A Wall So High: Senator Sam Ervin and North Carolina's Controversial Potty Police Law

by Nomad

With his Southern drawl, dry wit, and country-lawyer persona, Senator Sam Ervin became a national hero to many during the Watergate hearings. Yet, here was a staunch conservative Democrat- a Dixie-Crat.
Today he very likely would be disgusted by what's going on in his state. 

Remembering Senator Ervin

Most of us of a certain (unspecified) age recognize the name, Sam Ervin. During the long painful summer of 1973, Congress convened a special session in order to get down to the bottom of an extraordinary White House scandal, involving a contracted break-in of opposition offices and a badly-handled coverup by the president.

Starting from May 17, 1973, the Senate Watergate Committee began its nationally televised hearings and throughout that summer, the nation stood witness to every detail of Nixon's dirty tricks and his vain attempts to keep them from wrecking his presidency. 

At the helm of that committee was a flabby-jowled Democratic Senator named Ervin.

Ervin was a treat for those of us- like me- incapable of understanding the Washington proceedings or of appreciating history in the making.

As I recall, he came across initially as a rather slow, rather amusing grandfatherly type. It was easy enough to dismiss him as a bumbler or cartoon character.
In fact, it was soon understood that Ervin was sly fox and resolution determined to get the facts.

Some 319 hours were broadcast overall, and 85% of U.S. households watched some portion of them. The audio feed also was broadcast gavel-to-gavel on scores of National Public Radio stations, making the hearings available to people in their cars and workplaces...

Over a year later, the president- who had assured the American public he was not a crook- was forced to step aside, unable to clear his name and unwilling to be held accountable. On August 8, 1974, Nixon, with a weary salute from the steps of his presidential helicopter, became the first president in US history to resign from office.

Ervin took a lot of heat during the Watergate hearings. Rolling Stone noted at the time:

Jim Fuller of the Charlotte (N.C.) Observer reports his newspaper gets calls at all hours of the day and night, some from as far away as Houston, demanding that "that fat, senile old man" lay off the President. "The most common threat," Fuller says, "is castration." Ervin doesn't look worried.

Render Unto Ceasar: Was Jesus a Secularist?

by Nomad

Jesus, the founder of the Christian Church, never precisely stated his opinions on mixing religion with government. However, one passage from the New Testament supports the theory that when it came to religious affairs and government, Jesus thought they were separate things altogether.

Christians are familiar- or they ought to be familiar- with this story from the life of Jesus, in which, he outsmarts a shifty lawyer. 

Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians.

“Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are. Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?”

But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?”

“Caesar’s,” they replied.

Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.

Matthew 22:15-22

That’s probably a familiar passage even to people who are not all that devoted to the Christian faith. Besides showing that Jesus could argue as well as any lawyer of his time, or that his audience was not merely gullible village folk- it also demonstrates something else. Jesus himself believed that the realm of the government and the realm of religion were not to be intermixed. 

In his time, the powers of Caesar was not merely the head of government but, as a emperor of the known world, he was the government. His obscure whims required absolute obedience. 

Judea was little more than an occupied colony of Rome and dissent- even in its mildest form- was not tolerated. It was a case of "you are either with us or against us."

The Powerful Speech that Made Santorum Throw Up and Lose Michigan and Arizona

Faith in Politics Exposed: Controversial but Necessary Questions for the Presidential Candidates

by Nomad

Here's an excerpt from an NPR article, entitled "Has Obama Waged War on Religion?"

Newt Gingrich warns the U.S. is becoming a secular country, which would be a "nightmare." Rick Santorum says there's a clash between "man's laws and God's laws."

Religious conservatives see an escalating war with the Obama White House. One Catholic bishop called it "the most secularist administration in history." Another bishop says it is an "a-theocracy." Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, Conn., who heads the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' new Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty, believes the First Amendment is clear: The government cannot make people choose between obeying the law and following their faith.

Whether Newt Gingrich knows it or not, America is NOT becoming a secular state. It is a secular state and has been since its inception. It is in very real danger of becoming a theocratic state and that, many people would say, is the potential “nightmare.”