Ambrose Bierce [19060: “Patriotism, n. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of anyone ambitious to illuminate his name. In Dr. Johnson’s famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first.”

John Brockenbrough {1807]: “Patriotism is a mighty precious thing when it costs nothing, but the mass of mankind consider it a very foolish thing when it curtails their self-indulgence.”

Henry S. Commager [1954]: “Who are the really disloyal? Those who inflame racial hatreds who sow religious and class dissensions. Those who subvert the Constitution by violating the freedom of the ballot box. Those who make a mockery of majority rule by the use of the filibuster. Those who impair democracy by denying equal educational facilities. Those who frustrate justice by lynch law or by making a farce of jury trials. Those who deny freedom of speech and of press and assembly. Those who demand special favors against the commonwealth. Those who regard public office merely as a source of private gain. Those who would exalt the military over the civilian. Those who for selfish and private purposes stir up national antagonisms and expose the world to the ruin of war.”

Helen Gahagan Douglas {1982]: “You can’t prove you’re an American by waving Old Glory.”

Albert Einstein [19210: “Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.”

Robert G. Ingersoll [1882]: “He loves his country best who strives to make it best.”

George Jean Nathan [1931]: “Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles.”

Carl Schurz [1872]: “Our country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right; when wrong, to be put right.”

Benjamin Spock[1968]: “I feel that this do-or-die, my-country-right-or-wrong kind of patriotism is not merely out of place in a nuclear armed world, it is criminal egotism on a monstrous scale. The world won’t be safe until people in all countries recognize it for what it is and, instead of cheering the leader who talks that way, impeach him.”

Adlai Stevenson [1952]: “I venture to suggest that patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.”

E. B. White [1947]: “The principle of demanding an expression of political conformity as the price of a job is the principle of hundred percentism. It is not new and it is the blood brother of witch burning.”

An encyclopedia definition of “fifth column: “The agents..may work in an army, political party…Their activities include..economic subversion, propaganda, agitation..and even assassination, terror, and revolt.”

Consider the following article from Patricia Roberts-Miller in the March 1 ,2019, Washington Spectator ; “Deconstructing Trump>’ These excerpts:

“What surprises a lot of people is why Trump’s perpetual and perhaps compulsive inaccuracy and dishonesty don’t undercut his credibility with his fans…Trump uses demagoguery, and it works because we’re in a culture in which demagoguery is the normal way for people to argue….

“..the rhetoric scholar Kenneth Burke identified Hitler’s main rhetorical strategies….and argued that Hitler’s rhetorical effectiveness came from his relentless repetition of what Burke called the “bastardization of religious forms of thought…..

“What Burke identified wasn’t just how Hitler rhetoric worked, but more broadly, how demagoguery works and is rewarded. Demagoguery displaces policy argumentation with praise of “us” and condemnation of “them,” and it is a prevalent now as it was in Weimar Germany.

“Trump relies on the same rhetoric, and that’s why it should be no surprise that conservative Christians would support Trump. Conservative Christian German overwhelmingly supported Hitler..and conservative Christian Americans previously supported slavery, segregation, and lynching.

As Burke noted, Hitler projected all of his, and all of Germans’ flaws, unto the people of Jewish faith or ethnicity. The famous quote from “Mein Kampf,” that it is better to tell a big lie, and stick to it, is something Hitler accuses Jews of doing, even as he is doing exactly that……Demagoguery depends on the notion that everything can be reduced to “us” versus “them.”………

“Burke argued that Hitler bastardized the principle of inborn dignity by asserting that such dignity was born only to certain people. That same bastardization surfaces in the notion of Christianity being racially determined and is behind the the rhetoric of Christian identity, conservative Christian defenses of slavery and segregation, and the kind of right-leaning Christian groups that support Trump.”…..

In fact it’s fairly easy to look at Trump’s rhetoric and find parallels with the rhetorical strategies of demagoguery that Burke identified. Trump repeats the same points, regardless of whether they’ve been debunked; intermittently claims that faith in him is all we need; promotes economic policies that have never worked, but if you believe in the will, should work; materializes evil in Democrats..; projects his own failings onto his enemies…; insists on the entitlement of his in-group to everything; and promises to make America great again….

