Halls of Shrewd'm / US Policy❤
No. of Recommendations: 7
With all the attention on Democrats becoming disconnected from voters, it is worth reminding the Republicans, they are disconnected too and would be wise to adjust their position. The first and biggest issue is on abortion rights. The other one is stuff like this,
1 day ago AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas' education board on Tuesday advanced a new Bible-infused curriculum that would be optional for schools to incorporate in kindergarten through fifth grades, one of the latest Republican-led efforts in the U.S. to incorporate more religious teaching into classrooms.
No. of Recommendations: 2
100% agree- hence my posts on how I feel we will overplay our hand - and lose.
Abortion is one.
AND like it or not: Social Security, Medicare, ACA subsidies: If reduced - we lose.
Immigration. Fossil Fuels. Inflation. We own those and can continue to if we like.
No. of Recommendations: 3
With all the attention on Democrats becoming disconnected from voters, it is worth reminding the Republicans, they are disconnected too and would be wise to adjust their position. The first and biggest issue is on abortion rights. The other one is stuff like this,
1 day ago AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas' education board on Tuesday advanced a new Bible-infused curriculum that would be optional for schools to incorporate in kindergarten through fifth grades, one of the latest Republican-led efforts in the U.S. to incorporate more religious teaching into classrooms.
Amen, brother, one of the topics of history that isn't discussed much is the disestablishment of religion in America. That is, religion had been widely supported by taxes in America and there were preferred religions. Religionists themselves aided in this disestablishment. I remember some of the compromises made by the dominant religion to non-dominant religions just to get them to support the revolution, but there were much more afterwards.
"You can hate your neighbor, but don't forget to say grace," is not a good message to have ring true. My hat's off to the good religionists.
No. of Recommendations: 2
...one of the topics of history that isn't discussed much is the disestablishment of religion in America.
I recall a talk from Hitchens, part of a book tour. He asserted that the USA was the first nation not to have an official religion. All other nations had one, supported with taxes. While hammering out the Constitution, they had an idea of the First Amendment, but were trying to square that with a national religion. Since pretty much all nations had sponsored religions, one of the Founding Fathers said "let's just support them all". Jefferson (IIRC) said "no, we don't support any". Obviously, that latter position won the day, and the government is not allowed to support the establishment of any religion.
Some states already had official religions in their state constitutions, and I'm not sure how that was received. But it ultimately was ratified, and those provisions of the state constitutions were nullified.
Where are the Satanists? Usually, when some bat-shittery is going on, they file a suit for equal access.
No. of Recommendations: 2
Some states already had official religions in their state constitutions, and I'm not sure how that was received. But it ultimately was ratified, and those provisions of the state constitutions were nullified.
Not exactly. The prohibition on state establishment of religion only applied to the Federal government. States were perfectly free to have official religions, and several of them did for quite some time after the adoption of the Bill of Rights.
It wasn't until the adoption of the 14th Amendment, and the eventual incorporation of the Bill of Rights to the states, that there was ever any federal constitutional restriction on state religions.
No. of Recommendations: 1
Jefferson (IIRC) said "no, we don't support any".
Jefferson was in Paris during the Constitutional Convention.
No. of Recommendations: 2
Not exactly. The prohibition on state establishment of religion only applied to the Federal government. States were perfectly free to have official religions, and several of them did for quite some time after the adoption of the Bill of Rights.
It wasn't until the adoption of the 14th Amendment, and the eventual incorporation of the Bill of Rights to the states, that there was ever any federal constitutional restriction on state religions.
That is true. But I read recently there were movements in many states to drop the state religion that were fruitful before the 14th Amendment rolled around. I successfully resisted buying the book. :)
No. of Recommendations: 1
It wasn't until the adoption of the 14th Amendment, and the eventual incorporation of the Bill of Rights to the states, that there was ever any federal constitutional restriction on state religions.
Ah. Should have remembered that. I keep forgetting the US Constitution didn't apply to the states until the 14th.
Though that brings up the question: how would a conflict between, say, the 5th Amendment of the USC and perhaps a contradictory statute in one of the states be resolved? Because, until the 14th, it seems like you had no protections against any given state. And, arguably, to this day we have more interactions with state laws than federal.
No. of Recommendations: 1
Didn't know that. My next pick would have been Madison, which as it turns out, was credited with authoring the Bill of Rights. Interesting, because Madison was arguably a bit more religious than Jefferson (though we don't know how much, since he didn't really write extensively about his beliefs).
No. of Recommendations: 2
Though that brings up the question: how would a conflict between, say, the 5th Amendment of the USC and perhaps a contradictory statute in one of the states be resolved? Because, until the 14th, it seems like you had no protections against any given state. And, arguably, to this day we have more interactions with state laws than federal.
