From a story about Chicago courts dismissing most tickets issued to cab drivers in 2011…
Most tickets for the 28 cabdrivers were heard in the Daley Center, in one of seven white-walled courtrooms decorated only by the words “In God We Trust” on one side.
Um…why? Why do courtrooms have the words “In God We Trust” on their walls? I don’t trust in god, and if I don’t think judges or lawyers should be trusting god either, any more than pilots or surgeons or engineers should.
Oh yeah? So why aren’t we doing it that way then?
I keep face-palming at the fact that we can now quote Reagan as an example of sane moderation. Because I distinctly recall when he was the darling of the Christian Right, as it was 35 years ago.
Reagan and the religious right were allies of convenience. He wasn’t all that religious but used religious leaders to mobilize a big uncritical voting bloc by exploiting their followers` fears of the left and social change. He probably lacked the imagination to see what this strategy would lead to (or didn’t care as long as he won).
The situation where most white evangelicals and a large percentage of socially conservative Catholics and religious Jews reflexively vote for right-wing politicians is fairly new. Republicans once had to work very hard to get support from anyone whose subculture and/or economic interests differed too much from the old northeastern WASP establishment. Reagan himself was a former Democrat.
It’s sad to see people these days losing their homes, jobs and benefits but still clinging to the party of the 1% because of their paranoid obsessions with other people’s sex lives, guns, ten commandments plaques(or crosses and nativity scenes), school prayer, evolution, the anti-Christ, extreme Zionism, etc.
Damned Commie from Hollywood!