What matters about Trump..isn’t actually that he uses demagoguery. What matters is that his rise to power was fueled by a demagoguery that reflected the racist, xenophobic, misogynist, and authoritarian values of the GOP – values that previously had surfaced only in dog whistles…the GOP media machine didn’t condemn him for it. They justified it, promoted it, and repeated it. *******************!!!!!!!!**********

“I spend a sad amount of time in anti-liberal media zones, and it’s striking to see how talking points seamlessly disseminate from Trump through his water-carrying friends at Fox and the hate media to the various Facebook pages and sub-Reddit threads in social media…What is clear is that Trump can count on a supportive media machine that will justify anything he does.”

“What happens in a culture of demagoguery is that people think in zero-sum terms about politics: whether our country ends up with a good policy matters less than ensuring the winner is “us”[our faction] – or at least we can make them lose…That is the objective of Trump’s rhetoric and the rhetoric of his loyal media.”

***For perspective, consider this: “Vanity Fair’s” 1990 report that Trump’s first wife, Ivana, “told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitler’s collected speeches, “My New Order,” which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed.”

*****For perspective, consider this from “A Warning,” by ‘Anonymous’ – a Trump White House “political”, page 202: “Trump revels in the herd-like behavior of his followers. He uses his social media presence to inflame public debates and to dispatch supporters to attack politicians who’ve criticized him…”
…..page 197: “..pandering to common prejudices…When he does, the ‘false’ part gets ignored by his followers because of their confirmation bias. The ‘information’ part gets absorbed. They are willing to march lockstep if what he says validates what they already believe.” ****************!!!!!!************

The above post “America, some Thoughts” were words from “The Harper Book of American Quotations” by Carruth and Ehrlich. Sorry.

Pearl Bailey {1976}: “In America, we have people who are too rich, people who are too poor, people who are hungry, people who are sick, people who are homeless, people who are imprisoned, people who are bored, people who are strung out, people who are lonely, people who are exploited, people who lose and can’t find their way, people who give up on life. America, we better live as sisters and brother. Let us take care of our land. We cannot stand up for every other land. Stand up for ourselves.”

Jimmy Carter [1976]: “All I want is the same thing you want. To have a nation with a government that is as good and honest and decent and competent and compassionate and as filled with love as are the American people.”

India Edwards[1977]: “Every generation of Americans has wanted more material wealth, more luxury for the next generation. In my opinion the time has come when we must hope our children and their children ad infinitum will want more from life than material success. They must have enough of that to ensure a roof, clothing, food and some recreation, but, if we are to survive for another two hundred years, we must change our way of life.”

Dwight Eisenhower [1953}: “Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must fiLyndonme to pass in the heart of America.”

Ralph W. Emerson [1867]: “The office of America is to liberate, to abolish kingcraft, priestcraft, caste, monopoly, to pull down the gallows, to burn up the the bloody statutebook, to take in the immigrant to open the doors of the sea and the fields of the earth.”

Waldo Frank [1919]: “We go forth all to seek America. And in the seeking we create her. In the quality of our search shall be the nature of the America that we created.”

Hubert Humphrey [1964]: “We are the standard bearers in the only really authentic revolution, the democratic revolution against tyrannies. Our strength is not to be measured by our military capacity alone, by our industry, or by our technology. We will be remembered, not for the power of our weapons, but for the power of our compassion, our dedication to human welfare.”

Lyndon Johnson[1947]: “I pray we are still a young and courageous nation, that we have not grown so old and so fat and so prosperous that all we can think about is to sit back with our arms around our money bags. If we choose to do that I have no doubt that the smoldering fires will burst into flame and consume us – dollars and all.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. {1967]: “Many of the ugly pages of American history have been obscured and forgotten…America owes a debt of justice which it has only begun to pay. If it loses the will to finish or slackens in its determination, history will recall its crimes and the country that would be great will lack the most indispensable element of greatness – justice.”

