2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumThe dangerous myth at the heart of conservative ideology
http://www.salon.com/2014/12/09/the_dangerous_myth_at_the_heart_of_conservative_ideology_partner/The right believes the separation of church and state is a modern conceit. It couldn't be further from the truth
Rick Santorum may be a terrible politician, but when it comes to being a conduit for some of the hoariest, long-standing myths of the right, hes ol reliable. His latest bleatings are of particular interest, because, without meaning to, Santorum managed to articulate one of the biggest lies that has fueled the conservative movement for decades now: The myth that America was supposed to be a theocracy, but somehow lost its way.
In a conference call with members of the right-wing Christian organization STAND America, a caller went on a rant about how Democrats are pushing a secret agenda to push a number of the tenets of The Communist Manifesto, a book the caller seemed to believe was about amnesty, the elevation of pornography, homosexuality, gay marriage, voter fraud, open borders, mass self-importation of illegal immigrants and things of that nature. (Zero of these issues are mentioned in The Communist Manifesto, a book about the role of labor in capitalist societies.)
Santorum latched onto this old-fashioned red-baiting and said, The words separation of church and state is not in the U.S. Constitution, but it was in the constitution of the former Soviet Union. Thats where it very, very comfortably sat, not in ours.
This myththat separation of church and state is a modern invention created by communists/liberals/atheists and shoved down the throats of a Christian America until it forgot its theocratic rootsis a popular one on the right, perhaps the defining myth that created the modern conservative movement. Its also pure malarkey. Even just reading the first amendment to the Constitution shows that this line is self-serving nonsense dished out by people who wish to believe they are patriots while standing against Americas grand tradition of secularism. The Constitution explicitly prohibits any law respecting an establishment of religion, a phrase that is so obviously about the separation of church and state that even the most literal-minded among us can get that.
KT2000
(20,584 posts)from conservatives. Pretty easy to shut them down.
Kalidurga
(14,177 posts)Some of the people that came to the shores of the East Coast in between the years 1620-1630 would be shocked at how much Republicans represent the people they were trying to escape from.
Wounded Bear
(58,670 posts)were escaping some of the worst religious wars in history. Plus, they had the whole Salem witch trial BS in New England.
They knew what they were doing when they disallowed government-religious collusion.
Kalidurga
(14,177 posts)but one thing that surprised me when I was reading about this time frame is that they believed marriage was a civil matter not a religious matter. At least in the colonies around what became Massachusetts.
starroute
(12,977 posts)There's lots of good stuff in the Manifesto which remains amazingly relevant today. You'd think even the Santorum types might be impressed by what it has to say about how the free market has undermined religion and the family -- but apparently not.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm
A spectre is haunting Europe the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.
Where is the party in opposition that has not been decried as communistic by its opponents in power? Where is the opposition that has not hurled back the branding reproach of communism, against the more advanced opposition parties, as well as against its reactionary adversaries? . . .
Meantime the markets kept ever growing, the demand ever rising. Even manufacturer no longer sufficed. Thereupon, steam and machinery revolutionised industrial production. The place of manufacture was taken by the giant, Modern Industry; the place of the industrial middle class by industrial millionaires, the leaders of the whole industrial armies, the modern bourgeois.
Modern industry has established the world market, for which the discovery of America paved the way. This market has given an immense development to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land. This development has, in its turn, reacted on the extension of industry; and in proportion as industry, commerce, navigation, railways extended, in the same proportion the bourgeoisie developed, increased its capital, and pushed into the background every class handed down from the Middle Ages. . . .
The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his natural superiors, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous cash payment. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.
The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers.
The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation.