I think I’m GONNA be SAD I think IT’S TODAY
The GIRL that’s DRIVING me MAD is GOING away
She’s GOT A ticket to RIDE
SHE’S got a TICKET TO RIDE
But SHE don’t CARE

or as John Cleese would have put it…

HERE COMES THE SUN!
_HERE_ COMES THE **SUN**!
AND I SAY!
IT’S __**ALL RIGHT**__!!!!111!!

I’d say it was the FEAR & HATE & EXPOITATION, kinda, sometimes, really is SLAVERY that also kept that crackpot nation in some kind of united state.

Speech by The President (take your pick):

“The State of our Nation is good because you FEARED & HATED Injuns…but there ain’t enough of them anymore to mobilize a people in FEAR & HATE…

Tho ya can’t say the same for them Mexicans…now known as “wetbacks” & “illegals”…but don’t give them a hard time if they’re pickin’ my fruit & cleanin’ my pool…or acting like a Mayor in LA…unless he starts acting like those freaky Commies in Sth & Central Amerika…

Yep, the state of FEAR & HATE & EXPLOITATION is good…and let’s not forget how you FEARED & HATED & USED blacks but now some of them divert your mind from real issues with sports and song…& make you dance & screw and have little soldiers…I mean consumers…I mean babies…and some of them even provide evidence & justification for INVASIONS and “get out of jail free cards”…not for them tho of course…and them negroes…I mean our black population…also serve the Nation by making us rich dicks a whole lotta money so we can rig elections & live nice…so please leave it these days to your government & mainstream media to tell you which Blacks to FEAR & CONDEMN…

Yes, I’m thinking particularly of that Islamo-lovin’ Democrat…he’s ONE we’re keepin’ our eye on…he reckons he loves Jesus eh?…better do, that’s all I can say…right Mama?

An speakin’ of Islamics, now who better to HATE & FEAR than them women hatin’, always cuttin’ each other’s throats, explosive dark skinned types who seem to have been blessed with all the oil GOD forgot to provide us with…we’ll DIG & DIG & DIG but the most we’ll find after spendin’ billions of your tax dollars is enough to fit in the pools of the House of Saud…God Love Them…they buy lots of armaments so who’s complaining…RIGHT!…

But as we’ve proven time & time again, if we selectively FEAR & HATE Islamos we’re able to hand a flag & button of PATRIOTISM to a few thousand really influential Jews who we FOCUSED ON…& used to HATE & FEAR…but now they’re one of US in their FEAR & HATE of the Islamos…HALLELUJAH…& by GOD we’ll sell weapons to Israel like there’s no tomorrow…

And just in case YOU don’t feel glued to the concept of AMERICA enuff…we’ll stir up a bit more fire in your boiler by bringing on the good old FEAR & HATE of the Russkies & Chinks….yessirree…our Nation is RICH in FEAR & HATE…topped up with greed for gain, rampant capitalism, assassinations, death threats, blackmail, con-artists, monopolisation, broken governments, pharma & fast food addictions…& deliciously well-timed sproutings of homophobic, myopic, misogynistic religions….& of course…as in every PARADISE…malls as far as the eye can see.

The state of our NATION is so goddamned good…& everyone gets a free credit card”.
———–

And people wonder why Obama says he loves Jesus.

N’

Glenn Greenwald at Salon has made this one of his personal hobby-horses so that, even if not considered in this article, I think the site as a whole has that angle covered.

To comment on the core issue, isn’t the point here not the de jure constitutional separation of church and state but the sense there is a de facto entanglement creeping in. J_p_z’s points that the US has been a remarkably tolerant nation are well founded, the problem lies in the sense that this is being undermined by modern political action. The legal exclusion of faith from governance is stronger in the US than in Australia. As a secular observer from overseas what disturbs me is the impression of wave of opinion and action breaking against that legal bulwark.

Yes. indeed, the religious history of the US is very different from Europe and indeed very different from the religious history of the English/American colonies. That’s what I implied. We agree on this point.

My final quip about autos da fe was flippant.

The interesting thing to me — seriously now — is how those ancient inter-sect and inter-denominational hatreds have dissipated.