Gerald S. Lee [1913]: “America is a tune, It must be sung together.”

David Lilienthal [1949]: “We are a people with a faith in each other, and when we lose that faith we are weak, however heavily armed. We are a people with a faith in reason, and in the unending pursuit of new knowledge; and when we lose that faith we are insecure, though we have never been so heavily armed. We are a people with a faith in God, and a deep sense of stewardship to our Creator, the Father of us all; and when that is no longer strong within us, we are weak and we are lost, however heavily armed with weapons – with atomic weapons we may be.”

Abraham Lincoln [1837] ; “At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”

Meyer London [1916]: “To me Americanism means…an imperative duty to be nobler than the rest of the world.”

Reinhold Niebuhr [1962]: “We find it almost as difficult as the communists to believe that anyone could think ill of us, since we are as persuaded as they that our society is so essentially virtuous that only malice could prompt criticism of any of our actions.”

Adlai Stevenson [1954]: “Throughout its history, America has given hope, comfort, and inspiration to freedom’s cause in all lands. The reservoir of good will and respect for America was not built up by American arms or intrigue; it was built upon our deep dedication to the cause of human liberty and human welfare.”

Stewart Udall [19710: “It is painfully clear that the United States needs its Indians and their culture. A society increasingly homogenized and mechanized – a society headed toward ant-hill conformity and depersonalized living – desperately needs the lessons of a culture that has a deep reverence for nature, and values the simple, the authentic, and the humane.”

George Washington[1789]: “The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.”

Walt Whitman [1856]: ‘O America because you build for mankind I build for you.”

Mark Twain: “The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creatures that cannot.” [read Sandel’s “Justice Whats the Right Thing to Do?]

Benjamin Spock: “Man is a spiritual being in that – unless he is badly corrupted – he responds powerfully to nonmaterial stimuli: the beauty in nature and art, the trust of children, the needs of helpless people, the death of a friend even though long absent.” [read Ellis’ “American Dialogue The Founders and Us”]

America, 2021, may be at a pivotal crossroads. COVID-19 has held a mirror to America. It revealed the vast majority willing to “do the right thing,” some die doing it. The reign of Donald Trump also held a mirror to America. It revealed a scary minority capable of greed, cruelty, ignorance, selfishness, misinformed stupidity.

Who are we? Are we who we say we are? Are we truly “all in this together?” Do we WANT to live up to our professed ideals? Do we believe”all men are created equal; do we WANT to “love thy neighbor as thyself; do we WANT a government that will “promote the general Welfare;” a “government of – by – FOR – the people?”

We have many problems – that COULD be solved by rational, fact-based thinking Do we WANT to do this? The first step is admitting/understanding the problem. The second step is arriving at what most Americans/the rest of the world understand as the “truth.”

Accepting fact-based truth has been a major part of our 2016-2020 ills. 40 years of lies and propaganda have poisoned some people’s mind, creating a public divided against itself. The Founders created a system that assumed rational ,informed, thinking – thus the post office, free speech, free press. In the internet era, lies, rage, falsehoods, rumors overwhelm the truth. This cannot continue in a healthy America.

Do we WANT to be healed? We are entitled to our opinions. We are NOT entitled to our own “facts, acquired from some “echo chamber.” If this doesn’t change, America is doomed – as is any form of democracy. Please consider the following steps to heal.

1] end the ‘war on drugs.” This is a proven failure. Learn from other nations. Medicalize the drug problem. Arresting ourselves out of this has created vast criminal empires in America, and many nations south of us. WHY are people doing drugs?

2] end the Electoral College. The Founder’s rationale no longer exists. This should be easy: the person with the most votes wins. Period. Why continue a nightmare where political maneuvering in a handful of states overturns the numerical vote?

3] end political gerrymandering. Racial gerrymandering is illegal – why is political gerrymandering allowed? Divide each state into squares/rectangles. not voter enclaves. No objective judge has ever supported this. Why guarantee political jobs?

