Religion in America

Over the past few years, there has been a strong movement in this country to return it to Christian values. They claim that this was the intent of our to establish a country governed by Christian values, generally as interpreted by their candidates. They argue that their position is clearly supported by their interpretation of the United States Constitution. It would appear that they have never read through the Constitution carefully. We all know that Freedom of religion is guaranteed by the First Amendment which states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of a religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Yes, I carry a small copy of the Constitution and all the Amendments with me at all times. I've never been one to accept what someone tells me as the absolute truth, especially if I have the ability to check it. so when someone tells me that this or that is according to the Constitution, I can ask them to show me.  They can't because generally, they are only repeat what someone told them.   

Nowhere in the First Amendment is the Christian faith even mentioned, and they made their position quite clear:
      - 1797 - The United States Senate unanimously approved a treaty containing the following declaration: "The United States is not a Christian nation any more than if is a Jewish or Mohammedan Nation", and that treaty was signed by our second President, John  Adams.
      - Our fourth President, James Madison, strongly confirmed this position.  He maintained that even if a religious sect becomes a political faction in one part of a nation, " the variety of sects dispersed over the entire face of it (Congress) must secure the national councils against any danger from that source".
      - In the mid 1940's, Justice Robert Jackson wrote "If there is arony big star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion."
     - Al Gore, in his book  "An Assault on Reason" he states that our Founding Fathers understood that love of power can be so intoxication that it overcomes reason.  He continues, saying that this distrust is what led our forefathers to separate organized religion from the exercise of governmental authority.
     - The words "under God" did not appear in our Pledge of Allegiance until  1954.   The change was originally pursued b;y the Catholic religion, and other established Christian religions soon follows.  I  remember having to re-learn the pledge in grade school. 

These fears  that were expressed by our forefathers and continue to be expressed today seem to well-founded.  Since the 2008 political campaign, candidates have been raising fears among their constituents that our country is becoming a "godless" nation, and that it's time to return to the value system that is embraced by many fundamentalist religions.  They are arguing that their value system is to be embraced by the entire country.  Prayer in school?  Are you praying to the Christian god?  Suppose my child prays to Allah - or to the Jehovah of the Jewish religion . Suppose my children practice Buddhism or the Hindu religion?  Suppose they practice an earth-based religion, or even no religion at all?  Are you going to make them lie by praying to a God other than their own?  I know my moral code considers any lie to be a negative act,   Will their school teach evolution or creationism?  What about the right to marry the person that you love?  (By the way, nothing in our Constitution or its amendments defines who can and cannot marry.)  What about each person's right to decide what is or is not done to their body?    I think we need to stop and consider the fact that Freedom of Religion also means Freedom from religion, which means you have the right to live by the moral code of your religion, but you cannot impose that code on me.  You have the right to honor your religious beliefs, but not the right to denigrate the beliefs of others by burning their holy books, or making malicious fun about their holy people.  I am hoping for a time when all peoples can respect the ways of others. 



 

Atlas Shrugged?

