It is time we took a stand. It seems everytime the "fat-cats" get caught in their own mess, the honest citizen has to bail them out. Where are the morals and honesty we used to have in this country. It is sad to see the day America is no longer A Nation Under God, Believing In God and listening to what our God is telling us. Bring back the Lord of our forefathers.

yes-i-am, about the 'Lord of our forefathers':

--Thomas Paine: All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

-- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-82: Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one-half the world fools and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.

--and in 1787, "Question with boldness even the existence of a god"

--John Adams: "God is an essence that we know nothing of. Until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there never will be any liberal science in the world.

"this awful blashpemy" that he refers to is the myth of the Incarnation of Christ, from Ira D Cardiff, What Great Men Think of Religion, quoted from James A Haught, ed, 2000 Years of Disbelief.

-- The Reverend Doctor Bird Wilson, an Episcopal minister in Albany, New York, in a sermon preached in October, 1831.

"The founders of our nation were nearly all Infidels, and that of the presidents who had thus far been elected [Washington; Adams; Jefferson; Madison; Monroe; Adams; Jackson] not a one had professed a belief in Christianity....

"Among all our presidents from Washington downward, not one was a professor of religion, at least not of more than Unitarianism."

"Anyone can find comments from almost any of our founding fathers to support anything they want to."

ISn't that true of virtually any written record? I disagree with your interpretation, and have noted that often the BIG G 'God' was actually a little g 'god', etc. A wide reading of Washington actually shows that he did not espouse publicly ANY religion. The same can certainly be said of Franklin, depending on whose and which version of history you choose to read.

The Age of Reason, the Enlightenment, was also the stomping ground of Locke, Rousseau, Mill, etc.

IF your contention is that 'they fought so hard to ensure that religion could not become opressive as it was in England and other European Countries', then how do you now explain the extreme antipathy toward those who are not 'professor[s] of religion, at least not of more than Unitarianism' today? Looks like they failed...

nwtrumpet, I can't say whether some of the Tax Day Tea Parties were not perhaps legitimate 'grassroots,' as the expression goes, but I do know about the one held in Kansas City and in one I wrote about in my first post, the one in Columbia.

The first, in Columbia, was organized by a Libertarian named Gary Nolan, and financially supported in part by the radio station he works for, The Eagle 93.9. Nolan himself, as far as I know, does not have any ties to Fox News, though The Eagle does use Fox News reports for hourly news. If The Eagle makes any money for the use of the news reports, I guess you could say in a round-about way Fox helped 'support' the Columbia Tea Party, but not in any direct way.

As to the Kansas City Tax Day Tea Party, that rally was organized by a 22-year-old college girl, and was originally going to be relatively small, but eventually there was so much citizen support she had to ask for help. But not from Fox News, from local people.

Now, like I said, some of the larger Tea Parties may have had support from Fox News, but not one that I attended.

Of the Fox News anchors who attended or organized Tea Parties, I only really know about Glenn Beck (I don't watch Hannity or Cavuto) and the Tea Party he helped with at the Alamo, from all accounts, was his own doing and was completely separate from Fox. If people want to begrudge Beck for financially supporting something he morally and principally supports (that's completely unheard of, right?) that's their privilege.

The link posted was from an opinion column, not a news story, and was written by the guy who wrote the book 'Train Wreck: The End of the Conservative Revolution (and Not a Moment Too Soon)' if that gives any indication of where he's coming from. And on top of that, he asserts Tea Party attendance across the nation was "in the tens of thousands." But I have heard of tons of small towns that held Tea Parties and didn't report numbers. The north half of Texas alone had approximately 65,000 attendants at the numerous rallies there, so add in at least 7,000 from Kansas City and you have 72,000 just there. I doubt numbers from across the nation were under 100,000, and I'd easily say more.

