Atheists & Voting

How Can Atheists Vote to Positively Influence Government?

By Austin Cline, About.com Guide

See More About:

• atheist activism
• atheism in america
• 2008 presidential race

As citizens and voters, atheists of every nation have a vested interest in the direction which their country takes. Atheism may not entail any necessary positions which all atheists must, as a matter of course, support, but there are positions and values which atheists should support because they are necessary for a secular, liberal democracy to function. There is no "atheist voting block" as such, but atheists - as individuals or while working in groups - may be able to influence society and government through the application of reason, skepticism, critical thinking, realism, and humanistic values.

Should Atheists Vote their Atheism?

Some have argued that atheists should "vote their atheism," but what could that possibly mean? Atheism isn't a philosophy of any sort, much less a political or social philosophy which could inform how one votes. At best, it might mean that a person shouldn't vote for someone they know is an anti-atheist bigot and who will work against equality for atheists - but doesn't that go without saying? There are many things which atheists should vote to defend, but none are necessary and automatic consequences of their atheism. You can't "vote your atheism," but you should vote your humanistic values.

Should Atheists Refuse to Vote?

Some have also argued that atheists shouldn't vote at all if there are no candidates who make an attempt to appeal to atheists. This makes less sense than voting one's atheism: atheists are such a diverse group that it's hard to see what a candidate would do to appeal to atheists generally. The most a candidate could do is acknowledge that atheists are not inferior and deserve to be treated as equals. While it makes no sense to vote for someone who does this yet supports no humanistic values, it also makes no sense to vote for someone who doesn't regard atheists as equals. You shouldn't vote for anti-atheist bigots who deny your equal rights or dignity.

Don't Vote for Bigots

Voting to Defend the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment

One thing which atheists should take into consideration when voting is which candidate will do the most to defend the First Amendment - not just the Free Exercise Clause, but also the Establishment Clause. All candidates at least pay lip service to the importance of religious freedom, but few express clear support for the idea that government has no authority to promote, endorse, encourage, or support any religions, religious institutions, or religious beliefs. Most candidates are religious theists who to look favorably on government support of some sort for religion.

Voting to Defend Secularism

A related issue which atheists should take into consideration is secularism, a critical component of liberal democracy which is often attacked by the Christian Right. Secularism is the political principle or philosophy that there must exist a sphere of knowledge, values, institutions, and action that is independent of religious authority. If there is no secular sphere, then everything is under ecclesiastical control and this undermines the possibility for liberty and autonomy. It's rare to find candidates who mention secularism and secularists in a positive way, so look for them and support them if you can.

Voting to Defend Science and Evolution

Science shouldn't be such an important issue in elections. Given how critical it is for modern society, every candidate should support science education and scientific research. Unfortunately, science is also a pillar of modern secularism and the Enlightenment, thus making it a target for the Christian Right. Atheists should vote for those candidates which are most likely to defend science both in the abstract and in practice: they should not shy away from accepting with the conclusions of science and they should refuse to water down science teaching to please religious superstitions.

Voting to Defend the Rule of Law

Perhaps nothing is as fundamental as the rule of law: liberal democracy cannot exist unless everyone, from the lowest citizen to the highest official, is equally subject to the same laws. Unfortunately, there are always movements seeking to exempting some group from neutral, generally applicable laws and place them outside the political process. Atheists should make a point of supporting candidates who support the rule of law. Candidates who support exempting particular people (like the president) or particular groups (like religious believers) from the law should not get your vote.

Voting to Defend Personal Liberty and Autonomy

Democracy, which is "government by the people," cannot exist unless people are free and have the freedom to govern themselves. If sovereign power rests with the people, it can only be because the people are free to be sovereign over themselves and to explore the options available for structuring their government. This should be an important political principle for atheists because of the extent to which religious leaders seek to subject people to the control of religious traditions, institutions, and priests. Personal autonomy should be a prerequisite for the liberty to be an atheist in the first place.

