Burnt Orange Report

"For those of you who don't think the War on Terror is a serious deal, it’s getting ever closer to home."

I don't understand this comment. On 11 September 2001, terrorists attacked our country. This is pretty damn close to home. Yet, for some reason, people printing flyers about their beliefs in Irving is suppose to change things? I might not agree with their ideas, but America is a crazy place that allows for freedom of expression. I know you know about this because you did it yourself by writing this entry.

Now if they use this event to raise money for terrorist causes, then, yeah, it's a huge deal. However, if they honestly believe that what is happening in Iran is what is best for the world, it is their right in our country.

So I guess my next question would be, playing devil's advocate here, if Iran is as bad as you say (going after America for 2.5 decade, etc), why is it that Bush and Co. went after Iraq (our friend till '90)?

The War on Terror is serious, but we must fight it in an intelligent manor. Remember, America played a 'not so heroic' role in the Iranian revolution that lead to the Islamic Fundamentalist state that currently controls the country. If we had been smarter about things back in the 70's (not to mention the 50's and 60's), we might not be where we are now.

These dudes are very definitely scary but keep in mind that such "mainstream" folks as Pat Robertson and the American Eagle Forum share very similiar priorities from a Christian perspective. Read this for some examples:

http://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/TheDespoilingOfAmerica.htm

Fundamentalist groups that reject the separation of church and state are a danger to us period, regardless of their affiliations. The arroagant belief that God is on your side provides an excellent excuse for murdering those who don't agree with you. Remember the Crusades?

If you're truly concerned about the future of the U.S., you should stop worrying about the mosque near your mom's house and start taking a look at the right-wing Christians in your own community.

It looks like Mavs player Tariq Abdul Wahad is also speaking at this event.

Where oh where is this mythical separation of church and state thing in our Constitution or the Bill of Rights? What Amendment is it talked about? What Official Document is it in? When was it voted on?

Good post Andrew. Keep up the good eye.

This isn't the Crusades.

The French played a greater roll in Iran and Iraq than we did.

The Mavs player isn't going to play another game for us. Just paying out a bad contract.

The seperation of church and state is in the first admendment. Maybe they did not use that exact language but it is there. Check the Supreme Court cases.

The original usage of those terms was taken from a letter that Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Congregation, "I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between Church and State."

"Christian fundamentalists are pretty scary too, but they use legitimate political channels to promote their beliefs."

Bombing abortion clinics in the name of God (aka Allah)is a legitimate political channel? Methinks Islamic and Christian fundamentalists are similar than you might want to believe. (I would also point you to similarities in their treatment of women and outsiders, their strict/literal construction of scripture, etc.)

How many other letters did he write and should we take all those as meaningful documents for conduct of government. How about Washington's journals, our number One President? He spilt blood for this country, shouldn't his journals be used in establishing a precedent for governing? Jefferson's a "saint", Washington's just some dumb general?

Why is it that the Establishment Clause always seems to take on more importance to the Free Exercise Clause, Freedom of Speech Clause and the People Peaceably to Assemble Clause? Y'all seem to be soo one sided to only the Establishment Clause. Did you stop reading at that point...proves your point...no need to go on.

For those keeping count;

Pres. Bush 61,981,080
Sen. Kerry 58,962,408

You keep wishing, I'll keep counting.

Andrew, while I agree with you about the importance of the war on terror, there are some things close to home that concern me as well. One was that mosques in Carrollton where I live were shot at, and that someone wearing a turban was attacked in Carrollton after 9/11. A stockpile of chemical weapons in East Texas is a serious deal. This is not a legitimate political channel.

I don't say this to dismiss your news item or your point, but Muslims didn't bomb a federal building in Oklahoma City. It probably wasn't a Muslim behind the antrax attacks.

Okay, so what is the difference between Christian fundamentalists and Muslim fundamentalists? Abortion clinic bombers, etc. are distinctly on the outside of the movement. While Pat Robertson and his ilk are repugnant, they do not fund clinic bombers, they haven't publicly called for acts of terrorism and they don't celebrate it publicly when these attacks occur. That is more than one can say for the Ayatollah.

And the violence against Muslims is disgusting and wrong. But that is not the point- public figures in the North Texas Muslim community are publicly celebrating the Ayatollah. This is frightening and we need to be thinking of the impacts of this sort of event.

Finally, Peter is right about the Left's obsession with the Establishment Clause. It means no official state religion- period. So Texas can't say that the Baptist Church is the official Church of Texas and the Congress can't mandate that everyone be a Catholic or anything else. That doesn't mean (IMO) that a judge can't put up a copy of the 10 Commandments or that kids can't say "under God" during the pledge of allegiance. So get over it.

Thanks for the comments though.

Preventing a public official from posting the Ten Commandments in a government building is not an infringement on the freedom to worship, speak, or assemble. Depending on which version of the Ten Commandments you choose, there are commandments about how to worship. I don't think it's so hard to understand how putting up a copy or a memorial to the Ten Commandments is tantamount to endorsing a religion.

Yes, there are some ridiculous cases about removing "God" or some image from state or federal property. Yet, no one is prevented from worshipping as they please, but what they want is that public acknowledgement of God and Christianity. A lot of Christians need to get over it and to quit trying to manufacture a martyr complex.

Is a group praising the Ayatollah disturbing? Yes. Should we be concerned that these are people who might possibly commit terrorist acts or support such actions? Yes.

But I promise you, Andrew, that the FBI and other agencies are keeping tabs on this gathering.

However, I find it frightening that there are "homegrown" terrorists that we barely catch or not at all.

Freedom of Assembly and Free Exercise has within its meaning a possibility of a gathering and use of a public institution. There are people preventing worship where they please.

