Sunday, December 03, 2006

Dennis Prager hates America

By Capt. Fogg

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

-- Article VI, United States Constitution

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What bothers me most about the effort to make the United States into a Christian State, where non-believers or believers in other religious traditions have no place, is that there is so little protest. Forgetting that early Christians were persecuted as atheists, atheists are said by many self-styled Christians to be unfit to be full citizens much less to hold political office. Republicans from George H.W. Bush to Katherine Harris have asserted this notion.

I read in Crooks and Liars that Fox News’ latest attempt to make the Christian Bible an official U.S. Government document includes the crucifixion of Keith Ellison (D-Minnesota). who, as is his guaranteed right, wishes to use the Koran instead of a Christian document. Take Sean Hannity, for instance. If Ellison gets to use the Koran, he asks, then what’s to prevent some other representative elect from using Mein Kampf. My answer would be nothing – and thank God (and the Constitution) for that.

Of course, the unexplained equation of a Hitler book with the Koran is an obvious inflammatory ploy, but the insinuation that there should be government rules regarding which books are acceptable is obviously in opposition to the letter and spirit of the Constitution. Fox seems to hope that you’ll be afraid enough of those “liberals” electing a Muslim ( read: potential traitor) to give up your right to vote for whomever you please, whether he reads the Koran, The Bhagavad Gita, or Bible stories for children.

This wouldn’t be the first or most egregious attempt of Fox to overthrow the rule of law in the U.S., nor would it be the clumsiest or most thinly disguised, but of course the real problem with Fox’s attack on America is not the rickety, fearmongering fallacies, but the inherent assertion that the government can, should, and must legitimize one religion and render another illegitimate.

“If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don’t serve in Congress,”

said Foxhound Dennis Prager, thereby advocating the denial of both equal protection and freedom of religion to an American citizen in good standing. Now where is the riot? Where are the marches and demonstrations? Where are the legions of mocking and bloviating radio personalities and swiftboat crewmen? Why are Hannity and Prager and all the other dogs of Fox not in Guantanamo?

Dennis Prager hates America. Fox News and its billionaire media tycoon owner hate America and are spending billions to try to overthrow the rule of law and replace it with mob rule and fundamentalist theocracy. Where is the protest?

If you are unable to accept the legitimacy of the U.S. constitution, says Captain Fogg, and must resort to creating fear in this country in order to promote your attack on the Constitution and the republic for which it stands, then you and Fox News and Rupert Murdoch (for whom it stands) are terrorist insurgents. Perhaps you’d like to reconsider your stance on torture, habeas corpus, and special renditions?

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3 Comments:

  • Funny you should mention this topic today. I reviewed Brooke Allen's Moral Minority at my site today.

    By Blogger Edward Copeland, at 1:53 PM  

  • I think Prager is not trying to make a legal argument but rather a symbolic one about rejecting the moral foundations of America and its consequences.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 1:48 PM  

  • Yes but he's wrong - practically none of the guarantees in the Constitution would be tolerated by the Biblical commands and vice versa. Prager's argument was used by pro-slavery advocates and most specifically Monarchists to justify their "morals" and the Bible mandates death for gathering wood on the Sabbath, eating cheesburgers or lobster or bringing incense near the Tabernacle and hundreds of other innocuous things including worshipping something other than Jaweh.

    The morality of the Bible contains infanticide, genocide, wife beating, slavery, violent genocide and the gouging out of eyes. It mandates religious intolerence and religious conformity. Most of all it asserts the divine right of kings. Our constitution is clearly a reaction to this, not a product of this. Any contrary assertion can hardly survive a comprehensive reading of the men who wrote the document and the men who inspired the movements that preceded it.

    The Constitution is not about morals or sins really, other than mandates against harming the person and property of others - something independent and cross-cultural, even in antiquity. To say that morals descend from the Bible and that in particular our government's morals descend from the Bible is to ignore a great numner of facts and much history.

    There is a reason that the Constitution forbids religious requirements for office and the legal establishment of any religious precepts or dogmas, and from reading the words of those who wrote it, my conclusion is that there is no basis for claiming that the Constitution is based on Biblical anything. My conclusion is that those who argue this way are a continuation of the initial distaste for a secular constitution that emerged at its inception and that this insurgency has gained new momentum in this day of fundamentalism and jihad.

    By Blogger Capt. Fogg, at 11:28 AM  

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