Enigma

(Yet Another Scatterbrained Meme Stream)

The Government of the United States must be secular…Period.

Filed under: Church-State-Separation — ekton at 7:48 pm on Friday, February 9, 2007

The Government of the United States must be secular, and indeed, is so through the First Amendment of our Constitution.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Yet, the US has just set up a government in Iraq, whose constitution outlines it as, essentially, an Islamic republic. This is not a secular action, and violates our First Amendment protections.

The Founding Fathers clearly established a secular government, one reason for which was this: U.S. taxpayers should never be burdened with religious expenditures. Period.
Therefore, the fruits of the U.S. involvement in Iraq are illegal under U.S. law, and furthermore, too: sending foreign aid to religious theocracies is Unconstitutional. Period.
What is a theocracy? Using our “secular yardstick”, it is a government that supports one religion over another. In other words, by the measure of how much a government is not secular, it is religious, and is therefore that much more off-limits as a recipient of U.S. “foreign aid”.

The U.S. must not support one religion over another. As our “Great Experiment” has shown, religious strife is all but gone in our country — instead, we export said strife, either unwittingly … or purposefully.

Since secular government is an American ideal, and we can clearly see how the Founding Fathers expected the First Amendment to accomplish a relatively peaceful religious experience in our great nation — and toward that end, we have been very successful.
In further posts, I will explore precisely what non-secular countries receive aid from the U.S., and how the unConstitutional nature of sending this money abroad should — indeed, mustbe used to advance our U.S. ideal of secular government.

Now you’ve seen the punchline.

Let’s explore where this (currently) illegal aid is flowing to…in alphabetical order:

Egypt. Iraq. Israel. Saudi Arabia. the United Kingdom.

and the list goes on. In my next post, I will skip Egypt, and explore the unConstitutional nature of establishing and supporting unsecular government in Iraq…also, there’s a matter of what Bremer did with over 8 billion dollars, which remains unaccounted for. That’s $8,000,000,000+ dollars in cash that was forklifted onto planes, flown (alledgedly) to Iraq, and (so Bremer has testified to Congress) used there to further U.S. interests (or so he says).

Ladies and gentlemen, the U.S. has ignored this Rule of Law long enough, and it’s high time we start taking back this country. The First Amendment is much too important to be trod on by sleazy politicians.

[ I'm informed that the UK doesn't receive funds from the US, nor does the Church of England receive UK funds. While the Prime Minister does participate in selection of bishops, I'm going to strike the UK from the list. I stand corrected! -Ekton ]

…er, Period. End of entry.

-Ekton Graves

8 Comments »

2

Comment by Dave

February 11, 2007 @ 1:06 pm

Hello? Since when was the United Kindgom a recipient of US aid? The UK has recently finished repaying the *loan* from the USA for aid during the second world war and I don’t know of any US aid since then.
Secondly, the UK is also a secular country how dare you group it together with Egypt, Israel and Saudi Arabia!

3

Comment by Dave

February 11, 2007 @ 1:09 pm

Actually, I’d argue that that, given the religious inclination of the US president, the UK is better example of a secular country than the USA. We haven’t had any government intervention banning books rebutting creationism for example.

4

Comment by ekton

February 11, 2007 @ 1:10 pm

Regarding US aid … okay, I stand corrected!

Regarding the UK being “secular” — if I understand correctly, the Church of England gets funds from the UK government, does it not?

5

Comment by Green

February 11, 2007 @ 1:17 pm

I do not know where you got the information from but the last time I heard is the United Kingdom is a secular country it is also multi-cultural which I believe is failing because the current government never knew how to go about it. It may be not secular in half a century if they keep on going like this – so maybe you can say that it is unsecular then and listing it together with the Arab countries.

But it is my hope that it remains a secular, free, tolerant yet free country and in the hands of the real British people – those who really care about their country, their freedom and their history not the violence and hatred the immigrants who were welcomed in this country were teaching their young.

I agree that the Americans should take back their freedom by electing a government that will scrap the Patriot Law, better serve its people and not their personal inclinations like the republicans have.

Iraq shouldnt have been an action led by the US or other western countries but for Arabia and other Islamic countries as they know their Islamic traditions better than the west. I am sure that if they did this the hatred of the arabs wouldnt be as high and they would think differently on this. They should have just supported it not done it.

But Bush’s government used some another anatomy instead of their brains so this is what happened.

6

Comment by Dave

February 11, 2007 @ 1:22 pm

Have to admit, I’m not sure whether the Church of England receives funding from the government, but it has no influence over government policy and does not control what is taught in schools or anything like that. For example see the recent debate on adoptio laws in which government policy went counter to the desires of the Anglican and Catholic church. Contrast this with Saudi Arabia for example where it is illegal to bring a bible into the country even if it is for personal use.

7

Comment by ekton

February 11, 2007 @ 1:26 pm

Actually, I snarfled some of Wikipedia… and you’re right, the Church of England doesn’t received funding from the UK government anymore.

But! The Prime Minister participates in selecting bishops.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appointment_of_Church_of_England_bishops

I’ll pull the UK off my list though…

8

Comment by Zorro

February 11, 2007 @ 7:57 pm

because tradeoff “Secular versus Legitimate” or “Secular versus Effective” or even “Secular versus not TRULY American” – isn’t easy, be careful. my country learning HARD on such that BIG, BIG mistakes in PAST.
And teach(is i HOPE) almost all other country on self…

be careful…in “selfsecularing”… too.

9

Comment by Gary

February 12, 2007 @ 8:31 am

The Founding Fathers clearly established a secular government,
AGREED
one reason for which was this: U.S. taxpayers should never be burdened with religious expenditures.
CAN YOU BACK THIS UP WITH SPECIFIC QUOTATIONS FROM THE TEXT OF THE CONSTITUTION? IF NOT, THIS IS MEANINGLESS CONJECTURE.

Therefore, the fruits of the U.S. involvement in Iraq are illegal under U.S. law, and furthermore, too: sending foreign aid to religious theocracies is Unconstitutional.
BASED ON WHAT TEXT FROM THE ACTUAL DOCUMENT? YOUR HANDWAVING IS NOT A COMPELLING ARGUMENT. GIVE US SOME MEAT!!!

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