>>Our forefather's very intentionally excluded any religious statements from the original declaration and constitution. They wanted to impress the fact that the government would not, should not, and does not advocate any specific religious beliefs.
Only the second sentence is true, my friend.
The mis-characterizationof "the separation of church and state", which is not a constitutionally based concept, has cause a great deal of trouble and wasted time.
In the first amendment, the intent of the founders was that we not have an official, state-sponsored religion. Congress is mandated to pass no law respecting religion; in other words, to have a violation of this "establishment clause", we would have to have congress declare a specific religion, such as Catholicism of Methodism, and declare holidays, practices, official prayers, etc. None of that has ever been proposed, so there is no vilolation of any law or founding document when the congress opens with a prayer, the supreme court opens with a prayer, or when a San Diego schoolgirl says "one nation, under God".
Incidentally, she had no problem with the pledge, nor did her mother. It was her father, who is in a custody battle, who complained.
Many of the young men and women I know who have come out of the public school system over the past 35 years have only learned the politically correct version of this discussion. The NEA is most likely the greastest proponent of this mis-information.
>>I wish I knew what were the hot topics back in the early 40's in this country, and what people were spending there energy on then. We all know for the most part what it was, but what were some of the side notes, some of the things that are not really covered by the history books.
The part that we know the most about is the fact that we entered the war "late", that there was a strong isolationist movement in the US, and that Charles Lindberg did not set a good example with respect to Nazi Germany.
What is often played down is the amount of anti-Jewish sentiment in the US at that time, and few know that FDR turned away a ship full of Jewish refugees from our shores. A great many people in the US thought that Hitler should be left alone to finish his ethnic cleansing. If Hitler had not posed a serious military threat to europe in the process, he might have accomplished his task. Most history texts are too superficial to discuss these matters.
>>Borders, visa's being renewed to dead terrorist's, drivers being arrested for the 10th time for DUI's, wellfare, multi-billion dollar corporate schemes that put thousands of people on the street.
Amen.
Investor confidence needs to be restored. The SEC regs are more than sufficient, and the enforcement isn't. I think we should freeze all the accounts of these bozos until found guilty. If they are found guilty, let's distribute the money among those who lost retirement money and jobs, and make it a tax-free distribution, to boot. How we respond to this crisis will be an example to the world of what America is made of. Justice. It's what's for dinner.
