Why do I get all these Crazy E-mails.

I recently received an e-mail indicating Andy Rooney at the top of the e-mail.. The central theme of the e-mail was that we should dispense with Separation of Church and State. Given that Rooney in public comments has described himself as, at different times as an agnostic and as an atheist it is highly unlikely that he was the source of the e-mail. Why was the original sender using Rooney's name to add weight to the argument? Perhaps because the e-mail can not stand on its own merit.

Lets examine the content of the e-mail. Starting from the bottom. I can not think of anything more antithetical to the American Ideal than telling people to sit down and shut up. I thought that the founding of America was based on people who refused to sit down and shut up. "I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!";Patrick Henry. "Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils." ; General John Stark. I don't recall any American founders saying "Shut Up and Sit Down".

"How, then, have we gotten to the point that everything we have done for 220 years in this country is now suddenly wrong and unconstitutional?" This arguement basically boils down to we did it in the past so it must be right. There was slavery in the United States from 1776-1865. Would an argument for slavery because we had it for 89 years have been valid. Or how about the 246 history of slavery going back through colonial times. Does the 144 years that women were not allowed to vote mean that women should not be allowed to vote, I would say no. I would say that an argument should stand on its own merit.

It also over looks the fact that Separation of Church and State is part of that 220 year history. Thomas Jefferson first wrote in 1802

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, 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 & State."

The United States Supreme Court has referenced the separation of church and state metaphor more than 25 times, first in 1878.

Next look at the easily researchable inaccuracies in the e-mail.

'It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists but by Christians, not on religions but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ'; is attributed to Patrick Henry. This never appears anywhere in the writings of Patrick Henry. You can find it on a hundred religious web sites but not one gives an original source.

"As you walk up the steps to the building which houses the U.S. Supreme Court you can see near the top of the building a row of the world's law givers and each one is facing one in the middle who is facing forward with a full frontal view .. it is Moses and he is holding the Ten Commandments! " The sculpture that the anonymous writer is referring to is actually on the back of the Supreme Court Building. You would not see it walking up the steps to the building. The courts own fact sheet indicates that most visitors do not see this sculpture. So the anonymous writer got the facts wrong on location. How about on the meaning of the sculpture. How about letting the creator of the piece explain it in his own words.

The sculptural group was designed by Hermon A. MacNeil . MacNeil submitted the following description of his work to the Supreme Court Building Commission:

Law as an element of civilization was normally and naturally derived or inherited in this country from former civilizations. The "Eastern Pediment" of the Supreme Court Building suggests therefore the treatment of such fundamental laws and precepts as are derived from the East. Moses, Confucius and Solon are chosen as representing three great civilizations and form the central group of this Pediment. Flanking this central group - left - is the symbolical figure bearing the means of enforcing the law. On the right a group tempering justice with mercy, allegorically treated. The "Youth" is brought into both these groups to suggest the "Carrying on" of civilization through the knowledge imbibed of right and wrong. The next two figures with shields; Left - The settlement of disputes between states through enlightened judgment. Right - Maritime and other large functions of the Supreme Court in protection of the United States. The last figures: Left - Study and pondering of judgments. Right - A tribute to the fundamental and supreme character of this Court. Finale - The fable of the Tortoise and the Hare.

Why doesn't the anonymous author mention Confucius, Solon or the tortise and the hare. Is it because it undermine the argument that the country is founded on the gospel of Jesus Christ?

"As you enter the Supreme Court courtroom, the two huge oak doors have the Ten Commandments engraved on each lower portion of each door. "


As you can see the doors DO NOT have the ten commandments engraved on them. They have the roman numerals I to X. on them. No where in the entire building are the ten commandments themselves displayed. While there is no specific information regarding the meaning of the tablets on the door. Similar tablets appear on the east wall of the room . The designer indicates that they represent the "Bill of Rights" the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution. It is fairly safe to assume that the tablets on the doors also represent the Bill of Rights. One of those Rights is Freedom of Speech, as opposed to the Sit Down and Shut Up message of the anonymous e-mail writer.

"As you sit inside the courtroom, you can see the wall, right above where the Supreme Court judges sit, a display of the Ten Commandments! " As noted above these represent the Bill of Rights not the 10 Commandments.

James Madison, the fourth president, known as 'The Father of Our Constitution' made the following statement:

'We have staked the whole of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for 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.'

Again this is a complete fabrication. There is no original source for this. It stands in strong contrast to what Madison believed. President James Madison wrote an essay titled "Monopolies" which refers to the importance of church-state separation. He stated in part:

"Strongly guarded as is the separation between religion and Government in the Constitution of the United States, the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history."

I have taken some time to outline the inaccuracies in the e-mail. Even had the author been correct I don't believe it would make a difference in the essential argument of regarding the separation of church and state. Remember that the founding fathers had knowledge of the religious wars that raged in Europe for centuries. They were determined not to bring those conflicts to the new world.

