I found this article, 5 Reasons America Is Not—And Has Never Been—A Christian Nation, and I wanted to speak on this. This is a classic case on how someone can be technically correct, yet totally wrong.

I will agree, that the federal government is purposely neutral concerning religion in the Constitution. James Madison, the man who wrote the initial draft of the Constitution, never wrote about his religious views. Our Founding Fathers wanted to avoid at all costs any hint of an "official religion." They broke away from England who had a state-approved religion (the Church of England), the head of that church was King George III himself.

Thus, when the Constitution was written, it specifically stays silent on any particular religion, even including in Article 6, Clause 3, "... but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." The first words of the First Amendment also specifically states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"

With all of that said, the author is correct. Technically.

Here's where the author gets it wrong: The men of that day by and large had a strong moral sense. They and the society they lived in had a strong moral code, with clear boundaries as what was right and wrong. No matter a mans religion, they shared a societal construct that could be traced back through the Magna Carta, the Ten Commandments, all the way back to the Code of Hammurabi. In the time of the Colonies, a mans word was his bond. A man who broke his word was usually ruined, and the punishment would run from derision by the entire local populace, to being tarred and feathered and/or being ridden out of town on a rail.

He had a strong moral compass that was instilled in him at a young age, based on what is known as "Judeo-Christian" beliefs. These were based on the Ten Commandments. Since the 60's, when the "do your own thing" idea came out, our societal rules have fallen by the wayside. The concept of "you can't judge me" has also come into vogue. The structure of our society is unraveling before our eyes. We have been slowly conditioned to "let the government do it" as far as punishing those who break the rules.

The result? A country where you commit an average of three felonies a day. A country overburdened with thousands upon thousands of laws, rules, regulations and policies. It is nigh on impossible to go on about your day and not break some law. The only question when you are caught breaking a law is, how much effort does the government want to put into investigating you and your subsequent prosecution. History is replete with major arrests and prosecutions that started with a minor traffic violation. Timothy McVeigh was pulled over for an expired license plate. And there is a thousand more examples.

The end result is we have no internal moral compass any more. We have become content to let others define our standards and morals. We defer to authority, and thus forge the very chains that will be used to enslave us. We need to stand up for what we know is right and against what we know is wrong. When someone tells us we have to stop doing something we are doing because "it might offend someone" we need to stand up and say, "I refuse to let my actions be dictated based on how someone else might feel."

Our society is on a downhill run and picking up speed. We have been taught to label people, and hate those of a label that is not the same as ours. That's just not right.

Look at who you are, not what you are. We are all wondrous beings of Light, made out of the same stuff stars are made of. Each one of us, past, present and future, are truly unique beings. There never has been, nor will again, be someone exactly like YOU. Our inherent talents, experiences, choices and knowledge make each of us unique in the entire Universe.

Each of us can do multiple things very well, some things we can't do at all. And it is different for each of us. And yet, when presented with a choice of love or hate, acceptance or exclusion, too many of us choose the hate and exclusion.

I personally don't care about your labels. I don't care if you are male or female, young or old, white, black, yellow, brown, orange, green or blue or any blend of those colors. I don't care what your religion (or lack thereof) is, your politics or your morals. If you can accept me for whom I am, I will accept you for whom you are. Granted, if your beliefs, morals and experiences are close to mine, there is a higher probability that we will spend more time together than if we don't share those qualities. But I will not shun someone just because you and I are different.

Let me tell you the consequences of labeling other people. If you pigeon hole everyone you know by a single physical or behavioral aspect, and it's not the same as one of yours, then we can dehumanize the other person. We reduce and diminish them to that label. And that allows us the justification we need to hate that other person. This has been done time and again throughout history, with individuals, groups, whole populations.

And the end for that labeled group is never pretty.

I'll tell you right now, no one person has all of the answers, especially me. If they claim they do, they are trying to sell you something and you should run away from them, as fast as you can.

The mental health industry has labeled its victims for years. I still hear people say, "I'm Bipolar" or, "I'm Schizophrenic." You are no more your mental health diagnosis than you are any other medical condition you have. Would you go around saying, "Hi, I'm Bob, I'm athlete's foot?" Of course not. But saying you're Bipolar is the same thing.

When we label others, we label ourselves, and from that limit ourselves. If your religion, political or social values tell you to hate others that don't share those qualities, why do you follow them? I'm not wearing rose-colored glasses here. Someone will always hate another person, and there is no way to stop that. We will always fail and fall short of perfection. It's what we do, the effort we put into striving to that level is what we should be judged by.

Please, always do good to everyone you meet. Try to leave everyone you encounter a little better than how you found them.

