Isn't American a Christian Nation?

[metfan85]

Obama, doesn't seem to think so (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIVd7YT0oWA&feature=related). Neither does Newsweek, with it's latest article The Decline and Fall of Christian America (http://www.newsweek.com/id/192583). I beg to differ.

Here's a rebuttal (http://www.takimag.com/article/faith_of_our_fathers/) by Professor Kevin Gutzman:

Were the Founders “Post-Christian”?

Two years ago, Newsweek editor Jon Meacham published American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0812976665/taksmag-20). There, as in his public appearances and journalism since, Meacham argued that the United States were founded on a Madisonian vision of secular government.

Meacham of course did not blaze any new trail making that argument. In fact, since the Supreme Court’s decision in Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing Township (1947) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everson_v._Board_of_Education), Americans have lived under a system in which local and state ordinances recognizing the traditional Christianity of their culture are apt to be invalidated by federal courts. Usually, the opinions striking such ordinances down come wrapped in decisions purporting to instruct the hoi polloi in the error of our ways.

Thus, the pre-game prayers we said before we went out under the Friday night lights in the little Texas town where I graduated from high school in 1981 supposedly now would be unconstitutional. Ditto the invocation at the annual baccalaureate exercises, led by local ministers on a rotating basis. The same holds for traditional Christian imagery in long-standing city seals, Christian symbols on public land, and myriad other nods to the base of most Americans’ conception of the cosmos.

Just in time for the Easter holiday, Meacham gives over his magazine’s cover and prime pages to a story under the title “The Decline and Fall of Christian America (http://www.newsweek.com/id/192583).” Here, Meacham explains that recently, Christianity’s political and cultural influence in America has been waning. Now, he notes, there has been a significant decline in the proportion of Americans claiming to be Christian: from 86% to 76% in the last 19 years. He adjudges this “good for our political culture.”

Claiming high secular authority, Meacham says that political culture is “as the American Founders saw, … complex and charged enough without attempting to compel or coerce religious belief or observance.” Reading this assertion, my antennae pricked up. Which Founders? Compel how? What does he mean by “religious belief or observance”?

People familiar with the Revolution and Early Republic—the period when the American tradition of writing constitutions was born—can guess easily enough, even without prior familiarity with Meacham’s argument, which figures he has in mind: perhaps Tom Paine, possibly Benjamin Franklin, and certainly James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. Sure enough: there they are, two pages later:

By the time of the American Founding, men like Jefferson and Madison saw the virtue in guaranteeing liberty of conscience, and one of the young republic’s signal achievements was to create a context in which religion and politics mixed but church and state did not.

Hmm. What does Meacham mean by that? The half-educated (think of Justice Hugo Black writing for the Court in Everson) might conjure up a mental image of Jefferson with Latin, Greek, French, and English editions of the Bible, carefully excising anything his to-this-purpose-feeble mind could not explain. This, he might think, was The Founding Fathers’ Attitude Toward Church and State.

Well, yes, it was Jefferson’s attitude—in private. For some reason, Jefferson kept his biblical bowdlerization to himself (http://www.angelfire.com/co/JeffersonBible/). Only after his death did his favorite grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, publicize Jefferson’s account of Christ’s life. And what was the reason that Jefferson did not publicize his hostility to the Bible far and wide? As he explained to an acquaintance in another context, Jefferson had several irons in the political fire, and to make himself obnoxious on a question about which he was not going to persuade his compatriots would only defeat his other efforts. Discretion, in other words, was the better part of valor: Jefferson knew that his fellow Virginians would have drummed him out of political life if he had told them what he thought.

Besides which, as then-Justice William Rehnquist noted in dissent in the Wallace v. Jaffree (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_v._Jaffree) decision on school prayer, Jefferson had nothing to do with drafting the federal Bill of Rights. Indeed, he didn’t help write his own state’s declaration of rights or constitution, not to mention the federal Constitution, either. It thus is difficult to see what his private conception of the proper relationship between church and state, Christianity and government, has to do with the U.S. Constitution.

Yet, on the other hand, James Madison favored the project of abolishing legislation to govern the human mind. He, unlike Jefferson, played a significant role in drafting not only Article XVI of the Virginia Declaration of Rights (the church-state article), but also the U.S. Constitution and the federal Bill of Rights. Surely if he favored secular government, as he certainly did, that proves that the Founding bequeathed us a system in which Anthony Kennedy and Ruth Ginsburg are within their rights, indeed doing their duty, when they say that high school students in, say, Belton, Texas cannot constitutionally be led in the Lord’s Prayer by their coach after a football game.

Well, no. For James Madison’s private opinions, even his public positions, are not equivalent to any particular provision of the U.S. Constitution. (This is a good thing, since Madison was about as consistent as the weather in a Texas spring.) In fact, one of the most common errors in scholarship about the Constitution is to elevate Madison’s every private jotting and utterance to the status of the Constitution itself. Like Jefferson, Madison knew that his private preferences were unpopular in Virginia. It is to his public position that we ought to look, and then only when it was consistent with that of the body that gave a particular constitutional text effect.

Madison said in the Philadelphia Convention that wrote the Constitution and, and this is what counts, in the ratification campaign thereafter that a bill of rights was unnecessary. In fact, he said that amendments along that line could be dangerous.

But Madison did not reckon with public opinion, specifically with Baptists’ opinion, in his home community, Piedmont Orange County, Virginia. His neighbors (read: the local electorate) insisted there be a religious liberty amendment, because they feared a revivification of the colonial Episcopalian establishment if there wasn’t. Besides the Baptists, Madison’s elite political friends Edmund Randolph, Jefferson, and George Mason all insisted that there must be a bill of rights. That’s why Madison promised that he would propose amendments in the first federal Congress: he disliked the idea, but popular and elite pressure in Virginia squeezed grudging support for it out of him. Having promised to sponsor amendments, Madison was narrowly elected to the first U.S. House after being rejected as too nationalist—too much in favor of centralization—in Virginia’s election for the first Senate.

Madison did not believe that the First Amendment banned state actions such as having local ministers give invocations at public-school events. Meacham is right to say that he and Jefferson favored such a prohibition, but he is wrong to imply that anyone in the Founding era wrote one into federal law.

The supposed location of this prohibition in the Constitution is the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, however, says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” (emphasis added), and it means precisely that: that Congress shall make no such law. Far from fortuitously, this language was intentionally about Congress, and not the state legislatures. As the Preamble to the Bill of Rights shows, the entire purpose of the Bill of Rights was further to delineate the limits on federal authority, because Antifederalists insisted that the unamended Constitution had not made those limits clear enough. The phrase “respecting an establishment of” was chose instead of “establishing” because the former could be read as banning congressional disestablishment of states’ established churches, as well as congressional attempts to establish a national church.

Why, you might ask, would James Madison, the chief author of the Bill of Rights, have omitted a provision allowing the federal government to police states’ policy-making in this area? After all, as we’ve seen, he favored secular government, and the unamended Constitution already included some provisions—most notably but not only the Contracts Clause—empowering federal officials to police state behavior.

The answer is that he tried. The First Congress’s Bill of Rights included twelve proposed amendments, of which ten were ratified in 1791 and one was ratified in 1992. It did not include the one that Madison ever after insisted had been the most important one: his proposed amendment stating that “No state shall violate the equal rights of conscience….”

Madison had attempted to use the Philadelphia Convention to create a national government, and he had been disappointed. He then vowed to sponsor amendments clarifying the limits of federal power, but this characteristic subterfuge yielded a proposed amendment to empower federal officials to intervene to regulate the states’ religion policies. Pace Meacham, Madison not only failed to write a federal ban on state religion legislation into the Constitution, but he could not even get it out of the House.

Meacham notes that Christians have endeavored sporadically since 1962 to overturn the Supreme Court’s opinion that year banning prayer in public schools. He omits that so unpopular was that decision in its day that all but one governor insisted it should be countermanded. The Constitution makes amendment difficult, except in the case of amendment via judicial legislation; that kind of amendment, which is far the most common kind, is virtually impossible to correct. The Supreme Court can foist off upon us a decision such as the School Prayer Decision, with which Americans never agreed and to which they never consented, and there is essentially nothing that can be done about it.

Yes, our culture is becoming less Christian. I attribute this in large part to the success of the Supreme Court in wiping Christianity out of our public life. The Court’s campaign to do so has been aided and abetted by other significant actors in American intellectual life, such as the editor of Newsweek. When people like Jon Meacham tell us that the attenuation of the Christian element in our culture is simply a trend, perhaps like the weather, and that it is in consonance with what the sainted Founders wanted, who can contradict them? Who knows any better? It is in the interest of the government to aid in divinizing the government, including its creators. The cult of Madison and Pals may well replace the old one, Christianity, in Americans’ affection. If it does so, that event will mark the success of a long-standing propaganda campaign by figures such as Jon Meacham and Hugo Black, Anthony Kennedy and Ruth Ginsburg.

[TheHipHopBillGates]

wasn't America found to escape religious persecution? that kind of makes this ironical?

[metfan85]

Some of the colonists certainly came here to practice their own religion. However those locales were all governed by the church, and even barred certain sects of Christianity.

So to say America was created to escape religion, or even religious freedom is false. America was created as a union of 13 states, made of observing Christians, NOT the secular humanists.

[just b u]

Some of the colonists certainly came here to practice their own religion. However those locales were all governed by the church, and even barred certain sects of Christianity.

So to say America was created to escape religion, or even religious freedom is false. America was created as a union of 13 states, made of observing Christians, NOT the secular humanists.

:agree

[Defekted]

I was going to post the Newsweek article last week. Totally forgot.

I am a firm believer that this country is special because IT ISNT a "christian country" or a "white country" or an "english country" but a country of laws that do not change with the changing of demographics..... in 150 years from now if hispanics become 53% of this country will it become a hispanic country? no, nothing changes.......

its the laws that matter, not the religions, ethnicitys, colors, or whatever. I love the fact that this country is the most unique in the world. I hate looking at Lebanon (my pops country) and seeing how every religious sect lay's claim to the country or to the neighborhood..... the main reason why it cant ever get on its feet is becuase there is always moronic disputes about who represents lebanon (instead of one lebanese, its christian east beirut, or muslim west beirut, or the shia south, or the sunni establisment) .... just a microcosm of how sectarian labeling is destructive to a country.

We are americans. We are a democracy. My jewish or spanish friends are not "visitors" to this country, they are american citizens. Thats all that matters.

[ShaE]

I was going to post the Newsweek article last week. Totally forgot.

.
me too:wallbang

[ShaE]

The End of Christian America
The percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 points in the past two decades. How that statistic explains who we are now—and what, as a nation, we are about to become.

Jon Meacham
NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Apr 13, 2009

It was a small detail, a point of comparison buried in the fifth paragraph on the 17th page of a 24-page summary of the 2009 American Religious Identification Survey. But as R. Albert Mohler Jr.—president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, one of the largest on earth—read over the document after its release in March, he was struck by a single sentence. For a believer like Mohler—a starched, unflinchingly conservative Christian, steeped in the theology of his particular province of the faith, devoted to producing ministers who will preach the inerrancy of the Bible and the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the only means to eternal life—the central news of the survey was troubling enough: the number of Americans who claim no religious affiliation has nearly doubled since 1990, rising from 8 to 15 percent. Then came the point he could not get out of his mind: while the unaffiliated have historically been concentrated in the Pacific Northwest, the report said, "this pattern has now changed, and the Northeast emerged in 2008 as the new stronghold of the religiously unidentified." As Mohler saw it, the historic foundation of America's religious culture was cracking.[/size]"That really hit me hard," he told me last week. "The Northwest was never as religious, never as congregationalized, as the Northeast, which was the foundation, the home base, of American religion. To lose New England struck me as momentous." Turning the report over in his mind, Mohler posted a despairing online column on the eve of Holy Week lamenting the decline—and, by implication, the imminent fall—of an America shaped and suffused by Christianity. "A remarkable culture-shift has taken place around us," Mohler wrote. "The most basic contours of American culture have been radically altered. The so-called Judeo-Christian consensus of the last millennium has given way to a post-modern, post-Christian, post-Western cultural crisis which threatens the very heart of our culture." When Mohler and I spoke in the days after he wrote this, he had grown even gloomier. "Clearly, there is a new narrative, a post-Christian narrative, that is animating large portions of this society," he said from his office on campus in Louisville, Ky.



