It is a privilege to live in an area where all kinds of people are welcome and respected. I didn't realize how lucky we are here in the PNW until the first trump regime. I have never seen a red hat, any of the merch, or any of those stupid bumper stickers. MAGA may have sympathizers here, but they're hidden. I don't have an answer for people who live in red states. I wouldn't be able to tolerate it.
I help to run a bridge brigade in MN and have been trying to decide on tomorrow's message. After reading this, I'm sold on DIVERSITY = STRENGTH. We don't have many MAGA types here, but I hope the ones who pass by our message are forced to think a little before giving us the finger.
Pamela, you and I are on the same page. In response to Jennifer Rubin's post on Substack yesterday about the upcoming midterms, I ended it this way: "Our diversity is our strength."
The holier-than-thou Bible thumper Little Mikie Johnson should remember part of the lyrics to the song about Jesus' love for all the children I was taught in Sunday School a long, long time ago when I was a kid: "red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight."
Although I moved on from the religious teachings of my early years quite some time ago, the message of inclusion communicated in that little song has stayed with me and is more relevant than ever now.
Decades ago, I lived in a quiet cul de sac where a neighbor and his family had fled Iran. You know what they had the audacity to do? Play soccer in the street with their young children in the early evening. Crazy Muslims? They belonged to a Universalist Church. Kind people. Their English was better than most Americans. And the list could go on and on. Bigotry is alive and well in America.
I’m a lifelong Star Trek fan. In the original series episode Balance of Terror, Captain Kirk reprimands lieutenant Stiles when he questions Spock’s loyalty because he looks somewhat like a Romulan. Kirk: "Leave any bigotry in your quarters. There's no room for it on the bridge." Good times.
Apparently a majority of white Americans have convinced themselves, by way of constant propaganda, that they are members of a persecuted class. Funny how they don't understand that they are indeed members of a downtrodden class who have been victims of the wealth inequality that has run rampant since Reagan. It has made me, a white man, afraid of the overwhelmingly white oligarchs who rule our country. All of us in the bottom 90% are being sold out by both parties playing games.
I’m looking forward to a time when bigotry is gone. But, I will settle for fewer bigoted elected representatives, acceptance of DEI again, and celebrations of holidays with respect for many ways to say, “Welcome, neighbor.”
A message from the Bible to Tommy Tubby: Deuteronomy 20:16-17
16 However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. 17 Completely destroy[a] them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you.
There's an entire wikipedia page on "Genocide in the [Old Testament of the] Bible." Who gets not left alive? The people who don't follow YHWH *and their animals*.
We all know TT can't read much less read the Bible but ffs.
Such rhetoric and implications against any person because of their mere association with people with general opinions regarding religion is obviously un-American and anti-constitutional. The people who wrote and ratified the original Constitution emphasized this principle by including multiple commandments in Article VI.
First, “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” If we were meant to be governed according to the opinions of some people about the wishes of a supreme being, a religious test would make perfect sense.
Second, all legislators and “all executive and judicial Officers” of “the United States and of [all] States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution” (not any God).
Third, “[t]his Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land” (not any purported commandment from any purported God).
Fourth, all “Judges in every State shall be bound” by “the supreme Law of the Land” despite “any Thing” written anywhere else “to the Contrary.”
Moreover, nearly everything in the First Amendment pertains to freedom of religion, as well as freedom from religion. Everything explicitly or implicitly in that amendment (the freedom of thought, expression, communication, association and assembly) pertains directly to religion except the right to petition the government.
Multiple leading supporters of our Constitution explained why our Constitution outlawed our public servants (and discouraged the public) discriminating based on mere religious opinions.
James Iredell (a leading Federalist and judge in North Carolina, and later a SCOTUS justice who issued an opinion emphasizing the sovereignty of the people) was one of the many who addressed Americans’ liberty regarding any so-called religion. He delivered a speech at the North Carolina ratifying convention defending the protection for freedom of conscience in Article VI:
"I consider the [Religious Test] clause under consideration as one of the strongest proofs that could be adduced, that it was the intention of [the Framers of our Constitution], to establish a general religious liberty in America. . . . [But some people have] objected, that [the Religious Test Clause permits] the people of America [to choose] Representatives who have no religion at all, and that Pagans and Mahometans may be admitted into [federal] offices. But how is it possible to exclude any set of men, without taking away that principle of religious freedom which we ourselves so warmly [passionately] contend for? This is the foundation on which persecution has been raised in every part of the world. The people in power were always in the right, and every body else wrong. If you admit the least difference, the door to persecution is opened."
