Recently, I received an email from a cousin of mine. The substance of the email was a list of 30 things that people should do before President George W. Bush is inaugurated for the second time. Although the email was meant as a joke, my cousin inadvertently managed to sum up, in perfect language, the deepest current of the philosophy of liberalism. Liberals around the country still bare a venomous hatred for the democratically chosen President of the United States. A month has passed since the election, but many liberals are still involved in a somewhat lame campaign to put a vicious sting into the republican victory.

Comically, most of the items on my cousin’s “To Do” list are either entirely contradictory or based on gossip that has bounced around the echo chamber for so long, that lazy or disinterested people mistake it for fact. Politics is a brutal sport, and you can be sure that if someone makes an accusation and gives very little or no evidence to sustain the charge, chances are you are playing with a liberal. So, for the next several weeks, I will focus on one or more of these items that more or less summarizes the position of the liberal left in this country, and try to pound some sense into people.

TO DO: Start a day of school without saying a prayer

Liberals love the First Amendment. They love it. Liberals have an uncanny ability to use the First Amendment as both a shield and a sword. When anyone attacks a liberal for his/her ridiculous assertions to ban Christianity, back down to terrorist interests, and that George W. Bush is the reincarnation of Hitler, liberals hold up the First Amendment crying and crying, “Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Speech.”

Simultaneously, whenever somebody wants to use his freedom of speech to say a prayer before class, recite the pledge of allegiance or, most recently, try to hand out the Declaration of Independence to students, liberals rear back on their hind legs (I am convinced that liberals walk on all fours when I’m not looking), and bleat like billy goats “Seppppperation of Chuurrrrrch and Staaaaaaaaate!” Just for posterity, it’s worth mentioning that the Constitution doesn’t mention anything about a “separation of church and state.” Rather, pursuant to Article V of the Constitution, the first amended article, called “Article I,” and loosely referred to as the First Amendment says:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibit the free exercise thereof; or abridge the freedom of speech, or of the press, or of the people peaceably to assemble.”

The amendment, along with nine others, was proposed to the states in 1789 and was ratified by most of the states by 1791. The First Amendment was passed as a reaction to the notion of a national church, such as the Church of England, from which their ancestors had fled. It was not intended to stop school children from saying a humble prayer before class or to strike down the pledge of allegiance.

Only liberals could have such a vague sense of history that they would confuse the First Amendment with a law prohibiting all expression of faith in the public sphere. Liberal groups and politicians have distorted the First Amendment to mean, “Nobody should be offended — ever.” Unless of course you are a liberal accusing the President of the United States of being a murdering fascist, then the “no offending” rule becomes sort of a loose guideline; after all, “freedom of speech, freedom of speech!”

The “no offending” rule has now blown up all over the country as Christmas draws closer. In a school in New Jersey, the holiday band performance is not allowed to even play instrumental versions of popular Christmas songs. A Christian church group is prohibited from entering a Christian float into the city’s annual parade of lights, which happens to feature a float by gay American Indians recognized as holy people; Lion Dancing, which is a Chinese New Year Tradition meant to chase away evil spirits; and German folk dancers. The parade’s spokesman, Michael Krikorian, told the Rocky Mountain News that entering a Christmas-themed float into the parade “could be disrespectful to other people who enjoy a parade each year.”

In Florida, a school disallowed any references to Christmas while simultaneously allowing the open celebration of Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. Luckily, a court overturned the school’s ruling, citing the exclusion of Christmas references as discriminatory. But, out in John Kerry land, California, a school in Cupertino, California has banned a teacher from distributing the Declaration of Independence to his students. In its “Week in Review,” The New York Times cited Charles C. Haynes, a senior scholar at the Freedom Forum’s First Amendment Center, who said that conservatives were trying to use historical documents to “back-door the introduction of religion into the curriculum.” NO! He’s discovered our dark and evil secret … we’re trying to teach kids about America by using (gasp!) American historical documents! Indeed, we have no shame.

What is puzzling though, is why conservatives even need to “back-door” teaching the influence of Christianity in a historical context. In California, where the 38-year-old Steven Williams is banned from using the Declaration of Independence because of its scary and “unconstitutional” reference to “the creator”, teachers are required to teach their eighth grade students Islam. Yes, that’s right. It offends liberals to hear the name of Jesus spoken out loud in public. Yet they are perfectly at ease sending their children to learn all the great things about a religion, which prompted 19 people to fly airplanes into the World Trade Center. One thing is for sure, if the Declaration of Independence goes, the next things to go are the Emancipation Proclamation (after all, it was God who made everyone equal, right?). In the not-too-distant future, teachers will be handing out historical documents that will have words and sections blacked-out like declassified FBI files. Still dissatisfied with the “intolerance” of the people, liberals will decide that somehow the Constitution isn’t quite in keeping with the tolerance and understanding expressed in … the Constitution, and decide that it too must be sacrificed so that there will no longer ever be a person with hurt feelings.