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There it was, an old term with new urgency: post-Christian. This is not to say that the Christian God is dead, but that he is less of a force in American politics and culture than at any other time in recent memory. To the surprise of liberals who fear the advent of an evangelical theocracy and to the dismay of religious conservatives who long to see their faith more fully expressed in public life, Christians are now making up a declining percentage of the American population.
According to the American Religious Identification Survey that got Mohler's attention, the percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 percentage points since 1990, from 86 to 76 percent. The Jewish population is 1.2 percent; the Muslim, 0.6 percent. A separate Pew Forum poll echoed the ARIS finding, reporting that the percentage of people who say they are unaffiliated with any particular faith has doubled in recent years, to 16 percent; in terms of voting, this group grew from 5 percent in 1988 to 12 percent in 2008—roughly the same percentage of the electorate as African-Americans. (Seventy-five percent of unaffiliated voters chose Barack Obama, a Christian.) Meanwhile, the number of people willing to describe themselves as atheist or agnostic has increased about fourfold from 1990 to 2009, from 1 million to about 3.6 million. (That is about double the number of, say, Episcopalians in the United States.)
While we remain a nation decisively shaped by religious faith, our politics and our culture are, in the main, less influenced by movements and arguments of an explicitly Christian character than they were even five years ago. I think this is a good thing—good for our political culture, which, as the American Founders saw, is complex and charged enough without attempting to compel or coerce religious belief or observance. It is good for Christianity, too, in that many Christians are rediscovering the virtues of a separation of church and state that protects what Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island as a haven for religious dissenters, called "the garden of the church" from "the wilderness of the world." As crucial as religion has been and is to the life of the nation, America's unifying force has never been a specific faith, but a commitment to freedom—not least freedom of conscience. At our best, we single religion out for neither particular help nor particular harm; we have historically treated faith-based arguments as one element among many in the republican sphere of debate and decision. The decline and fall of the modern religious right's notion of a Christian America creates a calmer political environment and, for many believers, may help open the way for a more theologically serious religious life.
Let's be clear: while the percentage of Christians may be shrinking, rumors of the death of Christianity are greatly exaggerated. Being less Christian does not necessarily mean that America is post-Christian. A third of Americans say they are born again; this figure, along with the decline of politically moderate-to liberal mainline Protestants, led the ARIS authors to note that "these trends … suggest a movement towards more conservative beliefs and particularly to a more 'evangelical' outlook among Christians." With rising numbers of Hispanic immigrants bolstering the Roman Catholic Church in America, and given the popularity of Pentecostalism, a rapidly growing Christian milieu in the United States and globally, there is no doubt that the nation remains vibrantly religious—far more so, for instance, than Europe.
Still, in the new NEWSWEEK Poll (http://www.newsweek.com/id/192915), fewer people now think of the United States as a "Christian nation" than did so when George W. Bush was president (62 percent in 2009 versus 69 percent in 2008). Two thirds of the public (68 percent) now say religion is "losing influence" in American society, while just 19 percent say religion's influence is on the rise. The proportion of Americans who think religion "can answer all or most of today's problems" is now at a historic low of 48 percent. During the Bush 43 and Clinton years, that figure never dropped below 58 percent.
Many conservative Christians believe they have lost the battles over issues such as abortion, school prayer and even same-sex marriage, and that the country has now entered a post-Christian phase. Christopher Hitchens —a friend and possibly the most charming provocateur you will ever meet—wrote a hugely popular atheist tract a few years ago, "God Is Not Great." As an observant (if deeply flawed) Episcopalian, I disagree with many of Hitchens's arguments—I do not think it is productive to dismiss religious belief as superstitious and wrong—but he is a man of rigorous intellectual honesty who, on a recent journey to Texas, reported hearing evangelical mutterings about the advent of a "post-Christian" America.
To be post-Christian has meant different things at different times. In 1886, The Atlantic Monthly described George Eliot as "post-Christian," using the term as a synonym for atheist or agnostic. The broader—and, for our purposes, most relevant—definition is that "post-Christian" characterizes a period of time that follows the decline of the importance of Christianity in a region or society. This use of the phrase first appeared in the 1929 book "America Set Free" by the German philosopher Hermann Keyserling.
The term was popularized during what scholars call the "death of God" movement of the mid-1960s—a movement that is, in its way, still in motion. Drawing from Nietzsche's 19th-century declaration that "God is dead," a group of Protestant theologians held that, essentially, Christianity would have to survive without an orthodox understanding of God. Tom Altizer, a religion professor at Emory University, was a key member of the Godless Christianity movement, and he traces its intellectual roots first to Kierkegaard and then to Nietzsche. For Altizer, a post-Christian era is one in which "both Christianity and religion itself are unshackled from their previous historical grounds." In 1992 the critic Harold Bloom published a book titled "The American Religion: The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation." In it he cites William James's definition of religion in "The Varieties of Religious Experience": "Religion … shall mean for us the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they consider the divine."
Which is precisely what most troubles Mohler. "The post-Christian narrative is radically different; it offers spirituality, however defined, without binding authority," he told me. "It is based on an understanding of history that presumes a less tolerant past and a more tolerant future, with the present as an important transitional step." The present, in this sense, is less about the death of God and more about the birth of many gods. The rising numbers of religiously unaffiliated Americans are people more apt to call themselves "spiritual" rather than "religious." (In the new NEWSWEEK Poll (http://www.newsweek.com/id/192915), 30 percent describe themselves this way, up from 24 percent in 2005.)
Roughly put, the Christian narrative is the story of humankind as chronicled in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament—the drama of creation, fall and redemption. The orthodox tend to try to live their lives in accordance with the general behavioral principles of the Bible (or at least the principles they find there of which they approve) and anticipate the ultimate judgment of God—a judgment that could well determine whether they spend eternity in heaven or in hell.
What, then, does it mean to talk of "Christian America"? Evangelical Christians have long believed that the United States should be a nation whose political life is based upon and governed by their interpretation of biblical and theological principles. If the church believes drinking to be a sin, for instance, then the laws of the state should ban the consumption of alcohol. If the church believes the theory of evolution conflicts with a literal reading of the Book of Genesis, then the public schools should tailor their lessons accordingly. If the church believes abortion should be outlawed, then the legislatures and courts of the land should follow suit. The intensity of feeling about how Christian the nation should be has ebbed and flowed since Jamestown; there is, as the Bible says, no thing new under the sun. For more than 40 years, the debate that began with the Supreme Court's decision to end mandatory school prayer in 1962 (and accelerated with the Roe v. Wade ruling 11 years later) may not have been novel, but it has been ferocious. Fearing the coming of a Europe-like secular state, the right longed to engineer a return to what it believed was a Christian America of yore.
But that project has failed, at least for now. In Texas, authorities have decided to side with science, not theology, in a dispute over the teaching of evolution. The terrible economic times have not led to an increase in church attendance. In Iowa last Friday, the state Supreme Court ruled against a ban on same-sex marriage, a defeat for religious conservatives. Such evidence is what has believers fretting about the possibility of an age dominated by a newly muscular secularism. "The moral teachings of Christianity have exerted an incalculable influence on Western civilization," Mohler says. "As those moral teachings fade into cultural memory, a secularized morality takes their place. Once Christianity is abandoned by a significant portion of the population, the moral landscape necessarily changes. For the better part of the 20th century, the nations of Western Europe led the way in the abandonment of Christian commitments. Christian moral reflexes and moral principles gave way to the loosening grip of a Christian memory. Now even that Christian memory is absent from the lives of millions."
Religious doubt and diversity have, however, always been quintessentially American. Alexis de Tocqueville said that "the religious atmosphere of the country was the first thing that struck me on arrival in the United States," but he also discovered a "great depth of doubt and indifference" to faith. Jefferson had earlier captured the essence of the American spirit about religion when he observed that his statute for religious freedom in Virginia was "meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindoo and infidel of every denomination"—and those of no faith whatever. The American culture of religious liberty helped create a busy free market of faith: by disestablishing churches, the nation made religion more popular, not less.
America, then, is not a post-religious society—and cannot be as long as there are people in it, for faith is an intrinsic human impulse. The belief in an order or a reality beyond time and space is ancient and enduring. "All men," said Homer, "need the gods." The essential political and cultural question is to what extent those gods—or, more accurately, a particular generation's understanding of those gods—should determine the nature of life in a given time and place.
If we apply an Augustinian test of nationhood to ourselves, we find that liberty, not religion, is what holds us together. In "The City of God," Augustine —converted sinner and bishop of Hippo—said that a nation should be defined as "a multitude of rational beings in common agreement as to the objects of their love." What we value most highly—what we collectively love most—is thus the central test of the social contract.
Judging from the broad shape of American life in the first decade of the 21st century, we value individual freedom and free (or largely free) enterprise, and tend to lean toward libertarianism on issues of personal morality. The foundational documents are the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, not the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament (though there are undeniable connections between them). This way of life is far different from what many overtly conservative Christians would like. But that is the power of the republican system engineered by James Madison at the end of the 18th century: that America would survive in direct relation to its ability to check extremism and preserve maximum personal liberty. Religious believers should welcome this; freedom for one sect means freedom for all sects. As John F. Kennedy said in his address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in 1960: "For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew—or a Quaker—or a Unitarian—or a Baptist … Today I may be the victim—but tomorrow it may be you—until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped."
Religion has been a factor in American life and politics from the beginning. Anglican observance was compulsory at Jamestown, and the Puritans of New England were explicitly hoping to found a New Jerusalem. But coerced belief is no belief at all; it is tyranny. "I commend that man, whether Jew, or Turk, or Papist, or whoever, that steers no otherwise than his conscience dares," said Roger Williams.
By the time of the American founding, men like Jefferson and Madison saw the virtue in guaranteeing liberty of conscience, and one of the young republic's signal achievements was to create a context in which religion and politics mixed but church and state did not. The Founders' insight was that one might as well try to build a wall between economics and politics as between religion and politics, since both are about what people feel and how they see the world. Let the religious take their stand in the arena of politics and ideas on their own, and fight for their views on equal footing with all other interests. American public life is neither wholly secular nor wholly religious but an ever-fluid mix of the two. History suggests that trouble tends to come when one of these forces grows too powerful in proportion to the other.
Political victories are therefore intrinsically transitory. In the middle of the 19th century, the evangelist Charles Grandison Finney argued that "the great business of the church is to reform the world—to put away every kind of sin"; Christians, he said, are "bound to exert their influence to secure a legislation that is in accordance with the law of God."
Worldly success tends to mark the beginning of the end for the overtly religious in politics. Prohibition was initially seen as a great moral victory, but its failure and ultimate repeal show that a movement should always be careful what it wishes for: in America, the will of the broad whole tends to win out over even the most devoted of narrower interests.
As the 20th century wore on, Christians found themselves in the relatively uncontroversial position of opposing "godless communism," and the fervor of the Prohibition and Scopes-trial era seemed to fade a bit. Issues of personal morality, not international politics, would lay the foundations for the campaign for Christian America that we know as the rise of the religious right. The phenomenon of divorce in the 1960s and the Roe decision in 1973 were critical, and Jimmy Carter's born-again faith brought evangelical Christianity to the mainstream in 1976.
Growing up in Atlanta in the '60s and '70s, Joe Scarborough, the commentator and former Republican congressman, felt the fears of his evangelical parents and their friends—fears that helped build support for the politically conservative Christian America movement. "The great anxiety in Middle America was that we were under siege—my parents would see kids walking down the street who were Boy Scouts three years earlier suddenly looking like hippies, and they were scared," Scarborough says. "Culturally, it was October 2001 for a decade. For a decade. And once our parents realized we weren't going to disappear into dope and radicalism, the pressure came off. That's the world we're in now—parents of boomers who would not drink a glass of wine 30 years ago are now kicking back with vodka. In a way, they've been liberated."
And they have learned that politics does not hold all the answers—a lesson that, along with a certain relief from the anxieties of the cultural upheavals of the '60s and '70s, has tended to curb religiously inspired political zeal. "The worst fault of evangelicals in terms of politics over the last 30 years has been an incredible naiveté about politics and politicians and parties," says Mohler. "They invested far too much hope in a political solution to what are transpolitical issues and problems. If we were in a situation that were more European, where the parties differed mostly on traditional political issues rather than moral ones, or if there were more parties, then we would probably have a very different picture. But when abortion and a moral understanding of the human good became associated with one party, Christians had few options politically."
When that party failed to deliver—and it did fail—some in the movement responded by retreating into radicalism, convinced of the wickedness and venality of the political universe that dealt them defeat after defeat. (The same thing happened to many liberals after 1968: infuriated by the conservative mood of the country, the left reacted angrily and moved ever leftward.)
The columnist Cal Thomas was an early figure in the Moral Majority who came to see the Christian American movement as fatally flawed in theological terms. "No country can be truly 'Christian'," Thomas says. "Only people can. God is above all nations, and, in fact, Isaiah says that 'All nations are to him a drop in the bucket and less than nothing'." Thinking back across the decades, Thomas recalls the hope—and the failure. "We were going through organizing like-minded people to 'return' America to a time of greater morality. Of course, this was to be done through politicians who had a difficult time imposing morality on themselves!"
Experience shows that religious authorities can themselves be corrupted by proximity to political power. A quarter century ago, three scholars who are also evangelical Christians—Mark A. Noll, Nathan O. Hatch and George M. Marsden—published an important but too-little-known book, "The Search for Christian America." In it they argued that Christianity's claims transcend any political order. Christians, they wrote, "should not have illusions about the nature of human governments. Ultimately they belong to what Augustine calls 'the city of the world,' in which self-interest rules … all governments can be brutal killers."
Their view tracks with that of the Psalmist, who said, "Put not thy trust in princes," and there is much New Testament evidence to support a vision of faith and politics in which the church is truest to its core mission when it is the farthest from the entanglements of power. The Jesus of the Gospels resolutely refuses to use the means of this world—either the clash of arms or the passions of politics—to further his ends. After the miracle of the loaves and fishes, the dazzled throng thought they had found their earthly messiah. "When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone." When one of his followers slices off the ear of one of the arresting party in Gethsemane, Jesus says, "Put up thy sword." Later, before Pilate, he says, "My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight." The preponderance of lessons from the Gospels and from the rest of the New Testament suggests that earthly power is transitory and corrupting, and that the followers of Jesus should be more attentive to matters spiritual than political.
As always with the Bible, however, there are passages that complicate the picture. The author of Hebrews says believers are "strangers and exiles on the earth" and that "For here we have no lasting city, but seek the city which is to come." In Romans the apostle Paul advises: "Do not be conformed to this world." The Second Vatican Council cited these words of Pius XII: the Catholic Church's "divine Founder, Jesus Christ, has not given it any mandate or fixed any end of the cultural order. The goal which Christ assigns to it is strictly religious … The Church can never lose sight of the strictly religious, supernatural goal."
As an archbishop of Canterbury once said, though, it is a mistake to think that God is chiefly or even largely concerned with religion. "I hate the sound of your solemn assemblies," the Lord says in Amos. Religion is not only about worshipping your God but about doing godly things, and a central message of the Gospels is the duty of the Christian to transform, as best one can, reality through works of love. "Being in the world and not of it remains our charge," says Mohler. "The church is an eternal presence in a fallen, temporal world—but we are to have influence. The Sermon on the Mount is about what we are to do—but it does not come with a political handbook."
How to balance concern for the garden of the church with the moral imperatives to make gentle the life of the world is one of the most perplexing questions facing the church. "We have important obligations to do whatever we can, including through the use of political means, to help our neighbors—promoting just laws, good order, peace, education and opportunity," wrote Noll, Hatch and Marsden. "Nonetheless we should recognize that as we work for the relatively better in 'the city of the world,' our successes will be just that—relative. In the last analysis the church declares that the solutions offered by the nations of the world are always transitory solutions, themselves in need of reform."

