There’s the rub. How this freedom was understood and practiced looks very different in 1805 and 2009. I would submit the folks writing the document probably knew what they meant by freedom of religion better than, say, People for the American Way.

cs89 on February 3, 2009 at 9:56 AM

Under the constitution I have the right to not have my government preach to me. Now I know this is hard for some people to accept but that is the reality. Religion has no place in government.

You might be interested in the Library of Congress section on religion, history etc. It talks about church services in govt. buildings in the early 1800s, etc.

No, I’m not advocating for preaching in the Capitol. Just pointing out it has happened, and provides context for understanding the Constitutional setting of church/state relationships.

I have issues with people who do not understand the separation of church and state.

I would submit that Palin’s positions reflect an understanding of that issue.

And, I have issues with people who confuse freedom of religion (e.g., believe what you want to, worship or not according to the dictates of your conscience) with freedom from religion (e.g., yes, there are documented cases of the founders doing things we’d never allow today, but they must have meant any mention of God, faith or a particular religion within spitting distance of any public property was unconstitutional).

You claim that Sarah is an ‘economic illiterate’ but she is given accolades by Grover Nordquist of Americans for Tax Reform for her handling of the Alaskan budget and her desire to be fiscally responsible.

To me illiteracy implies blatant incompetence, a prodigal lifestyle or reckless mismanagement. Sarah may not have the credentials of Milton Friedman but she doesn’t fit this bill.

Sarah wants money for Alaskan infrastructure that Alaska is entitled to. Other than that she wants nothing to do with social spending, pork and earmarks. That she has always been consistent about.

technopeasant on February 3, 2009 at 5:59 AM

ROFLMAO! Nordquist supports cap and trade and carbon taxes, he supports earmarks and raising oil company taxes?

MODERATOR: “…do you support capping carbon emissions?”
PALIN: “I do. I do.”

Palin’s Project List Totals $453 Million (The Wall Street Journal)

Alaska Gov. Palin signs bill to hike oil tax (Reuters, December 19, 2007)

Palin is a hypocrite of epic proportions. She is nothing but a populist endorsed by the ban abortion or die right-wing Christian coalition. The propaganda that she is some sort of fiscal conservative only work on fools who cannot do research.

Ok you complain that the domestic oil isn’t sweet crude so it needs other refinerys.

The obvious solution is , drill domestic build new refinery domestic. As i’ve told you ,poopy.ceep the money out of reach from al-qaida and friends.
But you just don’t want to accept that .

And by STRAWMAN fallacy you desperately avoiding the logic behind a more independent energy policy.

the_nile on February 2, 2009 at 12:01 PM

No I said that we do not have the light crude to replace Saudi Arabias’, building refineries is irrelevant as all other sources of oil cost MORE MONEY to extract from the ground BEFORE you refine it. The obvious solution is for you to perform a labotomy on yourself.

Your stupidity is mind boggling. If we don’t buy the oil on the open market, someone else will. Thus those countries will still get MONEY.

So, apparently you have issues with religion?

cs89 on February 2, 2009 at 12:18 PM

I have issues with people who do not understand the separation of church and state.

The US Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) has proposed leasing areas offshore Virginia, the Gulf of Mexico, and Alaska for energy development. In its recent 5-year leasing proposal, MMS estimates undiscovered resources to include 85.9 billion barrels of oil and 419.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas technically recoverable from all federal offshore areas.

Oil prices will go back up. We should be committed to a workable energy plan including fuel independence right now.

This is fine, the OCS should be open to drilling but it is not going to make us energy independent.

As a corollary, we only have a couple of more years to start a new Bronx Project that will allocate at least $150 billion per year for energy research in all areas. Otherwise the American economy will be devastated.

chunderroad on February 2, 2009 at 3:58 PM

You people obviously don’t understand economics or history:

Remember the Synthetic Fuels Corporation? (The Heritage Foundation)
Exxon chief dispels myth of energy independence in US (Taipei Times)

You claim that Sarah is an ‘economic illiterate’ but she is given accolades by Grover Nordquist of Americans for Tax Reform for her handling of the Alaskan budget and her desire to be fiscally responsible.

To me illiteracy implies blatant incompetence, a prodigal lifestyle or reckless mismanagement. Sarah may not have the credentials of Milton Friedman but she doesn’t fit this bill.

Sarah wants money for Alaskan infrastructure that Alaska is entitled to. Other than that she wants nothing to do with social spending, pork and earmarks. That she has always been consistent about.

technopeasant on February 3, 2009 at 3:38 AM

You old cultist you. I found the following on your facebook page:

Our Sarah, who art in Alaska,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy presidency come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven
Give us this day our daily foreign policy gaffe.
And send us our oil revenue checks,
as we lower taxes against those who tax us.
And lead us not into Anwar,
but deliver us from foreign oil.
For thine is the GOP, the conservative and the Rush. for ever and ever. Amen

McCain, Martinez, and Hutchison are not!

