Wasn't history constantly re-written in Orwell's 1984?

We have always been at war with Oceania.

A friend of mine says the motto for this isolated mountain town where I live should be: "Ignorant and proud of it." This is Palin's motto also.

I'm sure Palin is part of that crowd that only watches/listens to (and recently interviews with) right wing hate radio/TV. Even our corporate media has perpetuated this blatantly FALSE statement that are Founding Father's were all Christians and were intent on founding a Christian country.

I blame the media for allowing this and other lies perpetuated in the interest of 'balance' distort the founding principles of our once great nation. Hopefully, we can reestablish these and other principles and return to greatness?...

The woman had a Kenyan witch hunter pray over her, I guess to exercise any demons she may have been harboring. This is scary. It's the stuff of fantasy. But to each his/her own. It's still a free country (well, that's another topic) and people can believe what they want to believe. But do we REALLY want someone a heartbeat away from the presidency who believes in witches and demons?

To me, it's no coincidence that we have seen the degradation of civility and compromise in our government over the past 30 + years go hand in hand with the rise of the religious right.

It is these people that the Founders warned us against. It's as if they have renounced the age of reason, and would prefer that we return to some sort of religiously dominated 'new middle age'.

Palin may be historically wrong, and I may disagree with her opinion, but at least the answer was coherent. She's improving!

Last night, Sarah Palin called in to Sean Hannity's show and said that the media coverage (interviews) were "unfair" because she had been "censored" and therefore, she doesn't have the forum to express her views unfettered and unfiltered. Hannity agreed, of course.

I think Biden should ask her about this tonight, act troubled that she thinks that they censored her, share her concern if this is true, and ask if CBS, ABC, Hannity, Hewitt, and whoever else may have interviewed her lately, would consider releasing the entire, unedited videos and transcripts of their Palin interviews to the American people for further review.

I mean, Hannity wouldn't "censor" her interviews just to show her in a better light, would he?

And we'd all see the Gibson, Couric interviews for the liberal hatchet-jobs they were, right?

What do you think?

Why, Palin wouldn't find time to read it since she reads every newspaper and magazine in the entire world as it is right now. (rolling eyes)

We are so seriously screwed. Stick a fork in the US, we are done.

If only Palin and the religious conservatives took an honest look at what Thomas Jefferson really thought about religion and politics, their heads would explode. He was no fan of religion and wanted it as far away from government as possible.

That these people pretend to have some claim to the will of the Founders is supreme irony. The founders would be appalled by what Palin and her ilk have done and want to do.

Someone should ask her whether she thinks the US should be more like England, you know, where the head of state is also the head of the Church of England.

It's off-topic a bit and maybe I'm crazy, but...

After watching these interviews and Palin's Alaskan debate tapes, it seems that her accent has gotten much thicker since she started running for VP. It's a small point I suppose, but it looks like she's turning on the folksy, cutesy charm on the national stage. Is it to distract from her dangerous lack of credentials? Or to endear her to her dear friend "Joe Sixpack?" Or am I imagining this?

If only Palin and the religious conservatives took an honest look at what Thomas Jefferson really thought about religion and politics, their heads would explode.

No, they would just find another dead person to misquote. You know, like maybe Jesus.

Did Jefferson ever say "never underestimate the wisdom of the people"? No one has ever heard that quote before. I am pretty sure that she just made it up.

If she had the vocabulary and knowledge to say so, Palin would likely describe herself as a Constitutional literalist/ strict constructionist/original intenter who sees the words about no establishment of religion and ignores 200+ years of jurisprudence that follows upon and glosses onto them. It's yet another new morning in America for anti-intellectualism in American life. Richard Hofstadter, are you rolling in your grave? And did anyone catch the NPR coverage this morning of the McCain howler that he has consulted frequently with Plain for advice in the past, given that he has known her for about six weeks at this point? John likes a running bluff.

Palin's best answers would only serve her in a beauty pageant.

And it turns out that she has never been to that part of Alaska from which any part of Russia can be seen.

dcwp

Every once in an while GWB will turn off his "accent." In real life he sounds a lot like a patrician prep school graduate who attended Harvard and Yale. Sort of like his daddy.

