Category: Religion

Why the Puritan Agenda Must Not Prevail

The Founding Fathers’ collective vision of education in a democratic republic reflected their profound understanding of education’s essential role in ensuring the sustainability and robustness of the new nation. We were fortunate that the wealthy early leadership of the nation—Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, and George Washington—shared a common conviction: that education was indispensable for self-government and the preservation of liberty. Jefferson and Madison insisted on the widespread diffusion of knowledge as foundational to liberty. They were acutely aware that an ignorant populace could be easily manipulated, that education was the bulwark against tyranny and mob rule.

Today in the United States, secular education is seen as a threat to religious belief by about ten percent of the population, which to a thinking person would hint at a problem with their religious beliefs. But it seems this small portion of the population instead sees the outlier status of their beliefs as a badge of honor, somehow proving they are right and everyone else is wrong. Yet while most Christian extremists rely on the science behind cell phones, modern medicine, and public health standards governing water and air quality, they suffer cognitive dissonance between their religious mythology and the realities of scientific advancement. The fear of new information is so deeply ingrained that these religionists cannot escape it. This is the kind of ‘knowledge’ and ‘faith’ that Christian extremists seek to embed in the minds of their children, and not just theirs.  

The intention is to force institutional ignorance onto the entire nation. For our own good, of course. Because otherwise their loving God will condemn us all to burn in hell for eternity.

We’ve seen this before, as elaborated in the first chapter, times when religious power brokers forced a population to adhere to specific doctrines and if refused, initiated imprisonment, torture, and death for the “infidels.” Christian Nationalist ideas of proper acceptance of authority are rooted in a belief that God holds supreme authority and has delegated power to specific earthly institutions—primarily the church, family, and state—to maintain order and enforce a Christian social hierarchy.

Adherents believe that specific leaders are chosen by God to “save the country,” as demonstrated by their continuing support of presidents such as Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, George Bush, and now Donald Trump. A significant segment of Christian Nationalists and their supporters believe that Trump is a divinely ordained leader sent to save the United States, viewing him as a “warrior for Christ” tasked with restoring America to its perceived Christian roots. Because such leaders are seen as advancing a divine plan, supporters can overlook their breaches of democratic rules or norms as well as their personal immorality and perfidiousness, believing such actions are necessary to uphold a rightly ordered society.

It follows then that control over education and tax support for schools teaching these theories are a primary objective. But that was not the vision of the Founding Fathers or the visionary early 19th century government in establishing tax-support public schools. Fortunately, as science and other fields of study have advanced over the last 250 years, religious power over learning has diminished.

Leading us to this point has been the “common school,” established in the 1830s and 1840s in the new United States, comparable to today’s standardized public school. Considered the father of American education, Horace Mann envisioned common schools as institutions that were free and open to all students. In his role as Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education (1837–1848), he established teacher training schools, improved school infrastructure, and raised educational standards. [1] He wanted those teachers to teach standardized curricula that instilled students with civic values. Catholic and other parochial schools in particular objected to Mann’s belief that schools should not adhere to any specific Christian sect, an argument that continues to the present day.

An obvious drawback of religious schools that is often overlooked is the inevitable assumption of such schools and their adherents that their beliefs are the only truth, that anything other than specific Christian dogma is a lie. Denial of science is the best example of this prejudice as scientific discoveries have slowly dismantled much of the institutionalized mythology enshrined by religion. As myth becomes ingrained in students of religious schools, their beliefs serve as a wedge between the people practicing that belief system and the needs of a nation to move forward in all areas such as advancing industry and the economy with new inventions based on new scientific discoveries and the acceptance of facts about human life previously not understood.

For the 68% of Americans who do not adhere or sympathize with the strict religious views of Christian extremists, the fundamentals of accepted education typically aligns with secular, pluralistic, and science-backed academic standards. These standards prioritize critical thinking and inclusivity rather than religious doctrine or rigid ideological frameworks. In fact, of the approximate 32% of Americans counted as Christian Nationalists, the actual adherents are only 11% while another 21% are considered sympathizers.[2]

The question of funding public schools boils down to what we expect our educational tax dollars to accomplish. Programs which teach narrow and exclusive religious doctrine are by definition not meant to support a cooperative relationship among persons of various cultural and religious backgrounds, but rather to hold up one belief system as the only truth. This becomes an impetus for authoritarian overreach and ultimately war, as history has long shown us.

While historically this conflict in the U.S. has been decided in favor of the constitutional standard not to mix church and state, the most compelling factor in the present day argument is that we all pay taxes and the majority of Americans do not agree that taxes should support the extreme Christian agenda. Tax support violates the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause by compelling taxpayers to fund the teaching of religious doctrines, essentially creating a government-sanctioned religion.

The slow but determined creep of Christian Nationalism shows every intention of overturning this Constitutional mandate. The camel’s nose is well under the edge of the tent. A 2024 investigation by The Washington Post found billions in tax dollars now pay tuition at private, mostly religious schools. For example, Florida’s voucher program is expected to exceed $3 billion, with over 80% of funds going to religious schools. Ohio is projected to spend nearly $1 billion, with 91% of voucher users attending religious institutions. Hundreds of thousands of students use these programs. The rise in funding is attributed to the expansion of voucher programs in Republican-led states, which now allow more or all families to qualify, shifting from programs once aimed only at low-income students.

Reduced funding for public education leads to layoffs, larger class sizes, and reduced individualized attention for students. Schools that serve the vast majority of students are forced to cut essential services, including arts, music, athletic programs, and after-school programming. There is less money for modern technology, up-to-date textbooks, and lab equipment. Meanwhile, private schools receiving public funds can exclude students based on religion, academic performance, disability, or sexual orientation, narrowing the educational options for those students. Vouchers can deepen racial and socioeconomic segregation by subsidizing tuition at private schools that often lack the diversity of public schools. Continued siphoning of funds can result in the closure of neighborhood public schools, particularly in rural areas where the school is a central community institution.

Long term erosion of financial support for public education puts the entire nation at risk, not only from prejudicial curricula in religious classrooms, but also from the inevitable schism between people educated in stringently oppositional systems. In a nation that has long pursued unity despite our different origins and beliefs, such divisive practices are a form of violence against the existing government.

The Supreme Court has said the Establishment Clause forbids, among other things, financial support of religious activity. Subsequent cases challenging the longstanding interpretation of the First Amendment have brought us to the Espinoza vs. Montana case, allowing tax dollars to flow to the parents/students of religious schools. This is by far not established law. While Espinoza reaffirmed that governments may not discriminate against beneficiaries solely on the basis of their religious character, it left open the possibility that governments might still be able to bar beneficiaries that would put public funds to religious uses.

The U.S. majority has become increasingly aware of the conflict between a religious agenda and our multicultural society. The percentage of Americans who say religion is “very important” has dropped from over 88%-95% in the 1960s to 47% in 2025. The latest Religious Landscape Study, fielded over seven months in 2023-24, finds that only 62% of U.S. adults identify as Christians. That is a decline of nine percentage points since 2014 and a 16-point drop since 2007. Within Christianity, 19% are Catholic, 3% are Mormon, Orthodox, Jehovah’s Witness, and other, and 42% are Protestant divided into Evangelical (23%), Mainline (14%),[3] and Historically Black Protestant (5%).

Projections indicate that by 2070, Christians could shrink from 64% (2020) to between 35% and 54% of Americans, while “Nones” (no religion) rise from 30% to over 50% in some scenarios. This shift drives religious zealots to push a movement which seeks to assert “dominion” over societal institutions, including government, education, and media, believing that Christian moral values should dictate law.

Growing concern within the U.S. public is slowly building into a response to Christian Nationalism, Dominionism, Christian Reconstructionism, and the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) including tracking by civil rights organizations, legal challenges, and theological counter-movements from within Christianity. These initiatives aim to counter the rising influence of these new Puritan groups. Organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) are actively documenting the spread of Dominionism,[4] profiling key leaders in the New Apostolic Reformation, and tracking associated hate groups. (This is directly connected to the Trump Administration’s May 2026 lawsuit against the SPLC in an effort to intimidate all civil rights organizations from speaking out and doing their work.)[5]

Scholars and progressive faith leaders are working to produce public-facing biblical interpretations that contradict Dominionist, coercive, and authoritarian interpretations of Scripture. Efforts are underway to inform the public and Christians about the anti-democratic nature of white Christian Nationalism and Dominionism to “inoculate” them against its appeal. The ACLU of North Dakota and other organizations actively fight against initiatives promoted by Dominionists, such as forcing religious prayer into public schools, banning books, and promoting anti-LGBTQ+ policies. Organizations like American Atheists oppose lobbying efforts to pass laws that violate the separation of church and state, such as those permitting discrimination under the guise of religious freedom. Researchers such as Dr. Matthew D. Taylor are working to expose the ties between modern charismatic prophets and the political, antidemocratic, and “spiritual warfare” approaches used to influence elections.

Defenders of the United States Constitution emphasize the importance of religious pluralism and the separation of church and state, arguing that Christian supremacy rejects these principles. Organized efforts underway to combat Christian supremacy include

  • A grassroots movement launched by the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty (BJC). It unites Christians across the theological spectrum to speak out against the merging of Christian and American identities.
  • Interfaith Alliance: A national, pro-democracy organization that mobilizes diverse faith communities to challenge Christian nationalism, protect civil rights, and uphold religious pluralism.
  • State Ecumenical Groups: Various regional faith networks, such as the Wisconsin Council of Churches, that host educational campaigns, study groups, and sermons to counter nationalist theology.
  • Americans United for Separation of Church and State: A leading organization dedicated to preserving the constitutional wall separating church and state. They actively litigate cases and advocate against policies that advance white Christian nationalism.
  • Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF): A prominent secular organization working to defend the constitutional principle of separation of church and state, frequently challenging religious favoritism in the public and political spheres.
  • Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC): Monitors far-right and extremist movements. The SPLC identifies and exposes the ideologies and groups—including Christian supremacist and Dominionist networks—that threaten democratic institutions.
  • Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI): While not an activist group, PRRI conducts rigorous data-driven research and polling on Christian nationalism. Their work tracks the demographics and organizations that resist these movements.

These efforts fight against the adoption of “biblical authoritarianism” and the idea that Christians are mandated to take over societal institutions.

[1] Little, Becky. “Who Invented Public School in America,” History, Sept 10, 2025. https://www.history.com/articles/public-school-america-horace-mann

[2] More than half of U.S. Republicans are either adherents (20%) or sympathizers (33%).