As I read what Sarah wants she has asked for funding regarding 4 pipelines and a military installation.

Sarah is consistent in OPPOSING THE STIMULUS PACKAGE in that she claims its enhances government spending, increases pork and burdens the states with more debt.

Sarah has been criticized by Mark Begich, the Democratic Senator from Alaska and the state legislature for not asking for more and for refusing earmarks.

To suggest that Sarah is just another pig at the trough is just another way the Left or her opponents in the GOP have devised to marginalize her and eventually knock her out of the 2012 race being accused of not being a true conservative but a hypocrite.

Folks, as i have said before the dark forces of disinformation and propaganda are working 24/7 to take Sarah down. Thousands of us that support Sarah must not allow this to happen and we must resolve to disabuse any deception including this one perpetrated by AP.

RalphyBoy on February 2, 2009 at 8:51 PM

To be clear, the article is about Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas in DC lobbying Republicans to support the porkulus. Palin is not mentioned at all.

You can’t look that up?
lowandslow on February 1, 2009 at 11:44 PM

Of course I could have looked that up, and by itself it would have still been meaningless. Can you look up the various meanings of the word “relative”?

Gingrich: Economy headed ‘off a cliff’
Says Obama response is ‘more of the same’
Jon Ward (Contact)
Monday, February 2, 2009

“Senate Republicans should make it clear that they will not permit a tax evader to become the secretary of the Treasury,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told The Washington Times. (United Press International) LMAO!

“I keep getting told there’s another [$1.2 trillion] in losses coming down the road, minimum. Goldman Sachs, I think, said Friday, $4 trillion to finish bailing out the banks,” he said, predicting another “three to five years, at a minimum, of working our way through this.”

“The continuity between the Bush bailout and the Obama bailout will be mildly amazing. This is not the change you can believe in. This is more of the same,” he said, mocking one of Mr. Obama’s campaign slogans.

Next up: The Trillion Dollar “Bad Bank!”

Mr. Gingrich’s harshest words were reserved for recently confirmed Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, whom he mentioned repeatedly as a symbol of the government and business class refusing to learn lessons.

“Geithner is fronting for the banks. Frankly, that’s what I think Paulson ended up doing. Paulson ended up being a Wall Street deal-maker who was happy to take your money to bail out Wall Street deal-makers. That’s not the purpose of the secretary of the Treasury.”

“What we have to do is look at the very simple question: ‘What is it going to take to succeed in the world market, how do we reset the American economy, how do we get rid of the wreckage, and how do we start growing a new generation of institutions?’” he said. “But if you watch, all these guys we are bailing out are laying people off. So you are giving money to Citibank, which I think dropped 53,000 people. And so all you’re doing is cushioning, for the guys who are in charge, the degree of their own failure. And you don’t learn lessons that way.”

“We’ve been through three years of economic pain with almost no thought,” he said. “The political class has panicked, largely goaded by the financial class, and the result has been like going to a doctor who said, ‘I can’t do a CAT scan, I can’t do any lab work, but I’ve got tons of morphine,’ as opposed to, ‘What’s gone wrong, how do you reset the system and how do you realistically expect this system to operate in the world market in the future?”

“Which is a much harder and much more painful conversation than any political figure’s been wiling to have so far. I think that bodes badly.”

ultimate heartache 2? http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/02/02/senate-conservatives-plan/

DeathToMediaHacks on February 2, 2009 at 2:37 PM

What…

LimeyGeek on February 2, 2009 at 2:59 PM

said.
And, some of the links at that site… You know the relevant ones, are dead.

Oil prices will go back up. We should be committed to a workable energy plan including fuel independence right now.

At $70 per barrel the oil on the OCS is worth $6 trillion or about half of one year of the United States GDP. The oil, if extracted, would generate local jobs and replace imports as well as lower prices. At $7 per 1000 cubic feet (close to current prices but half of the peak price hit several months back) the natural gas would be worth about $3 trillion. So all told perhaps $9 trillion worth of energy is sitting out on the US continental shelf waiting for exploration to find it.

There are other issues to consider. Energy independence is a national security issue in many ways.

By 2020, the oil reserves of both Russia and Iran are expected to get depleted, and this means higher prices of oil, and a lot more instability in the Middle East. As a corollary, we only have a couple of more years to start a new Bronx Project that will allocate at least $150 billion per year for energy research in all areas. Otherwise the American economy will be devastated. Note that some well educated American families who are mentally and physically fit to find high paying jobs in Europe and Asia, have already started to do so. This means that a brain drain away from the United States, is a danger that will affect National Security. The highest quality DNA is in danger of moving offshore.

ultimate heartache 2?

No.

The “Center for American Progress Action Fund” performed this absolutely non-partisan and unbiased ‘analysis’. Did you stop for even one moment to try to figure out for yourself how they might have arrived at that ridiculous figure? No? You just swallowed the spoonfed dummy-drops.

Here’s a hint : it’s got something to do with taxes, and something to do with how liberals view ‘costs’.