Guest Author

America The Brave…or is it America the Fearful?

April 30, 2013 By mario piperni

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After September 11, 2011, America became united, as it grieved the loss of so many lives on American soil. The tragic event also changed so many things and it changed us, we Americans. I know we talked about how we were not going to allow it to change us, because that meant the terrorist would win, we would just carry on our lives as we always had and defy the purpose of the terrorist in the first place. What we did instead was allow our government to lead us into war and we allowed that same government to interrogate prisoners with torture along with a host of new things, such as intrusive searches at the airport, wiretapping of American citizens and a loss of innocence from the assured peace of mind, we had before — all because of fear.

It was because of fear that we Americans changed. Suddenly, we were vulnerable. Our ever-resourceful intelligence community and our powerful military were invincible no longer in our eyes. It also became an opportunity for some to exploit the fear that so many felt, to fulfill their own agenda. Sometimes politicians in powerful leadership positions, uses fear as a tool to accomplish something, such as starting wars.

The war on Iraq by the George W. Bush’s administration is a good example in my opinion. Clearly, fear was used by members of his administration on the American public, Congress and the world, with warnings that Saddam Hussein’s government had “weapons of mass destruction”. Saddam Hussein we were told, was conspiring with Al Qaeda because of a faulty piece of intelligence, we later learned.

Support was high for the war, mainly because the populace and the Congress believed the Bush Administration’s statements and the intelligence community’s assessment concerning WMDs in Iraq. A majority of Americans were misled because they were afraid and another war offered a solution to make them feel safer.

A personal story; my father kept a gun in the house; it was a revolver and a very powerful gun, though I cannot remember the type exactly. I was quite young but I remember the loud sound it made when my father used it in the country once, to shoot a skunk.

He gave a warning to us children – there were six of us – telling us “not to ever touch that gun because it had a hair-trigger and it might go off!” We all remembered the sound of those two shots my father fired, so we were all entirely afraid of the gun. It was kept up on the top shelf in the closet of my parent’s bedroom, but it did not matter where he put it, we would not touch it. Fear was a useful tool to keep children from a deadly weapon but it should not be used on adult citizens of a nation.

There are a great many threats out there in this world and we have been fortunate to avoid many other horrible acts if it had not been for government intelligence and intervention. Yet government must have its limits. There is a fine line between alerting the public to a possible danger and inciting them to be afraid, and just trust that government to do the right thing, even if it is against our Constitution and most importantly, our sense of moral ethics and decency as a nation.

Government is not the only entity that uses fear to incite the public. The Media plays an important part in giving the public a reason to be afraid of all sorts of things. Fear has high ratings for news sources; sensationalism and violence brings in the viewers and the bottom line is profits. The Media has a different motivation than government politicians and it is its job to report the news, though its method of selectively choosing what news to report is usually bias, in favor of its ratings.

Then there are the hate groups and the propaganda machines on the internet that pop out garbage they call news. A good example would be the lies and misinformation that have been told concerning our current president, Barack Obama, accusing him of not being born here and that he is secretly a Muslim. I believe what riled up many on the far right was a lie that Obama had plans to take away all their guns. He has never sought to do that, not even in the most recent gun control bill. Yet that false piece of information has been pushed by many right-wing conservative blogs, email campaigns, just to stir up fear among the less informed that Obama was out to take over the country with a Muslim government and force Sharia law on everyone.

The main tool of any terrorist is fear. When we as a nation make important decisions, such as a decision to go to war or not, or allow our civil rights to be waived in favor of more protection and a sense of safety, all out of fear, we then are allowing ourselves to be manipulated by sharp players who do not have our interests in mind.

I believe the best cure for fear is knowledge, the more we know the more we will understand.

-James Fidlerten

James publishes Fidlerten Place.
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Filed Under: Guest Author, terrorism

Congress and the NRA Makes Sure That America Loses…Again

April 18, 2013 By John Liming

The vote came in at 55 to 45 in favor of expanding background checks for gun sales. In most institutes of democracy, that would have been more than enough to pass commonsense legislation of this sort. Unfortunately, it would be a stretch to describe the U.S. Senate as a democratic body of government. It is not. The senate is a dysfunctional branch of government with rules that allow NRA-bought fuckers with names like McConnell, Cruz and Paul to destroy and rip to shreds the last remaining vestiges of democracy from the once hallowed chamber. And for as long as there’s a Democrat in the White House, Republicans plan on keeping it that way.

