Tuesday, November 28, 2006

America, Not Keith Ellison, decides what book a congressman takes his oath on

Uh, we do? Great, where do I vote on that? Hopefully we can get rid of this practice altogether.

Seriously, though, this article is quite possibly the dumbest thing I've ever read. The only somewhat reasonable argument (and it's quite a stretch anyway) to have anyone put their hand on any holy book while taking any oath is for them to feel somehow more bound by that oath since they have some high regard for that book. If that isn't the case then, what's the point of the thing? If the guy taking the oath has no belief in the book he's taking the oath on, then why use it at all? Prager's point seems to be (and I'm guessing since it doesn't really make any sense) that the book is important to America, so that somehow taking his oath with it binds him to us somehow. First of all, I don't remember when we all decided that The Bible was "The official holy book of the US Government." And second, I thought the oath itself was what made him bound to do his duty to us, along with the trust that was placed in him when he was elected.

Another point of Prager's argument is that no one else has ever done this before, that other non Christians have taken their oaths on the Bible without any problem. I haven't actually checked if this is true (and I doubt Prager has either), but I'll assume that it is for the sake of argument. Of course no one else has done this, when their constituency is made up of people as stupid as Dennis Prager who will make a fuss over it when it means absolutely nothing.

Prager also points out that Ellison can get away with this because he is Muslim, and apparently, America's top priority is to avoid offending Mulsims (if that's true, we might want to work on it a little harder). I'm not sure what America he lives in, but where I live, it's perfectly acceptable to hate Muslims, because you know, they (yes, all of them) like to blow stuff up, especially American infidels. Hell, Muslim is the new Black. You can hate them all day long, and get away with it by using the excuse that they're terrorists. And because a lot of people in America are as stupid as Dennis Prager, it's perfectly acceptable.

Ellison's doing so will embolden Islamic extremists and make new ones, as Islamists, rightly or wrongly, see the first sign of the realization of their greatest goal -- the Islamicization of America.

So America is going to be Islamicized? I thought that we were supposed to all be Mexicans in a few years because of all the illegal immigration. Well, I guess xenophobia is flexible to multiple threats.

The oath itself is a meaningless ritual, I can think of plenty of congressmen that took the oath (on The Bible, I assume) and didn't fulfill it. Hell, this past congress might have a record number of these guys. And the book the oath is taken with is a meaningless part of this meaningless ritual. If Ellison had simply replaced the Bible he was using with the Koran and not told anyone, I bet no one would have even noticed. Hell, he probably could have replaced it with The Da Vinci Code, and no one would know. Maybe if people like Prager paid a little more attention to the content of the oath, and held the person accountable to it, rather than freaking out about the props in the ceremony, we might not have to waste our time with such petty bickering.

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2 comments:

Robin said...

yeah, pragers a liar - lots of people have taken oaths on things other than bibles

http://www.minnesotamonitor.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=842

Scott G said...

I think the Christians that have taken the oath on the Bible and acted anything but Christian are the problem. For all I care, someone could use a Hustler as long as they acted in the best interests of the country