U.S. military

America was founded on a policy of separation of church and state. It is written into our Constitution. And yet, Bush and his supporters are continually mixing Christianity, and a particularly extremist version thereof, with government, routinely violating the Constitution.

"Besides the danger of a direct mixture of religion and civil government, there is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by ecclesiastical corporations.

"The establishment of the chaplainship in Congress is a palpable violation of equal rights as well as of Constitutional principles.

"The danger of silent accumulations and encroachments by ecclesiastical bodies has not sufficiently engaged attention in the U.S."

-- James Madison, being outvoted in the bill to establish the office of Congressional Chaplain, from the "Detached Memoranda," Elizabeth Fleet, "Madison's Detached Memoranda." William and Mary Quarterly (1946): 554-62.

Long ago the Halliburton Republicans violated Eisenhower's warning against a military-industrial complex by largely privatizing our military, making the war in Iraq a war that benefits no one except Exxon/Mobil, Bechtel and Halliburton. Under Bush/Cheney, the blurring of the line between our military and American corporations has continued apace, angering anyone who really supports our soldiers or considers themselves a traditional, "Eisenhower Republican." But the line between our military and evangelical Christianity worries me even more. Ever since Bush started calling our wars "Crusades" and invading every Muslim nation he can, justified or not, it has seemed like the rise of the American Taliban has started to determine our foreign policy.