Democracy that isn't

I am amazed at this piece of info a contact has sent me, and I, along with most people, have always looked upon the USA as well as Britain as being leaders in world freedom and democracy. This is the 21st century isn’t it? Not the 18th century? Or have I slipped back in time? Read this piece, and it’s happening now, today.

Posted: 11 Dec 2014 04:36 PM PST
Atheist group seeks change in state constitutions
"An atheist group is challenging a line of the North and South Carolina constitutions that says people who don’t believe in God can’t hold a public office."

How on earth can people who hold prominent positions in public office pass sensible, unbiased, and well reasoned judgements? They can’t can they, if they are so biased. To my mind their attitude is no better than the Islamic militants. Okay, so they’re not going round blowing people up, but surely they are trying to kill freedom of thought and belief? I hope the atheist group win the day, but I bet it’ll be a long, hard, battle.

Oh, absolutely. It goes to what I was talking about in another thread -- this myth that American Christians by and large support the separation of church and state. Many of them don't, though their position manifests in several different ways.

You have some who will work tirelessly to get mandated prayer back into U.S. public schools; others want to teach creationism; others cry persecution whenever a business uses a term like "holidays" rather than "Christmas" in its advertising, and still others are trying to organize a Christian-conservative takeover of most elected offices.

Hi Ben. What puzzles me about American politics is that various States can formulate their own rules and laws, how is that possible? Surely it's up to the Governmenmt to set national rules and laws which all states must abide by. As you no doubt know, our councils in the UK run local services and community projects, and all other manner of services, but they are answerable to Central Government, they can't make up their own rules as they go along just to suit the persuasions of elected councillors.

stardesk wrote:Hi Ben. What puzzles me about American politics is that various States can formulate their own rules and laws, how is that possible? Surely it's up to the Governmenmt to set national rules and laws which all states must abide by. As you no doubt know, our councils in the UK run local services and community projects, and all other manner of services, but they are answerable to Central Government, they can't make up their own rules as they go along just to suit the persuasions of elected councillors.

The federal government (the one headed by Obama, Congress and the Supreme Court) do have the ultimate authority, but a lot of decision-making is also at the state level -- state tax, law enforcement, the state educational system, even a lot of what benefits we have are administered at the state level.

For example, here we have Medicaid, which is public health care for people under a certain income level. Obama can include expansion of Medicaid benefits as part of health care reform, but because the states administer Medicaid, they can refuse the expansion (as many of the states with Republican governors have done).

I think what makes it confusing is that the states have their own executives (governors) and legislative bodies, but also send representatives to the national legislative body (Congress) and, of course, they don't ignore issues from their own states when elected. But basically, the state and federal levels of government have different spheres of influence and when they do sometimes conflict, the federal level trumps the state level.

Which is to say, these religious tests for public offices won't hold up in the eventual Supreme Court decision (unless the SC is even more insane than I thought) because the federal constitution doesn't allow the religious test.

But until the Supreme Court actually makes a ruling, the states can have any statute on their books that they want and even enforce it until someone sues and the case makes it to the SC.

Thanks Ben for explaining all that, but what a mess! However did it arrive at that situation in the fist place?

stardesk wrote:Thanks Ben for explaining all that, but what a mess! However did it arrive at that situation in the fist place?

It probably seemed a lot simpler when there were 13 states and just under 4 million people in the whole country And of course, we had the Civil War, which not only tested whether states had the right to secede (they don't) but which also added tension between "states' rights" conservatives and the federal government.

In the few historic occasions in which the federal government has actually had to use force to make states do what they're supposed to, the right tends to remember the force and not what caused it.

I.E. -- they remember troops enforcing desegregation:



... rather than segregation itself:

Gotta lov the south.

You know how in sports, the referees are more likely to call foul on the retaliating player than they are on the instigator?

What if that's how politics works as well?

stardesk wrote:
Hi Ben. What puzzles me about American politics is that various States can formulate their own rules and laws, how is that possible? Surely it's up to the Governmenmt to set national rules and laws which all states must abide by. As you no doubt know, our councils in the UK run local services and community projects, and all other manner of services, but they are answerable to Central Government, they can't make up their own rules as they go along just to suit the persuasions of elected councillors.

A GOOD time to point out here that there are several other countries that also have three levels of government...

INCLUDING  Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India, Japan, Russia..

SO the good ol US of A isn't on their lonesome on that score ~ they have simply taken the "separation and reach of state powers" to a more extreme length than the others.

stardesk wrote:
I am amazed at this piece of info a contact has sent me, and I, along with most people, have always looked upon the USA as well as Britain as being leaders in world freedom and democracy.....  

      CONSIDERING that the USA is listed at #15 among the world's democracies this year, and Britain at #14 (and even Oz has slipped further down those rankings to 12..).

I CERTAINLY wouldn't list any of our countries as "leaders" anymore ~ strong democracies still - yes, but good examples of democracies in action ?   NOT on your Nelly..

Posted: 11 Dec 2014 04:36 PM PST
Atheist group seeks change in state constitutions
"An atheist group is challenging a line of the North and South Carolina constitutions that says people who don’t believe in God can’t hold a public office."

How on earth can people who hold prominent positions in public office pass sensible, unbiased, and well reasoned judgements? They can’t can they, if they are so biased......  

      BLAH, Blah, blah...

AS IF Atheists, Satanists, Goat worshippers, Jedi Knights and Sheep Shaggers aren't all just as capable of being just as biased or bigoted as your hardest religious nuts, political fruitcakes or KKK membership..


HOWEVER, I do hope that the Atheists are successful with their latest push, as such old legislation is still illegal by the "separation of church and state" provisions in any secular countries.      

Lone Wolf wrote:

stardesk wrote:
Hi Ben. What puzzles me about American politics is that various States can formulate their own rules and laws, how is that possible? Surely it's up to the Governmenmt to set national rules and laws which all states must abide by. As you no doubt know, our councils in the UK run local services and community projects, and all other manner of services, but they are answerable to Central Government, they can't make up their own rules as they go along just to suit the persuasions of elected councillors.

A GOOD time to point out here that there are several other countries that also have three levels of government...

INCLUDING  Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India, Japan, Russia..

SO the good ol US of A isn't on their lonesome on that score ~ they have simply taken the "separation and reach of state powers" to a more extreme length than the others.

If you want to get technical, in the U.S. you have to obey federal law, state law, county law and municipal ordinances. Of course, as you drill down to the local level the laws get less important in the long run -- your city or town is basically going to ban fireworks and tell you whether you can park your RV on the curb or not

Oh, and just to complicate it a bit further, four of our states aren't really states, they're commonwealths, and in Louisiana they don't have counties, but parishes (because France).