What we stand for

The integrity of the United States of America, around the world, is more in question now than at any time since the Vietnam disaster. During my 85 years of life and 65 years as an adult, including two tours of duty as a Marine Corps pilot in World War Two and Korea, I have never seen the Unites States held in such scorn and contempt by so many civilized nations.

The question before us, loud and clear, is what do we stand for? What are the values that the stars and stripes should represent around the world?

It has been several Marine Corps Generals who have, bluntly, departed from the White House party line and propaganda: Marine General Anthony Zinni, former Head of Central Command for US Forces in the Middle East made this public statement: “It is interesting that all the generals see it the same way, and those who have never fired a shot, and are hot to go to war, see it another way. They are about to do something that will ignite a fuse in this region and cause them to regret the day they ever started this operation…”

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Fridge notes for the fourth of July

In the discussion time of my Sunday Symposium we have a small ritual. When anyone says something worth remembering, or I say something equally important, we say “that’s for your refrigerator door.” Everyone has a fridge door library of notes. For this month of July it is a wonderful opportunity to make a dent in the historical ignorance of the political and Christian knee jerk right wingers who are always babbling about our “Christian” founding presidents. They continue to publish phony, fundamentalist, quotes that are laughable to any historically enlightened person with an I.Q. above 3.

These fridge quotes are in defense of historical accuracy , facts, honesty and integrity. The right wing knee-jerks are like the elderly woman, who when first told about evolution replied: “well…I pray to God it is not true…but if it is true, then I pray to God that nobody ever hears about it.”

• THE ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA …Vol 2, p420, 1968 Mortimer J. Adler, editor in chief “Great issues in American Life” quote: “One of the embarrassing problems for the nineteenth century champions of the Christian faith was the fact that not one of the first six presidents of the United States was a Christian. They were Deists.”
• DEISM…There is no personal God, but only an impersonal force, energy, ‘providence’ Jesus was nothing more than a nomadic teacher and the bible is nothing but literature and bad literature at that filled with thousands of contradictions and falsehoods.
• GEORGE WASHINGTON approved the Treaty of Tripoli. The “Philadelphia Gazette” on June 17, 1797 printed the entire 12 articles of the Treaty with the notice that the Senate and President JOHN ADAMS had approved the Treaty UNANIMOUSLY. Not even one dissenting vote. Article 11 of that printed treaty begins with this statement: “THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IS NOT, IN ANY SENSE, FOUNDED ON THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.”

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Fools and hypocrites

The word brilliant may be overused, but surely in the case of Thomas Jefferson and Mark Twain it applies. Both men used linguistic needles to make precise observations about fools and hypocrites in society.

We are approaching the 4th of July and a celebration of The Declaration of Independence. With only a few word changes that entire document was written by one man, Thomas Jefferson…who also used his brilliant linguistic needles to make precise observations about the dangers of religion in society. From his “Notes on Religion” passed in the Assembly of Virginia, 1786, he made this observation:

“Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools…and the other half hypocrites. Christian creeds and doctrines, the clergy’s own fatal inventions, through all the ages has made of Christendom a slaughter house.”

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