Back in Louisville, preparing for Easter, Al Mohler keeps vigil over the culture. Last week he posted a column titled "Does Your Pastor Believe in God?," one on abortion and assisted suicide and another on the coming wave of pastors. "Jesus Christ promised that the very gates of Hell would not prevail against his church," Mohler wrote. "This new generation of young pastors intends to push back against hell in bold and visionary ministry. Expect to see the sparks fly." On the telephone with me, he added: "What we are seeing now is the evidence of a pattern that began a very long time ago of intellectual and cultural and political changes in thought and mind. The conditions have changed. Hard to pinpoint where, but whatever came after the Enlightenment was going to be very different than what came before." And what comes next here, with the ranks of professing Christians in decline, is going to be different, too.
Read more about NEWSWEEK's poll on religion in America here (http://www.newsweek.com/id/192915).
<!-- Omniture --><SCRIPT language=javascript type=text/javascript> <!-- var nw_page_name = "nw - article - 192583 - The End of Christian America"; var nw_section = "culture"; var nw_subsection = "culture - religion"; var nw_content_type = "article"; var nw_source = "newsweek mag"; var nw_search_result_count = "0"; var nw_content_id = "192583"; var nw_headline = "The End of Christian America"; var nw_author = "jon meacham"; var nw_page_num = "print format"; var nw_application = "gutenberg"; var nw_hierarchy = "culture|religion|articles"; --> </SCRIPT>With Eliza Gray

URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/192583

[jameznyhc]

just need a great spokesman for the lord again in national poltics .. W was sincere but he shit communicator & made the mistake of "federal funded religous right programs" ..i oppose that as i would welfare abuse or other wasteful spending .. looks like barry dicthin his christianity lately.. at least Clinton faked it outside church waving his bible every sunday after gettin head from Monica lol .. here a good speech on secularism , communism and god




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[metfan85]

I was going to post the Newsweek article last week. Totally forgot.

I am a firm believer that this country is special because IT ISNT a "christian country" or a "white country" or an "english country" but a country of laws that do not change with the changing of demographics..... in 150 years from now if hispanics become 53% of this country will it become a hispanic country? no, nothing changes.......

its the laws that matter, not the religions, ethnicitys, colors, or whatever. I love the fact that this country is the most unique in the world. I hate looking at Lebanon (my pops country) and seeing how every religious sect lay's claim to the country or to the neighborhood..... the main reason why it cant ever get on its feet is becuase there is always moronic disputes about who represents lebanon (instead of one lebanese, its christian east beirut, or muslim west beirut, or the shia south, or the sunni establisment) .... just a microcosm of how sectarian labeling is destructive to a country.

We are americans. We are a democracy. My jewish or spanish friends are not "visitors" to this country, they are american citizens. Thats all that matters.

You think the laws make a nation? What about when the laws are based on Christian natural law?

Of course this country is an Anglo country, I'm the son of Yugoslavian immigrants, but I know this is an English nation. If you take 1500 Englishmen and 1500 Somalis and put them in this country, who will assimilate immediately as opposed to generations if ever? (Save face and don't answer)

So what's wrong with lebanon, why should the people give up who they are to a powerful secular central government. Good heavens, this is the same thinking as Goering and Hitler. It's scary how similar liberalism, and statism is to the centralized secular views of the National Socialist Workers Party.

"I have no conscience. My conscience is called Adolf Hitler." [1] (http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/ratzinger3.html#_ftn2)

"I liberate man from the constraint of a spirit become an end in itself; from the filthy and degrading torments inflicted on himself by a chimera called conscience and morality, and from the claims of a freedom and personal autonomy that only very few can ever be up to." [2] (http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/ratzinger3.html#_ftn1)

[John Kennedy]

Built by Christians who knew only Christianity, and a nation of Christians are two very different things.

The constitution doesn't say anything about whether or not Christianity is right, or belongs anywhere in sight, or which religion was here first. I think the Christian forefathers made it pretty clear that the U.S. should never be a "Christian nation", as much as some Christians today would love for it to be for their own entitlement motives. How on earth would a christian-only nation have ever gotten to where we are today?

[metfan85]

Built by Christians who knew only Christianity, and a nation of Christians are two very different things.

The constitution doesn't say anything about whether or not Christianity is right, or belongs anywhere in sight, or which religion was here first. I think the Christian forefathers made it pretty clear that the U.S. should never be a "Christian nation", as much as some Christians today would love for it to be for their own entitlement motives. How on earth would a christian-only nation have ever gotten to where we are today?

Actually the founders thought the federal government should not make any law regarding religion. That was purely a states right issue, as the different states had different sects of Christianity. The 1st amendment clearly states "Congress shall make no laws..." Congress only has power over Congress everything is relegated to the States and most states were founded as Christian states with an official religion.

The Supreme Court over stepping it's bounds is definitely the greatest threat to America's Christian heritage.

Pieces of paper, constitutions, never stops authority from usurping power not rightfully his. That's why Patrick Henry said this in a speech arguing against the ratification of the Constitution:


Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who comes near that precious jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. When you give up that force, you are ruined.

[TheHipHopBillGates]

just need a great spokesman for the lord again in national poltics .. W was sincere but he shit communicator & made the mistake of "federal funded religous right programs" ..i oppose that as i would welfare abuse or other wasteful spending .. looks like barry dicthin his christianity lately.. at least Clinton faked it outside church waving his bible every sunday after gettin head from Monica lol .. here a good speech on secularism , communism and god




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W didn't find god until he was going to run for public office, he's about as religious as I am.


You think the laws make a nation? What about when the laws are based on Christian natural law?

Of course this country is an Anglo country, I'm the son of Yugoslavian immigrants, but I know this is an English nation. If you take 1500 Englishmen and 1500 Somalis and put them in this country, who will assimilate immediately as opposed to generations if ever? (Save face and don't answer)

So what's wrong with lebanon, why should the people give up who they are to a powerful secular central government. Good heavens, this is the same thinking as Goering and Hitler. It's scary how similar liberalism, and statism is to the centralized secular views of the National Socialist Workers Party.

"I have no conscience. My conscience is called Adolf Hitler." [1] (http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/ratzinger3.html#_ftn2)

"I liberate man from the constraint of a spirit become an end in itself; from the filthy and degrading torments inflicted on himself by a chimera called conscience and morality, and from the claims of a freedom and personal autonomy that only very few can ever be up to." [2] (http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/ratzinger3.html#_ftn1)

What about a seperation between chruch and state? I don't get the direction that you guys are trying to steer this topic......are you implying that we should revert to an institution that covers horrific abuse of disciples? Religion/country are an every growing/expanding thing just as Christianity took from paganism and has over spurt into newer versions like the Mormons........let's not rally a witch hunt for aethists, everybody has their own beliefs and for some its science not the regional manipulation of gospels.

[Defekted]

You think the laws make a nation? What about when the laws are based on Christian natural law?

Of course this country is an Anglo country, I'm the son of Yugoslavian immigrants, but I know this is an English nation. If you take 1500 Englishmen and 1500 Somalis and put them in this country, who will assimilate immediately as opposed to generations if ever? (Save face and don't answer)

So what's wrong with lebanon, why should the people give up who they are to a powerful secular central government. Good heavens, this is the same thinking as Goering and Hitler. It's scary how similar liberalism, and statism is to the centralized secular views of the National Socialist Workers Party.

"I have no conscience. My conscience is called Adolf Hitler." [1] (http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/ratzinger3.html#_ftn2)

"I liberate man from the constraint of a spirit become an end in itself; from the filthy and degrading torments inflicted on himself by a chimera called conscience and morality, and from the claims of a freedom and personal autonomy that only very few can ever be up to." [2] (http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/ratzinger3.html#_ftn1)

you have to be kidding me man......