That’s my rant. It’s John Liming’s turn.

-mario

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Something happened in The United States Senate yesterday that I thought I would never live to see – A piece of legislation that was reportedly supported by at least 90 percent of The American People was thrown in the crap can by a bunch of elected officials on Capitol Hill who were reported to be more worried about their own re-election than about the best interests of the people who put them into office in the first place.

Those who desperately wanted the government to “do something” in the wake of all the senseless gun violence that had claimed so many innocent lives over the past few years got their faces slapped, their hearts broken and their confidence in their government shaken because of what I suspect to be no less than the power of a great deal of money and some powerful lobby interests – and I think that is a crying shame, totally unjust and a horrible sign of where this country might be headed if some people don’t get their heads out of their asses.

Some who dwell in the perpetual darkness of contemporary American Radical Far Right Wing Ideology are said to be virtually dancing in the streets because they reportedly think they have won some kind of victory over the will of the majority of sane and sensible Americans who had placed some hope in the people they had elected to represent their best interests and who then got their rear ends kicked good with that vote up on “The Hill” – the vote that in my opinion, sends a clear signal to every murdering gun-sucking swine out there, “It’s O.k., you can buy your weapons with total abandon now and no one will even ask questions.”

Yes, folks – the gun-tards fought hard on this one! They fought hard, they lied about the proposed legislation and they spent enough money to get enough gun owners and other assorted nuts riled up enough to scare the bejeebies out of a few of what I consider to be weak-kneed elected officials – and they got what looks to me like some kind of a victory – for the time being. It is my personal opinion they probably should hold up on their rejoicing because their glee is premature. I do not believe Americans will take this incursion into their right to live free of fear from maniacs with guns lying down. This battle is not yet over.

Do not be deceived, my friends – I never did think this fight was about Second Amendment Rights because from my understanding there was nothing in the proposed bill that would have denied any law-abiding citizen their right to own guns – as many guns as they wanted to own – this was never about that but that is what the gun-tards apparently tried to make it about and their message of legitimization of carnage somehow gained enough ears to lead to the defeat of what many who have their heads screwed on straight consider to be the most common sense legislation to appear before congress in a long long time.

The sad thing about all this to is that there are actually some over on the far right who truly believe that this invitation to disaster was actually a display of legitimate “leadership” on their part.

If those who have expressed such sentiments are alluding to some idea that their “leadership” was commendable because it opens the floodgates to future potential Sandy Hooks, Newtowns and Columbines they might be correct to some limited degree. I think that is where their so-called leadership will lead – to more victims of more senseless violence somewhere down the road – the only result that I can even imagine coming from a non-restrained proliferation and totally unregulated access to the means to end life by God only knows who.

In my view, this “victory” by the extreme right was not a victory for The Bill of Rights or The Constitution or The Second Amendment. This “victory” was a victory for insanity – pure, plain and simple and I think The American People ought to use the elections of 2014 to set the record straight on where they stand.

John Liming publishes American Liberal Times
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Filed Under: congress, Guest Author, Guns 'n Stuff Tagged With: Liming

Do Sermons Belong In The Bully Pulpit Too?

April 11, 2013 By E.A. Blair

The Cartoons of the Day post from a couple of days ago, featured two toons highlighting the insanity of Wayne LaPierre and the NRA. The terms “conservative hypocrisy” and “Bible-thumping” were brought up in the Comments sections leading one reader to write, “I’d rather have Bible-thumpers than Democrat politicians pretending they care about the middle class.”

This prompted E.A. Blair to ask our bible-thumper whether she was aware of the first major court case to take bible study out of public schools. She wasn’t so E.A. followed up with a response which I thought deserved its own post. Here it is.

-mario

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Some time ago, in the town of Edgerton, Wisconsin, it was part of the public school routine for teachers to read from the Bible to the students. There were a number of parents who did not like this practice because of the harm it might do to their children.

Where these parents Atheists? No.

Were they church-and god-and-mom-and-apple pie-hating liberals? No.

