Independence Day!

[Jester]

Today, July 4, 2011, we as Americans celebrate our national Independence Day. We celebrate with fireworks and hot dogs, with burgers and pool parties, with electronics sales and bar strolls, but this is not the true meaning of this holiday. For this day is the 235th anniversary of the day the Founding Fathers (supposedly, but didn't actually) signed the Declaration of Independence, politically severing ties with Great Britain, and realistically committing high treason against their government. For this criminal offense, had any of them been caught, they could and would have been legally executed.

Against all odds, the United States (with much help from foreign nations) defeated the British Army, and 12 years after the Declaration was issued, ratified the new country's Constitution. Within the next 3 years, they also ratified the first ten Amendments to that Constitution, collectively referred to as the Bill of Rights.

These Amendments deal with rights that citizens of the United States are guaranteed, from protection from governmental intrusion into their affairs to individual liberties.

In the 220 years since, many (if not all) of those Constitutional Rights have been methodically and systematically eroded by politicians and political activists on all sides, with little protest from the people who enjoy those protections. Whether it be the government spying on its own citizens or people merely no longer being truly free to speak their mind, these precious rights that so many of our brave and dedicated forebears are slowly but surely slipping away.

It is neither my place nor the proper time to call for a Second Revolution, but if this trend continues as it has over the last few decades, such a revolution would not only be inevitable, but just. For, as Thomas Jefferson penned in the Declaration of Independence, "whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government..."

The time has not yet come to alter or abolish our government. However, one of the basic premises that the men who backed those mighty words fought for was the right to speak our minds freely. A right that, especially in recent years, has been curtailed, diluted, diffused, limited, and marginalized. Worse, it has become a right that so few people are willing to exercise.

It is for that reason that on this day, in the spirit of the Founding Fathers, I call upon all of you to exercise that right. Speak your mind! I don't care if it's political, romantic, academic, silly, personal, professional, or simply something you feel you've wanted to say for some time.

Damn it, people, SPEAK UP! Let your voice be HEARD. Say SOMETHING. Say ANYTHING. Stop hiding, stop being quiet, stop allowing yourself to be silenced. I don't CARE if you're American or not, whether you live here or not; if you live in a place that purports to honor such a freedom (in other words, somewhere you won't get shot for doing so), exercise that freedom and FIND YOUR VOICE! It would be noble for me to call on all people to do this everywhere, and it is something I feel must happen; but before we call on the oppressed peoples of the world to speak out, we must ourselves rediscover our own freedoms, our own voices, our own opinions.

Your freedom of speech is guaranteed and legally protected...for now. Exercise it, now, before you no longer can! It has to start somewhere, some time, with someone. So my friends, let that person be you, and SPEAK UP! And celebrate the TRUE spirit of Independence Day!

[BlaqueKatt]

and on this great day-freedom of speech is being squelched.....

[Andara Bledin]

and on this great day-freedom of speech is being squelched.....

Without going to the article, one would think that someone was trying to prevent the banners from flying, and yet, that isn't the case. Hell, even the article has a misleading headline. Squelched? Please. There's a major difference between someone preventing them from having the banners flown, and the pilots refusing to fly them.

Maybe if the banners were less "atheism instead of religion" and more "atheism is cool, too" the pilots would be a little more willing to actually carry the things. I mean really, one of them says, "God-LESS America." How did the people putting the campaign together not see how that could be taken as an attack on most of those who follow religion? Hell, that could be seen as a declaration of war by some.

^-.-^

[BlaqueKatt]

Without going to the article, one would think that someone was trying to prevent the banners from flying, and yet, that isn't the case.

so death threats against the pilots isn't trying to prevent them from flying?
Gotcha.
And yes several of them received either death threats or threats against their jobs(they have other flying jobs besides the banner one).

Aerial banners reading “Atheism is Patriotic” and “Godless America” sponsored by American Atheists were supposed to fly over Pennsylvania for Independence Day, but plans fell through when pilots refused to fly these banners due to threats of job termination and violence.

[Andara Bledin]

*reviews the original article linked*

I don't see any mention of death threats, violence, or anything more than fear and one comment regarding marital trouble in that first article, which is the one you linked and also completely failed to support the argument you were trying to build on it. Oh, and another comment that the signs would do more harm than good, which I honestly believe will be the case, if they go through with the slogans they've chosen.

You'd think with as much money as it takes to fly those banners, they'd come up with something a little less tacky.

^-.-^

[BlaqueKatt]

*reviews the original article linked*

I don't see any mention of death threats, violence, or anything more than fear and one comment regarding marital trouble in that first article, which is the one you linked and also completely failed to support the argument you were trying to build on it.

which is why I also linked a second article, with more information, a follow up with progressively more information(there are about 10 different articles on it, with varying amounts of information, now as is normal for a developing story), as it came out, and linked one, rather than all of them.


as far as "god-less America" being offensive, is it any more offensive than say "god Bless America"...hmmm the two seem so similar....I wonder if that was intentional......