I am on one side saying we are a country of laws that make a somali muslim immigrant who just got his citizenship JUST AS american as a 10th generation Smith from VA. And that is whats beautiful about this country, ITS INCLUSIVE.

and you are on one side saying we are a christian nation, an anglo nation and we have to ensure we maintain that grain of authenticity, maintain the "pureness" of our country.

Read both of those stances and then fucking tell me who sounds like hitler. Next joke.

[jameznyhc]

W didn't find god until he was going to run for public office, he's about as religious as I am.



What about a seperation between chruch and state? I don't get the direction that you guys are trying to steer this topic......are you implying that we should revert to an institution that covers horrific abuse of disciples? Religion/country are an every growing/expanding thing just as Christianity took from paganism and has over spurt into newer versions like the Mormons........let's not rally a witch hunt for aethists, everybody has their own beliefs and for some its science not the regional manipulation of gospels.

nah i think bush like alot of ex addicts became spiritual in his recovery process .. you just cant fake that shit..whose rallying a witch hunt for atheists? ..i dont even like religion pushed when it comes too federal programs and i know alex doesnt.. that doesnt change the fact that america is a judeo-christian country.. the people are what make the country

[jameznyhc]

you have to be kidding me man......

I am on one side saying we are a country of laws that make a somali muslim immigrant who just got his citizenship JUST AS american as a 10th generation Smith from VA. And that is whats beautiful about this country, ITS INCLUSIVE.

and you are on one side saying we are a christian nation, an anglo nation and we have to ensure we maintain that grain of authenticity, maintain the "pureness" of our country.

Read both of those stances and then fucking tell me who sounds like hitler. Next joke.

problem is we see more and more from the east that refuse to assimilate .. we dont wanna see what happens in britain such as the sharia debate ever brought here..multi culturalism is a big problem of communities livin witin communities and rejecting americas culture and values

[Benny B]

you have to be kidding me man......

I am on one side saying we are a country of laws that make a somali muslim immigrant who just got his citizenship JUST AS american as a 10th generation Smith from VA. And that is whats beautiful about this country, ITS INCLUSIVE.

and you are on one side saying we are a christian nation, an anglo nation and we have to ensure we maintain that grain of authenticity, maintain the "pureness" of our country.

Read both of those stances and then fucking tell me who sounds like hitler. Next joke.

being just as AMERICAN as someone who has been here for years upon years does not mean shit. If you go to another country you do not go there and try to change who they are and what they have been just because you are now there. People who come into this country should be assimilating into this country.. not trying to force upon us what they want this country to be. This country is no longer a melting pot of immigration.. This is a country that has an identity. The people here shouldnt have to adapt to the people coming in.. Its the other way around.. they should be adapting the the people that have been here that have given this country the identity is has

[ShaE]

problem is we see more and more from the east that refuse to assimilate .. we dont wanna see what happens in britain such as the sharia debate ever brought here..multi culturalism is a big problem of communities livin witin communities and rejecting americas culture and values
define american culture and values.

[Defekted]

being just as AMERICAN as someone who has been here for years upon years does not mean shit. If you go to another country you do not go there and try to change who they are and what they have been just because you are now there. People who come into this country should be assimilating into this country.. not trying to force upon us what they want this country to be. This country is no longer a melting pot of immigration.. This is a country that has an identity. The people here shouldnt have to adapt to the people coming in.. Its the other way around.. they should be adapting the the people that have been here that have given this country the identity is has

Im sorry, last I checked I NEVER was forced to pray at a jewish temple, speak spanish, or dress in a scottish kilt ...... so i dont know where you are getting this from.......

and i might also add, its VERY convenient to say "now is the time when the melting pot stops" because you are your family are living here.... thank god a person with your mindset wasnt in control say in the 70's cause you wouldnt have metfan or myself contributing to this great forum. Who are you to say, what america is or isnt..... What if in the 1800's they "felt" that america has done enough changing and kept it rigid to that existing population, who the fuck would still be here from our NCC peeps? probably no one..... and who are we to say the future metfan-to-be whose parents from yugoslavia wants to come here, cant.....

at the end of the day.... this country is unlike any other and thats a good thing. I dont think its a christian white country because that implies anyone that isnt christian or isnt white or isnt both, isnt quite as american as one that is..... and that my friend is gar-baj.

[jameznyhc]

Im sorry, last I checked I NEVER was forced to pray at a jewish temple, speak spanish, or dress in a scottish kilt ...... so i dont know where you are getting this from.......

and i might also add, its VERY convenient to say "now is the time when the melting pot stops" because you are your family are living here.... thank god a person with your mindset wasnt in control say in the 70's cause you wouldnt have metfan or myself contributing to this great forum. Who are you to say, what america is or isnt..... What if in the 1800's they "felt" that america has done enough changing and kept it rigid to that existing population, who the fuck would still be here from our NCC peeps? probably no one..... and who are we to say the future metfan-to-be whose parents from yugoslavia wants to come here, cant.....

at the end of the day.... this country is unlike any other and thats a good thing. I dont think its a christian white country because that implies anyone that isnt christian or isnt white or isnt both, isnt quite as american as one that is..... and that my friend is gar-baj.

no we want a melting pot.. the problem is the newer immigrants want nothing to do with our culture .. imagine if italian kids or german kids were taught in their native tongue like hispanics here how long it would take them to assimilate ...

[Benny B]

no we want a melting pot.. the problem is the newer immigrants want nothing to do with our culture .. imagine if italian kids or german kids were taught in their native tongue like hispanics here how long it would take them to assimilate ...

exactly a melting pot everything melts together and blends in and becomes one. instead.. its separate communities within communities towns that refuse to adapt to the people that were there and push out what was there because they refuse to adapt. the segregate themselves. people not wanting to learn the language people who wanna push their way of life and do away with what has been here

[.laurenx.]

no we want a melting pot.. the problem is the newer immigrants want nothing to do with our culture .. imagine if italian kids or german kids were taught in their native tongue like hispanics here how long it would take them to assimilate ...

i kinda agree.. when my grandparents came here from sicily and ireland, they came and never looked back. never once did they refer to italy or ireland as "home". this was their home. i dont know, i just feel like immigrants nowadays want to come here, work and leave. never acknowledging this as their home.
i dont know how to explain it. im not saying u have to check you're heritage at the door and forget where u came from, butr it just bothers me :shrugger

[jameznyhc]

i kinda agree.. when my grandparents came here from sicily and ireland, they came and never looked back. never once did they refer to italy or ireland as "home". this was their home. i dont know, i just feel like immigrants nowadays want to come here, work and leave. never acknowledging this as their home.
i dont know how to explain it. im not saying u have to check you're heritage at the door and forget where u came from, butr it just bothers me :shrugger

right people should be proud of their heritage .. not transfer it to policy in this country...thats why england in so much trouble right now..sharia and democracy do not work ..alot of newer immigerants defend their homeland like they should defend america..its ridiculous

[ShaE]

I'm still waiting for jamez to tell me exactly what american culture is, and what american values are.

[Defekted]

exactly a melting pot everything melts together and blends in and becomes one. instead.. its separate communities within communities towns that refuse to adapt to the people that were there and push out what was there because they refuse to adapt. the segregate themselves. people not wanting to learn the language people who wanna push their way of life and do away with what has been here

That is also nonesense.

Yes the parents that come here may find it difficult to recite a classic Biggie verse, or let go of their beloved soap opera from their homeland, and yes they may stick to friends that came with them from the homeland, and spend their poker nights smoking cigs and reminising on their old town stories.....

but if you think thats the same deal with their children who are going to school here, making friends here, and working here, you are in dire need to actually go to these communities..... they are as assimilated as the next kid.

Both my parents were immigrants that came to the States as students. I am tri-lingual but I can whoop anyone's ass in English class (4.0 gpa far better than my major of finance i might add). My friends span the globe with different backgrounds but we all know which country we pledge allegiance to. Its a beautiful thing to know several languages, to travel the world, to be well rounded, and openminded...... doesnt make anyone less american.

Strength through diversity is what makes this country rich. Far richer than anywhere else. If this were just to be a bigger version of the U.K., there wouldnt be much to admire.

[ShaE]

That is also nonesense.

Yes the parents that come here may find it difficult to recite a classic Biggie verse, or let go of their beloved soap opera from their homeland, and yes they may stick to friends that came with them from the homeland, and spend their poker nights smoking cigs and reminising on their old town stories.....

but if you think thats the same deal with their children who are going to school here, making friends here, and working here, you are in dire need to actually go to these communities..... they are as assimilated as the next kid.

Both my parents were immigrants that came to the States as students. I am tri-lingual but I can whoop anyone's ass in English class (4.0 gpa far better than my major of finance i might add). My friends span the globe with different backgrounds but we all know which country we pledge allegiance to. Its a beautiful thing to know several languages, to travel the world, to be well rounded, and openminded...... doesnt make anyone less american.

Strength through diversity is what makes this country rich. Far richer than anywhere else. If this were just to be a bigger version of the U.K., there wouldnt be much to admire.
more often than not you reduce my comments to, "what he said" lol

i have nothing to add.

[Defekted]

more often than not you reduce my comments to, "what he said" lol

i have nothing to add.

I find myself having to post faster than you so i can get a say..... lol. Great minds think alike

[jameznyhc]

That is also nonesense.

Yes the parents that come here may find it difficult to recite a classic Biggie verse, or let go of their beloved soap opera from their homeland, and yes they may stick to friends that came with them from the homeland, and spend their poker nights smoking cigs and reminising on their old town stories.....

but if you think thats the same deal with their children who are going to school here, making friends here, and working here, you are in dire need to actually go to these communities..... they are as assimilated as the next kid.

Both my parents were immigrants that came to the States as students. I am tri-lingual but I can whoop anyone's ass in English class (4.0 gpa far better than my major of finance i might add). My friends span the globe with different backgrounds but we all know which country we pledge allegiance to. Its a beautiful thing to know several languages, to travel the world, to be well rounded, and openminded...... doesnt make anyone less american.

Strength through diversity is what makes this country rich. Far richer than anywhere else. If this were just to be a bigger version of the U.K., there wouldnt be much to admire.

thats funny everyone in cair speaks perfect english ..your a big supporter of them ..why are they trying to force savage off the air?

[TheHipHopBillGates]

That is also nonesense.

Yes the parents that come here may find it difficult to recite a classic Biggie verse, or let go of their beloved soap opera from their homeland, and yes they may stick to friends that came with them from the homeland, and spend their poker nights smoking cigs and reminising on their old town stories.....

but if you think thats the same deal with their children who are going to school here, making friends here, and working here, you are in dire need to actually go to these communities..... they are as assimilated as the next kid.

Both my parents were immigrants that came to the States as students. I am tri-lingual but I can whoop anyone's ass in English class (4.0 gpa far better than my major of finance i might add). My friends span the globe with different backgrounds but we all know which country we pledge allegiance to. Its a beautiful thing to know several languages, to travel the world, to be well rounded, and openminded...... doesnt make anyone less american.

Strength through diversity is what makes this country rich. Far richer than anywhere else. If this were just to be a bigger version of the U.K., there wouldnt be much to admire.

exactly, sometimes it's just a generational gap thing. I think as far as assimilating people are forgetting that the Irish & Italian's went thru the same thing previously, you can't expect instant assimalation it's usually doesn't begin to occur till the generations are born here.