Lastly, (and I hope this post doesn't sound too argumentative), where Bill Press and many others have asked, "where was this gang when George W. Bush, the biggest spender in history, racked up the biggest budgets, biggest deficits and biggest national debt ever?" I can's answer for everyone, but I was watching with disgust and hoping Bush would straighten himself out. He didn't. Now we have a President who promised 'change' but continued with the over-spending, the bail-outs, the literal throwing of money at other countries and then has the nerve to ask for a $1 trillion (that's $1,000,000,000,000) budget! Very little change and very little hope, if you ask me.

I give all due respect to the office of President of the United States, and I'll continued to pray President Obama turns himself around the way Bush should have, but so far, no dice. And if other Tea Partiers feel the same way, I can't blame them.

NanaDot: There is plenty of communication between these people that discussed this very issue. There are personal letter, discussion from the debate about the writing of the constitution. Also, anyone can take one or a few resources and manipulate the information into something that they want to "revise" For example, a few people have tried to revise history about Pres. Lincoln, saying he was gay because he slept in the same bed with other men. However, the tidbit of informatiion from his letters or other people's taken by itself can be interpreted in any way someone with a agenda wants it to be. However, historically, Lincoln and other men went from town to town providing legal services and often shared the same hotel room, thus the same bed, to save money or because other rooms were not available.

The same can be said for our founding fathers. It does not matter what each of their personal beliefs were. The point is that the basis of the constitution were founded in religion, predominantly protestant belief systems. While I read historians books, I also search out, or at least try to, primary sources, which are the actual words of the people we are discussing. The quote from Washington about God and Bible in my earlier post really cannot be interpreted as a lower case word.

WHAT MUST MEN BELIEVE TO

BE SAVED? BY BENJAMIN FRANKLIN is interesting reading

"These tea parties are just protests by Republicans who lost in the last election."

It looks like 'RationalThinker' has turned into a 'MemeRepeater'

"We've had 8 years of your damn tea party, which was to rob from the poor to pay to the rich."

This is different from today's policies in what way? Bush was a piker in the amount he plundered from the country compared to the Wall Street thieves in control now.

Look at where the money has gone..

We are being robbed in broad daylight.

Please take off the blinders..

Here's another link where The Nuge points out a group of Democrats at the San Antonio Alamo Tea Party. Now, why would Democrats be so upset that the Republicans lost the election? Hmmm. I tell you the answer: they're not, because the Tea Parties weren't about political parties.

The Tea Parties were and are an American initiative and are supported by Republican Americans, Democratic Americans, Independent Americans, Libertarian Americans and every other clear-headed American living in this fine nation.

Put that in your tea and sip it!

Link: http://www.foxnews.com/video2/video08.ht...

RT: "will venture a guess that at least 90 percent of the "tea party" participants are either very right leaning Republicans or pro Libertarians who don't want any taxes of any kind."

It doesn't cost much to "guess" what motivates others, but this sounds less like rational thinking and more like meme repeating. Where are you getting your information?

"The rest just believe that most government spending is just for welfare programs, something that is very far from the truth."

Really? The other 10% think this? Another guess from the rational one?

What about the 12 trillion dollars the taxpayers were just put on the hook for? Where did that go? To low income people on welfare? Schools? Infrastructure?

Tax codes are red herrings. 'Fair' tax is a rabbit trail.. Glen Beck is a media shill.. magician's distractions all, while we are led like sheep to slaughter.. now it's weaponized bird flu.. but not to worry.. the government has vaccinations already prepared for you.. "strictly voluntary" I'm sure..

I like the way Alexis de Tocqueville put it: "The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."

Congress, it seems, has realized their undue power and We the People have to put the country back on track before we crumble completely.

Tocqueville also noted one thing that has always stung at me personally, but I'm afraid is true nonetheless, "The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults." When will we realize we cannot rely on government or politicians or even our neighbors to fix all our problems? It is up to us: Carpe Diem!

Yes, RationalThinker, on your last post I think we can agree!

I look forward to any and all comments on my next weblog post, which I hope will address some of the issues people have mentioned. I should have the next post before Friday. Look for it!