They were Catholic parents, and they feared that their children would be condemned to hell for being taught from the heretic King James Bible. Every good Catholic knew that only the Douay Bible was the guidebook to heaven, being the only translation of the original Latin bible whispered by Jesus into the ear of Saint Jerome himself. Here is what the Wisconsin Supreme Court records have to say about the parents’ petition:

They were outraged by some teachers’ practice of reading the King James version of the Bible, without comment or instruction, to pupils during school hours. As members of the Roman Catholic Church, they viewed the King James version of the Bible as an incorrect and incomplete translation. They also believed the Catholic Church was the only “infallible” interpreter of the scriptures and feared the reading of the Bible by non-authorized teachers could lead to “dangerous errors.”

Because the Edgerton school was a public school, the parents argued that the Bible readings amounted to use of state funds to support a place of worship and that the readings violated the separation of church and state.

The good Protestants on the Edgerton school board refused to accommodate the wishes of the Catholics:

Responding to the petitioners’ concerns, the school board said students were not required to remain in the school during the Bible readings, but rather were “at liberty to withdraw during such reading if they desire to do so.” They also denied that the Roman Catholic Church is the only “infallible” interpreter of the Bible, stating “that every person has the right to read the Bible and interpret it for himself.”

The board said it had the right and authority, under state law, to determine which textbooks should be used. Furthermore, it argued that the King James Bible was a valid textbook for teaching a “universal” moral code and for general instruction because the state superintendent of public instruction recommended it for use in public schools.

In other words, the Edgerton school board said that it had more authority than their own Church to decide which bible was appropriate for the papist minions of the Whore of Babylon, so the parents went to court.

These days, most godly people think that taking prayer out of schools is a fairly recent development, occurring in 1963 on the instigation of that perverted atheist Madelyn Murray O’Hair (actually, the case was brought about by Unitarian Universalist Edward Schempp; his and O’Hair’s cases were consolidated for presentation to the supreme court). This little tiff in Edgerton went to court in 1888, 75 years before Abington School District v. Schempp.

The Rock County Circuit Court ruled against the Catholic parents. The judges apparently lacked the theological prejudice bigotry acumen to know the vital difference between one version of a book and another. It was ruled that since both the Douay and King James bibles were translations of the same work, they were equivalent.

The parents appealed to a higher power; not the archbishop, but the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Two years later, in the case State ex rel Weiss v. District Board 76 Wis. 177 (1890), 3, otherwise known as the Edgerton Bible Case, the judges overruled the circuit court’s decision, concluding that it illegally united the functions of church and state. They decided that the rightful place for religious instruction was in the home or in Sunday schools, not in state-run schools where children of different cults denominations had a right to equal treatment despite their parents’ arguments over whether the Lord’s Prayer included the phrase, “for Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory” or the commandments forbade the making of graven images.¹

Chief Justice Lyon’s majority opinion addressed the board’s argument that the drafters of the state Constitution did not intend to ban reading of the Bible in public schools. Lyon recounted the period and climate in which the Constitution was drafted. He suggested that the framers were eager to see the state develop and grow; therefore, the intent of the Constitution, and Article X, Section 3 in particular², was to ensure that:

(I)n addition to the guaranties of the right of conscience and of worship in their own way, the free district school in which their children were to be, or might be, educated, were absolute common ground, where the pupils were equal, and where sectarian instruction, and with it sectarian intolerance, under which they had smarted in the old country, could never enter.

Article I, Section 18 of the Wisconsin State Constitution was also taken into consideration.³

Lyon further stated that it is “universally known” that there is a difference between the King James and the Douay (adhered to by the Roman Catholic Church) versions of the Bible in that many details representing important components of various religious sects’ canons differ. Furthermore, certain passages read at the Edgerton school suggest the divinity of Jesus Christ, predestination and eternal punishment. These ideas are not accepted by all religious sects, thereby showing Bible reading as sectarian instruction.

Justice Cassoday’s and Justice Orton’s concurring opinions⁴ considered whether the reading of the Bible in public school forced taxpayers to support a place of worship and addressed the issue of the separation of church and state. They agreed with the petitioners that the only use of state treasury funds, by law, must be entirely secular. They stated that many, if not most, religious sects view the reading of the Bible as a part and even the essence of worship; therefore, the practice in question is a violation of the Wisconsin and U.S. Constitutions.