[jameznyhc]

exactly, sometimes it's just a generational gap thing. I think as far as assimilating people are forgetting that the Irish & Italian's went thru the same thing previously, you can't expect instant assimalation it's usually doesn't begin to occur till the generations are born here.

but the irish , italians, jews, and germans did live together in the slums ..all spoke english , read the same books, joined the same partys, attended same churches and synogogues etc .. you didnt have groups like cair etc.. actaully the older immigrants were not favored like today but were discrimnated against and still loved this country more than any other even when we had to change our last names like my family did .. you think irish ppl and germans in 1800s got welfare and medical ..lmao

[eL FryEdo]

but the irish , italians, jews, and germans did live together in the slums ..all spoke english , read the same books, joined the same partys, attended same churches and synogogues etc .. you didnt have groups like cair etc.. actaully the older immigrants were not favored like today but were discrimnated against and still loved this country more than any other even when we had to change our last names like my family did .. you think irish ppl and germans in 1800s got welfare and medical ..lmao

correct me if im wrong but didnt all thse immigrants have bloody battles regularly fighting over their neighborhoods as well :hmmm

[jameznyhc]

just like to puerto ricans & cubans in the 20th century assimilated fine and embraced american culture ..and melted into the pot ..it was not this crazy "multicultural" thing

[ShaE]

the only "assimilation" i feel is required if you intend to make america your home, is that you learn the language, a semblance of its history, how the gov't works, an actively pursue citizenship by participating in it.

keep all the traditions and customs you like, you do not need to choose between where you came from and the new place you have chosen. respect both.

[Defekted]

but the irish , italians, jews, and germans did live together in the slums ..all spoke english , read the same books, joined the same partys, attended same churches and synogogues etc .. you didnt have groups like cair etc.. actaully the older immigrants were not favored like today but were discrimnated against and still loved this country more than any other even when we had to change our last names like my family did .. you think irish ppl and germans in 1800s got welfare and medical ..lmao

are you kidding me? first off irish people speak english so obviously they spoke english, but if you think germans and italians who first came here (whether it be now or 1800s) IMMEDIATELY stop speaking their native tongue, you can keep living in your dreamland of "good immigrants vs bad immigrant" ...... if your inherent bias (putting it kindly here) against other "new" immigrants is making you blind to the fact that the "old" immigrants went through the same exact assimilation problems than stay in that dreamland and be happy.

What does CAIR have to do with a country of MILLIONS of immigrants from hundreds of backgrounds? your hardon for muslims is lame as ever. American muslims are overwhlemingly stand up citizens who are assimilated just fine. And hispanics (another demographic you seem to target frequently) have contributed alot more to this country than just a recent wave of illegals. They practically built this country in the west/southwest.

At the end of the day, an issue like this really sheds light on two frames of mind. The frame of mind scared of change - the same mindset that was against womans right to vote, black not being slaves, blacks going to the same schools as whites, mexicans immigrating here, muslims practicing their religion freely to whatever is the next "scary thing" ................ and the frame of mind that welcomes progressive libral change. Towards equal rights, democracy, etc..... It is these people that fought for the above historical battles for rights of every citizen regardless of color, religion, or race.

Sorry fellas, but your world's changing...... what this country looks like today is NOT what its going to look like tomorrow.....accept it or get rolled over by it.

[ShaE]

just like to puerto ricans & cubans in the 20th century assimilated fine and embraced american culture ..and melted into the pot ..it was not this crazy "multicultural" thing
"crazy multicultural thing" lol

[eL FryEdo]

learn the language, get a job and pay your fuckin taxes like everyone else ... that is all

[ShaE]

learn the language, get a job and pay your fuckin taxes like everyone else ... that is all
seriously, who cares about anything else. be a responsible citizen, or a responsible person striving for citizenship.

[.laurenx.]

are you kidding me? first off irish people speak english so obviously they spoke english, but if you think germans and italians who first came here (whether it be now or 1800s) IMMEDIATELY stop speaking their native tongue, you can keep living in your dreamland of "good immigrants vs bad immigrant" ...... if your inherent bias (putting it kindly here) against other "new" immigrants is making you blind to the fact that the "old" immigrants went through the same exact assimilation problems than stay in that dreamland and be happy.

.


the irish speak/spoke gaelic :)

[eL FryEdo]

the irish speak/spoke gaelic :)

they speak/spoke english as well though ;)

[.laurenx.]

they speak/spoke english as well though ;)
i never said they didnt. just pointing out that they do have their own language

[Defekted]

i never said they didnt. just pointing out that they do have their own language

my point is that they would have an easier time leaving their culture at the door when coming here becuase they speak english, and was part of the UK until the 1920's. So we arent talking about a huge culture shock.

Germans/Italians on the other hand had JUST as hard a time learning the language, assimilating to the culture, etc etc..... and that is true today and 100 years ago..... ask anyone on this board whose grandma came here from the homeland and let us know which language she speaks more - italian or english..... 9 out of 10 she will be saying "Ti odio stupido ragazza!" if you refuse to eat her homemade meatballs.

[.laurenx.]

my point is that they would have an easier time leaving their culture at the door when coming here becuase they speak english, and was part of the UK until the 1920's. So we arent talking about a huge culture shock.

Germans/Italians on the other hand had JUST as hard a time learning the language, assimilating to the culture, etc etc..... and that is true today and 100 years ago..... ask anyone on this board whose grandma came here from the homeland and let us know which language she speaks more - italian or english..... 9 out of 10 she will be saying "Ti odio stupido ragazza!" if you refuse to eat her homemade meatballs.


i dont need to ask anyone. grandmothers from austria grandfathers from italy and only heard the two of them speak english till the day they died. :shrugger

[eL FryEdo]

i never said they didnt. just pointing out that they do have their own language

i was just saying that because most if not all irish immigrants were fluent in both english and gaelic

[jameznyhc]

my point is that they would have an easier time leaving their culture at the door when coming here becuase they speak english, and was part of the UK until the 1920's. So we arent talking about a huge culture shock.

Germans/Italians on the other hand had JUST as hard a time learning the language, assimilating to the culture, etc etc..... and that is true today and 100 years ago..... ask anyone on this board whose grandma came here from the homeland and let us know which language she speaks more - italian or english..... 9 out of 10 she will be saying "Ti odio stupido ragazza!" if you refuse to eat her homemade meatballs.

but there no denying irish immigrants vs today immigrants .. is not comparable .. lets see a business owner hang a sign saying middle eastern or mexican need not apply .. lmao

[jameznyhc]

i was just saying that because most if not all irish immigrants were fluent in both english and gaelic

and the same thing with puerto ricans ..they assimilated fine and learned english there was no special classes for PR's .. thats why they assimilated so quickly

[eL FryEdo]

and the same thing with puerto ricans ..they assimilated fine and learned english there was no special classes for PR's .. thats why they assimilated so quickly

thats a little different though ... Irish immigrants already spoke english because of Englands occupation of northern ireland ... it does seem that spanish immigrants more readily learned the english language in years past than they do nowadays though

[jameznyhc]

thats a little different though ... Irish immigrants already spoke english because of Englands occupation of northern ireland ... it does seem that spanish immigrants more readily learned the english language in years past than they do nowadays though

re-read i said puerto rican..same with italians, germans, jewish eastern block,all spoke english when they came or they learned real quick

[Defekted]

i dont need to ask anyone. grandmothers from austria grandfathers from italy and only heard the two of them speak english till the day they died. :shrugger

Like I said. 9 out of 10. Most immigrants dont (and then their children do and there children's children's do even more and so on and so forth) Its a generational thing. I would assume you have assimilated far more than you grandmothers even if they spoke english at the house and to each other.

[Defekted]

re-read i said puerto rican..same with italians, germans, jewish eastern block,all spoke english when they came or they learned real quick

They learned just as quick as everyone else.... if you want to make it here you have to. and their kids who go to school here even more so.... you act as if immigrants that come here dont go through the same process everyone has gone through.......

[jameznyhc]

They learned just as quick as everyone else.... if you want to make it here you have to. and their kids who go to school here even more so.... you act as if immigrants that come here dont go through the same process everyone has gone through.......

they definitly have it easier which is a good thing cause of discrmination .. i disagree as going thru the same process multi culturalism is very polarizing ..thats why they got their own papers, soap operas, news channels, commmunities ..

[ShaE]

and the same thing with puerto ricans ..they assimilated fine and learned english there was no special classes for PR's .. thats why they assimilated so quickly
are you serious? do you know how many friends I have whose parents cannot speak english that are pr or cuban yet their children speak both? lol

[Defekted]

are you serious? do you know how many friends I have whose parents cannot speak english that are pr or cuban yet their children speak both? lol

He acts as if he knows the entire immigrant population...... and as if he lived in the homes of "old" immigrants when they started out (in a past life)

Its a lame arguement .... the essence of conservative (just look at the world) is so resistant to change. So anytime they see our country changing in any way (whether it be a new census, a "different" family that moves into the neighborhood, new presidential candidates, a "press 2 if you want this message in spanish" recording, WHATEVER) they will be johnny on the spot with this stale tired arguement...... and guess what EACH TIME THEY EVENTUALLY LOSE. Nothing is static. What was entirely christian anglo 200 years ago, is something entirely different now...... EMBRACE CHANGE or Get run over. Should be a bumper sticker.

[jameznyhc]

are you serious? do you know how many friends I have whose parents cannot speak english that are pr or cuban yet their children speak both? lol

puerto rican ? id say your full of shit .. i dont know any middle aged rican who cant speak english lmao ..

[jameznyhc]

He acts as if he knows the entire immigrant population...... and as if he lived in the homes of "old" immigrants when they started out (in a past life)

Its a lame arguement .... the essence of conservative (just look at the world) is so resistant to change. So anytime they see our country changing in any way (whether it be a new census, a "different" family that moves into the neighborhood, new presidential candidates, a "press 2 if you want this message in spanish" recording, WHATEVER) they will be johnny on the spot with this stale tired arguement...... and guess what EACH TIME THEY EVENTUALLY LOSE. Nothing is static. What was entirely christian anglo 200 years ago, is something entirely different now...... EMBRACE CHANGE or Get run over. Should be a bumper sticker.

i grew up in working class white city neighborhoods so yeah im only speakin from experience son

[Chris]

Some of the colonists certainly came here to practice their own religion. However those locales were all governed by the church, and even barred certain sects of Christianity.

So to say America was created to escape religion, or even religious freedom is false. America was created as a union of 13 states, made of observing Christians, NOT the secular humanists.

false why cause you say its false?

lmao.

[Chris]

i grew up in working class white city neighborhoods so yeah im only speakin from experience son

nigga don't lie you too shook to even leave your home.. what experience? atari? colleco vision? bhahahaha.. baaaaaaa baaaaaa black sheep. ;-)

[jameznyhc]

nigga don't lie you too shook to even leave your home.. what experience? atari? colleco vision? bhahahaha.. baaaaaaa baaaaaa black sheep. ;-)

im not the one who fled the city .. mr juice

[Rover]

puerto rican ? id say your full of shit .. i dont know any middle aged rican who cant speak english lmao ..

try going up to the heights..or down to the LES...leave that little bubble you live in once in a while. at one point i had some respect for your opinions..but now it seems that you base them off absolutely nothing but bullshit articles and assumptions. this is the same shit as when you tell me you know the Cuban people better than me..even tho i've spent time in Cuba...because you "know" how Cuban Americans in Miami feel. i'm absolutely convinced you dont know ONE single Cuban American

[.laurenx.]

puerto rican ? id say your full of shit .. i dont know any middle aged rican who cant speak english lmao ..

from someone who grew up in sunset park brooklyn, trust me theres puerto ricans who cant speak english


aribaaaaaaaaaaa

[ShaE]

from someone who grew up in sunset park brooklyn, trust me theres puerto ricans who cant speak english


aribaaaaaaaaaaa
seriously, i'm not making judgments about all, but i know PLENTY. i'd call my friends' houses and have to speak to their parents in my broken spanish just to get my friend on the phone lol

if they spoke some, it was VERY broken and hard to understand.