Iredell also emphasized the self-evident truths that "[i]t would be happy for mankind if religion was permitted to take its own course, and maintain itself by the excellence of its own doctrines. The divine author of our religion never wished for its support by worldly authority."
Iredell repeatedly emphasized that the Religious Test Clause “is calculated to secure universal religious liberty” to serve a purpose that is profoundly important to our Constitution and even, specifically, to national security. Iredell repeatedly emphasized that religious liberty is “the only way to prevent persecution,” and Iredell emphasized how that particular problem threatens national security (the very survival of our nation and our Constitution):
"Every person in the least conversant in the history of mankind, knows what dreadful mischiefs have been committed by religious persecutions. . . . Those in power have generally considered all wisdom centered in themselves, that they alone had a right to dictate to the rest of mankind, and that all opposition to their tenets was profane and impious. The consequence of this intolerant spirit has been, that each church has in turn set itself up against every other, and persecutions and wars of the most implacable and bloody nature have taken place in every part of the world. America has set an example to mankind to think more modestly and reasonably; that a man may be of different religious sentiments from our own, without being a bad member of society."
Oliver Ellsworth (another leading Federalist who helped create the Constitution and who served as the third Chief Justice of SCOTUS) expressed similar thoughts in his published writing in A Landholder VII in 1787:
"The business of civil government is to protect the citizen in his rights, to defend the community from hostile powers, and to promote the general welfare. Civil government has no business to meddle with the private opinions of the people. If I demean myself as a good citizen, I am accountable, not to man, but to God, for the religious opinions which I embrace, and the manner in which I worship the supreme being. If such had been the universal sentiments of mankind, and they had acted accordingly, persecution, the bane of truth and nurse of error, with her bloody axe and flaming hand, would never have turned so great a part of the world into a field of blood."
Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, who were writing primarily to the people of New York, did not feel the need to address in The Federalist Papers such issues as directly as Iredell and Ellsworth did. Even so, they addressed related issues.
Hamilton emphasized in The Federalist No. 1, “in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.” He also highlighted that, too often, in politics and religion “passions and prejudices” have proved to be “little favorable to the discovery of truth.” Too often, a “torrent of angry and malignant passions will be let loose.” Too often, political or religious factions seek “to increase the number of their converts by the loudness of their declamations and the bitterness of their invectives.”
Madison in The Federalist No. 10 addressed related issues. His thoughts coincide precisely with the phenomenon we see today in the SCOTUS majority’s conduct in multiple decisions:
"a faction [means] a number of citizens . . . who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community."
"The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, [pertaining to] speculation [or] practice [about what to think or do]; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts."
Madison writing to Thomas Jefferson in October 1787 more directly revealed his fears about persecution and oppression based on religion: “When Indeed Religion is kindled into enthusiasm, its force like that of other passions is increased by the sympathy of a multitude,” and “it has been much oftener a motive to oppression than a restraint from it.” “If the same sect form a majority and have the power, other sects will be sure to be depressed.” Madison clearly meant something like “the more powerful, the meaner.” So “[t]he same security seems requisite for the civil as for the religious rights of individuals.” “The great desideratum in Government is” to ensure that it is “sufficiently neutral between different parts of the Society to controul one part from invading the rights of another, and at the same time sufficiently controuled itself, from setting up an interest adverse to that of the entire Society.”
Discussion such as the foregoing pertained to the original Constitution in 1787-1789. So such discussions necessarily were a crucial part of the background for and understanding of the First Amendment re: religion (which was written and published in 1789 and submitted for ratification from 1789 to 1791). The primary point of the First Amendment re: religion never was merely preventing any "law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The primary purposes of our entire Constitution always were (as the Preamble emphasized from the very start) promoting "a more perfect Union, establish[ing] Justice, insur[ing] domestic Tranquility, provid[ing] for the common defence, promot[ing] the general Welfare, and secur[ing] the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." The people who wrote and ratified our original Constitution and our Bill of Rights understood that we cannot accomplish any of the purposes of our Constitution if we're fighting each other or persecuting each other over different opinions about so-called religion or some so-called god.
