This feudal revisionist would-be King could be your president

Why do so many Americans consult a document mostly written almost 450 years ago, or ponder the imagined intentions of its centuries-dead authors, when faced with current problems requiring current solutions?

Constitutions are like principles. If they produce undesirable results it's time to change or, if necessary, ignore them.

The term “separation of church and state” appears nowhere in the foundation documents of the US, not anywhere in the Constitution. It is an excerpt from a letter from Jefferson to a Baptist community.

It’s is true that both Jefferson and Washington owned slave. Decades later, the Union General Grant too owned slaves but the Confederate General Robert E Lee did not.

The US didn’t invent slavery but they did end it before most countries did. The Brits ended it in 1833 but kept up the offshore slave trade for quite a few years afterwards. Neat trick, that.

There are TODAY more black African slaves in Africa than there ever were in the US. One would almost think that should command more attention than the wrongs of a century and a half ago but I don’t get to set the outrage agenda.

There is nothing in the Constitution that bars religion of any sort from the public sphere. Putting up a Christmas display or menorah on public land is clearly constitutional since no one is being asked or forced to join a religion.

The cost is minimal and, since childless people are taxed to support public schools, the public cost of erecting such displays is acceptable.

I say this as an atheist with no love and only minimal forbearance for religion.

I am puzzled.

Looking at that quote from afar, so having no political or religious act to grind, it does seem oddly ambiguous.

[quote]bars the government from “ .... prohibiting the free exercise thereof."[/quote] of religion.

Fair and clear; and crucially the lack of an article preceding "religion" and no identifying any specific one, leaves open the freedom of [i]any[/i] religion, not only the founders' Christianity. The founders though, really had only two religions generically to think about. Their own in its various sects, and the indigenous ones. There may have been a sprinkling of Jews but very, very few Muslims, Sikhs, Hindhus, Buddhists etc. in the fledgling USA.

[quote]bars the government from “respecting an establishment of religion ..." [/quote]

What does that really mean? It's probably intended sincerely to prevent governmental control, founding, use or special favouring of any religious institutions; but looks as if religion as a whole is officially, only tolerated.

If so, then the whole sentence can be read as declaring a separation of Church and State gilded with treating all faiths equally and non-politically. That is what I'd always understood the nation's Constitutional position to be; as relevant now as then - if not more so in a world of so many mixed cultures.

It needs the whole text reading carefully while understanding the 18C English used by the founders; many of them descendents of colonists there partly to escape too great a link between Church and State, excessive church power and simple sectarian hatreds in the Old World.

'
Although the French Revolution was primarily political and social it held a very strong anti-Church (not anti-religion) thread. Once the country had stabilised, the French constitution eventually answered that by evolving a strongly secular but ecumenical government serving a society whose main faith is the Roman Catholic sect of Christianity; but which also includes many followers of other Christian sects, other faiths and none.

Somewhat similarly in the UK; whose Constitution is spread around any number of different Acts etc. going back for centuries. Christianity is still officially the State faith, royal religious events including coronations are Anglican ceremonies, and the Church of England is represented in the House of Lords. Otherwise the Government and Parliament are secular, reflecting the multi-ethnic, multi-faith, multi-sect nation at large. Indeed the MPs and Lords include a goodly number of people from non-Christian faiths and none, and fomenting religious hatred is an offence along with racism and similar unpleasantly anti-social "isms".

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As for what schools teach, History is only that if accurate, full and without fear or favour. Otherwise it can degenerate into mere propaganda furthering, not healing, divisions.

History teachers don't need this sort of directing. History is a liberal discipline that aspires to an objective reconstruction of the past through free enquiry and rigorous analysis of all plausible evidence. It does not serve any group or dogma, but should be freely available and welcoming to all with the imagination and broadness of mind to cope with it.

I think the idea that the Founders did not desire a separation of church and state would come as a surprise to the early French revolutionaries 🤔

The biggest "misconception" is DeSantis' mindset ascribing some mythological unanimity of opinion among the Founders. Or for that matter, simplistic either/or positions by any given Founder.

