A shanda

Published On: June 3, 2016|Categories: MRFF's Inbox|2 Comments|

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It makes me cringe every time I see someone with a Jewish name pushing some far left, anti- American fruitcake agenda.
As a veteran of the IDF with a son presently serving in the 101st I urge your self serving “not for profit” to chilax. This country is founded on Judeo-Christian values that have guided us for more than 200 years to form a more perfect union. We are still on that journey. If you and your ilk of rejects want to fundamentally change America, I suggest you all move to Saudi Arabia and work from there. I’m sure you can win over your hosts with your vast knowledge of Sharia.
We all due respect

(name withheld)


Wow (name withheld), you know it’s really racist to restrict a person’s range of acceptable political opinion based on their racial or ethnic background. If there’s any “a shanda fur die goy” going on then it’s YOU and your racist insinuation that the Jewish people are a monolithic one-dimensional hivemind restricted to holding only those opinions that you agree with. Despite your self-loathing, I happen to think the Jewish intellectual tradition is richer and more diverse than that. For instance, most Jewish Americans understand that the explicitly godless US Constitution founded a secular democracy, not the “Judeo-Christian” theocracy that you imagine it to be. If you want theocracy, then I think YOU would be right at home in Saudi Arabia. Go ahead and start packing. We’ll stay right here and continue fighting for our secular democracy.
 
Dustin Chalker
MRFF Advisor

Dear (name withheld),

Your sensitivity about a Jewish name is leading you astray. Ours is neither a far-left, an anti-American, nor a “fruitcake” agenda. One would assume serving in the IDF might have sensitized you to the dangers of promotion of one religious belief over others. Sadly, that’s apparently not the case.

Your understanding of the foundation of this country is just as skewed as is your perception of us. Ours is a Constitutionally-based secular democratic society founded by people of differing belief systems who determined to protect everyone’s right to believe as she or he chooses by insisting on a separation of church and state.

While I agree we are still on a journey, you’ve just deluded yourself about its basis. Our agenda, rather than to “change America,” as you apparently would like to do, is to protect it from those like you who want to insist a particular belief system on its citizens.

With the same degree of respect,

Mike Farrell

(MRFF Board of Advisors)


Mike
Perhaps you can educate me as to the belief system of those that founded this country. I was under the impression that it is firmly founded on Judeo-Christian ideals. While your at it, please finish the thought on why serving in the IDF would sensitize me to danger of promoting one religion over another. Israel is a Jewish country and the army that defends Israel is a Jewish one.
The Constitution prohibits the government from establishing a state religion. It does not attempt to strip religion from all facets of public life. What’s next? You want to remove all the crosses from Arlington National Cemetery?
Are any solders calling your organization breaking down to tears because they are paid with money that says In God we Trust?
Get a grip, there are more important things to worry about in this country that what your “nonprofit” is whining about.
By the way, what sort of compensation do the board members take home at the end of the year. If your offended by the religious phrases found on US currency, send it to: The Fisher House,  a nonprofit that actually does something to help those that serve our nation.

(name withheld)


Hi (name withheld),

Perhaps so. Most of those who attack us use the “Judeo-Christian” principles argument as the basis to claim the U.S. is a Christian Nation. That may not be the case with you, I don’t know. Nonetheless, the principles argument is a common one, even though said principles are just as easily traced to the Enlightenment, the driving principle of which was the rejection of blind deference to tradition and authority and the embrace of reason, individualism and empiricism. Others assert the US was founded less on Judeo-Christian beliefs than on the Greco-Roman love for dialog and reason.

“I am for freedom of religion and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another.”
~Thomas Jefferson, letter to Elbridge Gerry, January 26, 1799

“The Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”
~1797 Treaty of Tripoli signed by John Adams

“The civil government functions with complete success by the total separation of the Church from the State.”
~James Madison, 1819

Per your service in the IDF, you are not, I assume, ignorant of the fact that there is a powerful movement in Israel to legally formalize its status as a Jewish State. Such an act, should it take place, will call into question Israel’s claim to be a democracy and create a formal second-class status for its non-Jewish citizens instead of the virtual situation existing today.

We agree that the Constitution does not “attempt to strip religion from all facets of public life.” Nor does the MRFF. Our focus is not on public life, it is on the military, on violations of the separation of church and state and military regulations. Why would anyone remove all the crosses from Arlington? Why the foolish questions?

“I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people build a wall of separation between Church & State.”

– Thomas Jefferson, letter to the Danbury Baptists (1802)

“Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person’s life, freedom of religion affects every individual…  Erecting the “wall of separation between church and state,” therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society. We have solved … the great and interesting question whether freedom of religion is compatible with order in government and obedience to the laws.
Thomas Jefferson: in a speech to the Virginia Baptists, 1808
Re: money, “E Pluribus Unum.” “Out of many, one,” was the original motto of the U.S., having no reference to God. “In God We Trust” came into use nearly one hundred years later thanks to Francis Scott Key and did not replace the original motto for another century. This only came to pass at all because of committed religionists in the ’50s who insisted we had to “separate ourselves from the heathens.”

So, snipe as you will. We who volunteer our time to support the work of the MRFF continue to do so because we believe the separation of church and state is both critically important to the maintenance of the freedom of religious or non-religious belief we all enjoy in this country and that it it is under attack from a fundamentalist Christian sect that seeks to impose its particular belief system on the country and its government, in part, through the military.

Mike Farrell

(MRFF Board of Advisors)


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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2 Comments

  1. Tom O June 3, 2016 at 8:56 am

    AGAIN a theocrat writes “This country is founded on Judeo-Christian values.”
    AGAIN, I ask what specifically are those values? Values which are not uniquely Christian are NOT a valid answer to that question.
    AGAIN, the theocrats will ignore the question, because they can’t answer it, but they will continue to make this false claim.

  2. Tom O June 4, 2016 at 10:56 am

    Blake Page’s has an excellent refutation of the theocrats’ repeated claims that “America was founded on Christian principles” at
    https://mrff2.local/2016/06/a-question-for-mikey/
    In the 7th email of the chain, the theocrat wrote that “a huge portion of our laws come from the Ten Commandments.” Page’s long response lists several ways that the principles in the Constitution are the OPPOSITE of the Ten Commandments.

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