The same crowd is advising Palin.

The phony baloney that is modern Republicanism is beyond belief.

America began a downhill slide into nihilistic hedonism when prayers were taken out of the schools.

Has anyone else read Ye will say I am no Christian"? It is the correspondence between Jefferson and Adams on religion, ethics, morality...very enlightening.

Okay, most of Palin's answer is gibberish, but having taught the history of American political thought to undergraduates, I have to give her credit for understanding the First Amendment decently even if she can't articulate it very well. Her first statement is actually worthwhile and partly correct. The First Amendment is usually understood as having an establishment clause and a free exercise clause. Palin correctly identifies the danger of establishment ("mandate a religion on people" is inelegant, but I'm pretty sure that's what she means), and then after some random Tourett's Syndrome babbling, she hints at the free exercise aspect of the Amendment ("the right and the ability and the desire to express their own religious views").

Now, does this address the question about why this is important or what Jefferson's motives were as expressed in his writings? Well, no. But I can say from experience that if you toss that question cold at anyone who has not had a graduate education in American history or political philosophy, they probably won't do much better than identifying what the First Amendment actually says. Palin's emphasis on the danger of establishing religion is actually not that bad.

Biden makes an inarticulate stab at going deeper into the question of why this matters - the English civil wars and the 30 Years War were both very much in the forefront of political philosophy in the 18th century. Both Hobbes and Locke were responding to the problem of governing in the absence of religious consensus, and they were among the strongest influences on the framers when it came to religion and the role of the state. But Biden doesn't really give a full credit answer here either.

A good answer would involve Jefferson's argument about the danger of religious discrimination if government and religion become intermingled (for extra points on history cite the English monarchy's treatment of Catholics) as developed in his Notes on the State of Virginia and Locke's arguments from his Letter Concerning Toleration. Using contemporary examples of countries with state religions such as Saudi Arabia to illustrate the lack of freedom that can accompany establishment would make this a more effective political point, but the history alone would answer the question.

A graduate level answer would cite Madison's arguments in the debate over the establishment of religion in Virginia (Memorial and Remonstrance and then mention the reasoning in a few Supreme Court cases such as Engel v. Vitale or Wisconsin v. Yoder.

To judge for yourself and learn some interesting things, go read the texts of both Jefferson and Madison on this. They are short and quite interesting; just plug "Madison Memorial and Remonstrance" and "Jefferson Notes on the State of Virginia" into Google. Religion is addressed in Jefferson's Query 17.

That's exactly what I was just thinking, debraza. Her answer was pure, unadulterated, high-school, did-not-study-for-the-final-exam bullshit.

Here's a good quote I've seen attributed to Jefferson that she should have used when she was asked the newspaper question: "I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it."

My friend and former colleague Rob Boston wrote a terrific piece on Jefferson's metaphor a few years ago, which helps highlight how misguided Palin's sense of history is. Maybe someone ought to send her a copy of the article.

My friend and former colleague Rob Boston wrote a terrific piece on Jefferson's metaphor a few years ago, which helps highlight how misguided Palin's sense of history is. Maybe someone ought to send her a copy of the article.

And it turns out that she has never been to that part of Alaska from which any part of Russia can be seen. -m

If she had, she probably would have claimed you can see the future from Alaska, since the Int'l Datelne separates the Alaskan island from the Russian one.

Trying to parse Palin's verbiage hurts the head. I would expect thoughts like these on a very mediocre high school senior's civics final. She's produces speech much like that of the computer programs that string together words following rules of grammar but without any guiding semantics.

And the wisdom of the people, I think in this issue is that people have the right and the ability and the desire to express their own religious views, be it a very personal level, which is why I choose to express my faith, or in a more public forum.

But no one argues that people should not have the ability to express their own religious views -- the church/state wall is about people imposing their religious views on other people. As usual, Palin's word salad fails to answer the question.