The Supreme Court concluded that even though the State Department of Public Instruction recommended the King James Bible as a textbook, the issue was a question of law, not to be decided by the “learned chiefs” of educational policy. They ruled Bible reading in public schools illegal and issued a writ of mandamus, ordering the district board to end Bible reading in the Edgerton public school.

Thus, 123 years ago, Chief Justice William Lyon, along with justices Harlow Orton and John Cassoday opened the doors for throwing the deity out of Wisconsin’s public schools, condemning generations of schoolchildren to start down the long road to secularism and eternal damnation⁵. When Abington School District v. Schempp reached the US Supreme Court, the Edgerton Bible Case was cited as a precedent by Justice William Brennan, Jr.

</snark>However, the Edgerton Bible Case is not just about whether religious instruction in public schools where people of many different backgrounds and families are gathered for education; it is also about whether a religious model for government is possible or practical. It is also about the inevitable argument that occurs in a nation where literally thousands of sects, denominations, factions, cults and religions exist side by side. Not all of them are biblical, and of the great majority of those who are, significant numbers disagree on matters of doctrine, authority, interpretation of precepts, and, yes, which version of their holy book is the “correct” one. The same issue decided relatively peacefully in Edgerton in 1888 and Madison in 1890 had been the cause of deadly riots in Philadelphia in 1844.

Ambrose Bierce wrote that impiety could be defined as “your irreverence to my deity”; he was right. Religion is very personal, and taking it public causes problems when not everyone is on the same page. When we talk about letting the pulpit in a church run or dictate to the bully pulpit in Washington or the state capitol, we’re always faced with an unpleasant choice. Who do you want in charge? Whose doctrines should dictate national policy. Jehovah’s Witnesses? Say goodbye to blood transfusions. Christian Scientists? Ditto for all medical care. Mormons? Prohibition all over again. Scientologists? Xenu forbid! I’d rather go with the Pastafarians.

It’s long been a chestnut of US History that the Establishment Clause forbidding a national church was the product of tolerance and foresight. In the book Founding Faith: Providence, Politics and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America, author Stephen Waldman presents quite a different picture. The Congregationalists hated the Methodists, the Methodists hated the Presbyterians, the Anglicans (who became the Episcopalians to shed their royalist associations with the Church of England) hated the Baptists (who could be jailed for preaching in Virginia) and almost everyone hated the Quakers and Catholics who were lucky to have states of their own (Pennsylvania and Maryland, respectively) and Jews were not held in very high esteem, either. Waldman reports that the sentiment ran so high, that some would rather see a “Mahometan” or a “heathen” occupy public office rather than let the papists or the Puritans have the upper hand⁶.

<snark>So what’s going to happen when Reverent President Oral Creflo Robertson-Graham III decides to tell all the Catholic churches to get rid of all the statues of saints and paint over their stained glass windows? When all the storefront churches in all the cities across America are going to need licences to operate (and pastors could be imprisoned for preaching without a permit as in pre-Constitutional Virginia)? When, rather than the Mark of the Beast, all citizens will have to sport a cross? And if you think that’s silly, is it any worse than the talking points and conspiracy theories from Fux News and the wingnuts and the crazies and the teabaggers about the horrors (not) being inflicted upon us daily by that atheist-Muslim-socialist-fascist-commie-terrorist-pallin’-uppity President Barracks Hitler Hussein Obummer and his fat, ugly lunch-Nazi wife?

Maybe it’s a good thing that the various religious groups in this country hate each other more than they hate those of us who value freedom from religion as much as we value freedom of religion. If they ever decided to get together and settle their differences, it would be a dark day indeed. It’s almost, but not quite, enough to make one appreciate the existence of the Westboro Baptist Church.

-E.A. Blair
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1. The version of the commandments in Catholic bibles contains no admonition regarding the making of “graven images”. Although I grew up in the Catholic school system, I had no idea what the term meant. When I was around five or six, I though it meant carvings on tombstones, and for a while thought that going to a cemetery would get me sent to hell. That’s no sillier than some thing other people believe will get you there.

