O'Donnell Blanks on First Amendment

[Bryan Hancock]

Christine O'Donnell is a freaking idiot!

O'Donnell Is Idiot

Can't we find someone better than this to run? Crazy!

[Timothy W.]

I'll go School House Rock on them. You never know when someone willing to learn something may come along.

Ok kids - when you grow up you will learn this neato thing called reading. Reading is fun! Reading allows you to learn things, look up facts and keep yourself from being a mindless drone when a politician and pundits tell you something and keep repeating it, hoping you will never actually do some research to find out that what they are telling you is complete bullkaka....and it keeps you from sounding like an idiot when someone who actually does read comes along.

The First Amendment of the Constitution details 5 specific rights. Got that? 5. Most people don't know that. Coons didn't know it, but O'Donnell did. That's the same O'Donnell that some folks here are trying to call an idiot - the one who knew the 5 rights of the First Amendment. Here are those 5 rights:

1. Freedom to exercise your religion
2. Freedom of speech
3. Freedom of the press
4. Freedom to peaceably assemble
5. Freedome to petition the United States government for a redress of grievances.

You see kids, it's not about restrictions but about freedoms. When it comes to religion, "separation of church and state" is not a freedom - it is an ideological restriction on activity. There is one restriction in the First Amendment and it specifically says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". Read that one closely kids because it's important. This is not the same as "separation of church and state". It is the separation of church from one singular function of government - making laws. Congress is solely restricted from making laws establishing a religion or prohibiting the free exercise of it. That's all. It's only about making laws.

So where did "separation of church and state" come from? It came from Thomas Jefferson, in a letter he wrote while he was President in 1802 to the Danbury Baptist association. Note it was not a law or even an executive order. It was a letter. The total sentence was: "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State"

Wow - even Jefferson knew specifically what words were in the Constitution by putting them in quotes, and what words are not. Notice here also that he said it builds "a" wall of separation. That's singular kids. It again refers to just one thing - passing laws. The problem is that there's a lot of people out there who don't want to read and have no idea that even the origin of the phrase separation of church and state acknowledges that this phrase is not in the Constitution and refers only to the passing of laws by Congress.

Want to know what else he said in that letter? His closing sentence was, "I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection and blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves and your religious association, assurances of my high respect and esteem." So the same letter that talks about separation of church and state, being sent in an official capacity by the President of the United States, promises to pray for the recipient of the letter to the common father and creator of man. Not exactly separation of Church and State even within that letter.

So kids, you really have to read things and learn for yourself. That's why we spend all this time and money on you when you're young, teaching you how to read. It used to be that every high school student was given a Constitution test as well so that they would actually know the Constitution. This isn't as common anymore and this is one of the reasons why. It's a lot easier to get people to believe something false about a document if they've never read it.