We are taking this grand holiday off to celebrate the birth of our wonderful country and the freedoms from which we’ve all benefited. And around here it’s Independence Day NOT “July 4th.” We don’t celebrate a number we celebrate an event, one of the most glorious events in human history: the birth of our nation.
Have a wonderful holiday, thanks for being a loyal Publius Forum reader and God Bless America.
Warner Todd Huston
We are taking this grand holiday off from blogging to celebrate the birth of our wonderful country and the freedoms from which we’ve all benefited. And around here it’s Independence Day NOT “July 4th.” We don’t celebrate a number we celebrate an event, one of the most glorious events in human history: the birth of our nation.
Have a wonderful holiday, thanks for being a loyal Publius Forum reader and God Bless America.
Warner Todd Huston
-By Warner Todd Huston
John Adams was one of the truly indispensable men among our founding fathers. He was the man that wrote one of the first fully written out Constitutions in human history when he wrote the Constitution of Massachusetts. He wrote a seminal book on government that helped inform the founders of our nation, he was an ambassador to France and other European nations, he was our first vice president, our second president, and more.
In fact, Adams was at the center of one of the incidents that set the tone for our national character. When the Redcoats responsible for the Boston Massacre were put under arrest, John Adams stepped forward to represent the Redcoats in court. Many of his fellow patriots were amazed at this offer, some even incensed at Adams for doing so. But Adams said that the rule of law was far more important than merely making points with the home crowd and the Redcoats deserved to have competent representation.
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John Adams’ Reminiscences of the First Independence Day”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Today America enjoys the celebration of 241 years as a nation by noting the day we declared our independence from England. Sadly, that celebration has, for too many, become the “Fourth of July” holiday, a day of picnics, rote parades, “white sales,” and for some a day off work. Of course, we should not and don’t celebrate any “July Fourth” holiday. We celebrate Independence Day, the day we formally separated from our parent nation and took those first unsteady steps into the world as a nation of our own.
So, what is this Independence Day all about? Well, for one thing we celebrate the gifts that our Creator has given us. That’s right, our Founding Fathers started this nation celebrating the gifts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and those natural rights given to us by God, rights that no man or government can take away from us, rights no man can legitimately prevent us from observing.
Contrary to the God-averse America we have devolved into, the Declaration mentions God, the Creator, or the divine multiple times and the Founders rested their entire claim of liberty and freedom on the claim that no government can legitimately take away the natural rights that mankind should and must enjoy.
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241 Independence Days and Counting, But What Does it all Mean?”
-By Warner Todd Huston
The media is upset this weekend that President Donald Trump canceled the “White House Muslim Iftar Dinner tradition started by Thomas Jefferson.” But the media is wrong in every respect. Thomas Jefferson never held any Iftar dinner and only three out of 45 presidents ever hosted one, so there is no such “tradition” to cancel.
Amy B. Wang of the Washington Post led the pack with this nonsense that Thomas Jefferson held the “first Iftar dinner” with a June 24 piece entitled, “Trump just ended a long tradition of celebrating Ramadan at the White House.” (If you can’t see the article at the Washington Post, it can be seen at the Greensboro News & Record.)
Once again the claim that Thomas Jefferson held the first Iftar dinner at the White House was trotted out by the Post’s Wang. She recounted the time when the diplomatic envoy from the Bey of Tunis, Sidi Soliman Melli Melli, visited Washington during Ramadan in 1805.
Jefferson invited the envoy to the White House for dinner at 3:30 PM — the time most Washingtonians had dinner in those days. But after he sent the invitation he was told that Melli Melli could not partake of a meal until after sunset because of Ramadan. Thomas Jefferson was faced with two choices: cancel the dinner entirely or simply have the meal later in the evening at a time when his guest could attend. Being a good host and a decent person, Jefferson chose the latter.
But in fact, all Jefferson did was change the time of his meal. He had no intention of honoring Islam. Jefferson simply was not honoring the religion of “the Musselmen” — as he termed Muslims at the time — when he changed the time of the meal. Also, there is no evidence that Jefferson asked Melli Melli what sort of food a “Musselman” would eat, so no special food was prepared to suit a Muslim’s religious needs. Jefferson neither inquired about religious accommodations nor was any made. All he did was move the time of the meal as a courtesy.
