AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

Is senior coffee made from beans harvested before 1945?

No, I believe it's pretty fresh stuff, and the taste is better than Starbucks.

Unless I am away from my homebase, I only patronize independently owned coffee shops. I drank Starbucks coffee because there was a Starbucks in the center of the town where I lived.

I have had to learn to drink coffee made by the automatic drip method, my least favorite, but the only coffee available at work. Both jobs serve locally roasted beans, but the method is difficult for me. I can not drink a full cup of the stuff. I like lattes unless it is very late and/or I have had an enormous meal, then I like espresso.

I had to be out late on the Mass Pike. Had a McDonald's latte one night. Too hot, too close to drip coffee in flavor. Dunkin' Donuts makes a better latte. Unfortunately, McDonald's replaced Lavazza on the Pike. Lavazza was superior. However, in a captive situation such as an interstate, I will choke down what is available.

I hate coffee! Only drink 10 or 12 cups a day. I am one of those people who can drink the stuff and lay down and sleep 5 mins later.

I did not dream you would stoop to such a level, ci, to darken the door of a McDonalds!!!! I thought Obama voters hated McDonalds?

So if I increase my donation by $1.35 a year, NPR/WGBH will be made whole. I can do that.

okie, What's wrong with you? Coffee has nothing to do with Obama. Must you attach everything under the sun with Obama? Which world do you live in? * I know that's a stupid question for okie

A. James Rudin published this on the Religion News Service, self-described as a secular news source for unbiased information on religion and ethics:


(RNS) The late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan is credited with saying that "everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."

Some leaders of the religious right would have us believe that America was founded as a "Christian nation." The facts, however, say otherwise.
While the Founding Fathers, with their diverse Christian backgrounds, had every opportunity to make the fledgling United States into a "Christian nation," the factual record reveals they consciously refused to do so.
And it was not, as some opine, a mistake or an oversight.

Their reasons were a combination of history, demography and the Founders' shared belief they were creating something unique in the world.
They remembered the Church of England's persecution of religious minorities, including the Pilgrims and Quakers. The Founders were also haunted by the ghosts of Europe's Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) when huge numbers of Protestants and Catholics killed each other in the name of God.

The text of the Declaration of Independence contains just four theological references: "nature's God," "Creator," "Supreme Judge of the world," and "Divine Providence." There is not a single specific mention of either Jesus or Christianity. The Declaration, reflecting the signatories' collective thinking, was carefully written and edited; words were included, or not, for a reason.

The U.S. Constitution, written in 1787, has only this religious wording: "in the year of our Lord," a common phrase still used on some legal documents and diplomas.

There is not, however, any constitutional authorization for the establishment of any religion in the U.S. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Article Six rejects a "religious test" for public office, and the First Amendment prohibits the establishment of religion while at the same time providing for its free exercise.
There were demographic factors at work, as well. By 1776, the U.S. was already religiously diverse, with several Protestant groups, minority Catholic and Jewish populations, and a large number of African-American slaves, some of them Muslim.

James Madison, a Presbyterian attorney from Virginia and a future president, predicted a "multiplicity of sects" in the U.S., similar to diverse political parties. We see now that Madison was, and remains, correct.

Even so, the question of whether the U.S. would officially become a "Christian nation" was in doubt until a titanic struggle was waged in Virginia between Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry in 1785.

Patrick, the state's governor and an Anglican (today he'd be known as an Episcopalian), wanted residents to pay a church tax to support religious institutions. Because of Virginia's population at the time, most taxes would have gone to the Anglican Church. Supporting the tax was John Marshall, another Anglican and a future Chief Justice.

Jefferson, who was also raised in the Anglican tradition, strongly opposed the proposal, and he enlisted Madison and Baptist minister John Leland as allies in the bitter campaign to defeat the bill in the Virginia Legislature.

Thanks to the efforts of Jefferson and his allies, Henry's tax legislation failed, and the following year, 1786, the Legislature adopted Jefferson's Statute of Religious Freedom by a vote of 74 to 20.

The Statute has had an extraordinary influence upon American history for 225 years. It provided that:
" No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever ... nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities."

Those are facts. And now my opinion:
Had Henry's church tax become law, it is likely that other states would have followed Virginia's lead and adopted similar measures. Had that happened, it would have been a far different America for every citizen, whether religiously identified or not.

A Henry victory in 1785 would have made it much more difficult to write the Constitution two years later without including specific religious language and/or a provision to approve a church tax and an established state religion.
Thanks to Jefferson's victory in the Virginia Legislature, that did not happen. It's a historical fact--not an opinion--worth remembering.

(Rabbi Rudin, the American Jewish Committee's senior interreligious adviser, is the author of the forthcoming "Christians & Jews, Faith to Faith: Tragic History, Promising Present, Fragile Future.")


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What was it then, Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist?

pom, I suggest you read the Old Testament law, and if you have honesty, you will find many parallels with those laws to ours. Things like property rights, whose ox got gored, etc. If you have the time, I would highly recommend it. It should be a real eye opener to you.

In fact, the Declaration of Independence starts out with the basis of God being at the foundation of the country, and that God was not a Hindu or some other God, it was the Judeo-Christian God. Face it, pom.

I thought Obama had something to do with everything? I live in reality, ci, where do you live?

By the way, I eat at McDonalds too. Also Wendys, Subway, Sonic, and all the rest of those types of places. Cheaper than Starbucks. Why waste good money?

I have told you to never suggest anything to me. You are uneducated and unable to use logic. I have suggested before that you have diagrams taped to the inside of your closet door so that you know how to put on your pants; thread your belt through the loops, then buckle it. Every time you write the way you do, you convince me that is not my sarcasm but the truth of your life. I now imagine you have to watch a video while you're eating so that you know how to chew.


Besides, sugar, I did not write the piece. A rabbi did, but, you can not read well enough to have caught on to that.

How many wing nuts are aware of the criticism young leftists leveled at the union movement during the 60s for not offering Blacks a way into the working class through union membership?

Two supposedly 'fiscally conservative' Tea Partiers in FL have hired 61 aides who get paid over 100k each.

Rick Scott, supposedly 'fiscally conservative' Gov of FL, wants to hire an additional 400 people for his staff and grow his office budget by half a billion dollars.

That's your Tea Party, folks - interested in cuts for everyone else but themselves.

Cycloptichorn

WHAT!!!!

If you live in "your" reality, you're missing the real world. You should know by the many clues offered to you on these boards, that what you opine are not factually historical, by any evidence, logic, or common sense.

You need to go back and get your education beginning with kindergarten and relearn the basics, and leave politics and economics for others. They just screw up your brain.

It went soaring over okie's head that he advised me to read the Old Testament in response to an editorial I posted that was written by a rabbi.

The last time I checked, the Old Testament was the stock-in-trade for rabbis.

This is what the right wing woman looks and acts like to the rest of the world:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLpFNEGTDPA

Shirley Phelps-Roper represents the typical conservative woman.

Enamoured of the wing nut woman? Demanding more of her natural disposition? Here it is!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZJwSjor4hM

My advice stands, pom. Also, in case you were not aware, the Old Testament is part of the Judeo-Christian religious belief or tradition. The term "Judeo" means "Jewish."

I also suggest you read the Declaration of Independence. Here is a quote:
"When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."