Excellent point…don’t they often allow you to take oaths in court with a koran?

And, Dennis Prager is easy pickings…but then again, the left’s got more than enough of those…

The act undermines American civilization

I got a civilization-undermining act for ya right here, Denny.

Also–as an agnostic, if I swear on a Bible am I free to tell white lies under oath?

Damn that Constitution….undermining American democracy every time you turn around. Somebody oughtta do something about that.

I think we need a Constitutional Amendment!

Hey, is that my fave ben from Tim L’s?

Keith Ellison, clearly more dangerous to America’s value system than Al Qaeda, but how does he compare with Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf.

Crazy, stupid, or both?

Yes!

When all elected officials take their oaths of office with their hands on the very same book, they all affirm that some unifying value system underlies American civilization. If Keith Ellison is allowed to change that, he will be doing more damage to the unity of America and to the value system that has formed this country than the terrorists of 9-11.

Did someone call Captain Hyperbole?

on what book have previous Jewish congressmen taking the oath? Anyone care to call Lieberman’s office and ask whether he takes his oath on the Bible?

If you swear on a Bible and you don’t believe in the Christian god, I think you are pretty much free to lie your ass off. Aside from the fact that swearing on a book you don’t believe holds any special truth is basically a lie to begin with, what’s the non-existent god going to do to you anyway?

From Article VI of the United States Constitution:

Cheater! No fair bringing the Constitution into it.

Shorter Prager: It’s not that we don’t respect Muslims, we just want them to pretend they’re Christians.

the bible of Islam, the Koran.

Well, that’s it in a wingnutshell, innit? No, no — the Koran isn’t the Koran, dammit, it’s just those crazy Islammunotraitors’ version of the bible. And we already got one, see? Don’t need another one. Nuh-uh. Nope. And if those wackos just understood the importance of the freedom of religion we have in this here country, well, then, they’d surely love Jeebus like all good ‘merkins.

[hawks in general direction of spitoon, misses]

Yeah, nothing undermines the fundamental threads of American democracy like the constitution.

Besides that, CHRIST WAS NOT BORN IN AMERICA, PRAGER YOU DOLT!

Making America a Christian nation explicitly denies that non-Christian Native Americans are “real” Americans.

This column would be like me going to France and declaring that all true French patriots speak German.

If I were elected, I would want to swear to uphold the Constitution while submerging my right hand in a big plateful of the earthly manifestation of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Sigh.

Prager is, without a sliver of doubt, the dumbest motherfucker to walk the earth.

He isn’t just a bigot, he’s like the little retarded boy that stumbled onto a Klan meeting and thought he’d found a haunted conehead graveyard.

Have you read the “debate” that he had with Sam Harris? It’s almost like he squeezed all the stupid out of his greasy ass hair into a little stupidwell and dipped his ostrich feather stupid pen into it and carefully, with his little phlegm-coated tongue sticking out, wrote in BIG FUCKING STUPID BLOCK LETTERS each ill-conceived, scarcely literate missive.

CHRIST, I hates me some Dennis Prager.

If you just can’t get enough of prager’s mindless stupidity and crepuscular logic, there was an online debate between him and Sam Harris the other day if you want to make yourself crazy…

mikey

I’d gladly save up a 5k donation for the ’08 race for the first Rep. to take the oath on Burroughs’ The Naked Lunch. (2.5k for A Confederacy of Dunces or Lord of the Barnyard).

This commenter on the Prager article has an interesting take on the antiquity of the Bible:

The Bible is a tradition of 230 years that has become part of the American fabric.

And the American fabric’s thread count? You guessed it – John 3:16.

OK, kingubu, I’d match your 2.5K for anyone who takes the oath on a copy of Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72. And does it have to be a book? I’d pony up a grand to see a Rep swear on a DVD of Life of Brian.

Three grand for the oath taken on The Magic Christian.

Shit, I’d have to take an oath on the Stooges’ Raw Power.

Glenn Greenwald blogged this today. In the comments, someone pointed out that Muslims are forbidden from swearing oaths. Aren’t Amish, and Quakers similarly forbidden?