He is right that Washington and Jefferson had philosophical and religious objections to slavery, and that should be taught. But to do it with the omission that both were Plantation slave owners (albeit by inheritance) is equally wrong. The fact that neither men -- both great leaders and thoughtful men -- could not come up with a strategy for transitioning out of slavery without destroying the economies of the Southern states and/or seeing them bolt to form their own nation (as eventually occurred with the Confederacy) should be the tragic primary lesson. Not denial of one or the other.

Religion was the other third-rail issue at the Constitutional Convention. As with the "slaves count as 3/5ths of a person" compromise, the somewhat ambiguity of the First Amendment on religion shouldn't be seen or taught as the Founders being uniform of one mind as to what Christianity was, let alone that they saw the nation as a Christian one. Rather it is a compromise on maintaining a neutral ground in hopes. Take a gander at the "Jeffersonian Bible" which he limited solely to direct teachings attributable to Christ without any later hearsay embroidery by disciples or references to Old Testament. It is very thin. Or read of Franklin's interests in Rosicrucianism.

The more you delve into the complexities of such men rather than looking at them as zealots pushing one agenda, the more fascinating they become. DeSantis is trying to reduce them to extremists and ideologues, whereas the Constitutional Convention was one massive effort at searching for common ground and mutual compromise. A forerunner of Rodney King's plea 2 centuries later: "Can't we all just get along?"

I can't stand DeSantis and don't trust a word that he spews out of his gob. However, I've often argued against this notion that America is a secular state and that the founders wanted separation of church and state. Just look at your foundational documents, all three invoke God more times than many chapters in the Bible do.

OK, that's a bit of hyperbole on my part. I've no idea how many times God is invoked and no idea if that number actually beats any Biblical chapters. But, my point stands. How can a nation consider itself to be secular when God is at the forefront of your foundational documents?

Also, let's look at the early settlers that came to the North American continent from England. Puritans who left England because the brand of Christianity practiced there wasn't pure enough for them. Hence their name. And Pilgrims whose primary objective was to create a Christian enclave. Both groups liberally seasoned with opportunists who were more than happy to make money off the back of what the Puritans and Pilgrims were peddling.

I really wish that the south would just secede already. 🤷‍♀️

@dancingtongue. [quote]Well, technically the Anglican Church is still the official state church of Great Britain [/quote]

Tsk, tsk, you know better than that! England is just a southern piece of Great Britain. Further north the official religion is that of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. It is very firmly Protestant. Most of its adherents would consider the C of E to be a virtual clone of Catholicism - just the result of a power tussle between Henry 8 and the then Pope. It's distinctly unwelcome in Scotland - except perhaps by the many southern English who've made their escape to a quieter life :).

Well, you snide Murkans made sure to discredit every leftist who tried to help you,-. Whatever! Your Dem party was right wing, so are you*! But I'm nobody, thanx to Dem people, and maybe a little sadistic over Murkans!

All modern nations across Europe, and to some extent beyond, were 'created' by the Big Three at the so-called Paris peace conference of 1919. Many of them had little or no say in the process. I don't know what would make such a nation 'legitimate'.

If legitimacy is the result of consensual married sex, these are all bastards, and mostly the result of rape. Small wonder that in many cases their populations are of mixed allegiances (as in parts of Ukraine)

Florida just needs to break off and sink 😒

The situation in Florida just gets worse and worse :(

What complaints about "indoctrination" really mean is "they're not teaching with the bias that I want".

I have to say, this seems politically pretty smart.

The Establishment clause and blaming "scholars", i.e., educated people, for example seems pretty powerful.

I'm back. Did you miss me?😏

Florida fucked up politics.

I'm just waiting for the (legitimate) [b][i]First Amendment challenges[/i][/b] in the courts to the new propaganda laws in DeSantistan, where the [i][b]government[/b][/i] is literally censoring history and muzzling teachers

The allegedly "cancelled" are [i][b]bigly[/b][/i] trying to "cancel" a whole lot right now

#ThisDayInProjection
#RightWingersDoNotUnderstandFreedomOfSpeech

Well that’s the new rule according to SCROTUS. And precedent. Time to ask where Marbury v. Madison is in the Constitution.