It is a privilege to live in an area where all kinds of people are welcome and respected. I didn't realize how lucky we are here in the PNW until the first trump regime. I have never seen a red hat, any of the merch, or any of those stupid bumper stickers. MAGA may have sympathizers here, but they're hidden. I don't have an answer for people who live in red states. I wouldn't be able to tolerate it.
I take it that you live west of the Cascades.
Hannah you are very lucky. What state do you live in?
I help to run a bridge brigade in MN and have been trying to decide on tomorrow's message. After reading this, I'm sold on DIVERSITY = STRENGTH. We don't have many MAGA types here, but I hope the ones who pass by our message are forced to think a little before giving us the finger.
Pamela, you and I are on the same page. In response to Jennifer Rubin's post on Substack yesterday about the upcoming midterms, I ended it this way: "Our diversity is our strength."
The holier-than-thou Bible thumper Little Mikie Johnson should remember part of the lyrics to the song about Jesus' love for all the children I was taught in Sunday School a long, long time ago when I was a kid: "red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight."
Although I moved on from the religious teachings of my early years quite some time ago, the message of inclusion communicated in that little song has stayed with me and is more relevant than ever now.
Yes, DIVERSITY = STRENGTH.
Decades ago, I lived in a quiet cul de sac where a neighbor and his family had fled Iran. You know what they had the audacity to do? Play soccer in the street with their young children in the early evening. Crazy Muslims? They belonged to a Universalist Church. Kind people. Their English was better than most Americans. And the list could go on and on. Bigotry is alive and well in America.
I’m a lifelong Star Trek fan. In the original series episode Balance of Terror, Captain Kirk reprimands lieutenant Stiles when he questions Spock’s loyalty because he looks somewhat like a Romulan. Kirk: "Leave any bigotry in your quarters. There's no room for it on the bridge." Good times.
Apparently a majority of white Americans have convinced themselves, by way of constant propaganda, that they are members of a persecuted class. Funny how they don't understand that they are indeed members of a downtrodden class who have been victims of the wealth inequality that has run rampant since Reagan. It has made me, a white man, afraid of the overwhelmingly white oligarchs who rule our country. All of us in the bottom 90% are being sold out by both parties playing games.
I’m looking forward to a time when bigotry is gone. But, I will settle for fewer bigoted elected representatives, acceptance of DEI again, and celebrations of holidays with respect for many ways to say, “Welcome, neighbor.”
A message from the Bible to Tommy Tubby: Deuteronomy 20:16-17
16 However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. 17 Completely destroy[a] them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you.
There's an entire wikipedia page on "Genocide in the [Old Testament of the] Bible." Who gets not left alive? The people who don't follow YHWH *and their animals*.
We all know TT can't read much less read the Bible but ffs.
Such rhetoric and implications against any person because of their mere association with people with general opinions regarding religion is obviously un-American and anti-constitutional. The people who wrote and ratified the original Constitution emphasized this principle by including multiple commandments in Article VI.
First, “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” If we were meant to be governed according to the opinions of some people about the wishes of a supreme being, a religious test would make perfect sense.
Second, all legislators and “all executive and judicial Officers” of “the United States and of [all] States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution” (not any God).
Third, “[t]his Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land” (not any purported commandment from any purported God).
Fourth, all “Judges in every State shall be bound” by “the supreme Law of the Land” despite “any Thing” written anywhere else “to the Contrary.”
Moreover, nearly everything in the First Amendment pertains to freedom of religion, as well as freedom from religion. Everything explicitly or implicitly in that amendment (the freedom of thought, expression, communication, association and assembly) pertains directly to religion except the right to petition the government.
Multiple leading supporters of our Constitution explained why our Constitution outlawed our public servants (and discouraged the public) discriminating based on mere religious opinions.
James Iredell (a leading Federalist and judge in North Carolina, and later a SCOTUS justice who issued an opinion emphasizing the sovereignty of the people) was one of the many who addressed Americans’ liberty regarding any so-called religion. He delivered a speech at the North Carolina ratifying convention defending the protection for freedom of conscience in Article VI:
"I consider the [Religious Test] clause under consideration as one of the strongest proofs that could be adduced, that it was the intention of [the Framers of our Constitution], to establish a general religious liberty in America. . . . [But some people have] objected, that [the Religious Test Clause permits] the people of America [to choose] Representatives who have no religion at all, and that Pagans and Mahometans may be admitted into [federal] offices. But how is it possible to exclude any set of men, without taking away that principle of religious freedom which we ourselves so warmly [passionately] contend for? This is the foundation on which persecution has been raised in every part of the world. The people in power were always in the right, and every body else wrong. If you admit the least difference, the door to persecution is opened."
