Thursday, July 20, 2006

The tortured "logic" of the House GOP

Via Yahoo

"Granting jurisdiction is the constitutional job of this body," argued House Republican Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri. The pledge "is an important civic ritual; it binds us together as Americans," he said. Judges should not be able to rewrite the pledge."
The pledge which says that America is one nation of believers in the Judeo-Christian god is an important civic ritual that should be conducted in public schools so that students will bind together as Americans by excluding persons who don't believe in the Judeo-Christian god from being a part of the nation which has liberty and justice for all who believe in the Judeo-Christian god.

Judges should not be able to review whether or not an act of Congress (like amending the Pledge of allegiance in 1954 after the lobby of the Christian Knights of Columbus to include "under god") is Constitutional (when a Republican majority Congress passes or approves of the act, that is.)

Nevermind that judges aren't attempting to rewrite the Pledge (as Congress did as a charm to ward off Communism.)

Rep Todd Aiken, who sponsored the bill to prevent parents from challenging the legality of inculcating their chidren to believe they have to believe in the Judeo-Christian god to be patriots guaranteed liberty and justice, explained further

The bill's sponsor, Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., said America was a nation of God-given inalienable rights and that's why the country is in a war against "radical Islamists." Democrats wouldn't want to "cut and run" in Iraq, he said, "if they understood the importance of those basic principles and that inalienable rights are impossible without a recognition of God and that's why the pledge bill is important and not irrelevant or trivial."
According to Rep. Akin, you have the constitutional right to freedom of religion, which means you have the freedom to have no religion, but unless you believe that the Judeo-Christian god gave you the right to have no religion, then you have no right to have no religion, so to have the right to have no religion, you have to have religion, or else the Democrats will make us lose the inalienable right to not believe in the Judeo-Christian god if you believe in the Judeo-Christian god, because the Democrats do not understand that we are at war with "radical Islamists," which we somehow have despite there being no declaration of war with "radical Islamists", because the Judeo-Christian god gave us the inalienable right to not believe in him if we believe in him. By withdrawing troops from the country we invaded, which did not have operational ties to al Qaeda and did not host al Qaeda, but now hosts al Qaeda terrorists because we invaded it, Democrats will cause the Judeo-Christian god to revoke the inalienable right to inalienable rights if you believe in him.

The House GOP says that this bill, which is designed to prevent parents from challenging the legality of the State teaching their children that non-believers in the Judeo-Christian god are not part of the American nation but would effectively give state courts sovereignity from federal courts (at least on this specific issue,) is necessary to "defend America's founding principles." Apparently, the freedom of religion is not a founding principle of the nation; and the House GOP seems to think our government is still based upon the Articles of Confederation and not the Constitution.

1 comment:

William Timberman said...

HG, the only serious flaw in representative democracy is its vulnerability to stupidity and fear. That alone is not enough to make me a Platonist, but I must admit that in times like these, I do sometimes get a glimpse of what folks like Hobbes were on about.

So far, my personal timing's been pretty good -- born in 1943, so I escaped the Depression and WWII, was young in the Eisenhower-Johnson administrations, etc. (There was that little spot of bother about Vietnam, but still....)

On the other hand, I'd really like to avoid going to my grave -- like Neruda -- with the triumphalist howling of these hyenas echoing around the cortege.