[Andara Bledin]

First, just because you found supporting articles that prove the point you were trying to make, the original one still doesn't say what you said it did.

Second, it's blindingly obvious they were trying to make a play on words, but there's a difference between the final outcomes.

Honestly, the banners are a poor medium to send messages like that. All you'll do is be preaching to the choir or making enemies when all you have are co-opted taglines.

^-.-^

[Ghel]

You'd think with as much money as it takes to fly those banners, they'd come up with something a little less tacky.

So, once again, you show us that you're more concerned with tone than with the actual message. Thank you for letting us know where your priorities lie.

America is godless. Our government is, and should be, secular. Faith-based initiatives, teacher-lead prayer, and tax-free churches erode at our freedom of religion. Even religious organizations should want to keep that wall of separation between church and state, lest the state make a law that's unfavorable to their religion.

[Andara Bledin]

So, once again, you show us that you're more concerned with tone than with the actual message. Thank you for letting us know where your priorities lie.

Tone means something. Stop trying to make out that it doesn't. But completely irrelevant because I'm not talking about the tone at all. I'm talking about the vague, ambiguous language they chose to use.

With how short those comments they wanted to fly are, I'm pretty sure that half the people seeing that "God LESS America" one would see it as an attack against religion more than anything else, because that's what it looks like.

As for the rest of what you had to say, that's all fine and dandy. Government and the state should be purely secular, but the people, the ones would would actually be reading and looking at those banners, shouldn't think that those who aren't religious are attacking them, even if they feel that way only because somebody with too much money and an agenda didn't bother to run his slogan by a few uninvolved non-atheists to see how easily it could be mis-interpreted.

^-.-^

[Ghel]

I don't think the message is being misinterpreted. I think it's the actual message that strongly religious folks are objecting to. They don't want to conceive of living in a country that doesn't follow their religion. They don't want to understand that this country was founded on secular, rather than religious, principles.

Most importantly, it is unpopular speech that is most in need of protection. It is completely contrary to the OP to suggest that free speech should be curtailed because of what the listener/viewer might think of it.

[Rapscallion]

They don't want to conceive of living in a country that doesn't follow their religion.

For me, I think they're more scared of people who don't believe in anything than they are of followers of other religions. At least followers of other religions share the same burdens - no evidence for their claims, as an example - and there are many cases of people crossing from one religion to another. Atheists created by thinking about things are generally people who cannot be converted, and evangelical religious folk cannot accept that.

Rapscallion

[Hyena Dandy]

Raps, I have to disagree with you. I think Ghel got it right. A lot of people, and not everyone but a lot of them, are incapable of understanding the concept of "secular."

Why this is is a mystery to me. But these people will honestly not understand the idea of a country NOT being religious. You try to tell them you want the country not to have a religion, they think you want to make it a country of atheists.

No matter what you say or do to get them to realize what you're talking is not "State atheism" but "No state religion."

Why don't they get it? I don't know. I think maybe their religion so defines themselvces and their interactions with the world they can't conceive of a person or thing NOT defined by religious affiliation.

Anyway, its not that they're afraid of atheism. Or atheists. They're just confused. And possibly a little dull.

[Ghel]

Raps, I agree that diverse religious groups will set aside aside their differences to gang up on atheists, and only when the atheists are driven into hiding will they look at their differences and start fighting between religions.

However, HD has it right. I was talking about state religion, not citizens' religion.

[Hyena Dandy]

Ghel, there I'll have to agree. While a lot of religious groups will dislike atheists, at least from my experience the religious right won't work with anyone to 'drive them underground'.

Honestly, as far as they're concerned, there's no difference between muslims, hindus, buddhists, shinto, and atheist. They only see two religious groups. "Us" and "Not-Us".

If they're REALLY open minded, they might see "Us," "Not-Us," and "Jews!"

The majority of Christians are like that, but if we're talking only about the really closed-minded, rapture-believing, gay-bashing types then that's what it boils down to.

They won't gang up on Atheists with any other religion because they don't see atheism as distinct from any other religion.

Consider the Left Behind books (I know, I'd rather not too).

In the books, the rapture happens. Then, taking advantage of the (very minor) confusion over this, the President of Romania unites everyone else into the Global Community Faith, led by the Pope, who is from Cincinnati.

Ignoring the unlikeliness of an American pope, or the President of Romania having anything resembling that sort of power, it shows what the religious right think of the rest of the world. They don't consider that muslims might not believe the same thing as atheists, or hindus, or Shintoists, or animists, and they don't consider any of these people would have a problem being united under the Pope.

The religious right may hate atheists. Personally, I disagree, but I've seen a lot of venom (to be fair, I've seen it from both sides, but that's a point for another thread). But they won't work with anyone else because they hate them too, and think they're pretty much the same thing.

[insertNameHere]

I just like that my coworker tried to tell me she doesn't really consider 4th of July a holiday.... "its not that important", right.... founding of the country that was a big middle finger to the king of england not that important....