Anywhere...

Just being a Muslim does not make you a terrorist.
Peter, if you want the 10 commandments in a federal building, do you have any objection to one of those circle things the Satanist use being put up as well? It is anything owned by the government that always raises the question. The government is owned by all. The unbeliever pays taxes just the same as the Christian or Jew or Muslim or Buddaist or whatever. The Catholic 10 Commandments are a little different from the Protestant. You can display it on private property. You aren't taking anything away from Christians. The words of the Lord should be in your heart and used daily for Christians. And look up when Under God was added to currency and the National Anthem. And I wish you WERE the one counting. But your aren't, you are taking their word for it and we don't have a paper ballot to keep them honest. Like Ronald Reagan said, "Trust, but VERIFY"

"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."

Nope, there's no mention of using a government building for worship.

This isn't about preventing worship or whatever that garbled sentence is supposed to mean. For the religious right, it's about proclaiming the U.S. a Christian nation. Look at the arguments from the religious where they keep coming around to this reasoning. Heck, look no further than the 2004 Texas Republican Platform in its plank proclaiming the U.S. a Christian nation.

There is more than one way to take the Lord's name in vain.

"Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.

Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking."

Matthew 6:1-7

Additional notices about public officials trying to prohibit public worship.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/110881_prayer04.shtml
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/3/story_320_1.html

I'm still chuckling over the comment about elevating George Washington's journals to legal canon because "He spilt blood for this country..." Didn't the last election prove that serving in combat and getting wounded don't mean near as much as sitting in a dentist's chair and getting a cavity filled?

You speak of verification as if it is something that can only be achieved via a paper ballot. Paper is just as impeachable, if not moreso, than electronic transmissions. I mean, do you print out your posts before you post them? Where is the verification that you posted what you posted? You have none, so we can't TRUST anything you say. Are we to trust these electronic transmission whilst distrusting another? To speak ill of computers while using one is hypocrisy. What source can you find to contradict the numbers I posted above? Beyond that of any updates to the number since my original posting.

Also, since when do Satanist's use Pentagrams? Never, that is a symbol of the religion of Wicca. And if they can provide a reason as to why a Pentagram, a symbol used in religious practices, in anyway reflects the act of presiding over the judicial process then they can have their Pentagram. The 10 Commandments, like that of Hammurabi's Code, is just a possible set of laws upheld by a culture. If anything it is a look at the history of law. So while the 10 Commandments has its place in a court building, a Pentagram does not. Some people don't look at the Bible as a religious text, they look at it as an historical text.

The Free Exercise Clause automatically allows for the free worship of anything anywhere so much as it does not endanger the public, thus keeping sacrificial rites out of the public eye. So, to persecute people for using the Clause is to persecute ol' Ben, George, Tommy, and the rest of our founding fathers for their belief that a government should be run on that principle.

Whilst it might scare us that people are celebrating the acts of the Ayatollah, we cannot in anyway condemn them for such. However, we can watch them more closely, just as a cop watches the guy with a huge bulge under his jacket.

Ah, Peter. Did I give you too much credit to reason things. I never put down the computer, I work on one every day and it has made my work so much easier. But I have seen our computer dept. go in and change things for me. What I am posting here does not compare to the votes. I go to my ATM machine and take out $100.00 and I get a receipt verifying I took out the money. When I get my bank statement it has the money I listed that I took out of the ATM machine. That is a verification and I know it can be done. I am all for using the technology. Instead I had to walk out of my polling place with nothing but trust and I have lived long enough to know better. One day you will too!

Dobbs, why don't you quit being such a fucking pussy and enlist? Your country needs you! Be a hero!

I've always walked out of polling places without anything to show for it, but trust. Whether we use levers to pull, punch cards, optical scaners, touch screens, no difference. What do you do with those receipts. This morning when you brought that coffee at the corner store, do you still have the receipt the cashier gave you? The meal at Olive Garden last friday night, got that receipt? How about that car repair on April 19th, got that receipt? The purchase of that nice new Nissan five years ago, got that one?

This is a phoney issue.

Okay, lets say you've kept your receipt. Do you need to turn it in on a recount? What if 90% of Reps. and 70% of Dems only turn in their receipts, does that help things? Was that recount fair? Do you want to track by transaction or sequence number, 120 million voters?!!!. WHO is going to audit that? How many trees do we get to cut down for all this paper? Each election, then storage, where?

Look at the Washington State hand count happening now.The places where paper is envolved, THE VOTE HAS CHANGED. Each time you recount paper it changes. Governor Locke was fascinated by that fact.

A phoney issue.

You do the very best you can the first count and trust everyday people to do the same. Very few of these poll workers want to cheat you out of your vote. If I went to the polling place and saw Byron LaMasters there, I would still have confidence that my vote was counted correctly. If I saw you there, working the polls, I would still trust that my vote counted.

Nancy, how do you know that what you post shows up on other peoples computers? Do you go out there and verify?

"Look at the Washington State hand count happening now.The places where paper is envolved, THE VOTE HAS CHANGED."

One of the main reasons that it has changed is that they are now including 500+ ballots that they deemed wrongfully excluded in the initial count. The change has little to do with the errancy of paper ballots.

Dude, disagreeing with someone, especially Andrew, doesn't give you the right to act like a dipshit.

Tx Bubba, ditto regarding the DUDE.

Those 595 ballots are from King County, they haven't yet been included, nor has the county reported yet. The Governor made his comments before the hand count. And those ballots sure look like those found in the recount of Zapata county during the Dem primary for the House. Go ask Ciro how he feels about these kind of "votes".

Has the new House member changed parties yet?