Since they set up a process to repatriate Confederates, I would guess either the law has changed or they were assumed to have renounced citizenship when they swore allegiance to the Confederacy...but I'm no historical law professor.

Yes, there are some non combatants who joined Daesh who claim to have not renounced or forfeited their citizenship, but since they gave aid and comfort to the enemy during "war" and could be executed imo, wanting to return home and be subjected to the legal system doesn't sound a bit smart. I think those who took up arms are in a different boat, with a much harsher likely legal outcome.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..."

"no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

Technically, neither party should be using religion for anything. Religion is supposed to be separate from the state. Our founders said this, our bill of rights backs it up, and that is the way it should have been.

Unfortunately, it seeps in. In God We Trust was never on money until a reverend asked that it be added to the two cent piece during the civil war. It didn't appear on paper money until the 1950's when President Dwight Eisenhower on July 30, 1956, declared "In God We Trust" must appear on American currency. It went on to be considered a side motto to E Pluribus Unum because of continued pressure.

Under God was not part of the pledge of allegiance until in 1954, at President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s urging, the Congress legislated that “under God” be added.

Both of these broke the guidelines set forth in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. They should have never happened but religious Judges keep allowing them under the pretext of Accommodationism, in that as long as they don't specifically recognize or benefit a 'single' religion they can be considered to be OK. They shouldn't be allowed. Churches should have to pay taxes on profits. Priests should be held by the same laws the rest of us are held by. But because of religious fanatics, we allow the blending of church and state. Many would say, to our detriment.

I appreciate your response to my question earlier, @bobknight33.

I don't mean to try to drag you back into the thread here if you're trying to disengage -- I dunno what you mean by #walkaway. Anyway, this doesn't require a response.

I largely agree with you on the specific subtopic of both parties being pretty dirty and frequently engaging in "government theater" just to draw attention to trivialities while promoting their own self interests. I also largely agree with Trump being a "true outsider" in the sense that he holds no particular allegiance to party machinations, etc.

However, even though I was willing to give him a chance after the election, at this point I have zero trust in Trump's intentions. Trumps friends -- the "best people" -- have this interesting trend of becoming his detractors and enemies. Trump wants us to accept the word of people that vouch for him, but days, weeks, or months later they fall out of favor and suddenly he says that they are scum and we shouldn't listen to a word they say.

That's a "cry wolf" or "fool me once" sort of problem. Sessions, the guy you mentioned as protecting Trump from the "witch hunt", has been pretty relentlessly bashed by Trump for the weighty offense of allowing investigators to investigate. Giuliani spouts nonsense, doublespeak and contradictions. Huckabee-Sanders refuses to answer very basic questions from the press (which is her job) not because they misquote her or take things out of context (which would be legitimate gripes) but because she's been bitten in the ass a few too many times by people pointing out blatant contradictions in Trump's statements. And that's just the current people.
There's a large list of short-term Trump appointments that end up out of favor.

What all that stuff says to me is ... "something is rotten in the state of Denmark". Is it possible that there's a vast conspiracy against him in the media, justice department, etc.? Um, well, maybe -- but Occam's Razor tells me that other possibilities are rather more likely. Like, for example, that Trump being a "true outsider" doesn't preclude him from holding the same self-serving motivations that are unfortunately common in slimy career politicians. That he acts shady and dirty because he is shady and dirty.

I dunno. It just seems like it takes a lot of work to keep up with Trump's revolving door of steadfast allies that become traitorous enemies.

This is true in Canada as well. If you ask a french person what nationality they are, they will ALWAYS say French before Canadian. In their eyes, they are French who happen to live in Canada, and French will always be their primary identity. Even within Canada, they are considered a "Distinct Society." Quebec has their own laws that are above and beyond the Federal laws. A lot of these laws pertain to maintaining their French status first.

Label laws in Canada say we always have to have French and English on everything you buy, but in Quebec, they don't require English. Same with signage.

So the French do have a different way of assigning their allegiances. To some it may be subtle, but it's actually pretty entrenched in their culture.

Don't students still recite the pledge of allegiance? It was changed into a national prayer in 1954, so not only is God allowed, it's required.

Parallels with religious indoctrination much? Not to mention blunt-instrument nationalism like the pledge of allegiance?

To me, critical thinking, logic, and open exposure to light seem like the best way to combat bad ideas like this. The good news is that exposure to light is generally much more automatic today in the internet age than it ever was before. The bad news is that critical thinking doesn't seem to be doing as well.

I think we're trending in the right direction. Change might be generational, when everything about our culture and society expects things to happen now, but we're getting there.

It depends on who the potential winning candidates are. If neither poses an apparent threat to democracy, the US, or the rest of the world, I have no problem with it.

When one candidate is a Trump or worse, I think it is completely irresponsible not to do everything you can to stop that candidate from winning, even if it's an epic nose holding if you really hate the other candidate.

And Trump is that bad. I am not a fan of Hillary Clinton. I trashed her on the email thing. And she doesn't take strong stands on things she absolutely should, like against big banks and what not. But she absolutely would not have emboldened racists and neo-nazis. She would not encourage hatred of the press and opponents to the point of dog whistling potential violence. I know that's a really low bar, but you can't have a functioning democracy without opposition that can feel free to oppose, a media that can resport basic facts without threats and being disbelieved simply because they report info contrary to what the President wants to be true, etc.

This was one of those elections that voting third party was simply not an ethical choice. Trump never hid what he was before he got elected. He was all these things in a very apparent way.

I am a moderate with no allegiance to any party. And I can say voting wise I did everything I could to stop Trump. I voted for the best chance against Trump in the primaries for my state, and I voted for Clinton in the general. I just wish more people did the same, because I think a year from now we are going to realize in a very big way how we really should have done everything we could to have stopped him from becoming president.

Again,

If you want to take a book of rules and ignore it take American law and only read a portion of it like:
Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death

I suppose that in isolation suggests that American law justifies citizen's pulling out a gun and shooting people providing comfort to Americas enemies. Of course, if you read the WHOLE of American law you find there are things about due process and courts and other checks and balances in place. In fact, that the naive original reading is completely the anti-thesis of what American law advocates.

The point of course being that is EXACTLY the same thing you've done with the bible by entirely ignoring the existence of other parts in that address alter, or provide context on the pieces you picked out. You know, like some guy named Jesus that came along later and some folks have made a big deal about following the teachings of.

I wouldn't care if my DNA was 80% German or any other country, because I was born and raised in the USA, I'm an American and that will ALWAYS come first. Your allegiance lies with what you BELIEVE in, not with what's in your DNA. If you lie down and let your genes tell you how to act, then you'll lie down for just about anything.

@radx and @enoch

radx said:
Painting Truthout, Truthdig, Counterpunch, Alternet, BlackAgendaReport, NakedCapitalism and others as stooges of the Kremlin is such an obvious attempt to discredit dissenting voices that it's, quite frankly, rather offensive.

enoch said:
i have considered his works and found them informative and reflective of our current situation.

just as i have found:howard zinn,noam chomsky,amy goodman,jeremy scahill,laura poitrus,glenn greenwald,paul jay,richard d wolffe.

All of the outlets and authors listed above have been very thorough or exhaustive in documenting the evils of America or Capitalism(as represented by America). The length, depth and detail they have all given and time spent documenting any and every instance is almost breath taking. For a long time, I sort of sat closer to you both by looking at the merits of each instance and case weeding through which stories were accurate, which ones were complete, which ones were misleading or fair. Lots and lots of the coverage from those groups and individuals were very accurate.

Here's the counter balance though, how much time, detail and effort have all of those groups combined given to any positive outcomes of America or Capitalism(as represented by America). How much time, detail and effort have all of those groups combined given to the evils of any alternatives or opposing forces that would or did fill the voids were America isn't involved? It's crickets all around.

Chomsky's work alone could fill a library with the thorough documenting of America's evil corporate execution of class war on the workers of the world. How many books and documentaries can we count form the entire group that attempt anything similar for China, Russia, Middle Eastern nations, heck, the rest of the world combined?

I don't draw attention to this to point out that anything they have all observed is even wrong or incorrect. I draw attention to the glaring omission of similar documentation of alternatives. As it stands, a country like Russia couldn't dream of a better and more effective propaganda coup than the work of these groups and individuals. That doesn't in anyway say any of them are in allegiance with Russia, or even like anything about Russia. It still stands that even if Russia set out to discredit and smear America and leave itself looking clean, it couldn't pay people to do a better job of it. That's something worth considering and the deep, deep absence of balance and perspective that the listed sources represent is DAMAGING when taken in isolation.

Perhaps more pointedly, is the problem with Breitbart merely with it's fact checking department? They are, in as close as investigated them both, about on a Howard Zinn level for accuracy/honesty. None the less, it's the facts they willingly and knowingly leave out that makes them so damaging. The fact they fall right wing instead of left wing doesn't make their damage so much more appalling to me.

I have 2 theories.....
1. They are seeing the mass conformity and allegiance to the empire as antithetical to freedoms of choice and expression, or
2. They looked at the helmet as a stand in for a burka, and had a problem with it.

Of course, I could easily be wrong, maybe they're just being douchey.

That awesome technology. I salute our robot overlords and pledge my allegiance to SkyNet. Just in case.

Not as different as you think, when at least 1/3 and probably up to 1/2 of the people (100% wrongly) believe the constitution is not only based in Christianity, but was handed to Washington and Jefferson by Christ himself. The secular nature of the government the founders attempted to codify is eroding...we now have god on money, in our pledge of allegiance, in our courtrooms, etc. Religious rights/laws are on the rise, not decline.....at least Christian religious rights and laws.

The church is in decline, yes. Out of power, not by 1/2.

