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The Extent of Suppressing Religion

I start off today by defining two terms that are too often thrown around when discussing politics and religion. First, the Establishment Clause. The Establishment Clause, found in the First Amendment, says that Congress may not pass a law establishing an official state religion nor favoring a specific religion. Fine. The Next one is the Free-Exercise Clause also found in the First amendment and stating that Congress shall not abridge citizens the right to practice any religion that they choose. Why is it then that the Federal Government, mainly the Supreme Court and Congress, have become specifically hostile towards religion in the last half of a century?

First off, there is no such thing as the Separation of Church and State. It is a myth. Nowhere in our Constitution does it say anything about Separating the Government from religion, it is propaganda established by anti-theists. Like it or not, support it or not, the United States was founded as a Christian nation, and it remains a Christian nation, one of the more practicing in the world. And yet, we look at our law history and find that we ban prayer in school, ban polygamy, disallow the right for military officers to wear a yarmulke, ban Manger scenes if they are not side-by-side with something secular, take the ten commandments from federal buildings, remove crosses from memorials on Federal land, the list goes on and on. To get my point across I will only argue two of these points, Prayer in School and Polygamy.

As for Polygamy; I am totally against polygamy on a personal level. It seems to toss ethics out the window and to recreate the whole image of marriage. However, we take a look at the Free-Exercise Clause and see that Congress shall create no law to abridge the practice of one’s religion. A Mormon wishes to marry more than one wife because the bible and the God that he believes in tells him that, should he not, he will perish in hell. Who the hell is Congress, who has these instructions for our founding fathers to not interfere with the practice of religion, to tell the Mormons that they may not do what their God tells them to! As a Catholic, I can say that I’ve been drinking wine in church since I was seven years old, and yet Congress thankfully followed the Free-Exercise Clause and allowed me to do so because it is my belief that the wine is the blood of Christ. If it is the Mormon’s belief that they will go to hell if they fail to follow the rules of their God, than Congress has NO right to interfere both logically, ethically, and constitutionally.

As for Prayer in School, a much grayer topic. Up until the mid-1900′s, there was no question on the fact that a school prayer was done in Public Schools. Then, people argued that their tax money was going to support a prayer and the prayer was removed. First off, the prayer was non-sectarian, and thus was simply “God, Look after our teachers, friends, and families. Amen,” or something along those lines. I ask, was it mandatory? Of course not, nobody would force anyone to say the words of their prayer. Was it beneficial? Absolutely, it cause fond thoughts for friends and family and was a moment to think and relax from a hectic school day. For Religious students, it was also a moment to thank God for their gifts. Nowadays, I send my son or daughter to school where she sits through Biology and Earth Science and learns about evolution and Global Warming. Do I believe in both of these things? Yes, to an extent. However, both are as much theories as my religion is and yet, neither can be fought in a court of law. You are not allowed to push religion in a public school, and yet by teaching evolution, it is perfectly fine for my tax dollars to go to the teaching of Anti-God and Anti-Religion.

The whole ordeal is both not fair and not constitutional. The majority of our nation is Christian, and it is time we stop listening to the minority of Atheists. Religion should be a part of our national life, and I am not simply saying Christians, but Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Seeks, Hari Krishnas, whatever it may be! I tell you, at this rate I fear our future as the Government continues to side Anti-Religion, for not too far in our future I wouldn’t be shocked to see Arlington National Cemetery stripped of it’s crosses, crescent moons, and stars of David, or the words ‘In God We Trust’ torn off the dollar bill.

The Supreme Court- Too Powerful?

The United States Supreme Court was established by Article Three of the Constitution and the Judiciary Act of 1787. For the first fifteen or so years they were virtually powerless. So powerless, in fact, that John Jay resigned from Chief Justice out of boredom, giving way for John Marshall to become Chief Justice. Marshall, as anybody who’s taken Con Law 101 could tell you, presided over Marbury v. Madison which, in short, boosted the power of the Court to a point that even the President would be forced to listen to it’s decisions. Judicial Review was established, giving nine unelected Justices the power to make void the acts of of elected Congressmen and Senators.

