Winning the Debate by Silencing the Opposition
Posted on May 14, 2007
Anyone who has taken a Constitution class in high school knows that the First Amendment protects the right of all people to express almost any idea they want in the public square (with the exceptions of inciting riots, threats of violence, etc). Yet there is one group the various pundits insist need to be silenced for the sake of our nation and that is Christians.
Recently, Lou Dobbs lamented the influence religion has on politics. He said churches “are driving that political adventurism as those leaders conflate religion and politics.” Apparently he suggests the government should do something about shutting up those damn Christians who keep expressing their points of view.
In a democratic republic such as this one, all people get an equal say in what they believe the state should be about. That includes atheists, agnostics, wiccans, Jews, Muslims and even those pesky Christians. There is absolutely nothing wrong with any of those groups expressing any of there views. A diverse and tolerant society requires nothing less.
The idea that the Bill of Rights, under the moniker of the Separation of Church and state, is designed to restrict citizens from petitioning their government based on some perceived ideological characteristic is absurd. We’ll skip past the fact that the First Amendment requires institutional separation, not state mandated atheism.
What Lou Dobbs, and others like him, are upset about is that they are on the losing side of issues. And what do they suggest to fix it? Convincing arguments? Helpful debates? No. They want to silence the opposition. This is un-American and the citing of “national values” to stifle free speech borders on absurd. If you can’t handle a country where all people get their say, well, I do question your patriotism.
The bold assertion that the people in the pews are separated from the people behind the pulpit is novel and interesting, considering it is coming from someone who has little grasp on what people in the pews believe or want. Apparently Dobbs things that the people in the pews are at once automatons that follow whatever their pastor says but at the same time acutely aware that their pastors “are a class unto themself.” Either they’re stupid or their not. With the amount of “church shopping” that goes on, it’s pretty clear that if the people don’t like the message, they go somewhere else.
Most importantly, what Dobbs is lamenting is that people aren’t blaming immigrants for the immigration problem. When the government of the United States and Mexico signal to their people loud and clear that they aren’t going to enforce the law, what did you expect was going to happen? Imagine a college town saying they aren’t going to enforce drinking laws for a weekend. You’d have a town full of drunk freshmen passed out in the gutter. Duh.
There is more to the debate than blaming immigrants versus amnesty and proposals take that into account. Of course people think the border should be secured but they don’t necessarily believe that immigrants should be rounded up for what really amounts to a failure of the government.
The attempt to silence Christians should be called what it is, censorship. No one is trying to mandate forced Christianity down the throats of citizens. No one is attempting to silence non-Christian points of view. It is long past time that Christians are cynically discriminated against simply because they don’t hold to whatever elites consider the “right point of view” to be. Because you know if those same Christians were saying the same things, they’d be pointing towards them as proof they’re right.
John Bambenek is the Assistant Politics Editor for BC Magazine and is an academic professional for the University of Illinois. He is a syndicated columnist who blogs at Part-Time Pundit and the executive director of The Tumaini Foundation which helps AIDS orphans and other children in Tanzania to get an education.
He is the current owner of BlogSoldiers, a blog-only traffic exchange.
» Filed Under 1st Amendment, Church And State, Communism, News
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Obador wanted to give the Mexicans in Mexico jobs but less
than half of them voted for him because they wanted to be in the US. On CNN showed factories and stores closed down
in Mexico because the Mexicans are all in Mexico. And Amnesty is not going to change one thing still have 5,000 illegal Mexicans coming over the border with diseases a long with Moraccan terrorist and terrorist a long with them. Read Houston has South American gangs. Where
is Bush going to get the money to secure the borders when
we are broke, no jobs and owe trillions to China and Japan
and if we don’t pay them back own the US if don’t already?
Mexico is a wealthy govermnent tell the illegals and
ACLU to protest the wealthy Mexican government not our
government. The Mexicans are the only nationality who
have imported our US companies at a high degree and then their illegals come here to take what is left of the outsourcing from Americans. I have an idea how to pay back China and Japan and that is impeach bush/chaney for their pensions for all they have done to destroy Americans and America. Then impeach clinton/gore for their pensions for putting in NAFTA and one way trade with China and desroying America and Americans too.
That should do it. Constitution says separation of church and state not blurred state and religion like bush has done. You want your religion then keep it in your church not try to rule the country just for more members and more money. This guy is from IL? Well on national news said that IL is the third state in the nation with number of illegals because of farmers; on CNN said that IL gives zero down, low interest 30 year mortgages to illegals only who are not suppose to be here; IL is the fifth state in the nation economically and the first state in the nation for people living below the poverty level which shows the corrupt rich and companies, illegals and outsourcing in IL. Have we ever been outsourced all around us Maytag and Tyco. Tyco in two other towns in IL. Computer programmers and engineers from Chicago suburbs jobs offshore to Mexico too. Illegals and NAFTA go hand in hand in this blue state. Durbin is coming up for reeclection in 2008 and we can’t wait to vote for Republican against him. Didn’t vote in 2006. 4th generation Democrat no longer. I could go into detail and say a lot more than what I have here. As usual Dobbs is right and this guy is some religious fanaitic who does not care about this country nor his own family. From IL is he? I was going to suggest to you since agaisnt the ACLU to put down the names of Senators Reps who vote for Amnesty and not for just two days but at least till 2008. Like Durbin D IL 2008 for when comng up for reelection. And to get some thing better than Thomas.gov that the people can see bold and clear and not vote blind. And so the polticians cannot hide their votes because people forget all those votes. Like Durbins staffer in DC and Chicago teling me he didn’t vote for citizenship for illegal aliens and he did. But after reading this post I think I got the wrong website.
Um, how’d you get from “lamented” to “suggest[ed] the government should do something about [it]“?
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Look up the definition of the word, “apparently,” Jeff.
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Then try your hand at disseminating disinformations again.
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Work at it, boy, you can do better’n that.
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I remember a few governments that only placed in positions of power people who were avowed atheist humanists. Those governments killed more people together in times of “peace” than all wars throughout history.
Or maybe I’m remembering it wrong…
As far as being on the wrong side of issues. You must have missed the last election! Many of the religious right were handed their hats and escorted out the Capitol door. Mr Dobbs if anything is lamenting the excessive influence religion has on politics (at least until this administration is over)in the USA. That is called church state separation and is hardly a minority view in America. Isn’t Lou Dobbs just exercising the same rights you are trying to protect for Christians. He is after all a commentator. You are just using hyperbole to distort an otherwise normal expression of someones opinion, an opinion that outside this web site is hardly a minority.
BlueNight: You are remembering it wrong.
Try understanding a distinction: There’s a difference between being killed
by an atheist and being killed in the name of atheism. For example, Timothy
McVeigh was an avowed christian, so did he bomb Oklahoma City’s federal
building in the name of Jesus or because he was a sociopath?