Maybe Mike Huckabee needs his back end kicked a time or two. What an outrageous thing to say. To suggest that school prayer would have prevented this carnage is insensitive and obnoxious. Huckabee certainly doesn’t have the corner on God any more than the rest of us.
As parents, siblings and friends struggle to make meaning out of that which makes no sense, someone coming along with a “prayer in schools” political message is just cruel. He is moving along into Westboro Baptist territory on this one.
Speaking of those agents of Satan, I hear that Westboro plans on putting in an appearance at some of the children’s funerals. If the crowd turns on them and beats them I simply would not care. I guess we need to have Veterans motor cycle groups out in full force. What a shame.
Meanwhile, shame on Mike Huckabee. I expect better from him. He is an educated man. He knows all children aren’t of the same faith. I am so disappointed in Huckabee.
This just reinforces my original feelings about Huckabee.
I have been less and less impressed with him. I used to like him but not like his politics. I don’t even like him now.
Disgusting
He said the same thing after the Aurora shooting.
“We don’t have a crime problem, a gun problem or even a violence problem. What we have is a sin problem. And since we’ve ordered god out of our schools, and communities, the military and public conversations, you know we really shouldn’t act so surprised… when all hell breaks loose.”
“He knows all children aren’t of the same faith.”
Apparently not that many years ago the vast majority of children were the same faith, hence no problem with school prayer back then. So what that says is that todays immigrants have, instead of melting into American culture, detracted from those things that were mainstays of the American culture. Just look at the battle over Christmas displays that would never have occurred back then. So I guess we can throw away baseball and apple pie as well for now it’s soccer and tacos. So yes modern immigration has changed this country, but for the better … I’m not so sure.
I disagree with your original premise. Who says all children used to be of the same faith? Let’s start with the basic difference of protestants and catholics. My husband highly resented having to recite protestant prayers. There were no Jews in America? How about atheists? SA, do you want to force those folks to be Christianized?
@Lyssa
He is an even bigger ass than I previously thought.
Ditto the comments regarding Huckabee’s jerk status. I wonder how many folks share his opinions but don’t articulate them…
You can argue about the religious makeup of this country in the past, but you can’t argue that it was a far more peaceful and respectful time. No one complained about prayer in schools, or Christmas displays. The entire nation had a feeling of community, because the vast majority were of the same upbringing. Today we focus on being so inclusive of the few at the expense of the many that the former feeling of community has been shattered. Everything seems like that today. If one person in a hundred has a complaint about some group activity, then by gosh the other 99 are forbidden to do it. The end result is we do nothing for fear of someone disapproving.
Cargo, the reason people didn’t argue over prayer in school or Christmas displays is because of public pressure.
Seriously, the religious police would have run you out of town. Back then, majorities were a lot more powerful and minorities a lot less powerful. My husband was told to stfu and not to draw attention to himself. He says the Presbyterians threw rocks at the Catholic kids. i don’t believe him but who knows. I wasnt there.
Second A: You are correct in the context of white America. Your America was very comfortable and safe if you were white. You didn’t have to worry about discrimination, lynchings, lack of public services, lack of educational or housing opportunities, or lack of respect. Your America finally grew up and became considerate of all her citizens regardless of religion, race, sex or origin.
@Second Alamo
That sounds like the opinion of a white male who had the privilege of attending the state schools his tax dollars supported – probably the opinion of a Protestant in the South.
(My cousins in NY could tell you about all the ethnic enclaves in their area. Communities weren’t as inclusive as people think they were.) In my small Southern town, the Jewish kids had the option of standing in the hall when the morning Bible reading and prayers were said in the public school. Some inclusion. Atheists didn’t dare admit it.
Huckabee is beginning to sound more and more like Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell.
That is just what I was thinking….Brother Robertson and Brother Falwell.
Thats really a shame. He caught my attendtion when someone in one of the 2008 debates asked who didn’t believe in evolution. He was one of 3 who raised his hand. The other was Brownback and I can’t remember the third.
Those kinds of people shouldn’t be president. Just my opinion. Thats a real deal breaker.
