There are three historical certainties - all of them negative. 1) Jesus did not found a religion of fundamentalist evangelicals nor ever suggest such a thing. 2) History is not a blank where nothing meaningful happened from St. Constantine to Martin Luther. 3) Neoconservatives had nothing to do with the founding of the United States of America or, as they contrive it, "America", let alone the … [Read more...]

I was at dinner the other night, and a woman at the table behind me was saying, "I get tired of being told we have to sugar coat our history so as not to offend some group." Add to this a way of talking that probably couldn't tell you in what century the French Revolution occurred. I think that pretty much says it all - who she thinks "we/our" is. Who she thinks "some group" is. And what she … [Read more...]

"West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette: In a 6-to-3 decision, the Court overruled its decision in Minersville School District v. Gobitis and held that compelling public schoolchildren to salute the flag was unconstitutional. The Court found that salutes of the type mandated by the West Virginia State Board of Education were forms of utterance and thus were a means of communicating … [Read more...]

I break politically minded people down into two categories - liars and idiots. I'm not talking about politicians, which are either paid, professional liars or ideologically sponsored fools. I mean ordinary people who consume political news and either believe what they hear or see it as the arena for their ideological battle. The idiot is the true believer - the person who, for example, says we … [Read more...]

We live in an age of AntiChrist. I don't mean a fundamentalist theory that plays "who's the devil". I mean in principle, politically, and ethically, it's one of the ages of AntiChrist, of which there have been many - perhaps (as is my attitude) all of them. There are several core principles of AntiChrist or of an antiChristian ethos, many of which are supported fervently and even rabidly by the … [Read more...]

Every major election, the dictated media focus is on "the undecided", usually in rural areas of Kansas and Iowa, where interaction with the larger world really is a quadrennial phenomenon. These folks are a source of interest to other voters merely because most of the rest of the country has their minds made up already. It really drives home that there are two kinds of people participating in … [Read more...]