SLD

The following is an editorial by Pat Buchanan sent to me by a good friend, known on this board as FromTheRight. My responses are also interspersed back to FromTheRight.

SLD.

Pat Buchanan

January 30, 2002

The de-christianization of VMI

<strong>This title says it all. Since when is the state allowed to run a "Christian" school? Never!!! Not as long as we have a First Amendment. That is indeed the very essence of the First Amendment - no state sponsored religious institutions. The first amendment was born in Virginia over this very same type of fight - the funding of "Christian" ministers for schools.</strong>

Perhaps the greatest achievement of the militant atheism that is now America's
established church is that it has convinced Christians it is not a religion or an
ideology at all, simply the rule of reason.

<strong>Oh, please, Militant atheism is the state religion? Show me exactly how our state has established that there is no God? If the state were to issue such a requirement for teacher to teach that there is no God, or that J.C. is a myth, then there will be a problem. Of course, remember that the liberal justices who have ruled against school prayer would be putting a stop to that one real quick. Yes, atheism is a religious belief and subject to the same restrictions on state sponsorship as is Christianity, Deism, or Satanism.</strong>

Consider atheism's latest triumph over religious freedom.

<strong>Please; another strawman attempt to rally the masses.</strong>

Federal District Judge Norman K. Moon just ordered VMI cadets to stop saying grace before
the evening meal. Two cadets, Neil Mellen and Paul Knick, had whined to the ACLU, which
then trooped into Moon's court to terminate the 50-year-old tradition at the military
school made famous by that professor of artillery and man of God, Thomas Jonathan
"Stonewall" Jackson.

<strong>It's only a 50 year old tradition? What was happening 50 years ago that made them institute this practice and why didn't they do it before then? BTW, a federal court in the 60's struck down required chapel at West Point.</strong>

"Because the prayers are drafted and recited at the direction of the Institute's
Superintendent," said Moon, one of Bill Clinton's ornaments on the federal bench,
"government has become impermissibly entangled" with religion. Saying grace, said Moon,
amounts to a "state-sponsored religious exercise."

<strong>Moon is absolutely correct on this point. He is following Supreme Court precedence on this way back to the Lemon case.</strong>

But with what religion is VMI "impermissibly entangled"? Judaism? Presbyterianism?
Catholicism? And if saying grace is a "state-sponsored religious exercise," why does
the Supreme Court permit Congress to start sessions with a prayer by a tax-paid
chaplain?

<strong>Ahh, good question. Perhaps we should finally follow the advice of the drafter of the first amendment and get rid of the congresssional chaplain? Oh, but of course, Pat Buchanan is so ignorant of our history he is unaware that Madison opposed congressional chaplains as a violation of the establishment clause. I'd like to ask Pat Buchanan a simple question. Does he not see that the same state that can require a prayer to God before a meal, can just as easily require a prayer to the devil before a meal? Or how about in a few decades/centuries when Islam is the majority religion and they use Pat's arguments to force Islamic prayers on Cadets at VMI? Remember VMI is a state school. </strong>

The First Amendment reads thus: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment
of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Does saying grace sound like
VMI was moving to establish a state religion, or does it rather sound like VMI was
engaging in the "free exercise" of faith?

<strong>Goodnesss Gracious; States have rights to exercise faith?!!!??? What moronic thing will he say next. States have no rights in the Constitution. People have rights; states have power - a power that is limited by the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment. </strong>

Judge Moon simply exploited this case to impose on VMI his own ideology. In so doing,
he did not consult the First Amendment at all, but decisions taken by the Supreme Court
of Earl Warren, which set out in the 1950s to de-Christianize America. And because of
the decisions of that court, now the law of the land, America needs on the Supreme Court
not conservative jurists, but constitutionalists and counter-revolutionaries with a
healthy contempt for the opinions of those dead white males -- Warren, Brennan, Blackmun
and Douglas -- and the courage to throw out 50 years of flawed precedent.