Re SA’s comment at 0713: The protection of religion from government is as old as the Constitution. The Supreme Court’s rulings in the early 1960s had nothing to do with “immigrants”. They had to do with keeping the governments filthy paws off something as important as religion. Those who would drag religion through the public square are positively un-
American in my book. A strength of the Republic is that we keep Government away from our churches and our faith. Huckabee knows better but he has a TV show to pump up.
Not to mention that most Latin immigrants are, in fact, Christian of some sort. SA is an ignorant man.
Starry, just because he doesn’t agree with you doesn’t mean he is ignorant. Ahem….
Well, to all those complaining about ‘when the whites ruled’ have to answer this simple question. Is society more violent in general today than back then? Blacks always bring up the terrible issue of lynchings, but I’d venture to say that far more blacks have been killed by other blacks today than were ever hung by an angry white mob back then. Back then did we have drive by shootings, fear of walking around at night, fear of going to a mall late at night, fear of going down town, metal detectors and police in the schools, gangsta rap music, and so on and so forth? Back then the worst community massacre was the Saint Valentine’s Day massacre where only 7 people were gunned down. That happens almost monthly now. And as far as prayer in school, my point is that in the far past most immigrants came from christian European countries where christian prayer in school wasn’t unusual, but today they come from many non-christian faith countries and so to not offend we remove anything religious. That’s just the way it was and is.
I suppose if you were a white protestant you were in lucky, SA.
Every American isn’t. What do they do? Hold their nose and endure?
I am going to have to think about your lynchings remark. I am somewhat in speechless mode.
I think your recollection of America is overly romanticized and inaccurate.
SA, there’s a lot worth ignoring in your most recent comment. I’ll confine myself to the school prayer reference at the end. The reason we protect religion against Government interference is a distinctly an American phenomenon, born of our distaste for the state religions of Europe. It’s not some foreign import that came to this country with newer waves of immigrants. It is a fundamentally and uniquely American instinct rooted in our Revolutionary experience. It’s ridiculous to attribute this to a desire not to offend new immigrants. Keeping the state from administering religious rites is one of our core values.
I get very disturbed with radical liberals like SA who have no respect for out constitutional underpinnings.
Scout, give me a break. I’m simply stating the differences in society from the far past versus modern day regardless of the constitutional underpinnings. I’m old enough to have grown up and experienced both time periods, and am just stating facts about those periods. Yes, prayer was common in public schools back then with few complaints. No, prayer isn’t in public school today because of numerous complaints. Complaints mainly made by non-religious and non-christian individuals not people referring to the underpinnings of the constitution as you suggest. Sighting the underpinnings of the constitution may be the final argument that was brought up to finish the job, but it certainly wasn’t what started the effort. Why do you bypass my beginning statements? Are they too factual, or do you want not to admit I am correct on the relative violence of the times?
Moon, your comment appeared after my last post. So you’re speechless that I brought up the subject of lynchings? It was post #11 that first brought that up. I was mainly responding to that post. Lynchings are a fact, and so are modern acts of violence, so why can’t we discuss them both? Let me guess, because of the racial component involved we shouldn’t be discussing it. Well, that’s just too bad since I didn’t bring it up to begin with. However, can you deny that the level of violence today is greater than it was when you were growing up?
I don’t know that I can say that. I wasn’t exposed to violence as a child and I am not now. I do know it is out there though.
I am just guessing that the violence was there, maybe even worse than it is today. For example, back in my day, you could smack a boy’s face if he said something you didn’t like. Today, if you did that, he could have you served with papers for battery. Fathers could shoot young men who impregnated their daughters, going back a little further then me. John Mosby shot a class bully at UVA.
Then there were those lynchings. The immediate problem with lynching people, regardless of race is that old rascally due process. Kinder, gentler? Not so much. Unfortunately racial violence took on many forms. Whipping, burning, branding….things I dont even want to think about. Did people do that to each other inner racially? I suppose they did.