This presidential campaign has focused a great deal of attention on entitlement programs and parasites who expect big government to meet all their needs. First, it's interesting that both Social Security and Medicare are referred to as entitlement programs. I don't know about you, but when I started working, I was told that the deduction for Social Security was to pay for my retirement. In fact, the deduction was for FICA, which stands for Federal Insurance Corporation of America (note the word Insurance). Also, FICA benefits come out of everyone's wages, and everyone who has a recent work history is entitled to collect these benefits upon retirement whether they had average annual income of $35,000 or $350,000. And as far as Medicare is concerned, Medicare Part A for inpatient care only is given to everyone who gets Social Security. If they elect Part B coverage for outpatient care, they pay a monthly premium, and for part D coverage that they are required to buy into, that premium is also deducted. Somehow, I fail to understand how if paying into Social Security premiums while you're working and then collecting benefits after retirement (or disability) means you qualify as a person receiving entitlements, but if you put that same money into an IRA or 401k account while you are working, you are considered a responsible person planning for your own retirement. And if you use the money that you pay out of every paycheck for your Part B and Part D Medicare premiums to set up a medical care account or purchase private insurance, you are considered a responsible planner, while if that some money goes toward your Medicare premiums, you are receiving benefits through an entitlement program. Remember, these options are identical for the working rich as well as the working poor. This all reminds me of Ayn Rand's book, "Atlas Shrugged". For those of you who have not read the book, it is the story of the few men and women who are the true makers and shakers of society - those who create huge manufacturing empires, or are responsible for creating and maintaining huge transportation and industrial complexes. They become overwhelmed by the demands put upon them by government to provide for those who do not have these talents, but who feel they are entitles to all the some benefits, and are willing to have those benefits provided, so they basically drop out of society, and focus their attentions an doing the kinds of things that really satisfy them, and as a result, industry, transportation, and ultimately pretty much the entire infrastructure of the country breaks down. The first, and maybe the second or third time I read this book, I was very sympathetic, because no matter what these movers and shakers did, more and more demands were put on them and more and more people claimed more and more in benefits. I knew that this kind of society was not my concept of ideal, but I was having trouble finding the fallacy in the positions that the author was taking It wasn't until the last reading that I finally got it. In some scenes, especially when everything was pretty much going down the tubes one of those movers and shakers was on her way to the train for what would be its lost intercontinental trip. She stopped on the way to talk to a couple of average people just doing their job and hoping for the best, and it hit me that the author had totally overlooked the great majority of people who are not the most talented. As I remember, one of the people teh heroine spoke to ran a news/magazine shop such as you see in the malls, or on many city streets, and the other was a mechanic who was going over the train with an oilcan in hand, checking to see that all mechanical and safety requirements possible were checked and attended to even though he no longer had access to the correct materials to do the job properly. I realized that by polarizing society as we are, especially during this political campaign, many candidates are trying to focus the voter's attention only on the well-to-do and the people that they are labeling as parasites. They totally overlook those that will never be able to enter that truly well-to-do class, but who work on to the best of their ability to keep things oiled and operating properly in our country. I guess it's going to be up to us at the voting booth.

Here's the link

I think this is the link you need to get in. bethsidhe@blogspot.com Please let me know if it works.

Stepping Back and Slowing Down

I decided that it was time to step back from the election craziness and take a day or two to bring my blood pressure down, and ground myself. I was thinking about how things seem to be moving faster and faster never taking time to stop and give ourselves time to experience the now before seeing how quickly we can move into whatever comes next our lives. I started thinking about this when a book I ordered from Kindle was not the one I was expecting. Yes, that is one example of everything speeding up - ordering books on-line instead of shopping for them in our local bookstore (when we can find one). In any case, I was expecting a very recently written biography of Charlotte Bronte, that went into their interpersonal relationships, and the possibility mental illness way have played a part,but instead got one written in the style of Charles Dickens or Nathanial Hawthorn. I started to read it ( I'm one of those people who pretty much read anything that pops up in front of my eyes). I thought that the author had an unusual way of starting - by dropping into this old style - and was eager to see how he how he would do it. As soon as I started, I began to feel different. I usually read very quickly - a book in a day or three - but I couldn't do it with this one. The language was more old fashioned, flowery, grammatically correct, and soon I was totally drawn totally into the scene into the old English countryside of the early 1800's. I knew I was not going to finish this book in a day, and suddenly it made me feel much calmer. I didn't feel so rushed to turn the next page. There was time to relax and enjoy and let myself be drawn into the story. I even starting reading part of it alouI'm d to slow down and give myself longer to enjoy the story - to enjoy the way the words flowed together. The world - everything - seems to be speeding up, to be confronting us on every side without ever letting us adjust to what we have just experienced. Therapists, personal growth leaders, motivational speakers, social workers - all advise us to learn to live in the "now", but is this possible with the speed at which changes assault us at every turn? Reading this book is reminding me of how much pleasure there is in reading when you allow yourself to be drawn into what is happening instead of hurrying to flip the next page. When you walk, walk slow. Stop and look around. and let yourself recognize that you are a part of it all. Notice a flower or a leaf or a butterfly, or even an interesting pattern in the cracks in the sidewalk. When you drive, stay off the Interstates. Take the "blue roads" and drive at 55, or, better yet, 40 so you can see towns, trees, fields and woods, and know that those people have their own lives and stories and that you are a part of them, as well. At least for me, this helps me to keep in the "now", and gives me practice in controlling the rate at which I react to the constant changes surrounding us all. One major way that things are speeding up now is with "new and improved: products. Electronic devices especially are modified and speeded up to the point that the device you are trying to master has been outmoded and updated at least twice. After you master the device, if it ever needs repair, it will be so outmoded that it will not be possible to repair, It will need to be replaced, and it will generally cost significantly more for new apps and greater speed that you neither want nor need, but will often have to learn and use. I don't know. Maybe it's just old age, maybe I'm just being nostalgic, and sad that there are so many people who will never be able to experience the joy of living in a time that doesn't push us as this one does. This one has been a little philosophical, maybe because I'm giving myself a break from speaking oat about my concerns about our political process. That'll be for another day.