Let’s look at some of the decision of the Court. We have Dred Scott v. Sandford where the Taney Court decided that a section of humans were mere property of another section. We have Plessy v. Ferguson where the court decided that as long as it was equal, races could be separated from one another legally. We have Korematsu v. US where the US was legally allowed to imprison a race during a time of war. We have Roe v. Wade, regardless of whether or not you agree or disagree, where the court devalued prenatal life. We have Bush v. Gore where, while I feel the court made the right decision, the court decided an election and eliminated the democratic system! Do we see a trend here? I’m selecting only the most controversial and well known, but they are not the only ones.

If we think about the court as 1/3 the power of the Federal Government, just to keep things simple for a second, then let’s evaluate their power. We elect a President to lead the nation and do as the people want him to, if he wants to keep his job he needs to please the people so he is really at the will of the majority. The Congress is the same way, they make laws that, in essence, will keep them in office and better the country, always concerned about the people’s opinion of them. Now, the only thing close to democratic about the ascent to the court is that they are nominated by an elected official, and approved by elected officials. That is it. They are placed on the bench and they are there, unless they do something extreme warranting impeachment, for life or until they so choose. Therefore, this court, which essentially can overrule the President and the Congress in almost all instances, can make whatever decision they so choose and are not at the will of the people.

That’s all if the court are 1/3 the power of the Federal Government, but in reality they are not. Supreme Court decisions are 99% final, they can only possibly be overruled with another court decision or an Amendment to the Constitution. These decisions can overrule an act of the President (Ex Parte Milligan, Merryman, etc.), and an act of Congress (Most others), thus nullifying the voice of the other two branches of the Federal Government, and thus the voice of the people.

At this point in American History, I am only at ease with the court because of the strong Conservatives on it (Roberts, Scalia), but I am not at ease with the way it is run. As a Conservative, I want the least Government as possible. I’m not saying that the court should be less relevant in our lives, because it is ABSOLUTELY necessary, but it should definitely be more democratic and less-able to overrule the other two branches. Less Unfair Government= More power to the people, which is not only something that the country was founded on, but something I’m sure that most of us want.

Who Leads the Republican Party?

There’s been a ton of talk lately about the state of the Grand Old Party of America. Is it still effective? Does it have strong leadership? Where is the next generation of Republicans? How long can it last in a nation with a media that is very left wing? I consider the two-party system a blessing, most of the time, so I’m certainly glad to debunk the fact that the Republican Party is dead or dying. Conservative talk shows, radio shows, and news channels are the most watched and listened to in America, so the public still has a strong interest in the GOP, I find the problem to be the Party’s leadership in a post-2008 America.

We had John McCain and, had he won the election, he would have remained leader of the Party. Personally, I still look to McCain as the party’s leader and the most level headed and moderate strong politician in the GOP. I still receive emails from his team about happenings in the Senate and I often find myself signing his petitions and listening to his ideas. However, there is no denying that the GOP needs to look for new leaders. McCain lost the election and will not run for the White House again, nor will he hold a position of higher power in Congress or in any sector of the Executive Branch. While he should definitely be kept as a bright light of the party, new leadership is necessary for the 2010 midterm elections and the 2012 Presidential Election.

Who is available to lead?

Well the majority of Republicans would look to 2012 Presidential hopefuls. Them being, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, and Sarah Palin. Now, I love Huckabee and he’s my 2012 hopeful. It’s ironic, though, I do feel he is strong and smart enough to lead the country very successfully, but I do not think he is cutthroat enough to lead the party, and I’m almost glad that he isn’t, it’s one of his best qualities. Romney, I am not as fond of. Nothing against his career, his policies, or anything, but he has fallen off the scope of politics and if he wants to be President he better reappear. Palin, I almost hope, is out of politics for good. I adored Sarah, felt she was a kind woman, smart ideas, good moral values, but she is simply not ready to be an Executive leader, neither President or Party Leader. One thing I do hope for her is that she either enters Congress in some sort as a strong Republican voice, or enters the media as a Republican talk show host in opposition to Ellen, The View, and Oprah which sway Liberal.