Further, Jefferson sent no letters containing proclamations about the meal being an Iftar dinner nor mentioning Islam, he never mentioned such honors in his private papers, and there is no record that he spoke to anyone about his intentions to honor the Muslim practice of an Iftar dinner.
But to the Post’s Wang, that Jefferson had a dinner at all was somehow proof positive that he invented a “tradition” of some sort. And what was the “proof” she presented that it was in Iftar dinner? She quoted the words of liberal historian John Ragosta who gave the scintillating argument, “Yeah, it sounds to me like an Iftar dinner.”
Wang went on to insist there has been a “modern tradition” of having an Iftar dinner at the White House. But in truth, only three presidents in all of American history ever held an Iftar dinner.
Bill Clinton held the first one. His dinner was politically motivated because at the time the growing Muslim-American community was leaning toward becoming a Republican constituency and Clinton was looking to peel Muslim voters away from the GOP.
George W. Bush followed Clinton’s practice of holding Iftar dinners because he wanted to prove that the U.S. wasn’t looking to go to war with all of Islam in the wake of the attacks on 9/11/2001 and the subsequent implementation of the war on terror. His celebration of Iftar was a diplomatic effort.
And, naturally, Barack Obama held them because he had a personal connection to Islam through his childhood growing up in Indonesia and being raised during that time as a Muslim.
But three presidents out of 45 does not make a “tradition.”
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No, Fake News Media, Thomas Jefferson is NOT the ‘First President to Have a Muslim Iftar Dinner’”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Every year he’s been in office, President Obama has hosted an “Iftar dinner” to honor Islam in the White House. Except for the last two years, the President has also led his speech with the outlandish nonsense that in 1805 Thomas Jefferson held the “first Iftar dinner” in the White House. And every time it’s been utter hogwash.
For the 2012 Iftar dinner celebration, for instance, Obama said the following:
As I’ve noted before, Thomas Jefferson once held a sunset dinner here with an envoy from Tunisia — perhaps the first Iftar at the White House, more than 200 years ago. And some of you, as you arrived tonight, may have seen our special display, courtesy of our friends at the Library of Congress — the Koran that belonged to Thomas Jefferson. And that’s a reminder, along with the generations of patriotic Muslims in America, that Islam — like so many faiths — is part of our national story.
The reference to Jefferson’s so-called Iftar dinner in the 2012 speech was at least a step closer to reality than in the past when he was less equivocal. In 2010, for instance, Obama said straight out Jefferson’s was the first Iftar dinner.
Tonight, we are reminded that Ramadan is a celebration of a faith known for great diversity. And Ramadan is a reminder that Islam has always been part of America. The first Muslim ambassador to the United States, from Tunisia, was hosted by President Jefferson, who arranged a sunset dinner for his guest because it was Ramadan—making it the first known Iftar at the White House, more than 200 years ago.
But the fact is Jefferson’s dinner is neither a sure thing nor a “perhaps.” President Thomas Jefferson simply did not hold any Iftar dinner in the White House, nor did he intend to honor Islam that day. To claim that the very first president to authorize war against “the Musselmen””–as he called Muslims–would have hosted a dinner to honor Islam is an absurdity of the first order.
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No, Thomas Jefferson was NOT the First President to Hold an ‘Iftar Dinner’”
-By Warner Todd Huston
In a new ruling the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit maintained that Americans have a Constitutional right to acquire and sell arms.
The Ninth Circuit Court remanded the case of Teixeira v. County of Alameda back to a lower court informing it the court that the Second Amendment and its history protects the rights of Americans to self-defense including the “right to acquire weapons” as well as own them.
This puts a dent in the city of Alameda’s regulations that practically bans the opening of any gun store in the city.
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U.S. Appeals Court Rules Americans Have a Right to Buy and Sell Firearms”
-By David Azerrad, Heritage Foundation, Daily Signal
One hundred and fifty years ago this month, the 13th Amendment officially was ratified, and with it, slavery finally was abolished in America. The New York World hailed it as “one of the most important reforms ever accomplished by voluntary human agency.”
The newspaper said the amendment “takes out of politics, and consigns to history, an institution incongruous to our political system, inconsistent with justice and repugnant to the humane sentiments fostered by Christian civilization.”
With the passage of the 13th Amendment—which states that “[n]either slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction”—the central contradiction at the heart of the Founding was resolved.
Eighty-nine years after the Declaration of Independence had proclaimed all men to be free and equal, race-based chattel slavery would be no more in the United States.