During my daily reading today, I found out this past Sunday was the 271st birthday for Thomas Jefferson. In that article, I found this quote:

"We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses, and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes, have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account, but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers."

I find this pretty telling of how things are going today, don't you think?

Hat tip to American Realpolitik.

"A young man whose father is a carpenter grows up working in his father's shop. He has no formal education. He owns no property of any kind. One day he puts down his tools and walks out of his father's shop. He starts preaching on street corners and in the nearby countryside. Walking from place to place preaching all the while even though he is in no way an ordained minister he never gets farther than an area perhaps 100 miles wide at the most. He does this for three years. Then he is arrested, tried and convicted. There is no court of appeal so he is executed at age 33 along with two common thieves. Those in charge of his execution roll dice to see who gets his clothing -- the only possessions he has. His family cannot afford a burial place so he is interred in a borrowed tomb. End of story?

No. This uneducated, property-less young man who preached on street corners for only three years who left no written word has for 2000 years had a greater effect on the entire world than all the rulers, kings and emperors, all the conquerors, the generals and admirals, all the scholars, scientists and philosophers who ever lived -- all put together. How do we explain that?

...Unless he really was what he said he was." --Ronald Reagan

I clicked thru an ad while doing my morning research, to Bumper Talk.

They sell the funny and thoughtful bumper stickers that you see on cars today. I myself would never dress up my car with these, I do understand why people do it.

I myself collect these witticisms, simply because they are cheaper than collecting cars or stamps. I have over 400 tucked away in a Word file, and I add to it whenever I come across something thought provoking or funny.

I use these witticisms as signature lines in emails and whenever I post on public forums. Here are my prior and present sig lines:

• "Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup."
• "Jesus saves, Allah protects, Cthulhu thinks you'd make a nice sandwich." (You need to read H.P. Lovecraft for this one.)

I know, I know, I've got a twisted sense of humor. But what can I do about it?

I had two references to Babylon 5 tonight. There was a reference to “doing the right thing for the right/wrong reasons” on Joan of Arcadia, then Jerry Doyle (who played Garibaldi) had a small part on JAG.

I’ve been thinking about talking on this very issue for a while, and this kind of cemented it for me.

Conservatives control both Congress and the White House because they started doing the right things for the right reasons. So far, this has paid off handsomely. But there are several crises that face the government and it is becoming easy to do the right thing for the wrong reasons. They have done very well in this post 9/11 world, but I (and all of us) have a personal stake in making sure they continue on the correct path.

This is all about doing the right thing for the right reasons. Babylon 5 is a great show for two reasons. The direction of the show was determined before the show was shot and it addresses such philosophical subjects. Every episode is great, and every episode ties into the bigger story. Usually in a series, the first 2-3 seasons suck as the writers, cast and crew try to find their identity and positions in how things work. Not so here. The producer wrote the show as one big epic story and used the individual episodes to fill in everything. At the end of the series, everything was sewn up nice and tidy. There was one exception, a hook to get you interested in the spin-off that didn’t go very far. It lacked the vision of the original series.

Here’s the bare bones setup: There are three sides, the Shadows (old race bad guys, want chaos and war in the sector), the Vorlons (old race neutrals, but lending help to the good guys) and the “young” races, Earth included. There needs to be one leader for the young races war effort, and Delenn volunteers. Before the Vorlons approve her, she must face their Inquisitor. It turns out his job is to find out why she wants the job. So the Inquisitor tries his best to break her, to determine her motivations. It is imperative to the Vorlons that she do the right thing for the right reasons. To do the right thing, but for corrupt reasons would corrupt and destroy any hope of the good guys defeating the bad guys, because the bad guys could use the corrupt reasons against them.

It turns out Delenn is doing the right thing for the right reasons. She believes she is in a position to do the most good, she is qualified and (most importantly) she is not in it for personal glory. If she falls, someone will take her place and continue on the fight.

Before you volunteer or start a project, examine yourself and determine your motivations. Make sure you are doing this for the right reasons. Once you know that, you can either continue with the project or beg off. I promise you will feel a lot better making decisions after introspection rather than before.

I can’t tell you how important it is to do the right thing for the right reasons. Let’s say you volunteer for Habitats for Humanity. A good and noble cause. But are you doing it to help, or are you in it to assuage your own guilt over something? Are you doing it for face time for the cameras, or so you can add this to your resume? Both of my examples are right thing/wrong reasons. In both of these instances, something will come back and bite you over it. It might take years, you might forget all about it, but you will get a chunk taken out of your behind over it, I promise you.

Every time you get bit by something for no apparent reason, that’s what you get for doing something for the wrong reasons.

Take this advice to heart and you will go far.