If religious groups and movements claim to represent God’s truth, then surely it stands to reason that other groups and movements that stand by different versions of God’s truth are the clear and present antagonists.

Yet, patently, for a long time in US history (possibly marked by the success of JFK as a Catholic) sectarianism has been a negligible force in US civil society.

But the decline of sectarianism has coincided with the rise of a bitter culture war.

Coincidence? I think not.

But I’d be interested in views about whether and how these two phenomena are connected.

Think, for example, of Arnie Vinnick in The West Wing. Or perhaps John McCain.

Historical objections that make use of the words “colony” or “province” instead of “state” are frozen in time, and get pretty low gas mileage w/r/t the project of the Republic: the Puritans didn’t write the Constitution, etc etc. Mark is right that some states retained ‘established’ religion in their state constitutions for a while, but this faded in due course, and certainly never resulted in zany religious wars or savage persecutions of the kind seen in Europe, North Africa and Asia on a constant basis for centuries. Nor should ethnic rivalries and grievances, which always exist on Earth and are often mixed up with religious identity, be confused with the power of the State to instigate persecution on religious grounds. It is the de-fanging and de-clawing of the State in this regard that is the great achievement; the existence from time to time of angry mobs, is another phenomenon entirely.

The point about “African religiosity” is noted but of course problematic, as it is a) reading present attitudes about religion backwards into the past, and b) slaveowners were not the State.

And the indigenous people. Religion isn’t the sole thing that drives ‘religious’ wars.

d

Maybe, but you’re leaving out the most important part — we didn’t bring the ‘wars’ part with us.

To a degree that is correct. The Puritans set up religious monocultures which obviated enemies by exclusion. These monocultures generated their own difficulties.

To a degree that is incorrect. Being a Catholic priest in New York province was a capital offence. Priest hunting was more or less the national sport of New Yorkers.

African religiosity was savagely suppressed on the plantations.

Striving for an ideal always means falling short, but probably going further than those who aren’t.

d

Maybe, but you’re leaving out the most important part — we didn’t bring the ‘wars’ part with us.

Well you can define anything upwards to the point of impossibility. The perfect blog thread can never exist, for instance, if we define it a certain way. What is meant by a religious utopia? In the US we have freedom to practice religion without fear of persecution, and in historical terms we’ve enjoyed that freedom longer than any other society I can think of at the moment. That’s a pretty low definition of utopia, but it’s been do-able, as shown. As the Quaker said to Tom Paine: “Philadephia — where a man can work and worship God in peace.” On those terms, I don’t see any disappointment.

Kim: “no one cared whether Eisenhower went to church or asked FDR to say whether he was pro-life.”

Most decent people at the time probably took such things for granted; I would imagine the second one especially so. If there’s historical evidence to the contrary, I’d be interested.

I’d add that no one was forcing the candidates to appear at Saddleback. All of the candidates at one time or another have declined invitations to speak or debate at this or that particular venue, and they could have declined this one. Appealing to a faith-based constituency is, well, appealing to a constituency. It’s an election. Did Salon consider the question in the context of candidates also making explicit assurances of fealty to Israel, an actually foreign nation, in order to gain the American Jewish vote, or of candidates appearing at the Spanish-language debates, conducted in a foreign language (!!), to gain traction with Hispanics? If not, what then to make of Salon’s habits of mind?

With respect, I think Robert Hughes nailed this sentiment. To paraphrase, “America was founded as a religious utopia and as no such thing can exist it is doomed to disappointment. Australia was founded as a penal colony to dispose of people unwanted by their homeland, so it has nowhere to go but up.”

d

The first attempt to take advantage of the turn evangelicals took towards politics after about half a century when evangelical Christianity eschewed political articulation.

Indeed.
.
Please Kevvie please. I know yer a Christian n’ all but dinnae ye do it. We’ll ne’er take it.
.
As if. This country’s a pack of pagan degenerates.

(1) The final abandonment of the New Deal project and the adoption by the elites of the Democratic party of a liberal economic strategy;

(2) The first attempt to take advantage of the turn evangelicals took towards politics after about half a century when evangelical Christianity eschewed political articulation.