Couldn’t Help But Notice (112906)
This has a lot of potential to change a lot of things.
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Hurricane season is, for all practical purposes, over. Relatively little happened, (at link — “…. [no storms] formed in October, the first time since 2002 that no storms formed that month. Also, no Category 4 or 5 storms formed this year for the first time since 1997.”), especially compared to what was “predicted” (at link — “According to AccuWeather.com, the 2006 tropical storm season will still be more active than normal, but less active than last year, with fewer storms than 2005’s record 26 named storms and 14 hurricanes.”). Globalarmists are surely working furiously on how to spin this result as due to “climate change,” even though 2005’s heavy hurricane season was supposedly caused by it too. Maybe they’ll invent some kind of (ahem) “wave theory.”
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Conservative Culture notes that Ohio Commercial Activities Tax (CAT) collections are running about 20% ahead of expectations. Before it generates so much money that politicians start thinking they can’t live without it, the CAT should be killed.
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Dennis Prager is outraged that incoming congressman Keith Ellison of Minnesota wants to have the oath of office administered with the Quran instead of the Bible. I wonder if Ellison told voters that’s what he would do? Thinking longer term, if he gets his way, it will probably be the first step towards eliminating religious books entirely from oaths for public office, as is already under discussion for oaths taken in courtroom proceedings in at least one section of the UK. I do not see this as a favorable development.
UPDATE: Quite the spirited discussion in occurring at Hot Air. Volokh weighs in at National Review.
Well, I looked this up in the Constitution.
Article VI, Paragraph 3:
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.
“…no religious test shall ever be required…” sounds pretty definitive to me. You can swear on anything or nothing. The oath or affirmation is to the Constitution, nothing else.
Comment by Ed — November 29, 2006 @ 1:50 pm
I am aware of what you noted, which is why I don’t see it as a favorable development (as opposed to manning the barricades as some are).
But ….. I think it’s fair to ask the fundamental question and to get a definitive answer as to whether the religion Ellison puports to follow demands execution of any members who leave it, OR the killing and/or subjugation of infidels, OR the institution of sharia law. IF Ellison really believes in any one of those three things himself, elected or not, he cannot honestly take any oath of office to uphold the Constitution of the United States, because each of the three beliefs noted are clearly contrary to the Constitution’s rule-of-law framework. IF Ellison’s religion unequivocally believes in any one of those three things, then it is not a religion that can have an oath taken on it to support the Constitution of the US, because the religion itself does not.
If these points of mine are correct, the easy cop-out way out is going to be to have people take an oath without dragging a book into it, and avoiding the *uncomfortable* points I just raised, even though it will allow people who WILL NOT follow the Constitution into office.
Comment by TBlumer — November 29, 2006 @ 2:29 pm