Do Republicans in Buncombe County Understand the US Constitution??? Or Do They WANT A Religious Test for Officeholders?

**2.14pm** I've had several emails from Republicans in Buncombe County objecting to my use of the term Republican in my headline, several of whom I respect. I'm letting the descriptor stand because I feel it fits, and I know of no significant numbers of Republicans who have come out in support of Cecil Bothwell's religious freedom. If I am mistaken in this, please correct me.





I hope that certain people in Buncombe County will realize the folly of allowing themselves to be stirred up by listening to a moron on the radio regarding Cecil Bothwell. That guy has done nothing but cause trouble for Republicans, and as soon as they realize that, the better.

One of his latest efforts has succeeded in making the target briefly on the national radar (see AshVegas) while simultaneously exposing our side as hypocritical idiots who don't understand the US Constitution. (As many Republicans are want to do these days since it is the style of the times). I'll wager less than one in a hundred "Republicans" have read the US Constitution and the documents that supported it, The Federalist...also known as The Federalist Papers. Or, for that matter, the Anti-Federalist Papers written by people who opposed the Constitution, and were in favor of religious tests of office.

Here is the 3d clause of Article VI:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

That is very simple language, and should be easy to understand. The US Constitution trumps the state constitutions in this case.

Further, requiring a religious test for office violates the 1st and 14th Amendment rights of the person in question, as Torcaso v. Watkins has decided in a very similar case.

The Supreme Court ruled on this case, so it is the law of the land unless you are willing to take this all the way to the Supreme Court and get it over turned. That will not happen.

I dislike Cecil Bothwell being in the Asheville City Council. However, the voters have spoken.

If you want anyone to blame, you have no need to look past what John Jay, an author of The Federalist Papers, the first Chief Justice of the United States and the second president of the American Bible Society, said when he declared, "Providence has given our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as privilege and interest, of a Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers." If you wanted a religious test, the time to apply it would have been during the election campaign...not afterward.

So blame the conservative candidates running, blame the 80% of Republicans who did not go to the polls that day, blame the party leadership in that county for not having an organized GOTV plan for Election Day that could have been adapted by the candidates running for City Council.

Maybe next time there is an election campaign going on, these people will be involved in walking the precincts, seeking voters and donations to help get someone who shares their values elected to office. If they are not doing that, then they are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Read More

Is Your iPod Unpatriotic? Why America Shouldn't "Buy American"

This is an excellent video from Reason TV on You Tube.

I think that if we outlawed Unions, this nation would see a tremendous rise in productivity, the rate of unemployment go down, and corporations be able to expand in the USA...and hire more Americans.

Just look at what the Teacher's Unions have done to Public Education and what Unions have done to the American Automobile Industry...they have destroyed everything they touch with their socialist and criminal fingers.

Unions have led to an "American automobile" like the Jeep Patriot being assembled from only 66% American made parts, while a "Foreign automobile" like the Toyota Sequoia being assembled from 80% American made parts.

When will people wake up???

Read More

An Open Letter to the David Letterman Haters

This is addressed to all those who called for the firing of David Letterman:

The "conservatives" (and I use that term very loosely) who are calling for the firing of David Letterman for his hateful joke about Sara Palin's daughter are bastards. Bastards in the sense that you are the illegitimate children of the American concept of free speech.

Your response to David Letterman is worse than what he did.

Your response smells like fascism to me. It smells like the gases escaping the crematoria of Nazi Germany. It smells like a speech code on a college campus. It smells like forcing a woman to wear a burqa.

It smells like the iron fist of tyranny wearing the clothes of righteous indignation.

David Letterman has a right to say what he said.

I do not agree with what he said. I do, however, assert that he has a right to say it, and I will defend that right with everything that I am, with every tool at my disposal.

Shame on you.

We have something called free speech in America.

You people need to think before you oppress other people. Repent of your evil and think a little about what you are advocating. You are acting just exactly like the progressive statists.

Thank You for your time.

--Thunder Pig

PS...

Amendment I

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

Read More

The Battle Against 21st Century Communism

Fjordman is blogging at the Gates of Vienna again, so go read what he has to say on a series of subjects near and dear to my heart, Defending Liberty and Resisting Oppression:

Perhaps the new frontier of liberty in the 21st century consists of
battling for national sovereignty in legislation, for a nation’s right to decide
how much immigration it wants to accept, if any, and the fight against the
imposition of quotas, hate speech laws, hate crime legislation and other threats
to the individual’s right to free speech and to defense of his own property, the
yardstick against which liberty should always be measured.

And a Supporting Comment led me to this wonderful observation:

The original strategy to destroy America, employed by the Frankfort School,
came from Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci who realized that in order to
achieve a Socialist victory, cultural institutions would have to be infiltrated
and subverted. Gramsci realized that America, steeped in traditions of freedom
and liberty, would never to succumb to a frontal assault and its workers were
too busy accumulating capital to allow themselves to be used as cannon fodder
for a bloody revolution.
Theodor Adorno
The Frankfort School would patent
the familiar "Critical Theory" which was accurately defined by a student as the
"essentially destructive criticism of all the main elements of Western culture,
including Christianity, capitalism, authority, the family, patriarchy,
hierarchy, morality, tradition, sexual restraint, loyalty, patriotism,
nationalism, heredity, ethnocentrism, convention, and conservatism." Under
Critical Theory, anything emanating from the west is to be libeled and attacked
over and over again while at the same time, anything emerging from a
"progressive" country or group is to be applauded including the murder of over
100 million people. All blame for societal and economic ills are to be shifted
to the west.
The saturating drumbeat of Critical Theory would lead to
"Cultural Pessimism" which is when a person grows to loathe the society, which
nurtured him and provided him unprecedented levels of success. This describes
the attitude of so many leftists living in comfort and safety yet viewing
America, the society that made their lifestyle possible, with hatred and
contempt. I am amazed by the degree in which both Critical Theory and Cultural
Pessimism has been internalized by all of us.

And the end of the article:

The forth horseman, Brandeis professor Herbert Marcuse, was the pied piper of the sixties as he fostered the development of, as Buchanan points out, "radical youth, feminists, black militants, homosexuals, the alienated, the asocial, Third World revolutionaries, all the angry voices of the persecuted 'victims' of the West." In "Eros and Civilization" Marcuse encouraged sex and drugs and introduced "polymorphous perversity" where all moral and cultural order is rejected. Marcuse coined the slogan "Make love not war" and was a cult figure on College campuses. His book "i" advocates educational dictatorship. He calls for "Repressive Tolerance" which means "intolerance against movements from the right, and toleration of movements from the left." When the left speaks of tolerance, this is what they mean.

The Frankfurt School would mainstream the dicktat of the Moscow Central Committee laid down in 1943. This declaration, right from the horse's mouth, illustrates exactly what were up against:

"Members and front organizations must continually embarrass, discredit and degrade our critics. When obstructionists become too irritating, label them as fascist, or Nazi or anti-Semitic...The association will, after enough repetition, become 'fact' in the public mind."

The last last paragraph explains nearly the whole of tactics used by the left in their arguments.

Read More