Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley’s recent First Things essay, “Our Christian Nation,” may warm the hearts of Christian nationalists and confound historians and theologians who worry about continuing threats to the separation of church and state.

  • jordanlund@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Dear Josh:

    Treaty of Tripoli, ratified by the US Congress 11/4/1796.

    “Article 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.”

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      And to be absolutely clear, ratification of a treaty makes all the language therein U.S. law unless struck down by the courts.

      It has never been struck down by the courts.

      • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        Does that mean that the general aspects of a treaty become international policy? Like does the treaty of Tripoli act as legal precedent when establishing agreements with Brazil?

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Pretty much all international policy has been renegotiated. However, no one has renegotiated that treaty because the Barbary States no longer exist. As far as I know, that doesn’t make it any less law.

  • ThatFembyWho@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    9 months ago

    The same Josh Hawley who tried to overturn the 2020 election? The same who egged on insurrectionists outside the capitol on Jan 6th?

    I just want to make sure we are talking about the same Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley here, so there’s absolutely no confusion.

      • ikidd@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Like the 9 Oathkeepers that were convicted of seditious conspiracy, which is defined in Title 18 as:

        If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both

        ?

        Yah redundant muffin.

        • Menteros@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago

          Still not an “insurrection”.

          Democrats love altering definitions to fit their warped reality. It’s propaganda 101.

          • ikidd@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            That is literally the definition of an insurrection, genius. That is what you get charged with when you’re a part of an insurrection. Treason is a completely different thing, if that’s what your brain cell is struggling to get out.

          • GladiusB@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            Do you dress up in a uniform mommy gave you when play word police? Or is just like a mental thing?

        • dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          9 months ago

          Is it though? Unlike Reddit, karma here has exactly zero value. They stand to gain nothing by making themselves out to be an idiot.

          • dezmd@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            You think karma matters to trolls? How long have you been around the internet?

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        We saw the videos. We know you are lying to conceal the election interference.

        My man has gone the full 2000 Mules.

        Give your boy-toy Dr. Hotze a kiss for us in prison.

      • TheFonz@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        You’re right, he wasn’t charged with insurrection. Among the four charges related to the January 6 events is conspiracy against rights, which is pretty much a stand-in for insurrection. His entire scheme to defraud US voters by setting up false slates of electors in swing states relied on Pence to halt the vote count and in so doing arrest the peaceful transfer of power. While people were breaking windows and dying, Trump, against the behest if multiple staff members refused to call in the national guard until the last minute. Why? Because he was on the phone the whole time trying to convince Pence to follow through with the scheme they had concocted. Fortunately Pence saw the light and understood the consequences. But thanks for your “akshually not charged with insurrection” profound perspective.

  • oDDmON@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Fucking revisionist, fantasy bullshit, call it out for what it is and QUIT GIVING IT THE OXYGEN OF MEDIA ATTENTION.

    That’s how ya starve the beast.

  • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    America was never a christian nation.

    and if he gave a shit about the founding documents outside of the 2nd amendment, he might know that.

    Hell, “In god We Trust” only came around in force cause we thought it’d somehow magically keep the “evil communists” away in the 50s.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      America was never a christian nation.

      Okay, tap the breaks. America is absolutely a nation of Catholic and Protestant migrants, with much of the lower half dominated by Spanish/French missionaries while the northeast was originally settled by English, French, German, and Scandinavian Protestants fleeing the 30 years war, the Napoleonic Wars, the World Wars, and their attendant aftershocks.

      De-Christianization in the US is a very new phenomenon, largely stemming from the economic expansion of the post WW2 era and the rapid circulation of professional workers during the Reagan Era. To say we “were never a Christian nation” you really need to explain where all these damned churches came from. Some of them are really old.

      Hell, “In god We Trust” only came around in force cause we thought it’d somehow magically keep the “evil communists” away in the 50s.