Thought I Lost It

I knew I had started a blog, but I didn't think I had anything worth posting. But lately I have found that I can use this to share anything, and lately I have written some for some reason I just want to share. Poetry, essays, opinions and positions that I want people to think about. I have some things ready now, and many more in my mental "to do" list, so I expect you will be hearing from me soon.

Let's Broaden the Perspective

One thing that is disturbing me the most about our electoral process over the past several years is the fact that fewer and fewer citizens are truly trying to understand the issues, to consider various options to resolve those issues, and then doing some real research to find out which candidates represent their position on how the issues should be resolved. This is a letter I have submitted to many local papers to try to open up the eyes of the voters before the election. Nothing written in stone here, but I did want to make my opinions heard.


Letter to the editor October 3, 2008

Make Democracy Work

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately, considering both old and new approaches to our current political situation, and I think that it is now time for all of us to set aside the partisan mud-slinging campaigning that has occurred this year on both the liberal and the conservative sides. I was recently reading some history about the evolution of the representative democratic form of government that we have in this country. The ideal that has allowed this form of government to successfully survive for over 200 years is the concept of discussion, and, most importantly, two-way communication. Our current dependence on the mass media as our source of information has resulted in a one-way street that has made discussion of the issues by the everyday citizens of the country impossible. We have come to accept that our legislators will take care of everything if we just leave them alone. Well, one thing is certain. They won’t represent us unless we tell them what we want them to do, and how we want them to vote on various issues. These negative ads thrown back and forth right now (by both sides) are, or can be completely misleading. I think the first thing we should do is to make clear our dissatisfaction with this type of campaigning, and demand that candidates focus on what THEY plan to do, and how they plan to pay for it. And until that occurs, we need to do whatever we can to verify what the candidates have done in the past.
I would also point out that we should not limit this communication to election time. We need to make sure that our representatives are kept aware of our interests and our concerns at all times., not just during the elections and not just at the federal level, but the local level as well. Remember that those who fail to make their needs and their concerns known to their elected representatives have no right to complain if those concerns are not addressed by those representatives.
Further, we have the responsibility to educate ourselves more about the issues, themselves, and about how they affect the country. I personally have always held a liberal perspective, but now I have studied more about capitalism and the free market economy, and I can see that there are positive aspects. Free Market = new business = higher employment = competition = lower prices = more income for the working person = more economic growth. But when mega-corporations, outsourcing jobs and greed come into play, the benefits are significantly reduced. Likewise, socialism has its positive points. Simply put, in a pure socialism everyone performs at the kind of work that they do best, and do the best work that they can. The economic benefits are then shared equally by all, and no one has to do without the basic necessities of everyday life. The problem here is that in such a society, a person may choose to look for the easiest job, or choose not to share their abilities fully to the group as a whole, knowing that at least their most basic needs will be met.
Both sides have their positive and negative aspects, and it behooves each of us, no matter what our leanings may be, to consider all sides of the question, and then to make our candidates and our sitting legislators aware of what we want. Let’s open up a two-way conversation between the citizens of this country and their elected representatives. Lets not automatically presume that they are the be-all and end-all of all knowledge about what this country needs. An election – any election – is our opportunity to make our voices heard. Let’s make sure that we keep up our end of the conversation and demand the same from our elected officials.