Yes, and a couple of other interesting charts include:

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=vie...

http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/w...

mrxray said "The same can be said for our founding fathers. It does not matter what each of their personal beliefs were. The point is that the basis of the constitution were founded in religion, predominantly protestant belief systems."

I'm not sure what the "tea party" has to do with religion, but there is no doubt that our founding fathers wanted to keep religion out of (separate from) government. There is quite a good reason for that, even though many personal beliefs did creep into individual comments, speeches, and written decisions. Many people then (and now as well) thought being religious was the only way to be a moral and ethical person, something far from the truth. The desire of our forefathers to maintain "separation of church and state" is quite clear. If you start mixing religion with the "tea party" gang, you'll really go off the deep (right) end!

Jacob says "Bring me a small government, comprised of people of integrity, and I'll be happy as a lark; as it stands, I find nothing WORTH admiring in our current government."

It sounds so simple to just make government small. The reality is that the important services our federal government performs necessitates BIG oversight and administering. Our federal government must insure that all our states and businesses do not trample on the rights of individuals and that important services are performed. Who among us would doubt that large deforestation wouldn't take place without the oversight of our federal government (as a small example). If you want to maintain our military supremecy, you'll have to live with some of the largest and inefficient federal bureaucracy there is. Would you want to reduce our military advantage? The list goes on. I'm sorry, I think you are so naive to believe we can just cut our government in half or thirds. We can only strive for efficiency. As long as you and your family live well and are fortunate, you'll find it difficult to find compassion for our social services because it is so easy to assume that those who use our social safety umbrella are in there position because of their own choosing, or lack of planning or committment. There will probably be one day many years down the road when you will realize that many people needing those social services are in their postion through no fault of their own.

"If you want to maintain our military supremecy, you'll have to live with some of the largest and inefficient federal bureaucracy there is."

You are confusing military supremacy with military imperialism. I don't believe all the military actions of our brave military men and women are necessarily undertaken for "our" benefit. I believe much of what is going on makes us less safe regardless the moral issues of killing millions of people that pose no military threat to America.

'If you want to maintain this' is not a question to which we have been given a choice. I do not support genocide in my name or behalf and if there was a personal choice to 'maintain' these actions, then I have to say that I decline.

'Living with the largest and (most)inefficient federal bureaucracy' is a sad rationalization on many levels. This is why you call yourself the Rational Thinker?

Rational Thinker: The founding fathers understood that in order to establish a government that protected freedoms, such as freedom of religion, it had to prevent the Federal Government from establishing a governmentally favored religion which would then have a high probability of opressing those religions that differed in beliefs. This was one of the many problems faced in countries in Europe. However, in all of the communications with the people in Philidelphia during the constitutional convention, never was it said that religions should not have anything to do with the day to day operations of our nation. In fact, most of the basic principals of the constitution are principals that find common ground in almost all religions in the world. Our founding fathers were from all backgrounds of religions (some not believing in religion), social status, occupations, cultures and nationalities, as-well-as from all of the colonies. However, with all of these differences they did all find common ground in the moral and virtuous principals that are the core of religious practices. Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, Paine, and many of the rest all stated that without virtuous and moral members within the Government,our Republic would fail. However, they left it up to each individual state to allow or disallow a "State" religion and there are many cases where state buildings were shared by many different religions for their services. The overbearing "left" viewpoint that our founding fathers did not want any religion in our government at all is completely false and without basis. In fact, the "natural law" was based on Martin Tullius Cicero, the Roman philosopher developed this concept and others followed. Cicero and John Locke were both influencial in most of the founding fathers. This Natural law is based on the concept that there is a Creator of our universe and that or world is not some gigantic accident that randomly occured. There is way too much documentation from our founding fathers to even argue otherwise, that religious concepts are the glue that was to hold our Republic together through time.

