Republicans have to sit in the back of the bus.

As distasteful a tactic as it has been, the Republicans have finally gotten some cojones and have refused to participate in the current administration's reckless spending spree.  Although this President promised to be post-partisan and post-racial, nearly every major GOP led initiative with regards to the health care, TARPII and cap and trade have been rejected out of hand by the dominant party.

So here's President Obama's most recent olive branch to the GOP going forward. He said Republicans had driven the economy into a ditch and then stood by and criticized while Democrats pulled it out. Now that progress has been made, he said, "we can't have special interests sitting shotgun. We gotta have middle class families up in front. We don't mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back."

No, Mr. President. If the current batch of GOP-ers are going to be true to their campaign promises, then the GOP is going to continue to fight you if you continue to add to the crushing debt that is now threatening to destroy our entire way of life.

But thank you, Mr. President, for so eloquently sum up your feelings about the GOP in particular and conservatives in general.  It helps to clarify our choices for the upcoming elections.

Amtrak Posts Record Ridership.

USA Today, in a Mike Chalmers article, reported that Amtrak posted record ridership with 28.7 million riders, an increase of 5.7% from 2009.  Ticket revenue increased by 9% to 1.7 billion.

However, Amtrak posted $3.5 billion in expenses for the fiscal year.
Let's see....  $1.7 billion from ticket sales against $3.5 billion in expenses.  Yup, another year in the red for Amtrak.

Separation of Church and State and the Politicians that Don't Understand It

Recent debate comments in Delaware serve to illustrate just how ignorant or disingenuous our current crop of politicians are with regards to the concept of "separation of church and state".

In a debate on Tuesday October 19th, Republican candidate Christine "the witch" O'Donnell criticized Democratic nominee Chris Coon's position that teaching creationism in public school would violate the First Amendment by promoting religious doctrine.

O'Donnell asked "Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?", and Coons replied that the First Amendment to the Constitution prevents Congress fro making laws respecting the establishment of religion, whereupon O'Donnell said "You're telling me that is in the First Amendment?"

The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States says verbatim: "Congress shall make no laws 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 to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

At play here is the fact that the concept of "separation of church and state" doesn't exist anywhere in our Constitution. Historically, this term first appears in a private letter written in 1802 from President Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury, Connecticut Baptist Association.  He writes: "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof", thus building a wall of separation between Church & State."

Interestingly enough, this letter was in response to a written concern by the Danbury Baptist Association that, at that time (prior to the establishment of the 14th Amendment), the Federal Government could force out a state's official church. 

It is important to remember the context in which the States demanded the addition of the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution before they would ratify it.  The First Amendment prevents the government from imposing its will upon the people with regards to religion. With their freedom only newly won, the memory of religious oppression and forced conversion by royal rulers was strong enough that they wanted this freedom specifically protected.

Does teaching the concept of creationism in public schools rise to the level of "establishment of religion"?  I do not think so, although better minds than mine have spent much time debating this touchy subject.  Although the United States was founded by men who were primarily Christian in their beliefs, the concept of the world having been created by a singular divine intelligence or pantheon of divine beings is common among nearly all religions. I would agree that any program that would teach the concept of creationism to students in public schools would need to present more than the history as expressed in the book of Genesis (which is a common belief of Jews, Christians and Muslims). But again, would even such a carefully designed program actually bring about the establishment of religion in our schools? I argue that it would not.

More importantly, the "separatists" are perfectly happy to quote the first segment of the first sentence of the First Amendment, but often fail to address the second segment of that same sentence: ... "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof".  While I do not fall into the category of those who take a very literal interpretation of the creation of the universe and the earth from the book of Genesis, there those who do.  If our public schools fail to teach about the alternative belief of creationism, would the government by proxy be guilty of prohibiting the free exercise thereof?  Those students are being presented with a view of the creation of the earth (evolution) which is, in their interpretation, entirely invalid. In other words, those students are being forced to supress their belief in how the world came to be.  I think that this is clearly a violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution.

So... to bring this back around to Chris Coons and Christine O'Donnell.  Chris Coons clearly believes that teaching creationism is schools would be a violation of the principle of "separation of church and state". I would only agree with him if only the Genesis creation story would be presented.  But in contrast, Christine O'Donnell should be aware of the fact that when President Jefferson first laid the words "wall of separation between Church & State", he specifically quoted the entire first clause of the First Amendment. Therefore, President Jefferson clearly intended those words to be associated with the protections provided by that Amendment.