Image Credit: Minnesota House.
Right Wing America Becoming Even More Dangerously Unglued
BBSNews 2006-12-05 -- It is so completely disheartening to see the disintegration of American values being played out in a controversy being driven by right-wing talk radio stunt man Dennis Prager. This odious personality, who rails against American liberalism for a living, has exposed a very unsightly underbelly in America; Muslim haters and bigots alike that are American history challenged as well as quite fundamentalist in their extremist beliefs.
|
|
|
Keith Ellison, a Democrat from the Minnesota House of Representatives who recently became a United States Congressman in Minnesota.
Image Credit: Minnesota House. |
Prager wears his religion on his sleeve, and puts himself squarely on the side of those who wish to see him burn in the fiery pit for all eternity; the ever shrinking American right-wing politicized evangelical community. He seems to forget that those militant Christian fundamentalists believe that unless he renounces being a Jew and suddenly becomes a devout Christian by proclaiming that Jesus Christ died on a cross for his sins, he will be damned until the end of time.
That's okay, he has every right to speak and believe whatever myths he wants. But in his attacks on Keith Ellison who recently was elected to represent Minnesotans in the United States Congress, he has gone beyond the pale and is seemingly ignorant not only of the US Constitution, but also of historical precedent when considering the swearing in of Congressman-elect Ellison who chooses to use the actual book of his faith, the Quran, as opposed to the choice that Prager and those of his ilk would like to force Ellison to use.
The responses from Prager's supporters that have been posted to various news outlets and blogs that allow comments are very telling indeed; there is a faction of people in the United States that have been so misled by the current administration and the right-wing neocon-theocon crowd, that they actually believe that Keith Ellison, a citizen and Minnesota State legislator who was legally elected to Congress to represent Minnesota, is an enemy of the state; that he's some sort of stealth Islamic terrorist threatening to erode American values and overthrow all that Americans hold dear.
Why right-wingers want to go down this bigoted road is anyone's guess, but it is a good idea that the United State Holocaust Memorial Museum should show Prager, the American bigot, the door as he does not represent American values, he represents that which is wrong with America. A Republican culture of revisionism, lies and hatred of those that do not believe in every single narrow minded idea that those self styled moralists would like to foist onto all Americans.
About 210 years ago in 1796, under another US President named George, this one of course the revered Father of our country, George Washington's treaty with Tripoli noted that the United States is not a Christian country. In fact, it was done so by declaring to the government and people of Tripoli (now Libya) that there would be no religion based war between our respective countries. Ed Buckner does a masterful job of pulling together the relevent facts about this question with thorough research and documentation, noting in a speech he gave in 1997 that the diplomat Joel Barlow who was sent at the behest of Washington was a close friend to Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, and Buckner even points out that "Paine hurriedly entrusted the manuscript of the first part of the Age of Reason to Barlow when Paine was suddenly arrested by the radicals of the French revolution." The famous words in the treaty were as Buckner explains:
"'As the government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian Religion, . . .' the Muslims of Tripoli therefore need not fear a religious war from the U.S. The vote was recorded only because at least a fifth of the Senators present voted to require a recorded vote. This was the 339th time (I went through the Journal for the first five Congressional sessions and counted them myself) that a recorded vote was required. It was only the third time that a vote was recorded when the vote was unanimous! (The next time was to honor George Washington.) There is no record of any debate or dissension on the treaty."
None other than John Adams, who followed Washington's two terms as President had sent the treaty to the Senate in 1797 to be unanimously ratified by the Senate. Buckner reviewed periodicals from the period and could find no dissent at that time in history.
And so ends the claims of the right-wing that the United States was or is a Christian country. There are a lot of Christians here, as well as millions of atheists and dozens of other religions because of the multicultural diversity that makes America great.
Other claims, similarly based in ignorance such as Prager's original contention that the Christian bible is actually used as an official text for either civil servants or court litigants to swear on have been debunked, as bunk, by many others so we will dispense with that here. But we would like to include some of the comments found from various posters on TownHall. That site, TownHall, where Prager published his drivel, is insidious in its popups, be careful when going there, don't click in the whitespace while reading, you will be greeted with even another ugly popup advertisement. We won't link to it to protect our readers from the many popups, travel there at your own risk...