While all today recognize this momentous accomplishment, many remain confused about the status of slavery under the original Constitution. Textbooks and history books routinely dismiss the Constitution as racist and pro-slavery. The New York Times, among others, continues to casually assert that the Constitution affirmed African-Americans to be worth only three-fifths of a human being.
What the Constitution Really Says About Race and Slavery”
-By Warner Todd Huston
On Tuesday, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie announced that he was joining the other 75 or 80 candidates for the 2016 GOP nomination for president. But during his announcement, Christie seemed to prove that he is illiterate about American history.
One of Christie’s great themes during his announcement is that the nation needs a great compromiser in chief, a candidate who will “reach across the aisle” and work with “our friends the Democrats.”
But in touting his fealty to “compromise,” Christie made an analogy to the Founding fathers that was both clumsy, and completely incorrect.
A little less than half way through his comments, Christie delivered this paragraph:
And both parties. Both parties have failed our country. Both parties have stood in the corner and held their breath and waited to get their own way. And both parties have lead us to believe that in America, a country that was built on compromise, that somehow now compromise is a dirty word. If Washington and Adams and Jefferson believed compromise was a dirty word, we’d still be under the crown of England.
Firstly, when he said, “If Washington and Adams and Jefferson believed compromise was a dirty word, we’d still be under the crown of England,” this doesn’t even make any sense at all. None of these three founders “compromised” with England. Neither did any of the other founders. Once they chose separation and independence there was no longer any thought to compromising with the British government.
So, right there that line makes no sense at all.
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Chris Christie: Historical Illiterate”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Today President Barack Hussein Obama said that Islam is one of America’s founding religions, one that has been “woven into the fabric of our country since its founding.” This is an outrageous lie. Islam had no part at all in the founding of our nation. In fact, some of the founders spoke out against Islam and it was one of our country’s earliest military enemies.
Obama’s outright lie was uttered this week in a White House conference on “countering violent extremism.”
Here is what the liar in chief said on Wednesday…
“I also know that Islam has always been a part of America’s story,” Obama said in a June 2009 speech in Cairo, Egypt. “Islam has always been part of America,” he said in a 2010 statement marking the start of Ramadan. And in a 2014 statement marking Eid, Obama said the holiday “also reminds us of the many achievements and contributions of Muslim Americans to building the very fabric of our nation and strengthening the core of our democracy.”
This is outrageous. The founders were against Islam, not in favor of it. And not one tenet of the murderous “religion of peace” has found its way into American law or tradition.
Not only that, but one of our earliest experiences at war was against Muslims who were murdering people near the Barbary Coast.
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Barack Obama Lies, Says Islam is Part of America’s Founding”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Looks like the Obamaites are once again attempting to tech our children that the U.S. is an evil country with new nationalized “history” standards for our schools that eliminate the founding fathers and focuses only on a relentlessly negative interpretation of the birth of the country.
I am late to this story, I know (it is impossible to cover everything, certainly), but this one is egregious, so I just had to hit it. Still, it is of a piece with the way the left is attempting to destroy this country by tearing it down in the eyes of our youth so that they grow up with the left’s preconceived notion that this country is evil.
Late last moth documents were uncovered that reveals they way that College Board authors have redesigned the AP U.S. History (APUSH) Framework from a previous five-page, cursory outline that leaves a lot of what is to be taught to teachers and school districts to a massive 98-page document describing in minute detail what is to be taught and more importantly what isn’t to be taught.
The College Board, the administers of advanced placement (AP) courses and tests, is unveiling the new scheme for AP U.S. history which is to be given to 450,000 students who take these history classes across the nation.
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New Nationalized History Curriculum Eliminate Founding Fathers, Teaches Country Built on Hate”
-By Warner Todd Huston
It is well known that John Adams had imagined that July second would be the day that future generations of Americans would remember as their day of independence from England, the nation’s birthday, if you will. It was, after all, on the second that it was proclaimed “(T)hat these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”
But it was two days later that those gathered in defiance to the King declared a “Declaration of Independency” thereby adopting the famed document that carefully delineated the natural rights by which they claimed independence followed by a list of grievances that would explain why they invoked those rights.
So what are we celebrating? Is it our birth as a nation or are we celebrating the document of Independence? Early celebrations were mixed and a bit confused on that point. Additionally, celebrations on July fourth weren’t that common for a time after the Revolution was over. At first, not many felt a need to celebrate something that had happened and was over. It was time to move on from war in many American’s eyes.