[John Kennedy]

Unbelievable thread.. you used to be able to walk through certain parts of this city and country in the 50s and not hear a word of English anywhere. There is more English being spoken today by the asian and African influx than by any of the non-English speaking Euros who are still catching up after being here 100 years. What ignorant shit, unbelievable. Can't believe people still exist on this earth that think it would benefit the USA if we went back to a white-only, pre-labor laws and civil rights country when the country was built only because slaves did the work. Black slaves built washington DC, non-english speaking europeans built out all the bridges and highways, mexicans probably built the houses you all live in, yet the US should be officially labeled a white Christian country LOL.. that would be nice huh? just get entitlement and get handed a country because of your inherited religion and race. A country someone else built LOL

Go ahead and send all the immigrants of the last 100 years who held onto their native language back to their countries, along with the slaves before them back to Africa, and the white christians who are left will be worried about being forced to speak Chinese because they got taken over in 3 days, nevermind them worrying about strangers who don't speak English yet that they saw on a news blog. I see Mississippi and Alabama is carrying the burden well.. every state in this country eats because of NYCs work, the most diverse place on earth. Yet we've got idiots in the south and Alaska talking about secession. I'd love to watch a wasp-only state or country take off in today's world.

Eating hot dogs and not being gay doesn't make you an American, sorry. Working and producing makes you American. That's American culture. Nothing else. Hard work, hard work, and hard work. That's why it's usually the wasps bitching that someone else took their low-paying job. This is the attitude that got wasps into the minority in this country.. entitlement because the forefathers came from the same place as them. Keep bitching about other cultures that should have nothing to do with you.

I've never seen a wasp produce shit except for a legal contract or a stock certificate. Maybe they can seceed into their own state and they can grow contracts in their backyard and feed their kids stock certificates.

[John Kennedy]

puerto rican ? id say your full of shit .. i dont know any middle aged rican who cant speak english lmao ..

Get on a 7 train and stop in woodside. are you out of your mind.. you sure you live in NYC?

[Rover]

he fucking lives in woodside!! thats why im convinced he doesnt leave his apartment.

[James Maxx]

Also remember that not even the whites are the native Americans so they have no say on immigrants. LOL they come here on a couple of ships half of them dead and sick, bring their diseases take over the Native Americans' land with contracts and deeds that the Indians couldn't even read...and now they wanna call America a Christian country? Get the fuck out of here.

[John Kennedy]

he fucking lives in woodside!! thats why im convinced he doesnt leave his apartment.

wow.. jamez you live on an English and white-only dead-end block or something? I don't think I've ever heard a lick of English in Woodside. I feel like a latino when I leave there.

[jameznyhc]

wow.. jamez you live on an English and white-only dead-end block or something? I don't think I've ever heard a lick of English in Woodside. I feel like a latino when I leave there.

yeah man that 40 min N train chased me away from astoria blvd.. but thats exactly my point lmao..new immigrants dont speak english .. the spanish people in my neighborhood are not puerto ricans lol just walk into any latino shop there all south americans ..there no pr's in woodside you crazy??..lmao ...and all the irish immigrants speak english lol ..

woodside, jackson hts,corona, sunnyside, hispanics are not puerto ricans lol ..they all south americans with there own papaers they dont speak the language

[jameznyhc]

try going up to the heights..or down to the LES...leave that little bubble you live in once in a while. at one point i had some respect for your opinions..but now it seems that you base them off absolutely nothing but bullshit articles and assumptions. this is the same shit as when you tell me you know the Cuban people better than me..even tho i've spent time in Cuba...because you "know" how Cuban Americans in Miami feel. i'm absolutely convinced you dont know ONE single Cuban American

man i spent my youth on the les its all yuppies now wake up haha .. yeah all thiose ricans speak english you idiot .. same when i lived in brooklyn and staten island, all the PR's spoke english ..there parents spoke english are you kiddin me

[metfan85]

and the same thing with puerto ricans ..they assimilated fine and learned english there was no special classes for PR's .. thats why they assimilated so quickly

they used to, when the PR population was small. Now you can live your entire life in Washington heights and never have to learn the English language. As opposed to the 50's when you had to learn since there werent enough spanish speaking peoples around.

And why is that? Thanks to Teddy kennedy 1965 law, ruining this country. Made it into factions of different peoples living in their own communities.

[jameznyhc]

they used to, when the PR population was small. Now you can live your entire life in Washington heights and never have to learn the English language. As opposed to the 50's when you had to learn since there werent enough spanish speaking peoples around.

And why is that? Thanks to Teddy kennedy 1965 law, ruining this country. Made it into factions of different peoples living in their own communities.

exactly ..

[metfan85]

Hey left wing liberals, how can you both celebrate multi culturalism and assimilation at the same time?

If we want multiculturalism, why would we want them to assimilate into an American culture?

Clowns.

[drumaboy]

Hey left wing liberals, how can you both celebrate multi culturalism and assimilation at the same time?

If we want multiculturalism, why would we want them to assimilate into an American culture?

Clowns.

you criticize the law which made it possible for your parents to come here, interesting

uhm, just out of curiosity, you don't have any customs from the motherland which you are proud of? or are you in complete denial?.....some immigrants from where your parents are from are actually ILLEGAL, hmmmm, i suppose your ranting here is a sort of deflection?

[drumaboy]

exactly ..

"new immigrants"....that's the key phrase.......you don't know your history, and since your ancestors of whatever ethnic origin dates back many years ago, i understand why you view immigration as you do......but, the REALITY is this.....new immigrants, since they are the first to arrive, wind up not assimilating so quickly, before you mentioned irish and italians, uhm, yeah its been over a hundred years since they FIRST (new immigrant) arrived......uhm, look at pics from the neighborhoods of manhattan, uhm yeah signs in italian, german, gaelic, etc

you mention Puerto Ricans speaking English, well, once again if you knew your history, you'd know of America's long history with Puerto Rico, for example, if you're born PR , you are a U.S citizen, so i'd guess English is a bit more practiced in PR, thus reflecting here

face it, COLORED PEOPLE ARE HERE, please stop with your typical, white trash rants, seriously, your President is Black, some of your neighbors don't speak English, you didn't choose to be born here, get off your high horse

and by the way, there are many of us here born from immigrants, some of our relatives might not speak English, by choice? nah, but they didn't have time to go to school, because they had to feed their families, something YOU WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND.....so if a custom, tradition, or a language in YOUR United States pisses you off.....i say GOOD!.....it all reveals what you're really all about

[jameznyhc]

"new immigrants"....that's the key phrase.......you don't know your history, and since your ancestors of whatever ethnic origin dates back many years ago, i understand why you view immigration as you do......but, the REALITY is this.....new immigrants, since they are the first to arrive, wind up not assimilating so quickly, before you mentioned irish and italians, uhm, yeah its been over a hundred years since they FIRST (new immigrant) arrived......uhm, look at pics from the neighborhoods of manhattan, uhm yeah signs in italian, german, gaelic, etc

you mention Puerto Ricans speaking English, well, once again if you knew your history, you'd know of America's long history with Puerto Rico, for example, if you're born PR , you are a U.S citizen, so i'd guess English is a bit more practiced in PR, thus reflecting here

face it, COLORED PEOPLE ARE HERE, please stop with your typical, white trash rants, seriously, your President is Black, some of your neighbors don't speak English, you didn't choose to be born here, get off your high horse

and by the way, there are many of us here born from immigrants, some of our relatives might not speak English, by choice? nah, but they didn't have time to go to school, because they had to feed their families, something YOU WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND.....so if a custom, tradition, or a language in YOUR United States pisses you off.....i say GOOD!.....it all reveals what you're really all about


my point on puerto ricans assimilating was there was no pc multi culturalism .. so they assimilated much quicker... today the new immigrants dont have too ..


what does Obamas race have to do with anything besides proving a long held conservative liberarian view point of quotas and affirmitive action is not needed ..America is not a racist country .. and the best man or woman can win without goverment assistance :heythere

[jameznyhc]

you criticize the law which made it possible for your parents to come here, interesting

uhm, just out of curiosity, you don't have any customs from the motherland which you are proud of? or are you in complete denial?.....some immigrants from where your parents are from are actually ILLEGAL, hmmmm, i suppose your ranting here is a sort of deflection?

so what there illegal irish in queens and bronx they should be deported asap..

[drumaboy]

my point on puerto ricans assimilating was there was no pc multi culturalism .. so they assimilated much quicker... today the new immigrants dont have too ..


what does Obamas race have to do with anything besides proving a long held conservative liberarian view point of quotas and affirmitive action is not needed ..America is not a racist country .. and the best man or woman can win without goverment assistance :heythere

:heythere yet another deflection, you're a sorry one, lolololol stick to the topic, but i guess you can't

[drumaboy]

so what there illegal irish in queens and bronx they should be deported asap..

but before YOU were making the case that the Irish and Italians assimilated, etc etc.....but the new immigrants didn't , hence THEY, notice how you target specific groups, anyone of dark skin or other religion, but now you're raising the illegal immigration against Irish, uhm, i don't know James, where are your thoughts exactly?

[jameznyhc]

:heythere yet another deflection, you're a sorry one, lolololol stick to the topic, but i guess you can't

what deflection .. its a fact .. PR;s were the last big immigrant group to assimilate as much as cubans and the eastern block

[jameznyhc]

but before YOU were making the case that the Irish and Italians assimilated, etc etc.....but the new immigrants didn't , hence THEY, notice how you target specific groups, anyone of dark skin or other religion, but now you're raising the illegal immigration against Irish, uhm, i don't know James, where are your thoughts exactly?

but i clearly said puerto ricans and cubans assimilated fine..lmao

[drumaboy]

what deflection .. its a fact .. PR;s were the last big immigrant group to assimilate as much as cubans and the eastern block

still deflecting? lololol .....James, whats wrong? Muslims aren't assimilating? whats the beef? you hate illegals, yet you pount out that Irish and Italians are all good, then you say some Irish are illegal......dude, think constructively with precision

[drumaboy]

but i clearly said puerto ricans and cubans assimilated fine..lmao

noooooope, not all, see? you're sweeping statements on groups of people proves your ignorance

[jameznyhc]

still deflecting? lololol .....James, whats wrong? Muslims aren't assimilating? whats the beef? you hate illegals, yet you pount out that Irish and Italians are all good, then you say some Irish are illegal......dude, think constructively with precision

are muslims assimilating? ..Read CAIR's platform .. are there pro western patriots like bridgett gabriel and Amir taheri .. very very few .. thats why most Musloim americans hated Bush

[jameznyhc]

noooooope, not all, see? you're sweeping statements on groups of people proves your ignorance


but you said im targeting non whites ..which i clearly didnt .. i said "newer immigrants" ..with the exception of the eastern block

[jameznyhc]

every puerto rican kid i chilled with all spoke english as did their parents .. you sure your from SI bro? ..lol!

[drumaboy]

every puerto rican kid i chilled with all spoke english as did their parents .. you sure your from SI bro? ..lol!

duhhhh, maybe they were born here, maybe they learned it in PR because of America's history there unlike any other new immigrant country...and PR's have been here longer than others...stop harping on PR's as a model of assimilation, because last i saw they might speak the language, but they most certainly hold on to traditions and customs from Puerto Rico just like many new immigrants do

[jameznyhc]

duhhhh, maybe they were born here, maybe they learned it in PR because of America's history there unlike any other new immigrant country...and PR's have been here longer than others...stop harping on PR's as a model of assimilation, because last i saw they might speak the language, but they most certainly hold on to traditions and customs from Puerto Rico just like many new immigrants do

because there was no multi cultralism when they came here..

[metfan85]

noooooope, not all, see? you're sweeping statements on groups of people proves your ignorance

obviously you never had to take a statistics class, well even if you did this concept might go over your pea brain, there is such a thing called OUTLIERS (http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Outlier.html) most people do things as a whole and yet some will not. There are some geniuses and usually an equal amount of morons with most of the people in the middle.

Same goes for assimilation, most will assimilate somewhat, some not at all and still some will totally assimilate.

[metfan85]

you criticize the law which made it possible for your parents to come here, interesting

uhm, just out of curiosity, you don't have any customs from the motherland which you are proud of? or are you in complete denial?.....some immigrants from where your parents are from are actually ILLEGAL, hmmmm, i suppose your ranting here is a sort of deflection?

I totally criticize the law which made it possible, why would I not? It destroyed the country my parents thought they were coming to.