Voting to Defend Openness and Honesty

Given how many theists have become atheists based on closer study of what religions have done, atheists should strongly support the free flow of information as a general principle. Because a working democracy requires that people be informed about what their government is doing in their name, atheists in a democracy should support candidates who promise to reduce the ability of the government to keep secrets from the people. The more power government has to keep information from the people, the easier it is for that government to abuse all of the power it has. Who would know?

Voting to Defend Equality and Justice

Equality and justice are two connected political values which atheists have frequently been denied. Without equality, only the privileged portion of the population ends up being truly sovereign; too often that's just what religious believers do for themselves - Christians, Muslims, Jews, and more. Without justice, there can be no application of the law; too often, religious believers seek to apply "justice" in religious rather than secular, neutral terms. Atheists should vote for candidates who will defend real equality and justice for everyone.

Vote with an Eye on the Future and the "Big Picture"

It's tempting to look primarily at a candidate's stance on certain policy questions, but there are many more things which should be taken into account. For example, will they or their opponent do a better job when it comes to maintaining the independence of their branch of government or in using their power to ensure oversight over the other branches? Voting for the party rather than the candidate sounds bad in some ways, but which party controls the legislature matters a lot when it comes to what legislation is voted on, investigations, and confirming appointees to various courts and agencies. A candidate's policy positions are important, but the long-term effects of their holding an office must be considered.

How Our Laws Are Made

THOMAS (Library of Congress)

PDF File Download:

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=110_cong_documents&docid=f:hd049.110.pdf

A Government of the Rich, by the Rich, and for the Rich

July 4th in America

5 July 2010

Sunday, July 4 marked the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. This founding document of the American republic proclaimed the profoundly democratic principle that “all men are created equal” and endowed with “inalienable rights.”

It was issued in 1776, one year into a bitter armed struggle against an occupying British army. This revolutionary struggle to put an end to colonial rule was a profoundly liberating event, whose reverberations were felt round the world.

Two hundred and thirty-four years on, the federal government in Washington commemorated the anniversary with a series of actions that demonstrated how thoroughly the principles elaborated in the Declaration have been repudiated in practice, leaving Americans with a government that is as unrepresentative and reactionary as that of old King George III.

Congress adjourned for the holiday leaving millions of unemployed workers without the money, in the form of jobless benefits, to pay their rent or mortgage and feed themselves and their families. At the same time, it deprived states of tens of billions of dollars in anticipated Medicaid funding, thus ensuring brutal cuts in essential social services and layoffs of teachers and other public employees.

While slashing funds for the jobless and the working population generally, it approved $33 billion to pay for the escalation of the nine-year-old colonial war and occupation in Afghanistan, ensuring the reproduction in a far more savage form of all the crimes of the British King—“plunder,” “death,” “desolation,” “tyranny,” “cruelty,” “perfidy”—spelled out in the Declaration’s bill of particulars.

The main social layer in America with reason to give a flag-waving cheer on this Fourth of July consisted of Wall Street bankers and hedge fund managers, who saw a proposed $19 billion tax shifted from their assets onto working people. While the toothless financial reform bill passed by Congress last week was initially to be paid for by taxing the institutions most responsible for the financial meltdown of 2008, the Democratic leadership caved to Republican objections, agreeing to fund it instead with money left over from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)—funds that otherwise would have gone to decrease the US deficit.

Instead, those billions in deficit reduction will be gouged out of programs that benefit the working class and the poor.

Taken together, these actions provide an unmistakable portrait of a government that is of the rich, by the rich and for the rich—one that is utterly unresponsive to the needs and wishes of the vast majority of the American people. The actions of the US Senate (the “millionaires club”), the House (where the average net worth is $650,000) and the Obama White House are determined by the interests of the banks, the corporations and the wealthiest one percent of the population, while the majority of the country, the working people, are abandoned to the mercies of the capitalist “free market.”