Someone else claimed that the Arkansas constitution forbids atheists from testifying in court, presumably because we cannot, by definition, swear to anything “by God.”

What happens if an atheist Arkansan is served with a subpoena?

This is all just a bunch of hooey.

I want Bernie Sanders to take his oath on the Communist Manifesto.

Yeah, someone at alicublog said it would be funny; which, I guess, it was. Then I skimmed through the comments. When I got to the commenter who said “The Bible is not the text for any specific religion”, blood started gushing out of my nose, so I had to stop.

ITTDGY- Nice blast from the past.

Shorter Dennis Prager (from the item you linked): Non-religious Jews are communists and religious Jews are conspiring to take over the world, but both would be much better off if they submitted to Christian authority

Seriously, that is exactly what he was saying.

It seems I’ve heard that story before. Where exactly? Who else said this? I seem to recall, but I just can’t put my finger on it…

I’d take an oath on ‘Green Eggs and Ham’. That book changed my life!

If DVD’s are acceptable, can I swear on Season 1 of Battlestar Galactica?

In Arkansas, they just shoot atheists, so it’s never come up.

Cecil Adams (the internet’s Final Authority) said that courts supposedly adjust the oath to fit the belief system of the person on the stand.

For atheists (and I would suppose FSM followers, since most courts aren’t equipped with fresh pasta) they just have an oath that says something along the lines of “Will you testify truthfully, to the best of your ability, under penalty of law?” and instruct the jury to treat it the same as the Sky Fairy version.

Given the behavior of this administration, Holy spoutin god fearin men to the last, weaseling one, heavenly punishments for lying don’t seem to be a tremendous deterrent anyways.

The Constitution provides no specific oath for Congress to swear but the exact text of the Presidential Oath has absolutely nothing to do with God (or his decendants): “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” [look ma, no god!]
Of course, our current Codpiece in Chief has completely eviscerated the Constitution, so his oath on a Bible, Koran or beat up copy of Catcher in the Rye is completely meaningless anyway.

OK so call me silly or whatever, but wouldn’t the oath for atheists and FSMers work for everyone? Or is penalty of law just too earthly for the skygodders?

I’d kinda like to see somebody be sworn into office on This Is Spinal Tap, but I’m willing to accept that it may just be me.

Affirmation is generally acceptable.

I’ll second the Raw Power nomination. Though, if pressed, would Principles of American Nuclear Chemistry: A Novel do?

All right you silly Smiling Mortician, this one’s for you!

Tragically, Jesus was nominated a few times for that Greatest American thing a few years ago. If you’d like to see stupider people than Dennis, there’s an episode of “Talking to Americans” on the CBC tonight. Watch. Cringe. Enjoy.

RobW said,

If DVD’s are acceptable, can I swear on Season 1 of Battlestar Galactica?

No, but Firefly and Season 2 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer are acceptable.

how about swearing on Tom Paine’s The Age of Reason – that’d make some heads explode.

Movies, too? OK, two words:

Duck
Soup

America, Not Keith Ellison, decides what book a congressman takes his oath on

Dipshit wishes. Like he has any say in the matter.

Oh yeah on the Groucho, kingubu. And ITTDGY, now I have to go offline and cuddle up with Nigel et al because . . . well, I don’t really need a reason now, do I?

(bob3 — dream on, you heroic thing)

I’d want to take my oath (any oath – say, I won’t look at that chick in prepress in THAT way anymore) on Cryptonomicon by Stephenson. Why? Well, it has heft. The hero is a heroin addict who commits acts of stunning bravery in combat but is really just trying to retrieve the sub’s supply of morphine before it sinks. And six pages are devoted to the development of a mathematical algorithm to determine when it’s time to masturbate. This is nearly perfect.

Or how about “Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates” by Robbins? The very theory that a nun doesn’t violate her vows if she has ANAL sex is, to me, a sublime comentary on dogma. And the man who was cursed such that if you touched his penis you’d die, well, that’s just gold.

Beyond that, hell, any of the Elvis Cole novels will sufice…

mikey

If DVD’s are acceptable, can I swear on Season 1 of Battlestar Galactica?

