Editor, Manteca Bulletin,
Have you ever had to correct a child for some infraction, explained why the correction was needed only to have the same child turn around and repeat his offense again? This is how I feel every time I read one of Mr. Aquila’s letters to the editor. His latest effort was a perfect example (Is United States a Christian nation?) that ran Wednesday. Dec 9.
Everyone knows, or should know, by now, that Mr. Aquila has a propensity to pass on misinformation he finds on the Internet, passing it on as if he had some kind of revelation in the middle of the night, jotted it all down and submitted his thoughts for all to share. Never mind that most people who spend any kind of time online, have probably already come across them, more than once and if they haven’t, it is a simple matter to find the real source of these ‘revelations’ he keeps getting. It’s not like this little transgression hasn’t been pointed out to him on more than a few occasions. He just sheds that off like stripper on crack.
Now we all know Mr. Aquila’s little army of wingnuts get upset when anyone mentions Mr. Aquila in not so glowing terms. In fact if you follow the Bulletin blogs, you can see them go Supernova time after time.
Anyway, after skimming though his latest submission, looking for the obvious. It didn’t take long. Actually the second sentence contained the first clue but the second paragraph where he enters a direct quote was an easier target. Here he attributes a quote to James Madison as saying “Religion (is) the basis and foundation of Government”. So I looked it up. In about two seconds I found the real quote in Article 11 of “The Treaty of Tripoli”, in part it went like so: “As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion...”. So much for the integrity of the rest of the letter....
That was all I needed to verify my suspicions. Just another rather lengthy attempt to prove what? I still don’t know what Mr. Aquila was trying to say. Was he saying the United States is a Christian nation only and no other religion should co-exist in this country? Was he saying he would like to live in the century he is a part of but just can’t? Was he saying the Christian Bible has all kinds of neat quotes and they should be carved into all government buildings? Well he had plenty of quotes, that’s for sure. In fact maybe his letter would have been a better fit in the “Faith” section of the paper. Has anyone else noticed, there has been a lot of Religious pieces escaping the “Faith” section and squatting in the “Views” section? Father Dean comes to mind.... but I digress... Back to what Mr. Aquila was trying to prove. By claiming the United States as a Christian nation only, was he trying to say, because of this, that the United States was therefore morally superior to any other nation with a Christian minority?
In that sense, it was rather ironic that on the same page as Mr. Aquila’s “revelations”, was another piece by Jim Hightower (Embracing the world with our arms), Mr. Hightower noted, rather interestingly, the “Christian” United States was the number one supplier of military weaponry in the world. Yes, not Russian or China, “Christian” America, and get this, you know who came in second? Not Korea nor Iran, but Italy, yes, Italy, you know, Rome, home of the Vatican, the headquarters of the largest Christian Church in the world?
I guess, Christianity comes in second when there is money to be made.
Have you ever had to correct a child for some infraction, explained why the correction was needed only to have the same child turn around and repeat his offense again? This is how I feel every time I read one of Mr. Aquila’s letters to the editor. His latest effort was a perfect example (Is United States a Christian nation?) that ran Wednesday. Dec 9.
Everyone knows, or should know, by now, that Mr. Aquila has a propensity to pass on misinformation he finds on the Internet, passing it on as if he had some kind of revelation in the middle of the night, jotted it all down and submitted his thoughts for all to share. Never mind that most people who spend any kind of time online, have probably already come across them, more than once and if they haven’t, it is a simple matter to find the real source of these ‘revelations’ he keeps getting. It’s not like this little transgression hasn’t been pointed out to him on more than a few occasions. He just sheds that off like stripper on crack.
Now we all know Mr. Aquila’s little army of wingnuts get upset when anyone mentions Mr. Aquila in not so glowing terms. In fact if you follow the Bulletin blogs, you can see them go Supernova time after time.
Anyway, after skimming though his latest submission, looking for the obvious. It didn’t take long. Actually the second sentence contained the first clue but the second paragraph where he enters a direct quote was an easier target. Here he attributes a quote to James Madison as saying “Religion (is) the basis and foundation of Government”. So I looked it up. In about two seconds I found the real quote in Article 11 of “The Treaty of Tripoli”, in part it went like so: “As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion...”. So much for the integrity of the rest of the letter....
That was all I needed to verify my suspicions. Just another rather lengthy attempt to prove what? I still don’t know what Mr. Aquila was trying to say. Was he saying the United States is a Christian nation only and no other religion should co-exist in this country? Was he saying he would like to live in the century he is a part of but just can’t? Was he saying the Christian Bible has all kinds of neat quotes and they should be carved into all government buildings? Well he had plenty of quotes, that’s for sure. In fact maybe his letter would have been a better fit in the “Faith” section of the paper. Has anyone else noticed, there has been a lot of Religious pieces escaping the “Faith” section and squatting in the “Views” section? Father Dean comes to mind.... but I digress... Back to what Mr. Aquila was trying to prove. By claiming the United States as a Christian nation only, was he trying to say, because of this, that the United States was therefore morally superior to any other nation with a Christian minority?
In that sense, it was rather ironic that on the same page as Mr. Aquila’s “revelations”, was another piece by Jim Hightower (Embracing the world with our arms), Mr. Hightower noted, rather interestingly, the “Christian” United States was the number one supplier of military weaponry in the world. Yes, not Russian or China, “Christian” America, and get this, you know who came in second? Not Korea nor Iran, but Italy, yes, Italy, you know, Rome, home of the Vatican, the headquarters of the largest Christian Church in the world?
I guess, Christianity comes in second when there is money to be made.
Larry Baca
Manteca
Dec. 11, 2009
Manteca
Dec. 11, 2009