4] overturn “Citizens United” – one of the worst, most destructive Supreme Court decisions EVER. The stupidity of this illustrated by the ever increasing billions spent on elections. “Free speech” is corrupted – the richer you are – the more “free speech” you can buy. This has now corrupted American government, economy, society. [read Jane Mayers” “Dark Money”]

5] end America as 37th best in health care. Learn from other nations. COVID-19 has revealed public health IS national security. The corrections are well known: government negotiates drug prices; reform or eliminate private “health insurance;” regulate hospital charges; end health monopolies and consolidations. {read Bartlett & Steele’s “Critical Condition” or T>R>Reid’s “The Healing of America”]

6] enforce existing anti-trust legislation. The American economy is stifled by rent-seeking monopolies in all industries. Customers routinely overcharged. {read Lynn’s “Liberty From All Masters” or Teachout’s “Break ‘Em Up: Recovering Our Freedom..”]

7] reform American tax policies. One table for ALL income, based on progressive taxation. Limit inherited wealth. End corporate ability to hide income. Why should billionaire Warren Buffett pay a lower tax rate than hissecretary?

8] return to the “Fairness Doctrine” of broadcasting, that was ended in 1987 by the Reagan Administration. American airwaves belong to the public. Broadcasting SHOULD serve us all, not feed “red meat” of hatred and fear. Why should media personnel earn $30 million yearly for dividing America, poisoning minds, creating division?

9] restore Glass-Steagall priciples. Separate investment banking [legalized gambling] from regular mainstream banking. End “too big to fail” banking. [read Phillips’ “Bad Money”, Ferguson’s “Predator Nation” or his Academy Award-winning film “Inside Job”]

10] end “share holder supremacy.” “American” corporations must be MADE to legally respect all American stakeholders: public, consumers, workers, environment. “Share holder supremacy” only enriches the top 1%, impoverishes Americans in many ways {read Hatcher & Pierson’s “Winner-Take-All-Politics”]

11] correct massive post-1980 “income inequality,” which is destroying America. If Joe Sixpack earns $50,000 for 50 years, his TOTAL lifetime earnings are $2.5 million. Can he thrive, support his children, retire with dignity? {read Wilkinson & Pickett’s famous “The Spirit Level,” “Pulitzer Prize-winner Johnston’s “Divided The Perils of Our Growing Inequality,” or Nobel Prize-winner Stiglitz’s “The Price of Inequality]

12] prohibit legislators and their staffs being employed as lobbyists; enhance strict lobbying rules. [read Kaiser’s “So Damn Much Money The Triumph of Lobbying and the Corrosion of American Government”]

13] all American legislation must have author’s name in print on bills; bills must pass Constitution’s premise: to “promote the general Welfare.” Reverse Robin Hood tax cuts for millionaires; unneeded military weapons don’t pass. [read Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine” or P.C. Roberts’s “How The Economy Was Lost”]

l4] return to the First Amendment’s original intent of strict “separation of church and state:” no church dogma put into law; no tax money to religious organizations. Why should a church you DON’T attend have any say on YOUR life??? [read Kimball’s “When Religion Becomes Evil,” Palmer’s “Thy Kingdom Come,” Epp’s “Wrong and Dangerous,” or Levy’s “The Establishment Clause”]

l5] return to the Second Amendment’s original intent. Google the “1792 Militia ACT.” See former Republican Chief Justice Burger’s “fraud” statement. See a grammar teacher on how to read a sentence!!! What does “A well regulated Militia ” mean to the Framers? See 4 consecutive Supreme Court rulings against a “constitutional right to own a gun” [read Levy’s “Origins of the Bill of Rights”]

16] protect voter rights against suppression. Overturn the asinine “Shelby County: Supreme Court decision – an INCREDIBLE denial of reality. Make it easy to register and vote with ordinary records [utility bill, rent statement, drivers license, tax statements, etc] Read Overton’s “Stealing Democracy or Anderson’s “One Person, No Vote.”

