Founding Father or Godless Pinko?

From Andrew Sullivan:

Can you imagine what a senior Republican would say today about the following statement: "The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion"? That's from the Treaty of Peace and Friendship with Tripoli, Article XI, passed by the Senate under John Adams' presidency. No one saying that could be nominated in today's explicitly Christianist GOP. In fact, many of the statements of the Founding Fathers sound more like Christopher Hitchens than George W. Bush — and would be characterized as bigotry by much of the Republican right. It's important to realize that today's Christianists are not representative of the constitutional order and philosophy of this country's founding; and are, in fact, one of the deeper threats to the maintenance of the freedom bequeathed to Americans as a birthright.

I was going to say "amen," but a heartfelt "right on" will have to do.

Comments

[Jim]

Ayn Rand often said that conservatives, with their religious mysticism and timid support for capitalism, were a greater threat to a free nation than liberals. That is certainly true, but one would be hard pressed to find a neo-liberal who fits the Objectivist mold better than a modern conservative. Moreover, the intellectually bankrupt policies of the Right are far more felicitous to liberty than the intellectually bankrupt philosophies of the Left. The debates over property rights and school choice – two fundamental issues of personal freedom v. collectivism – find the Left far from the moral high ground on both issues.