[3] a group of historically established, traditional Protestant denominations in North America, often associated with a theologically liberal, progressive, or moderate approach to Christianity

[4] Dominionism (or Dominion Theology) is the religious belief that Christians are divinely mandated to take control of secular political and cultural institutions to establish the Kingdom of God on Earth. It is smaller and more fringe than broad Christian nationalism, but it holds disproportionate sway in certain fundamentalist, charismatic, and Pentecostal factions. While closely related, Dominionism and Christian Nationalism differ in their ultimate goals, theological roots, and how they view the relationship between religion, government, and the end of the world. Apparently neither group is familiar with the writings attributed to John in 18:36 where Jesus clarifies the nature of his realm: “My kingdom is not of this world.”

[5] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/21/trump-administration-sues-southern-poverty-law-center-on-fraud-charges

This is the 4th chapter in the booklet New Puritans and the U. S. Peerage: The Willful Destruction of Public Education

The Education Problem: Bigger than the New Puritans

In 1975, Congress passed a law that mandated mainstreaming students with disabilities. The majority of funding for such programs was never enacted, leaving schools crippled with lower student achievement, increased teacher turnover, and wider educational equity gaps, particularly impacting low-income and minority students. These well-intentioned programs have led to overcrowded classrooms, reduced access to specialized services (such as special education), and fewer extracurricular opportunities, hindering long-term student success and limiting workforce readiness.

The inevitable subsequent shortcomings of education opened the door to other assaults. In the lack of adequate funding, schools frequently cut arts, music, advanced placement courses, and crucial special education, behavioral intervention, and occupational therapy services, most of which offset the likelihood of substance abuse and are key for some students’ success in life. Opportunities are increasingly lost for the social bonding which occurs for participants in school extracurriculars like band or debate to form important relationships that can extend throughout lifetimes. [1]

When Congress passed a broad law on educating children with disabilities in 1975, it agreed to kick in federal dollars to help cover the excess costs of meeting students’ individual education needs. In the time since, federal funding for what’s now known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) has consistently fallen short of the target included in the law, leaving state and local officials on the hook. Education groups, who call that shortfall an unfulfilled promise, have long campaigned for “fully funding” IDEA, which underpins services for nearly 7 million students with disabilities. More federal funding for IDEA, which gets $13.6 billion in the current budget, would help special education programs, they say, but it would also more broadly affect all students as schools would no longer have to pull as much from their general education budgets to meet the law’s mandates.

The failure of Congress in 1975 has meant fifty subsequent years of underfunded public education in the United States. Despite some improvements and recoveries, experts note that student achievements have not consistently regained the levels reached in the mid-1960s, while international rankings for math and science have dropped in more recent decades.[2] This educational decline has served as a convenient back door which religionists began using as a justification (along with civil rights legislation forcing school integration and other factors) to put children in private schools.

Currently, according to the Congressional Research Service, funding is at less than 12 percent, and the IDEA shortfall in the 2024-2025 school year nationwide was $38.66 billion. A bipartisan bill currently in Congress, the IDEA Full Funding Act, would fully fund the IDEA programs. By forcing the federal government to meet its obligation of funding 40% of special education costs, local districts could free up their general budgets—currently used to fill the special education funding gap—to support regular education initiatives.

As a result of this deficiency and along with the obsessive intentions of the new Puritans, even greater burden now falls upon public schools as private and religious school vouchers allow those schools to deny admission to special education students. Only about 58.7% of all private schools in the U.S. enroll at least one student with an Individualized Education Program (IEP) or a formally identified disability. While overall enrollment is lower in Catholic schools, they have higher inclusion rates, with 72.7% to 83.8% serving students with disabilities. This means that only about 1.4% of total students in private schools have formally identified disabilities, although studies suggest a higher 6-9% of students may actually have needs.

This funding gap causes inadequate disability services in public schools. Ironically, as more funding is diverted from public schools via vouchers, schools have even fewer resources to serve students with disabilities, accelerating the demand for school choice and further diminishing public education resources.

Exacerbating this problem is a continuing increase in the number of handicapped students. The number of students with disabilities served under federal programs has roughly doubled since the mid-1970s, growing from approximately 3.6 million in 1976-77 to over 7.5 million by 2022-23. Students with disabilities now account for 15% of total public school enrollment, up from 8.3% in 1976, dramatically increasing the financial burden on public schools. This rise is driven by increased diagnoses of ADHD, autism, and severe anxiety (especially post-pandemic), coupled with reduced stigma, better screening, and greater awareness of legal rights for accommodations.

In classrooms where students with disabilities lack a dedicated personal attendant, responsibility for bathroom and feeding needs falls on school-provided staff, typically special education teachers, para-educators (TAs), or classroom aides. These services are legally mandated under a student’s IEP (Individualized Education Program) or 504 Plan to ensure participation in the least restrictive environment, but are often not provided but to inadequate funding.

As a result, classroom teachers have been forced to step away from teaching the rest of the class to personally attend key tasks including toileting support, feeding, dressing, hygiene (such as nose wiping, menstrual care), and mobility assistance like transfers or repositioning. This care often includes behavior management, medication supervision, and facilitating meal times. Ideally, such duties would fall to paraprofessionals trained and hired to provide such care, but lack of school funds often leaves these duties up to classroom teachers who are not only not trained for such efforts, but also not able to accommodate the needs of the rest of their students.

No wonder teachers are leaving the profession. Data indicates that 51% of classroom teachers feel ill-equipped to implement required IEP services, and high turnover exists due to excessive workloads in special education. One elementary teacher stated that by the time she had tended one student’s temper tantrums and assaults on other students plus feeding and bathroom duties in her first grade class, she had almost no time left to actually teach the other 23 students in her classroom.[3] 

That unfunded mandate continues to echo through much of the failure cited today in justification for school vouchers. No one can claim that promoters of IDEA foresaw the lack of funding perpetuated by Congress or the long term role that failure would have in the promotion of school vouchers, but in hindsight the facts are clear: the compromise of public education quality due to the underfunded mandate of IDEA contributed significantly to a rising call for school vouchers.

Adding Insult to Injury

Eliminating the federal department overseeing education is just one of several recent attacks on U.S. public education. As recently as 20 years ago, the United States was ranked No.1 in high school and college education. Sadly, by 2025, in the World Top 20 Project’s Final Rankings of 201 nations’ education systems, the list of best twenty educated countries for 2025 does not include the United States. The U.S. education system generally ranks in the middle to lower tier of developed nations for K-12, particularly struggling in mathematics while performing better in science and reading. According to 2022 PISA data, the U.S. ranked 34th in math, 16th in science, and 9th in reading among 81 education systems, though it remains a global leader in higher education.[4]

Although funding is a critical criterion for the system, American students are also falling behind due to a combination of pandemic-era learning disruptions, increased technology distractions, a deepening teacher shortage, and systemic inequality. Scores in reading and math dropped to historic lows following 2020, with declines continuing due to, in part, reduced student focus, weak accountability, and declining mental health. While remote learning during COVID-19 accelerated losses, student performance in math and reading was already declining since roughly 2013. Heavy use of smartphones and social media is linked to reduced attention spans and lower academic engagement. A 30% drop in teacher enrollment (2010–2019) and low salary growth have made it harder to fill positions.

The U.S. system leaves behind low-performing students more than other developed nations, with significant achievement gaps linked to school funding and location. Schools are facing lower standards and fewer consequences for poor performance compared to previous decades. In 2022–2023, schools reported that roughly half of their students were behind grade level. Many students arrive at college underprepared, leading to high drop-out rates and debt, as schools struggle to align with modern workforce demands. Experts suggest focusing on tutoring, intensive learning recovery, and addressing student mental health.

But that’s hardly enough. American schools face severe faculty shortages, largely due to high turnover rates and a shrinking pipeline of new teachers. Key causes include stagnant, low salaries relative to the cost of living, heavy workloads, declining professional prestige, and intense political scrutiny. These factors drive roughly 40% of new teachers to leave the profession within five years. To gain and maintain sufficient faculty, U.S. schools need competitive compensation, improved retention through mentorship, and broadened hiring criteria—such as valuing professional experience alongside terminal degrees.

Lack of respect for educators is most obvious in the approach to curriculum and teaching methods. Teachers in U.S. public schools often lack a voice in curriculum due to top-down mandates from state and district leaders, high-stakes testing pressures, and increasing political interference. Curricula and textbooks are frequently chosen by politicians and administrators to meet standardized goals or as sold by companies, forcing teachers to follow rigid plans rather than exercising their professional expertise to meet the needs of their students.

Evidence suggests U.S. education rankings and student achievement would likely improve if teachers had greater control over curriculum, textbooks, and school operations. Schools with high teacher leadership in school policy and curriculum development can see student proficiency scores in math and reading increase by at least 10 percentile points.

Teachers are the only persons in the entire educational system certified to have the necessary tools to actually educate. Specialized coursework educates prospective teachers in educational psychology, child development, curriculum planning, assessment methods, classroom management, and technology integration, alongside supervised student teaching. Their college educations for secondary education provide knowledge of history, mathematics, science (biology, chemistry, or physics), social studies, and English and language arts, and depending on their major field of study, experience with arts, music, foreign language, or physical education. Students preparing to teach at the elementary level focus on reading development, foundational math, science, and social studies.

Policymakers, politicians, and district leaders often prioritize compliance over teacher expertise, leaving educators restricted in what they can teach. Many educators self-censor their curriculum choices due to fear of backlash over political or social issues, knowing they lack support from administration if complaints arise. School leadership and state governments often impose curricula rather than collaborating with classroom experts, reducing teachers to implementers rather than creators. Also, the obsession with high-stakes testing encourages, or requires, teachers to follow a rigid script that ensures covering tested materials. In an Alice-in-Wonderland twist, potential backlash is itself a symptom of failed education among the voting public.

A love of learning significantly helps people later in life by protecting against cognitive decline, fostering adaptability, and increasing fulfillment in retirement. It boosts mental health by creating new neural pathways, reduces risks of dementia, and provides a sense of purpose. Lifelong learners maintain better social connections and professional relevance. A love of learning fosters critical thinking and curiosity, and empowers citizens to analyze complex issues rather than blindly following narratives, directly strengthening democracy. Educated individuals are more likely to participate in political processes, stay informed, and tolerate diverse viewpoints, reducing polarization.

