Sarah Palin, deep thinker

[marmar]

via AlterNet:



Posted by stevebenen at 10:25 am
April 19, 2010 2

Sarah Palin Seems to Think Founding Fathers Were Godless Socialists
This post originally appeared on Washington Monthly.


THE THEOCRATIC WING OF THE GOP…. A certain former half-term governor appears to be drifting even further away from the American mainstream. Over the weekend, appearing at an evangelical Christian women’s conference in Louisville, Sarah Palin rejected the very idea of separation of church and state, a bedrock principle of American democracy.

She asked for the women — who greeted her with an enthusiastic standing ovation — to provide a “prayer shield” to strengthen her against what she said was “deception” in the media.

She denounced this week’s Wisconsin federal court ruling that government observance of a National Day of Prayer was unconstitutional — which the crowd joined in booing. She asserted that America needs to get back to its Christian roots and rejected any notion that “God should be separated from the state.”

Palin added that she was outraged when President Obama said that “America isn’t a Christian nation.”

The amusing aspect of this is the notion that the United States would return to its roots with support for National Day of Prayer observances. That’s backwards — Thomas Jefferson and James Madison explicitly rejected state-sponsored prayer days. I’ll look forward to the conservative explanation of how the Founding Fathers were godless socialists.

I also can’t wait to hear how right-wing voices who want smaller government believe it’s appropriate for the federal government to issue decrees encouraging private American citizens to engage in worship.

But far less amusing is the fact that Palin and others of her radical ilk reject any notion that “God should be separated from the state.” It’s the 21st century, for crying out loud. There are some countries that endorse Palin’s worldview and intermix God and government — Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan under Taliban rule come to mind — but they’re generally not countries the United States tries to emulate.

The separation of church and state has long been a concept that all Americans could embrace, and has served as a model for nations around the world to follow. For Palin to publicly denounce this bedrock American principle suggests she might actually be getting worse.

Postscript: As for Palin’s outrage over the president acknowledging that we’re not “a Christian nation,” Obama’s entirely correct.


http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/04/19/sarah-palin-seems-to-think-founding-fathers-were-godless-socialists/

[peacetalksforall]

1. We either have a melting pot or we don't.

What arrogance to demand that this country be all Christian by making the state the same as the her church. Utter arrogance.

It would be fascinating to find that she is descended from Native Americans on both sides.

Getting back to roots. The logic is screwed up again.

I think we are lucky. We have definitively learned that some Christians are not Christian. They lack genes of magnanimity. It is loaded down with 'ists', but we're really finding out that they are racist, predominantly.

[Clyde39]

2. Her "publicity" never ends

I wonder if John McCain realizes that he has opened "Pandora's Box"?

[abq e streeter]

4. In his dreams maybe

[Soulis]

3. Oh Gee!

:rofl:

[ginnyinWI]

5. Pat Robertson and his ilk have long said

that we are a Christian nation and that all the founding fathers were profoundly religious--which simply is not true. They'd point to fragments of letters and the like to prove their case. The Christian Coalition was at the bottom of it. I'm sure Ben Franklin would be spinning in his grave.

Sarah and Co. have an alternate history of the United States, one were we were all fundamentalists and never once strayed from John Winthrop's idea of what America should be.

[Hubert Flottz]

6. A small soap dish does far more thinking than Brainless Barbie

I'll bet she changed her hair color a long time ago...

[flamingdem]

7. Ethan Allen was a nature worshipper/aetheist

who used to shoot at the church steeple when he rode into town.