Most religious groups are no doubt applauding the latest Supreme Court ruling, but when you dissect it, the ruling is actually one of the biggest blows to religious freedom in the history of this nation. Clay Jones of Claytoonz has an excellent cartoon and accompanying commentary on the SCOTUS ruling …
The biggest takeaway from the Supreme Court’s ruling that churches in New York can remain open, because placing restrictions on them is infringing upon their Constitutionally-protected religious freedom, is where the court will be years from now.
The court ruled on similar cases just a few months ago, and ruled 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts joining the liberals, that the government can place restrictions on churches. On Wednesday night, it was another 5-4 ruling, this time in favor of the churches and again, with Roberts joining the liberals.
The big takeaway here is that Amy Coney Barrett was the vote putting it over the top. The last time the court voted on this, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was on the court and actually understood the case.
The argument here is that New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo, was being harder on churches than places like retail businesses. But the thing is…
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Very good cartoons! 😉 A friend of mine always says that all Europeans from birth on have a chip of the Church in their brains. Historically, since the with Pope Gelasius I has to use the nobility to rule (Theory of the two swords). This chip is tapped again and again, and only with regular use it remains active. Politicians rely on the Church by consoling the masses to a better future, to keep the evil of a revolution from their necks 🙂 Michael
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I realize I am in the minority, but I truly believe that the world would be a much kinder one, much more peaceful, if religion didn’t exist. It excludes, it teaches that anyone who believes differently is inherently evil, and it causes people to fight to attempt to force others into their own mold. What you say in your last sentence is essentially what I said in another comment to you just a bit ago! Great minds think alike!
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Its horrible these days. Here in Germany our community is broken down too.Lets hope we will have the chance to re-establish. Michael
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I’m so sorry to hear that! I thought that under the auspices of Angela Merkel, things were mostly well in your country. Sigh. The entire world seems to be afire, doesn’t it? Hugs, Michael
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Thats so true, Jill! There is something wrong all over the world. Angela Merkel is great, but she is only the consultor, and the parliament itself is only focussed on the next elections. They all want to stay in the “Better Life Area”. Best wishes, Michael
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Sigh … yes, it seems that greed and arrogance rule all over the world these days. You too, Michael!
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Indeed. We are all individual, the money is shorten, and the power only with some. What else should be fact? ;-( Best wishes, Michael
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The churches here will make stands on particular social issues but they stay out of politics and elections. I don’t remember seeing to many references to getting involved in elections in the bible.
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There are very few elections. The one that comes to mind is the election to replace Judas. I am not sure it was by secret ballot or acclamation
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It used to be that way here, but now, they demand that we all be forced to adhere to the laws they claim in the name of their religion, which at least half of us do NOT ascribe to ! Grrrrrrrrr. They are trying for a white, Christian, male-dominated nation … and that is one in which I flat-out refuse to live! Have you arranged for that bungalow in the Swiss Alps yet? xx
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Working on that x
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Clay Jones says the courts don’t really understand what they’re doing I don’t think it matters too much to them one way or another the whole point is not to give the church the feeling of having achieved victory (after all, they’re in the killing game now) but to establish that the Supreme Court conservatives have arrived and the law is the game now.
Cwtch.
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I wonder where that leaves the 75% of this nation who aren’t evangelicals? Where does it leave the LGBT community, women who have a brain, and the Blacks, Hispanics, and Muslims? And … where there is one step, there is sure to be a next … and a next. What, I wonder, is the next step in the Court’s efforts to pander to the religious right? Sigh.
Cwtch
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Dear Neil and Jill,
When even the decisions of the SCOTUS lack ethical, sociological, scientific, epidemiological and/or medical validities, then we definitely can declare that the USA is very much plagued in varying degrees by misinformation, disinformation, post-truth politics, demagoguery, plutocracy, oligarchy, ochlocracy, kleptocracy, narcissistic leadership, neoliberalism, globalization, conservatism and anti-intellectualism.
Here are a few pertinent quotes about anti-Intellectualism:
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
Isaac Asimov
“In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy.”
George Orwell
“I’m tired of ignorance held up as inspiration, where vicious anti-intellectualism is considered a positive trait, and where uninformed opinion is displayed as fact.”
Phil Plait
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Your first paragraph says it all! All three of those quotes are both excellent and apt. I think I like the final one best for the times we are living through. Thank you!
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To the list in my first paragraph we can add “kakistocracy”, and if the USA is not careful, it can even entangle itself in “khakistocracy”.
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Dear Jill,
I have added nearly 700 words worth of extra paragraphs to my post at https://soundeagle.wordpress.com/2020/11/11/strong-wind-knows-tough-grass/ to reveal what the US government and its officials can learn from the sociopolitical system in ancient China. The first of these extra paragraphs start with
I welcome your input and comment there, and I shall even go so far as to incorporate into the post your views and insights if you were to be so kind as to share them in the comment section there. Thank you.
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In the long run, this will hurt the churches by giving them a bad reputation.
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Likely so. They are only fighting this fight because they miss those weekly donations, and they have perpetuated a great con on their congregants to convince them to risk not only their own lives but others just to get to church. I’ve long agreed with Marx, that religion is the opiate of the masses and this proves that point.
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Yes, it is all about the money. It is always about the money.
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