Iredell also emphasized the self-evident truths that "[i]t would be happy for mankind if religion was permitted to take its own course, and maintain itself by the excellence of its own doctrines. The divine author of our religion never wished for its support by worldly authority."
Iredell repeatedly emphasized that the Religious Test Clause “is calculated to secure universal religious liberty” to serve a purpose that is profoundly important to our Constitution and even, specifically, to national security. Iredell repeatedly emphasized that religious liberty is “the only way to prevent persecution,” and Iredell emphasized how that particular problem threatens national security (the very survival of our nation and our Constitution):
"Every person in the least conversant in the history of mankind, knows what dreadful mischiefs have been committed by religious persecutions. . . . Those in power have generally considered all wisdom centered in themselves, that they alone had a right to dictate to the rest of mankind, and that all opposition to their tenets was profane and impious. The consequence of this intolerant spirit has been, that each church has in turn set itself up against every other, and persecutions and wars of the most implacable and bloody nature have taken place in every part of the world. America has set an example to mankind to think more modestly and reasonably; that a man may be of different religious sentiments from our own, without being a bad member of society."
Oliver Ellsworth (another leading Federalist who helped create the Constitution and who served as the third Chief Justice of SCOTUS) expressed similar thoughts in his published writing in A Landholder VII in 1787:
"The business of civil government is to protect the citizen in his rights, to defend the community from hostile powers, and to promote the general welfare. Civil government has no business to meddle with the private opinions of the people. If I demean myself as a good citizen, I am accountable, not to man, but to God, for the religious opinions which I embrace, and the manner in which I worship the supreme being. If such had been the universal sentiments of mankind, and they had acted accordingly, persecution, the bane of truth and nurse of error, with her bloody axe and flaming hand, would never have turned so great a part of the world into a field of blood."
Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, who were writing primarily to the people of New York, did not feel the need to address in The Federalist Papers such issues as directly as Iredell and Ellsworth did. Even so, they addressed related issues.
Hamilton emphasized in The Federalist No. 1, “in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.” He also highlighted that, too often, in politics and religion “passions and prejudices” have proved to be “little favorable to the discovery of truth.” Too often, a “torrent of angry and malignant passions will be let loose.” Too often, political or religious factions seek “to increase the number of their converts by the loudness of their declamations and the bitterness of their invectives.”
Madison in The Federalist No. 10 addressed related issues. His thoughts coincide precisely with the phenomenon we see today in the SCOTUS majority’s conduct in multiple decisions:
"a faction [means] a number of citizens . . . who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community."
"The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, [pertaining to] speculation [or] practice [about what to think or do]; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts."
Madison writing to Thomas Jefferson in October 1787 more directly revealed his fears about persecution and oppression based on religion: “When Indeed Religion is kindled into enthusiasm, its force like that of other passions is increased by the sympathy of a multitude,” and “it has been much oftener a motive to oppression than a restraint from it.” “If the same sect form a majority and have the power, other sects will be sure to be depressed.” Madison clearly meant something like “the more powerful, the meaner.” So “[t]he same security seems requisite for the civil as for the religious rights of individuals.” “The great desideratum in Government is” to ensure that it is “sufficiently neutral between different parts of the Society to controul one part from invading the rights of another, and at the same time sufficiently controuled itself, from setting up an interest adverse to that of the entire Society.”
Discussion such as the foregoing pertained to the original Constitution in 1787-1789. So such discussions necessarily were a crucial part of the background for and understanding of the First Amendment re: religion (which was written and published in 1789 and submitted for ratification from 1789 to 1791). The primary point of the First Amendment re: religion never was merely preventing any "law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The primary purposes of our entire Constitution always were (as the Preamble emphasized from the very start) promoting "a more perfect Union, establish[ing] Justice, insur[ing] domestic Tranquility, provid[ing] for the common defence, promot[ing] the general Welfare, and secur[ing] the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." The people who wrote and ratified our original Constitution and our Bill of Rights understood that we cannot accomplish any of the purposes of our Constitution if we're fighting each other or persecuting each other over different opinions about so-called religion or some so-called god.