And can someone tell me what the hell this means:

the desire to express their own religious views, be it a very personal level, which is why I choose to express my faith, or in a more public forum

Could she mean how she chooses to express her faith? Btu even then, palin is very in-your-face about her religious views -- she obviously expresses them in a public forum.

Matthew 6:5:

"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 6But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. "

The next passage, however, is perhaps more applicable to Palin:

do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.

Debate question: The resurrected Jesus commanded his followers to go forth and make persons in all the lands his disciples. This is known as the Great Commission. As President, and as a Christian, how would you fulfill the Great Commission?

America began a downhill slide into nihilistic hedonism when prayers were taken out of the schools.

LOL...you don't know much about American History.

I suggest you look up the history of drug use and prostitution throughout the US's long and sordid history.

Hedonism was alive and well once people moved away from the Puritans in NE, and maybe even before.

Did you know there were more businessmen than Puritans aboard the Mayflower?

"Most of this is just odd, but more importantly, the notion that Jefferson's church-state wall was simply about preventing the government from 'mandating a religion on people' is just foolish. Indeed, it's completely at odds with the historical record."

I find this a very curious, and inaccurate, statement. It pains me to have to say it, but Palin is actually half right.

The First Amendment seems quite clear. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;..." The prohibitions of the First Amendment did not apply to the states until adoption of the XIV Amendment.

Madison crafted the First Amendment from Jefferson's Virginia Bill for Religious Freedom, which he drafted to free Virginians from the yoke of the Virginia state established Anglican religion. At the time every colony, except Rhode Island, had state established religions, Anglicanism in the South and Congregationalism in the North.

Profession to the state establish church, in many colonies, was required for a citizen to vote or hold office, and financial support of which was mandatory and often coerced. Lord Baltimore even issued edicts providing for the punishment of who denied the Trinity and other blasphemies.

Jefferson and Madison worked with George Mason and Patrick Henry and with Baptists and Presbyterians to finally, in 1786, disestablish the state church through the adoption by the Virginia General Assembly of Jefferson's "Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom". Disestablishment soon spread through the South, and ended in Massachusetts in 1833 with the separation of the authority of the Congregationalist church from that of the civil government.

So Palin is half correct. The First Amendment protects the populace from establishment of a state church, but also protects the freedom of religious exercise.

Steve -

Yes, I think you should send it to her. She's a voracious reader. She reads everything in front of her - including all newspapers. So I think she'd like that.

"Most of this is just odd, but more importantly, the notion that Jefferson's church-state wall was simply about preventing the government from "mandating a religion on people" is just foolish. Indeed, it's completely at odds with the historical record."

I don't know if that's true or not, but whatever Mr. Jefferson's thoughts on this issue, they are not legally binding. At the time of the ratification of the Constitution, some of the states had state supported Churches, just like the Church of England. Since the First Admendment only applied the Federal Government, the Founders intended to prohibit the U.S. from establishing a similar Church of America that would supercede the states' established churches.

The idea that there should be a "wall between church and state" as we understand the phrase would have been laughable to the Founders because for them, the two were seen as being deeply interwoven.

None of the material in the article you linked to, Steve, dealt with the adoption of the First Amendment. It dealt with Jeffersons's views 15 years later.

Palin was talking about the Establishment Clause. When she says, "His intention in expressing that was so that government did not mandate a religion on people," she was correct. The Founders did not want a State religion, which had been the source of so many wars in Europe.

So she was correct as far as she went. She didn't deal adequately with the Free Exercise clause, though.

On a related subject, I'm hearing that Gwen Ifill is going to ask Sarah Palin if she's a witch - and also if she's ever been possessed by the devil and subsequently exorcised.

Posted by: dcwp

It's off-topic a bit and maybe I'm crazy, but...

After watching these interviews and Palin's Alaskan debate tapes, it seems that her accent has gotten much thicker since she started running for VP. It's a small point I suppose, but it looks like she's turning on the folksy, cutesy charm on the national stage. Is it to distract from her dangerous lack of credentials? Or to endear her to her dear friend "Joe Sixpack?" Or am I imagining this?