Individuals with a love of learning often have higher education levels, which strongly correlates with increased voter turnout, political discussion, and civic engagement. Education teaches citizens to gather empirical evidence and analyze political issues rather than merely accepting rhetoric. A committed, curious citizenry is essential for identifying misinformation, especially as AI makes fabricated media harder to detect which, in turn, leads to the kind of political chaos currently occurring in the United States.

Teachers can and do foster a love of learning by cultivating curiosity, building safe environments, and modeling passion for their subjects. Teachers inspire this through student-centered learning, rather than just lecturing, which transforms students into active participants. Yet in a 2003 survey, only 24% of teachers identified “inspiring a love of learning” as the most important part of good teaching. While almost all teachers value curiosity, studies indicate that only a minority consistently implement high-level curiosity-promoting behaviors, with one study finding that only about 60% provide general opportunities to think or participate.

A group of University of California, Berkeley researchers found that when young children were shown exactly how to do something, they subsequently engaged in less exploration on their own than those who had received no explicit direction. Likewise, enthusiasm about reading—a key predictor of proficiency—tends to be lower when children are subjected to systematic phonics-based instruction rather than a literature-based approach, as Dominic Wyse and Charlotte Hacking explain in their new book The Balancing Act. Math teacher and research mathematician Paul Lockhart, meanwhile, wryly described the conventional curriculum in his field as “a proven cure for curiosity”—also an apt epithet for worksheets.[5]

Research also shows a sharp decline in curiosity as students get older, often due to school practices.[6]

This isn’t a failure of teachers, who often struggle to encourage student curiosity in the quagmire of rigid, test-driven school structures, packed curricula, and a focus on compliance over exploration. Structural constraints like inflexible schedules and standardized testing force teachers to prioritize efficiency over organic, student-led inquiry, which requires time to explore. Further, many teacher training programs prioritize classroom management and content delivery over teaching storytelling, curiosity hooks, or how to spark wonder.

Decreasing educational outcomes in the U.S. diminish long-term economic growth by reducing workforce productivity, lowering lifetime earnings, and increasing public expenditures on social services. A less skilled workforce slows innovation and global competitiveness, with gaps in achievement potentially causing trillions in lost GDP. These declines fuel social inequality, as students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are disproportionately affected, hindering social mobility. Long-term consequences include increased income inequality, higher crime rates, and strained public resources.

Perhaps more importantly, these shortcomings significantly alter the political landscape by driving educational realignment, widening the partisan divide, and potentially lowering overall voter turnout. Voters without college degrees increasingly favor the Republican Party, while college graduates lean Democratic, shifting party platforms and strengthening political polarization.

This political alignment resulting from diminished educational success is without question a driving principle behind Trump’s aggressive attack on the nation’s flagship universities.[7]

The Trump administration has gutted scientific research funding in the United States to punish ‘liberal’ universities and threatened research institutions with sanctions.  …Universities are now afraid to collaborate with any other country.  Private industry has not stepped up to fund basic research.  Science and technology are collapsing in America and we are steadily falling behind the rest of the world.  China, Japan, the European Union, and the United Kingdom have all maintained robust scientific research programs. Trump’s failure to understand the value of scientific knowledge is creating a Sputnik-like technology deficit in the U.S. that will be extremely difficult to overcome.

As reported in October 2025, the Trump administration sent schools a 10-point memo titled “Compact for Excellence in Higher Education.” Largely rejected, the compact would limit international student enrollment, force universities to share student information with the federal government, enforce the adoption of a specific definition of gender and threaten affinity spaces, and take action against actors that “punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.”

Enter the Heritage Foundation

Project 2025, a policy blueprint authored primarily by The Heritage Foundation, envisions a nation without a department of education. Currently more than 50 high-level officials and approximately 70 percent of the Cabinet have documented ties to the Heritage Foundation and the groups allied behind the Project 2025 agenda. The goal is to install a “4-pillar” plan to restructure the executive branch, focusing on conservative, and often right-wing, ideals. The project explicitly targets for removal or avoidance several ideologies and policies it deems anti-conservative, “woke,” or contrary to its vision of American society. A review of this “blueprint” reveals an absolute denial of science that puts human existence at risk.  

The main ideas, policies, and ideologies to be avoided or eliminated by Project 2025 include: [8]

  • The project treats “gender ideology” and “transgender ideology” as “social contagions” to be removed from public life, education, and government. It calls for outlawing transgender rights, ending protections for trans people in the military, and equating “transgender ideology” with pornography. Yet science has confirmed that gender identity exists on a spectrum, an unavoidable physical condition set in the womb including being born appearing female but have a 5-alpha reductase deficiency and grow a penis at age 12.

Such conditions of gender dysphoria often remain hidden until adolescence when hormones rise to manifest their genetic directives. What a tragedy for young people with one of these conditions who may be forced to suffer a condition becoming increasingly obvious as they move through adolescence. Medical treatments can mitigate the advancing crisis, but those represented by the Heritage Foundation (and others ignorant of science) would deny the existence of their conditions, creating not only a physical crisis but also emotional and psychological trauma. Needless to say, such a crisis severely undercuts a young person’s ability to gain an effective education.

Another hidden tragedy in this ignorance of science is that it embeds hypocrisy into religious thinking. Modern science has discovered not only the cause of such genetic factors, but also hormonal means of helping these people gain greater equilibrium in their conditions. In a rational consideration, to deny both the medical diagnosis as well as an effective treatment for gender dysphoria would also deny diagnosis and treatment for a myriad of other medical conditions: cancer, for example, or tuberculosis, epilepsy, or diabetes, all of which were considered total mysteries, frequently believed caused by divine punishment or demonic possession. What other conditions and treatments would the new Puritans discard from our society?

  • Whether or not a person identifies as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (or Questioning) (LGBTQ) also falls into the science denialism of Christian Nationalists. As typical of religious extremists, other people’s private activities, in particular their sexual relationships, form a primary target for authoritarian control. Yet despite wishes to the contrary, sexual identity is not a matter of choice or ‘perversion.’

Genetics play a role in a person’s sexual identity, but it is highly complex. Hundreds of genetic variants can predispose a person to same-sex behavior, meaning DNA alone cannot predict a person’s sexuality. Scientists believe that conditions in the womb significantly influence sexual orientation. Factors such as fetal exposure to varying levels of sex hormones (like androgens) during critical periods of brain development and maternal immune responses during pregnancy help wire attraction before birth.

Separately, the environment can influence how genes work without changing the DNA sequence itself, a process called “epigenetics.” Some theories suggest epigenetic “switches” are passed down across generations and act to protect parents from hormonal extremes in the womb, which can subsequently influence brain development and attraction in their offspring.

The reality of science should serve to deny religionists the ability to blame matters of gender and identity as a sinful choice. It should eliminate any idea of forcing such persons into conversion therapy, either private practice or facilities operating under the scientifically debunked premise that LGBTQ+ identities are a mental illness, defect, or choice and using harmful practices such as faith-based boot camps or church-operated programs that use prayer, isolation, and guilt to “cure” same-sex attraction along with extreme measures including physical labor, emotional abuse, and deprivation.

  • Another Puritan initiative seeks to purge DEI programs, race-conscious admissions, and “wokeism” from federal agencies, the military, and educational institutions, labeling them “managerialist left-wing race and gender ideology.” These include Critical Race Theory, calling for the removal of critical race theory from public schools and federal funding for programs that teach it. CRT is an academic and legal framework, developed in the 1970s and 80s that examines how racism is systemic and embedded in legal systems and societal institutions, rather than just a product of individual prejudice. Denialism by religionists does not erase the reality of prejudice in cultural traditions driving racism and other harmful discriminations.
  • Project 2025 also calls for eliminating all references to climate change and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The policy seeks to stop the “war on oil and natural gas,” leaving young people without the knowledge of how to address the warming of our climate.
  • Project 2025 advocates for the abolition of the U.S. Department of Education, returning control of education to states, and promoting school choice over public schools. It aims to remove “pornography” and “woke propaganda” from school libraries, often targeting books with LGBTQ+ content, and seeks to move the nation away from what it considers “leftist” and “woke” ideologies, focusing instead on a “biblically-based,” traditional, and nationalistic approach to American governance and society.

Despite the new Puritan efforts, every thinking person knows that public education must embrace the truths revealed by modern science, bestowing upon our coming generations the insights and understanding necessary to motivate participation in our democracy. Above all, secular education must ensure the survival of our Constitution in its original intent, that religion remains utterly separate from the operations of our government.

[1] Blad, Evie. “Why the Fed Still Falls Short on Special Education Funding,” Education Week, Jan 10, 2020.  https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/ why-the-feds-still-fall-short-on-special-education-funding/2020/01

[2] For a more detailed overview, see Shimabukuro, Jim. “The Decline of U.S. Public Education Began in 1967,” Educational Technology & Change, Feb 13, 2026.  https://etcjournal.com/2026/02/13/the-decline-of-u-s-public-education-began-in-1967/

[3] Author’s personal correspondence with the teacher

[4] New Jersey Minority Educational Development (NJMED) organization. Each country’s ranking is based on five educational levels: early-childhood enrollment rates, Elementary Math, Science and Reading scores, Middle-School Math, Science and Reading scores, High School Graduation rates, and College Graduation rates. https://worldtop20.org/worldbesteducationsystem/

[5] Kohn, Alfie. “All Learning, No Questioning: How Schools Smother Curiosity,” Education Week, Sept. 23, 2024. https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/opinion-all-learning-no-questioning-how-schools-smother-curiosity/2024/09

[6] Regarding student curiosity as part of classroom outcomes, see Jirout JJ, Zumbrunn S, Evans NS, Vitiello VE. Development and Testing of the Curiosity in Classrooms Framework and Coding Protocol. Front Psychol. 2022 Apr 7;13:875161. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.875161. PMID: 35465531; PMCID: PMC9022842.

[7] Soeder, Daniel J. “Science, Technology, and Society Discussion Corner,” Facebook, Dec 1, 2025. https://www.facebook.com/groups/ScienceTechnologyAndSocietyDiscussionCorner/posts/10173237402565008/

[8] See, for example, Boucher FJO, Chinnah TI. Gender Dysphoria: A Review Investigating the Relationship Between Genetic Influences and Brain Development. Adolesc Health Med Ther. 2020 Aug 5;11:89-99. doi: 10.2147/AHMT.S259168. PMID: 32801984; PMCID: PMC7415463. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7415463/

This post is from Chapter 3, New Puritans and the U.S. Peerage: The Willful Destruction of Public Education

Education Is A National Priority

Throughout our national history, conflict over education has erupted with tiring regularity. Soon after the Revolution, common schools were designed by Protestant elites to foster “Americanization,” but they used the King James Bible and Protestant curriculum. Irish Catholic immigrants in New York and Philadelphia resisted what they saw as forced indoctrination and demanded public funds for their own schools. These tensions led to riots in Philadelphia in 1844, where Catholic homes and churches were burned. This conflict cemented the shift towards non-sectarian public schools, although they often retained a general Protestant character.

