*MYTH 1: The US was founded on Christian principles.*
*TRUTH:*
This is incorrect.
The Constitution never once mentions a deity, because the Founding
Fathers wanted to keep their new country "religion-neutral." Our
Founding Fathers were an eclectic collection of Atheists, Deists,
Christians, Freemasons and Agnostics.
George Washington, the Father of our country, and John Adams (Second
President of the USA) CLEARLY stated in the 1796 Treaty of Tripoli: "The
Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded
on the Christian Religion.Â
G.W. rarely attended church and instead followed a popular 18th century
philosophy called DeismÂa Star Wars-esque philosophy that believed in
a cosmic energy or big-ass universal "Force." The dictionary says that
Deism is "a system of thought advocating natural religion based on human
reason rather than revelation," that had nothing to do with Christian
principles.
James Madison, original mastermind of our Constitution, was an Atheist
to the core who loved skewering Christianity. In 1785 he wrote, "What
have been fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the
Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition,
bigotry and persecution.Â
Thomas Jefferson, who sat down and authored The Declaration of
Independence, rarely missed an opportunity to laugh at Christianity. In
a letter to John Adams in 1823, he wrote: "The day will come when the
mystical generation of JesusÂ
will be classed with the fable of the
generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."
More ammo: In 1814, Tommy J. wrote about the Bible's Old and New
Testaments, "The whole history of these books is so defective and
doubtful -- evidence that parts have proceeded from an extraordinary
man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds.Â
In fact, it was President Jefferson himself who first wrote (to a
Baptist church group in 1802), "The First Amendment has erected a wall
of separation between Church and State." Therefore, when Jefferson
talked about ÂNatureÂs God, the ÂCreator and Âdivine
Providence  in the Declaration that he wrote, he was being a hippie
and referring to a general cosmic energy-- not the Christian God.
America is not a Christian nation. Period. Our Constitution derived from
the post-Christian Enlightenment values of reason and truth...never from
the paranoid yammerings of that otherwise compassionate cult leader who
*beep*
died in the Middle Eastern desert 3000 years ago.
*
MYTH 2: US Conservatives tend to be patriotic, ethical Americans;
liberals tend to hate America and are immoral.*
*TRUTH:*
Liberals aren't the traitors to America. In fact, conservatives who
insist on sending American troops into the Iraqi slaughterhouse to watch
some blood-n'-guts "towelhead" ass-kickin' are the traitors. Most of
them could care less about our troops, no more than Mao or Stalin cared
about the safety of their own soldiers. In the neocons' view, these
young boys and girls are expendable test dummies. They're dying for
virtually nothing, so that the hicks in the Bush Admin can make good on
their campaign promises to their buddies from the petroleum and
infrastructure-rebuilding industries. By revving up the Arab threat,
these MFs can scream "national security" and "freedom" as smokescreens,
while getting their hands on a diminishing resource: Middle Eastern
fossil fuels, which power everything from your lightbulbs and computer
that you leave on all night, to your stupid gas-guzzler pickup truck.
Pro-war conservatives are the traitors to America. With only 29% of the
public approving of Bush's policies now, it took a full 5 years for
America to finally wake up in bed next to this disgusting fact.
Do liberals hate America? No, in fact they care so much about the USA
that they fight so aggressively to make it better. They're not
anti-American; they're just anti-stupidity. Do liberals hate American
policies? Sometimes, but only the self-destructive ones that threaten
human rights, liberty, democracy, justice, inquiry, excellence and
reason-- the values that our country was founded upon.
As for conservative moral superiority? Frauds. Think of the
child-molesting priests, money-scamming televangelist preachers, Jack
Abramoff's friends in the Bush Admin, gay-hating Jesus lovers, the
Christians who beat up the professor who opposed intelligent design,
human rights violators like Lynndie England and her Abu Ghraib hick
officer pals, Tommy "Scandal-icious" Delay, Scooter "Leaky" Libby, the
entire K Street Project meant to hire only Republicans, FEMA's Michael "Yer
doin' a heckuva job" Brownie, and so on.
