tekHedd – the blog

So we elected Obama, and it’s turning out even for his most ardent supporters to be a bit of a disappointment. I’ll admit, I voted for him, even though I figured his message of “Hope” was way, way too broad to really be true. Hey, he promised us Hope, and that’s exactly what he gave us, much to the evident glee of those who hate him.

But there is a bright side! You see, it’s OK for everyone to hate Obama, left wing liberals and hardcore conservatives alike. And now Obama is doing some very bad things, or rather, tacitly making permanent some very bad temporary things done by previous administrations. He now officially approves of torture, indefinite imprisonment of Americans without due process, warrantless wiretapping… that bastard! But think, if we had a Republican president, all of these would be acceptable to some people. Don’t agree? Well, you’re wrong. All of these were started under the Bush administration.

When our good old friend W. thought it was OK to detain Americans without due process, that was OK. Now that Obama has signed it into law with the approval of both houses of Congress, suddenly it’s an offense against all that is decent.

When W’s administration started recording Americans’ conversations willy nilly, it was all we could do to get someone to investigate it. What was the first thing Obama did? Officially let the phone companies off the hook. [no pun intended. hey that’s kinda funny.]

We don’t even *talk* about torture these days. That’s apparently acceptable to everyone.

I should probably wrap this up in a nice summary here, and recap my point: it’s a good thing we elected a black Democrat because now conservatives are permitted to object to gross violations of fundamental American values by our own government. But I’m just getting too angry to think so I’ll just go now.

http://youtu.be/6mHfiaFsGgI

I wouldn’t think that veterans would make good hostages. Recently, it seems that Christians have become fond of defending unconstitutional practices by taking veterans hostage.

Some examples: In the recent lighting of the CHRISTMAS tree in Madison, Governor Walker made a point of dedicating the tree to members of the military. In Rep Jaret Gibbons’s recent open letter defending Ellwood City’s Christian display, he points out the military service of the local citizens as a reason to keep it. Several crosses and even the now-infamous Big Mountain Jesus on public property are being called war memorials in an attempt to prevent their removal. Christians are also particularly fond of putting crosses on military shrines and vice versa. For more examples, just go to militaryatheists.org and browse around.

Talk of removing a war memorial and you’ll get the same reaction as if you said you were considering taking up a pedophile lifestyle–and for good reason! I think pretty much everybody respects the sacrifices made, and so on. Claiming that something like the “Statuary Jesus” is a war memorial attempts to confer onto it the special untouchability normally reserved for, you know, real memorials built to honor real veterans.

I’ve seen a lot of Liars for Jesus in the public sphere recently, creatively rewriting history as they push their Christian Nation agenda. Hypocrisy like that is fairly repulsive, but this new Co-opting Veterans for Jesus thing is truly disgusting.

Isn’t the greatest honor we can show to those brave men and women fighting to uphold our Constitution, to uphold the Constitution?

See also:FFRF’s open letter to rep Gibbons

http://youtu.be/4ixhLRVHQFg

I realize that what I’m about to say will offend many religious people; but off the top of my head, I really can’t see why. I won’t be saying anything about religion. I won’t be claiming that their gods are false, or that teaching people to hate themselves is wrong, or anything like that. I think the religious will be offended by the following because I am claiming that atheists should be treated equally under the law. For some reason, they find that offensive. For some reason, I find that frightening.

Congress has, for the third time, reaffirmed that our nation’s motto is “In God We Trust.” We wouldn’t want to forget that, would we? A chance to remind 9 out of 10 voters that their elected officials are good God-Fearing Americans. And, incidentally, reminding the other 1 out of 10 that he isn’t an American at all. But hey, details, details! The important thing is reaching the majority, right?

Now, I grew up with In God We Trust, and in a manner of speaking, it’s true. We do Trust in God, at least the way most people mean it: “In God we trust, all others pay cash.” You can’t trust your elected officials, or the banks. The things you buy all just break. You can only really trust your closest friends, and only some of them are 100% reliable. Yes, we really don’t trust anybody or anything these days, but when all else fails, there’s always faith. Faith never fails because, what the heck, you didn’t expect it to work anyway, did you? There’s always a “mysterious” reason, but if he were here in person, you’d expect an explanation, wouldn’t you? You can trust in God because he’s not here to let you down personally.

But whatever. You trust in God, but do We?

“In God We Trust.” What does “We” stand for? Does it mean “Congress”? Does it mean “all humanity?” Hell, no. We’re talking about the US national motto here. We means Americans! Americans trust in God. When this motto was adopted, in the heart of the McCarthy era, we wanted to distance ourselves from the evil communists that were trying to destroy our nation. We chose this motto to draw a line between the God-Trusting Americans and the Godless Commies. And I’m sure this made perfect sense, in those fearful cold-war times.

In these fearful post-9/11 times, it still separates Us from Them, but it draws the line in a different way. Now it distances “We” the God-Trusting Americans from “Them” the other Non-God-Trusting Americans. What purpose does this serve? It divides us to no apparent useful purpose. This new motto is the opposite of our nation’s original motto and the antithesis of core American values. The old motto meant “From Many, One.” The new one means “Believe or Leave.”

But, that’s how many Christians seem to think these days: love God or leave. “Why don’t you go back where you came from?” (No! I don’t want to go back to Alabama!) And the motto echoes that: if Americans trust God, then unbelievers are not really Americans. Does this mean we should deport atheists?  No, wait, deportation is what we do to illegal aliens. Atheists aren’t aliens, are they? Atheists are really illegal natives. And, what do we do to inconvenient, unwanted native Americans? That’s right! We put them on reservations. (Happy Thanksgiving, by the way.)

We all know how well things worked out for the last batch of native Americans. I think I’ll pass.

But the modern threat to America doesn’t come from Godless Athiests any more. Aside from being divisive, probably unconstitutional, and definitely unAmerican, our national motto is out of date. These days, the people who want to destroy America trust in God a whole lot more than we do, enough to fly planes into a building or blow themselves up. And yes, it’s the same God. According to our national motto, these terrorists are better citizens than I am.

Well, I disagree, and I think we need a new motto.

And yes, I am quite passionate about these things. I love my country. And I really, really resent being told that I am not a citizen. Any American would feel the same on being excluded to this degree.

How would a Christian feel if the national motto was “There is no god.” How would a Christian feel if Congress took time out of their schedule to reaffirm that this was the national motto? Would you feel angry? Disenfranchised? Would he feel passionate?

Any Christian who says he wouldn’t is a liar.

This year, Congress took a half hour out of their busy schedule of not-balancing the budget to personally reaffirm that they don’t think of me as a citizen. Before, it was just a cheesy old motto. Now it’s personal.