Many citizens, particularly wealthier ones, were reluctant to pay taxes for other people’s children to be educated. Some workers resisted the invasiveness of compulsory education, as it kept children out of the workforce, forcing some towns to temporarily abandon or reduce public school efforts, such as in Beverly, Massachusetts, in 1860.[1] Child labor was highly widespread in the U.S. during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with over 1.75 million children aged 15 and under (roughly 18% of the workforce) reported as working in 1910. Children as young as 3 or 4 were sometimes used for small, specialized tasks, while 5 to 8-year-olds were frequently employed in hazardous textile mills, mines, and factories. Child labor was finally curbed by the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.[2]

Before the Civil War, most Southern states passed laws making it illegal to teach enslaved people to read or write out of fear that they would read abolitionist literature, such as David Walker’s Appeal, and communicate, fueling organized uprisings like Nat Turner’s Rebellion of 1831. Also, literate enslaved people could read maps, forge travel passes, or write passes for themselves to escape to free states, a method used by many to escape bondage. Slaveholders believed an illiterate, ignorant enslaved person was easier to manage and obey, whereas literacy made them “disconsolate and unhappy” in their captivity. And literacy challenged the white supremacist justification that Black people were inherently inferior, unintelligent, or “less than human.”

Even in northern states, black children were largely denied access to public schools, often being forced into segregated, inferior schools, leading to early school desegregation battles, such as Roberts v. City of Boston in the 1840s. The “Slave Bible”—formally titled Select Parts of the Holy Bible for the use of the Negro Slaves—was used in the 19th-century United States, particularly in the South, though it was primarily produced in London in 1807 for British Caribbean colonies. It was a heavily redacted version of the Bible created to promote obedience and prevent slave revolts, with 90% of the Old Testament and 50% of the New Testament removed.

Following the Civil War, southern schoolhouses became battlegrounds to teach the “Lost Cause” narrative—a false interpretation of history that portrayed slavery in a positive light and argued the war was over states’ rights, not slavery. School officials strictly monitored textbooks to ensure they did not challenge Confederate interpretations of history. This led through coming decades to culminate in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) in which the Supreme Court ruled that separate schools were “inherently unequal.” Decades of “massive resistance” from Southern states ensued. In the 1970s, court-ordered busing forced integration in schools resulting in violent protests, most notably in Boston in 1974, and contributed to “white flight” to suburban schools. In response to integration orders, numerous private, segregated religious schools were established, particularly in the South, to circumvent desegregation.

Concurrently, the Scopes “Monkey” Trial in 1925 was a landmark confrontation between traditionalists (conservatives) and modernists (progressives), focusing on a Tennessee law prohibiting the teaching of evolution in public schools, effectively curbing the teaching of science for several decades.

School prayer remains a hot topic for both religionists as well as those defending the Constitution, with two lawsuits serving to define the subject. Engel v. Vitale (1962) and Abington School District v. Schempp (1963) declared that state-sponsored Bible reading and prayer in public schools were unconstitutional, fueling long-term debates over the secularization of public education. The fact is that public school children have always been able to pray when and wherever they pleased. What upsets religionists is that children in public schools cannot be led in prayer by adults—not teachers, not parents, not the principal. The desire to inculcate all children through prayer voicing religious doctrine drives this falsehood.

The later part of the century was marked by “curriculum wars” over the inclusion of diverse, non-European perspectives in history and literature curricula, which opponents claimed was a political attack on traditional national identity. Like the prayer argument, the textbook/curriculum battles continue unabated today, with most book content decided by heavily-conservative boards. [3]

“Given the high concentration of students in Texas and California, textbook makers know…they need to create books that are going to be approved by those large states.” said Dr. Max Altman, director of research and policy at the Southern Education Foundation. Altman said that requests for changes and outright rejections based on the inclusion of certain concepts are what make California, Florida and Texas so influential.

“This small group of people who approve textbooks within a couple of states have a very, very large effect on what students across the bottom of the United States and really across the country as a whole are able to learn,” he said.

[This 2022 article reports that] …[i]n April, the Florida Department of Education initially rejected 41% of all K-12 mathematics textbooks submitted for state adoption approval — the most in Florida’s history. The dismissal of the 54 textbooks — including 71% of K-5 math materials — stems from several claims: references to Critical Race Theory (CRT), inclusions of Common Core and “unsolicited” inclusions of Social Emotional Learning.

The public push to provide evidential examples of the above reasons for rejection made national headlines, as the state’s Department of Education did not initially release any specifics. Later, it published four visual examples from the rejected textbooks.

Experts suggest that overseeing public school curricula in a small number of highly populated states has an outsized influence on what children are learning throughout the country. Because publishers often create uniform national editions, major state adoption boards, particularly in Texas (conservative-leaning) and California (liberal-leaning), exert outsized influence on nationwide content. Texas, one of the largest purchasers of textbooks, often pushes to emphasize “positive aspects” of American history, de-emphasize the role of slavery, increase the influence of Christianity, and promote gun rights. Conservative, evangelical, or religious viewpoints have often driven content to prioritize patriotism and limit topics like climate science or critical race theory.

California often pushes for inclusive, multicultural narratives, ensuring that textbooks feature stories of LGBTQ+ individuals, marginalized groups, and a more critical view of historical events. Due to this, publishers often create different regional versions or compromise by including, for instance, both more critical and more patriotic interpretations of events, creating a “whitewashed” or highly contentious final product.

Textbook selection and other elements of public schools are the task of school boards, both local and state level. While curricula are determined by state boards of education, there are no educational standards required of state board members. Eligibility for state boards of education typically requires candidates to be residents of the state, registered voters, and often residents of the specific district they aim to represent.

Not requiring a college degree for state boards of education is part of a broader, bipartisan shift towards skills-based governance and a move away from formal credential requirements, which are increasingly seen as unnecessary barriers to entry. While education policymakers need expertise, proponents of this shift argue that a degree is not a guarantee of competence, effective leadership, or relevant experience.

On the other hand, without a deep background in subject matter and education policy, board members may rely on ideological rather than research-based solutions to solve problems like low student achievement, leading to increased political polarization in schools. Members may struggle to evaluate curriculum standards, assessment tools, and learning theories, potentially leading to decisions that do not align with evidence-based practices. More concerning is that without the experience of the wide array of college coursework, members may focus on short-term political issues or “quick fixes” rather than the long-term, systemic changes needed to improve student outcomes.

State boards typically adopt standards (e.g., in reading, math) that outline skills students must master, hopefully informed by state law, national benchmarks, and expert input. State-level entities create frameworks, which may act as official requirements or recommended guidelines for local curriculum. State laws often mandate specific topics (e.g., specific subjects, or in some cases, restricting approaches) that schools must adopt. The degree of control varies by state; some states have highly centralized, mandatory curriculum lists, while others allow local districts greater flexibility. Boards often adopt standards at public meetings, occasionally with guidance from curriculum committees and teacher panels.

Local level textbook adoption policy leaves decisions to a local education agency (i.e. school district). State level textbook adoption policy leaves decisions to a state agency (i.e. state board of education) California has a statewide adoption policy at the elementary level. Secondary textbooks are chosen by local governing boards. The state of Hawaii comprises a single school district.
Map: Emily Schmidt, APM Research Lab Source: Education Commission of the States

Curricula

There are no federally mandated national education standards in the United States, as education is primarily managed by states and local districts. However, the nation utilizes voluntary, state-led standards like the Common Core State Standards, adopted in June 2010 by most states to ensure consistent math and English learning goals. Not adopting the standards are Alaska, Nebraska, Texas, Virginia, and Oklahoma. The reasons for common standards for curricula include the obvious, that children of a family moving from one state to another meet the same basic education as at their previous location. Also obvious is the need for all Americans to share the same understanding of national history, the operations of government, and fundamentals of reading, writing, and mathematics, as well as science.

School boards and districts have been empowered to make curriculum decisions in order to prepare future citizens. State constitutions require the operation of systems of education, and we elect school boards to make important decisions for community schools, including those related to materials and instruction. In some cases, parents object to these decisions, arguing that their constitutional rights have been violated. For example, in the [2008] federal appeals case of Parker v. Hurley, parents objected to their children being presented with books depicting diverse families, including families with parents of the same gender. The district refused to grant the children an exemption from the instruction. The parents argued that the refusal of an exemption amounted to an infringement on their constitutional rights as parents and their free exercise of religion rights under the First Amendment. The court disagreed, citing a long line of cases establishing that while parents have a constitutional right to raise their children, there is no right to direct how a public school teaches those children. [4]   

The New Puritans at Work

The overarching religious education agenda is not a single project but rather a continuous political tug-of-war for the control of educational narratives. The division between these two fundamentals of education has led, in part, to today’s division in American society.

We can identify the ways that the Puritan ethic drives Christian Nationalism. The Puritans sought to build a “city on a hill” defined by severe piety, communal surveillance, and strict adherence to moral codes, rather than by religious freedom. Christian Nationalists interpret the “city on a hill” phrase, derived from John Winthrop’s 1630 sermon,[5] as a divine mandate that the United States is a uniquely ordained, Christian nation meant to act as a moral, religious beacon to the world. This vision, often championed by President Ronald Reagan, blends national identity with biblical prophecy, suggesting America holds a special, providential covenant to embody Christian principles enforced by the government.

Puritan men held public office, imposing religious law to govern social and legal life. Only adult male church members (“the elect”) could vote in elections and participate in town government. Laws were based on Old Testament teachings. Today, many within the Christian Nationalist movement believe that men are specifically ordained by God to lead in government, politics, and the public sphere. This ideology is rooted in a belief in “biblical patriarchy” or complementarianism, which argues that God established distinct roles for men and women, where men are designed to lead and protect while women are called to support and submit.

Puritan leaders were intolerant of dissenting religious views, which were seen as dangerous to the community’s mission. Christian Nationalists generally believe that America was founded as a Christian nation and that its laws and public life should reflect Christian, specifically Protestant, values. Other religions are viewed as subordinate, threats to national identity, or demonic, with many proponents supporting the restriction of non-Christian practices.