Other suggested leaders of the Party are more erratic. Rush Limbaugh is a voice, literally, that reaches millions of Americans daily. He might be the loudest voice in the party, but I don’t want him leading the party in fear that he will drive away Independent and Democratic voters with his fiercely Conservative Views, it is something I often admire, but other less-than-rightests might not. Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly are two other powerful Conservative voices that have similar control as Rush, but again I can’t see them taking the reins of the party. Other erratic choices include individuals like Meghan McCain, a very moderate republican and the daughter of Senator John McCain. She, and I’m very thankful for it, may yet become the voice of a young generation of Republicans, something the party has often has some trouble with.

One less mentioned name that I want to throw into the mix is Rudy Guilliani. I am a New Yorker, so I may be swayed, but Guilliani was an unbelievable mayor and was, before he flopped in campaigns, the frontrunner for the Republicans in the 2008 election. Rudy is a strong individual who still has time left to grow in Politics. He is not as far right as one could go, but he is strong in Republican value and, the most important value to me, Personal Responsibility. All well and good, but to become close to Party Leader we need to see Rudy take another position, my personal hope is that he’ll run for Governor of New York which would give him power and a way toward the 2012 election should he prove interested.

So, I suppose that the GOP is leaderless at the moment, actually I don’t want to say leaderless, but it has a struggle for leadership. The Party has a number of strong voices in politics, news, radio, and internet which can only be a good thing. It will be interesting to see which of these voices becomes most predominant and how they will work best together.

Anita Dunn, what are you thinking?

For those of you who didn’t hear, and that means anyone who watched an Obama-Praising news channel which is every one besides Fox, The White House Communication Director Anita Dunn has gone and praised the tyrant, killer, and simply evil Mao Zedong. Yes, the man who is responsible for the deaths of upwards of twenty million individuals as the Communist Leader of Red China.

I’m sorry, but how is it even close to possible that someone so radically left-wing and socialist can hold any position in the White House at all? The fact that the President chooses to associate himself with such people is a worry for all Americans who would prefer to keep the country a capitalist haven with a shred of personal responsibility among its citizens, not to mention the want to keep a fairly weak central government. Dunn claimed that Zedong’s quote, “You fight your war, I’ll Fight mine,” has even the slightest bit to do with individual’s choices in America, something that I couldn’t understand. When questioned about it, Dunn said she was kidding. Check out the video for yourself to see if she was kidding;

http://www.examiner.com/x-17336-Midland-County-Public-Policy-Examiner~y2009m10d19-Obama-communications-director-praises-Chairman-Mao

The worst part is the democrats has-been and will-be defense of Dunn’s comments. It will be that she wasn’t defending his cruel actions as dictator, but his political and economic goals for equality and at his struggle to gain power. To that, I say fine, but I can’t imagine ANYONE, including Ms. Dunn, idolizing Adolf Hitler. Hitler, if you ignore his horrific actions like the democrats will do for Dunn’s statements about Mao, raised the German economy and had a hell of a rise to power which could be shifted into an impressive story. That wouldn’t happen though, why is it so easy for people to forget Mao’s horrific acts then?

And besides all murders and tyranny, Communism can have no place in America and especially not in a White House ranking staff member. Something must be done by Congress to regulate who Obama places in these new offices that are sprouting up and giving radicals way more power than they should have in this country.

Roe v. Wade? Seriously?

