Big Business created a Religion Monster. Now they Don’t Like their Creation. Waaaah.

It’s pretty much like Frankenstein, but with less humanity and pathos. As reported elsewhere, business interests pushed for “one nation under God” and manifold other Constitutional violations in the mid-to-late 1900’s so as to defeat government regulations, earn more profit, and screw their workers. And it worked: national prayer breakfasts, references to God all over our currency and other state and federal artifacts, and so on. “Establishment Clause? It’s just words on a piece of paper, amIrite Bros?” Lots of rights for corporate personhood, and fewer rights for human personhood. All with the Lord’s apparent sanction.

So the government wound up sponsoring, at the behest of the wealthy and powerful, the promulgation of Christianity. But not just ANY old sort of Christianity, oh my goodness gracious no. What we have been saddled with is a shadow theocracy composed of the most patriarchal, repressive, and authoritarian denominations: Catholicism, Baptists, CICU, Nazarenes and the like.

A perfect plan to undermine the Constitutional system, creating a neo-feudal structure in which users can be controlled and unknowingly transformed into modern-day serfs and villeins. And it has succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of its creators: look at how much steeper the sides of the economic pyramid have become over the past 50+ years, and how much sharper is its point. Look at how many Americans no longer think for themselves; instead, they blindly accept the sermons of their pastors and bleatings of their favorite pundits.

Success, indeed. The rich have gotten much richer, the government has been bought and sold to the rich, and everybody else fights over the few remaining scraps and crusts that fall from the high table down to where we can grasp them. But into every Eden there must slither a snake, and one has done so in this case: the peasantry and the less-intelligent members of the elite are taking their religious indoctrination and using it in ways that Big Biz does not like.

For example, the new “religious freedom restoration” laws that are being pushed around the country. They are not that much different than many other religious laws that have been passed over the years, but these are costing Big Biz money. So Big Biz wants the laws rolled back, and the rabble are resisting.

Dr. Frankenstein’s monster turned on him, just as the neo-feudal schemes of the 1% are turning around to bite them in their corpulent kazoos. It’s instructive, and weirdly satisfying, to see evil marring evil. But the glee one feels at the discomfiture of the corrupt is tempered with the knowledge that we are still in chains forged by decades of slow, steady undermining of our system of government. And the additional awareness that it is going to be far beyond difficult to undo what we have allowed to be done to us in the name of God.

The Religion Monster is running amok, and lots of we lowly types are being trampled thereby. Time to grab the torches and pitchforks, and deal once and for all with the monster and its mad creators. And that soon.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

You can Believe our Founding Fathers, or you can Believe the Teapublicans

When it comes to Church/State matters, you pretty much have to pick one or the other. That’s because the Fathers of our Country explicitly said that religion would have no role in our government. None. Zip. Nada. Teapublicans think that their particular variety of Fundagelical Christian religion is what should run the country.

Example Number A: The Founders wrote in the Constitution:  “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Pretty unambiguous, innit? On the other hand, Teavangelical Michelle Bachmann says that our secular government is going to destroy the world, and “Christians” like her need to revolt and take over the nation:

Former Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN) predicted in a recent interview that President Barack Obama’s handling of the Middle East was a sign of the End Times and that Jesus Christ would soon return to Earth.
“If we actually turn our back on Israel as we have seen Barack Obama do today, if that happens then I think we will see a scale and a level of push back in the United States, negative consequences,” Bachmann told Understanding the Times radio host Jan Markell on Sunday. “I don’t know what they are, but I believe that the Bible is true. And believe what the Bible says is that our nation and the people of our nation will reap a whirlwind, and we could see economic disasters, natural disasters.”
“The United States does not want to be in that position and unfortunately the people put into office Barack Obama,” she opined. “Not only once, but twice. And the people have to rise up against his actions and demand that their leaders take steps accordingly.”

Example Letter 2: We have the words of John Adams: “As the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion…The United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or a Mohammedan nation.”   Or you can pick those of the Texas Teapubbie who refuses to speak to non-Teavangelicals:

State Rep. Molly White (R-Belton) has proposed legislation that would allow businesses to refuse to serve customers on religious grounds. The first-year Republican lawmaker has also proposed legislation seeking to make the state’s ban on same-sex marriage immune from court rulings.

“Marriage is a Holy union of one man and one woman created and ordained by God. There is no other definition. As a Christian, I am guided by God’s Word,” she explained in a statement.

Thirdly: you can listen to the words of Thomas Jefferson:
“No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities”. Or you can listen to Teapublican Presidential candidate Marco Rubio try to explain why it’s OK to discriminate based on religion.

And let’s not even start on the Teabagging school nurse who threw a sick kid out of the clinic for not being religious. Yes. Screamed at the child, refused to treat the child, abused the child, all because the Nurse claimed it was her Christian right to act thusly. (Yes, the pun on “Christian Right” was deliberate.)

Gentle Reader, we all must follow the law. Even if we don’t like it, we gotta obey it. We can’t even say “end the debate over church and state”, because there isn’t a debate to be had. The Constitution says what it says, and the intent of the law is clear, because the men who wrote it said so, clearly and repeatedly.

Church and State MUST remain separate. The minute they aren’t, America will cease to be America.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Teapublicans: Wiping their A**es with the Constitution.