Yes, my point, it's not secular if being atheist disqualifies one from holding office. There is a religious test, not by law but in reality. That alone precludes true secularism, and it's not alone.

Well, of course there are other countries, but I only know how religion interacts with the government in my own country, and even then I freely admit there's much I don't know, both by their design of the system and from my own lack of interest. I can't speak with any first hand knowledge about how Europe is evolving (or devolving), how it's governments respond to religious pressures, or how their populations react. That's why I stuck to the US in my response, which is a place that the religious right describes as you did, totally secular and fast removing all power from Christianity, when the reality is you can't be elected here if you don't pray to Christ publicly and removing special privileges only granted to religion is considered a war against religion and an attempt to stamp it out...at least by 1/3 of us if not more.

As for perspective, you limited it to "the time we live in", but you want to counter my answer with "historically....", and YOU said "secular constitution", so I'm not sure how you translate that to "globally". To me, "secular constitution" strongly implies the US.
Clearly things are different in ANY democracy than under a theocratic dictatorship. That goes without saying....but I guess not to you, so now I said it, so now you can see the perspective that went right over your head.

Got to love the country singer's straw man about Hitler and Japan and ignoring the fundamental issue of US policy in the Middle East and acting to protect oil interests over letting them self rule and work out whatever issues they have to work out. I understand the need to try and contain the fallout from the wars between the various Islamic factions (mostly Shia and Sunni) from spilling over to neighboring nations, but the US policy has been overt in serving US interests over the long term interests of the region since the 50's. The US solid backing of Israel, even in cases where it is clearly in the wrong, adds fuel to the fire.

And I know those on the right complain how Obama has backed away from Israel, though the evidence clearly differs as the US still refuses to tell Israel, to the degree we should, to treat people within its occupied zones with proper respect... and the fact so many Americans feel the need to protect Israel and favor Israel over its occupied territories no matter what, again adds fuel to the fire and shows those in Islam how under attack their faith is, which makes them stronger in their faith and more sure that they are on the right path, since the devil is working harder to put their faith down than any other faith... of course I hear this exact same argument from Christians all the time, how the devil is trying to put Christianity down proves that Christianity must be true... amazing how a little empathy would probably help world peace, but neither faith seems to have any... though I've seen enough FB memes about how Christians are so depressed because they have so much empathy and I wonder where it is, as I've yet to see any empathy from Christians as a whole. All of which digresses from the original point...

US foreign policy is directly responsible for the rise of ISIS/ISIL, whatever you want to call it... now ISIS has risen itself up to be a rather large threat via its actions, which are deliberately provoking, as it's easier to radicalize people when the world starts turning against Islam as a whole, as those on the Right are apt to do, than turn against the small segment that aren't peace loving. Of course the Right's preferred response to those provocations are to do exactly what ISIS has publicly stated they want. They want a large war against them, they'd love it if Republicans banned them from coming to the US as it would make lone wolf attacks in the US by US citizens more prevalent, which like they did with Miami (the shooter himself pledged allegiance to ISIS, but he also pledged allegiance to Hezbollah, which is fighting against ISIS)... Republican policies, especially those of Trump and Cruz are so on point with ISIS desires, one has to wonder if they themselves are tied with ISIS interests, or if they are tied to military interests that profit off continuing the war and sacrificing American lives in the name of war profiteering... but Republican Jesus said "Blessed are the warmongers and the war profiteers and cursed be the peace makers"... It was there on the Sermon on the Mount when he also said, "Blessed be the rich employer who pays his employees poorly, and cursed be those employees who are poor and needy and needing assistance. Surely I say unto you, if you give tax breaks unto the rich and cut benefits for the needy and the poor, I shall bless your Nation... oh and forget the sick and dying, they got themselves into their mess, they are responsible for getting out, only the well to do shall have healthcare." Again I digress though...

The number of attacks on this country will skyrocket if Trump wins, simply because it would be far easier to radicalize people after that. Trump and the Republican party are doing everything they can to appease what ISIS wants us to do, making their job easier.

And while this guy was a Muslim, the constant labeling of him as being with ISIS is a bit out there. Yes he claimed allegiance to ISIS, but he also claimed allegiance to Hezbollah, a group opposed to ISIS that is in fact doing a lot of the fighting against them. So it seems more likely that he was taken in by the anti-gay rhetoric of religion (one shared by the far right Christians) and stepped it up to a mass murder rampage.

Nobody would call those guy who took over the Oregon facility Radicalized Christian Terrorists, though that's what they were. They did it in the name of Christ, saying that God was the one who told them to do it. You don't blame a whole religion for an act of a few radical members. The right then complains that regular Muslims don't do enough to protest the actions of those few, but I don't see masses of Christians counter protesting the God Hates Fags people who are protesting soldier funerals, or will be at the funerals of the people killed at this club... in fact I saw the God Hates Fags people there at the scene and there wasn't a big crowd of Christians fighting against the radicalized Christians spreading hate... Matthew 7:5 may apply to their attitude towards the situation...