I picked up a quarter yesterday and noticed the legends on it:
\n “In God we Trust”
\n “E Pluribus Unum”<\/p>\n
I don’t think most Americans think of these as contradictory, but apparently Tom Frist does. <\/p>\n
When he defends the “nuclear option” as a counter to the enemies of people of faith, he’s talking about a relatively small group of “people of faith” who agree with him. Where does that leave me?<\/p>\n
I sing in a Roman Catholic parish choir and am surrounded by people who I’m pretty sure don’t share my political views. Do I think they are enemies of people of faith? No more than I think they are.<\/p>\n
The government is being run now by people who believe they have such a sure grasp of truth that they can dispense with the rules of government put in place by people who didn’t have their certainty. The Founders prudently created a system in which competing views had a chance for a respectful hearing, and ordinarily some accomodation by way of compromise. The idea, of course, is that no mere mortal
\n<\/p>\n
can be relied upon to full grasp the truth of complex systems like human society. <\/p>\n
That’s the basic argument for democracy, of course.<\/p>\n
All this is being dispensed with by a millennialist bunch who apparently believe they’ll be in power forever, and will not need the protections afforded them in the past, when they were out in the political wilderness.<\/p>\n
I can’t decide whether Frist is simply a cynical, power-hungry manipulator of right wing religious fanaticism, or a “true believer.” I can live with that uncertainly, frankly. What I can’t live with is the dangerous arrogance of those who want to dispense with 200 years of governmental tradition and jurisprudence because they have been enlightened and don’t need to listen to anyone else.<\/p>\n
Take a look at the American flag: All the stars are the same size.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I picked up a quarter yesterday and noticed the legends on it: “In God we Trust” “E Pluribus Unum” I don’t think most Americans think of these as contradictory, but apparently Tom Frist does. When he defends the “nuclear option” as a counter to the enemies of people of faith, he’s talking about a relatively […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","cat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walz-chojnacki.us\/Pensees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walz-chojnacki.us\/Pensees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walz-chojnacki.us\/Pensees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walz-chojnacki.us\/Pensees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walz-chojnacki.us\/Pensees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.walz-chojnacki.us\/Pensees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walz-chojnacki.us\/Pensees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walz-chojnacki.us\/Pensees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walz-chojnacki.us\/Pensees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}