Puritan households were strictly hierarchical, with the father as the head. Women were viewed as “helpmeets” for their husbands with fewer rights, though they held significant responsibility in managing the home, raising children, and tending the gardens. Likewise, many proponents of Christian Nationalism believe that women should prioritize staying at home, focusing on raising children and submitting to their husbands’ leadership.

During the early Puritan period, the “Old Deluder Law” required every town of fifty or more families to pay for a teacher, and they founded Harvard College in 1636 for training ministers. They believed in the active presence of the devil and witches, leading to the Salem witch trials in 1692, which occurred when religious political control was waning. Christian Nationalists view public education as a vital, yet currently hostile, battlefield for the nation’s cultural and spiritual direction. They generally aim to dismantle the traditional secular public school system by promoting school choice vouchers to fund private religious education, instilling conservative Christian values, banning certain books, and reversing LGBTQ+ inclusion.

The Trump administration (2017-2021 and 2025-2028) has adopted key elements of the Christian Nationalist agenda by prioritizing policies that blur the line between church and state, fostering religious exemptions for conservative Christians, and appointing individuals aligned with this ideology to high-ranking positions. Trump has appointed conservative Christian judges, including three Supreme Court justices (Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett), who have delivered rulings expanding religious exemptions. They joined John Roberts and Samuel Alito, both appointed by evangelical adherent George W. Bush; Clarence Thomas, the sixth conservative on the nine-member court, was appointed by Bush’s father, George H. W. Bush.

At the prompting of his Christian Nationalist backers, Trump initiatives aim to review federal actions for “anti-Christian” sentiment and protect “religious freedom,” defined by Christian nationalists not as the separation of church and state, but as the right to embed a specific, conservative Christian worldview into government, law, and public life including the use of taxpayer dollars in support of religious education and eliminating government support for advancing educational effectiveness.

Based on 2026 budget proposals and actions, we see that the Trump administration has sought to cut or eliminate over $8.5 billion in K-12 education programs and $2.7 billion in higher education, while targeting programs like TRIO (outreach and student services initiatives funded by the U.S. Department of Education to help low-income, first-generation college students, and individuals with disabilities succeed in education, ranging from middle school through adult education), GEAR UP (a federal discretionary grant program designed to increase the number of low-income, underserved, or first-generation students who are prepared to enter and succeed in postsecondary education), and Federal Work-Study for elimination or massive reductions. (Initiated in 1964, the program provides part-time jobs for undergraduate and graduate students with financial need, allowing them to earn money for education expenses.)

The Trump administration’s cuts to K-12 education focus on slashing, consolidating, or eliminating programs like after-school, summer, and mental health grants. More than 760 in-progress grants, worth over $2 billion, were discontinued in 2025, including cuts to college prep ($300m+), civics ($35m), and racial integration ($26m). Other cuts target teacher training ($2.2 billion) and English learner services ($890 million). The administration also proposed the “Make Education Great Again” block grant, which would overhaul K-12 education by consolidating federal funding, cut federal oversight, and shift control to states. It prioritizes school choice, patriotic education, and literacy/math, while reducing the Department of Education’s role. This would cut existing program funding by 70%.

Trump’s cuts aren’t the first to take the U.S. educational efforts backwards despite extensive research showing the benefits of programs now being eliminated. This has been an ongoing effort by Christian Nationalists over the last fifty years. During the 1980s, Ronald Reagan campaigned on abolishing the Department of Education, with his 1981 budget reducing spending and consolidating grants.

This despite findings on the effectiveness of public education funding showing that increased spending per pupil yields significant social returns, especially in high-poverty districts. State cutbacks to K–12 spending, the rise of voucher programs, and Trump’s attacks on the federal Department of Education threaten to rob the majority of U.S. children of an adequate education.[6] The vast majority of our youth (90%) are in our public school system. Approximately 49-50 million K-12 students attend public schools in the U.S., while roughly 4.7 to 5.5 million (9%-11%) students are enrolled in private schools, based on 2021-2022 data.

Despite Trump’s claim that such cuts are necessary to reduce the outrageous federal deficit, the numbers prove him wrong. The U.S. national debt increased by approximately $1.78 trillion to $2.25 trillion since January 2025, pushing the total gross national debt past $38 trillion. The debt stood at roughly $36.22 trillion around Jan. 20, 2025, and reached $38 trillion by late October 2025. By March/April 2026, total debt crossed $39 trillion.

As for national security and a sound economy, inadequate education is a root cause of significant social issues, primarily driving cycles of poverty, high unemployment rates, and increased crime. It limits economic mobility, reduces workforce productivity, and fosters gender inequality, while also contributing to poor health outcomes, political instability, and social unrest.

Finally, in studies comparing the racial and ethnic composition of charter schools to public schools, researchers generally find that charter schools preserve or intensify racial and economic segregation, and/or facilitate white flight from public schools. Furthermore, studies that compare individual students’ demographic characteristics to the schools they are leaving (public schools) and the schools they are switching to (charter schools) generally demonstrate that students “leave more diverse public schools and enroll in less diverse charter schools.”[7]

Hardly the path toward a unified nation.

[1] Vinovskis, Maris A. “The Politics of Educational Reform in Nineteenth-Century Massachusetts: The Controversy Over the Beverly High School in 1860. Final Report,” Institute of Education Sciences, Aug 15, 1980. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED200495

[2] Indiana, Iowa, West Virginia, Idaho, and Arkansas have passed legislation loosening these protections, with Arkansas eliminating work permits and age verification requirements for children under sixteen.

[3] Schmidt, Emily. “Required Readings: How Textbook Adoption in 3 States Influences The Nation’s K-12  Population,” APM Research Lab,  June 2, 2022. https://www.apmresearchlab.org/10x-textbook-adoption

[4] Paige, Mark. “Constitution vs. Curriculum,” Resource Hub, National Association of Elementary School Principals, Mar 14, 2022.  https://www.naesp.org/resource/constitution-vs-curriculum/

[5] See https://www.americanyawp.com/reader/colliding-cultures/john-winthrop-dreams-of-a-city-on-a-hill-1630/

[6] Wething, Hilary, Bivens, Josh. U.S. Investment in Public Education Is At Risk,” Economic Policy Institute, Aug 21, 2025.  https://www.epi.org/publication/u-s-investment-in-public-education-is-at-risk-vouchers-state-budget-austerity-and-federal-attacks-on-the-department-of-education-threaten-childrens-futures

[7] “School segregation in the United States,” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_segregation_in_the_United_States

This material is Chapter 2 of New Puritans and the U.S. Peerage: The Willful Destruction of Public Education

New Puritans and the U.S. Peerage: The Willful Destruction of Public Education

Like the slow spread of a fatal disease, certain interest groups within the United States have been working to undermine the nation’s education system. Their goal, as so clearly outlined in the 900 pages of Project 2025, is to change our democratic republic into plutocratic theocracy. Ruling from the top, the wealthiest citizens (U.S. Peerage) will enjoy virtually no restrictions on their profits or the damage caused by their industries, while ruling from the bottom, the Christian Nationalists and other religious extremists (New Puritans) will ensure the population lives by Christian rules.

This is not a theory. This is the fact of the current situation as recent Supreme Court decisions have opened the door for unregulated homeschooling and religious private schools to receive our tax dollars in support of their operations. This is in direct opposition to the Constitution’s First Amendment, which specifically prohibits any government support for any religion.

This workaround has been steadily advancing since colonial days but has increased significantly since the 1940s when the “Red Scare” brought a fresh level of religious fanaticism to the public arena. The result? Today, billions of our tax dollars flow into religious school coffers while public schools suffer for inadequate funding even though 90% of K-12 students attend public schools. Perhaps more damaging than the financial costs are the lessons learned under religious instruction: that the Earth is only 6,000 years old; that vaccinations are harmful; that men are superior to women. These are the seeds of a modern nation’s destruction.

Grab your copy, only $6. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H3NW358F

New Puritans

Like the slow spread of a fatal disease, certain interest groups within the United States have been working to undermine the nation’s education system. Their goal, as so clearly outlined in the 900 pages of Project 2025, is to change our democratic republic into plutocratic theocracy. Ruling from the top, the wealthiest citizens (U.S. Peerage) will enjoy virtually no restrictions on their profits or the damage caused by their industries, while ruling from the bottom, the Christian Nationalists and other religious extremists (New Puritans) will ensure the population lives by Christian rules.

This is not a theory. This is the fact of the current situation as recent Supreme Court decisions have opened the door for unregulated homeschooling and students at religious private schools to receive our tax dollars in support of their operations. This is in direct opposition to the Constitution’s First Amendment, which specifically prohibits any government support for any religion.

This workaround has been steadily advancing since colonial days but has increased significantly since the 1940s when the “Red Scare” brought a fresh level of religious fanaticism to the public arena. The result? Today, billions of our tax dollars flow into religious school instruction while public schools suffer from inadequate funding even though 90% of K-12 students attend public schools. Perhaps more damaging than the financial costs are the lessons learned under religious instruction: that the Earth is only 6,000 years old; that vaccinations are harmful; that men are superior to women. These are the seeds of a modern nation’s destruction.

91 page booklet $6 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H3NW358F

Table of Contents

Preface

History of Church as State

Education Is A National Priority

The Education Problem: Bigger than the New Puritans

Why the Puritan Agenda Must Not Prevail

Unregulated Private and Home Schooling

The Arkansas Situation

Christian Nationalism’s Goal: Overturn the Constitutional Separation of Church and State 

In Conclusion

Afterword

MAGA

“Confederate dead Miller Farm, Antietam Battlefield, September 19, 1862,” House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/index.php/node/32956.

What will happen to them, these lovers of Trump, the men and women who act as if he is the next risen Christ, or at least the best man possible to lead the United States of America? Who even now cling to their fantasy in the face of his utter perfidy—starting a war, abandoning the American economy, exposed as a defiler of children. What will happen when the inexorable turn of the wheels of justice—or perhaps death—finally finally grind him into the ground? Will they weep? Yes. Will their anger grow exponentially to the point of ignition? Yes.

When the inevitable happens—and yes, I believe in the Constitution and our system of laws which have steered this nation through war and despair for over 200 years—when Trump is finally held accountable for all his lies and frauds and empty promises that continue to spill from his deteriorating mind, mouthed in nonsensical phrases and welcomed with open arms into the aisles of churches and homes of the True Believers, I believe that the witnesses and the attorneys and the juries and judges will do their duty, that he will be convicted of his crimes against the people and the nation, that he will at some point have to face the truth about himself.