17] end becoming an American by birth here. Parents must be legal American citizens. End sale of American citizenship to rich and tourists.

18] bailouts. If any industry is bailed out, taxpayers own part income until “bailout money” is repaid. No executives/employees get “bonuses” from taxpayer money.

19]Adequately fund Social Security and Medicare. 100% of all income is taxed, no “caps” This ends the “problem.” The idea millionaires “get no benefits” from paying full tax is an insult. They “get no benefits” living here, no benefit from absence of threats to themselves or their wealth? Do you believe in the tooth fairy???

20]U.S. national debt. This is now a national security issue. Solution: end Reagan-Bush II-Trump reverse Robin Hood tax cuts for rich; wealth surcharge until debt under $l trillion as was pre-Reagan This is a major morality issue: ordinary Americans suffer so rich can live in obscene wealth.

21] education K-l2. America doesn’t invest enough in its children’s future. We’re below international standards. Educators paid less than no-college jobs. Tax money siphoned off to private schools [lst Amendment violation by pre-Rehnquist/Roberts Court standards] Read Ravitch’s “Left Back” or “Reign of Error;” or Owens” “Confessions of A Bad Teacher.”

22] education post-high school. Why doesn’t America provide advanced education for all? Who is the next Einstein? Why does 2021 tuition cost 10-20 times what it did pre-1970? We’re importing foreigners because we don’t do this. [read Kamnetz’s “Generation Debt” – how student debt is radically changing people’s lives, hurting our economy]

23 begin elimination of “outsourcing” American jobs. We won WW ii and Cold War because we outproduced our enemies {by American companies] Read Quart’s “Squeezed” or Pulitzer Prize-winner H.R. Smith’s “Who Stole the American Dream?”

24] world-wide democracy depends upon America being an active, positive, participant. We will not survive going it alone – tried that up to December 7, 1941. We won WW ii and Cold War with friends and championing democracy.

25] have rational immigration policies based on fact and national interest – not fears and rumors. Have policies tom attract needed skilled workers and a controlled humanitarian immigration/asylum system. Do we still believe in the Statue of Liberty? [read H.G. Buffett’s “Our 50-State Border Crisis” or Bacon’s “Illegal People”}

26] have rational environmental policies, based on science. We will either stop global warming or it will destroy the earth, and our children and grandchildren’s future – as it already is doing. Invest heavily in renewal energy [as competitors and enemies are doing]; eliminate plastic pollution. [read Oreskes & Conways’s “Merchants of Doubt” or Klein’s “This Changes Everything”]

27] regulate the internet for the benefit of all – or return to 1865-1901 “Robber Baron” age. We apparently love “Amazon” – but without regulation “Amazon” will own America. Why don’t Facebook and Google pay YOU for the use of YOUR data??? [read Mayer-Schonberger & Cukier’s “Big Data,” or Lanier’s “Who Owns the Future?”]

28] 2016-20202 America didn’t happen by accident. We’ve been heading for it for decades. In 1963-4, Pulitzer Prize-winner Hofstadter’s “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” discussed extremist fringe groups. More recently MacLean’s “Democracy in Chains” and Levitsky & Ziblatt’s “How Democracies Die” detailed recent extremism and deliberate corporate planning to own America. Michiko Kakutani’s “The Death of Truth” discussed falsehoods.

In 1787 Philadelphia, a woman on the street asked Ben Franklin, “What do we have, doctor?” His famous reply: “A republic, if you can keep it.” Do we WANT to keep it?

29] For perspective, read James Michner’s “The Quality of Life” or Randy Pausch’s “The Last Lecture.”

30] Year after year, the happiest people on earth are usually Scandinavians – WHY????? One central COVID-19 lesson has been that nations exhibiting common purpose and mutual trust fared better than those who didn’t. America has not been one of these rational nations. Do we WANT to heal America? Do we WANT to learn and change? Can we handle the truth?

