I love that Thomas Paine was a founding father. He showed up on the run from the monarchy, tried to make us more woke and get us to be more like the iriquois confederacy, told us to be nicer to indigenous and black people, then fucked off because we clearly weren't serious about the freedom and "all men are created equal" things.
Thomas Paine is one of the few people alongside Benjamin Franklin that your history teacher severely undersold to you
Look I agree in principle but let's not pretend the first settlers were fleeing religious persecution. They set up governments that killed people for being witches. They were more extreme than other Christians in Europe, not less.
And that's a huge reason freedom of religion is rule number 1. If it wasn't then the Catholics and 5 different kinds of Protestants would have all set up their own countries.
The Puritans were, technically, fleeing because of their religion: like you say, the Netherlands were too tolerant/Protestant for them.
They were also discriminated by the Dutch though. Since the Protestants weren’t very welcoming to religious zealots, because then they recently came out of the Eighty Years War with the Hapsburgs who wanted to suppress the Reformation in the Netherlands.
The puritans were protestants though. That's part of why when they held power in England under Oliver Cromwell they were so brutal to the Irish.
They had to flee. Europe wouldn't let them persecute others in peace. They did flee because of persecution, kind of.
They fleed for the religious right to persecute others in increasingly messed up ways.
No "Official Language" either.
If spanish speaking population take over, we could make spanish the de facto language.
Or... if you are looking for a solution to the issue of pronouns, you can always use ahem Chinese!
Chinese is best language, he or she, its both "他" (pronounced tā). Pronoun crisis resolved! Culture war is peacefully concluded!
(Disclaimer: I have Chinese Ancestry, but I'm totally not biased... 😉)
Edit: Sorry for going kinda off topic, but like... think about it. No more pronoun conflicts! What a utopia!
Or you could use german where we have "it" (and actually use it)
那个那个哪个美国例外论始终是中国的！
I am white AF, so I have no clue if Google translated/typed that properly.
That That Which USA [something] Discussion Always China's?
Its a bunch of word salad lmao.
Shame. I tried to say "Looks like American exceptionalism was always secretly Chinese"
Are there any good Chinese/English translation tools out there?
Ask some helpful people that work at the UN for a "free sample" of their translation skills.
Edit: Or I guess the US Ambassador to China's staff members have people that could help.
😉
Hard pass. China would kill me far sooner than help me. I'm far too much of a troublemaker for them.
Cheers m8 :)
If America were a Christian nation, we would tie every health insurance CEO to a boulder, and cast them into the Sea.
Our official religion is money
hardly anyone notices that freedom from religion comes first.
Treaty of Tripoli:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tripoli
"signed in 1796.[2] It was the first treaty between the United States and Tripoli (now Libya) to secure commercial shipping rights and protect American ships in the Mediterranean Sea from local Barbary pirates."
"Now be it known, That I John Adams, President of the United States of America, having seen and considered the said Treaty do, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, accept, ratify, and confirm the same, and every clause and article thereof."
Article 11:
"Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen (Muslims); and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan (Mohammedan) nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."
All my homies are chill with Morocco
OH YEAH? Then why does it say "In God We Trust" on our money? GOTCHA!!!!
Honestly Q-anon appears to be the official religion of the united states.
Erm….the Puritans left Europe for being too liberal
no official religion yet? great! a perfect place for me to found my own religion and enforce it over everyone!
I practice the religion adjacent philosophical ideal known as "We the people"ism. We signal membership by publishing documents that begin with the words, "We the people".
There's an obligatory meeting everyday where we try to all coexist on the same spherical rock in space. Technically, I think all Americans are required to be members, except for astronauts. Those brave men and women have been excommunicated for failure to attend the meetings.
The depressing thing is that "We the People" was just about as hollow a phrase then as "Citizens United" is today. It's really just a bunch of greedy old white dudes who hate paying taxes. Always has been.
That said, just because it's meaningless doesn't mean the preamble shouldn't constitute a legally binding thesis statement and explicit expression of the role of government. Rights that exist but are not expressed should be held to those standards to determine their existence. Instead it's just legal fluff in a nation that sees no rights beyond financial nor purpose to government beyond stopping undesirables
Civil religion is very different from trying to legislate christianity
I'm not saying it's the same. I'm pointing out these exact guys being quoted against religion (or at least for its separation from the government) ended up being de-facto prophets in a dumb quasi-religious system.
People skeeting stuff.
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