==========================

I've noticed the same thing so either we're BOTH imagining it or maybe when she's nervous she reverts back to some prehistoric form of Alaskan hillbilly. ("Prehistoric", of course, means hillbillies that are no more than four thousand years old.) I suspect your theory is much closer to the truth ... she (or someone) figures that if she SOUNDS like some homespun, folksy moron (a la Gomer Pyle) then maybe we won't notice that what she's actually saying has absolutely no substance. It'll be interesting to see which Sarah Palin shows up tonight -- cosmopolitan Sarah or folksy "you betcha' Sarah. (God help us, maybe she'll keep morphing back and forth until she suddenly turns to stone in mid-sentence. Now THAT would be entertaining.)

Monkey, your sarcasm radar is in a sorry state of disrepair. I'd nuke some more of your brain cells but the Geneva Conventions probably address waging such hostilities when such an imbalance in forces is at play.

What Chris Brown said. He's better informed than me (or types faster).

Shorter Chicounsel: Thomas Jefferson's opinions are not legally binding, but the opinions of other Founders are.

Riiiiiiight.

for [the Fonders], [church and state] were seen as being deeply interwoven.

...and seen as deeply corrupting to both church and state, as the history of the previous two centuries -- if not two millenia! -- proved to them.

Maybe someone ought to send her a copy of the article.

Uh, yeah, she'll get right on that. Right after she's finished reading "How to Wrap a Grizzly Bear for Mailing."

for [the Fonders], [church and state] were seen as being deeply interwoven

"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." --Jefferson

"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature." --Jefferson

"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church." --Thomas Paine

Yeah. A deeply religious crowd, those Fonders (sic) were.

But here's my favorite (although not from a Founder):

"The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma." --Abraham Lincoln

Shorter Chicounsel: Thomas Jefferson's opinions are not legally binding, but the opinions of other Founders are.

Riiiiiiight.

Posted by: Gregory on October 2, 2008 at 11:07 AM |

Only the views of those Founders who were involved in the drafting and enactment of the document should properly matter. Since Jefferson was not at the Constitutional Convention nor a member of any state legislature that adopted the Constitutions, his views on any given subject should not given equal weight to someone like Madison who was there and the drafter of the text. Right, Gregory?

You'd think Palin would know some of these cases or have some understanding since she is supposedly McCain's connection to the Religious Right.

The "equal protection" [for every person under the law] clause in the Constitution is a key part of the pro-life movement. They claim it gives a fetus the same right to life as any person. How could Sarah Palin NOT be familiar with that?

How could John McCain pick someone so inept?

America can't trust John McCain.

If the people who are advising and prepping her are "loyal Bushies", then we should not be surprised at the stupidity of her answers to high school level softball question. After all, these are the people who brought us Monica Goodling, Alberto Gonzales, Kyle Sampson, and Dana Perino, among the dumbest most ignorant hacks ever to carry briefcases. Their idea of a policy retort is to go out and order tire guages and not spell check the copy on the original order.

Chicounsel, as you well know, the founders -- Jefferson included -- disagreed on all manner of subjects, including the role of religion in the public square.

It's true, however -- as I pointed out but you failed to address -- that the Founders all were well aware of the corruption inherent in the entaglement of religion and politics, and it's also true that, whatever personal opinions, expressed privately or otherwise, that you cherry-pick, the Constitution they drafted quite clearly separates the two.

At a time when the Divine Right of kings was accepted across Europe, the Constitution derives the source of its authority not from God but from We, the People. Shame on you for supporting those who would usurp our power in favor of those who claim to speak for God.

Anonymous said, 'if you toss that question cold at anyone who has not had a graduate education in American history or political philosophy, they probably won't do much better'

Glad, I read that comment before wasting too much time on the 'terrific piece' to which Steve referred. I scanned it and bookmarked it, realizing the nuggets in it were very cleverly obscured and would take sometime to extract.

What audience was that piece directed towards? Anything of length and subtlety, if intended for the general public should do what every good speaker and newspaper article does. Say what you are going to say, say it with elaboration, and then say what you said. When a piece or speaker fails to create focus, they lose, and rightly so, most people. It gives the impression that they really have nothing to say except minutiae, perhaps.

