In our view, popular reference to the phrase, “OIL AND WATER” connotes a reductive but adequately articulated metaphysical message relevant to the ubiquitous concept of prohibitive duality. From an empirical point of view, each such referenced ingredient possesses singular utilitarian value, but taken in combination, invariably results in a harmful morass.
The cited phrase is dynamically and effectively analogous to the growing governmental, unconstitutional trend of erroneously and harmfully infusing religious principles into the (appropriate) secular operation of our Democratic Republic. It is no short of blatantly ironic, to note the traditionally adamant, right-wing insistence on “original intent,” when it is perceived to support their self-interest yet tactically feigning the pretense of ignorance of said disputable and convenient standard of interpretation when it fails to do so.
History attests to the intent of the framers of the American Constitution (“The Founders”), who, ever cognizant of the authoritarian history of religion in Europe, wisely undertook to create a secular Republic, principally stating: “If we put God in the Constitution, we leave Man out.” The “Founders,” in their radical experiment in a democratic polity, were wary of the empirical inclination of an existing Ruling, or dominant class, to oppressively impose on others its religious dogma. Any cursory review of the language of the Constitution will reveal the complete absence of the word, “God,” or, for that matter, any reference to a Deity; and, pointedly, by meaningful contrast, various references to “natural” rights. The Founders, purposefully, construed the “Establishment Clause,” which mandatorily prohibits the Government from playing any part in the area of religion or religious belief. Government (“Water”) was not to be polluted by entering the arena of Religion (“Oil”).
However, notwithstanding the constitution’s elemental and contextual intention of citizen liberty, by prohibiting the participation of government in the arena of religious belief, history, sadly and painfully, points to an eternally perverse inclination of religionists in government, to evangelically impose their nuanced religious beliefs upon the hapless and diverse American population.
[N.B.] America’s substantial inventory of Right-wing bigots, militantly and ignorantly maintaining that America was created to be a White, Christian Nation (particularly the Nazi-style militias, aggressively espousing such gibberish), might be induced, one day to note that the Biblical Jesus, born in the Middle East, was, as a necessary consequence, not “white” and, further, was, irrefutably, ethnically, Jewish, having been born to identifiably Jewish parents, Mary and Joseph.
America’s long, erroneous, and impactful history of governmental evangelical intrusion into citizen liberty by its violation of the foundational, Establishment Clause is striking and shockingly manifold.
The criminally enforced, “Blue Laws,” by contrary example, were plainly in contradiction to the “Establishment Clause.” The law, in its inappropriate recognition of the Christian Sabbath, prohibited (with but few exceptions, such as the dairy business) the conduct of commerce on the seventh day of the week, the Biblical “Sabbath.” The Bible specifically recites that the Earth and its flora and fauna were created by the Deity in six days, and “rested” on the Seventh (conveniently, on a Sunday), the day of the legislated prohibition of all business and commerce; mercifully, these perverse laws have been abolished Far less material to our thematic concern regarding the frequently occurring, governmental violation of the fundamental mandate concerning “Separation of Church and State,” is the universally accepted, scientific determination that our Planet is no less than 4,500,000,000 years old and, further, that the Bible portrays God as omnipotent (yet, in this instance, fatigued after six days of labor).
The evangelical “fifth columnists” (with the collaboration of today’s right-wing, politically appointed Supreme Court) have reached the proverbial high watermark with their tsunami of intrusive violations of the Constitution and the fundamental philosophy of secular government. The age-old legal (and natural) right of a woman to seek a personally needed abortion has been autocratically abolished. Such unconstitutional judicial travesty has evinced ubiquitous hardship and tragedy in cases such as rape, incest, impaired or deceased fetuses, and mortal danger to the mother. Such an unspeakable, and shocking unconstitutional travesty was “doubled down,” by the recent Alabama Supreme Court decision, bizarrely decreeing that frozen embryos are “children,” “made in the image of God,” and vested with the rights and privileges of the constitutional “Bill of Rights.”
As we stated in an earlier blog, the latter, discreditable “Mad Hatter” determination by the atavistically oriented State of Alabama would analogously make the delivery of sunflower seeds to one’s sweetheart on Valentine’s Day, factually equivalent to a gift of a bouquet of long-stemmed, yellow flowers.
We find ourselves, of late, ruminating on the conceivable possibility of remedial institution of constitutionally based inquisitional proceedings against those in government, shamelessly chargeable with the democratically heinous crime of “secular heresy.”
-p.
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