the Republican Party and seeking like the rest to impose a religious obligation on political service. His immediate motivation, amplified by concern about rival Huckabee, is to gain the White House at any cost, but the ultimate result of his apostasy from reason is to further decimate the wall of separation between Church and state in this country--something most Christian fundamentalists disbelieve anyhow as a myth concocted by "them God-hating secular liberals".

Scarified by Huckabee's surge, Mormon Romney has ramped up his attempt to sway the fundamentalist crowds and seems determined to try to one-up Preacher Huckabee. He may indeed have trumped Huckabee with this mind-bending assertion: "Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom----Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone." Can Romney really not know of the suppression, torture, and murder of heretics and infidels by Christians (and members of virtually every other religion) throughout history?

When candidates like Romney, Huckabee and others rachet up their effort to destroy the wall of separation built by the founders, it requires somebody to ratchet right back. After all, it is an election that will be held in America next November, not an altar call.

Date created: 12/ 9/2007

URL for this story: http://www.memphisflyer.com/memphis/Content?oid=37043

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

One Big Difference In Today and 1972

In 1972, we had a very different Supreme Court; one that would protect the 4th amendment, which has been being shredded since the declaration of that other endless war, the War On Drugs, by St. Ronnie.

August 8, 2007

Supreme Court of 1972 Protected the 4th Amendment

By Michael Leon

Via MAL Contends

The Richard Nixon years (1969-1974) saw an acceleration of warrantless surveillance and presidential claims of executive power to wiretap and spy on American citizens under the umbrella of national security and the acclaimed inherent power of the presidency to engage in action deemed necessary to protect national security just as President Nixon perceived this obligation.

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney make the same claims for themselves.

Such Nixonian claims led Congress to pass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978, mandating the government to demonstrate probable cause and obtain a warrant before placing Americans under surveillance for national security rationales within the United States.

FISA negated claims of inherent executive power to engage in extra-Constitutional programs and action.

But last week FISA was gutted, and rendered inoperative for six months under the guise of national security (sunset clause) with the cooperation of many congressional democrats and virtually every single republican. [Only two Republicans in Congress voted “nay” on the gutting of FISA: Representative Walter Jones, Jr. (R-NC) and Timothy V. Johnson (IL). Wisconsin's entire delegation of congressional democrats voted nay, and all three Wisconsin republicans in congress voted yea.]

So, we just have to trust that the administration will use this power judiciously for six months, and that the administration that has politicized virtually every function of the executive branch, attacked and smeared prominent critics, and self-consciously lied the nation into a war costing over $1 trillion and 100,000s of lives will respect the liberties enshrined in the Bill of Rights.

As a New York Times editorial notes: The new bill allows the “director of national intelligence and the attorney general authority to intercept — without warrant, court supervision or accountability — any telephone call or e-mail message that moves in, out of or through the United States as long as there is a ‘reasonable belief’ that one party is not in the United States.”

Bush like Nixon attempts to codify and legalize an unconstitutional program, in this case violative of (among other liberties) the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and First Amendment right to engage in free speech critiquing the government.

UNITED STATES v. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, 407 U.S. 297 (1972)

In 1972, a unanimous Supreme Court shot down Nixon’s similar attempt to legalize his monarchical claims of his presidency through warrantless wiretapping.

In the vital decision UNITED STATES v. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, 407 U.S. 297 (1972), Justice Lewis Powell denounced the Nixon administration’s electronic surveillance, warrantless-wiretapping program not just on Fourth Amendment grounds, but as a betrayal of the sovereign rights of citizens in a democracy to criticize their own government.

History abundantly documents the tendency of Government - however benevolent and benign its motives - to view with suspicion those who most fervently dispute its policies. Fourth Amendment protections become the more necessary when the targets of official surveillance may be those suspected of unorthodoxy in their political beliefs. The danger to political dissent is acute where the Government attempts to act under so vague a concept as the power to protect ‘domestic security.’ Given the difficulty of defining the domestic security interest, the danger of abuse in acting to protect that interest becomes apparent. ... The price of lawful public dissent must not be a dread of subjection to an unchecked surveillance power. Nor must the fear of unauthorized official eavesdropping deter vigorous citizen dissent and discussion of Government action in private conversation. For private dissent, no less than open public discourse, is essential to our free society.
- Justice Lewis Powell (UNITED STATES v. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, 407 U.S. 297 (1972))

Will the Supreme Court of today protect and defend the Constitution and American citizens from an out-of-control and corrupt executive branch?

Not likely.

Lewis Powell was an establishment Republican from Minnesota, but today’s Republicans on the Supreme Court are more likely to be of the Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN) variety—do and say anything to protect the administration no matter the cost to the Constitution, the American treasury and lives.

One can only wish that the Supreme Court of the early 1970s that reflected the consensus of popular movements of the American citizenry demanding their Constitutional rights were functioning today.

The fact is the current Supreme Court bears no resemblance to the Supreme Court of 35 years ago.

Only poplar movements made powerful by citizen action can prevent the dissolution of our Constitution through the actions of a fear-mongering administration that longs for the unchecked power of a monarch.

As Senator Feingold writes:

We should not delay passing a bill that will end Alberto Gonzales's six-month, oversight-free surveillance holiday. The president will undoubtedly oppose these efforts and the Republicans in the Senate will no doubt filibuster any efforts to reinstate judicial involvement and tighten the controls around the president's eavesdropping authorities. In the face of that expected opposition, Democrats will need to stick together this time to fix the mess that we just created. And at least some Republicans will have to be convinced to support the Constitution.
Clearly, this will be an uphill fight. But it's a fight worth having. Our constitutional rights should not be sacrificed to scare tactics. Congress must stand up to the president. The sooner that Democrats realize that standing tough on national security doesn't mean giving into the administration, the better off they - and the country - will be.

Authors Website: http://malcontends.blogspot.com/

Authors Bio: Michael Leon is a writer living in Madison, Wisconsin. His writing has appeared nationally in The Progressive, In These Times, and CounterPunch. He can be reached at maleon64@yahoo.com.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.