Frank Schaeffer, one of the founders of the religious right in the United States and, as he says himself "former part of a Republican Party hate machine," wrote a very interesting article in the Huffington Post on June 20.
"As a former religious right leader I worked to make America 'safe' for 'Christian values' and dangerous to everyone else. Thankfully I, and those like me, failed."
"Had we succeeded," Schaeffer says, "America would be another version of Iran," our own version of "misbegotten theocracy."
He highlights three major lessons of Iran for the United States?
1) Don't mix religion and politics.
2) Thank God for the separation of church and state.
3) The Republicans are utter hypocrites.
He asks Americans to picture their country if "Sarah Palin was president, both houses of Congress had a deep Republican majority, and the last 30 years of appointments to the Supreme Court had all been far right choices. Picture Fox News as the only TV news with access to the government, and the editors of the New York Times in jail for 'treason.'"
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Comments: 20
Please remember that Frank Schaeffer said all the above... hate messages should be addressed to him!
Kinda looks like we went way way to the other side. Many would have Fox news off the air and we would only get the Obama view. I used to listen to the shortwave radio and Radio Havana. Every news story started with "According to President Fidel Castro..." and that is what we get from the "news" here in this country, just not as blatant, yet.
Wow, almost sounds like the National Party, doesn't it??
I've seen him on a number of interviews, and he comes right out and tells what the agenda was, the tactics etc..., and he is working now to try to undo the damage, his father, and the trend they began, has done to this country.
I am so glad he is out there exposing the religous extremism, and the dangers it holds to us and our country, and I am so happy for him personally, to have been freed from the grip of this fanaticism.
I plan to get his book.
I must respectfully disagree. We would not have become another "Iran." (OK, what's with all this Iran bashing lately? You want to see a real nasty state, don't look at our enemies, look at our allies; Saudi Arabia is a much more religiously controlled nation than Iran is.) We would have become a Saudi Arabia / Iran "lite;" moderately annoying for other faiths but not directly oppressing them.
Christopher, all your nit picking and splitting hairs does nothing to disparage, nor distract from the truth of what he is revealing/exposing to the general public.
Christopher, here I am, honest as the day is long.
I have offered you a sound solution which will not cost anyone anything. You might want to consider it. www.nopom.info
Of course I am not a Democrat nor a Republican and I'm to different to be an Independent so you should find me frightening because I don't fit in any of your categories. But I am sure you will label me anyway.
"Christopher, "church and state" means "religion and state." That is exactly what the writers intended. Research it. They wanted the church out of state affairs. Thank the gods!
Larry, I have looked at your web page and I'll look at in more detail later. I have two basic concerns with it; it is so radical that no one would dare implement it and it is so radical that it cannot co-exist with the current system which means it has to be adopted world wide - but since it requires a minimum tech level to implement that's not possible.
Sorry Leo but I have and you are the one who is wrong. Even from Jefferson's perspective, the word "church" referred to hierarchy and "religion" to faith. Even in Jefferson's writings to the Danbury Baptists, (as can be seen in his original drafts) Jefferson's counter point to the Constitution was the King of England who was both head of the Nation of England and head of the Church of England. While Jefferson was the President of the United States, he was not a leader of the Church of the United States. Those functions of a Church (ironically he considered calling a national "holiday" a function of church and not state) could not be done by a head of "state" because there was a "wall of separation" between the two institutions.
For many of the other founding fathers, this was a simple case of the limits of Federalism. Unlike England there was no single "Church" in the United States, although some states as of the signing of the constitution had state churches. Some states were worried that a "majority" would impose their church upon the other states. Religious discrimination against non-Christians and Roman Catholics would remain popular in many states for decades after the approval of the Bill of Rights because the separation of church and state only applied at the federal level, according to the Constitution.
Christopher B. wrote:
"I must respectfully disagree."
Wow! There's a shocker! ROTFL
Christopher, my system is fundamentally different than any other, yes. But what other system has ever solved the problems we face? Every nation has these problems from time to time.
My system can be adopted by any industrialized economy/nation. Its superiority would soon have the other nations follow suit, not because they had to but because they could not compete with it. It is far more efficient being based on the free market with no centralized control such as government and the huge corporations now exercise.
Democracy was considered "radical" at one time. Government of the people by the people and for the people was considered radical. Eliminating slavery was considered radical. How did those things work out? Solutions always seem radical until you understand them. Then they seem obvious.
Thanks for the great article covering this important topic!
Thanks for posting this Savo.
Religious freedom in all forms, is where most Americans are at in this subject.
Very interesting, especially from someone who was in the movement! I don't know what's so hard for some people to understand about the separation of church and state, but some see it as a attack on religion; when it is quite the opposite.
Amen to Dorothy !
Great post.
The reality is the Mullahs are conservative. Strip the religion and they believe in what these republicans beleive in .
Republicans are controlled by obscenely wealthy multi-national corporations. In "conservative speak" they are referred to as "Small businesses of America". These incredibly wealthy groups of people have used religion as an inside joke on America's gullible christians. Here's an example...President Bush was supposed to be our "compassionate conservative" who was led by "Jesus" to start the war in Iraq. Isn't it interesting that President Obama has envoked the name of Jesus more times since he has been in office than Bush did in EIGHT YEARS!
Spartan, I am beginning to like you.
Excellent post!