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No, It is NOT the ‘July Fourth’ Holiday, and Stop Saying It Is!”
-By Warner Todd Huston
A museum in New Mexico used tax dollars to put on a celebration of Charles Darwin and atheism this year that has religious folks up in arms. And if the fight over religion is schools has any legitimacy at all, this museum should be slapped down for spending tax dollars on promoting the religious views of atheists.
The story comes from the Baptist Press which writes, “Two New Mexico scientists have alleged that a government-owned museum used tax money to denigrate religion and promote atheism at its annual Darwin Day celebration without giving believers in God an opportunity to present their case.”
A flier promoting “Darwin Day” at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science in Albuquerque — a division of the New Mexico state government’s Department of Cultural Affairs — listed New Mexicans for Science & Reason, the Humanist Society of New Mexico and Freedom From Religion, Albuquerque as cosponsors of the Darwin celebration in February, provoking to action New Mexico residents and scientists James Campbell and Michael Edenburn.
New Mexico Public Museum Broke ‘Separation’ Clause Law With Atheist Celebration”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Today America enjoys the celebration of 237 years of existence as a nation by noting the day we declared our independence from our Mother nation, England. Sadly, that celebration has, for too many, become the “July Fourth” holiday, a day of picnics, rote parades, “white sales,” and for some a day off work. Of course, we should not and don’t celebrate any “July Fourth.” We celebrate Independence Day, the day we formally separated from our parent nation and took those first unsure steps into the world as a nation of our own.
So, what is this Independence Day all about? Well, for one thing we celebrate the gifts that our Creator has given us. That’s right, our Founding Fathers started this nation celebrating the gifts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and those natural rights given to us by God, rights that no man can tax away from us, rights no man can legitimately take by force.
Contrary to the God averse America we have stumbled into, the Declaration mentions God, the Creator, or the divine multiple times and the Founders rested their entire claim of liberty and freedom on the claim that no government can legitimately take away the natural rights that mankind should and must enjoy.
The fact is the Founders did not want a nation free from religion (there is no such founding principle as a “wall of separation” as many think of it today, but that is another story for another day). This is not a Godless nation, but a nation based on Christian ideals.
Secondly, the Declaration of Independence is also a list of the wrongs and slights that England perpetrated against us. In the list of crimes against us that the English Crown and Parliament perpetrated against us is detailed many of the rights that free men must enjoy to truly be free men. This list of slights is not just stuffy old history but are timeless principles which should guide all men even today.
And lastly, to that “all men” point just noted. Our Founders did not write a Declaration that only pertained to their situation in their focused pint in history. Instead they wrote a document to inspire every people to take up freedom and liberty as their own. The Declaration of Independence is not just a document for America. It is one that should inspire all men everywhere to throw off the shackles of government-imposed slavery. It is a document that is not just for the nascent American people, but one that insists, “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
The Declaration of Independence is for humanity. Not just America.
And so that is also our charge. Freedom is a cause for all men, not just Americans. The United States should not shrink from the charge to aid and encourage freedom and liberty for all men.
Please take a minute to read the entire Declaration below and re-famliarize yourself with our founding ideals.
Continue reading “
237 Independence Days and Counting, But What Does it all Mean?”
-By Warner Todd Huston
In the Declaration of Independence our forefathers wrote of King George the III that, “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.”
This was posed as one of the many reasons that we separated ourselves from Great Britain and became the United States of America.
Does this complaint not sound like what King Obama is doing now?
Remember, this sort of government oppression of freemen once sparked a revolution for our founders. What might it do for us?
____________
“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
For a full bio, please CLICK HERE.
-By Warner Todd Huston
The Question:
The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, 1789: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
We talk about the “right of the people” to “bear arms” all the time. But we don’t often talk about the “well regulated militia” part that precedes it. So, what is it about? Is this militia still relevant to us today? Can we just ignore it? If unnecessary, does the lack of a need for the militia make the whole Second Amendment null and void?
Background:
Our founders had just fought a war with one of the greatest powers in the world. In the mid 1780s, British forces were considered the best of the best. But our founders hadn’t joined a war with a “foreign power.” They had fought a war with their own government in order to separate from it and start anew. This was because we Americans felt England had violated our very rights as Englishmen.
As our Declaration of Independence notes:
“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
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What Is This ‘Well Regulated Militia’ Business, Anyway?”