I adore history for those of you who couldn’t gather that from my recent posts. Recently, I’ve given up a year of reading and studying Napoleonic and French Revolution history to move to Modern American History. Now I’m a Republican, that’s undeniable, but I can adore the actions of both parties in the last hundred and ten years. Teddy Roosevelt never ceases to amaze, Wilson was a force to be reckoned with, Hoover did what he thought was best, FDR was simply unbelievable at acting at his specific time, Truman is fascinating, Eisenhower strong-willed, Kennedy was an icon, Reagan was stunning, Obama’s story is unbelievably moving. I even love looking into the Supreme Court and making my opinions on that. Brown v. Board of Ed was perfect, Bush v. Gore was the lesser of two evils, even Korematsu v. US is understandable, though terrible, but Roe v. Wade is simply inexplicable in my opinion.

Abortion has been around for a long time, for sure, but it has always been against the human conscience. Early Americans viewed Abortion as socially unacceptable, probably why it wasn’t even thought to be added to the Constitution specifically, and in the Mid-1800′s Abortion became legally difficult, frowned upon, and illegal in many states. This was the way it was, with a number of exceptions, through the first half of the 19th and up until the fantastically liberal Warren Court.

We know the basics of Roe v. Wade. Texas has state laws making banning most abortions, Jane Roe sued to have these laws removed. The Supreme Court chickened out of making a real decision and said they couldn’t decide whether a fetus was human and thus, through a made up right to privacy, abortion was legal in certain trimesters. I’m not going to get into the Trimester crap, regardless of which side you’re on Abortion is truly the best example there is of a Black and white issue. So Texas laws were reprimanded and Abortion became legal, through the Supremacy Clause, everywhere across the nation.

Before we talk ethics and morality, let me talk legally for a second. The Constitution exists because it is the law of our country, it is the LAW not the guidelines or the suggestions. I just can’t fathom how it can be a philosophy that the Constitution can be extended on, and stretched but reason. It is there for a reason and it is what it is. Let’s say it’s fine to stretch the Constitution though, so the Justices created this Right to Privacy that is somewhere in the First, fourteenth, and useless ninth amendment. Why then, why, did the Justices take the hardest route in stretching the Constitution to legalize abortion when it would be so easy for them, not to stretch, but to slightly tug the Constitution to prove abortion’s illegality! The people, the right to life, common sense of morality, the protection of the general welfare of people! How can they overlook all of that to stretch the Constitution to legalize women terminating and killing their babies. Madness to me.

Now common sense morality obviously is Pro-Life. Yeah the argument is, “Well I’m not ready for a baby, I can’t afford it, I’m too young.” Well it’s time to reap what you sow, it’s time to realize that if something bad happens, it doesn’t mean you can kill someone. If I lose my job on my wedding day I can’t kill my wife-to-be because I can’t afford to support her! I can, however, end the marriage and pregnant mothers-to-be can give their babies to people who long for children, but can’t have them. I’m sorry that you have to lose your figure and carry a baby for nine months, I wouldn’t be happy about it and I’m sure it’s incredibly difficult, but there is nothing so terrible that can happen to you to make you earn the right to end a life! If a woman is ending a life because she doesn’t want to deal with nine months of pregnancy then she is sick, delusional, sadistic, and above all else SELFISH.

The mere fact is that Abortion is murder, and I certainly don’t like the idea of nine unelected men in robes tearing the Constitution that is the supreme law of the land to tell me who can and can’t kill other people. It’s morally, legally, and simply wrong.

Missing Reaganisms

I’m on a huge Reagan kick lately, and I am finding myself more and more wishing that we had a President, Senator, Governor, or any politician like Reagan again. It doesn’t comfort me that the closest comparison that we have to Reagan these days is the Governator in California.

What it is, for me anyway, that highlights Reagan is his Hawk Foreign Policy that nobody has matched since or before. These days, should Obama proclaim that North Korea was an evil state, he have a dozen civil rights groups after him for a Public Apology, Reagan did it to the Soviet Union and it ended a half of decade of turmoil. He told the Russian Priemer to tear down the Berlin Wall, and it was teared down.