If there were a direct conflict, then the U.S. Constitution would prevail under the Supremacy Clause. Technically, there can't ever be a conflict between the 5th and state law, because the 5th does not itself directly apply to the states - only the 14th does - but we can gloss over that.
I emphasize that the First Amendment didn't apply to the states because it's important in understanding what role it played in disestablishment. There were certainly Founders who were suspicious or hostile to the idea of state religions. But there were also Founders that were supporters of state religions (or the rights of states to have their own official religions), and who didn't want the new Federal government to be able to stomp all over those with its own national state religion. Some of the Founders were motivated by a desire to get government out of the church business altogether, but others were motivated by a more prosaic desire to separate the federal Congress from the state churches.
No. of Recommendations: 2
From an email I just got:
This is the last chance to raise your concerns to the State Board of Education (SBOE). The SBOE will vote THIS Friday on whether to approve new instructional materials for elementary school students.
While there are appropriate ways to incorporate the study of religious texts in public schools, these materials miss that mark. Because the proposed curriculum is neither age-appropriate nor relevant to the subject matter, it presents faith claims as fact claims and results in a devotional approach rather than objective consideration of the text. Public schools are not Sunday schools, but the teaching of these materials would teach religion in ways that encroach on everyone’s religious freedom.
The SBOE took a preliminary vote yesterday. The good news is that 7 members voted against the curriculum, including 4 Democrats (Bell-Metereau, Childs, Ortega, Perez-Diaz) and 3 Republicans (Brooks, Hardy, Little). The bad news is that we need 8 votes to defeat the curriculum.
TAKE ACTION NOW! Email your member on the State Board of Education about your concerns with the curriculum. If they voted against the curriculum in the preliminary vote, thank them and ask them to vote NO on the final vote on Friday. If they voted to approve the curriculum in the preliminary vote, ask them to vote NO on the final vote. Not sure who represents you? Find out here. Remember to identify yourself as a constituent in your email!
No. of Recommendations: 1
So prior to the 14th, you could be compelled to testify against yourself (at the state level), yes? (for example)
Seems like until the 14th, you really weren't secure in your person since the states (especially in the 18th and 19th centuries) were more involved in peoples' lives. Even today, most laws I can think of would be state laws. If I'm arrested, it will be state/city police (most likely). The Feds get more involved in my protection (e.g. labor laws, consumer protection, etc), than in enforcement of (trivially) traffic laws or noise ordinances or burglaries.
Without the 14th, they could beat a confession out of me, and I would have no recourse. Amazed it took 100 years for them to think of that.
No. of Recommendations: 2
So prior to the 14th, you could be compelled to testify against yourself (at the state level), yes? (for example)
It's more accurate to say that the U.S. Constitution didn't protect you against that. But every state had its own constitution, yes.
Without the 14th, they could beat a confession out of me, and I would have no recourse. Amazed it took 100 years for them to think of that.
You have to remember that the U.S. didn't start off as a single country, even after Independence. We were a confederation of independent countries. They were called "States" (and three "Commonwealths"), but they were functionally their own countries - with their own legislatures and armed forces and constitutions. The "U.S." was an experiment in finding a middle ground between a single nation (like, say, France) and a collection of purely independent nations with shared economic and military agreements (like, say, the European Common Market/NATO). The Articles of Confederation were very much more towards the independent nation side of things.
But even the early Constitution was not understood as creating a singular nation state in the model of France or England. The States very much remained separate sovereign entities. The "police power" of government did not wholly or entirely rest with the national government - there are governmental powers that are vested only in the States, that the federal government cannot intrude upon. Culturally and socially, the States were also very much more considered to be like sovereign countries than they are in modern times.
So you would look to your state constitution to protect your rights to not have a confession beaten out of you. The idea that the federal government would be relevant to that question would have been kind of silly - the federal government was more like the EU's relationship to the citizens of Germany, and not really the government level that would affect a routine criminal case.
No. of Recommendations: 0
So when Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptists regarding the Congregationalists, it really didn't carry any weight because that was the state of CT, and the Feds/BoR had no jurisdiction in that. They would have had to appeal to their governor and/or supreme court.
No. of Recommendations: 2
So when Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptists regarding the Congregationalists, it really didn't carry any weight because that was the state of CT, and the Feds/BoR had no jurisdiction in that. They would have had to appeal to their governor and/or supreme court.
Yep. It was an effort at political persuasion, not the exercise of any power that Jefferson (or the U.S. government writ large) had to actually affect things in Connecticut. Because the Connecticut constitution didn't have any provisions regarding free exercise or establishment of religion, the state was free to have a state religion. Connecticut didn't disestablish the church until 1818, nearly two decades after Jefferson's 1802 letter.
