By Mark David Blum, Esq.
What would Thomas Jefferson do today if approached to grab a musket and volunteer to defend the current government and status quo? Would he leave his farm and bother to risk his life, his name, his good fortune? My conclusion is that Mr. Jefferson would more likely rise in opposition to the current ‘George’ with the same zeal as he did King George.
Like me, Mr. Jefferson would conclude that the United States has already suffered a coup d’etat. A free people have been captured and enslaved to life in a Christian nation. For this reason alone, we are at war with the world and feeding our own citizens to the lions.
Name one of our Founders who would support the George Bush agenda with his attitudes on war, taxes, abortion, gays, or drugs. I know of not a single example where I could cite to an American patriot who would have picked up his musket and died for the same causes that George Bush has shoved down our throats.
From where I stand, that great social revolution that started at Sproul Plaza at the University of California at Berkeley and led into the Anti-VietNam War movement which led into the movement for equality and social justice, is now dead. The Nixon generation, the generation of our parents, finally shut down the loud-mouthed, freedom-loving, commie pinko hippies.
In the last Presidential election, veterans of VietNam also got in their last licks. Besides refighting that war by encouraging involvement in Iraq, these veterans let loose thirty five years of pent-up anger and fragged one of their own. “Swiftboating” is now part of our vernacular. Free speech is under constant attack as being unpatriotic or offensive. Our own Vice President is too cowardly to stand up for his own child’s liberties. The Supreme Court now says it is ok to start the ban on abortion. “God”, “family”, “clean living”, and monuments to the 10 Commandments are what are important. “Abortion”, “immigration”, “prayer in schools”, and “creationism” are the battle cry for political energies. Taxes, dead soldiers, pollution, and the Patriot Act matter far less to the overwhelming majority of citizens.
As a personal note to the more than 55 million “idiots” in this nation who never got off their butts to vote and especially to those who refuse to register: Their children should be the first ones to serve in the combat battalions sent to the Middle East. These should be the first people to open their wallets and pay the deficit being run up in Washington. All those “citizens” should be first in line to suffer from all the angst and pain that befalls this nation.
Those who laugh and mock me because I oppose the concept of a Christian moral nation should take a look backwards. Such concepts are very offensive to our Nation’s Founders and violate the most basic principles of our history. Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine all vehemently opposed Christianity and Christian values in our Nation. Not a one of them would ever have agreed that social morality, evangelical Christianity, or even the notion of spreading “freedom” was among the foundations of this nation.
Thankfully, their arguments prevailed and thus the strong language of our Constitution. None of the first six Presidents of the United States was an Orthodox Christian. Even George Washington, though a deist, never set foot in a church. We are a libertarian nation; not a Christian nation. The very freedoms our founders secured for the evangelicals to preach their faith enabled those same evangelicals to take over the Government and soul of this nation.
We are seeing today, a spreading Christian revolution, run by very aggressive zealots: Among them, 150 lawyers who are graduates of the Pat Robertson Law School. A “Christian” nation is a good thing; if you are a Christian. But the concept that we can “spread” freedom like we spread Parkay is replacing Mr. Jefferson’s teachings with those of the bible. “Freedom” is not a thing that we can enforce upon someone. It is not a concept or desire that comes from outside. The zeal and desire for freedom has to come from within a society and rise up as the chains fall. To assume that we can be a people who will spread freedom throughout the world is dangerous. America’s political agenda is replacing the teachings of liberty with the teachings of Christ.
What bothers me about a Christian nation is how Christianity is so hard-core based on concepts of fear, oppression, intimidation, and violence to spread their dogma. Christianity, as an institution, seems to not be capable of thriving in quiet and peace with its neighbors. Somewhere in the dogma is a desire and zeal to save the souls of others and to bring others into the flock. Those who choose not to join are damned for all eternity and will rot in the darkest bowels of hell.
These are a people of fear. They are afraid of the devil. They are afraid of their God. Christians fear gay marriage, drugs, and mini skirts. To a Christian, an innocent man dying for the sins of the guilty is the fundamental pretext of their ideology. They are afraid their neighbors are drinking too much or having unconventional sex. It bothers Christians if “different” people want to marry their daughters or want to follow a different religion.
Mostly what Christians seem to fear is death. I am not sure whether it is the process of dying or what happens beyond death that is their main concern. But the entirety of their belief system surrounds concepts of being afraid of death. Ye not dare to transgress against God on this earth lest ye suffer eternal damnation. "Death” is a concept that runs throughout scripture and lurks in the deepest recesses of their hearts.
Rather than more Hillary Clintons and Rudy Gulianis, this nation needs more Bobby Kennedys and Martin Luther Kings. More people need to have a dream. Where are the Thomas Jeffersons and Samuel Adams’ of tomorrow? At some point, someone is going to have to either surrender the United States to the religionists or we fight to take back the concepts of freedom and democracy from bastardization by the evangelical Christians.
A Christian nation is a good thing if you are a Christian and want to live a Christian life. But the United States is none of those things. Those who take us in that direction are treasonous and traitors to our most basic and founding principles. The nation may now beat with a Christian heart, but the American soul that breathes life into the words imprinted on the Constitution and Declaration of Independence has died. Jesus came to town. The “Red” is spreading.
Bill Maher has it right. He opines that Americans should “Vote their DNA”. What good is a war against terrorism or right wing judges or morality if you cannot guarantee you will pass on your DNA to the next generations? What good are airport screeners when you can’t breathe the air or trust the food at home? Fighting a war on drugs is a meaningless gesture when you cannot trust or afford the drugs prescribed by your doctor. Why argue about pornography when your own children cannot read?
One of our Founders, Samuel Adams said it best: “I am a soldier and a farmer so my children can be doctors and engineers and so their children can be artists and philosophers.”
I too am soldier and stand that wall 24/7. Jesus would wholeheartedly stand with me. Where do you stand?