      Yes, but we’ve been having religious revivals in this country straight back to before the original founding. A big part of our history involves different sects of religious diaspora migrating to the US as refugees fleeing this or that pogrom, from French Huguenots fleeing to Louisiana to West New York Mormons fleeing to Utah to Polish Jews fleeing to Brooklyn to Black Baptists fleeing to Harlem.

      The “In God We Trust” thing was the comical low-hanging fruit passed by a 1950s Congress that wanted to conflate the broadly popular idea of Christian religious doctrine with the far more controversial idea of Market Capitalism.

      • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Yeah, the people that came to build european colonies on this land were christian extremists, but that doesnt make America a christian nation… Especially since the very foundation of the nation, a staunch separation of church and state with no law establishing one religion over another, was one of the very beginning principles.

        Its right there in the first amendment.

        America is a land where religion should have no more presence but between a person and their god, as far as Jefferson was concerned at least, and I’m sure many other founders shared that sentiment.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Yeah, the people that came to build european colonies on this land were christian extremists, but that doesnt make America a christian nation…

          Not anymore. But that’s a product of the current generation divesting (or simply losing touch with) the religious communities of their elders. Go back 40 years and you could very credibly claim that America was a Christian Nation in every way that mattered. Billy Graham was a fixture in every White House. Religious fundamentalism was driving foreign and domestic policy. Individual elected delegates were de facto required to be members of large religious communities in order to take and hold office or mobilize large bodies of political activism.

          Its right there in the first amendment.

          The First Amendment has no teeth. Religious minorities in the US are routinely persecuted, by the state, both explicitly and implicitly for their membership and their beliefs. This hit the ceiling in the wake of 9/11, when any kind of Muslim religious affiliation was borderline criminal. Police wiretapping and surveillance and extrajudicial punishment of Muslim individuals and groups (very obvious breaches of the 4th and 5th and 8th amendments) was routine. People were deported entirely on the grounds of their religious affiliation. States passed laws outright banning the practice of Sharia custom and culture. And that’s just in the last few decades.

          You can find all sorts of crazy prohibitions, sanctions, and outright persecution of religious minorities, from the hounding of Mormons across the American Midwest to the denial of legal asylum to Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution.

          America is a land where religion should have no more presence but between a person and their god

          Okay, sure, that’s a beautiful ideal. But it isn’t the reality on the ground. Certainly not in a country where clery post the names and addresses of abortion providers, encourage their congregants to kill them, and then suffer no meaningful legal culpability.

          The separation between church and state, in practice, is a fig leaf that serves more to protect religious institution from taxation and regulation than to keep religious beliefs from affecting public policy or election results. If anything, it has created a kind of paradox in which religious leaders have more influence over politics than lay congregants.

          • Halasham@dormi.zone
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            9 months ago

            The United States of America, the nation standing above all others as being most desperately in need of being put out of the collective misery of all the people of the Earth. I wish I had something positive to say about it however I have that odd compunction against lying.

            • dumpsterlid@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              Well fuck the United States, it is a shithole of a country (despite hoarding a good chunk of the worlds money and power).

              Turtle Island though? That place is dope.

              • Cuttlefish1111@lemmy.world
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                9 months ago

                It’s a common theme. Why lie? Why live in denial blaming demons for urges when if you face reality you live a much happier existence.

                • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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                  9 months ago

                  Why lie?

                  Cause your parents will throw you out of the house if they know your true feelings toward people of the same gender or what’s in that vape pen.

                  Cause your teachers will fail you if you express your real political views or historical understanding on a term paper. Or your future prospective employer won’t hire you, if they know you’ve got union sympathies.

                  Cause the ER won’t treat you if they know you’re pregnant, in a state that has made it politically dangerous to care for someone having a miscarriage.

                  Cause your migrant status means always lying about your real nationality.

                  Cause you live in a Christian Nation and your financial, social, and physical well-being are predicated on people believing you aren’t some kind of baby-eating Satanist for holding heretical beliefs.