The policies of this government are catastrophic for millions upon millions of Americans. The Senate’s decision to adjourn last week without passing an extension of unemployment benefits left 1.63 million jobless workers with no income. By the end of this month, that number will climb to 3 million, and if Congress fails to pass an extension upon its return, some 7 million by the end of the year.

These millions of unemployed workers, together with their children, are being condemned to impoverishment, hunger and homelessness in the name of fighting the deficit—a political catch phrase that boils down to imposing the full burden of the crisis of the capitalist system upon the working class.

The economic and social context in which this action has been taken underscores its criminality. The Labor Department released figures Friday showing the loss of 125,000 jobs in June. At least 15 million people are without work, with five workers chasing each job. And the number of long-term unemployed—those out of work for six months or longer and in need of the federally funded extensions—is unprecedented since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The jobless data following a string of reports on falling home and car sales, plummeting consumer confidence and declining factory orders, all of which make a mockery of the Obama administration’s claim that this is a “recovery summer.”

The failure of Congress to approve $24 billion in Medicaid assistance to state governments will intensify the spiraling down of the US economy. Without this money, layoffs that could affect some 900,000 public and private sector workers are threatened, together with the loss of critical social services and the further decimation of public education.

The Democratic House and Senate leadership have blamed Republican obstinacy for the defeat of these meager relief measures. The reality, however, is that both big business parties accept the doctrine of deficit reduction and agree that social spending—including the pittance offered to the unemployed—must be curtailed to that end. As for the Obama White House, it declined to make an issue of millions of workers being left destitute.

No such obstacle stood in the way of paying for imperialist war, however, with the Congressional Democratic leadership determined to approve the $33 billion supplemental package—roughly the same amount that was withheld from the unemployed and the state governments—before July 4. The House vote for war funding came just one day after the Senate voted 99-0 to confirm the new Afghanistan commander, Gen. David Petraeus, who spelled out to Congress his intention to escalate the killing of Afghans.

What is to account for the chasm that divides the interests of the working class majority from the policies of the two big business parties? According to the latest data released by the Congressional Budget Office last week, the income gap between the top 1 percent, America’s millionaires, and the rest of the population more than tripled between 1979 and 2007. During that period, the top one percent saw its after-tax income increase 281 percent, compared to just 25 percent for the middle fifth of the population.

The immense and uninterrupted growth of social inequality in America makes a mockery of the egalitarian principles enunciated in the country’s founding document, and is incompatible with basic democratic principles. It is an essential manifestation of the deep-going degeneration of a capitalist system that can produce only economic, social and ecological disasters, together with ever more catastrophic wars.

As the US commemorates the signing of the Declaration of Independence, it is entirely appropriate to invoke the document’s defense of the right of the people to “alter or abolish” any government that denies their “unalienable rights,” and to replace it with a new system that “to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”

The Socialist Equality is confident that the American working class will seek to exercise this fundamental right. The urgent issue is the development of the revolutionary leadership that will provide the program for workers in the US to unite with their brothers and sisters all over the world in a new revolutionary struggle to put an end to unemployment, poverty, oppression and war, and create a socialist society organized to serve the needs of the majority, rather than the profit interests of a modern-day financial aristocracy.


by Bill Van Auken

U.S. Constitution - Amendment 3 (Bill of Rights)

Once again, we're back onto the Constitution of the United States of America. Relevant, it being the 4th of July. :) Know your rights provided by the Constitution, the ''bible'' of sorts for the American people. This is practically a breathing document that is For You (and me)!
Remember: Once the government officials start stepping on a few people's rights and disregarding small portions of the Constitution, we are in jeopardy of having many of our rights violated in the future. Any violations of the Constitution by supposed Patriotic government officials (the police, Congress, the President, et al.) is unAmerican and is grounds for removal by the people. Dissent Is American.

- Steve 

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Amendment 3 - Quartering of Soldiers. Ratified 12/15/1791.

