The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Robert Jackson served as an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court from 1941 to 1954. We remember him largely for this:
I’ve long been struck by Justice Robert Jackson’s warning about turning the Constitution into “a suicide pact.” [skip] Only recently did I feel the need to go back to the source and ask a basic question: what kind of constitutional failure was Jackson warning against?
Jackson coined the line in a 1949 dissent in Terminiello v. Chicago, a case about the limits of free speech. He was not arguing that constitutional rights should give way whenever they become inconvenient, nor was he defending expansive government authority. His concern was methodological. Jackson criticized the majority for relying “on a conception of freedom of speech so rigid as to tolerate no concession to society’s need for public order.” There was danger, Jackson warned, that “if the Court does not temper its doctrinaire logic with a little practical wisdom, it will convert the constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact.”
The author is referring primarily to freedom of speech and executive powers in his essay. However, now, perhaps more than ever, Americans need to use that practical wisdom in determining the limits of freedom of religion. We need to clearly delineate what is and isn’t a religion under the First Amendment, so that we may determine which “religion” might be engaging in sedition. I speak particularly of the very real danger posed by Islam.
Graphic: X Post
Despite James Talarico’s claims that Jesus is a radical, DSA feminist, bi-whatever, Jesus was clear on the relationship between the church and state:
And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. And they marvelled at him.
Christianity is a voluntary religion. No one is forced to become a believer, and there is no earthly penalty for choosing to reject belief. One willingly accepts God, or one does not. Christianity does not mandate the conquest of the world for God. It recognizes self-defense, an unalienable right acknowledged by the Second Amendment, but it does not preach hatred of anyone; quite the opposite, as the Second Commandment says:
And the second is like, namely this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.
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Islam is a system of political conquest and domination. It tolerates no separation of church and state because the “church” is the state. It uses religion as a means, including Sharia, to keep its adherents in line. If you are not an observant Muslim, you risk being labeled an infidel, and if you choose to leave Islam, you’re an apostate. There is only one fate Islam mandates for apostates: death.
Muslims are exhorted to kill all Jews, and to enslave or kill all infidels in Jihad—holy war—to conquer the world for Islam. Islamist Muslims often kill other Muslims they consider insufficiently fervent in their faith. And while some Muslims apparently do not want to kill or enslave anyone, it is Islamists, not they, who are living the intent and text of their faith. The saying that some Muslims don’t want to kill anyone, they just want other Muslims to do it, applies.
Islamists are not shy about stating their genocidal intentions toward the Jews, Israel, and America. The Democrat Party has become the party of Antisemitism. What the DSA, which shares most, if not all, of its platform with Democrats, advocates is sedition:
If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
Islam has been waging war on America for decades. Islam is fundamentally incompatible with the Constitution and the values and laws of Western Civilization. It is a religion because it says it is. It’s time we understand that, as with trans ideology, that’s not nearly enough, particularly if we don’t want the Constitution to be a suicide pact.
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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, lifelong athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer, and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.