June 6, 1996
Swans is overwhelmed to learn that according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll, soon to be former US Senator Bob Dole, the one way ticket from Russell, Kansas, to the White House, or back into retiring oblivion sitting on countless corporate boards, is seen "as better able to set a moral and religious tone for the country" (New York Times, June 5, 1996).We hear that America needs a strong moral and religious leader. The country has lost its compass, marred by teen-age pregnancy, high crime rates, gay follies, regulating shackles, immigrating barbarians, women out of the kitchen, bleeding-heart gun controllers, out of control tort system, liberal benches, abortion clinics, high taxes, low defense spending, phony entitlements (except Kansan farming subsidies), one-payer health system, modernists, ante and post, the latest fad of cultural creativists, flags burning drug addicts, closeted commies (must be all gays), even the atrocious potentiality of thinking metric, and the list goes on...
Swans cannot wait to see God back. We want God, Alleluia! Paradise is for the taking.
And to the atheists out there, remember what our former President, George Bush, said on August 27, 1988, answering the following question:
Question: "Surely you recognize the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are atheists?"
Answer (George Bush): "No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God".
A "nation under God", wow, that's heavy stuff! Even the swans are trembling under such an edict... The next question, not asked to the President-to-be, was:
"When did America become a nation under God?"
Answer (not volunteered by our great man): When our 34th president, D. D. Eisenhower, figured out that the Soviets could read our pledge of allegiance and comfortably appropriate it. Then, the "nation under God" was added to the litany!
Yet, on the other hand, Swans has heard that one member of its flock had some reservations about the addition and, while having lived within our borders for fifteen years, could not come to terms with the notion of perjuring himself...
But since, at Swans, we are very American, and would not dare kill anybody, even a Native American, without a sense of guilt and obviously in the name of God, we decided to look into our forefathers' writings before hanging the chap.
We found and read the following:
"I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved -- the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!" (John Adams in a letter to Thomas Jefferson)
and,
"What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of civil authority; in many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardian of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not." (James Madison, 1785)
and again,
"History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose." (Thomas Jefferson, 1813)
So, perhaps you may want to believe a little less and think a little more!
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