I was shown an article called Ten Facts That Will Blow Right-Winger’s Minds. This is my response to the article. I've edited the ten points and quotes for space. If you want to read the entire article you can find it here. href="http://www.alternet.org/10-facts-will-blow-right-wingers-minds". These ten comments don’t blow my mind simply because they are all disingenuous liberal propaganda. Maybe my answers will blow some liberal minds, but I doubt it. Liberals generally are only interested in their agenda, not the truth.
1. The United States is not a Christian nation, and the Bible is not the cornerstone of our law.
I will admit we are probably in a post-Christian era as much of the country has turned against God, and Christian churches and businesses are coming under increasing pressure from anti-Christian elements in government and public institutions, and organizations like the ACLU, in an attempt to exclude all references to Christianity in public places, especially in public schools. But the statement is disingenuous and not true.
Any quote taken out of the context of the speech, the letter, or the time in which it was given can be manipulated to make any argument you want. That is the case with all of the quotes given here. The argument against our Christian roots usually focuses on a misunderstanding of the doctrine of Separation of Church and State, which many people ignorantly believe is a part of the Constitution. It is not.
The Separation of Church and State doctrine was penned in a letter by Thomas Jefferson to the Baptist church in Danbury, Connecticut, in response to a letter from the Baptists who were concerned that there was an attempt to establish a national religion. Jefferson assured them that the Constitution was written to assure a separation of church and state so that the government could never establish a national church or interfere with church affairs, but which did not prevent churches from influencing the government by means of First Amendment rights.
Jefferson also wrote the following:
“God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever....” – Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII, p. 237.
This is most definitely a reference to the Christian God. Jefferson was not a deist as many claim. For one thing, a deist god would not be just or even care what its creation was doing. In fact, funds were designated for the evangelization of Indians to the Christian religion in every annual budget of Jefferson’s administration. Jefferson wrote the following as well:
“I am a real Christian – that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus Christ.” – The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, p. 385.
John Adams is quoted concerning the Treaty of Tripoli in 1797 that the United States is not a Christian nation in any sense of the word. Adams’s meaning about the treaty was that we do not have a national Christian Church that controls the government. This had been the situation in Europe under Roman Catholic influence and in England under Anglican Church influence for centuries and the Founders were not going to have it. Adams also wrote a letter to the Massachusetts militia in 1798 in which he said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Take the time to read David McCullough’s biography of Adams and you will find dozens of quotes from Adams about Christianity and its influence on the Founding Fathers.
Madison is quoted affirming the separation of church and state. Madison’s statement, however, does not disprove our Christian founding. It simply verifies the Separation of Church and State as Jefferson stated it, which in the context of the time meant to keep the government out of religion, not religion out of the government. It was a 1947 Felix Frankfurter Supreme Court ruling that turned the meaning of separation upside down to keep Christianity out of the government.
Madison, known as the “Father of the Constitution,” also wrote, “We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind to self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”
John Jay, a co-writer of the Federalist Papers with Madison and Alexander Hamilton, delegate to the Continental Congress, and first Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court wrote: Providence has given our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as privilege and interest, of a Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.”
A long statement by George Washington is given in which he opposes spiritual tyranny by any state church. Washington’s statement is also indicative of the times. He was against a church-state union that would produce a spiritual tyranny such as what the colonists fled England to escape. Washington, who was a vestryman in his church, also said the following:
“It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible.”
The French philosopher, Alexis de Tocqueville, visited America and wrote: “The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other ... Religion in America must be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country.”
Woodrow Wilson declared in 1911: “America was born a Christian nation.”
There are hundreds of quotes from the Founders and Framers of the Constitution about America’s Christian heritage. They are all in the public domain for anyone who is serious enough to investigate the truth about our Founders, but here is one more decisive statement. In 1892, in Holy Trinity v. United States, Justice Brewer wrote in the opinion of the Supreme Court:
“These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation.”
