Teabaggers: Still all racist, still all stupid.

[theweaselking]

Teabagger Candidate to law school: "The First Amendment doesn't say anything about religion!"

This, of course, is the same Teabagger whose recent election pamphlets read "We can't afford to send COONS to Washington!"

Comments

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

This is also the same teabagger who is or is not a witch.

[rimrunner.livejournal.com]

You know, that's the sort of thing most of us are pretty certain about...

[swwoodsy.livejournal.com]

I love Granny!

O'Donnell is a complete nimrod and cannot think her way out of a wet paper bag. She is only getting any air time because she is a hot mess.

[cuddlycthulhu.livejournal.com]

To be fair, that's her opponents last name.

It still doesn't make it ironically face-palm worthy considering the current sitting president.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

It's not "ironic", it's "dog-whistling".

There's a difference.

[eididdy.livejournal.com]

She could have said "We can't afford to send Chris Coons to Washington", but didn't. So yeah, I'm going with dog whistling too.

[cuddlycthulhu.livejournal.com]

In the absence of any other racist bullshit from her, I'm preferring to attribute this to stupidity, rather than malice.

[anivair.livejournal.com]

Nothing that comes out of her mouth surprises me anymore. But it does all simultaneously horrify and amuse me.

[iblis-kukl.livejournal.com]

[eatsoylentgreen.livejournal.com]

did she really say that?!?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

FTFA:

"Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?" O'Donnell asked him.

When Coons responded that the First Amendment bars Congress from making laws respecting the establishment of religion, O'Donnell asked: "You're telling me that's in the First Amendment?"

[eatsoylentgreen.livejournal.com]

oh I means about sending Coons to DC. But that's the guys name.

[skiriki.livejournal.com]

Annnnnnd just as I thought that the Tea Bags can't get even more stupid, they exceed all expectations. Hey Tea Baggers, it is not supposed to be a contest!

[harald387.livejournal.com]

Why is this woman still getting media coverage?

Point the camera at someone important or newsworthy instead.

[iblis-kukl.livejournal.com]

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

There are 100 Senators in the US, and every two years 66 people have a chance of becoming one, and 33 of them *will* become one.

Catch is, not all of those 66 people really have a chance of winning. O'Donnell and Angle *do*. They're behind, but despite being demonstrably batshit, this is the USA and demonstrably batshit gets points for "honesty" and "sincerity"

I'm going to get flamed for this, but I don't care

[drow-dave.livejournal.com]

Being a conservative, I feel the need to say something. The concept of the seperation of church and state is in the establishment clause of the Constitution. All it really says is that the federal government can't establish any one religion as the official religion of the U.S. (that is to say, to create a theocracy). However, most people seem to think that seperation of church and state means that religion has no place in politics or political beliefs. This is untrue. Look at the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed BY THEIR CREATOR(note the God reference) with certain unalienable rights..." Apparently, the Founders did, in fact, believe that God was a part of their politics, considering most of the colonists fled England to escape religious persecution. The idea that religion be divorced from politics comes from a Supreme Court ruling handed down back in 1947 by one Justice Hugo Black (himself a former member of and lawyer for the Ku Klux Klan). He was the first to coin the phrase "Seperation of Church and State" because he distrusted the tax-exempt status of the Catholic Church because he thought they had influenced the government into giving them that status (the KKK didn't just hate black people after all. Being mostly Protestant, they distrusted the Catholics as well). This laid the foundation for the growth of secularism we see today where the 10 Commandments aren't allowed in a courthouse, nor are any references to Christmas allowed in our schools (though for some reason it's OK to talk about Hanukkah or Kwanzaa, but God forbid anybody say Merry Christmas anymore). What you call Seperation of Church and State is completely different from what the Constitution says which is that the federal government cannot create a theocracy of a single state religion. However, thanks to the efforts of one activist judge, the Constitution's words can be completely ignored and replaced by whatever liberal agenda the courts seem to have at the time and it simply becomes accepted precedent because the people hear the lie enough times for it to become the truth. OK, feel free to verbally eviscerate me at your leisure.

Drow Dave

Re: I'm going to get flamed for this, but I don't care

[catlin.livejournal.com]

My creater is the FSM. I want his faith tought in my child's school. I don't Care that his creation myth is totally different from yours! HIS is right, and you have no right to teach my pasta spawn otherwise.

Change all that for real religion of your choice... and no, I don't want religion in school... Not until we can safely and honorably have -every- religion honored in school.

(and no, our school does not mention hanukkah, or kwanzaa... but they are off school from dec. 23 through new years)

Re: I'm going to get flamed for this, but I don't care

[mejoff.livejournal.com]

"nor are any references to Christmas allowed in our schools"

We get a lot of bullshit about this in the UK too. I would bet real money that there is absolutely nothing prohibiting mention of Christmas in US schools (there certainly isn't in UK schools, and yet we still get the stories every year), or even teaching directly about it, but some snivelling shit found out that it was not being given sufficient priority over all the other festivals in a local school and a tabloid spectacular occurred.

For reference, some recent examples of tabloid spectaculars.
http://tabloid-watch.blogspot.com/2010/10/banned.html

Re: I'm going to get flamed for this, but I don't care

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

You're not going to get "flamed", you're going to get told you're wrong, because you're wrong.

