One Nation under God No More

Shameful bunch of religious fundamentalists.

I recently got involved in a discussion on Facebook that suggests to me just how divided politics is now in the US. The wife of an old friend posted Paul Ryan saying in his acceptance speech as VP candidate, “Our rights come from nature and God, not from government.” And then her terse comment: “That just doesn't make sense!”

Whoops! It's a pretty close paraphrase of the Declaration of Independence. I would have thought simply pointing that out would reconcile her to Ryan's comment, though I cannot guess what did not make sense to her about the reference.

So I did.

At this point, three women and one man piled in with protesting posts. Apparently, the Declaration of Independence is highly controversial. One wrote, “What happened to separation of state and religion?” The man wrote “Canada grants the right to healthcare and equal rights to homosexuals. I wonder if Mr. Ryan believes that these rights also come from God and Nature. Pretty sure both countries follow the same God...” [Note the phrase “grants the right.” Not inalienable, then.] Another woman responded “And some of us don't believe in god! But Canada is looking better all the time!” Another wrote “The declaration of independence was a document that justified the colonies separation from the monarchy and the british parliament [sic]. ... most of America has moved on from 19th century liberalism.” And one wrote “Stephen Roney you are so misguided. If you are a US citizen go talk among your right wing friends, if you are a Canadian, shame on you!”

So there you are. Not only is the Declaration of Independence and the doctrine of inalienable human rights no longer in force, not only is it now controversial, but it is actually shameful to bring it up. And bringing up God seems to be even worse.

The frightening thing to me about this is that there are apparently no longer any shared values to appeal to among Americans—not liberalism, not the Constitution, not human rights, not the Judeo-Christian tradition, not conventional morality. There is no longer any possibility of reasoned discourse. It is war; really, with or without the actual shooting.