<strong>Don't forget Hugo Black, Pat!! I agree we should look back to Madison on the issue of separation of church and state, but I doubt if Pat would like the results. I find it ironic that he accuses Earl Warren of dechristianizing America after seeing your previous editorial quoting Earl Warren's respect for Christianity as one of the founding principles of our Constitution and Bill of Rights. The Court has ruled correctly on separating church and state, FromTheRight, and I know that you believe in that separation. I wonder why Pat doesn't. </strong>

Will President Bush nominate such justices? The jury is still out.

<strong>God, I hope not.</strong>

But how did this self-governing people reach a point where we must ask the permission
of federal judges before students can say grace before dinner? Not long ago, had Mellen
and Knick protested having to grace said before meals, VMI would have told them that if
they could not respect school traditions, they should go someplace else -- that VMI's
superintendent, not malcontent cadets, would decide how VMI was run.

<strong>Ahh, yes, now we get to the meat of what Pat wants. If you don't believe in the religious beliefs of what the state dictates for you, then you can go somewhere else to school. The essence of a theocracy. If they can throw you out of a state school for not believing in the proper Gods, then why can't they throw you out of the state. Is throwing someone out of a state school for not believing in the right religion not a complete violation of the free exercise clause? </strong>

Instead, we have in America a situation where tiny minorities are able to enlist the
ACLU, which can always go judge-shopping for a Norman Moon to impose its dissent on
the majority. The few now dictate to the many -- the essence of dictatorship. How did
we get here?

<strong>Oh yes, there's that troublesome Bill of Rights again. Why if the majority can't impose its will on the minoritty then what is this country coming to? Since when is this country a democracy? Hardly. The whole purpose of the Bill of Rights, and indeed the Constitution was to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority. Our founding fathers were not so naive as Pat is to trust the masses with self governance. The masses have a say, but it is only one part of the equation. They cannot trample the rights of any citizen. They knew their Plato well. They knew his objections to democracy and believed that they could create a free society that could overcome the flaws that Plato pointed out in Greek so-called "democracy." </strong>

Fifty years ago, Americans failed to demand that their presidents and Congresses corral a
renegade Supreme Court and return it to the tiny stall set aside for it in the
Constitution. Because we did not, and because neither presidents nor Congresses had the
wisdom or will to rein it in, that court usurped power at the expense of both state
governments and the elected branches. Appointed for life, the nine justices are
now answerable to no one, as they reshape America according to their own whims.

<strong>Ahh, yes, let's go back 50 years to McCarthyism and Plessy v. Ferguson. This is embarassing for Pat. Has he ever read anything by Madison? I thought Pat was supposed to be well read? Madison specifically made the point that it would up to the Supreme Court to protect the rights of the individual that were embodied in the new Bill of Rights. If Pat doesn't like that, he can create his own theocracy on some other god foresaken shore. </strong>

The Supreme Court now wields far more power over the way in which we are permitted to
live our lives than either the Congress or the president. It claims powers the King
of England never dreamed of, when the Founding Fathers rose up to overthrow that tyrant.
In the face of this tyranny, we behave like a nation of sheep. Can one imagine the response
had Chief Justice Taney ordered the VMI of "Stonewall" Jackson to end all prayers?

<strong>Pat, this decision says nothing about whether individuals are allowed to pray or not to pray; only that the state is not allowed to sponser prayer - as it should be. No Supreme Court decision has ever taken away any individuals right to pray, and the Religious Rights ranting about this is just a smokescreen for the creation of a theocratic state. Cadets still have the right to pray over their food. I wonder if Pat is just ignorant of this, or if he is part of the "lying for Christ is OK" crowd?

And as for Justice Taney, does Pat want us to go back to his views of the Constitution? Well at least Plessy v. Ferguson would be overruled. Of course, Dred Scott is back as the law of the land!
</strong>

Last week, Americans observed a holiday for Martin Luther King. And what was he famous for?
Civil disobedience against unjust laws and court decisions. Why are the Christians of
today so much more wimpish than the old civil-rights leaders of yesterday?

<strong>Probably because they know they'd lose.</strong>]

In "Conscience of a Conservative," written in 1960, Barry Goldwater warned, "Federal aid
to education inevitably means federal control of education." Once our schools began to
take the king's shilling, they began to lose their freedom. No sooner did federal dollars
enter than the federal judges followed close behind. And if faith-based institutions
start taking Uncle Sam's money, as President Bush proposes, Uncle Sam's judges will follow
the dollars into the churches and begin dictating to them, as well.