I forgot to mention that though Chicounsel would dismiss Jefferson's opinions because he "was not at the Constitutional Convention nor a member of any state legislature that adopted the Constitution," Jefferson remained a highly influential Founder whose ideas and opinions shaped the Constitution regardless of his official role.

That the Founders influenced, and attempted to influence, each other through writings both personal and private is a amtter of record, you dolt. Only a supporter of the Orwellian Republican Party would dismiss the historical record in order to advance an inaccurate and dishoenst politcal point.

Jackass.

I have to agree with what anonymous and some others above are driving at: Palin has a lot of pathetic performances to live down, but this ain't one of them. In what passes for education on the Constitution in this country, her answer will ring true to 90% of Americans. The teachers who taught most of us in HS would give an "A" for that answer, however unfortunate that may be.

I hope were not being set up by Palin and McSame. She has to be smarter than she seems in these interviews so expectations will be very low for her and if the media is being played like a fiddle she could shine and win the night and the news cycle until the next debate. The distain that the McCain campaign could be their October surprise lulling everyone to sleep with dumb answers only to be very very well prepared for this debate. I hope I'm wrong but this could be a game changer.

Palin's answer was, at least in the beginning and in its implications, pretty coherent for her. Her view (shared by evangelicals) is that the 1A was only meant to prevent the government from favoring one faith over another. They never intended (say Palin and the evangelists) for government to be indifferent between religion and atheism. And pace Jefferson, this may have been the view of most of the people who voted to ratify the Constitution.

Whenever you argue that Jefferson and some other founder were deists militantly committed to the separation of church and state, you are playing their game. Who cares what any of them thought? There's no reason for us to be bound by the cultural norms of the 18th century.

I've noticed the same thing so either we're BOTH imagining it or maybe when she's nervous she reverts back to some prehistoric form of Alaskan hillbilly.

I believe they prefer to be called Sons of the Soil.

You are all very erudite. I'm still struggling with the relevance of most of that erudition to Palin's answer.

Couric quoted Jefferson, not the First Amendment. Palin then said that what Jefferson meant when he wrote that there should be a "wall of separation between church and state" was that the government shouldn't "mandate a religion on people." Then she said it's very important to let people express their religious views, both privately and publicly, and that Jefferson would have thought so too.

I don't find much to object to in most of this answer, from a substantive point of view. What interests me the most is that, when asked about church and state, Palin visibly went into the defensive crouch of the right-wing Christian regarding religion in the public square -- ten commandments in the courthouse, and all that.

I wonder if there are any Supreme Court decisions on that subject that she disagrees with?

Nah.

beep52 said it the very best only yesterday:

"Ultimately, it isn't Sarah Palin's ignorance that's being put to the test, but the ignorance of the American public."

Truer words were ne'er spake.

"Maybe someone ought to send her a copy of the article."

Yes, all you have to do is put it in front of her, and she'll read it.

I always find the discussions on the First Amendment to be both bizarre and amusing at the same time. Typically, there are two distinct positions. The first being that the government can make no law regarding the establishment of religion, with establishment being interpreted as any religious institution. Establishment is clearly defined as "the establishment," and it is a noun. The second position is that what they really meant was that the government could not establish a religion. In this scenario, establishment is defined as the act of establishing. This position usually contains some form of suggesting that the government cannot create a state religion. Examples of countries that established a state religion then follow.

The second position, in my opinion, is one of the most bizarre things that I have ever heard. I can think of no government in the past or present that established a religion, except perhaps Ancient Egypt, which was practically a religioin unto itself. Yes, there are some governments in the past that established a state church, but never a religion. The religion to which the church subscribed already existed. I doubt that any government could or would establish a religion. It would be near impossible for a government to invent a religion, make it law and get people to follow it, if the religion was solely the creation of the government.

This interpretation confuses religion with church. How exactly they imagine that the Congress would invent a religion through legislation is mind-boggling.