Nothing could be more terrifying for a man like Trump than to face the truth, that his life was wasted in harming his fellow man, that he was a liar, thief, an adulterer and a rapist, that he could produce nothing of value in this world. That he had every advantage and he squandered that gift in his ignorance, in his greed and desperation for his life to have some meaning but never did.

What will these people do who hold him up before themselves and now will find him cast down into the depths of human failure, deceit, corruption? When the proof of his amoral guilt opens their eyes with blinding light, will they refuse to believe the truth? Will they take up arms and storm the courthouses and prison, or stand in line to honor his corpse, cry out demanding a new day still grasping for that promise, that fable of his greatness?

They believed. They tied their lifeboats to his ship, that great phantasm of belief that he was the strong man, the savior of our times, that their lives could be made meaningful and fruitful under his leadership, that their hatreds and prejudices would be vindicated. As the seas toss and roll, tossing his ship into wreckage, will their lives also capsize, splinter into driftwood to drift back to the littered beaches over the coming months and years?

Somewhere deep inside, most of the True Believers sense the truth, that Trump is a fool, an emperor without clothes. They know in that secret room of themselves that they have followed a lie. But for many of them, the truth is too painful, too terrifying, and their solution is to justify war, believe they will emerge triumphant in a new white Christian America led by God Almighty with Trump seated on His right hand.

These are the fantasies of those who have never understood their purpose in life. They mouth the words of the Bible without comprehending their personal duty to act on those words. They labor under the belief that their primary duty is to follow a person like Trump because he says what they want to hear, that they are the chosen ones. In their glorious imaginings of redeeming the nation, the radical right imagines the fight as taking down the figureheads of ‘liberal’ democracy without realizing the liberal agenda aligns with the teachings of Christ.

Will justice for Trump open the door to insight, even epiphany, for his True Believers? Will they be able to accept the truth of his malfeasance or the rectitude of the courts’ judgements? Some will. Some already have. But many will not, reliant on media that supports their viewpoint, reinforcing their perception of Trump. Many of them align with his fight against “the system” over specific policy successes or moral scrutinies and focus on the broader, long-term impact they expect from his policies. We probably should feel compassion for their loss of a dream, of a self-made parody of a god who misled them, made promises he couldn’t keep, presented himself in a fictional persona simply to aggrandize himself no matter the price to be paid.

The private, personal cost will be great for those True Believers unable to let go of the fantasy, that they alone stood by a true hero. They will not be treated kindly by history.

The greater cost to the rest of us, and to our nation, is incalculable.

O’Sullivan, Timothy H., and approximately 1823-1896 Mathew B. Brady. “Union dead at Gettysburg.” Photograph. [1863]. Digital Commonwealth, https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/q524n605q (accessed April 05, 2026).

What Democrats Did Wrong

Party leaders failed to see the long term need for younger, more vigorous candidates. The bulk of Biden’s term suffered from his shuffling gait, whispery voice, and apparent mental decline. Not that Trump is so much younger, but his demeanor as a bully conveys a message of strength. Sadly.

Dems also failed to foresee Biden’s inability to win a second term and consequently failed to hold a 2024 primary that would have introduced all best possible candidates. Call it allegiance to a venerable old warrior (Biden) or inability to break out of an established order of candidate precedence, or fear of the unknown, this lack of a so-called ‘fair’ fight in selecting a presidential candidate played a significant role in Harris’ defeat.

Sorry, but Kamala Harris was not popular in the 2020 primaries from which she withdrew for lack of funding. Built-in negatives aside from her mixed race and being female included her speech affectations which make her seem smug. One would think that the defeat of Hillary would have been lesson enough. For now, the fight is still between present day realities which are incomprehensible to conservatives and the “good old days” when men were ‘successful’ if they knew how to saddle a horse.

During Biden’s term, there was no apparent coherent approach to illegal immigration. This played into Harris’ weakness on this issue, which Biden appointed her to address. Whatever policy recommendations she made failed to make news cycles. As noted by the Washington Post, “Harris, in fact, has never been in charge of the border. The Department of Homeland Security manages migration. Her immigration role for the Biden administration has included boosting U.S. aid to Central America, traveling to the region and discouraging potential migrants from making the dangerous journey to the United States.” Be that as it may, if there had been a strong Biden policy on illegal immigration and prominent promotion of those policies, Trump wouldn’t have been able to make that topic a centerpiece of his campaign.

https://abc13.com/migrant-caravan-immigrations-and-customs-story-migrants/4690683/

Yes, boosting U.S. aid to Central America is foundational to stemming the tide, as Harris knew. Sadly, the fact is that coherent immigration policies addressing root causes aren’t enough to stop people seeking better opportunities for themselves and their children. If your children are starving and your home and livelihood are daily threatened by violent gangs rampaging through neighborhoods, you too would leave behind everything you’ve ever known and walk to the promised land.

THERE IS NO GOOD SOLUTION to illegal immigration. There is no fence high enough, or military/border guard personnel vast enough to make illegal entry impossible. As climate change advances, more and more populations will face starvation and violent domestic turmoil. The U.S. cannot take them all. No one can. This message must be made clear. Trump’s plan to deport millions WILL NOT SOLVE THE PROBLEM. This is whack-a-mole thinking.

Biden, in the seeming tradition of Democrats and, in the words of Michelle Obama, “went high” when the Republicans “went low.” But we’re dealing with primitive thinking where the hero bashes the villain over the head. With no head bashing, there’s no hero. The villain wins. It’s past time for the Democrats to develop more than one track and start bashing. To greatest possible extent, yes, don’t give up the vision of a better world—peace, love, good vibes. But we also must carry a big stick and when somebody needs to get bashed over the head, bash the son of a bitch. The Biden administration’s justice department took waaaay too long quibbling over how/when/why to prosecute Trump for his shocking illegal acts. He should never have been free to run for re-election.

Not that Biden or the justice department had control over local and state prosecutions, but the failure of appropriate federal action left the door open for Trump to escape from prosecution in lower courts, as is now obvious. It was the first Trump presidency which allowed him to stack the Supreme Court, and that will be the case again. His sponsors are playing the long game, moves that have been feverishly planned since at least the 1950s. The strategy is to whip up fear and hatred to drive conservative voters to the polls, desperate to buy God’s favor by forcing the entire nation into a theocracy. None of this matters to Trump, whose entire plan involves self-enrichment, self-aggrandizement, and eluding justice.

True to their religious belief system, conservatives prefer government which regulates what the population does in their bedrooms and allows the business segment to run wild. The opposite is true for liberals, who believe what people do in their bedrooms is no one’s business and what the business community does can ONLY be regulated by government. Who else can force corporations not to dump industrial waste in our rivers? Ensure clean drinking water and safe food supplies? Mitigate the onslaught of pandemics? Enforce design and construction standards for roadways, bridges, and buildings?

These requirements of government are easily forgotten by a fearful, angry electorate who is not educated to understand these fundamental duties, an electorate even more distracted by a wannabe dictator whose success depends on agitating division with lies and false promises. This can only be effectively countered by an equally vociferous Democrat whose presence and actions meet the pseudo-strength of a candidate like Trump. Potential right-wing demagogues have the advantage of money flowing from a huge array of business interests. Liberals have only the People to carry on the framework for freedom established by the Founding Fathers:

  • We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Foundational to this vision was EDUCATION. Public education was not an afterthought of the American Revolution – it was a core ideal of our Founders. They maintained that a well-educated population was the only means of ensuring America’s future. The roots of taxpayer-funded public education in the United States can be traced back to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1647. The colony passed a law that required towns to establish schools, made children attend school, and allowed the state to levy taxes to support schools. This traditional determination now stands at risk from religious forces who have managed to divert tax dollars into support for private, religious schools which often slant their programs to fit a religious agenda.[1]

Could Obama have warded off this SCOTUS situation with his nomination of Merrick Garland for the post by steamrolling the Senate?

  • It is in full accord with traditional notions of waiver to say that the Senate, having been given a reasonable opportunity to provide advice and consent to the president with respect to the [Supreme Court] nomination of [Judge Merrick] Garland, and having failed to do so, can fairly be deemed to have waived its right.  Here’s how that would work. The president has nominated Garland and submitted his nomination to the Senate.  The president should advise the Senate that he will deem its failure to act by a specified reasonable date in the future to constitute a deliberate waiver of the right to give advice and consent.  What date?…90 days is a perfectly reasonable amount of time.

– Excerpt from an op-ed column in The Washington Post on April 10 by Washington, D.C., lawyer Gregory L. Diskant, who is in private practice and also serves as a member of the national governing board of the liberal advocacy group, Common Cause.

  • “The Appointments Clause [of Article II] clearly implies a power of the Senate to give advice on and, if it chooses to do so, to consent to a nomination, but it says nothing about how the Senate should go about exercising that power.  The text of the Constitution thus leaves the Senate free to exercise that power however it sees fit.  Throughout American history, the Senate has frequently – surely, thousands of times – exercised its power over nominations by declining to act on them.

 – Excerpt from a commentary about the Diskant column by M. Edward Whalen, president of the conservative advocacy group, the Washington-based Ethics and Public Policy Center, published April 10 on the National Review Online’s Bench Memo.[2]

Equally appalling was the lack of foresight by none other than Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg who refused to retire during Obama’s presidency, which would have allowed another justice to step in on her coattails. Despite her excellent record and unfailing support for liberal causes, a bit of hubris caused her to cheat the future of a suitable replacement.

Democrats need to wake up! Making nice is not always the best course of action when we’re dealing with not only ignorant tyrants like Trump but also foreign bad actors with their thumbs on the scales.

[1] In June 2022, in Carson v. Makin, the high court held that when governments choose to subsidize private schools, they must allow such funds to pay for religious schools. A majority of current justices appear to believe that excluding religious groups from government programs is a violation of the First Amendment’s free exercise clause. Although court precedents prohibit direct funding of religion under the establishment clause, the current court could decide that if the state funds secular public charter schools, religious public charter schools cannot be excluded from such funding.  See https://www.freedomforum.org/government-fund-religious-schools/

[2] https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/constitution-check-could-obama-bypass-the-senate-on-garland-nomination

The Continuing Israeli-Palestinian Agony

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/01/16/after-over-100-days-of-war-palestinians-fight-hard-hit-areas-of-gaza-and-fire-rockets-israel.html

Many Israelis and Jewish people worldwide recognize the futility of Netanyahu’s relentless attack on Gaza under the excuse of protecting Israel from Hamas. The United States is caught up in a tangle of its historical sympathy and generosity toward Israel and the current reality of Israel’s genocidal violence against Palestinians. The truth is, the more Palestinian deaths, the more certainty that Hamas will never die. Every bomb dropped recruits more support for Hamas.