Sure there are customs Im proud of, but there's a reason my parents left that place. I'm more proud of the classical liberalism of America, of men who "with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor" to make a free land.

Sort of a deflection? you tell jamez don't generalize and then you generalize. loser. I also don't think I rant. I don't come here yelling your THIS and your THAT, like your racist rants are. Now you know how to rant, I could def see you making a good living coaching Bill oreilly. "OK oreilly just yell as LOUD as you can HOORAH! call em all racists, oh wait your doing fox news, no call them all anti-white rah RAHHHHHHH"

btw I was watching old WWF clips, I think I saw you in front, you drop some weight pal?
http://www.derok.net/derek3/images/classics/wwf%20doinks.jpg

[metfan85]

but before YOU were making the case that the Irish and Italians assimilated, etc etc.....but the new immigrants didn't , hence THEY, notice how you target specific groups, anyone of dark skin or other religion, but now you're raising the illegal immigration against Irish, uhm, i don't know James, where are your thoughts exactly?

you idiot, you don't realize it's not immigration per se, or where they come from, rather its the sheer numbers of immigrants that causes the problems and that's why we're complaining?

NAHHHHHHH, that includes using your brain, and if you could just jerk your knee to think why waste your precious few brain cells.

Do you have any idea how few people actually immigrated in the so-called great immigration waves of the 1800's? It's nothing compared to now. If there was no immigration after 1776, there would still be 180,000,000 people here. so YAP all you want, momo, your still wrong

[TheHipHopBillGates]

He acts as if he knows the entire immigrant population...... and as if he lived in the homes of "old" immigrants when they started out (in a past life)

Its a lame arguement .... the essence of conservative (just look at the world) is so resistant to change. So anytime they see our country changing in any way (whether it be a new census, a "different" family that moves into the neighborhood, new presidential candidates, a "press 2 if you want this message in spanish" recording, WHATEVER) they will be johnny on the spot with this stale tired arguement...... and guess what EACH TIME THEY EVENTUALLY LOSE. Nothing is static. What was entirely christian anglo 200 years ago, is something entirely different now...... EMBRACE CHANGE or Get run over. Should be a bumper sticker.

conservative as related to the topic? because that's an inacurrate statement if your talking generally, fiscally for example.


Unbelievable thread.. you used to be able to walk through certain parts of this city and country in the 50s and not hear a word of English anywhere. There is more English being spoken today by the asian and African influx than by any of the non-English speaking Euros who are still catching up after being here 100 years. What ignorant shit, unbelievable. Can't believe people still exist on this earth that think it would benefit the USA if we went back to a white-only, pre-labor laws and civil rights country when the country was built only because slaves did the work. Black slaves built washington DC, non-english speaking europeans built out all the bridges and highways, mexicans probably built the houses you all live in, yet the US should be officially labeled a white Christian country LOL.. that would be nice huh? just get entitlement and get handed a country because of your inherited religion and race. A country someone else built LOL

Go ahead and send all the immigrants of the last 100 years who held onto their native language back to their countries, along with the slaves before them back to Africa, and the white christians who are left will be worried about being forced to speak Chinese because they got taken over in 3 days, nevermind them worrying about strangers who don't speak English yet that they saw on a news blog. I see Mississippi and Alabama is carrying the burden well.. every state in this country eats because of NYCs work, the most diverse place on earth. Yet we've got idiots in the south and Alaska talking about secession. I'd love to watch a wasp-only state or country take off in today's world.

Eating hot dogs and not being gay doesn't make you an American, sorry. Working and producing makes you American. That's American culture. Nothing else. Hard work, hard work, and hard work. That's why it's usually the wasps bitching that someone else took their low-paying job. This is the attitude that got wasps into the minority in this country.. entitlement because the forefathers came from the same place as them. Keep bitching about other cultures that should have nothing to do with you.

I've never seen a wasp produce shit except for a legal contract or a stock certificate. Maybe they can seceed into their own state and they can grow contracts in their backyard and feed their kids stock certificates.

I'm guessing you were annoyed by the topic because the last part is far from true, there are plenty of WASPs that have produced things....Hemingway, Carngie, Mellon.....etc....


Hey left wing liberals, how can you both celebrate multi culturalism and assimilation at the same time?

If we want multiculturalism, why would we want them to assimilate into an American culture?

Clowns.

So what you're saying is people can't assimilate and retain any of their former culture? Not sure it has to be one or the other.

[HousemuzeeK]

So what you're saying is people can't assimilate and retain any of their former culture? Not sure it has to be one or the other.

i see a healthy balance of multiculturalism and assimilation going on around me every single day....to treat this issue as something that has to be one or the other is an oversimplification...and it blindly ignores the reality of the lifestyles that many immigrants currently lead in this country...

[joeylima]

Unbelievable thread.. you used to be able to walk through certain parts of this city and country in the 50s and not hear a word of English anywhere. There is more English being spoken today by the asian and African influx than by any of the non-English speaking Euros who are still catching up after being here 100 years. What ignorant shit, unbelievable. Can't believe people still exist on this earth that think it would benefit the USA if we went back to a white-only, pre-labor laws and civil rights country when the country was built only because slaves did the work. Black slaves built washington DC, non-english speaking europeans built out all the bridges and highways, mexicans probably built the houses you all live in, yet the US should be officially labeled a white Christian country LOL.. that would be nice huh? just get entitlement and get handed a country because of your inherited religion and race. A country someone else built LOL

Go ahead and send all the immigrants of the last 100 years who held onto their native language back to their countries, along with the slaves before them back to Africa, and the white christians who are left will be worried about being forced to speak Chinese because they got taken over in 3 days, nevermind them worrying about strangers who don't speak English yet that they saw on a news blog. I see Mississippi and Alabama is carrying the burden well.. every state in this country eats because of NYCs work, the most diverse place on earth. Yet we've got idiots in the south and Alaska talking about secession. I'd love to watch a wasp-only state or country take off in today's world.

Eating hot dogs and not being gay doesn't make you an American, sorry. Working and producing makes you American. That's American culture. Nothing else. Hard work, hard work, and hard work. That's why it's usually the wasps bitching that someone else took their low-paying job. This is the attitude that got wasps into the minority in this country.. entitlement because the forefathers came from the same place as them. Keep bitching about other cultures that should have nothing to do with you.

I've never seen a wasp produce shit except for a legal contract or a stock certificate. Maybe they can seceed into their own state and they can grow contracts in their backyard and feed their kids stock certificates.


That's a pretty ridiculous statement.

[darius]

just need a great spokesman for the lord again in national poltics

the Lord needs no spokesman save His Manifestations

to think that anyone on this earth could act as a spokesman for the Lord is downright fanatical

[jameznyhc]

I've never seen a wasp produce shit except for a legal contract or a stock certificate. Maybe they can seceed into their own state and they can grow contracts in their backyard and feed their kids stock certificates.

would you say the same thing about african amerricans? or non whites? this is another big problem in the country ..its totally accepted and cool to diss whites and especially wasps and southerners.. if this was the other way around dmitry woukd ban you..

[James Maxx]

That's a pretty ridiculous statement.

Its more of a figure of speech. Most whites in this country didn't do much hard labor back in the days. They were business and slave owners and basically manipulated the locals to aquire land. Jacob Astor, Rockefeller, Morgan, Carnegie etc. Didn't actually do any dirty work they were important contributors to this country but without the work of immigrants and slaves much of the railroads, buildings and oil wells would have never been created.

[James Maxx]

Oh yea and Rockefeller sold oil to the Nazis. Aside from many other low things he has done. IMO one of the most vile and disgusting humans to ever roam the planet. Just a side note.

[joeylima]

Its more of a figure of speech. Most whites in this country didn't do much hard labor back in the days. They were business and slave owners and basically manipulated the locals to aquire land. Jacob Astor, Rockefeller, Morgan, Carnegie etc. Didn't actually do any dirty work they were important contributors to this country but without the work of immigrants and slaves much of the railroads, buildings and oil wells would have never been created.

NYC was built by white immigrants bro...irish, italians, polish, german etc.

Of course immigrants of color and slaves did their part as well, but to say most whites didtn do hard any hard labor back in the day is dead wrong.....99% of immigrants were poor and uneducated....only work they COULD do is hard labor...

[jameznyhc]

Its more of a figure of speech. Most whites in this country didn't do much hard labor back in the days. They were business and slave owners and basically manipulated the locals to aquire land. Jacob Astor, Rockefeller, Morgan, Carnegie etc. Didn't actually do any dirty work they were important contributors to this country but without the work of immigrants and slaves much of the railroads, buildings and oil wells would have never been created.

you should pick up Gotham great detailed 2000 page non polictical book of the history of NYC..its was all white and chinese laborers .. the dutch and english were aristocrats no doubt .. but those dutch and english fought like motherfuckers who get the land from the indians .. who did the real dirtty bloody brutal work? ..in those times it was conquer with your fists, swords, whatever weapons ..no guns etc.. it happened all over the worl .. on this side the whites won the fight .. but you can be sure as hell indians were just as savage and brutal ..

i think the british dissidents like washigton earned their due .. they fought the most powerful empire in the world and gave us this great country

ben franklin, thomas edison, henry ford, i go on and on about aryans who revolutionized the world .. still to this day ..bill gates etc..

[John Kennedy]

I'm guessing you were annoyed by the topic because the last part is far from true, there are plenty of WASPs that have produced things....Hemingway, Carngie, Mellon.....etc....



very lol..

I am sorry for the generalization, I went into old man rant mode. The point I have in my head is that multiculturalism is what made this country build out the way it did in the 1900s. The hard labor and the muscle and the technology together with the laws and rights advancement/protection is how we got started ticking on all cylinders to our full potential. There is a reason we boomed when women's rights got protected and then again when civil rights began getting protected. The country benefitted by the scaling out of the labor force, yet those same groups are still getting blamed for "polluting our heritage". As if the US culture is anything BUT hard work and capitalization.

To say we need to be defined by religion or race at all misses the point of what the country was founded on. I don't understand the argument for defining the US that way, other than my assumption that those arguing for a one-category USA, their category of course, feel that they are entitled to a country they didn't build alone.

[jameznyhc]

very lol..

I am sorry for the generalization, I went into old man rant mode. The point I have in my head is that multiculturalism is what made this country build out the way it did in the 1900s. The hard labor and the muscle and the technology together with the laws and rights advancement/protection is how we got started ticking on all cylinders to our full potential. There is a reason we boomed when women's rights got protected and then again when civil rights began getting protected. The country benefitted by the scaling out of the labor force, yet those same groups are still getting blamed for "polluting our heritage". As if the US culture is anything BUT hard work and capitalization.

To say we need to be defined by religion or race at all misses the point of what the country was founded on. I don't understand the argument for defining the US that way, other than my assumption that those arguing for a one-category USA, their category of course, feel that they are entitled to a country they didn't build alone.

all we are saying is America foundation and constition that grants indivdual freedom and liberty is founded on christian principles ..it what seprates the west from the east ..America from europe.. Do you want america to be like england? ..

John this doesnt sound like you multi cultralism really took off in the early 90s ..in the earlier days we had a melting pot assimilation was encouraged ..this multiculturalism its in alot of college courses ..its very anti european ... (which is why they wont celebrate columbus day for example) ..it fosters the type of thinking that made you say what you said about wasps .. thats the bad part .. you would never ever say that about a specific minority group ..why? you have been conditioned thru that anti euro anti christian anti southerner anti conservative anrti rich guy .. outlook

[jameznyhc]

W didn't find god until he was going to run for public office, he's about as religious as I am.



What about a seperation between chruch and state? I don't get the direction that you guys are trying to steer this topic......are you implying that we should revert to an institution that covers horrific abuse of disciples? Religion/country are an every growing/expanding thing just as Christianity took from paganism and has over spurt into newer versions like the Mormons........let's not rally a witch hunt for aethists, everybody has their own beliefs and for some its science not the regional manipulation of gospels.

seperation of church and state is fine .. thats why im opposed to faith based intiatives under Bush 2 .. Reagan didnt force it thru federal funding big difference .. the fed govt has no business funding & promoting religion with tax dollars..