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

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(Definitions, as always, are provided by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary - http://www.merriam-webster.com/)

QUARTERED - 

Main Entry: ²quarter

Function: verb

Date: 14th century

transitive verb

1 a : to cut or divide into four equal or nearly equal parts ed> b archaic : divide
2 : to provide with lodging or shelter
3 : to crisscross (an area) in many directions
4 a : to arrange or bear (as different coats of arms) quarterly on one escutcheon b : to add (a coat of arms) to others on one escutcheon c : to divide (a shield) into distinct sections (as by stripes)intransitive verb 1 : lodge, dwell
2 : to crisscross a district
3 : to change from one quarter to another s>
4 : to strike on a ship's quarter ing>

The 3rd Amendment guarantees that the army cannot force homeowners to give them room and board.

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According to Wikipedia, the following is stated:

History

The original text of the Constitution generated some opposition on the ground that it did not include adequate guarantees of civil liberties. In response, the Third Amendment, along with several amendments including the ten that now form the Bill of Rights, was proposed by Congress on September 25, 1789. The process of adoption by ratification by three-fourths of the states was completed on December 15, 1791.

Several revisions were proposed prior to its adoption, which chiefly differed in the way in which peace and war were distinguished (including the possibility of a situation, such as unrest, which was neither peace nor war), and whether the executive or the legislature would have the authority to authorize quartering.^[1]

Case law

The Third Amendment is among the least cited sections of the U.S. Constitution.^[1] A product of its times, its relevance has greatly declined since the American Revolution. In particular, military operations occurring on U.S. territory have been increasingly infrequent, especially after the Civil War in the 19th century. Those popular references to the amendment which exist are often in jest, presumably due to the lack of soldiers quartered in homes.^[1]

Right to privacy

Some Supreme Court justices have occasionally invoked the Third Amendment when seeking to establish a base for the right to privacy. For example, the Opinion of the Court by Justice William O. Douglas in Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 484 (1965) cites the amendment as implying a belief that an individual's home should be free from agents of the state.^[1]

Limitation on Executive Power

In Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer 343 U.S. 579, 644 (1952), Justice Robert H. Jackson's concurring opinion cites the Third Amendment as providing evidence of the Framer's intent to constrain executive power even during wartime: "[t]hat military powers of the Commander in Chief were not to supersede representative government of internal affairs seems obvious from the Constitution and from elementary American history. Time out of mind, and even now in many parts of the world, a military commander can seize private housing to shelter his troops. Not so, however, in the United States, for the Third Amendment says...[E]ven in war time, his seizure of needed military housing must be authorized by Congress."

Directly relevant case law

One of the few times a Federal court was asked to invalidate a law or action on Third Amendment grounds was in Engblom v. Carey, 677 F.2d 957 (2d. Cir. 1982). In 1979, prison officials in New York organized a strike; they were evicted from their prison facility residences, which were reassigned to members of the National Guard who had temporarily taken their place as prison guards. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled: (1) that the term "owner" in the Third Amendment includes tenants (paralleling similar cases regarding the Fourth Amendment, governing search and seizure), (2) National Guard troops count as soldiers for the purposes of the Third Amendment, and (3) that the Third Amendment is incorporated (that is, that it applies to the states).^[1]

In an earlier case, United States v. Valenzuela, 95 F. Supp. 363 (S.D. Cal. 1951), the defendant asked that a federal rent-control law be struck down because it was "the incubator and hatchery of swarms of bureaucrats to be quartered as storm troopers upon the people in violation of Amendment III of the United States Constitution." The court declined his request. Later, in Jones v. United States Secretary of Defense, 97 F. Supp. 346 (D. Minn. 1972), Army reservists cited the Third Amendment as justification for sitting out a parade. Similarly far-fetched arguments in a variety of contexts have also been denied in a number of court cases.^[1]

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As I usually say, I don't suggest what you're to do with this knowledge. I merely provide the knowledge here, define old & confusing terms, and give references, so that you can be better equipped to be a patriotic, outspoken American. - Steve

We The People Stimulus Package