While I share the trepidation of those who are afraid of the corrupting effect of Corporations buying our legislatures and writing our laws, a greater danger to democracy has already taken place with barely an acknowledgement. It is the extent of church involvement in our politics – something which used to be viewed as semi-prohibited in exchange for their exemption from taxation, but which is no longer enforced and indeed seems a lost cause. They are too politically powerful for any politician to dare challenge – and James Dobson’s Focus on the Family passed more legislation in the Arizona legislature last year than any other interest group.

While any effort to tax the churches has always been pooh-poohed in the past, in light of the churches increased political muscularity I can only hope that concerned citizens will reconsider our attitude towards these corrupt organizations that now far exceed the power, influence, and wealth of the Mafia.

How much does the privileging of these businesses cost us?

University of Tampa professor Ryan T. Cragun along with students Stephanie Yeager and Desmond Vega have published a study on the Council for Secular Humanism website:

Research Report: How Secular Humanists (and Everyone Else) Subsidize Religion in the United States

  While some people may be bothered by the fact that there are pastors who live in multimillion dollar homes, this is old news to most. But here is what should bother you about these expensive homes: You are helping to pay for them! You pay for them indirectly, the same way local, state, and federal governments in the United States subsidize religion—to the tune of about $71 billion every year.

The report is excellent and I urge everyone to read it. One it the points it makes clearly is that we have traditionally exempted churches because we considered them to be “charities”, while in fact a very small portion of their activities are truly “charity”.

 Wal-Mart, for instance, gives about $1.75 billion in food aid to charities each year, or twenty-eight times all of the money allotted for charity by the United Methodist Church and almost double what the LDS Church has given in the last twenty-five years.⁵

Running tax-supported businesses like schools and hospitals is not “charity”, nor are bingo games or multi-millon dollar political campaigns

The report makes clear that providing tax exemptions for true charities does, indeed, make sense but churches have abused their status and should be required to separate out for tax exemption those actual charitable parts of their businesses for tax exemption and otherwise be treated the same way that other service or business corporations are under the law – like Disneyland for the fans of Fantasy Land.

Well I see that blogger Don Lacey has discovered that writing critically of Ron Paul in Arizona is akin to writing critically of Muhammed in Afghanistan

So it looks as if it’s time for me to mention how we arrived at this point in history – which in this case is the story of two melding ideologies.
Ideology 1 – Libertarianism – begun by Ayn Rand with her popular novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and her collection of essays (with her boy toy Nathaniel Branden) The Virtue of Selfishness.

As has been famously noted:

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs. – John Rogers

Rand was a refugee from Communism and her ideology was basically a celebration of free market individualism and a hatred of socialism.

She also was a dedicated atheist who hated religion, supported abortion rights and what she saw as human rights being oppressed by government.

ANY government.

She was not a “patriot”, did not justify her ideology with rigamarole from the US Constitution or founding fathers and was a believer in individual rights – not “State’s rights”.

Ideology #2 – the Confederates. Even after losing the Civil War the South Shall Always Rise Again in the hearts of the Confederates. These southern gentlemen remain commited to maintaining the privileged place of the white christian male and are fiercely dedicated to the Constitution – or at least those antebellum parts of it that extol “States Rights” – and hate the Federal government ( previously known as the “damn yankees”).

They will extol the virtues of “State’s rights” at every opportunity, human rights not so much, and they love Jesus.

Now it would seem that these ideologies have little in common, which is true, but they have just enough in common – at least in rhetoric – to have become the jumble that Jim sees in his comments thread.

They share a paranoid fear of the “federal government” and they both fetishize firearms.

So when a Confederate like Ron Paul attacks the “Federal” government, they hear it as an attack on “government” – and they are willing to let that little “State’s rights” plug he always inserts slip past. And soon they believe it themselves.

That is why, in 2012, “Libertarianism” looks suspiciously like those idiots arguing with Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind:

You simply do not understand the Libertarian philosophy that is embedded in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution (as per Thomas Jefferson).

The point of this bill was to return more rights to the states

You mean the constitution would have to be obeyed under this act. As it stands, the state governments are forced to bow before the “anti-religion” religion you are a devoted follower of.
The idea of promoting States rights is because you can represent the values of your constituents better that way,
That’s why we believe in state’s rights and limited government,

The federal government shouldn’t have anything to do with the laws of the state. Furthermore, If a state wants to endorse or promote religion then they have that right. It’s up to the state to make just and moral decisions form themselves; even if those decisions turn out to be mistakes.

States rights is a very big deal but the author just does not understand this. If a state has bad laws or ones that I disagree with, I can move away from the state.

Abortion is the most unilateral use of force I can think of. A zygote is not the same as a fetus, but life is life and it should be protected.

It is very clear in the constitution where the federal government should be in relations to the individual States,out of their hair.

Take the California Supreme Court, they created policy from thin air that Gay marriage is to be allowed

Honestly the biggest thing about states rights that appeals to me is the whole mantra of “Don’t like it? Move to a state that runs the way you like.”

The Constitution is explicit as to what the rights of the American people are and the Bill Of Rights gives the protection enforced by the “Federal” government. The Constitution also is clear on the restraint of the federal government with interfering with the sovereignty of states.

Using the argument that without the Federal government mandating every aspect of our daily lives this country would be a state dictatorship with slavery is an outrageous statement.

It seems to be official now.   The homily of Bishop Daniel R. Jenky, CSC, at the Mass during the April 14 “A Call to Catholic Men of Faith” in Peoria

 

Hitler and Stalin, at their better moments, would just barely tolerate some churches remaining open, but would not tolerate any competition with the state in education, social services, and health care.

In clear violation of our First Amendment rights, Barack Obama – with his radical, pro abortion and extreme secularist agenda, now seems intent on following a similar path.

……

This fall, every practicing Catholic must vote, and must vote their Catholic consciences, or by the following fall our Catholic schools, our Catholic hospitals, our Catholic Newman Centers, all our public ministries — only excepting our church buildings – could easily be shut down. Because no Catholic institution, under any circumstance, can ever cooperate with the instrinsic evil of killing innocent human life in the womb.
No Catholic ministry – and yes, Mr. President, for Catholics our schools and hospitals are ministries – can remain faithful to the Lordship of the Risen Christ and to his glorious Gospel of Life if they are forced to pay for abortions.

 

Because we all remember when Hitler tried to provide medical care for everyone. I call Godwin’s Law.

We might have made a mistake cutting off these old queen’s access to altar boys. They have become really grumpy – not to mention hysterical – since then.

Maybe we should let them have them back the same way we exempt them from paying taxes and then they’ll go back to shearing their flock and stay out of our government.

1) The government is considering closing Tucson’s USPS facility. Our elected officials mutter that the Postal Service is “unsustainable” and we can’t afford it.

If their plan to close operations across the country succeeds, the Post Office says they will save 14 million dollars.

2) The mayor is vying for the business of hosting part of our drone aircraft program. I haven’t heard anyone talking about such programs being “unsustainable”.

We have a couple drone programs and its hard to get a handle on their costs but evidently on the Predator we spent 2 billion last year and the Reaper almost 12 billion.

So that is what your government and elected representatives think that you, the citizens of Tucson, need and want to spend your tax dollars on.

Perhaps a technical modification would allow the predators to drop first class mail on us as they fly over.