PAT BUCHANAN 'S Mea Culpa

I have heard Pat Buchanan talking up his new book. He indicates that there is a perfect storm of problems that may sink the American State. Below are the bullet points that he has been pushing and my answers.


"America is in an existential crisis from which the nation may not survive." Democracy is always precarious. But the threat to democracies is always greater from the fear within than outside forces.

The U.S. Army is breaking and is too small to meet America’s global commitments. It is not the case that the military is too small; rather the commitments are to large. If the military sticks to defending essential America, from Sea to Shining Sea it is plenty large. The problem is that the military is being ask to defend not American interests but the profits of the multinational corporations.

The dollar has sunk to historic lows and is being abandoned by foreign governments. You had a war, tax cuts and the feds kept interest rates low to help the Republicans. I know that the Republicans are going to say that this was unforeseeable. Unforeseeable only if you are a dolt. Someone had to buy all those treasury bonds.

U.S. manufacturing is being hollowed out. The President been saying the economy is good, look at the stock market. Americans have been looking at median income. Looking at income distribution. The cultural over head is too high. That cultural overhead is outrageous corporate profit, executive pay and corporate raiders. 20 years of marauding barbarians raiding the productive parts of society. Loosened on society by the anti-regulation forces in the Republican party; the direct result of the Reagan Revolution ably abetted by PAT BUCHANAN. One can only assume that the book is a Mea Culpa

The second part is the demographics. Even responsible corporations would not look to build plants with a 30 year time horizon in a place with a dwindling work force.

The greatest invasion in history, from the Third World, is swamping the ethno-cultural core of the country, leading to Balkanization and the loss of the Southwest to Mexico. The threat from Mexico is pretty limited. As for the invasion, we have an illegal employer problem not an illegal immigrant problem. The minute employers are truly and significantly liable for hiring undocumented workers; the problem will go away. You don't find a big undocumented workers problem in the government sector. Is that because government is far more efficient than the private sector? Or is it that the private sector is intentionally exploiting undocumented workers. The falling dollar should begin to ameliorate the problem. As the dollar falls the amount of money that the undocumented workers can send back falls. Decreasing the incentive to work here.


The culture is collapsing and the nation is being deconstructed along the lines of race and class. Who started Class and Race war ? Willy Horton anyone. Scary brown people from south of the border. Welfare moms driving Cadillacs. All false fears stirred by the Republicans to distract the attention from the largest transfer of wealth in our nations history to the top .5% of American.

This is the cultural overhead. Excessive cultural overhead lead to the fall of Russia(supporting a bloated army and an inefficient bureaucracy) France (Louis the 16th) and the list goes on.

A fiscal crisis looms as the unfunded mandates of Social Security and Medicare remain unaddressed. I love this red herring. If we only had saved more we would be OK. This is a demographic problem not a financial problem. Remember money is how you keep score it does not actually make everyones life better.Japan and Europe have already faced the problem. Both less than totally successful.

Japan had one of the worlds highest savings rate; this did not save them. They kept all immigrants out while the economy collapsed for lack of young people. They have been in a decade long recession. Europe took a different tract. They went for the guest workers program. The result an underclass of people without a country. Leading to social upheaval.

The US has a short time frame to get this right. Make sure that we have productive workers who have a stake in this country...legal immigration. That makes the pie bigger so that the amount you have to take off for retirees and the disabled is palatable. We won't do it as long as we are busy waving brown people around to scare people.

All these crises are hitting America at once -- a perfect storm of crises.

Buchanan see a bunch of problems, that are really just symptoms of two larger problems. He is like a gardener hacking at the Bamboo shoots and not digging out the roots.

One is the high cultural overhead of supporting the barbarian corporations. We have any over extended military that is being used to support profitability. At home these same corporations are capturing the very government entity that are suppose to regulate them. Leading to billions of dollars in losses. All taxes paid by lower 98% percentile of tax payers go to government contractors. The corporations export jobs and will do what ever they can to lower labor wages here.

The second is the demographic problems created by the baby boom. While as a nation we are just starting to see this problem. Parts of rural America have been experiencing it for 20 years. The solution has been immigrant labor. I remember the Red River Valley of Minnesota in 1986. The collapsing population was supplemented by the influx of Hispanics. This did not lead to the collapse of America any more than the Irish, German, Polish, Italian migrations that came before.

The solutions are easy. Corporations are not citizens. They have no right to bribe congress and the president. Immediately tax all corporate donations to candidates at 1000%. Immediately expand legal immigration to fill jobs, but make employers accept unions as the price for hiring these laborers. That way they will only ask for immigrants for jobs that they truly can not fill with current citizens.

If your definition of America is Anglo-Saxon Protestants it may have collapsed along time ago. If your ideal of America is people who cherish personal freedom then it may not be to late to save it. But know that the people who threaten America are not the "scary brown people" but rather the people who are peddling fear to distract you from the real issues.