Religious Freedom

Project 2025: Authoritarian Fascism Replacing Democracy!

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Project 2025, the work of the Heritage Foundation, is a declaration of war on American democracy, the US Constitution, and the rule of law.

Authoritarian Fascism would replace the kind of government we have had for nearly 250 years.

It would establish a dictatorship, with a crazed, unstable criminal in charge, and even if Donald Trump was not aware of policy details, there would be a massive number of ideological loyalists, much younger, who would be making policy and enforcing discipline, with some of them already involved in illegal and criminal activities in the first Trump administration.

Trump has made clear he wants to be a dictator on Day One, but clearly it would not stop on that day!

Project 2025 would allow Trump the ability to deploy the military against American citizens who utilized the right of assembly to protest government policies!

Project 2025 would promote the arrest and deportation of up to 11 million non citizens, who would be placed in internment camps, a reminder of what happened to Japanese Americans in World War II!

Project 2025 would allow the termination of tens of thousands government employees, to be replaced by Trump loyalists, who would have a deleterious effect on government policy in a multitude of areas!

Project 2025 would promote Christian Nationalism, and impose religious beliefs in public schools, already occurring in Louisiana and Oklahoma, ignoring the reality that it would undermine religious freedom and separation of church and state!

Project 2025 would allow political persecution of opponents, both in government and the media, with Trump threatening imprisonment of prominent critics, including those who investigated the January 6, 2021 US Capitol Insurrection!

Trump himself has said that while he wants everyone to vote in 2024, that he does not care if they vote after that, implying there may not be any future elections as he would be President for life!

So much more will be delineated in future articles, but all of the above is alarming to the extreme, and every effort must be made to insure that Donald Trump never gets near the Oval Office again!

The Mormon Factor In The Electoral College Prognostications

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The Mormon Church (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) is an important factor in the American West.

Usually, Mormons as a group are conservative Republicans, but the odds are growing that states that would usually vote Republican might not vote for Donald Trump, due to his religious bigotry displayed toward Muslims, as Mormons suffered persecution in the 19th century on their trek to Salt Lake City, Utah, and Mitt Romney, himself a Mormon, is vehemently against Trump.

60 percent in Utah, 24 percent in Idaho, and 9 percent in Wyoming are Mormons,with 4-5 percent in Nevada, Arizona, and Montana. Only about 2 percent in America are Mormon, similar to Jews in population and percentage.

The most Mormon states are Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming, with a total of 13 electoral votes. Nevada, Arizona, and Montana follow, with a total of 20 electoral votes. All of these six states, except Nevada, have been reliably Republican.

So we are talking about a possible loss of 27 electoral votes, not counting Nevada’s six electoral votes.

Donald Trump cannot afford to lose these states, but he could, indeed, some or all of them going to Democrat Hillary Clinton over the religious issue!

The Obscenity Of “Religious Freedom” And Bullying Of Gays In Tennessee And Mississippi!

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It is amazing how the most Right Wing religious groups argue for “religious freedom”, as if there is any denial of the rights of people to have their own religious beliefs!

For a nation where the vast majority are Christian of one sect or another, it is preposterous to argue there is an attack on religious freedom, when, if anything, it is Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, and agnostics who are endangered in their right to religious freedom.

But devout right wingers in Tennessee have now managed to push through the state legislature a bill to allow bullying of gay boys and girls, a particular growing problem all over America, in schools, and that those who bully them cannot be prosecuted due to “religious” freedom!

The number of suicides of young gay boys and girls, and barely legal adult men and women, has grown by leaps and bounds, and it is essential to fight such bullying as a crime that is prosecutable!

No one should be allowed to use the veil of “religious freedom” to discriminate against anyone at any age, based on sexual orientation.

Hopefully, the law, if signed by the governor, Bill Haslam, will be appealed and lead to revocation of a hideous law! Even if Haslam vetoes, however, the bill is likely to become law with a Tennessee Senate vote of 32-0 and a House vote of 90-2!

It makes one wonder what has happened in Tennessee, a Southern state rapidly deteriorating into being similar to Mississippi, which has also passed an anti gay discrimination bill based on “religious freedom, and Governor Phil Bryant has signed it.

Federal challenge of these laws must move ahead expeditiously!

Shocking Murder Of US Ambassador To Libya Due To Reckless Anti Muslim Video Produced By Israeli Extremist Who Should Have Used Better Judgment!

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The tragedy of the death of the US Ambassador to Libya, in a harsh reaction by extremist Muslims in that nation to an extremist, hateful video produced by an Israeli extremist who should have used better judgment, is a warning of the need for religious tolerance if we are to avoid massive bloodshed worldwide.

Promotion of anti Islamic ridicule and hatred is self defeating, as the Islamic world is not going to disappear, and their sensitivities cannot be ignored, unless we wish to send our young men and women in harm’s way endlessly, bleeding our youth and bankrupting our nation, already in tremendous debt due to two failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

For a person of Jewish heritage, who certainly knows what anti Semitism has meant to the Jewish people historically, to be so reckless as to incite the Islamic world when Israel must live in that neighborhood for the rest of time, requires the condemnation of the civilized world!

There are those who say the Jewish people are a false religion and people, and here we have an Israeli who says the same thing about Muslims, but with what purpose except to cause trouble and loss of life?

Freedom of religion does not mean we have to attack the beliefs of others in such a hateful way. We may not agree with what others believe, but no religious group should be subject to disrespect.

And for Mitt Romney to politicize this tragedy only shows further than before that he is ill equipped and ill qualified to be President of the United States, unless we are prepared to have unending war, lack of tact and diplomacy, and keep on undermining the strength and stability of our nation!

Today Is Constitution Day: How About Truly Understanding The Constitution, Instead Of Politicizing It For Right Wing Propaganda?

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Today is Constitution Day, the day in 1787 when 39 delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia agreed to sign the Constitution that they had fought over in four months of debate, and with the element of compromise predominating!

Ever since, the Founding Fathers and what they did has been interpreted in many different ways, and it has become the passion of the Tea Party Republicans and conservatives to distort the meaning of the Constitution and the intentions of the Founding Fathers!

The Constitution has been viewed by these right wingers as promoting a limited national government, advocating states rights, and promoting combination of church and state.

They fail to understand that the Constitutional Convention was a reaction to the states rights, limited national government of the Articles of Confederation, which led to anarchy, chaos, and economic emergency, and proved the need for a strong central government.

They fail to understand that Section 8 of Article 1 on Congress allowed for the “elastic clause”, that Congress shall have the power to enact legislation to “make all laws which are necessary and proper” and to “provide for the common defense and the general welfare”. The Founding Fathers understood that no one could accurately predict the future, and the national government had to have authority to expand the meaning of the Constitution in order to survive and be viable in the long term future of the nation!

The Founding Fathers also clearly understood that while religious freedom should be protected, that there was a need to prevent a theocracy, a control of government by religious viewpoints, and they would be shocked at the attempts of religious fundamentalists to force their moral and spiritual views on American politics and society!

This is the truth and the reality of the Constitution and its meaning for America 224 years after the Founding Fathers, NOT conservatives but rather liberals of their time period, used their joint wisdom and intelligence to create the greatest constitutional document ever created by mankind to govern a free people!