Oh well said, Thom. It’s interesting how extreme conservatives can quote and twist the 2nd Amendment to their purposes but ignore the founding principles of the 1st. But then people often pick and choose what they want to see.
To put it too simply, part of the issue is that America has always had two overlapping and intertwined stra…
Oh well said, Thom. It’s interesting how extreme conservatives can quote and twist the 2nd Amendment to their purposes but ignore the founding principles of the 1st. But then people often pick and choose what they want to see.
To put it too simply, part of the issue is that America has always had two overlapping and intertwined strands, the Protestant piety and the practical approach to life. The latter often considers religion to be irrelevant to either getting ahead or seeing the world as it is. Sometimes they work together, such as the robber barons who sincerely gave money to religious charities. And sometimes, as in the Scopes Trial, they butt heads. And often they have accommodated one another. Thus in the 1950s putting “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance and “In God We Trust” on the currency were reasonably harmless and meaningless actions that were billed as showing anti-Communist sentiment.
But this balance is never easy. Was a 1928 postage stamp showing Washington praying at Valley Forge even worth printing? It seemed to be loosely based on several statements by people who had known people who claimed to have seen it. George may have been privately and seriously religious, but he kept it to himself. The issue, without any resolution, is looked at on the ushistory.org website. Put in www. before and /valleyforge/washington/prayer.html after to get the discussion.
But whether Washington did or did not pray is irrelevant. As written in this essay, the problem is that many citizens seem to think the founders were religious, and specifically Christians, which of naturally affects their views of America. I think a lot of this is due to ignorance. My wife was one of the relatively few Jews living in South Dakota, and as a young woman used to visit high schools around the state answering questions about the religion. (The most common involved Jewish beliefs of an afterlife.) Most of the young people had never met a non-Christian before.
While the Internet has made the world more connected, I suspect this lack of interaction still exists in many areas. Certainly a press that simplifies (and too often demonizes) “The Other”, whether it’s Muslims, Hindus, Chinese, Latin Americans or whoever, isn’t helping at all. Neither are textbooks that give a very simplistic view of history. But still, one would expect judges, especially those on the higher courts, to do better.
One way the Supreme Court has been viewed was to see it as the “wise elder” of a tribe, one who would give good advice and hopefully tamp down disputes within the group. And at its best maybe the Court approached this. But today when religion and politics dominates good judgment we have found another way for this country to be terribly polarized. The Dobbs ruling won’t end this particular issue any more than Dred Scott did with slavery. And to ignore the ramifications of what they did is perhaps the Court’s worst crime of all.
Oh well said, Thom. It’s interesting how extreme conservatives can quote and twist the 2nd Amendment to their purposes but ignore the founding principles of the 1st. But then people often pick and choose what they want to see.
To put it too simply, part of the issue is that America has always had two overlapping and intertwined strands, the Protestant piety and the practical approach to life. The latter often considers religion to be irrelevant to either getting ahead or seeing the world as it is. Sometimes they work together, such as the robber barons who sincerely gave money to religious charities. And sometimes, as in the Scopes Trial, they butt heads. And often they have accommodated one another. Thus in the 1950s putting “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance and “In God We Trust” on the currency were reasonably harmless and meaningless actions that were billed as showing anti-Communist sentiment.
But this balance is never easy. Was a 1928 postage stamp showing Washington praying at Valley Forge even worth printing? It seemed to be loosely based on several statements by people who had known people who claimed to have seen it. George may have been privately and seriously religious, but he kept it to himself. The issue, without any resolution, is looked at on the ushistory.org website. Put in www. before and /valleyforge/washington/prayer.html after to get the discussion.
But whether Washington did or did not pray is irrelevant. As written in this essay, the problem is that many citizens seem to think the founders were religious, and specifically Christians, which of naturally affects their views of America. I think a lot of this is due to ignorance. My wife was one of the relatively few Jews living in South Dakota, and as a young woman used to visit high schools around the state answering questions about the religion. (The most common involved Jewish beliefs of an afterlife.) Most of the young people had never met a non-Christian before.
While the Internet has made the world more connected, I suspect this lack of interaction still exists in many areas. Certainly a press that simplifies (and too often demonizes) “The Other”, whether it’s Muslims, Hindus, Chinese, Latin Americans or whoever, isn’t helping at all. Neither are textbooks that give a very simplistic view of history. But still, one would expect judges, especially those on the higher courts, to do better.
One way the Supreme Court has been viewed was to see it as the “wise elder” of a tribe, one who would give good advice and hopefully tamp down disputes within the group. And at its best maybe the Court approached this. But today when religion and politics dominates good judgment we have found another way for this country to be terribly polarized. The Dobbs ruling won’t end this particular issue any more than Dred Scott did with slavery. And to ignore the ramifications of what they did is perhaps the Court’s worst crime of all.