SA, sometimes I work from behind the scenes, the dashboard. Order isn’t as logical as it should be. Please don’t affix any meaning to where my posts appear.
Hey Moon, I’ve just been referred to as a Liberal! Can you imagine that. Me, a Liberal. Now there’s a person who doesn’t know me at all. LOL If I don’t support Obama, then how can I possibly be a Liberal? I’m more like JR of Dallas fame. One of those rich white folk that everyone loves to hate these days. (I’m not really, but I’m starting to get that impression)
JR Ewing secretly voted Dem. Didn’t know know that? That is where all the hot chix were.
@SA
I guess you have better wear that LIBERAL label proudly before it gets snatched from you!!! 😈
Ah yes, the good ole days of segregation and church bombing…….HUH?
SA, trust me, just stop now. To suggest racial discrimination was a better day in America is just effing nutty. Who would say that? I think you are messing with us, no one can be that foolish.
Well, is your solution then to revisit those days of ole, bring back segregation? Bring back a ban on abortion, contraception, women in the work place?
How about the number of people rotting in jail not reciving any substance abuse rehab or mental health services? How about the lack of inner city infrastructure? How about the growing financial divide between the haves alot and have very little? No, that discussion is too complicated so lets just blame it on the black people?
Holy crap, I can’t believe you even went there 🙁
SA, I am pretty confident that Scout is effing with you………..
BTW, I’m off today, so sorry for all the comments end to end. Too much caffeine! I’ve got to go do something else instead. Enjoy bashing me while I’m gone. I’m getting quite a negative following it seems. Oh well, truth hurts sometimes. I call em as I see em. That, is my constitutional right as Scout would agree. See ya.
Shoot, as soon as I get off the phone from Verizon, you all have gone and run off SA. 🙄
Damn it, almost got away! Elena, we’re discussing violence not discrimination. That’s all minorities focus on it seems while all around you people are killing one another. Violence in society, that’s the subject, not discrimination. Face it, violence thrives in the inner city, so you tell me who is mainly involved in that and you’ll then know who’s to blame. Enough said.
SA, am I a “you people” also?
Violence has always thrived in the inner city, regardless of which city and which minority. I think it has something to do with population density. it makes people mean when they don’t have enough space and everyone is fighting for the same turf.
SA, you’re ignoring the fact that violence thrived in the rural South as well and white people were involved. I remember seeing some pictures left on our kitchen table while my father was on the phone. They were of a murdered white businessman who had picked up a white hitchhiker and had been murdered by that hitchhiker. Then there was the white mother- who during a full moon – murdered her children. Those are just a couple of childhood memories of growing up in the crime-free Fifties.
@Censored
Shudder! When I first came to the county I saw a man who had been hanged from a limb about 25 feet off the ground out around Lake jackson. Shudder again.
It was right about the time Charles Manson was doing his thing. Ted Bundy too…annd who were some of the other creeps….Richard Speck crawls back into my mind. Shudder.
SA,
We are having this discussion, because once again, a middle class white kid (male)picked up a gun and perpetrated a mass murder of innocent people. The violence in our culture is complicated and thus will require a complicated holistic approach, from type of gun magazines that are sold, to our jail system, to our mental health system, to how we parent.
People feel unsafe and to ignore why many people buy guns would be foolish. There is fear in our society and it thrives a 24 hour news cycle, sprinkled with a country that has made a buisness out jailing people, a country that lacks proper support for families dealing with kids who have issues, and a host of other problems that need to be addressed.
Now SA, go enjoy your day off, eat something healthy to absorb the caffeine, and live to another day 🙂
A factoid from the Tuskegee Institute: between 1882 and 1968, 3,446 blacks and 1,297 whites were lynched in this great country. Maybe prayer in schools kept that number so low.
Why expect any kind of reasonable mental process from Huckabee? The TV network that trafficks in his personna now is the one that was profiteering on Glen Beck 8 years ago. FOX News has become a sort of niche channel for seperatists who want to live in the past. It serves a niche audience, kind of like BET does. It feeds and probably helps to create an endless appetite for ridiculous opinions that serve to help idiots make sense of the modern world.