2. Wisconsin Constitution, Article X, Section 3: “The legislature shall provide by law for the establishment of district schools, which shall be as nearly uniform as practicable; and such schools shall be free and without charge for tuition to all children between the ages of 4 and 40 years; and no sectarian instruction shall be allowed therein; but the legislature by law may, for the purpose of religious instruction outside the district schools, authorize the release of students during regular school hours.”

3. Wisconsin Constitution, Article I, Section 18: “The right of every person to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of conscience shall never be infringed; nor shall any person be compelled to attend, erect or support any place of worship, or to maintain any ministry, without consent; nor shall any control of, or interference with, the rights of conscience be permitted, or any preference be given by law to any religious establishments or modes of worship; nor shall any money be drawn from the treasury for the benefit of religious societies, or religious or theological seminaries.”

4. The opinions of Justices Orasmus Cole and David Taylor are not recorded. Whether they concurred or dissented with the majority, they did not issue written opinions. At this time, Harlow Orton was the sole Democratic justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

5. Because parents are too lazy to make sure that the children receive proper religious instruction at home or at their churches? Perhaps. I am constantly amused by the fact that so many people who hate, fear and mistrust the government want to give that same government stewardship of religion.

6. If you want to find the source for this information, go to your public library and get Waldman’s book. I’m not going to reread the entire thing for the sake of one endnote.

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Filed Under: Guest Author, Religion

How Many More Must Die Before Congress Acts on Gun Control?

April 3, 2013 By John Liming

Another child becomes the victim of gun violence and John Liming laments the inability of America’s elected officials to act in a rational manner on gun control.

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When I was a child I felt pretty safe sitting in our automobile – I sat in our car by myself even when Mom went in to do her shopping sometimes – and nobody ever bothered me and no one ever shot at me with – a gun!

Now I am reading about a 4-year-old in Florida who wasn’t so lucky as I have been and it simply tears my heart out to read this stuff – but it seems like I am reading more and more of it lately and I really do not see where it all going to lead – but it looks to me like not all that many people who really could do anything to stop all this needless gun violence – violence being aimed more and more at the most vulnerable among us - it looks to me like those who are supposed to be our “leaders” are not able to do very much at all! I think it stinks! I think America ought to really get riled up about all this crap and demand that somebody in Washington do something about it!

But it looks like Hell may freeze over before anything like that happens and I think it is sad – a really sad commentary on us as a nation.

And when you have read it, maybe you might be inclined to get in touch with your elected representatives in Washington and see if they might want to get off their rear ends about the issue of gun violence in America.

Someone ought to realize that if they have the power to act in the best interests of the People and refuse to do so or fail to do so, there is plenty of room to imagine that even in some symbolic manner, they might have innocent blood on their hands until such time as they do decide to use their influence to help stop all this madness.

I hope this kind of stuff does not become so common an occurrence that we start taking it for granted.

John Liming publishes American Liberal Times
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I’m not quite sure what John meant by “kind of stuff does not become so common” but here are the numbers on gun-related shootings in the U.S.:

since the Sandy Hook school shootings on the morning of December 14 2012, an average of 22 people have been killed each and every day
more than 2200 people have been killed by firearms since Sandy Hook.
children aged 12 and under killed by firearms: 120 in 2006; 115 in 2007; 116 in 2008, 114 in 2009 and 96 in 2010. These numbers reflect homicides only and do not include gun-related accidental death of children.

On an average day in the United States:

162 Americans are wounded by firearms
30 Americans are killed by firearms
53 Americans commit suicide with a firearm

In 2011:

11,422 gun-related homicides
19,392 gun-related suicides
59,208 gun-related injuries

So what is Congress going to do about it all?

Nothing. The bastards are going to let Wayne LaPierre and the the NRA and gun lobbyists and gun manufacturers win again in this endless, fruitless battle where common sense and human life take a back seat to politics and money. If the senseless murder of twenty 6-year-olds is not enough to move these useless politicos to act on gun control, then I can’t imagine what can.

-mario

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Filed Under: Guest Author, Guns 'n Stuff Tagged With: Liming, sandy hook

Freedom To Marry

March 30, 2013 By mario piperni

Regular readers will already be aware of the thoughts and opinions of James Fidlerten. Fidlerten (as he refers to himself) has been a regular contributor in the Comments section of this blog, speaking his mind on various issues. John blogs at Fidlerten Place where he writes of himself: “I’m also gay and my passions are liberal politics and feeding hungry children.”

