New Victims – Catholics and Jews
You haven’t read about this anywhere else. I just use the same “logic” used for all the other victims we hear about these day to add some more. Expect the Pope to support what’s said here. I might even be canonized. Call me St. Bob.
It’s a time in our history when we have organized and well-funded groups of ‘victims’ – and those touting them – of the numerous social injustices suffered by the oppressed in this country. In addition, attempts are rampant to rewrite our history to heighten the understanding, guilt and need for reparations. But there are several large groups of people who have obviously been ignored so far.
This piece is aimed at addressing and fixing those oversights and add to the list of the oppressed and the oppressors. Consider this “getting on the bandwagon.”
Our Constitution and other founding documents – while supposedly persecuting and extending injustices to blacks, women, gays, transgenders, etc. – obviously included beliefs that Catholicism and Judaism were sins, were un-American, even anti-American, and those afflicted with those ‘isms’ were nothing more than heathens. In other words, they were ostracized, shunned, and segregated.
Ethnic groups of predominately Catholic immigrants – with a good smattering of Jews thrown in – i.e., Polish, Italian, Irish and Mexican – were not only held back by the Constitution and society for their religious beliefs. When coupled with their nationalities they were subjects of derogatory names and jokes, i.e., pollocks, wops, Paddy & Murphy, beaners, kikes – all meant to characterize them as dumb, stupid and inferior.
Anti-Catholic attitudes were brought to the 13 colonies by Protestant immigrants, beginning with the Puritans in the 17th century. Anti-Catholic rhetoric existed in colonial society, and it continued to exist during the following centuries.
Founded in the theological heritage of the Protestant Reformation and the European wars of religion, the papal hierarchy was rejected by Anglo-Saxons and others.
Until 1962 when SCOTUS ruled that mandatory school prayer and Bible readings were unconstitutional, Anti-Catholicism and Antisemitism were part of the curriculum when attending many of our public schools.
Members of the Jewish faith were considered intrinsically wrong for not accepting Jesus Christ as the Messiah. For centuries many ‘Christians’ reinforced that position by the belief that the Jews had killed the Christ. Reading the Old Testament was not allowed in most of our public schools.
Prejudices have been prolonged as most Catholics are opposed to abortion.
The first Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth on November 11, 1620. While some academics want to discriminate between pilgrims and puritans, fact is both were separatists from the Anglican Church of England as established by Henry VIII after the Pope would not annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon so he could marry Ann Boleyn. The Church of England required all under the King’s rule to join and practice regularly.
Regardless, the pilgrims and Puritans had no respect for Catholics or Jews.
So, by making Catholics and Jews members of those oppressed in the United States and by its Constitution and its history, we can just add two huge groups to those victims the country has oppressed from its beginnings.
By adding Catholics and Jews to the long list of the oppressed, we must be approaching a majority of the population. BTW, most of the overwhelming influx of illegal immigrants over the recent years have been Hispanic – ergo, Catholic.
When you take a step back from all the oppressions and those oppressed by the United States, it’s really incredible that so many of the ‘oppressed’ came here and still want to come.
In the 1962 Engel v. Vitale decision, the Supreme Court ruled that public prayer in public schools violated the establishment clause. Up until that time many states had laws requiring mandatory prayer in public schools. Those required prayers and hymns were Protestant creations and not neutral for all faiths. Required Bible readings were limited to the New Testament – King James version.
A major factor in Catholics forming and operating so many of their own K-12 schools was that public school religious teachings did not represent their beliefs.
An example of a public-school prayer was: “Lord, we pray that the heathen Catholics and Jews realize their sin and become Christians”
So, let’s add Catholics and Jews to those that have suffered social injustices from our beginnings – and for whom the writers of the Constitution had no sympathy.
Demands for reparations should be made to those whose ancestors who were never victims of the United States of America. I’m talking about WASPs – White Anglo Saxon Protestants who have been the dominant and the most privileged class of people in the U.S from the start.
I hope you get the point. Victimhood works!
As a person who was born and raised a Catholic in this country, I have suffered unspeakable psychological damage as a descendant of German-Dutch immigrant Catholics.
If you happen to be a WASP and/or a descendent of WASPs, you’re guilty as hell. And I don’t want equality, I want equity. I’m sick and tired of sitting back and watching the more qualified get ahead of me.
Oh, and I could use the money.
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Have a great and prosperous week.
Hug somebody.
References:
https://usconstitution.net/constnot.html
https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1518/prayer-in-public-schools
https://www.quora.com/What-if-the-Blaine-Amendment-had-become-part-of-the-US-Constitution
SPIDER Bites
The Fed raised interest rates .75% last week, almost guaranteeing a self-made recession. Left with the choices of trying to slow down inflation or put people out of work, the choice is now obvious – weaken a weak economy even further.
The stock market has entered bear territory as the NASDAQ is currently off 31.4%, the S&P 500 is down 23.1%, and the DOW is down 17.9% since the beginning of the year. And the usual “buy on the dip” call has not gone out to investors from Wall Street as the prospects of a major recession becomes reality. Ordinary folk with IRA’s and 401K’s have seen their net worth plummet. That coupled with high inflation makes what people have left worth less.
Little wonder then the University of Michigan’s closely watched Survey of Consumers consumer sentiment index slumped to 50.2 in the preliminary June survey, marking the lowest level ever recorded by the survey, which dates to the mid-’70s. The survey is a statistical measurement of the overall health of the economy as determined by consumer opinion. It considers people’s feelings toward their current financial health, the health of the economy in the short term, and the prospects for longer-term economic growth. No surprise, consumer sentiment is in the toilet. Just 13% expect their incomes to rise more than inflation.
While not likely to happen, the fact that this administration is considering a sending gas rebate cards out to millions of drivers shows they don’t understand federal spending is a big part of the problem. It would only make inflation worse. It’s called chasing your tail.
On the other side of the coin, higher levels of personal optimism were associated with longer lifespan and living beyond age 90 across racial and ethnic groups in a study led by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Something positive for us: maybe the radical “doom and gloom-ers” won’t be with us for much longer.
Astra Space, Inc. failed to put two of NASA’s four planned small, shoe box sized satellites (called cubesats) to track hurricanes into orbit last Sunday. The small – 43 foot long – rocket package unexpectedly shut down about a minute before orbit would have been achieved.
SpinLaunch is a startup pitching for a new way to get satellites into space. It theorizes that a giant centrifuge rotating at 17,000 mph would send a non-manned payload into space where a small rocket would finish the job. If it would work, it would save a lot of the cost of fuel to launch a satellite. When my son was young and growing up, we used to talk about ‘mass drivers’ – similar to the idea of SpinLaunch. We also used to talk about the perpetual motion machine and how the build it.
Speaking of space, one of the current targets of the ‘shut up’ mob, Elon Musk, last week, was notified by the Federal Aviation Administration that Space X must mitigate 75 environmental impacts to get a license to launch the Starship/Super Heavy vehicle from Boca Chica, Texas. Local officials found the launch would cause minimal environmental damage. Musk wants to use the Starship to eventually ferry people to Mars.
