This Hoosier doesn’t claim him

In his continued quest to morph from third-rate actor to third-rate political activist, Indiana native Chuck Norris weighed in on...you got it...the war on Christmas. Ol' Chuck takes it up a notch, though, and seems to feel that it is now President Obama's War on Christmas (a.k.a. POWOC). In fact, he sees POWOC in even more general terms. The President doesn't just hate Christmas; he hates Christians and Christianity. I guess Chuck forgot the part where the President said that he is a Christian and believes in God. Too many roundhouse kicks to the head, Chuck? I suspect Chuck buys into the "Obama is a secret Muslim" conspiracy bullshit.

Chuck waxes nostalgic for the good old days when everyone viewed America the way our founders did...and by everyone I guess he means white Christian males. At the time of the founding of our republic, remember that women couldn't vote, and blacks were not considered "complete" people. In Chuck's utopian world-that-never-was, everyone showed their love for America by declaring "a good ol'-fashioned Christmas proclamation of Christ's birth."

I've already written about that, so I won't go into Chuck's obvious ignorance of the truth of the matter. I will, however, say that I find his particular brand of intolerance and his failure to comprehend that America consists of more than kickboxing white male conservative Christians to be dismaying and all too typical of what way too many others believe.

President Obama (Yeah, Chuck, I know you're having a hard time dealing with it, but he really is the President...and he's your President! Dig it!) caught a lot of flak a while back for saying that we are not a Christian nation. As hard as it may be for people to accept that, it's the truth. We are a nation of many faiths, including those who have no faith at all. It doesn't mean that anyone of a different faith or lack thereof is less of an American or a "bad" American. They're still American.

In fact, it's never been a Christian nation. People love to claim that our founding fathers established this nation on Christian principles. Umm...no. They didn't. The First Amendment states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." This is usually interpreted to mean that the Congress is prohibited from the establishment of a national religion, or the preference of one religion over another, or the support of a "religious idea with no identifiable secular purpose." If you recall, the Puritans came over here because they were sick and tired of the Church of England bossing them around and telling them how they should believe. The last thing they wanted was to have some sort of national religion.

Thomas Jefferson, in the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, wrote:

That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

I feel that Jefferson was one of the most visionary men in history; regardless of his own feelings about religion or how he practiced it, he realized that true freedom could come only when a government does not have the power to coerce any citizen into a certain type of belief system, or into any type of belief system.

Jefferson's far-thinking words are perverted by groups like the Discovery Institute, who insert themselves into political issues and whose main goal is to promote the teaching of intelligent design in public schools, despite claiming to be a secular organization. According to their Wedge Document, they want to "defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural, and political legacies" and to "replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God." What the hell is "scientific materialism," anyway? Do they mean things like proven scientific facts? Those pesky scientists and all their fancy book-learnin'. "Everyone would have fallen in line and believed like we told them if it weren't for you meddling scientists!" [shaking fist]

The Treaty of Tripoli, signed by President John Adams in 1797, states in Article 11:

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion [italics mine]; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

(This last one is particularly apt concerning a future topic: religious and ethnic profiling. Stay tuned.)

I get frustrated when I hear people (yeah, I'm talking to you, Chuck Norris) assert that our country was founded on Christian principles. It is not the President's job to "stand up for Christianity"; it is his job to lead our country and provide a worldwide leadership presence, to faithfully execute federal law, and to command our troops. Part of faithfully executing federal law is to protect our Constitution and all American citizens from fucktards like you who think they have the right--the God-given right--to shove any sort of religion down anyone's throat. You have no such right.

You can bitch about it all you want, Chuck, but if you'd bother to do a couple of hours of research or attempt to move beyond your apparently limited capacity for comprehension of even the most fundamental of concepts, you might find out that your ramblings are just so much bullshit.

You're also a crappy writer.

(Note: A special thank you to my Facebook and Blogger friends such as Darren, Diana, DB, Alex, Tim, and anyone else who has been there for discussion, information, and links. I love to have my horizons broadened, and you're all damned good at it!)