The Loveshade Family Blog

Danacasso obviously doesn't understand what America is all about. The founders of America were Christians who fought for religious freedom so that everyone could be Christian. This includes the whole world! Manifest Destiny was a policy that America should spread Christianity through the whole world. Jesus said it should be spread to the ends of the earth not just from California to New York! American is the only Christian nation of the world. As such it has the God given right and duty to save the world from itself. For we are in the world, not of the world. Unless a man be born again, he will not enter the kingdom of heaven. If you aren't willing to fight for religious freedom, you don't have the right to have it!

You tell them Flanigan! That's the most intelligent thing I've ever read on this blog. Jesus said America should slay its enemies and then convert them to Christianity! Read Book of Armaments, Chapter 4, Verses 16 to 20. Kill for Christ!

I think Rev. Bootie's idea of the Bible is closer than Flanigan's.

Danacasso's right. America has become a bunch of terrorists. If they want to stop terrorism they should stop it at home.

Mike I have a quote for you from the immortal Butthead. "Shut up, dumass."

You don't become an empire without stomping on other countries. If America really values freedom, it should give other countries the right to choose. Not to bomb them and shoot them and say "be like us."

(We have great respect for Danacasso, and find this poster to be knowledgable and generally an amiable human being. But Danacasso is a human being. We suspect the response below was made in anger, however justified. Please keep in mind when reading this that Danacasso has been repeatedly subjected to a number of emails and responses on various topics that adamantly assert positions out of ignorance.)

Well, I see my "angry rant" has touched some nerves, mostly in my favor.

Mark, how did you manage to connect my comment about patriotism to being born-again?
True, I singled out Christian fundamentalists at one point, but my main arguments were about how not to be percieved as anything but a patriot and about angering other nations by not going home.

So you say we have a "God given right and duty to save the world from itself."

Well, if you want to go into other countries that have centuries old religions of their own and preach Christianity to them, be my guest.

But if you find youself facing a camcorder with armed terrorists threatening to execute you by decapitation, I'm not going to feel sorry for you one bit.

To do something that stupid means you had it coming.

You're getting what you deserved because you failed to respect their way of life and tried to change it into your own.

But also, Mr. Flanigan, I have to ask; when and where did you learn history?
What was your source?

Those hokey old "Golden Books"?

What your pastor told you and you accepted without question?

Or perhaps that funky "Bible Code"?

Y'see, I WAS one of the few kids in school who actually READ those history books. I also studied history independently and I still do.
Especially military history.

Further, in my first two years of college, I majored in political science.

And politics is actually quite easy compared to history.

My instructor put it this way: Politics is simply the way a group of people gathers and distributes its resources.

History involves politics, war, exploration, science, art, literature, entertainment, you name it.

If you want to find the roots of the American Revolution, you don't go looking for religion but for power, profit, material gain and you have to go back to 1492, when a small Spanish fleet, one carrack and two smaller caravels under the command of Italian Christopher Columbus landed in the Carribean.

Then the Spanish, Portugese, French, Dutch, and English started building colonial empires and soon they all were jockeying for domination all over the world and conflicts started getting bigger and bigger.

In the 1740s and 1750s, numerous minor clashes started happening in North America, mainly between Britain and France.

In 1754, a tiny force of Virginia militiamen launched an unprovoked attack on a French peace mission at a place called Jumanville Glen.
The Virginian commander was a 20 or 21 year-old major or lt.col. named George Washington (who, by the way, was one of the most inept generals not just in American history but in history.)

Washington's actions triggered a succession of incidents and in 1756, the first truly global conflict in history erupted from that one clash.
It's known as the Seven Years' War and by the time it ended in 1763 it claimed between 900,000 and 1,400,000 lives.

And while it was still going in 1761, Great Britain started trying to recoup the funds it was spending by passing various acts to tax the colonies, who reacted violently.

(It is worth noting that one British politician said that taxpayers in Great Britain were paying on the average twenty-five shillings while the colonists were paying only sixpence.)

So look up the following;

-Navigation Acts, 1761 to control mercantilism.

-Writs of Assistance (which were open-ended search warrents. Hmmmm, does that sound familiar?)

