In my response to the question about what shocked me most in 2009, I wrote:
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“That California voters supported Proposition 8 that revoked existing rights from a minority, when those rights had no present or future effect on the rights of the majority.
Minority rights should never be in the hands of the majority!
It is how things work under fascist governments such as the Third Reich (Nazis) and theocracies such as those of Saudi Arabia and Iran.
The USA was not established as a theocracy and the notion of separation of Church and State was meant to prevent such a government.
(Soapbox ON)
The extreme right which includes many or most republicans and many or most of the “Teabaggers” would impose their conception of their faith as the critical factor in any decision affecting their political convictions and behaviour. Their ideas don’t derive from the teaching of Jesus but from those who speak for their faith as if they had access to all divine wisdom. Televangelists and Radio and Television talk show hosts have repeatedly shown themselves to NOT be people of faith! Make your own list of financial, sexual and drug related scandals among such people. The same is true for far too many elected officials as well.
For the most part the Democrat party is no where as far to the left as most Americans believe. Most are not even that progressive!
Unless you consider equal pay for work of equal economic value to be a radical or Communist viewpoint, it should be supported by everybody.
Unless you believe that all the rich have earned their own wealth all by themselves and believe that all those struggling to survive and care for their families in the USA deserve to starve, lose their homes, or died prematurely of preventable diseases, you can hardly believe that protections for the sickest, weakest and poorest in the nation are not the business of government.
Those who oppose welfare for the working poor, health care access for all regardless of their family incomes, and support for veterans, the elderly and the disabled should take their assets. invest them overseas, and leave the country and relinquish their American Citizenship. The Country would be better off without you.
Those things they oppose are not Socialist values, they are American values.
They are the values that used to make America great in the eyes of Americans and others around the world.
(Soapbox OFF)
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The Founding Fathers would be appalled at how poorly the separation of Church and State is being maintained. The USA has become a theocracy.
The Founders would be sickened by how perverse religious dogma that is a dishonest interpretation of the teachings of Jesus is being used to oppress minorities, perpetuate long standing injustices and to sustain a class based society worse than any of the injustices of British rule in the late eighteenth century. The privileges of the rich and their corporations are worse than any of the vices of the King and British Nobility. The policies that promote the oppression of the poor, the weak and the disabled would make the founding fathers feel that their carefully crafted constitution has been disregarded if not intentionally mocked.
The notion of which Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg a century after the founding of the Nation, “of a government by the people and for the people and of the people” the founding fathers would concede has perished from this Nation.
The founders would call for a new American revolution to restore the path of the country to one worthy of the respect the USA once warranted in the world.
An American that renounces torture, that does not wage wars to promote a perverted distortion of Christianity to overthrow countries that have other faiths.
The USA’s foreign and economic policies have created the need for the Taliban and Al Qaeda in foreign lands into which they have intervened without invitation or just cause.
American could have supported Israel’s right to exist and maintained constructive relations with the Arab and Muslim world if they were not so focused on exploiting and manipulating other countries in service of short-sighted domestic goals.
Despite the progress made in America in the early and middle 20th century in the areas of civil rights and labor laws, the last fifty years have seen so many political and economic errors that have undone the prosperity and security of Americans at home despite unparalleled technological advances.
In recent decades America has lost its way and compromised so many of its own values to economic and political expediency in international relations. These failings have come to be reflected in a deterioration in Americans’ trust and respect for their own government. Its elected officials have become more greedy and corrupt as fewer and fewer citizens even bothered to vote.
In the last eight years, the justice department because responsible for injustice at the command of the executive branch. Americans were conned into giving up freedoms hard fought for in two World Wars in “Patriot Act” legislation rushed through Congress without most elected officials knowing what implications it would have.
The creation of the department of Homeland Security gave unprecedented powers to government that citizens had no say on and now have no way to undo. The mechanisms put in place define a terrorist as anyone said to be a terrorist by the government. This is a powerful disincentive for anyone to dare speak out for fear of political oppression by their own government.
The founding fathers would wretch their guts out at what American has devolved into.
They would demand a do-over to enshrine protections they never imagined would have been needed to protect freedoms and to prevent tyranny by the government for the government and of the government.
I grew up admiring what the USA declared it stood for. I now see the stark contrast between the awe-inspiring words and the present reality.
I am not anti-American! I believe it what American intended to be and what it yet can be!
I’m sure the founding fathers would still believe in America’s potential but they would be very concerned about where it has come.