[note: Twain & Spock quotes from The Harper Book of American Quotations – Carruth & Ehrlich].

After 2 hours of laboring on the “religious liberty” posting of today, just above, i was rather exhausted. I closed too quickly and obviously missed an early major misspelling. Worse – I neglected to give credit to two sources in particular, even much came from multiple public sources. They are Leonard W. Levy’s masterful “The Establishment Clause Religion and the First Amendment” and “The Harper Book of American Quotations” by Gorton Carruth and Eugene Ehrlich. Sorry gentlemen.

Enclosed below are some thoughts, tolerant and otherwise, on religious freedom..

Isaac Backus, Baptist [1781]: “As religion must always be a matter between God and individuals, no man can be made a member of a truly religious society by force and without his own consent, neither can any corporation that is not a religious society have a just right to govern in religious affairs…”

Louis Brandeis, “Olmstead”: “The makers of our constitution undertook..to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thought, their emotions, and their sensations. They conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alone – the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men…The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal…”

Henry Clay [1818]: “All religions united with government are more or less inimical to liberty. All, separated from government, are compatible with liberty.”

Mary Baker Eddy [1906]: “I would no more quarrel with a man because of his religion than I would because of his art.”

Jerry Falwell [1976]: “The idea of religion and politics don’t mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country. If any place in the world we need Christianity, it’s in Washington. And that’s why preachers long since, need to get over the intimidation forced on us by liberals, that if we mention anything about politics, we are degrading our ministry.”

Harry Dudley Field [1893]: “If we had nothing else to boast of, we could claim with justice that the first among nations we of this country made it an article of organic law that the relations between man and his Maker were a private concern which other men had no right to intrude.”

Barry Goldwater [19810: “Religious factions will go on imposing their will on others unless the decent people connected with them recognize that religion has no place in public policy. They must learn to make their views known without trying to make their views the only alternatives.”

Thomas Jefferson [1784]: “Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites.”

Robert Jeffress, pastor, First Baptist Church of Dallas: “What a lot of people miss is, America is not a church where everyone should be welcome regardless of race and background.” “Islam is wrong. It is a heresy from the pit of hell. Judaism – you can’t be saved being a Jew.” In a 2011 sermon, called the Catholic Church a corrupt version of Christianity that sprang from ancient Babylonian cults.

Richard M. Johnson [1830]: “It is not the legitimate province of the legislature to determine what religion is true, or what is false.”

John F. Kennedy [9/12/60]: “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute – where no Catholic prelate would tell the President [should he be a Catholic] how to act and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote – where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference – and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.”

Thomas Kennedy [1823]: “There are a few Jews in the United States; in Maryland there are very few. But if there were only one – to that one, we ought to do justice.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. [1963]: “The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.”

Robert E. Lee [l1/27/56 letter]: “Is it not strange that the first descendants of those Pilgrim Fathers who crossed the Atlantic to preserve their own freedom of opinion have always proved themselves intolerant of the spiritual liberty of others?”

John Leland, great Baptist preacher – Rejected the idea America was a Christian nation; advocated a radical separation of government and religion; contended any sort of establishment of Christianity, including all state establishments, were “all of them, Anti-Christocracies; favored equality foe Deists, pagans, atheists, Jews, Turks, and Catholics; rejected “test oaths” for office; above all insisted “religion is a matter between God and individuals,” not subject to governmental jurisdiction. Leland was a contemporary, and influenced, James Madison.

Margaret Mead [1963]: “We will be a better country when each religious group can trust its members to obey the dictates of their own religious faith without assistance from the legal structure of the country.”

New Jersey Constitution [1776]: no person should “ever be obliged to pay tithes, taxes, or any other rates, for the purpose of building or re[pairing any other church or churches, place or places of worship, or for the maintenance of any minister or ministry, contrary to what he believes to be right, or has deliberately or voluntarily engaged himself to perform.”

North Carolina Constitution [17760: “neither shall any person, on any pretence whatsoever, be compelled to attend any place of worship, contrary to his own faith or judgment, nor be obliged to pay, for the purchase of any glebe, or the building of any house of worship, or for the maintenance of any minister or ministry, contrary to what he believes right…..”

Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man: “Persecution is not an original feature in nay religion; but it is always the strongly-marked feature of all law-religions, or religions established by law. Take away the law-establishment, and every religion re-assumes its original benignity.”

Pennsylvania Constitution [1776]: “…no man ought or of right can be compelled to attend any religious worship, or erect or support any place of worship, or maintain any ministry, contrary to or against, his own free will and consent,”

Pat Robertson [700 Club]: “You say you’re supposed to be nice to Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing. Nonsense. I don’t have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist.”

Robert Simonds, president “Citizens for Excellence inEducation” and National Association of Christian Educators [1991[: ‘Our job is to evangelize..schools are the battle ground. The goal of 500,000 born-again Christians working inside the ‘system’ is to bring public education back under..control of the Christian community.”

Randall Terry: “Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a biblical duty..are called by God to conquer this country. We don’t want equal time..don’t want pluralism,”

Alexis de Tocqueville, “democracy in America”: “..the religious atmosphere of the country was the first thing that struck me on my arrival in the United States”…the “faithful of all communities…agreed…the main reason for the quiet sway of religion over their country was the complete separation of church and state. I have no hesitation in stating that throughout my stay in America I met nobody, lay or cleric, who did not agree about that,”

Virginia fundamentalists, “Religious Petitions Presented to the General Assembly of Virginia, 1774-1802″ To require a person to support even the religion of his choice denied him his freedom of choice and his right to religious liberty.”

Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom [1785]: to compel anyone to support religious opinions he did not share was tyrannical and “that even the forcing of him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty” of giving his money as he pleased….that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship place, or ministry whatsoever.”

George Washington, 17809 letter: “I have often expressed my sentiments, that every man, conducting himself as a good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience.”

The following excerpt is from the May l, 2015 “Washington Spectator,” by Rev. Dr. William J. Barber & Jonathon Wilson-Hartgrove.
“Many have pointed out the problem of laws purporting to protect the First Amendment right to religious freedom by creating the opportunity to violate another’s 14th Amendment right to equal protection under the law. But little attention has been paid to the struggle out of which the 14th Amendment was born – a struggle that continued to play out in Selma 50 years ago and is very much alive in America’s state houses today. We cannot understand the new “religious freedom” law in Indiana and others like it apart from the highly sexualized backlash against America’s first two Reconstructions……………..
Two features of resistance to America’s first Reconstruction are essential to note. First, it was deeply religious. White preachers led the charge, calling themselves “Redeemers” and framing equal justice for black Americans as a moral danger. At the same time, the threat was explicitly sexualized. Black men were portrayed in respectable newspapers as “ravishing beasts” eager to rape white women. In North Carolina, white vigilantes were armed and encouraged to defend their women, leading to the “Wilmington Race Riot” of 1898. Violent demonstrations of white men’s sexual fear led to lynchings throughout the South and Midwest in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Ida B. Wells, the courageous African-American journalist from Memphis, did dangerous investigative work to show that the great majority of these lynchings were not about sex but political power.
When the Civil Rights Movement – a Second Reconstruction – was finally able to draw national attention to vicious patterns of Jim Crow in the 1960s. the challenge to white power was again conflated with sexual fear. As Danielle L. McGuire chronicled in”At the Dark End of the Street,” civil-rights workers were consistently accused of wanting interracial sex and/or having homosexual tendencies. We remember Dr. King’s “How Long, Not Long” speech from the Alabama Capitol at the end of the Selma-to-Montgomery March. But we often forget that the members of the Alabama Legislature responded with Act 159, citing evidence of “much fornication” among marchers and claiming that “young women are returning to their respective states apparently as unwed expectant mothers.” When selma’s Sheriff Jim Clark published his popular memoir, he titled it “The Jim Clark Story: I Saw Selma Raped.”
The pattern is clear: whenever established power brokers have felt threatened in America’s history, they have responded by stirring up sexual fears. The widespread acceptance of interracial relationships makes “mongrelization” a moot point in 21sty century America. But one can see public expressions of concern about the “gay lifestyle” are not about religious freedom. They are about dividing an increasingly diverse electorate that has twice elected a black president. Fear of gay rights is a most effective strategy for extremists determined to take over America’s state houses…………..
In North Carolina, the proposed “religious freedom” bill goes so far as to say government employees may choose not to carry out their duties ****** because of a religious objection.******** While conservatives concern today may be a ******** religious objection****** to issuing a marriage license to gay couples, we remember well the religious reasons our neighbors in the South gave for segregation, the subjugation of women, and race-based slavery. Freedom of religion, a bedrock of American democracy, cannot mean license to condemn others.
Fifty years ago, thousands marched in Selma as part of a faith-rooted, moral campaign to secure an expansion of voting rights. Extremists who couldn’t deny their cause sought to distract and divide the country by using moral and religious language to stir up old sexual fears. The mystery money and secretive organizing behind today’s ******** “religious freedom” bills****** seek to do the same.”

