Understanding Americas Decay -- the First Amendment Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Of course thats the First Amendment. Just to show how conservative wisdom can be, I assert that goofy interpretations of the First are destroying our nation. Conservatives cant even get the First Amendment right, muchless run a country in 2014. Citizens United, and corporate personhood is a perfect example of screwing up the speech part, and there are plenty of other ways to screw up the First. Lets look chronologically, and that addresses religion. By an establishment of religion did the Founders mean the act of establishing religion as a discipline? Or do they use the term, an establishment to refer to an institution? The entire meaning of the Establishment Clause turns on that question. Is it possible the Founders knew enough about language to write in such a way they meant both? Did they intend to keep law-making bodies out of religion, period? And show us how they meant it by refusing to refer to even the larger category of popular Christianity in any other document? And the only time they referred to God it was rare and then just to a God of Nature, just to keep the greedy from claiming credit? Or, as many religionists assert, did they only refer to a law respecting the creation of a specific religion? If so, why did they prohibit an establishment of religion, instead of saying they prohibited sponsorship of a particular religion? My literal read is that they used the terms they did to prohibit all of the above. That includes prohibiting the law-makers respect of institutions of religion, and yet insisting the religious part not be outlawed. It includes prohibitions of law respecting the lore and nature of religion, the establishment of any particular religion, the establishment of religion as a factor of government, and the subsidy of any subdivision of government, dependent on Congress, doing any of the above. THAT is how it is written. THAT is why SCOTUS decisions have prohibited even local government dependent on Congress from violating the edict. THAT is why they even include the public schools. Of course, that is not how it is applied, when it comes to money. Churches want special treatment, so they are offered a mostly tax-free status. That is so far from not respecting them as to be laughable. So they become businesses, and enjoy the subsidy Congress granted them and swell and proliferate by having the rest of society pay taxes so they dont have to. They might easily attain a tax-free status by being purely institutions of charity, but they are offered a special class of business status, instead. The effect is to subsidize their evangelical efforts to sell a worldview -- EXACTLY what the Founders seemed to want to avoid. This extremely simple and basic sabotage of the Establishment Clause is the perfect example of how wrong -- and hopelessly myopic -- conservatism has become. It cant even read the very First Amendment, and be trusted to follow instructions.
Posted on: Fri, 04 Apr 2014 11:24:22 +0000
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