To say we are not a Christian nation is nothing but the dishonest agenda of extremist left-wingers who will selectively choose certain founding statements and deliberately misconstrue, pervert, and misapply the quotations in order to rewrite America’s history. Nobody is perfect, and nobody has never told a lie, but leftists who put out this stuff live by spewing falsehoods. It is their shameless lack of character and integrity that blows my mind.
2. The Pledge of Allegiance was written by a socialist.
So? The Pledge of Allegiance states the Patriot’s love and devotion to his country. You might also remember that the original pledge made no reference to God. The U.S. Congress corrected that in 1956 when it was changed to read, “one nation under God.” Under God was President Eisenhower's idea. When he introduced the proposal in 1954 he said, "In this way we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America's heritage and future."
3. The first president to propose national health insurance was a Republican.
So? Republicans make mistakes too. The fact is, it’s a Democrat issue today that every Republican in Congress opposes and rightfully so. Far from fixing any supposed problems with the medical insurance industry, obamacare is destroying the entire health care system.
4. Ronald Reagan once signed a bill legalizing abortion. As Casey Stengel said, ‘You could look it up.’
Yes, and you could also look it up in Reagan’s autobiography, An American Life, and find that he was misled into believing the bill only allowed abortion to save the life of the mother, and he thought it was going to reduce the overall numbers of abortion. It didn’t, and he admitted it was one of the biggest mistakes he ever made. That doesn’t take away any credibility from his pro-life stance, as he became one of the greatest defenders of life during his presidency.
5. Reagan raised federal taxes eleven times and only those in the top income brackets benefitted.
Yes, and they were small increases that hardly compared with the tax cuts. It is also misleading to suggest that they only affected the top income brackets. That’s the typical Democrat class warfare argument that doesn’t hold an ounce of water when you consider there are more millionaire Democrats in Congress by far than millionaire Republicans. They also benefited from the tax cuts and never complained about growing their own fortunes.
The other fact is that Reaganomics led to the longest economic expansion in our history up to that time. If you weren’t alive in the 1980s you cannot really appreciate how good we had it in America after the Carter malaise. The criticism that the '80s was the worst economy in fifty years was a Clinton strategy to destroy capitalism and replace it with a high tax socialist economy. That was soundly rejected, as was Hillarycare, by the country in 1994 with the Republican Revolution that led to a longer economic boom than in the '80s. Clinton went along with it and took the credit at the time, even though he brazenly waved his finger and denied it at the Democrat convention in 2012. There are other things to consider as well including the Democrat controlled House that Reagan had to deal with. It is interesting after all, how many times Obama has compared himself with Reagan, while at the same time trashing Reagonomics.
6. Roe v. Wade was a bipartisan ruling made by a predominantly Republican-appointed Supreme Court.
It is a hard thing to understand how supposed conservatives appointed to the Court keep turning liberal. Sandra Day O’Conner is another example as well as John Roberts. Nixon expressed his disappointment in Earl Warren. Unfortunately, the Senate has to confirm the nominees, and when the Democrats had large Senate majorities, Republican presidents were forced to appoint moderates in order to get them confirmed. Staunch conservatives like Judge Harlan, nominated by Nixon, and Robert Bork, by Reagan, were slandered with such vitriol by such Democrat stalwarts of integrity as Ted Kennedy that the nominations had to be pulled.
The bigger issue here is the one thing left out of this argument. Roe v. Wade also stated that if it could ever be proven that life began before birth, the ruling would be overturned. There is now absolute evidence that a child is a live human being from conception, with a heartbeat in only a few weeks, and with the ability to hear, and to feel pain. So the real question is, why has Roe v. Wade not been overturned?
7. The Federal Reserve System was a Republican invention. The grandfather of Nelson Rockefeller was one of its architects.
So? The Rockefellers have been notoriously liberal in politics regardless of party affiliation. It was also a Democrat president, Woodrow Wilson, who favored and signed the bill creating the Federal Reserve, and instituting the personal income tax system and the IRS, which today is the biggest scandal ridden agency in the government. All the more reason to get rid of the Fed and the IRS.