People try to say, I should say that Liberals try to say, that Republicans have some thirst for war and they try to point to Reagan’s aggressive policy as proof. What they happen to leave out is the amount of disarmament that Reagan oversaw. He and Gorbachev met in Switzerland, Iceland, Moscow, and Washington and worked out more than just economics and the Berlin issue, they got rid of certain bombs and regulated the military. Did the military grow under Reagan? Absolutely, but what makes that the worst thing to certain liberal, I will never understand.

For forty years the Soviets hated us and this hawk, Reagan, goes to Moscow and is treated like a celebrity. He gave speeches on the beauty of Capitalism, something that even our country truly lacks anymore, and he inspired Perestroika and Glasnost, which proved extremely effective in Russia, and pretty much ended Communism there. This was something that Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter couldn’t do and Reagan did it with ease. While he altered one of our biggest enemies in the twentieth century, he also lowered taxes, boomed the economy, and brought patriotism back to our country. Reagan was a true patriotic American and that hasn’t been matched by Bush, Clinton, Bush, and especially not Obama who apologizes for us on a regular basis. I sure as hell like a President who thinks he’s in charge of the good guys, because we all have some of that in side of us.

Let’s say today Obama sensed that North Korea was a major nuclear threat (hint hint they are) what would he do about it? Reagan would denounce them, speak against them, threaten them with newer technology (STI?) He would talk to their leaders, but not compromise with them. He would win. Obama today apologizes for our actions, he tries to compromise with people that we can’t compromise with, and he avoids confrontation only to put off worse confrontation upon the next generation. Obama appeases like Neville Chamberlain, appeasement wasn’t in Reagan’s book of Foreign Policy.

There would be a lot less problems in this Globalized world if we had another Ronald Reagan sitting in the Oval Office.

Starting Up

I’m sitting in my living room in the midst of making this, planning on simply opening up with an intro and some politics that I wanted to mention. Next, I get into a discussion with my liberal father about what we’ve heard about some folks trying to push a Department of Peace bill into the House, obviously because our executive government already does SO well under the bureaucracy we currently have. I express my distain for the idea, he responds with a comment about how “Republicans would rather just send the minorities to war for them,” I push back, “No, let’s just let them into college unqualified and for free,” he responds, “Yes we should.”

What is it that I am missing here? How is it possible that the country that liberals try to make equal for everyone and, yet, they allow for Affirmative Action?! Would I be so strongly against it if I were a minority? Probably not, but does that make more fair? Hell I bet blacks were more against slavery in the 1850′s than whites were, but that sure as hell doesn’t make it fair. Am I pretending that slavery is equal in fairness to getting into Yale? Of course not. I just find it ironic that we use the 14th Amendment to defend almost every equality since its establishment, how can’t it defend this one? It’s not Republican vs. Democrat, It’s not Fascist vs. Communist, it’s not black vs white, it’s not religion vs atheism, it’s nothing nearly that difficult. It’s a matter of Common Sense. I have a 95 average, Hispanic Joe Schmoe has a 93, I have a 1400, Joe has a 1300, I’m in eight clubs, Joe’s in six, I had better get into XYZ College before Mr. Schmoe does. That is nothing too hard to figure out.

My Favorite part of the whole thing is the kids who have a great-grandfather from Cuba and mark down Hispanic on their forms, their FAFSA, their SAT scores, their application. You ask them their ethnicity and their Italian, you check out their applications and their Hispanic. Brilliance of our equality for everyone country. I’m sorry, but there comes a time when the Majority has to win some issues, and I’m not even fighting for an inequality beneficial to the majority, I’m just asking for a balanced scale. Seems pretty fair in our modern and civilized world.

Is this unfair to argue for? Maybe. I understand that the history of minorities, especially African Americans, has been long and difficult. Now, thanks to leaders on both side of the aisle (Lincoln, Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Clinton) we have come closer to an racially equal country than ever before. We all know how much Liberals dream of the utopian equal world, let’s take the next step and give something back to the majority of the country, those of European decent. That’s all I’m asking, for all the great things done in the past few decades, it seems like Common Sense to me.