-The British Royal Proclamation of 1763, resulting in a riot at the Governor's mansion in Boston.

-The Quebec Act of the same year. It was at this time that a popular slogan first appeared, "No taxation without representation."

-The Sugar Act of 1764.

-The first Quartering Act, requiring colonists to provide quarters for British regular soldiers.

-The very well-known and infamous Stamp Act of 1765.

-The founding of the secret colonial group called "The Sons of Liberty" the same year.

-The Townshend Acts of 1767.

-The Boston Massacre of 1770.
(That should really be "Boston Massacre" as the tiny British force was confronted by a mob of at least 300 angry colonists who who were throwing objects and hitting them and it was when one of the soldiers was knocked to the ground that he fired- in self defense.
The engraving by Paul Revere showing a skirmish line firing a volley at their commander's order is pure fiction.
The captain was, in reality, in front of his men, so they couldn't have volleyed because he was in the way.)

-The Tea Act of 1773, followed by the Boston Tea Party.

-The Intolerable Acts of 1774.

The Powder Alarm or Alarms of the same year.

-Numerous standoffs between Minutemen and regulars.

-Then the ride of Paul Revere and two others who spread the alarm and caused other alarms to go off as 700 regulars headed off to Concord from Boston on April 19, 1775 to sieze its powder supply, only to run into a small force of Minutemen at Lexington, and "The shot heard 'round the world."

-July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was approved and most of it is a list of grievances against King George III of Britain; very little in it is said about fighting for religious freedom, specifically to create a Christian nation.

-In 1787, the Original Seven Articles of the Constitution are approved.

-However, some states aren't completely satisfied and insist that some changes be made.
The changes are called Amendments and a document called The Bill of Rights, containing ten amendments, is approved in 1791.

-Many people are aware that the First Amendment has a lot to do with freedom of speech and press.

But here it is in its entirety.

"Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free excercise thereof;or abridging the freedom of speech, or the press; or the right of the people to peaceably assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Notice that first sentence?

"Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free excercise thereof."

The free excercise of religion means freedom of ALL religion, NOT just Christianity.
ANY religion can be practiced in America.

And you also have the right to choose NOT to practice any faith at all.

It also appears that our first two or three Presidents were not Christians at all but Deists, a faith that said that once God finished His work, He moved on to His next project.
They believed He was no longer hanging around Earth.

I've seen and heard religious fundamentalists insist that the Deist story is fiction.

I've also heard them say that they don't see a separation of church and state in the Constitution.

But go and look back at that first sentence in the First Amendment.
Pretty clear to me.

I guess they're too focused on their own freedom of religion and speech to notice the rest.

But stop and think about it.

If you threaten my freedom of speech, you automatically threaten your own freedom of speech and religion.

If you pass a religious law, you make the ENTIRE First Amendment NULL and VOID.
You'll destroy your very own freedom of religion, speech, press, and assembly rights.

If you want to preserve your religious and speech rights and pass religious laws without shooting yourself in the foot, you'll have to change the ENTIRE Constitution.

And, in the process, DESTROY the United States of America.

You will have to make us into an ENTIRELY NEW NATION.

A religion run nation, which is called a theocracy. There will be no more democracy.

You will have OVERTHROWN this country.

I'm pretty sure you know that's an act of TREASON.

And I'm also pretty sure you know the penalty for that.

But there are also those faithful who believe church and state are to be separated.
They cite Matthew 22:21, in which Jesus said, "Render unto Ceasar what is Ceasar's and unto God the things that are God's."
To these people, that says obey secular law and pay secular taxes while continuing to practice your faith anyway.

They also point to John 18:36, in which Jesus says to Pilate, "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting."

Again, these people seem to see secular and religious rule to be distinctly apart.

But what really sticks my craw is when I hear some person stand up in public and claim America is a Christian country.

We're NOT.

Again, go back and take a real good look at that first sentence of the First Amendment.

Usually, those claims come up whenever something horrible happens, a natural disaster, a mass shooting, etc.
To keep these things from happening, these people say, we need to abandon our "wicked" way of life and return to our "Christian values."

Well, you need to dust off your history books once again and look up a particular chapter in American history that is still the greatest American tragedy of all time.