8. The Environmental Protection Agency was, too, created by Richard Nixon, who also was in favor of healthcare.
The EPA was created for a good reason, to clean up the environment. It did a pretty good job at first. Air pollution has been greatly reduced; parks and wilderness areas are kept clean. It was a good thing. The fact that it has morphed into a monstrosity trying to regulate every aspect of everybody’s life and destroy all production of energy isn’t the fault of Nixon. The EPA is run today by extremely leftist liberals.
Oh, and Nixon was for healthcare. He was also forced to resign from office over the cover up of a small break-in that had no national consequences. One of his advisors, Charles Colson, went to prison for having illegally in his possession one FBI file. Obama has presided over cover ups of Fast and Furious and Benghazi and others, and has yet to be held accountable even though these have had not only national, but international consequences. During Clinton’s presidency, Hillary had over 900 FBI files illegally in her possession, but she did no jail time, and now she is stonewalling the Benghazi investigation. Obama, through executive order, has illegally overturned the Constitutional separation of powers over and over. Where’s the accountability? The hypocrisy of defending Democrats for crimes far greater than Republicans have been punished for is appalling. Obama’s administration is undoubtedly the most corrupt administration America has ever seen.
9. Obama has increased government spending less than any president in at least a generation. Several percentage statistics were given to show Obama’s spending growth at only 1.4%, while Bush was over 5% and Reagan over 8%. It calls Obama the most thrifty president in at least a generation.
This is nothing but a flat out lie. The numbers do not in fact add up no matter how they are manipulated, and confusing the issue with percentages rather than real numbers doesn’t change anything. Obama called Bush’s last budget deficit of 450 billion dollars "irresponsible and unpatriotic." He then ran budget deficits of over 1.3 trillion dollars for five straight years. The national debt under Obama has doubled from 9 trillion in 2008 to 18 trillion in only six years. He has added more deficit spending and more debt than all 43 presidents before him combined. Thrifty is not a word that describes BHO. Out of control spend freak is more like it.
10. President Obama was not only born in the United States, his roots run deeper in American history than most people know. It is claimed that eleven of his mother’s ancestors fought in the American Revolution.
Since the last proposition was a complete fabrication, what is there to prevent us from believing this one is too? If his Dunham lineage is so well documented, let’s see it. Obama made a lot of claims in his fantasy autobiographies but this wasn’t even one of them. If there were any modicum of truth in it, I’m sure it would have been plastered all over the place in his defense. The fact that nobody knows it gives it very little credibility.
Even if it is true it says nothing about the place of his birth. Neither is it irrational to question his American citizenship. Obama spent a million dollars in legal fees covering up his past so that it was not available for examination. Why? The birth certificate he finally produced is so full of anomalies its validity is suspect. The sequence of birth numbers is out of order with certificates of other births issued on his birthday. It identifies him as African-American, a term that was not commonly in use until the 1990s. In 1961 he would have been identified as a Negro.
He supposedly became an Indonesian citizen when he lived there under the name of Sotero. That alone would disqualify him for the American presidency. By his own admission in one of his books he traveled to Pakistan in 1981. At the time U.S. citizens were barred by the State Department from going there. How did he make the trip? He could have with a British passport, which is possible if he was born in Kenya. In 1961 Kenya was still a part of the British Commonwealth, not yet independent, and he would have had a British passport if born there.
I lived in Kenya for fourteen years. The Kenyans certainly believed Obama was born there. They claimed him in their newspapers. His grandmother claimed to have witnessed his birth. And his yearbook bio from either Columbia or Harvard claims he was born in Kenya.
The smoking gun, however, is his Social Security number. He has a Connecticut number that belonged to a man who died many years ago. When they rolled out obamacare he had his staff enroll him. Funny thing. They could not get him enrolled because the system wouldn’t recognize his SSN. If he can credibly explain the SSN, I’ll drop the argument, but the evidence points to an illegal, unqualified usurper sitting in the White House.
None of this blows my mind, except as I wrote above, the absolute lack of intellectual integrity on the part of leftist propagandists who shamelessly produce statements like these in an attempt to distort and pervert the truth. As the Fonz would have said, “Sit on it.”