-By Warner Todd Huston
The inordinate praise for now former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been thick throughout the media, but no other coverage was more obsequious than ABC’s. Cynthia McFadden topped off this praise by comparing Clinton to no less than Thomas Jefferson.
On the January 30 broadcast of Nightline, McFadden spoke to Clinton in what was billed as her “last television interview in office.” The interview was conducted in front of a statue of Thomas Jefferson and at one point in the interview McFadden effusively equated Clinton to Jefferson. Motioning toward the statue of the founder, McFadden said, “As Jefferson looks over our shoulder, who I would only point out, was Secretary of State who went on to become president.”
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ABC’s McFadden Compares Hillary to Thomas Jefferson”
I’d love to see this…
Let it Begin Here is an epic short film projected on an innovative and unique screen system in a specially designed theater equipped with multi-sensory audio & special effects that put you in the action of the moment. Experience “Let it Begin Here” in person at the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum in Boston, Mass. Or visit us online at www.bostonteapartyship.com
-By Warner Todd Huston
Every year he’s been in office, President Obama has hosted an “iftar dinner” to honor Islam in the White House. The President has also each time led his speech with the outlandish nonsense that Thomas Jefferson held the “first iftar dinner” in the White House. And every time it’s been utter hogwash. This year’s speech was no different in that respect.
For the 2012 iftar dinner celebration. Obama said the following:
As I’ve noted before, Thomas Jefferson once held a sunset dinner here with an envoy from Tunisia — perhaps the first Iftar at the White House, more than 200 years ago. And some of you, as you arrived tonight, may have seen our special display, courtesy of our friends at the Library of Congress — the Koran that belonged to Thomas Jefferson. And that’s a reminder, along with the generations of patriotic Muslims in America, that Islam — like so many faiths — is part of our national story.
This year’s reference to Jefferson’s so-called iftar dinner is at least a step closer to reality in that Obama said it was “perhaps the first iftar at the White House.” In the past, he was less equivocal. In 2010, for instance, Obama said it was the first iftar dinner.
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Obama’s Constant BS About Thomas Jefferson and Islam”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Today America enjoys the celebration of 236 years of existence as a nation by noting the day we declared our independence from our Mother nation, England. Sadly, that celebration has, for too many, become the “July Fourth” holiday, a day of picnics, rote parades, “white sales,” and for some a day off work. Of course, we should not and don’t celebrate any “July Fourth.” We celebrate Independence Day, the day we formally separated from our parent nation and took those first unsure steps into the world as a nation of our own.
So, what is this Independence Day all about? Well, for one thing we celebrate the gifts that our Creator have given us. That’s right, our Founding Fathers started this nation celebrating the gifts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and those natural rights given to us by God, rights that no man can tax away from us, rights no man can legitimately take by force.
Contrary to the God averse America we have stumbled into, the Declaration mentions God, the Creator, or the divine multiple times and the Founders rested their entire claim of liberty and freedom on the claim that no government can legitimately take away the natural rights that mankind should and must enjoy.
The fact is the Founders did not want a nation free from religion (there is no such founding principle as a “wall of separation” as many think of it today, but that is another story for another day). This is not a Godless nation, but a nation based on Christian ideals.
Secondly, the Declaration of Independence is also a list of the wrongs and slights that England perpetrated against us. In the list of crimes against us that the English Crown and Parliament perpetrated against us is detailed many of the rights that free men must enjoy to truly be free men. This list of slights is not just stuffy old history but are timeless principles which should guide all men even today.
And lastly, to that “all men” point just noted. Our Founders did not write a Declaration that only pertained to their situation in their focused pint in history. Instead they wrote a document to inspire every people to take up freedom and liberty as their own. The Declaration of Independence is not just a document for America. It is one that should inspire all men everywhere to throw off the shackles of government imposed slavery. It is a document that is not just for the nascent American people, but one that insists, “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
The Declaration of Independence is for humanity. Not just America.
And so that is also our charge. Freedom is a cause for all men, not just Americans. The United States should not shrink from the charge to aid and encourage freedom and liberty for all men.
Please take a minute to read the entire Declaration below and re-famliarize yourself with our founding ideals.
Continue reading “
236 Independence Days and Counting, But What Does it all Mean?”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Note: I wrote this in 2008, but it is so far back in the archives that it isn’t properly showing in searches, so I am updating it.