It started in 1861 and ended in 1865.
I always get different numbers from each source I use, but this period claimed between 600,000 and 700,000 American lives, including even that of the President of the United States of America.
It's called the American Civil War.

Christian fought Christian.
Christian killed Christian.

Abraham Lincoln himself said, "Both sides read the same Bible and prayed to the same God; He could not answer both."

Is the bloodiest tragedy in American history the result of lack of Christian values? You tell me.

And you know what?
Slavery was abolished (although not bigotry.)

Since then, it's true we've experienced even more horrific things, such as the two world wars and the Holocaust, but since then, we've been busy fighting to control acts of genocide.

Liberia and the Balkans had nothing on Nazi Germany.

We've eradicated many diseases and extended the human lifespan.
We've developed extremely effective emergency life-saving techinques, even ones that restart the hearts of people that have stopped beating.

We call that CPR and other terms but it is, in fact, bringing people back from the dead.
When the heart stops, you're dead.
When it's restarted, you've come back.

And we are fighting climate change and expanding our knowledge on just about everything.

"Returning to Christian values" overlooks-perhaps unintentionally, perhaps intentionally-all the progress we've made since we created our first civilizations 6,000 years ago.

Now Mark, I really hate to burst your bubble, but Manifest Destiny was not about spreading Christianity; it was about expanding America's territory. It was about land grabs.

It was cited by President Polk to justify the Mexican-American War of 1846-8 in order to take Mexico's northern territories that would allow us to extend our borders from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Just before the Civil War, California and Oregon became our westernmost states.
Right on the Pacific coast.
We were fully continental by 1861.

Manifest Destiny was used to justify the seizing of the Spanish territories of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Phillipines in the Spanish-American War of 1898-9.

We went to war with Spain because our battleship USS Maine blew up in Havana harbor.
Americans quickly jumped to the conclusion of sabotage, but an investigation by American experts quickly revealed the blast to have been caused by an overheated coal bunker.

It didn't matter and "Remember the Maine!" became our new war cry.

Also during that war, for absolutely no reason at all, we even annexed Hawaii, overthrowing the queen, a nation that had absolutely no part whatsoever to do with the war. But President McKinley decided to take the islands anyway. He cited Manifest Destiny.

Between those two wars we found an atoll in the Pacific that was actually part of the Hawaiian chain but way up north.
Nothing lived on it except some very big birds.

We took it anyway and, because it is about halfway between America and Asia, we named it Midway.

We still have it, even after a near disastrous but decisive battle against the Japanese in 1942.
THAT'S also Manifest Destiny.
Keeping our territory in our hands.

And still pretty much only animals live on it.

Who is on Midway to preach to?

Also in the 19th century, we grabbed another uninhabited atoll in the Pacific that we eventually name Wake Island.

Again, who did we convert on a desert island?

We lost it to the Japanese early in WW 2, along with the Phillipines and Guam.
We eventually got them back.
That, like Midway, is also Manifest Destiny.

You write, "American (I think you made a typo) is the only Christian nation in the world."

Uhm...what about Europe? Australia? Latin America? The Phillipines?

You need to do some serious research before saying things like that.

As for fighting for religious freedom, you tell me that if I'm not willing to fight for it, I don't have the right to have it; well, even though I am a pro-science agnostic bordering on athiest who-because I don't fully understand religion (perhaps I am disconnected somehow)-looks at religion as being somewhat silly, the fact is, I am fully willing to drop what I am doing and take up arms to defend not just religious freedom but ALL freedom.

If you look at the Five Basic Beliefs on this site, you'll find the belief of the right of an individual to be accepted as an individual.

But there are those who don't accept that.

They group certain types of people as "inferior stock" and treat them as so.
These groups include women, people of color, non-Christian religions, homosexuals, environmentalists, evolutionists (I'm one of those), the disabled (I'm also one of these), the young, the old, even the poor (again, I'm one.)

There are many people in this group that is intolerant of anyone who is "different."

Many of them are blue-collar, working class types, others are religious conservatives, and others are wealthy, powerful individuals who have a lot to lose by letting these people be themselves.

We have a word for these people.

Bigot.

These are the very people who I referred to in my second-to-last paragraph in my rant.