The U. S. and President Biden’s situation is a classic Catch 22. Should we take a hard line with Netanyahu and his rightwing government, setting down an unequivocal rule that no more financial or military support will be forthcoming if Israel does not step back and reorient its Palestinian policies? The logical (and fair) solution would be the formation of a Palestinian state and returning the Israel/Palestine borders to the 1967 boundaries.

[My personal view is that the attempt to create a state of Israel was a mistake from the start. The fond dream of Zionists, this effort to reestablish a Jewish state after 2,000-plus years, was absurd and unnecessary. No other religion has its own ‘state.’ Religion is a personal choice, not appropriate justification for the establishment of a nation. Imagine if we forced a partition of England as a homeland for Methodists!]

Back to the Catch 22. If Biden takes such a step, he risks losing political support from American Jews and evangelicals. This comes at a critical time in American politics as the extreme right wing hopes to bring Trump into a second term as president, which in itself could spell the end of our democracy.

For Biden, evangelicals won’t be much of a loss, since most are already lined up for Trump in the deluded belief he is a “flawed vessel” for the hand of God. This is a form of religious schizophrenia. Historically, Christians hate Jews because they killed Jesus. BUT THAT WAS GOD’S PLAN, right? Creating then sacrificing his “son” in order to provide forgiveness for humans? So logically, Christians should LOVE Jews for the crucifixion as a manifestation of God’s plan.

In reality, Christian ‘love’ of Israel is a self-serving strategy. “American evangelicals are among Israel’s most ardent advocates, compelled in part by their interpretation of scripture that says God’s ancient promise to the Jewish people designating the region as their homeland is unbreakable.”[1] American evangelical support for Israel has exacerbated conflict along Israel’s boundaries in encouraging settler expansion.[2]

  • “For many “Christians Zionists,” and particularly for popular evangelists with significant clout within the Republican Party, their support for Israel is rooted in its role in the supposed end times: Jesus’ return to Earth, a bloody final battle at Armageddon, and Jesus ruling the world from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. In this scenario, war is not something to be avoided, but something inevitable, desired by God, and celebratory.”[3]
  • BUT: “When it comes to anti-Semitism the Religious Right falls under two great clouds of suspicion. First, contemporary anti-Semitism originated in and was nourished for millennia by Christian condemnation of Jews for the crucifixion of Christ and for their continued rejection of Christ as the Messiah. Second, political anti-Semitism has most frequently and disastrously arisen from right-wing governments and ideologies from the Czarist pogroms to Hitler’s Final Solution. …Historically, the strong and traditional religious beliefs of evangelicals and fundamentalists have both engendered religious particularism that makes them critical of followers of other faiths … and encourages antipathy toward Jews for rejecting Christ now and in the past.[4]
https://worshipleader.com/leadership/awakening-prayer/
  • The right also loves to use the phrase “Judeo-Christian values” to promote a conservative Christian agenda that conveniently erases the several thousand years during which “Christian values” included beating, forced conversion and murder of Jewish people. …Christian philosemitism, especially on the political right, is often linked to support for Israel. Evangelical conservatives have long embraced Israel in part because many believe it’s important for fulfilling end times prophecies (in which Jews convert or go to hell). Evangelicals also have a strong connection with Israel and the holy sites located there. Israel’s oppression of Palestinian people and its conflicts with its Muslim neighbors also feed into right-wing ideology, specifically Islamophobia.[5]
  • The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), the largest Protestant Christian denomination in the U.S., has explicitly rejected suggestions that it should back away from seeking to convert Jews, a position which critics have called anti-Semitic, but a position which Baptists believe is consistent with their view that salvation is solely found through faith in Christ. In 1996 the SBC approved a resolution calling for efforts to seek the conversion of Jews “as well as the salvation of ‘every kindred and tongue and people and nation.'” …Most Evangelicals agree with the SBC’s position, and some of them also support efforts which specifically seek the Jews’ conversion. Additionally, these Evangelical groups are among the most pro-Israel groups. (For more information, see Christian Zionism.) One controversial group which has received a considerable amount of support from some Evangelical churches is Jews for Jesus, which claims that Jews can “complete” their Jewish faith by accepting Jesus as the Messiah.  [6]

Without doubt, for Joe Biden facing the November 2024 election, he must temper his choices of policies toward Israel in consideration of the American Jewish vote, which has traditionally aligned with Democrats.

  • For most of the 20th century since 1936, the vast majority of Jews in the United States have been aligned with the Democratic Party. During the 20th and 21st centuries, the Republican Party has launched initiatives to persuade American Jews to support their political policies, with relatively little success.[7]

Are enough American Jews outraged by the Palestinian death toll and allied threat to Israel’s future to vote for Biden even if he places firm conditions on the continuance of U.S. financial and military aid? As reported January 8, 2024 in the Jerusalem Post, “Gallup’s tracking of Americans’ views on Netanyahu since 1997 indicates a recent negative shift, with a 47% unfavorable rating against a 33% favorable rating. Notably, Republicans maintain a more positive view of Netanyahu, with 55% favorability, in contrast to 14% among Democrats and 30% among independents.”[8]

Whether this shift in opinion would hold if the U.S. no longer supplied Israel with 2000-pound bombs and other weapons in its relentless attack on Gaza remains an open question. But world opinion increasingly demands a change of U.S. policy toward Israel, and the U. S. is the only entity with sufficient leverage—the threat of withholding all U.S. aid—to force Israel to make changes that Netanyahu and his cohort adamantly oppose.

The so-called two-state solution is unquestionably an important first step, with boundaries between the Palestinian state and the Israeli state established along the fraught 1967 lines (with updated adjustments). Additional terms would include U.N. peacekeeping troops in place to enforce demilitarization on both sides as well as U.N. and mandatory Israeli funding in restoration of Gazan infrastructure.

Solutions rely on the Arab world’s acceptance of Israel’s existence in their midst and on Israel’s acceptance of its new boundaries without any expansion. If ARab states expect to hold a respected position in world affairs, it’s past time for the Arab world to embrace modern social norms—no more cutting off fingers, heads or other body parts, no more burning people alive or other bloody jihad. The savagery of Arab attacks on its ‘enemies’ is contrary to their own best interests, just as is Israel’s genocide against Gazans.

It’s time for Israel to live up to its religion with its idea that Jews are “God’s chosen people” not in order to believe themselves above any laws or superior in some way, but in order to fulfill the mission of proclaiming his truth among all the nations of the world.[9] Contrary to the “buy my ticket to heaven” ideas of the evangelical Christians in its support for Israel as a nation, it seems the message preserved in the 2,000 to 2,500 year-old-writings of Jews is that anyone embracing the Jewish faith must serve as a messenger “to make God known to the world.”

https://velveteenrabbi.blogs.com/blog/2014/07/joint-jewish-muslim-fast-against-violence.html

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/15/us/american-evangelicals-israel-hamas.html

[2] See https://theconversation.com/us-giving-to-israeli-nonprofits-how-much-jews-and-christians-donate-and-where-the-money-goes-201920

[3] https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/truth-many-evangelical-christians-support-israel-rcna121481

[4] Smith, Tom W. “The Religious Right and Anti-Semitism.” Review of Religious Research 40, no. 3 (1999): 244–58. https://doi.org/10.2307/3512370.

[5] https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/christian-led-caucus-protecting-jewish-values-no-thanks-ncna1287802

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_Christianity

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Jews_in_politics

[8] https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-781227

[9] See, for example, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-quot-chosen-people-quot

Israel & Palestine — My Two Cents

The utter absurdity of the current situation in Israel/Palestine could have been predicted for the last 75 years. Did anyone really believe that you could move into a man’s house and “give” him the hall closet to live in and he would accept it?

Yes, I understand that the Jews had suffered horribly under Hitler’s attempt to eradicate them. And long before that, the history of their horrific treatment deserves understanding and condemnation. But why did anyone think that what existed in Palestine could be rearranged like chess pieces and no one would care?

Jews, Arabs, and yes Christians all lived side by side before 1948. What was wrong with that? If Jews needed a safer place to live than mingled through other countries—which, by the way, is how ALL OTHER RELIGIOUS GROUPS exist—they had the freedom to relocate to Palestine without anyone declaring it a Jewish state.

Even then, after 1948, after Israel had been recreated as the homeland of “God’s Chosen People,” it still wasn’t enough. A settler movement to expand grew in this new nation. How many times have I watched news reports showing Israeli bulldozers pushing over the homes and ancient orchards of Palestinians? How many times have I worried that sooner or later there would be hell to pay for Israelis for their lack of respect, their utter disregard for the dignity and rights of Palestinians?

Recently, since the October attack occurred, I’ve learned that certain groups of American “Christians” have been funneling money to the West Bank to support the continuing spread of Jewish takeover of Palestinian lands.

  • But evangelicals’ support isn’t simply driven by a theology that compels them to love the Holy Land, detached from its convulsive domestic and global political implications. For many “Christians Zionists,” and particularly for popular evangelists with significant clout within the Republican Party, their support for Israel is rooted in its role in the supposed end times: Jesus’ return to Earth, a bloody final battle at Armageddon, and Jesus ruling the world from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. In this scenario, war is not something to be avoided, but something inevitable, desired by God, and celebratory.[1]

Allow me to just say here that if God exists, if this is the message of divinity, HE/SHE/IT does not need evangelicals or Republicans to facilitate the “end times.” 

When you pull back the curtains in search of real answers to the conflict—or, frankly, just about any conflict—you need look no further than the nearest gathering of religionists. Israelis don’t respect Palestinians because they’re not Jews. In fact, just about any review of Israeli/Jewish attitudes about their position in the world, historically, will reveal a people convinced they are God’s Chosen People and their suffering is part of their destiny until God sends their Messiah to rescue them.

Also, I have a bridge to sell you.

Not that their perpetual victimhood doesn’t have legitimate legs to stand on. Ever since the establishment of the Christian religion back in 400 something AD, Jews have been the whipping boy. Read up. I won’t clog my narrative here with that history. Suffice it to say that they have been horribly abused, discriminated against, and otherwise mistreated.

And that is largely because CHRISTIANS blame the Jews for not becoming Christians, not accepting Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and on top of all that, for being the instrument by which Jesus was crucified. Never mind that it apparently was God’s plan all along that Jesus would be crucified. Why not blame God?