Secularists today have a catch phrase that they use like a club against religion in America. That club is named “the separation of church and state.”
So many Americans have heard the phrase that they think it is one actually written right into the Constitution of the United States itself. Those who are more learned on the subject realize it is not. Those who are learned on the subject also know that it wasn’t mentioned in any law, or even in the halls of Congress, until long after the Constitution was written. In fact, there was not much attention paid to the phrase at all until after Thomas Jefferson, the originator of the phrase, was long dead.
Not even the Supreme Court paid it much attention until the 1940s. So this “wall of separation” issue is not one that hails from the early Republic with the same meaning as it does today. Our Founders had very different ideas about religion and government, ideas that were not nearly as simple as the stark black or white assumptions of the activists of today.
The Danbury Letter
The man who initially conjured the “wall of separation” phrase, President Thomas Jefferson (1800-1808), wrote it in an 1802 letter to a congregation of Baptist churchmen from Danbury, Connecticut. Only elected president of the United States but two years previously, Jefferson was responding to a letter sent him by the Danbury church members who were attempting to get his support for their struggle against the state’s somewhat oppressive religious requirements for certain rights — not an unusual practice in the states at that time. While Jefferson’s letter only obliquely addressed the Baptist’s concerns, more importantly it addressed the Federal position on establishing a national religion. Jefferson’s reply, in reality, was focused on the Federal issue, not that of the states.
Does ‘Separation of Church and State’ Really Exist?”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Talk about making a mistake everyone can see! Atheists in California have done a disservice to their own crusade to spread atheism by launching a new billboard campaign that ascribes a false quote to Thomas Jefferson. That’s right, they’ve essentially become liars for atheism.
In Costa Mesa, California a group of atheists calling themselves Backyard Skeptics have unveiled a billboard to sell atheism to the general public that features a quote they claim came from Thomas Jefferson, the Third President of the United States.
“I do not find in Christianity one redeeming feature,” the billboard “quotes” the president as having said. “It is founded on fables and mythology,” this quote concludes.
That would be a stinging rebuke of Christianity, indeed… were it true. Unfortunately for this little atheist group it seems that their quote is a fake quote the group found on the Internet and assumed was real.
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Atheists Lie And Do So On a Billboard!”
-By Warner Todd Huston
I have been interested these days to hear the left citing George Washington, the father of our country, to support their ideas against the GOP and their hope that Obama will pull out of the Middle East. Specifically they have been citing Washington’s farewell address where he supposedly warned Americans against getting involved with foreign nations and getting caught up in those evil “foreign entanglements.”
It is quite amusing to see lefties in love with a founding father or American history and principles for the first time in their lives, certainly, but it isn’t just the left revealing a sudden respect for a founding father with citation of Washington’s address. Ron Paulites and those of an isolationist bent on foreign policy have also been bandying about Washington’s farewell address as some sort of “proof” that one of our “first principles” was to stay away from foreign nations.
What was Washington really saying, though? Did he warn us against “foreign entanglements”? Did he think the U.S. should steer clear of all outside political situations and relegate ourselves only to trade with foreigners?
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George Washington Said to Avoid ‘Entangling Alliances’… Or Did He?”
-By Kevin Roeten
Young unborn tigers being killed in their mother’s womb is not accepted in our society. What about killing young unborn golden retrievers? If large enough, the baby retrievers would have to be removed piece by piece, or if almost full term, would have to be wholly removed and left to die outside of the womb somewhere.
One could kill the mother, but no more babies would be produced after that. But with humans, the mother is a “life”. It would be unacceptable to kill her. But many decide to kill the baby instead. Wasn’t it thought to be unacceptable to kill “life”?
But humans fall back on Roe v. Wade, not only to justify, but to claim as ‘legal’ the killing of unborn children. It’s difficult to answer the question—what happens to the soul if I abort? Then we comprehend that diabolical accomplice—Planned Parenthood of America (PPA).
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Planned Parenthood’s Stranglehold on Congress”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Tim Rutten is a left-wing, hack writer from L.A. He is always good for contemporary left wing trope but the other day we discovered that he is also good for the sort of uninformed blathering that leftists of his ilk pretend is American history. Chiefly that of America’s religious history and the so-called “wall of separation between church and state.”
In a June 1 piece about Mitt Romney, Rutten regaled us with his “reading” of Mitt’s current political reality. Rutten proposed that any question about Mitt’s Mormonism was somehow a threat to the United States.