The ones who create organizations that have "liberty", "freedom", "independence", and "democracy" in their names.

They may use words like "liberty" and "freedom" but what that really translates into is: "You're free to be anything you want but only as long as you're just like me."

In other words, what they are saying-and maybe not even realizing it-is that the American rights to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and opportunity should only be available people just like themselves.
Anyone who is "different" should be deprived of those rights.

Don't belive me? Look at the civil rights movement of the '60s and the efforts by Caucasian-Americans to stop African-Americans from gaining the same rights as themselves.

Look at the Native Americans who lost everthing in just a few decades in the late 19th century because the whites viewed them as "savages."

Look at just the past couple of years as same-sex couples made a huge push to gain legal status only to have a huge counter-push from the conservative Religious Right stop them.

In fact, because of my own differences, I've been subjected to such treatment. Because of my experiences, I tend to avoid people like you.

Many of the people who create these roadblocks claim to be followers of Jesus yet He was incredibly more tolerant than they are.

Keeping in mind that I currently don't believe in Him, let's look at what is written about Him.

He didn't go and preach to the faithful and well-to-do.
He hung out with thieves, prostitutes and other lowlifes.
He even allowed women to stay and listen to His teachings.
And He even spoke to the Samaritan woman.

And when He went to the G-rated Temple priests, He spat out the foulest X-rated language of His day directly at them.

He was a rebel. An outlaw. A trouble-maker.

He shocked the establishment to its core.

So, Mr. Mark Flanigan, do your homework before you accuse me of "obviously not understanding what America is all about."

Because I, in fact, full well DO know.

Rev. Bootie, you have some interesting ideas.
Book of Armaments, Chapter 4, Verses 16 to 20, huh?

Danacasso obviously doesn't understand what Freshman Composition is all about. For the rest of us next time figure out what your point is so we don't get totally lost trying to find it.

All right, that's it. I quit.

It appears that there are commandments about posting comments that I have violated.

The one that I seem to have broken must go like this:
"When posting on the Web your post shall not exceed three sentences and it shall always end in a punch line."

That's it.
I'm finished here.
I have no more to say.

Can we say oversensitive? If you think my post was hard then you better stay off the Internet cuz what I wrote is nothing Danacasso! You wandered all over the place I have no idea where you were going. If you make posts when you're pissed off at least make them short so we can follow your point! And if you make really really long posts then please edit them first so we can follow you! I agree with your first post even though it wandered but I got totally lost trying to follow your angry rant! Don't blame me if you don't edit your work!

I'll follow the three sentence with a punchline rule. How many intelligent, informed but overly-sensitive posters does it take to mess up what was a great blog because they can't take a little criticism? One.

I'll add something here. I think Danacasso's made some great posts. I saw a few and they're great. But don't you think you did jump here, there and somewhere else in your response? Don't quit just because someone didn't follow you all the way. Don't abandon ship just because someone says you went off course. Get back on and stay the course! Rah, Rah, and all that. All right? Come back, Danacasso!

Sorry, guys, that I've been away, but it actually wasn't Tinglish's criticisms that knocked me offline.
I'm sure we're all aware that in recent years there's been a nasty new crop of bugs showing up making people sick.
I'd been dodging that bullet fairly well until about a month ago then one of the damn things nailed me hard.
Since I'm already a slow typist and typing take some effort, I just haven't been up to making posts because while I'm ill it just drains me.
I'll eventually come back because I owe people explanations for what and how I was trying to say.
I wish to make peace with Tinglish and even Mark Flanigan but right now I just don't have the energy to go on.
So, I need to get better then I'll come back.
Thanks.

Yeah keep posting but try to keep it to something we can read in less than an hour, ok? Most of us have jobs or school or other things to do. If we want a long report we can read a book. Keep posting but keep it short!

Okay Anna, I'll do my best. I'm not a writer but an artist-or at least I am sometimes.
At times I do good work, other times it's awful.

But I'm still quite under the weather and I feel exhausted and that means I'm kinda muddle-headed.
I couldn't write coherently now even if I wanted to.

So I gotta take time off to recuperate and I'm told these infections can last weeks or even months.
So, I'll come back someday, I just don't know when.

You sound like a bunch of pinko fascist communiists.