Hmmmm. Now here Pat has a point. But it does not bode well for his views. He is right, that if Church takes money from the Federal government, then it could be subjecting itself to federal control. It's the same point made by the Religious Right with respect to doctors who took Medicare/Medicaid giving advice on abortions. The Supreme Court upheld the right of the federal government to attach strings to Medicare/Medicaid doctors. Not a good thing. Madison specifically vetoed the incorporation act of the Episcopal Church for the District of Columbia, pointing out that the government should not get involved in faith based charities. If the church sponsors something as simple as a soup kitchen with the use of state funds, can it say grace over that food? If it does, it is using federal money to promote it's religious beliefs, right? That's is most clearly a violation of church and state. The federal government will also be required to force churches not to discriminate on the basis of people's religion. Thus faith based charities will have to accept people who do not accept their religious tenets, and if they attempt at all to proselytize to them they could be subject to discrimination lawsuits. Not a pretty sight. Stupid idea, dubya; very stupid.

Our forefathers thought freedom was worth fighting for. But we have forgotten -- freedom is
not free, even in America.

Sighing again. Whose freedom are you talking about Pat? The freedom to worship or not to worship as one pleases, or the "freedom" of the majority to impose its religious tenets on the minority through the use of state mandated prayers?

[ February 02, 2002: Message edited by: SLD ]</p>

crazyfingers

I'd love to know where that editorial was actually published.

[ January 31, 2002: Message edited by: crazyfingers ]</p>

Toto

It was on the newswire:

<a href="http://www0.mercurycenter.com/premium/opinion/columns/051326.htm" target="_blank">The Atheists win another one</a>

Oresta

Great response, SLD.

BTW, slightly OT: I read, but can't place the source, that Goldwater's book was ghosted by Phyllis Schafley. To his credit, Goldwater mellowed in later years. As for Phyllis....

Pat said:
In "Conscience of a Conservative," written in 1960, Barry Goldwater warned, "Federal aid
to education inevitably means federal control of education." Once our schools began to
take the king's shilling, they began to lose their freedom. No sooner did federal dollars
enter than the federal judges followed close behind. And if faith-based institutions
start taking Uncle Sam's money, as President Bush proposes, Uncle Sam's judges will follow
the dollars into the churches and begin dictating to them, as well.

Richard1366

Once again they got the premise wrong. The suit does not prevent an individual cadet from bowing his/her head and saying grace. What the suit does prevent is having some cadet lead a mass prayer at meal time with all cadets forced to participate.

Apparently it is no sin to lie to get some point across..

ecco

Easy solution for VMI: Stop taking tax money!

Bill Snedden

Of course, this is a bald-faced lie. I don't know why, but every time I see this tactic I'm always surprised. The judge's order holds that VMI cadets can no longer be forced to say grace before the evening meal. The religious reich uses this tactic so often, you would think that more people really would have caught on by now.

I'd like to send a letter to whatever major newspaper might have carried this, but the only link here is to the Mercury News. Does anyone know if it ran in any other papers?

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! This comes from a man who enthusiastically embraces a worldview that is, in fact, nothing more than a dictatorship. Who believes that a magical sky-god rules the universe and that his law is THE law! What a joke! What a moron! Can there be anyone who still takes this guy seriously?

Unfortunately, I'm sure that the answer is yes...

Bill

[ February 01, 2002: Message edited by: Bill Snedden ]</p>

Darwin's Finch

Does anyone really expect anything different from Buchanan? Hell, the guy was a Nixon speechwriter. Duplicity comes as naturally to him as breathing.

daemon

Just a note--you've got Robertson in the subject line, when it should be Buchanan. We should at least figure out which moronic Christian goon we're talking about.

theyeti

This must be a typo. Either that, or our histroy books were lying to us when they said that Jackson was killed at Chancelorsville. Of course, seeing as how it's Buchannan, he probably thinks that histroy books are filled with lies too.

theyeti