Before I get to Rutten’s warped take on U.S. history, let’s take this business about the attacks on Mitt’s Mormonism.
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L.A. Times Tim Rutten, Historical Idiot”
-By Warner Todd Huston
I was a guest on Cameron Gray’s National Rifle Association radio program “Cam and Company” last night.
I was on the program to discuss my article about Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer’s wrong-headed interpretation of the Second Amendment as one that doesn’t really protect the individual’s right to bear arms.
My article under discussion was: “Supreme Court Justice Breyer: Founders Were For Restricting Guns… Why Breyer is Wrong.”
It was a great segment, I have to say.
-By Warner Todd Huston
This week we have two prominent examples proving that liberals are ignoramuses about the Constitution and U.S. history. One incident wholly misunderstood by the left was uttered by the redoubtable Sarah Palin and the other by Christine O’Donnell.
First up Sarah.
In Nevada Sarah Palin kicked off a new tour to spur conservatives and Republicans to the polls just ahead of the midterm elections. During one of her speeches Palin said that conservatives shouldn’t “party like it’s 1773” just yet. We need to keep our shoulder to the wheel and get to the polls first, she warned.
The idiots of the left went wild with Palin’s 1773 date. It proved that Palin was an idiot, they said. Why, the only famous date in our early history is 1776, they chortled. Palin is obviously too stupid to know we became a nation in 1776 they guffawed.
A string of Twitter posts and TV reports streamed from these unschooled leftists attacking Palin for her obvious stupidity.
Of course, these leftist idiots proved themselves illiterate enough not to know that Palin wasn’t referencing the 1776 birth of the nation. Palin was at a Tea Party rally and was referencing the Boston Tea Party… you know, the one that occurred in 1773? Yeah, remember that one?
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Two Examples Showing Liberals Don’t Know ANYTHING About U.S. History”
-By Selwyn Duke
While there was a time when I might have described myself as a libertarian, those days are long gone. In fact, I don’t even call myself a conservative anymore. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I agree with libertarians on many issues, and their governmental model is vastly preferable to what liberals have visited upon us. Yet there is a problem: However valid their vision of government may be, their vision of society renders it unattainable.
Thomas Jefferson once said, “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” Now, I certainly agree with the first sentence, as it’s merely a statement of the obvious. But then we have to ask, what constitutes “injurious”? And, when determining this, do we completely ignore indirect injury? Then, if we do consider the latter, to what extent should it be the domain of government? (When pondering these matters, note that the Founding Fathers didn’t reside on the modern libertarian page. They certainly would have, for instance, supported the idea of state and local governments outlawing pornography and would be appalled at what is now justified under the First Amendment.)
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Libertarianism’s Folly: When the ‘Live and Let Live’ Mentality Becomes Vice”
-By Nancy Salvato
Marcus Tullius Cicero, who was born in 105 B.C. and was beheaded by Antony’s soldiers in 43 B.C, writes in On the Laws ,
“Law was neither a thing to be contrived by the genius of man, nor established by any decree of the people, but a certain eternal principle, which governs the entire universe, wisely commanding what is right and prohibiting what is wrong.”
In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson echoes this eternal truth when he explains that the function of government is to secure God-given rights.
How do we know about these rights?
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Eternal Principle”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Remember that iftar dinner the president sponsored? The dinner that got him in trouble because he came out in strong support of the mega-mosque at Ground Zero, support from which he backed away the very next day? Well, it turns out he delivered another blatant lie at that dinner, one that slipped under the radar because his support of the Ground Zero Mosque was so controversial.
In his remarks at the iftar observance, Obama claimed that the “first” iftar dinner in the White House was hosted by Thomas Jefferson.
Tonight, we are reminded that Ramadan is a celebration of a faith known for great diversity. And Ramadan is a reminder that Islam has always been part of America. The first Muslim ambassador to the United States, from Tunisia, was hosted by President Jefferson, who arranged a sunset dinner for his guest because it was Ramadan—making it the first known iftar at the White House, more than 200 years ago.
In this way, Obama tried to make it seem as if the United States has respected Islam since the early Republic and has observed its celebrations for two hundred years. But this is a major stretching of the truth. Thomas Jefferson did not hold an “iftar” dinner, unless you might call the dinner Obama references “iftar by default.”
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Another Obama White House Lie About Islam”