Wild Turkey couldn't drag me away

I suspect that on this day, everyone’s writing posts about those things for which they are thankful. Being a frequently childish potty-mouthed contrarian, I have of course decided to tell you what I am NOT thankful for:

Idiots like Jonah Goldberg, who HAS HIS OWN SYNDICATED COLUMN in which he argues trivial nonsense such as: Obama is a hypocrite for sending his children to private school. Now, according to Goldberg, Republicans who send their children to private school are not hypocrites, because they support giving themselves a tax credit for doing so. Obama, on the other hand, is a hypocrite, because he does not support having the federal government subsidize what his family can well afford on their own.

The last time I heard logic that tortured, it was standing on the deck of an aircraft carrier with a big banner behind it that said “Mission Accomplished.”

More than the fact that I don’t see why I should subsidize private education when I already subsidize public education, there is a more important issue at stake here, and that is that many private schools are also religious schools.

So, by using government funds to support religious education, we would be violating that pesky separation of church and state bit of our constitution, yes, but we would also be funding the subjugation of women, gays, atheists, etc., much of which is preached, perpetuated & supported by organized religion.

And I’m against that. I have the temerity to believe it to be anti-American.

Funny, thing, though, about that whole church/state separation deal. We have largely evangelical Christians to thank for it.

Yes, contrary to popular belief, the US did not adopt the separation because Franklin was a randy old atheist with a beef against Puritans (he was not an atheist), or because Jefferson was a minor deity with a gift of foresight so powerful that he could predict the rise of secret Muslim presidential candidates. We adopted the separation because for over a hundred years, we’d tried our hand at official state religion, and had failed miserably at it.

As the colonies were established, official religions were established for that colony. Congregationalists flourished in the north (think Pilgrims), and the Anglican church in the southern colonies. Residents of those colonies who preached other than officially sanctioned religious beliefs were persecuted, banished, and even executed. Mary Dyer, one of many condemned for her religion, was put to death right on Boston Common for the crime of being a Quaker. A Quaker! What have Quakers ever done to anyone, ever, except shill for nutritious hot breakfast cereals, and found a state known chiefly for its fascistic approach to steak sandwiches? Quakers are the winners of the Miss Congeniality Award for Christian sects for, like, the last two hundred years straight.

Those colonial religious affiliations survived the transition to statehood, and became the bane of American upstart sects like the Baptists and Evangelicals. Those sects then backed political candidates like James Madison, who promised that they would support a Bill of Rights in our Constitution with a giant “no government support of religion” written in Founding Father Condensed Extra Bold right across the top.

But the best part was, it wasn’t merely self-preservation that motivated them. The Evangelicals also believed – get this! – that everyone has a personal relationship to the Almighty, and that God does not speak primarily through the clergy, but through everyone, and he most certainly did not require the support of a government to flourish; in fact, quite the opposite. The Evangelicals believed that the separation of church and state would, encourage, yes, I said encourage religion in the United States.

And apparently, they were correct. Because we are, collectively, one giant God-fearing mamajamma up in here. So, congratulations on your foresight, oh Jesus freaks, otherwise, without the separation, Kennedy would’ve had us all worshiping the guy in the beanie who thinks that pro-choice voters should be excommunicated, while child molesters get the get out of hell free card. Without your wisdom, President-elect Obama would right now no doubt be planning the massive conversion of public schools to madrasahs, churches to mosques, and the Washington Monument into the world’s most phallic minaret. And that’s saying something.

But I don’t understand why you have abandoned your past wise counsel, and now seek to establish yourselves as a state-sanctioned set of beliefs. Unless…could it be…that you forsee your own eventual demise, à la Old Europe, by forcing your dogma upon the populace by taking over government and passing legislation that curtails freedoms but conforms to church teachings? And that you predict that you will fade in power, and become governmentally irrelevant, like the Church of England, and that you wish to force your hand in order to hasten your own dwindling influence?

If that’s the case, man, bring it, as they say, on. If we’re going to pick an official religion for the United States, I want something hard core. No Lutherans or Presbyterians allowed; I demand a far-right inflexible hate-based exclusionary LDS or Evangelical Pentacostal religion, man, because I am SO down for the shitstorm of world rebuke and internal rebellion that would then be visited upon us. I am so ready to be a full-on William Ayersian soldier in that fight. I am so ready to have it out man, and let’s once and for all establish, without a doubt, what a bunch of fucking childish and pathetic idiots we all truly are.

Happy Thanksgiving!