Oh and by the way, conservative Red states have a divorce rate 27%
higher than the liberal Blue states, the per capita rate of violent
crime in Red states is 49 per 100,000 higher than in Blue states, the
top 5 states with the highest rates of alcohol abuse are Red states, and
the per capita rate of gonorrhea in Red states was 41 per 100,000 higher
than in the Blue states. Time to unshelf the antibiotics for our
"ethical," "God-fearing" conservative friends with their "traditional
family values."
*MYTH 3. The US has a liberal media.*
TRUTH:
This is a paranoid Republican myth.
Reality check: the US media is a mix of liberal, centrist and
conservative voices. Also, the US media is largely owned by 10
corporations who frequently push pro-conservative agendas to the
American public. Evidence:
1. Even Republican Pat Buchanan confessed, "For heaven sakes, we kid
about the liberal media, but every Republican on earth does that."
Neo-conservative pundit Bill Kristol also said, "I admit it: the liberal
media were never that powerful, and the whole thing was often used as an
excuse by conservatives for conservative failures."
2. A 2005 study in the Quarterly Journal of Economics found that
"coverage by public television and radio is conservative compared to the
rest of the mainstream media." Why? Partly because only four major
corporate networks control American TV news-- up to 75% of the audience
share. The "Big 10" media conglomerates who control the bulk of the
entire US media are: AOL Time Warner, Disney, General Electric, News
Corporation, Viacom, Vivendi, Sony, Bertelsmann, AT&T and Liberty Media.
Yes, we have National Public Radio, but compare its public reach to that
of Canada's CBC and the United Kingdom's BBC.
3. Eighty percent of all US newspapers are owned by corporate chains.
4. Liberals are virtually non-existent on talk radio stations
nationwide. Rush and Dr. Laura, eat your hearts out.
5. Conservatives are very well accomodated for across FOX News, the Wall
Street Journal, the Washington Times, the New York Post, the American
Spectator, the Weekly Standard, the Drudge Report, the National Review,
etc. Even so-called "bastions of liberalism," e.g. the NY Times, MSNBC,
WashPost and NPR make a concerted effort to be "fair and balanced" by
bringing in right-wing views like those of David Brooks, Joe
Scarborough, Tucker Carlson, Charles Krauthammer and Cokie Roberts to
have their say in these forums, respectively. This is in stark contrast
to FOX News' claims to unbiased objectivity, which were easily
demolished by Robert Greenwald in 2004.
6. Contrary to what some paranoid Republicans claim, most journalists
are centrists, not liberals. A representative sample of 141 US
journalists and bureau chiefs were asked in 1998, "On social issues, how
would you characterize your political orientation?" Answers: Left 30%,
Center 57%, Right 9%, Other 5% . Next question, same sample: "On
economic issues, how would you characterize your political orientation?
" Answers: Left 11%, Center 64%, Right 19%, Other 5%. Also, look at the
total number of think tank citations in major newspapers, radio and TV
transcripts: Conservative TTs: 7792, Centrist TTs: 6361, Liberal TTs:
1152.
7. Eric Alterman summarizes a 1999 research study from the academic
journal Communications Research: "Four scholars examined the use of the
'liberal media' argument and discovered a fourfold increase in the
number of Americans telling pollsters that they discerned a liberal bias
in their news. But a review of the media's actual ideological content,
collected and coded over a twelve-year period, offered no corroboration
whatever for this view."
*MYTH 4. The US doesnÂt need improvement compared to other countries;
it is the greatest country in the world.*
TRUTH:
Wrong again. I'll only cite the statistics here.