What we see happening today, the over expanded Government, Government attempting to "fix" all problems within society (examples, social security, unemployment, medicaid, etc), deficit spending by the Government, immoral people as our political leaders, and any other problem of our Government is because we are losing our sense of what our Nation, our Constitution is supposed to be.

RationalThinker, I noticed mrxray's post included no reference to Christianity but just used "religion" as a generic term -- and yet nearly your entire post is about the non-necessity of Christianity in government.

mrxray was using FREEDOM of religion as an example of how the founding fathers wanted America to be a morally upright country and nondiscriminatory of any religion. Several of the founders of this country grew into moral-based men and women because of their faith, others did not.

I agree with the concept of a division between "church and state," because as history has shown, almost every time politics and religion mix the result is disastrous. Some might claim religion corrupts the political system -- but with the corruption in politics over the centuries regardless of religion, I have come to firmly believe it is politics and power that corrupt religion. I don't want my religion perverted by power-hungry politicians who use their positions to manipulate my or anyone else's faith for their own gains. Therefore, as Jefferson noted, there should be a "wall of separation between church and state."

Does that mean moral principals laid down in scripture should be shirked so that the government can come up with its own "morals" and apply them to the American people with the hope everything will turn out okay? I don't think so!

Religion is a personal thing and government has no right to mingle in it. That does not mean when an issue goes to a vote that people should not apply their personal religious convictions to said issue. That IS their right, and that is why the founding fathers set up America as a Democratic Republic.

The point, it seems to me, is that the founding fathers wished the American Government to be a less oppressive one than those back in Europe. And I agree with mrxray when he noted, "What we see happening today ... is because we are losing our sense of what our Nation, our Constitution is supposed to be."

Has anyone actually read the Constitution lately? Get back with me once you have, okay?

Well, RationalThinker, I have to disagree with your statement, "If there were no such books (as the bible or koran), I am confident you would still do all the things you constitute as 'good' just as you do today."

I don't think I would act the way I act now or live the way I live now if not for the Bible and my belief in the God of said Bible as the one and only true God. That is a personal thing, and I'm not trying to shove my religion down anyone's throat. But all the same, what I constitute as "good" comes from the scriptures I read, and looking back at past bad decisions and such, I don't think I would have turned out the man I am if not for the Bible's guidance. Maybe you exist on some higher platform of inherent internal morality, but I would say most of us need some form of definition when it comes to what is right or wrong. A step furthur, if all humans carried an internal moral compass, how come something one person considers completely wrong is just fine with other people? Can a thing be right and wrong at the same time, depending on who is approahing it?

We are in agreement that church and state should be separate, to avoid one governing the other unjustly, be it church controlling state or state controlling church. Sooner or later scripture would be twisted to further man's goals and would end up looking like the Taliban or a sharia law government. Leviticus 21:9 is a good example of how a Bible passage could be corrupted by politicians into something it was not meant for, as the priesthood no longer exists and therefore that commandment is nullified. But I could easily see a politician/pastor in a hypothetical church-run government calling for the burning of prostitutes if their fathers were pastors. This would be a perversion of the actual text, and would be my fear if politicians and bureaucrats were given any kind of authority in scriptural matters.

(As I side note, it seems to me you think Leviticus 21:9 is a very cruel and unjustified command, but you have to realize at the time it was written, about the 15th century B.C., prostitution was not taken nearly as lightly as it (oddly) is today. But again, the priesthood is not set up in this day and age, which automatically makes that commandment void. On top of that, there is this scripture too many Christians seem to overlook, James 1:27: "The religious observance that God the Father considers pure and faultless is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being contaminated by the world." Not exactly an atrocity of scriptural guidance, if you ask me.)

I know whenever a person mentions "Biblical principals" and "politics" in the same sentence, people think, "Oh, religious-right guy over here." So let me assure you I am not a far-right extremist. I'm just a humble believer trying to live out the principals of James 1:27.

But if the argument here is whether or not church and state should be separated, then we are in agreement that they should be divided. You have your reasons, I have mine, but the conclusion is the same.