Who do you trust? - by Groff Schroeder: Freethought Views April 21, 2011

Who do you trust?

By Groff Schroeder

Between 1630 and 1643, “Puritans” seeking religious freedom emigrated to America. Despite experiencing religious repression in Britain, the Puritan's Massachusetts Bay Colony punished citizens like Roger Williams for advocating religious tolerance. Williams founded Rhode Island upon religious freedom and the separation of church and state in 1636, and in 1644, wrote against “...enforced uniformity of religion.” Between 1650 and 1700, the Massachusetts Bay Colony expelled or executed numerous Quakers, Catholics, “witches,” and others for religious violations.

Although religious animus cooled, economic tensions flared in the 1700s. The East India Company was going broke selling tea to Americans who preferred tea smuggled from Holland. When the British Parliament's Tea Act of 1773 eliminated taxes on the East India Company but continued the “taxation without representation” Americans abhorred, a boycott – then a Revolutionary War, followed.

July 4, 1776's, Declaration of Independence required the creation of “The Great Seal of the United States” for official correspondence. The Great Seal and its three dicta (mottoes), “E Pluribus Unum“ (out of many, one), “Anuit Coeptis” (a nod to the beginning), and "Novus Ordo Seclorum" (new order for the ages), was approved in 1782. "E Pluribus Unum" has appeared on US currency since 1795.

America's brilliant founders drafted the United States Constitution at the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia “...to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence [sic], promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” The Constitution prohibits “Bribery,” omits “God,” “corporation,” “free market,” etc., and was followed in 1791 by the ratification of the “Bill of Rights,” the first ten Amendments to the Constitution. The first two clauses of the First Amendment state, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Despite this history, in 1864 Abraham Lincoln signed the Coinage Act mandating "In God We Trust" on US currency.  In 1956, Dwight D. Eisenhower's signature made “In God we trust” the "official" motto of the United States and inserted, “under God” into the Pledge of Allegiance.  On March 24, 2011, the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives passed resolution HR 2102 H.Con.Res 13 "reaffirming" "In God We Trust" as the official motto of the US. On January 21, 2010, the United States Supreme Court upheld corporate citizenship rights including unlimited paid political advertising (“free” speech).

Legal trickery creating corporate personhood from incorrect head notes on an 1886 railroad decision and legislation “reaffirming” a US motto invoking “God” are egregious attacks on America's most important founding principles. If denying food and health care to minor, disabled, and elderly taxpayers to fund corporate tax breaks and “subsidies” is not taxation without representation, what is? If invoking “God” in government, on currency, and in public schools does not “establish” religion, what would?

Should “In God, we trust,” ignoring conspicuous falsehoods and surrendering our responsibilities to a deity, while America's neediest taxpayers subsidize tax sheltered corporations to “drown” America “in a bathtub?”  Or will We the People step up, trust America's founder's, exercise our political power, proudly contribute, and work to solve our problems together as “Out of many, one?”

 

 

 

Who do you trust?

by Groff Schroeder

April 15, 2011

 

Appeared April 21-27, 2011 in the Freethinkers of Colorado Springs "Freethought Views" column in the Colorado Springs Independent with the quotation below.

 

Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it. 

Adolf Hitler