As the Supreme Court ponders the fate of Proposition 8, DOMA and, in effect, marriage equality, I thought it interesting to view the historic proceedings from the perspective of a gay man who has fought the battles and experienced the injustices that many of us have only read about.

We hope to make James a regular contributor to this site.

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As I listened to oral arguments from both sides for two days as the U.S. Supreme Court decided the future of gay people like me, along with the questions and comments from the justices, I looked back through the past. I remembered the battles that we had fought, from Stonewall and then through the AIDS crisis where we saw so many of our gay brothers grow terribly sick and die. It was a time when our federal government, especially its president, Ronald Reagan ignored the suffering and dying of mostly gay men and provided no federal dollars to fight the epidemic named by many as the “gay disease“.

Now these men and women of the highest court has it in their hands to go the final mile in giving me and my gay brothers and sisters the same right as everyone else; to marry the one we love, and with full benefits.

The first day of arguments, I saw the reluctance in some of their comments in taking such a big step to allow same-sex couples in California to marry. By the second day, when hearing arguments concerning the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) I saw the sun breaking through the clouds ever so slightly.

I realize that gay rights have come a long way since Stonewall but now it had come down to this, the opinion of nine men and women. As far as I know, none of them is gay and I doubt that neither of them has been through some of the experiences we LGBT members have gone through to reach this day for them to have an opportunity to weigh in on our rights as Americans and human beings. I also know some of them take a dim view of the gay community and our fight for rights.

Justice Anthony Kennedy seems to hold the power, as he is seen as the only one who may side with the liberal justices on this matter. I disagree; I think Chief Justice John Roberts may rule in favor of striking down DOMA, along with Justice Kennedy. Look at his decision to opt out of repealing ObamaCare, the Affordable Care Act back in June of last year; perhaps setting a legacy for his court was one of the main drivers of his decision back then.

This is his court and he knows eventually, same-sex marriage will be accepted in every state of the union. Either Chief Justice Roberts can let his court be remembered as the one who failed to get it the first time and see the inevitability of same-sex marriage as society grows more liberal, or a court that finally realized the equal rights of all citizens, including gay people.

As far as Justice Kennedy, I know I heard a true conviction coming from his voice when he spoke of the children of gay couples and how it affected their lives saying,

“They want their parents to have full recognition and legal status,” Said Kennedy. “The voice of those children is considerable in this case, don’t you think?”

One thing is clear, we gay people are not going to go back into the closet, but instead we are going to move forward and we will fight until we have won all the rights that are entitled to us as American citizens, no more and no less than our fellow heterosexual citizens. Our agenda is simply this; joining the rest of society in enjoying all the benefits of marriage and pursuing our dreams of a better life.

Paul Clement, the lawyer representing the U.S. House of Representatives, which is defending DOMA, said at one point, “wait a minute. Let’s take a timeout here. This is a redefinition of an age-old institution. Let’s take a more cautious approach where every sovereign gets to do this for themselves.”

Justice Sonya Sotomayor shot back to him, “So they can create a class they don’t like here, homosexuals” and treat them differently under federal law when it is state law that deals with marriage?”

Justice Elena Kagan I think put the whole law into the perspective when she asked Clement, “Do we really think that Congress was doing this for uniformity reasons, or do we think that Congress’s judgment was infected by dislike, by fear, by animus, and so forth?”

Clement responded that Congress had gotten involved over marriage before to prohibit polygamy in the states.

Kagan then asked him, “Well, is [that] what happened in 1996?” She then quoted from the House Report written at the time of the law’s enactment, “Congress decided to reflect and honor a collective moral judgment and to express moral disapproval of homosexuality?”

It is clear from the proceedings that DOMA does not have a leg to stand on, as far as I am concerned, let us hope the justices see it that way also. Otherwise, the battle will go on and eventually, perhaps through a new Congress that realizes the importance of ending a law that was meant to discriminate from the very beginning, and against one group of people; LGBT members.

Perhaps this court will choose to take a pass on any broad definition and refer to only California and the other states that have already legalized gay marriage, I hope not. DOMA should fall I would think, which will finally lead to many more states legalizing gay marriage. Same-sex marriages I would think are here to stay.