Church and State

Since November 2nd, there has been a noticable upsurge in concern with regards to issues of separation of Church and State. Especially since the White House has taken a definite turn towards the religious right.

_A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom_



SECTION I. Well aware that the opinions and belief of men

depend not on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence

proposed to their minds; that Almighty God hath created the mind

free, and manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by

making it altogether insusceptible of restraint; that all attempts to

influence it by temporal punishments, or burthens, or by civil

incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness,

and are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion,

who being lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it

by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do, but to

extend it by its influence on reason alone; that the impious

presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as

ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired

men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their

own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible,

and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established

and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world

and through all time: That to compel a man to furnish contributions

of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and

abhors, is sinful and tyrannical; that even the forcing him to

support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is

depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions

to the particular pastor whose morals he would make his pattern, and

whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness; and is

withdrawing from the ministry those temporary rewards, which

proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct, are an

additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labours for the

instruction of mankind; that our civil rights have no dependance on

our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or

geometry; that therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the

public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to

offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or

that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those

privileges and advantages to which, in common with his fellow

citizens, he has a natural right; that it tends also to corrupt the

principles of that very religion it is meant to encourage, by

bribing, with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments, those who

will externally profess and conform to it; that though indeed these

are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are

those innocent who lay the bait in their way; that the opinions of

men are not the object of civil government, nor under its

jurisdiction; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his

powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or

propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a

dangerous falacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty,

because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his

opinions the rule of judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments

of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own; that

it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government for

its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts

against peace and good order; and finally, that truth is great and

will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and

sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the

conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural

weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous

when it is permitted freely to contradict them.



SECT. II. WE the General Assembly of Virginia do enact that no

man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship,

place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained,

molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise

suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all

men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their

opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise

diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.



SECT. III. AND though we well know that this Assembly, elected

by the people for the ordinary purposes of legislation only, have no

power to restrain the acts of succeeding Assemblies, constituted with

powers equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this act

irrevocable would be of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare,

and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural

rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to

repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an

infringement of natural right.

(emphasis mine)


This statute, penned by Thomas Jefferson in 1779, is a clear indication of his feeling towards the relationship between church and state. They were, indeed, to kept apart. By providing a religion with the priviledge inherent in government recognition of it, that religion can and does become corrupt. History has shown us this repeatedly.

This does not mean, however, that our elected officials must check their faith at the door. If they are truly devoted to the teachings of their religion, and strive to live by those beliefs in accordance with their conscience, then those beliefs will show in their every action. If it is otherwise, that they simply don the mantle of religion for mere political expediency, then too will their hypocrisy be revealed in their every action.

Star Wars...? Hell, it can't even get off the ground!

For a system meant to be operational by the end of the year, Dubbyuh's fantasy missile defense system ain't workin' too well. The test before this was was cancelled because it was 'overcast' in Alaska. It seems to me that if you're gonna shoot down nukes you oughtta be able to do it any time. After all, someone launching ballistic missiles at us isn't going to cancel their plans due to bad weather.

This time the interceptor couldn't even get off the ground. The system shut down because of an "unknowm anomaly". I know I'm feeling more secure now that we have a recalcitrant and essentially useless missile defense system in place. I'm sure that's going to protect us from some nut-case slipping a nuke into the US in an uninspected cargo-container, or infecting themselves with smallpox and wandering the streets of Anytown, USA and starting a major epidemic.

It seems to me that the $10 billion, yes that's BILLION, a year being poured down this rat-hole could be better used funding our first responders here in the States and purchasing body-armor for our troops caught up in Dubbyuh's dirty little war in Iraq.

Dubbyuh Continues to Reward Failure

Why does Dubbyuh persist in rewarding failure? First he promotes Condi-mima to Secretary of State after her unimpressive and utterly unconvincing testimony before the 9/11 Commission. Next, he keeps Donald Rumsfeld on as Secretary of Defense, even though his miscalculations, underestimations and disregard for the opinions of battle-tested generals have led us to a quagmire in Iraq. Now he awards George Tenet and J. Paul Bremer with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

George "Fall-On-Your-Sword" Tenet, stated that the evicence for Saddam's WMD's was a "slam dunk". But, SURPRISE!, they were nowhere to be found. And from the looks of things there never was anything to be found. But Scott Ritter, Hans Blix and Mohammed el-Baradei were telling us that six months before Dubbyuh ordered troops into Iraq. And, there was that little thing about 9/11. George had a plan for dealing with the perpetrators of 9/11, but he wasn't so much able to prevent it.