                  When the truth is an excuse to do violence against people, lies are a commonplace means of self-defense.

      • Sconrad122@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Nation of christians and christian nation are two very different things, despite using the same words. America has historically been populated by a Christian majority, but from its foundation America has existed with separation of church and state as one of its core principles

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Nation of christians and christian nation are two very different things

          A nation of Christians will form a legal and social system with decidedly Christian characteristics.

          from its foundation America has existed with separation of church and state

          Its foundation has been one of a detente between Catholics and Protestants, in an era when Europeans were slaughtering one another over this schism. But come on. You can’t possibly have missed that every President from George Washington to Dwight D. Eisenhower came from the prevailing Protestant majority? Or that a host of our legal tenants emerged from Biblical precepts and taboos?

          So what if there’s no officially designated National Pope. How many politicians made their start campaigning from the pulpit? How many turned to their congregations to fund raise and canvas for votes? How many are literally clergymen? Mitt Romney is an ordained Mormon Bishop, ffs. You can’t just ignore that.

                • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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                  9 months ago

                  In a Christian Nation, the Bible trumps secular laws. And we’ve got a majority on the SCOTUS that seem content to whittle away secular authority in favor of religious impulse.

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Such bullshit. The left isn’t atheist. The left just says you can believe in whatever god you want, or no god at all, just don’t tell us we have to believe in your god.

    • Asafum@feddit.nl
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      9 months ago

      Exactly.

      And this mothefucker is the type to finally make me stand up. You can have whatever religion you like, UNTIL YOU FORCE ME TO PRACTICE.

      I will turn this nation upside down before I allow that to just happen and I’m sure I can count on everyone here to join in.

      • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I’ll tweak your comment just a bit, “until you force me to live by your religious beliefs”. Being forced to believe “their way” is almost irrelevant if they’re already punishing you for not doing so. The end result is the same: You will conform.

  • watson387@sopuli.xyz
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    9 months ago

    Well, that’s interesting Josh Hawley, but the whole ‘separation of church and state’ thing says you’re wrong. I’m sorry you don’t like it but you’re more than welcome to go fuck yourself.

    • ThatFembyWho@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      9 months ago

      Consider the SCOTUS has now established “deeply rooted in our nation’s history and traditions” as the test for whether something is constitutional or not… his viewpoint will certainly resonate there.

      • watson387@sopuli.xyz
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        9 months ago

        Yes. It’s disgusting. Judges are not supposed to be politicians and these Christofascists use some real pretzel logic interpretations of law to come to their conclusions.

  • Adderbox76@lemmy.ca
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    9 months ago

    I’m reasonably certain that I can count on one hand the number of times Hawley or his GOP ilk have ever set foot in a church outside of a planned photo op.

    • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      stats say a lot of the MAGA crowd really are churchgoers, its just the ones they go to are insane.

      • Adderbox76@lemmy.ca
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        9 months ago

        Oh no doubt. In a way, that’s entirely my point.

        These GOP politicians don’t give a shit about “christian values”. They just lean hard into it in order to capture that voting block.

  • Smeagol666@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    Missouri has the lowest life expectancy of any state. Good job there fuckwit, your constituents get to meet Jesus sooner than everyone else. YEE-FUCKING-HAW!

    • SpezBroughtMeHere@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Wait, there’s an option to die sooner? Fuck, I’m not really seeing a downside. How do I get in this express lane?

  • Cuttlefish1111@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Last time I remember seeing him he was running from the 1/6 “tourists”. He needs to become familiar with the guillotine.

    • aew360@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      Trump losing in November should just about do it. I don’t see how the GOP donors can keep pumping money into something that’s just not fucking working electorally.

      • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I think thats why they’re trying to undermine elections using legislatures and courts

        • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          That’s one AU, and might actually be harder to do than to fling something out six AU. lol

          Surely someone’s written up something what with the Parker Solar Probe getting real close to the sun, but it’s interesting how difficult it is to actually hit the sun.