Barbara Crumb
Branchport NY 14418
315-595-2557

(Please do not publish address or phone number)

Election 2008

I just finished watching both conventions and to see first hand a comparison of the "politics of fear" compared to the "politics of hope". I chose C-SPAN, rather than network to reduce the possibility of any commentator's bias.
The politics of fear has played a huge role throughout the history of mankind. It is nearly always a tool of the group "in power" at the time. It is a strategy that has clear roots back to the time of the Spanish Inquisition and the Witch Hunts throughout Europe. This was a time in the history of mankind when the Church of Rome was attempting to consolidate their power, both secular and spiritual, under the control of the Church. The common people of that time were undergoing extremely hard times, with the control of the wealth and the land primarily in the hands of a few favored families of aristocrats. The Church also wanted to expand its power and control over the masses. However their attempts at an effort to convert the masses was hindered by the fact that many were not eager or willing to give up the "old ways" that had been brought down through their ancestors. How better, then, than to build their own power base by blaming all the hardships of the common people to these "witches" who consorted with the devil and brought drought to the land and disease to the livestock? Bad weather? Blame it on the witches. Unfaithful or cruel spouse? Blame it on the witches Drought? Flooding rain? Blame it on the witches, and let the power of the power of the Church overcome these creatures of the devil. And the suffering common people did just that. In fear, they brought anyone that they thought might be trying to harm them or do them evil before the magistrates of the Church, and the Church protected them from these "evil doers".
Now, just jump ahead a few centuries, and find yourself in Germany, just after World War I. Your nation has been defeated and decimated. Both food and shelter and food, along with other necessities are extremely scarce. Inflation is rising so fast that even should you find something, you can't afford it. Then comes along an individual who wants to take control of this country for himself, and a chosen few that he has chosen. He, along with a small group of like-hearted individuals find it very easy to find a scapegoat for all of this misery - the Jews. Thus, he provides an outlet for all the frustrations of the German people suffering from the war's outcomes by blaming the Jews (as well as the Communists and the Homosexual - ANYONE who could be defined as "different") for all of their hardships. And once he has brought them under his control by capitalizing on this fear he is able to use them in his grand scheme of gaining control over all of Europe, and eventually the world.
Jump ahead again to our present day and time. On 9/11/01, this country was attacked by terrorists. The Nation was stunned. How could such a thing have happened right here in our own country. Of course, even before the terror died down at all, this country started to look for those responsible for the attack. The blame was taken and accepted by a group known as the Taliban, under Ossama Bin Laden and our forces were mobilized to neutralize this force and to take Bin Laden into custody. However, the administration saw the opportunity to take advantage of our fear to proceed was ith other plans that they had been developing to ensure our access to foreign oil. Thus, the country's immediate fear of terrorist acts was used to justify a pre-emptive strike against a middle eastern country. That invasion was based on evidence which later proved to have been completely false, and was based on the administration's claim that Iraq was inextricably linked to the terrorist organization that had attacked us.

It was interesting, and somewhat frightening to see how the Republicans continued to try to manipulate the American electorate with their "Politics of Fear".  Today, the seventh anniversary of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center is a most appropriate time to examine how it has been used to foster fear among the American people. Ossama Bin Laden admitted to being the mastermind of the attack. He was known to be in Afghanistan, with the core of the Taliban forces. The United States went into Afghanistan , and went a long way to breaking up those forces. They declared that country to be under control, and moved on to Iraq. There was no known link to the Taliban in Iraq at that time, and, in fact, it would have been highly unlikely, given that Saddam Hussain was a toyalitarian dictator, and not likely to share his power. However, the President opened a campaign of fear by creating a threat of WMD as well as chemical and biological weapons to justify an attack on Iraq for the stated purpose of protecting the United States from further terrorist attacks. Further, and in the long run far more dangerous, was the enactment of the Patriot Act, under which any person, citizen or not, could be wiretapped and have their financial records, as well as all other personal records investigated on the presumptive basis of possible activity which could be defined as potentially aiding or abetting possible future terrorist attacks. A warning system was established so that if the possibility of an attack was predicted, the country would be warned by a red alert. Lower probabilities might warrant a reduction to an orange alert. I do not recall any situations where the warnings were reduced from red to orange, or from orange. Red alerts, when announced went on perpetually, and were updated every time it appeared that the citizens were losing the edge of fear that was being placed on them. This edge of fear permitted the executive branch to hide under a cloak of secrecy "for the good of the country". Further, it permitted more and more erosion of the basic rights of all citizens guaranteed to them under the Bill of Rights.