J. Paul "Proconsul" Bremer took over in Iraq and promptly disbanded the Iraqi army. This left thousands of unemployed, armed, pissed-off men roaming the streets of Baghdad and the country-side. Gosh, I wonder how many of them are fighting for the insurgency now? And, who can forget his throwing Iraq open to pillaging...er...free-market reforms. Just think of all the jobs provided to foreign workers who are willing to work for 25 cents a day. Iraqis have nobody but themselves to blame for refusing to work for anything less than 50 cents an hour. And besides, J. Paul is a "fashion pioneer" (yes, that's an actual quote). Not only was he Proconsul of Iraq, but he looked good doing it too!

Maybe Dubbyuh just roots for the underdog...Nah. He simply prefers blind loyalty over competence. Just look at his 'economic conference'. But that's for another time.

Adulterer and Murderer meet to discuss fate of Crook

Strain Is Seen in Giuliani Ties With President

By ELISABETH BUMILLER and ERIC LIPTON

WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 - Former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani had a Christmas dinner at the White House on Sunday night, and he attended with an important goal in mind: to apologize to his host for pushing Bernard B. Kerik as homeland security secretary and then watching as Mr. Kerik's nomination collapsed in legal problems and embarrassed the president of the United States.

Rudy Giuliani And Dubbyuh met for dinner Sunday night. Among issues discussed was Bernie Kerick. One can only imagine the bowing and scraping Rudy had to do over Keriks hiring of a "Nanny". But further investigation shows that there was far more to Kerik's problems than the immigration status of a nanny.

Before the ink was dry on a contract with Taser International to supply tasers to the NYPD, Kerik was appointed as a "Director" in the company and made a cool $6.2 million on the deal. Can you say "conflict of interest"? I knew you could.

In April, Kerik set up a consulting firm, pimping his NYPD props to wealthy corporate johns. Among his first clients was the pharmaceutical industry. He helped drum up opposition to letting seniors citizen buy FDA approved drugs from Canadian pharmacies for far less than they do in the US. He claimed that reimportation of drugs would place the US at risk for a bio-terror attack under the guise of a legal purchase.

I could go on, but I'm sure you get the point. Bernie Kerik is unfit to be dog-catcher, let alone head of the Department of Homeland Security. I'm certain Rudy ate alot of crow Sunday evening.

It's me

School of the Americas, Not just for fascists from south of the border anymore

Victim of Latin American torture claims Abu Ghraib abuse was official US policy

By Andrew McLeod

FOR many Latin American victims of torture, the infamous pictures of abuse at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison brought back not only chilling recollections of their own experiences, but also confirmed what they have long maintained: that their torturers were following interrogation guidelines set by the US Army School of the Americas (SOA).

“I had flashbacks when I saw the guy with the hood [at Abu Ghraib],” says Carlos Mauricio, a Salvadorean who was tortured in 1983. Founder of Stop Impunity, a group that seeks to prosecute human rights violators, dismisses as a “whitewash” the Bush administration’s view that Abu Ghraib abuse was the work of a few US army misfits.

“What happened at Abu Ghraib was torture by the book; they were implementing US policy,” Mauricio, 51, told the Sunday Herald.

“The US military deny they teach torture and say it happens in Latin America because soldiers have always been brutal. But what happened at Abu Ghraib belies this.”

Among the SOA’s 60,000 graduates are former dictators Manuel Noriega and Omar Torrijos of Panama, Leopoldo Galtieri and Roberto Viola of Argentina, Juan Velasco Alvarado of Peru, Guillermo Rodriguez of Ecuador and Hugo Banzer Suarez of Bolivia. Lower-ranking graduates were involved in the 1980 assassination of Salvadorean Archbishop Oscar Romero and the massacre of 900 civilians at El Mozote, El Salvador, in 1980.

Given the august body of graduates, and their body counts, it should really come as no surprise that the techniques utilized at Abu Ghraib are the same as those taught by the School of the Americas. After all, the faculty of the school wrote the book on 'intelligence gathering' from recalicitrant prisoners, and it seems fairly certain that they were also supervising operations at both Abu Ghraib and Gitmo.

That John Negroponte, who was heavily involved with the Contras and involved in the cover-up of abuses by the US and Argentine-trained Honduran Battalion 316 during his tenure as ambassador to Honduras in the 1980's, is now Iraq's ambassador should give us a good indication of things to come...More cover-ups of human rights abuses of Iraqi prisoners.

It seems to be no coincidence that key figures in the Iran-Contra scandal have made political comebacks that would have left Dick Nixon blushing. Figures such as Elliot Abrams, Otto Reich and others are the intellectual fore-fathers of the neo-con movement. So, with John Negroponte as America's pro-consul...er, ambassador...to Iraq, don't expect any startling new revelations...Just more of the same old, sick shit.