All it really says is that the federal government can't establish any one religion as the official religion of the U.S. (that is to say, to create a theocracy).

No, that is NOT to say "to create a theocracy". Congress shall pass no law respecting the *establishment of religion* or preventing yadda yadda yadda - Congress is specifically prohibited from legislating religion, for or against. (and the 14th Amendment means that it's not just Congress who's prohibited from "establishing" any religion)

However, most people seem to think that seperation of church and state means that religion has no place in politics or political beliefs.

Nobody says that, actually. You're welcoming to have your political beliefs be stupid because you're bad at thinking, if you want to - what you don't get to do is *enforce* your failures in basic thinking on other people, and you can't have the government treat your religious beliefs differently than anyone else's.

Apparently, the Founders did, in fact, believe that God was a part of their politics, considering most of the colonists fled England to escape religious persecution.

Quibble - most of the colonists fled so that they *could persecute freely*. They weren't trying to STOP persecution, they were trying to find a place where they could DO the persecution themselves rather than be stuck sucking it up.

But the various religions of the founders are not relevant, for several reasons.
First: Because they realised that their various religious beliefs were not as important as ensuring that everyone GOT to have various religious beliefs, which is why they wrote in protection for ALL religions, not just their own.
Second: Because they weren't infallible. The fact that they did something that was fairly advanced for two centuries ago doesn't change that it had flaws, and mistakes, and two centuries later it's a creaking, doddering monstrosity of kludges and patches and backports from later, more modern, better systems.

he idea that religion be divorced from politics comes from a Supreme Court ruling handed down back in 1947 by one Justice Hugo Black [...] e was the first to coin the phrase "Seperation of Church and State"

And now you're making stuff up wholesale.

Try "Thomas Jefferson". The phrase is JEFFERSON'S. The concept isn't - it predates Jefferson by centuries.

This laid the foundation for the growth of secularism we see today where the 10 Commandments aren't allowed in a courthouse, nor are any references to Christmas allowed in our schools (though for some reason it's OK to talk about Hanukkah or Kwanzaa, but God forbid anybody say Merry Christmas anymore).

Once again, you misunderstand the sequence of events, completely.

The First Amendment prohibits Congress from establishing any religion as more valid or more important or more worthy than any other, and from requiring nonparticipants in a religion to obey the tenets of a religion not their own.

The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits all other forms of government from doing anything that Congress is prohibited from doing.

The presence of a Christian relic in a courtroom is a violation of this - it presents Christianity as being more valid or more important than other religions. The fact that this was DONE for a long time without interference doesn't mean it wasn't wrong, just like the 13th Amendment established that black people were people and yet for the next century half the country ignored it.

About Christmas: Yes, in fact, having an instrument of government celebrate a religion's religious holiday is, in fact, unconstitutional. And you're dead wrong about "celebrating" Hannukah or Kwanzaa being okay, despite Kwanzaa being nonreligious (and thus nonprohibited) and Hannukah being both cultural AND religious.

(There's more!)

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

What you call Seperation of Church and State is completely different from what the Constitution says which is that the federal government cannot create a theocracy of a single state religion.

And as I said, you're not only wrong, you're so wrong that it's hard to imagine you've ever *looked* at this, rather than just listening to someone else reciting the deliberately-ignorant utterly antifactual "talking points" you've repeated here.

OK, feel free to verbally eviscerate me at your leisure.

I like the fact that you seem to *know* you're wrong. The question is, do you know this because you've been told all of these things before, and chosen to ignore the facts in favour of a persecution fantasy that feels more sincere to you? Or do you *really* think that the words in the First Amendment only mean "no theocracy" but that otherwise legally mandating observance of a religion or religion is totally okay?

Re: I'm going to get flamed for this, but I don't care

[swwoodsy.livejournal.com]

I am a fiscal conservative, a social liberal, and a complete pagan, all of which kinda puts me in a libertarian grouping -- I don't care what two or more consenting adults do as long as nobody is getting maimed and they're not creating anarchy, but don't expect me to subsidize it, either. Government has a place and a job to do, and really, it should be kept busy enough to stay out of my business just fixing the damn roads.

True, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence and other documents that create the framework of the USA reference a Creator, but they specifically do not reference any one particular god or religion, much less the Christian one. Some of the founders were not Christian per se -- Thomas Jefferson is regarded to be more Deist or Unitarian in his beliefs. The _promotion_ and _support_ of one religion over another, or the establishment of XXX-belief system as the only accepted one by the state/government is what the founders were preventing. I do think it is reaching its illogical extreme now, though, in schools and courthouses. The religious persecution the colonists fled was the exact same thing the Tea Baggers and Republicans would love to see -- one religion (theirs) as the only accepted and acceptable one.

Which is complete and utter bullshit.

And churches should not be tax-free organizations. And ones who proselytize should have to pay double. If they do mission work? -- quadruple. Believe what you want, but do not try to force your beliefs on me. Religion, not belief, is the bane of mankind.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

Smooth jazz Enter Sandman with original vocals. And Crazy Train. And others.

[http://users.livejournal.com/__leka/]

Not that I'm doubting you or anything, but do you have a source on the Coons pamphlet? I couldn't find anything about it on The Google.

[eididdy.livejournal.com]

I got it in the mail and told him about it.