USA Ranking on Adult Literacy Scale: #9
(#1 Sweden and #2 Norway)- OECD
USA Ranking on Healthcare Quality Index: #37
(#1 France and #2 Italy)- World Health Organization 2003
USA Ranking of Student Reading Ability: #12
(#1 Finland and #2 South Korea)- OECD PISA 2003
USA Ranking of Student Problem Solving Ability: #26
(#1 South Korea and #2 Finland)- OECD PISA 2003
USA Ranking on Student Mathematics Ability: # 24
(#1 Hong Kong and #2 Finland)- OECD PISA 2003
USA Ranking of Student Science Ability: #19
(#1 Finland and #2 Japan)- OECD PISA 2003
USA Ranking on Women's Rights Scale: #17
(#1 Sweden and #2 Norway)- World Economic Forum Report
USA Position on Timeline of Gay Rights Progress: # 6 (1997)
(#1 Sweden 1987 and #2 Norway 1993)- Vexen
USA Ranking on Life Expectancy: #29
(#1 Japan and #2 Hong Kong)- UN Human Development Report 2005
USA Ranking on Journalistic Press Freedom Index: #32
(#1 Finland, Iceland, Norway and the Netherlands tied)- Reporters
Without Borders 2005
USA Ranking on Political Corruption Index: #17
(#1 Iceland and #2 Finland)- Transparency International 2005
USA Ranking on Quality of Life Survey: #13
(#1 Ireland and #2 Switzerland)- The Economist Magazine ...Wikipedia
"Celtic Tiger" if you still have your doubts.
USA Ranking on Environmental Sustainability Index: #45
(#1 Finland and #2 Norway)- Yale University ESI 2005
USA Ranking on Overall Currency Strength: #3 (US Dollar)
(#1 UK pound sterling and #2 European Union euro)- FTSE 2006....the
dollar is now a liability, so many banks worldwide have planned to
switch to euro
USA Ranking on Infant Mortality Rate: #32
(#1 Sweden and #2 Finland)- Save the Children Report 2006
USA Ranking on Human Development Index (GDP, education, etc.): #10
(#1 Norway and #2 Iceland)- UN Human Development Report 2005
So much for those "socialist" Europeans and those "backward" Asians, hm?
We can do better than this.
Miscellany:
*Only 18% of Americans own passports and bother to travel outside of the
US.
* 85% of US soldiers in Iraq believe that they are there to get revenge
for 9/11.
* New international student enrollment in US grad schools has decreased
by 6%, because of xenophobic post-9/11 US visa restrictions, jacked-up
tuition fees and better educational opportunities in the EU and Asia. So
no, not everyone wants to come here anymore, because it's become a land
of incredibly limited opportunity, and we've lowered our educational
standards.
*MYTH 5: The US government loves to help other countries.*
TRUTH:
This is a myth. The US government tends to be motivated by interests,
not humanitarian principles.
Denmark gives the most amount of its GDP (1.01%) to developing
countries; Norway gives 0.91%; the Netherlands give 0.79% and so on
until the end of list, where the USA sits. Yes, America ranks DEAD LAST
in foreign aid at a pathetic 0.1% of its GDP, compared to the other 21
nations listed as developed nations. The idea that the US government is
a heroic bunch that runs around the world helping the poor and the
disempowered is not backed up by the evidence. We have one of the
stingiest governments on earth.
Most Americans believe the US spends 24% of its budget on aid to poor
countries; the actual amount is well under a quarter of 1%. Our country
also ranks #5 on asylum-seeker acceptance rates (#1 is Denmark and #2 is
Canada).
For you self-congratulatory, redneck-inspired conservative
*beep*
who will start to say, "B-b-b-but you're anti-American! M-m-m-moonbat!
G-g-g-god bless the USA!" I answer, "Go
*beep*
yourself. We can do better." Stop blindly believing everything your
president tells you. Come back to us only when you start realizing that
the $400 billion your president has allocated to his Roman Empire-style
military overstretch could be better spent on correcting the
sociopolitical and economic problems in the arenas that I've listed
above.
For you fellow liberals: Help your reps and senators take back Congress,
and stop dithering while the political tides are turning in your favor
right now. The conservatives are terrified now; TAKE advantage of that.
And don't waste time trying to explain rational things to any homophobic
Christians, or hyper-patriotic losers who wave and cheapen our American
flag only for a self-esteem buzz, or those testosterone-filled,
gullible, culturally-ignorant military recruiter robots who lack even a
basic intelligence. THEY CANNOT BE REASONED WITH. They don't understand
statistics, elaborate charts, legislative proposals or complicated
scientific explanations. Just let them go. Let them go.
In the meantime, Americans, stop being SHEEP and get up and do something
before some bright and ambitious Chinese, Indian and the European
students grow up to be international leaders and make your lazy,
self-absorbed kids irrelevant on the world stage.
(NOTE: I didn't write this, I copied and pasted it, but I'd sure like to
shake the hand of the original author)
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