[jameznyhc]

Its more of a figure of speech. Most whites in this country didn't do much hard labor back in the days. They were business and slave owners and basically manipulated the locals to aquire land. Jacob Astor, Rockefeller, Morgan, Carnegie etc. Didn't actually do any dirty work they were important contributors to this country but without the work of immigrants and slaves much of the railroads, buildings and oil wells would have never been created.

is saying ******s are lazy a figure of speech?? see how scripted you are?

[TheHipHopBillGates]

all we are saying is America foundation and constition that grants indivdual freedom and liberty is founded on christian principles ..it what seprates the west from the east ..America from europe.. Do you want america to be like england? ..

John this doesnt sound like you multi cultralism really took off in the early 90s ..in the earlier days we had a melting pot assimilation was encouraged ..this multiculturalism its in alot of college courses ..its very anti european ... (which is why they wont celebrate columbus day for example) ..it fosters the type of thinking that made you say what you said about wasps .. thats the bad part .. you would never ever say that about a specific minority group ..why? you have been conditioned thru that anti euro anti christian anti southerner anti conservative anrti rich guy .. outlook

Well a good portion of Christian principles are stolen/carried over from previous pagaen religions when Constantine made the switch back in 300's(and we all know that was nothing but a political move), it's an ever evolving process, not a written stone, cling constant ideals thing.

They only reason it took off in the early 90s is because that's when you became old enough to notice it, it's been the same evolutionary process you just weren't living it. Sure there is some resentment and to some level anti-prejudice towards WASPS and white males, but that's a human nature thing, not an American thing, when a majority controls/runs anything it's bound to occur over time.

[jameznyhc]

Well a good portion of Christian principles are stolen/carried over from previous pagaen when Constantine made the switch back in 300's, it's an ever evolving process, not a written stone, cling constant ideals thing.

They only reason it took off in the early 90s is because that's when you became old enough to notice it, it's been the same evolutionary process you just weren't living it. Sure there is some resentment and to some level anti-prejudice towards WASPS and white males, but that's a human nature thing, not an American thing, when a majority controls/runs anything it's bound to occur over time.

no my dad taught micro and macro economics at cuny ..he also a veteran ..and himself along with alot of other teachers opposed this insanity .. let me ask you question why has funding from saudi arabis exploded ??where all the money going? into our most liberal universities .. why do you think the saudis send american colleges so much money for "special social studies courses" ..havve you ever read the anti semitism in those courses..

how about professor jeffries african american program in cuny?? the guy was the biggest racist in cuny ... that wasnt taught in the 70s ..my dad taught macro and micro economics at baruch ..he oppossed this guy tooth and nail .. unfortuanetly they could beat the dinkins and cuomo administration

[jameznyhc]

Well a good portion of Christian principles are stolen/carried over from previous pagaen religions when Constantine made the switch back in 300's(and we all know that was nothing but a political move), it's an ever evolving process, not a written stone, cling constant ideals thing.

They only reason it took off in the early 90s is because that's when you became old enough to notice it, it's been the same evolutionary process you just weren't living it. Sure there is some resentment and to some level anti-prejudice towards WASPS and white males, but that's a human nature thing, not an American thing, when a majority controls/runs anything it's bound to occur over time.

but what about all the non white countrys? lol ..the world is not America and Europe.. we just happened to be the most free.. and our promotion of individual liberty is what made us so great ..not our skin color .. that why Barry president in America before century old euro lib countrys .. in 200 years we progressed so quickly ..all because of indvidual freedom and liberty .. thats why the whole world dying to come here .. literally

[jameznyhc]

. Sure there is some resentment and to some level anti-prejudice towards WASPS and white males, but that's a human nature thing, not an American thing, when a majority controls/runs anything it's bound to occur over time.

but thats self defeating cause when guys like Walter Wiliams or Clarence Thomas allign their views outside of the "multi cultural pc outlook" they get hammered as uncle toms..while murdering crack dealers like biggie is idolized ..fuckin joke the way black conservatives get treated and maligned ..its like being blacklisted..you have to think one way or your an uncle tom .. they repression of black self expression and indepandent political debates is why so many rely on goverment and democrats to hold their hands.. cause you cant be an uncle tom .. you cant sell out

[John Kennedy]

NYC was built by white immigrants bro...irish, italians, polish, german etc.

Of course immigrants of color and slaves did their part as well, but to say most whites didtn do hard any hard labor back in the day is dead wrong.....99% of immigrants were poor and uneducated....only work they COULD do is hard labor...

back in the day it wasnt black and white.. the irish, germans, and scots of pre-1900 shunned the italians, slavs, greeks, jews, russians and they stayed in their bubbles for the most part. And they still do, NYC for example, just no longer a sub class, and the bubble is bigger and nicer now. Every new group goes through this since the beginning of the US.


all we are saying is America foundation and constition that grants indivdual freedom and liberty is founded on christian principles ..it what seprates the west from the east ..America from europe.. Do you want america to be like england? ..


It's not a race or culture thing, it's an entitlement thing. Groups think that they own the land because they were here first, and can't see the benefit of diversity in a capitalist nation, that boggles my mind. Why bother looking for those things that make you different than "the east".. your skincolor, your religious upbringing, your native language.. mostly things you had no control over when being raised anyway. You think no other religions were based on the same values as Christianity? You work hard and obey the law for jesus or for yourself and your family? saying things like spokesperson for the lord makes your words seem no different than Ahmadenijad's rants about "what's so righteous about us, and what's so evil about the rest".. that's what this thread is about, the problem of entitlement in this country, based on religion, skincolor, length of time living here, what your parents did, because you're poor, because you're rich, because you're cuter, anything. I'll be your spokesperson for the lord: provide for your family, love thy neighbor, forgive your enemies, live humbly. Funny how the ones bitching about "bringing christianity back" rarely live by the words of the lord. They're just interested in the power, the seperatism and feeling of entitlement and righteousness it brings them just by being born at the right time and place. If everyone lived by those Christian values the argument in this thread wouldn't be happening.

[joeylima]

back in the day it wasnt black and white.. the irish, germans, and scots of pre-1900 shunned the italians, slavs, greeks, jews, russians and they stayed in their bubbles for the most part. And they still do, NYC for example, just no longer a sub class, and the bubble is bigger and nicer now. Every new group goes through this since the beginning of the US.

Definitely true. I was just responding to whoever it was that said whites didnt really do any hard labor when they came here....that assertion is totally false. All immigrants, white and non-white, did their fair share of hard labor...99% were uneducated and had no choice.

[Gspot555]

Jamez, does your father still teach economics at Baruch?

[jameznyhc]

Jamez, does your father still teach economics at Baruch?

no he passed away in 2005 ...he had a phd in economics ..he allways thought Baruch was one of the best business schools in the country .. he taught at alot of colleges and said baruch's was by far the best

[Gspot555]

no he passed away in 2005 ...

oh im sorry to hear that...

I am finishing up there and thought I may have had him as a professor

[jameznyhc]

oh im sorry to hear that...

I am finishing up there and thought I may have had him as a professor

Thanks, .. this your last semester?

[Gspot555]

yes a lot of people say the same as he did...for the money it is great...of course you dont get all the amenities you would at an NYU or Columbia, but most of my teachers also teach there so I am getting the same education...

Baruch has/is the largest and most diverse business school in the country...

I always admired and respected the business teachers who are at Baruch because they can be teaching at private universities and not have to deal with the bullshit from the city and less "perks"...just to help people who dont have the money to go to a university....

[Gspot555]

Thanks, .. this your last semester?

yes, it is finally...i left for about 4 years to pursue a business...just went back last year to finish up

[jameznyhc]

yes, it is finally...i left for about 4 years to pursue a business...just went back last year to finish up

congrats.. after 4 year break .. thats an adjustment for sure

[jameznyhc]

yes a lot of people say the same as he did...for the money it is great...of course you dont get all the amenities you would at an NYU or Columbia, but most of my teachers also teach there so I am getting the same education...

Baruch has the largest and most diverse business school in the country...

I always admired and respected the business teachers who are at Baruch because they can be teaching at private universities and not have to deal with the bullshit from the city and less "perks"...just to help people who dont have the money to go to a university....

Yeah well my Dad felt he owed cuny cause thats where he was educated for free none the less ..he was real pissed when they started charging tuition in 89 cause new york back then was taxed to death under cuomo and koch ..then on top of that your gonna force people to pay for CUNY which is a funded solely by the tax payers already...

he didnt care about perks..he made the bulk of his loot trading.. teaching was his passion ..but he was real good with the market

[Gspot555]

i agree, if i have the opportunity to teach in the future, it will be for Baruch or a Cuny school

[John Kennedy]

Damn jamez was your dad still teaching in 05? I did my last year 04 - 05 (back now for mba).. and I'll agree about Baruch as a biz school.. its filled with hard workin no nonsense professors and students.. no act could get you through there like it can in other schools. You will gt the boot if you don't measure up book wise they don't care what your name is or how much your parents donated lol

[jameznyhc]

Damn jamez was your dad still teaching in 05? I did my last year 04 - 05 (back now for mba).. and I'll agree about Baruch as a biz school.. its filled with hard workin no nonsense professors and students.. no act could get you through there like it can in other schools. You will gt the boot if you don't measure up book wise they don't care what your name is or how much your parents donated lol

no he taught at baruch and would do fill ins at queens college from mid 80s - 2000 .. he retired from teaching in 01..

[Defekted]

conservative as related to the topic? because that's an inacurrate statement if your talking generally, fiscally for example.



Yes relating to the topic....as in socially conservative.....as in the difference between a person embracing his community around him becoming more diverse and "multicultural" and the person that shakes in his boots the second he hears a different language or a darker skin tone come into his block....... fyi, when i post anything, it is always "related to the topic". I know there is many shades of conservative, but I am directly focusing on the "conserving the anglo chirstian identity" conservative.

[Defekted]

It's not a race or culture thing, it's an entitlement thing. Groups think that they own the land because they were here first, and can't see the benefit of diversity in a capitalist nation, that boggles my mind. Why bother looking for those things that make you different than "the east".. your skincolor, your religious upbringing, your native language.. mostly things you had no control over when being raised anyway. You think no other religions were based on the same values as Christianity? You work hard and obey the law for jesus or for yourself and your family? saying things like spokesperson for the lord makes your words seem no different than Ahmadenijad's rants about "what's so righteous about us, and what's so evil about the rest".. that's what this thread is about, the problem of entitlement in this country, based on religion, skincolor, length of time living here, what your parents did, because you're poor, because you're rich, because you're cuter, anything. I'll be your spokesperson for the lord: provide for your family, love thy neighbor, forgive your enemies, live humbly. Funny how the ones bitching about "bringing christianity back" rarely live by the words of the lord. They're just interested in the power, the seperatism and feeling of entitlement and righteousness it brings them just by being born at the right time and place. If everyone lived by those Christian values the argument in this thread wouldn't be happening.

post of the year.

[JustLikeHeaven]

no he taught at baruch and would do fill ins at queens college from mid 80s - 2000 .. he retired from teaching in 01..

Really? What did he teach back then I was in Queens in 2000 that was my first semester there...

[ShaE]

would you say the same thing about african amerricans? or non whites? this is another big problem in the country ..its totally accepted and cool to diss whites and especially wasps and southerners.. if this was the other way around dmitry woukd ban you..
how many people get banned jamez? not likely lol

u act like people are banned left and right.

[jameznyhc]

how many people get banned jamez? not likely lol

u act like people are banned left and right.

act like people are banned left and right ?? well maybe they cant since the word is actually blocked and comes up in stars only ..

[ShaE]

act like people are banned left and right ?? well maybe they cant since the word is actually blocked and comes up in stars only ..


i mean you act like dmitry bans people often, HE DOES NOT.

[jameznyhc]

i mean you act like dmitry bans people often, HE DOES NOT.

how so?..you just love to argue lol ..