Seriously, what else can explain their actions of the past 35 years, since the Reaganistas took over a formerly rational political party? Consider these few examples of many:

Number A: Teapublicans in Congress are openly sabotaging negotiations between the USA and a hostile foreign power, even though the Constitution says that foreign policy is in the Executive Branch’s portfolio. So Boehner’s invitation to Bibi to “address” the Congress is more than just another of his drunkard’s hissy-fits: it violates the Constitution. Not that he is any stranger to extra-constitutional actions, of course. Look at his actions as they relate to women’s rights, minority rights, voting rights, and so on: Boehner and the rest of his party are actively breaking the law, based on an illegal premise, for an illegal purpose.

Letter 2: Teapubbies are a load of “Christian” evangelicals who want to trash the Establishment Clause and set up a Theocracy. They claim that this is a Christian nation, even though the law pretty clearly says otherwise:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.[1]

Thirdly: Teapubbies are frequently Secessionist scumballs. Such as the seditious “Republic of Texas”, the Southern National Congress, and the League of the South, to name but a very few.

All of these groups and people are Right-Wing Teabaggers, Libertarians and Teapublicans. None of them are Liberals. And all of them obviously hate America and its Constitution. By their actions we know them.

Likewise we know that people who vote for Teapublicans also support sedition, legislative overreach, and religious totalitarianism.

What’s that you say, dear “Republican” voter? You claim that you support the Constitution?

Bull-f***ing-s***. When you vote for a person or party that treats the law of the land like a**wipe, you support that treatment, as surely as if it were your own toilet into which the soiled Constitution got dropped and flushed away.

By our votes people know us. If you are voting for Teapubbies… *flush*

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

North Carolina Decides Not To Secede, After All. For Now.

Members of The Cranky Nation will know that certain wingnut North Carolina legislators voted for an unconstitutional state law earlier this week. That law would have made NC law supreme over Federal law, all because their precious wittle feewings got aww hurted the other day.

House Speaker Thom Tillis , who is smarter than the average nutjob, put the bill out of its misery yesterday. He has not said why he killed it, but hey, he killed it.

What he did not do was repudiate the intent behind the bill, admonish his fellow lawmakers, or stand up for the rule of law. So we are left with a load of loons in the North Carolinian State House, and they will no doubt try this crap again someday. Unless they get schooled by their constituents beforehand, which doesn’t look all that likely.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Bats***-Crazy NC Repubs Take A Step Towards Secession

Yes, it’s technically nullification at this point. But it’s a step in a very dangerous direction. A load of North Carolinian legislators gave signed onto a crazy, loony, unconstitutional bill that says, in essence, “neener, neener ” to the Supremacy and Edtablishment Clauses of the Constitution. And all because they can’t evangelize during opening prayers at public meetings.

Note this well: they are allowed to have a prayer. They are just not allowed to favor one flavor of religion during that prayer. You know, that freedom of religion Thinggummie. But evidently, being required to follow the law is equivalent to tyranny in the minds of these yahoos.

A unilateral declaration that state laws are supreme over federal laws is pretty much the start of secession, never mind the word games. These people are trying to create their own version of national law, just for their little state. Declaring one state’s law to have supremacy over that of the rest of the nation is tantamount to a Declaration of Independence.

Or, put another way, secession.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Mike DeWine – A Strong Argument for the Separation of Church and State

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine has well and truly f***ed up: he wrote a letter to the Feds asking that employers not have to pay for birth control coverage if they have a religious objection to contraception. This “religious freedom” red herring is a load of hooey, as we have written before.

General DeWine has been a pretty fair AG thus far: he has done good work on prosecuting human trafficking, pill mills, sexual assault, fraud, and other important law enforcement tasks. But he is clearly out of his depth here.

The current “religious freedom” campaign is not about the freedom of we the people to worship (or not) as we see fit. Rather, it is about employers being able to:
Number A, weasel out of paying for employee health care by using specious religious claims, or
Letter 2, cram their own religion down the throats of their employees, or
Third option, both of the above.

General DeWine was a total right-wing tool in his previous government gigs, and we can see by this recent action that he has not changed one bit since. This is a clear example of why we have (and need to have) separation of Church and State; a concept so important to the Founders that it is set out near the beginning of the Constitution.

When greedy religious fanatics try to manipulate our system for their own benefit, we need to put a stop to it at the outset. It matters not if DeWine is a manipulator or being manipulated; what matters is that we take these attempts to insert religion into our government and squash them flat. And that soon.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

A Week of Harsh Truths, Day Four: The United States is Not a “Christian Nation”, and Never Has Been

The United States of America is a secular nation, founded by (mostly) Christian men. They knew the dangers of a Theocracy, and so ruled one out in the first part of the First Amendment to our Constitution. It’s known as the Establishment Clause, and it goes like this:
“Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.

Pretty unambiguous, you’d say, and you’d be correct. But lots of corrupt, hateful, greedy, power-mad motherf***ers want to ignore that very clear part of our law and make their own personal church the official church of America. And God help you if you don’t go along, because the Churchies certainly won’t.

People, the law means what it says. If you don’t like the Constitution, feel free to try and amend it. But until then, just obey the friggin’ law. Please?

Mr. B & C