But onward with my rant. This entire episode currently underway is a ridiculous, outrageous crime against humanity. I’m not talking about the despicable attack by Hamas on people, the beheadings, the mutilations, the kidnapping. I’ll get to that in a minute. I’m talking about the ongoing Israeli attack on civilians in Gaza. It is war crimes. It is genocide. It is the worst possible course of action that Netanyahu and his cohort could possible choose.

Why? Yes, of course Israel has the right to protect itself. But that’s just about the flimsiest excuse for the last 45 days of hate-fueled violence one could imagine. Yes, of course Hamas hides in tunnels, shelters behind civilians. Israel has one of the most advanced military forces in the world, thanks again to the Western powers. Without Hamas, there would be no ability by Palestinians to try to regain their pride, their homes, their independence. The United States, Britain and other Western powers that set this nightmare in motion back in 1948 have PROMISED to protect Israel, which is why the region bristles with our jets, helicopters, drones, aircraft carriers strike groups, nuclear powered submarines, and more men in addition to the troops already over there. According to the Pentagon,

  • The firepower from these warships is a deterrent, but it is also to help protect the 45,000 U.S. service members and contractors that are stationed in the Middle East. Most are in Kuwait, but thousands are in Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The Pentagon has also deployed 1,200 troops to the Middle East, though not to Israel, since the war began. On Oct. 26, the Defense Department announced it was sending 900 troops, primarily for air defense, to the region. Another 300 troops, mostly ordnance disposal, communications and other support, were announced Oct. 31.[2]

Surely we all recognize that the U.S. and others see Israel as our surrogate in the Middle East. We could have cared less about the Middle East until oil came into the equation.

Meanwhile, Arab nations in the region are understandably “concerned” about the situation. They’ve never been pleased with the arrogance of Western European powers thinking they had the right to insert themselves in the middle of their lands, brush aside Palestinians, and install a Jewish state where none had previously existed for 2,000 years. Gee, imagine our outrage here in the U.S. if world powers decided to restore Native Americans to their original lands!

But onward to my primary point here—and yes, I have one. Or two.

Israelis are not uniformly in support of Netanyahu. For months reports have been broadcast of massive protests, not about the exact issue now burning up the airwaves, but about the heavy handed arrogance of Netanyahu and his right wing fanatics in not only their abuse of Palestinians and their lands, but also within Israel itself in the attempts to dilute the power of the judiciary in the march toward a more totalitarian regime. Sadly, too many Israelis are apparently willing to allow the right wing to control the country.

That march, by the way, is full steam ahead right now as Netanyahu envisions a complete takeover of the remaining shreds of Palestinians land, most assuredly Gaza “for an indefinite time,” but hinting at also taking over the West Bank. The purported goal is to eliminate Hamas for once and for all.

This is stupidity at its most absurd. Where the hell do they think Hamas came from in the first place? It came from Israeli disrespect and abuse. If they think Hamas is bad now, wait until the next generation of Palestinians rise up in memory of the current genocide. Because killing every single man who has identified with Hamas and taken up arms will not end Hamas. Even murdering every Palestinian, man, woman, and child, will not end Hamas. Hamas is an idea, an assertion of the right of a people to exist, and if Palestinians are wiped off the face of the earth, other Arabs will rise up in their place to continue to assert their right to exist.

On the other hand, Hamas has done themselves no favors with their barbaric methods of protest. The entire Arab jihad against the West is a disgrace to the history of Arab culture and accomplishment. Beheadings, burning people alive, torture, and other despicable methods of violence accomplish nothing except to convince the world that they are savages.

  • Since the late 20th century, the word jihad has gained remarkable currency: used by resistance, liberation, and terrorist movements alike to legitimate their cause and motivate their followers. The Afghan Mujahiddin, the Taliban and the Northern Alliance, have waged a jihad in Afghanistan against foreign powers and among themselves; Muslims in Kashmir, Chechnya, Daghestan and the southern Philippines, Bosnia and Kosovo have fashioned their struggles as jihads; Hizbollah, HAMAS, and Islamic Jihad Palestine have characterized war with Israel as a jihad; Algeria’s Armed Islamic Group has engaged in a jihad of terror against the government there and Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda have waged a global jihad against Muslim governments and the West. The importance of jihad is rooted in the Quran’s command to “struggle or exert” (the literal meaning of the word jihad) oneself in the path of God. The Quranic teachings have been of essential significance to Muslim self-understanding, piety, mobilization, expansion and defense. Jihad as struggle pertains to the difficulty and complexity of living a good life: struggling against the evil in oneself – to be virtuous and moral, making a serious effort to do good works and help to reform society. Depending on the circumstances in which one lives, it also can mean fighting injustice and oppression, spreading and defending Islam and creating a just society through preaching, teaching and, if necessary, armed struggle or holy war.[3]

So of course, like the Jewish extremists who waste hours bending and babbling at a wall, Islamist extremists waste hours bowing and babbling toward Mecca, all of them ready and eager to pick up the nearest weapon and hurt anyone who doesn’t believe what they believe.

Which brings me to my main point in all this. Basing 21st century actions on the fabled mythology of ANY religion is ridiculous, sickening, stupid, and otherwise despicable. Just as evangelicals support Israel in its takeover of Palestinian lands, so do Muslims support brutal treatment of ‘infidels.’ In my opinion, any ‘gods’ who advocated and/or condoned brutal treatment of any kind FOR ANY REASON have long since lost their right to be worshipped. These Abrahamic religions are long past due for elimination from human society.

Evangelicals around the world are to be condemned for their acceptance, even the embrace, of violence. Violence for revenge, for gaining some fulfilment of words written 2,000 years ago, is NOT what either Muhammed or Jesus Christ talked about. LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR, they said.

  • Muhammed: “Never aspire for confronting your enemies (in a fight). Pray to God to be among those who seek living peacefully with others. But if ever you confront them (in a fight) be patient and know that Heaven is as close to you as the shades of the swords.”
  • Jesus: For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. Ephesians 2:14-18

Obviously extremist Muslims and Christians don’t read their own literature; their ape brains have yet to evolve to higher forms of humanity. I take faint hope in the slow but steady deterioration of religious belief making progress, finally, toward a world without war. Without religion. It remains to be seen if the current conflict flashes over into the Armageddon so desired by evangelicals, or if sanity will prevail.

[1] https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/truth-many-evangelical-christians-support-israel-rcna121481

[2] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-military-assets-in-middle-east/

[3] https://www.unaoc.org/repository/Esposito_Jihad_Holy_Unholy.pdf

The Gifts of Evangelicals

Religion got us here, all this chaos surrounding our government and the unmitigated shitshow of Donald Trump.

Religion, where believers must suspend disbelief in order to believe—perfect practice for falling for snake oil salesmen and political bullshit.

Knowing this, since at least the 1960s, the back rooms of the Republican Party have carried out a bold plan to enlist evangelical Christians in their pursuit of power. Hot button issues became hotter under their rhetoric—abortion isn’t just about women making medical choices about their bodies and lives, it’s killing babies. Even newborns!

It seems not to matter how absurd the argument when twisted to fit this agenda. True Believers fall for it every time. They surge out their doors on Election Day, ready and eager to vote. Otherwise, God won’t love them.

Well meaning, intelligent, even well-educated evangelical Christians can’t help themselves in the face of God’s wrath. And yes, there are such things, although the majority seems less than intelligent or educated. Do they love the country more than God? Do they love the Constitution more than God? No, they can’t. There’s a lake of fire and brimstone waiting just below their feet if they don’t love God the most.

Whatever God actually said, if anything, doesn’t matter. It’s what the puppet masters behind the Church and the Republican Party say that matters, their interpretation, spin, whatever you want to call it. Ever more outrageous, the lies keep coming.

Poor Donald, never did anything but exercise his free speech. He just wanted to make sure the vote count was accurate. He now suffers the slings and arrows of an ungrateful nation and misguided justice system because he stood up for ‘his’ people.

I wonder if Donald ever knew he was a token, a pawn used to stir up the perfect demographic to push him into office. Will he ever know?

It’s doubtful. The aspect of Donald that made/makes him a perfect pawn is his utter and complete hubris which allows him to believe he became president on his own merits. Yes, he submitted to being prayed over, signing Bibles left and right, giving the peasants the bread and circus they craved with his court appointments, his mouthing of the correct words. He probably saw/sees this evangelical fawning as yet more evidence of his personal greatness.

Yes, there were other factors. There was and remains a dedicated faction of racists among us, so fearfully enraged by darker skin that they would tear down the walls of government for the chance to (kill) take away all rights from anyone not lily white.

There was and is a dedicated faction of anarchists who salivate over the dream of no government, no laws, no rules, just each man for himself and the guy with the most guns wins.

Wasn’t it ever thus? A few malcontents and nihilists among the mobs of true believers eager to please whatever god(s) reigned supreme in that time and place? True believers, hands clasped in reverence, bow down to that man who stands before them claiming his special gift, to speak for the god, to lead the people to the god’s promises? The anointed one, showing the path to god’s love, god’s promised way of life, no matter the sacrifice. (Cue trumpets and drums, the rattling of swords against shields)

We have seen it and know it. This is the time when humanity must evolve beyond the tired hatred of religious fervor, the idea that god loves you but not me, that promise that god will send your soul to eternal torment if you don’t do what he says, what his pawn says he says.

It is time to strip away the false promises of religion, division of race or belief, and embrace each other. We are one world of one people.

When the wise men of this nation’s early years enacted policies that ensured education for all children, they had a specific rationale. Thomas Jefferson said “Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to; convinced that on their good sense we may rely with the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty.”

Through much of the 1800s, the central role of public schools was to preserve the American democracy and inculcate democratic values. After all, an ignorant man can be persuaded by all kinds of rhetoric to vote one way or the other. Only the educated man has the ability to consider a multitude of facts and reason his way to a vote for the honorable candidate best qualified to lead the nation (town, county, state).

“Education” which teaches religion cares not for reason. In fact, reason is the enemy to religion. Among the many objectives of the nascent fascist force in the Republican arsenal is this awareness, thus their denigration of public education, their determination to replace it with religious ‘education’ so that they can recruit armies of dedicated zombies utterly devoid of logical reasoning.

Ironically, if the evangelicals and behind-the-scenes thugs of the Republican Party succeed in gutting the promise of our democracy, they will be heralding their own demise. Fundamentally, it is our very system of government, free from religious directives, which guarantees the right of each person to pursue his particular religious beliefs. But understanding this truth requires reasoning, and zombies don’t reason.