Only the views of those Founders who were involved in the drafting and enactment of the document should properly matter. Since Jefferson was not at the Constitutional Convention nor a member of any state legislature that adopted the Constitutions, his views on any given subject should not given equal weight to someone like Madison who was there and the drafter of the text. Right, Gregory?

What a completely uninformed comment. The First Amendment, as noted above, was crafted by Madison from Jefferson's Virginia Bill for Religious Freedom, adopted 10 years before the US Constitution was written and almost fifteen years before adoption of the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution.

And to whomever above suggested that all of this talk of the Constitution and the First Amendment is somehow unrelated to Jefferson's Wall of Separation metaphor, all I can say is balderdash.

Only the views of those Founders who were involved in the drafting and enactment of the document should properly matter. Since Jefferson was not at the Constitutional Convention nor a member of any state legislature that adopted the Constitutions, his views on any given subject should not given equal weight to someone like Madison who was there and the drafter of the text. Right, Gregory?

Seriously? If you're practicing law your license should be revoked.

Nothwithstanding the general progress made within the two last centuries in favour of this branch of liberty, & the full establishment of it, in some parts of our Country, there remains in others a strong bias towards the old error, that without some sort of alliance or coalition between Gov' & Religion neither can be duly supported: Such indeed is the tendency to such a coalition, and such its corrupting influence on both the parties, that the danger cannot be too carefully guarded agst.. And in a Gov' of opinion, like ours, the only effectual guard must be found in the soundness and stability of the general opinion on the subject. Every new & successful example therefore of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance. And I have no doubt that every new example, will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Gov will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together;

[James Madison, Letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822, The Writings of James Madison, Gaillard Hunt]

An alliance or coalition between Government and religion cannot be too carefully guarded against......Every new and successful example therefore of a PERFECT SEPARATION between ecclesiastical and civil matters is of importance........religion and government will exist in greater purity, without (rather) than with the aid of government.

[James Madison in a letter to Livingston, 1822, from Leonard W. Levy- The Establishment Clause, Religion and the First Amendment,pg 124]

Chris Brown,

If you're addressing me with your "balderdash" comment, you misunderstood what I said. Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptist Association pretty clearly is referencing the First Amendment, so the two are not "unrelated." However, it doesn't follow that you can answer the question of whether Palin correctly interpreted what Jefferson meant by citing a bunch of historical evidence regarding the original intent of the First Amendment's religion clauses. That was my point.

In many respects Biden and Palin's answers could be a result of the same answer. Biden said "to keep religion out of the government" which in a sense, was what one would call "a politically correct answer" being that the government is made of people, people have faith and live according to the faith or lack of, and you can't keep people out of the government. Martin Luther King, Jr. said it best, "The Church is the influence of the State." Remove the 10 Commandments for institance and insert violent X-Box and Video games and what do you get? A generation that thinks that based on the truth of their emotions, they can can kill! Duh, garbage in - garbage out! If nothing is restraining us or rather securing us and the principals of the faith that great leaders who were secure in their faith like Harriett Tubman and Martin Luther King, Jr. are thrown out the window, what prevails will not be strength added to strength but a tyranny of different concepts and different truths based on a conglamerant of different thoughts, attitudes and perceptions. This county is quickly loosing stability, allows for no true security. Perhaps we should consider thoughts and emotions last and wisdom first.

In many respects Biden and Palin's answers could be a result of the same answer. Biden said "to keep religion out of the government" which in a sense, was what one would call "a politically correct answer" being that the government is made of people, people have faith and live according to the faith or lack of, and you can't keep people out of the government. Martin Luther King, Jr. said it best, "The Church is the influence of the State." Remove the 10 Commandments for institance and insert violent X-Box and Video games and what do you get? A generation that thinks that based on the truth of their emotions, they can can kill! Duh, garbage in - garbage out! If nothing is restraining us or rather securing us and the principals of the faith that great leaders who were secure in their faith like Harriett Tubman and Martin Luther King, Jr. are thrown out the window, what prevails will not be strength added to strength but a tyranny of different concepts and different truths based on a conglamerant of different thoughts, attitudes and perceptions. This county is quickly loosing stability, allows for no true security. Perhaps we should consider thoughts and emotions last and wisdom first.

can anyone actually decipher what sarah silly was trying to say?

