crazyfingers

One more edit related to Pickering.

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This is a reply to XXXX letter to the editor from Friday, January 17, 2003 where she states that “God was expelled from our public life whereby schools became war zones”. These are of course the code words of right wing Christian fundamentalists and what it really means is that they want the power to control what messages the government puts out on what is and what is not the preferred religious belief. The fact is that our American traditions and our constitution require that the Government, and by extension the public schools, must not take sides on religious issues. To allow otherwise would be to give to the government and by that those who are in power, the right to decide what will be regarded as THE correct religious point of view. We do not allow the Government to make those decisions because each individual has the right to make and speak his or her own views on matters of religion.

XXXX suggests that “Our country needs a swift turn about to decency” and thinks that Judge Pickering should be elevated to the US Court of Appeals. But what decency? Judge Pickering is known for lecturing people on religion from the bench and at least once changed the sentence that he give to a convicted criminal because of an issue of the religion of the criminal. No one should ever have to worry whether the judge will judge ones’ religious beliefs in trial.

XXXX accuses “liberals” of trying “to legislate their vile and sometimes anti-American agendas into law.” I beg your pardon XXXX , but your interest in "returning" this whole country to your and Judge Pickerings’ particular view of the Bible and your claim that liberals are anti-American is frightening. It reminds me of the days when Jim Crow laws were in full force, women stayed in the kitchen and non-Christians and liberals were blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Return to decency indeed.

lisarea

Fun fact you may or may not want to add:

The worst incidence of school violence in American history occurred in...wait for it...

1927

Hell Comes to Bath

(Granted, this was not a student, but an adult.)

I've been meaning to someday come up with a comprehensive rebuttal to the commonly held belief that things are so much worse now than they ever were. It's just not true.

If people genuinely want to argue a correlation between violent and immoral behavior and the influence of religion in the public forum, I do expect they're going to be sorry they ever started it.

crazyfingers

Bumping this for two reasons. One is to say that both newspapers have finally published my rebuttal of the letter in the OP.

The other is to post a new letter that was in one of the papers today from the same person.

I'll let someone else write the rebuttal but I found this new letter to be full of problems also.

So, anyone who does not believe that war is a wise course of action at this time:

• is for the US losing it's soverenty.
• has turned against his own country
• is not to be trusted

And of course, this person knows what her god thinks.

ybnormal

This whole ‘‘no war'' movement is really a smokescreen...

Most of the peaceniks don't give a flip about ‘‘peace'' as purported...

Don't miss the fact that the word magicians have once again managed to completely reverse an issue's definitions... support of Bush's war is now being pro-peace... W and his robots are using the word peace with every war utterance, and the above letter writer is listening. As I like to say... in a group, us humans are pretty damn stupid.

Jayjay

Yup, it makes perfect sense that the global anti-war movement and demonstrators in England, Norway, Italy, Australia, Turkey, France, ... and so on is just a coordinated publicity stunt by the Democrats. How can people be so blind not to see through it?

dangin

No Jayjay, those were all fake computer generated crowds. The news clips bviously came from the hollywood studios, who are all Clinton backers.

CF, don't stop now, keep kicking her butt. Granted it's like shooting fish in a barrel, but you may have found yourself a new hobby.

crazyfingers

I would if I thought that no one else would address it. But letters to the editor are running pretty heavily against going to war at this time, even in the Patriot Ledger, which is more conservative than the Boston Globe. So I'm pretty sure that someone else will blast her.

Puck

Oooh, like our Founding Fathers? Jefferson, Washington, Payne all turned against their country, England. Very interesting.

I'd point this out, along with our Founding Fathers religious beliefs! You know, some quotes of theirs for added punch.

I'ts so easy to pick apart people's beliefs like this, as they aren't taking all of history into their view, only the bits they want. They take only the tasty parts, and their intellectual diet makes them weak.