Written by ©2020 Sarah Becker Separation of Church and State “A nation’s character, like that of an individual, is elusive,” Congressional candidate John F. Kennedy [D-MA] said on July 4, 1946. “It is produced partly by the things we have done and partly by what has been done to us…It is well for us to consider our American character, for in peace, as in war, we will survive or fail according to its measure.” “The informing spirit of the American character has always been a deep religious sense,” Kennedy continued. “Our government was founded on the essential religious idea of integrity of the individual. It was this religious sense which inspired the authors of the Declaration of Independence.” “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” “Today [America’s] religious ideas are challenged by atheism and materialism,” Kennedy then concluded. “Inspired by a deeply religious sense, this country…has always met and hurled back the challenge of those deathly philosophies of hate and despair.” “Whilst we assign ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess and to observe the Religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which convinced us,” James Madison wrote in his 1785 Memorial and Remonstrance. According to a 2007 Pew Research Study “fully one in four adults under 30 (25%)…describe their religion as atheist, agnostic or ‘nothing in particular.’” The Bill of Rights, Amendment 1, as ratified in 1791: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….” Alexandria’s St. Mary’s Catholic Church was first suggested on…
“Let’s Not Be Scared, Let’s Be Prepared” Written by Parker A. Poodle™ ©2019 Every dog, every child needs a trusted chum, an adviser who can teach them the pees and queues. At age 16, never did I, Parker A. Poodle a Reading Education Assistance Dog, assume a howling need to explain a despicable decade increase in gun violence. Simply stated we must acknowledge America’s gun problem and teach children the particulars of personal and public safety. Including the new vocabulary—words like shots fired, active shooter, dangerous someone; inform, counter and evacuate. “Most children play with toy guns or use their hands to pretend they are holding a gun,” Rachel Schulson’s Guns What You Should Know explains. “Have you ever wondered about real guns?…A bullet shot from a gun can travel up to 5,000 feet per second. That means that if you and a bullet had a race, the bullet would get to the end of your block before you even took your first step…It is impossible to know exactly where the bullet will end up.” According to the U.S. Gun Violence Archive from January 1, 2019, to September 20, 2019, there have been 40,596 incidents of gun violence, including 10,744 deaths (26.5%). Today a hotel (Las Vegas), shopping center (El Paso), or movie theater (Aurora); office (Annapolis, Virginia Beach), church (Charleston) or school (Columbine, Blacksburg, Newtown and Parkland) is not always a place of safety. In October MGM International Mandalay Bay paid $800 million to 4000+ victims of the Las Vegas hotel shooting. About 228,000 students have experienced a school shooting since 1999—Columbine. “Let’s not be scared, let’s be prepared!” the National Center for Youth Issues, ALICE Training Institute suggests. I sometimes worry my dog house may not be safe should a dangerous someone draw near. …
by ©2018 Sarah Becker Tariffs – Then & Now “On 6 July, the U.S. imposed 25% tariffs on $34bn in Chinese goods, prompting Beijing to hit back with levies on the same amount of U.S. exports to China,” London’s The Guardian reported. “In response, the White House released a wide-ranging list of Chinese goods, from tobacco to pet food, worth $200bn it would target with a 10% tariffs.” Beijing said it would “fight back as usual” then filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization. Still Trump’s trade war continues. A tariff is a tax imposed on imports. In 1827 one hundred delegates met in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to promote protectionist policies; to “shelter” the American wool industry, as well as producers of such products as hemp, flax, hammered bar iron and steel. On May 19, 1828, President John Quincy Adams (MA-DR) signed the later known Tariff of Abominations into law. He did so over the objections of congressional Jackson-ians; his Vice President, former U.S. Representative and Secretary of War John C. Calhoun (SC-DR, Nullifier). Father of the Constitution and former President James Madison (VA-DR) spoke “on the constitutionality of the power of Congress to impose a tariff for the encouragement of manufactures.” The Constitution was approved “in Convention by unanimous consent of the States present” on September 17, 1787. “The Constitution vests in Congress, expressly, ‘the power to lay & collect taxes, duties imposts & excises’; and ‘the power to regulate trade,’” Madison wrote Joseph C. Cabell on September 18, 1828. “The present question is…a simple question under the Constitution of the U.S. whether ‘the power to regulate trade with foreign nations’ as a distinct & substantive item in the enumerated powers embraces the object of encouraging by duties, restrictions and prohibitions the manufactures & products of the…
They’re Burning Down the House! By Sarah Becker ©2018 President Donald Trump (R-NY) has done it again, he’s muddled history. On May 25, in a tetchy telephone conversation with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Trump unthinkingly said it was the Canadians, not the British who burned The White House in 1814. The British assault on Washington was in retaliation for an American attack on Ontario, then a British colony. The President referenced the War of 1812 when asked for what reason he claimed incoming Canadian steel and aluminum “a national security” issue. In the early 1800s the United States became inextricably involved in European affairs. Customs duties funded the federal government; British, French, and Spanish trading policies shaped local economies, and the ongoing commercial war between Great Britain and Napoleon’s France cost neutral American merchants unnecessarily. American merchants were little more than pawns. The North American continent was a showground of imperial competition. The British controlled Canada to the north, Spain controlled lands to the west and south. Both nations provided arms and encouragement to Native Americans, hoping to block American settlement beyond the Appalachian Mountains. As for Great Britain and France, “both sought to block the other’s commerce with America: through blockades, port closures, and the imposition of harmful customs duties,” Professor Michael Bottoms explained. “While both nations were equally guilty of abusing their American trading relationships, Americans focused their ire on Britain, partly because of Britain’s [sea-faring] impressment policy. The damage these policies did to the American economy, and to American prestige, led directly to war.” Georgetown resident and Federalist newspaper publisher Alexander Hanson, of Baltimore, described the War of 1812 as “without funds, without an army, navy or adequate fortifications.” Who were the War Hawks and to what extent did Americans support a second war with Great…
by Sarah Becker ©2018 The South Secedes! More Civil War battles were fought in Virginia than in any other state. The majority of the clashes occurred between Washington, D.C. and Richmond, an interesting fact given Virginia’s initial reluctance to secede. “In spite of all excitement, rash conduct, and reckless language indulged in by the ultras at the South, we plainly perceive that the calm attitude and conservative course of Virginia, so far, is exercising its influence in several of the States around South Carolina,” the Alexandria Gazette reported on November 16, 1860. “Enough is known now to satisfy every body that Virginia will not favor ‘precipitate action…that she does not consider the election of Lincoln, as, of itself, ground for an attempt to break up and dissolve the Union….” “What is secession?” The New York Times then asked. “The Southern Disunionist journals are laying great stress on their assumed right to secede.” Said James Madison father of the Constitution in 1832, “It is high time that the [nullifiers] claim to secede at will should be put down by public opinion, and I shall be glad to see the task commenced by one who understands the subject.” After much political pondering—on April 17, 1861—delegates to Virginia’s secession convention voted 88-55 to depart the Union. The vote came only two weeks after the convention roundly rejected an April 4 secession proposal. What changed the delegates and, in turn, the public’s mind? Kentucky-born Abraham Lincoln took his Presidential oath of office approximately three weeks after Virginia’s secession convention began. The 1860 Republican platform was clear: “That the normal condition of all the territory of the United States is freedom.” Lawyer Lincoln’s 1861 inaugural message was also clear: “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of…