Huckabee is an idiot pandering to idiots.
Re FOX: Let me add something that doesn’t mean a dang thing:
“Why does Megan Kelly dress as if she is going to a cocktail party, for pete’s sake?”
They know their viewers are predominantly male. Frankly the way those tarts look and dress on FOX News does make me and other men want to watch it.
I have a least favorite of the women on that channel. Gretchen Carlson is dumber than a f***ing rock.
@Rick, what is sad is she is a Stanford graduate. She has dumbed down. I agree she comes across that way. It must be all book sense and no common sense.
@Moon-howler
She was also Miss America; played a violin solo in the talent competion.
One blond I like is Shannon Bream, who also was a “beauty queen”, twice: Miss Virginia and Miss Florida. Has a juris doctor degree. Usually dresses like she’s going to work –
doesn’t get strident – poise.
I cant think of who she is. So does that mean if you aren’t one of the beautiful people Fox news doesn’t want you?
I guess you aren’t a magnet if you aren’t gorgeous.
SA – it’s pretty clear you have little understanding of or respect for a fundamental component of our religious liberties. Public School prayer is a direct assault on religion. I associate that kind of statist attack on religion with radic-libs who believe the government can control people’s most private lives better than they can themselves. Conservatives are skeptical that government can do much of anything right, even in far more mundane and less important areas than religion. If you want local government bureaucrats doing religion for you, you can’t be a conservative.
I think I have you pegged correctly.
“Public School prayer is a direct assault on religion.” (who’s religion?)
I guess reciting the pledge of allegiance is a direct assault on immigrants based on your logic.
Not at all. It is the pledge of allegiance having nothing to do with religion.
If you lived in a heavily muslim community and they did school prayer, would you want to have to recite their prayers, SA?
How about Jewish prayers in Hebrew? There are some schools that are in all Jewish communities–orthodox and hassidic brands. Want to have to do those?
If there was school prayer, you are forced to bow to whatever “god” is presented.
It wasn’t until non-christian religions became numerous in this country that people began to feel it was an assault on other religions. Same as when people move near an airport that has existed for 30 years and then start complaining about the noise.
No, it isnt the same. You assume only Christians are real Americans, it seems.
My comment about the pledge is in reference to the children of those from other countries whose parents are here, not to become citizens, but are here on temporary work visas or other type arrangement. Based on the religion argument, would not being made to pledge allegiance to a country other than the one to which you truly belong and will return to not be a similar situation?
Most kids just say the pledge. It is expected of them. what about diplomat’s children?
Are you opposed to guest workers?
Ok Moon, I give up. Did we or did we not have prayer in public schools up through the 60’s? All my statements are in reference to that fact, and yet you act as though we never had prayer in schools. We indeed had it, and at the time everyone was ok with it, so you tell me why that was.
Oh we did have prayers. @SA
They were called the Devotionals. Then you prayed, then you pledged. They were protestant prayers too. King James Bible.
SA how long will you be on vacation? Do you get time during Christmas week?
SA, I will be very honest. I come from a long line of people who believe prayer is a private thing. I was very glad to read that Madalynn O’hare won her lawsuit. I think she was probably an obnoxious jerk but I didn’t like being a captive audience and having to do those prayers. mMaybe I was a little rebel back then but I didn’t like it then and I don’t like it now.
I might stage a one woman initiative towards the BOCS next year. I would ask for a moment of silence. That is a good transition. I think it is just showing off. Moment of silence works. People can pray, they can make a mental grocery list, or whatever they want. I refuse to give the government even a minute of time to will religion on me.
As it stands, if I object, I am rude to others.
We didn’t have prayer in schools. We had Protestant Christian prayers in schools.
Same here. The scenery never changed. They were called the Devotionals. Kids took turns.
SA – if you fancy yourself to be a “conservative” American, why would you want government employees administering religious rites?
It has nothing to do with recent immigrants. It has to do with fundamental freedom of religion. The fact that citizens permitted abuse of the Constitution does not make it wrong that those abuses were eliminated.