This posting is done in memory of Bob Allen, a long time Milwaukee Braves loyal employee and future player agent. Bob gave me this card many years ago. We’ve since lost Bob to a higher place.

“The Measure Of A Man”
Not “How did he die?”
But “How did he live?”
Not “What did he gain?”
But “What did he give?”

These are the units to measure the worth of a man as a man, regardless of birth.

Not “What was his station?”
But “Had he a heart?”
And “How did he play his God-given part?”
Not “What was his church?”
Nor “What was his creed?”
But “Had he befriended those really in need?”
Not “What did the sketch in the newspaper say?”
But “How many were sorry he passed away?”

Author Unkown

The following is from an September-October, 2020 “Washington Monthly” article by Elizabeth Austin reviewing the book, “A Libertarian Walks Into A Bear” [Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling} “But today more than ever, there is nothing remotely amusing about a group of wrong-headed extremists plotting to take over a government and impose its own dangerously eccentric views on an unwitting and unprepared majority…With the story of Grafton, Hongoltz-Hetling was handed an American character in an ant farm. This New England hamlet twines together the most significant strands in our history: tax aversion, religious fervor, veneration of individual liberty, and a deep vein of cantankerousness. All counterbalanced by our equally powerful belief we are on a God-given mission to establish on this continent a shining City on the Hill. In Grafton, we find a microcosm of the constant American tension between “Don’t Tread on Me” and “E Pluribus Unum.”

………In the Grafton experience, we see clearly the chaos that can be created when a significant chunk of the community rejects the strictures of government, science, and the notion of community itself.

As i write this, more than l59,000 American lives have been sacrificed to failures of government at almost every level, and to the refusal of millions of Americans to curtail their sense of personal liberty and submit to relatively brief inconvenience to protect their neighbors and their communities……

This is what happens when massively funded propaganda campaigns lead large numbers of Americans to lose faith in our system of government. This is what happens when that loss of faith leads to blind opposition to taxation. This is what happens when public services and public infrastructure are systematically starved of resources in the name of “fiscal responsibility.” And this is what happens, shamefully, when those who are best able to recognize the threat and sound the alarm choose instead to treat local politics like some sort of low-stakes sporting event for out-of-shape people.

Today, we are all living in Grafton. Armies of rabid bears are wandering our streets….terrified, we beg our neighbors for help, only to be told the Lord will protect us, or that the cataclysm in the streets is just punishment for our moral failures or our political misdeeds.

And all of this is happening because a large disgruntled minority of Americans dutifully memorized the Declaration’s listing of our unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness without perceiving that these rights can exist only within the context of the social contract – an Enlightenment concept so deeply familiar to the Founding Fathers that, tragically, they didn’t consider it necessary to mention……..

We are separated today..because millions of my fellow Americans have been unwilling to sacrifice even a shred of their perceived personal liberty to the higher considerations of what we owe to each other.