It's very unlikely that Jefferson said "never underestimate the wisdom of the people", given that the Oxford English Dictionary cites the first usage of the verb 'underestimate' in 1809.

Has she mangled something else?

"...[T]he notion that Jefferson's church-state wall was simply about preventing the government from "mandating a religion on people" is just foolish. Indeed, it's completely at odds with the historical record."

I loath and fear Sarah Palin and fervently believe in the separation of church and state. However, Jefferson is only one guy and, if he's right about the First Am's intentions, its words are regrettably unclear.

"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."

See? It says nothing about separation of church and state. Look, Palin is an idiot and mixing religion with politics is a recipe for disaster. But she's on arguably firm ground nevertheless. Yeesh.

Jesus loves me and says that you're going to hell because he loves you too.

The idea that there should be a "wall between church and state" as we understand the phrase would have been laughable to the Founders because for them, the two were seen as being deeply interwoven.

That's why "God" is mentioned nowhere in the Constitution that gives rise to the state, right?

That's why in their private writings Madison, Jefferson, and Adams angrily rail against the idea of ecclesiastical beliefs intruding upon the state, right?

The Founders were not pious country preachers. They were the cosmopolitan, liberal, educated elite of their day. Many of these men were Deists and Masons (George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, I'm looking at you) which are philosophies that bear little in common with established religion in the areas of credal confession and soteriology. Franklin himself said that while Christ had left the world with an excellent system of morals, it had been corrupted by churches and that at this point he had little use for it or the question of Christ's divinity.

There existed nothing like modern evangelical Christianity at the time, so save your handwaving. There were no vague appeals to being persons "of faith" because everyone belong to specific denominations, most of which thought the others were in grave error, often to the point of eternal damnation, explaining why many of them had used the state or local authorities to discriminate against the others in one form or another in their past.

It was not possible for "church and state" to be "deeply interwoven" because on the one hand, churchgoing people entertained very different beliefs with a fierce zeal; and on the other because so many people were nominally religious or even humanistic and weren't interested in being drawn in to the crazy.

"Rumors circulated throughout New England that Jefferson, if elected, would quickly order all Bibles rounded up and burned."

Today, its Democrats & guns in Appalachia
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Americans are realizing that with Palin "there is no there, there". It's just an empty headed fool, there.

Lil' Miss Sarah's Assembly of God church in Wasilla - the one she's been going to since she was twelve - just hosted a three day conference on "Worship and Warfare" in which they instruct the militant christian sheeple on how to become part of "Joel's Army." The members of "Joel's army" aim to take over the U.S. Government and establish a New Apostolic Reformationist theocracy in which abortion and birth control are banned, homosexuals are executed, adultery is punishable by stoning, and their narrow interpretation of "christianity" is the law of the land.

Sorry, doesn't do much to convince me that Moosalini really believes in the Establishment Clause.

Matthew 7:16-17 "By their fruits ye shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so, every good tree brings forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit."

Sarah's fruits are rotten.

Someone should send Palin a copy of the article? Come on, the woman is too stupid to read.

The members of "Joel's army" aim to take over the U.S. Government and establish a New Apostolic Reformationist theocracy in which abortion and birth control are banned, homosexuals are executed, adultery is punishable by stoning, and their narrow interpretation of "christianity" is the law of the land.

Could you provide a link? Because I think I've read that book already.

Come on, give Palin credit for getting half of the answer right. Her articulated view wasn't gibberish, it was merely incomplete. -Kevo

ashton @ 12:40 PM posted - "I always find discussions...to be both bizaare and amusing...'Establishment' is clearly defined...it is a noun...".
"Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." 1st Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
"...respecting the establishment of religion,..." is a subordinate clause defining the type(s) of law(s) Congress is not allowed to make. And in that clause "the establishment" reads as a verb because it is an action that Congress is not allowed to make.
The use of the phrase "the Establishment" as a noun arose during the 1960's, not the 1760's.