From "TAP001":
"Karl, I read that Ellison was involved with Gangs. Whether his wife claims to be a Christian or not, that does not make him moderate or saved. If he is a Muslim, then she is unequally yoked as the Bible warns against. Ellison must not be allowed to change the book of swearing in or we open a door. Lets See, Larry Flynt gets elected swearing in on Hustler, or one of the Enron Executives get elected and swears in on the SEC Rules book. This is absolute Horse Poop! If Ellison does not want to swear on the Bible let him get mad and leave, making our country free of one more muslim. I have nothing against moderate muslims bu they have to respect our way of life as Christians. Live and let live. If they don't, we kick their happy butts back to Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, or Saudi Arabia. America was built on Judeo Christian principles and if it does not stick to them, it will fall like Alminejad stated. We all better get to praying to God in Heaven if we do not want these ALLAH followers taking over."
From "anti-socialist":
"Quite correct. A true Christian believer would never marry a Muslim. If anything, she would wait for him to convert - then wed him. Male Muslims welcome the option to marry those who are of different faiths as it is their option to "kill the infidel" - thus by his religion, he has every right to kill her.(Is OJ a member of the Nation of Islam?)"
From "firestorm":
"If, Keith Ellison, the muslim, little "m", refuses to take an oath on the Bible, large "B", then he should be refused a seat in the United States House of Representatives, large "U,S,H,and R". This country was not founded on the god, little "g", of islam, little "i", but on the one and only true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that is the God of Judaism, the precursor to Chritianity ushered in by Christ, Himself.To permit Mr. Ellison to do anything other than take the oath on the Bible, would be a mockery to this nation, it's government and everything it stands for, just a further slide down the slippery slope."
From "PatriotRage":
"Thank you Minnesota. If this is really a non-issue, why would Ellison make it a point to announce his intentions?The answer is because he's using this as a tool to jab in the eye of mainstream Americans, most of whom happen to be Christian. This is another example of Islam's hostility to our culture. Next, they will be building mosques everywhere, then demanding Sharia law in our courts.
Once this happens it's too late to do anything about it- because we're all racists and to make up for it, we can't offend other cultures! So lets get out our mats and bow 5 times daily to Minnesota!"
From "jedidiah":
"The election of Mr Ellison is only the latest proof of our desire for national suicide. Minnesota 5th district is about as far along the left you can get without running into a picture of Lenin. As I read some of these posts, I see, with much grief, how far along this dark road we have come.Let Ellison swear upon his koran, which calls for the death of all of us "pigs and monkeys"
Let you gas-filled liberals cheer him on. Swim in the delights of diversity, till you drown.
We'll bury you, alongside the army of the religion of peace. You'll be the first to go, because you will not defend yourselves, indeed you think the islamofacists are correct.
Many germans felt this way, in the 30's--and thats another thing you on the left have forgotten, or dont choose to believe. You embrace your killers, and you always have, all throughout history. The only ones of your ilk I feel sorry for are the young children, you will take them with you like so many partial birth abortions."
And that's about as much hate filled racist, ignorant crap that this editor can stand to expose out of more than one thousand comments posted, mostly supportive, to the original Prager article. One more warning about the popups on TownHall.com. Just going there and you get two popups trying to garner some dollars to spew some more of this crap. And don't click on the whitespace as I said above, you will get another popup from another advertiser. Those that advertise on that site should seriously consider whether they want their products associated with the hate filled filth that TownHall has such a reputation for.
We wholeheartedly support Congressman-elect Ellison's desire to use the religious tome of his choice, the Quran, during the non-official photo-op after the actual official swearing in. Because as nearly everyone knows, except for maybe some seriously deluded right-wingers, no Congressman actually swears on a Christian bible during the official swearing in. That would be unconstitutional. There is no religious test for public office in the United States.
In fact, no one has to swear on any mythical book at all to serve.