Rev it up, baby, because this terrific Christmas ad by the Clinton camp has got the wingnuts unwinding. Evidently the Christmas song playing in the background blew right past them…
Hark how the bells
Sweet silver bells
All seem to say
Throw cares away
Christmas is here
Bringing good cheer
To young and old
Meek and the bold
Ding dong ding
That is their song
With joyful ring
All caroling
One seems to hear
Words of good cheer
From everywhere
Filling the air
Oh how they pound
Raising the sound
O’er hill and dale
Telling their tale
Gaily they ring
While people sing
Songs of good cheer
Christmas is here
Merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas
Merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas
On on they send
On without end
Their joyful tone to every home
Dong ding dong ding
Note to the right-wing crazies, there is more to this country than Christians, of which I am one. This is a
diverse nation filled with people who feel differently about religious holidays, with some not celebrating Christmas at all.
Unlike the religious fundies, Democrats actually respect our diversity and celebrate it,
while finding common ground with what government is actually meant to do. Serve
the people.
Check
out HotAir, a site that continues to live up to its name. They should take a lesson from conservative Richard Brookheiser.
… The United States was not founded on the Christian religion. The First Amendment, forbidding a national religious establishment, had been ratified in 1791. The year before, President Washington wrote the congregation of Touro Synagogue in Newport that America did not practice “toleration”: it was not “by indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. … All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.” In 1793, he wrote the Swedenborgian New Church in Baltimore “that every person may here worship God according to the dictates of his own heart.” That amendment and these statements are a better guide to the founders’ views than a treaty with pirates.
Washington had invoked Christ in one critical public statement, his 1783 circular to the states as the Revolution was winding down. This, as far as Washington knew at the time, was his farewell address, his last significant official communication with the state governments and the people of America. He ended it with a prayer that God (a more particular name than Providence) would “dispose us all, to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean (conduct) ourselves with that charity, humility and pacific temper of mind, which were the characteristicks of the divine author of our blessed religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy nation.” The Touro Synagogue would be pleased that he quoted Micah 6:8 on the importance of justice and mercy. But neither they nor any Musselmans who happened to be in America would consider Jesus Christ the author of their religions. Washington was not asking Americans to think of Jesus in a religious context, however–as Savior, or Son of God. He was asking them to imitate Jesus’ qualities–charity, humility, peacefulness. Washington had seen little enough of “pacific temper” during the war, and he would see little more when he came back into public life as president. But some sufficient residue had to exist, or the country would fly apart. Whatever Washington believed about Christ, the Christ of his statement is a political figure, the model citizen.
… …
If the founders did not make America a Christian nation, many of them thought it should be a religious nation. In their view religions sustained the civic culture of the state. … The background of these concerns was the French Revolution. …
Other founders thought free government was threatened by religion, not revolution. … The First Amendment, as (Thomas Jefferson) explained, after quoting it “buil(t) a wall of separation between church and state.” …
… No wonder Jefferson has a pious dread of politicized religion and religious politicking. The “irritable tribe of priests,” Jefferson wrote Benjamin Rush, feared his election, and they were right to do so, “for I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
What Would the Founders Do?, by Richard Brookhiser (selected sections between pages 63-73)
No doubt Bill-O will be inappropriately outraged over Clinton’s inclusiveness.
This is a perfect example of Clinton’s understanding of this country and the role of the president and how she would represent all Americans, not just those who pass some Republican idea of the God test. To find common ground among us all and not divide one another over religion, she also finds a way to communicate what people really want from their president, reaching people who might not be religious at all. Because whether the wingnuts know it or care, Clinton is a devout Methodist. But unlike the Republicans, a President Hillary Clinton would not wear her religion on her sleeve.
Considering the work we have to do in the world, as far as I’m concerned, getting away from what divides us from people around the world is a good thing.
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