No, but Firefly and Season 2 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer are acceptable.

And, of course, swearing on any series of “Deadwood” is considered mandatory…

I swear I could pound a bible up his ass.

Phoenician, surely that was nothing more than a typo. You MUST have meant Buffy Season 5, right? Glory was truly “the big bad” of all time…

mikey

mikey proposed Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates

Oh man… and just before the oath is read, a guy in a Tanuki suit drops out of the sky using a parachute rig that looks like a giant scrotum….

What’re you all looking at? Didn’t you read the book?

So do Mormons use the Bible or the Book of Mormon? What if there was a Scientoligist Congressman? And is the Bible the Christian Koran?

BTW, season 3 of Buffy was far better than Season 2. Just saying.

And, of course, swearing on any series of “Deadwood� is considered mandatory…

Well there’s certainly enough swearing in Deadwood. Heng dai, cocksucker!

Get Arlen Specter and Joe Lieberman to swear on the Bible too.
Better yet, make em swear to Jesus. That’ll learn em.

Actually, I’m pretty certain that Keith Ellison DOES get to decide what he takes his oath on.

He should use the Jeffersonian Bible, just to fuck with their heads.
Jeffersonain Bible and a package of oreos. Ohh yeah. I love the white stuff.

Gah! How could I have forgotton Fierce Invalids? What’s so great about it? Well, it’s just . . . Other Robbins novels would also surpass the bible or any other sacred text, of course, but how hard is that?

(oh, and Nim, you’re certainly onto something, since Jesus would weep at the thought of voting Republican, or taking part in the current U.S. government in any form . . . why can’t these “Christians” call themselves what they truly are, which is Paulians?)

Dammit, I did it again.

Jesus wept when the preview button went away.

And, of course, swearing on any series of “Deadwood� is considered mandatory…

Well there’s certainly enough swearing in Deadwood. Heng dai, cocksucker!

[Pat pat] Very good, Rob. We’ll have the training wheels off your sense of humour any day now…

You know, the irony in all this is that Jesus explicitly forbid swearing oaths:

34. But I say to you, do not swear at all; not by heaven, for it is God’s throne; 35. nor by the earth, for it is his footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36. Do not swear by your head, for you cannot make a single hair white or black. 37. Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’ Anything more is from the evil one.

Huh–Jesus apparently never heard of hair-dye, even though I’m pretty sure everyone already used it.

Don’t know how you broke teh t00bz, Mortician, but you’re dead right. “Another Roadside Attraction” would probably be the perfect book for swearin’ oaths…

mikey

I break teh internetz with astonishing dexterity, mikey. In other aspects of my life I am relatively adept and tend to do more good than harm — although I realize you’ll just have to take my word for it. Anyway, now I’m in a big damn quandary: when I log off the t00bz tonight, shall I watch Spinal Tap for the 8th time, or reread Fierce Invalids for the ninth? Gawd, I wish there were a Robbins novel I haven’t yet read.

So do Mormons use the Bible or the Book of Mormon?

Dunno. But I think quite a few Republicans swear on “The Virtue of Selfishness”.

Me, I’d swear on “Flashman at the Charge” (IMHO, the best of the lot).

You all can swear on my TAINT!!!!!

And I have it on good authority (from Chris Martin, no less) that the saddest part is your TAINT is yellow….

mikeey

Mikey, please. Glory?

The Mayor had it all over her. He was just so damn creepy.

Ah, dood, I LOVED the mayor. “Have a nice glass of warm milk”. And when he ate the bugs? But wasn’t that season six?

mikey

No , that was season two.

I loved the bit in the last episode when he finally lost his temper and went into full chew-the-scenery mode.

He showed up again in season seven.

If Keith Ellison is allowed to change that, he will be doing more damage to the unity of America and to the value system that has formed this country than the terrorists of 9-11.

Yeah, cause the second Ellison lays his hands on the Koran and speaks the incantation, the Pentagon, the White House, and THREE buildings in NYC will come tumbling down.

Ellison should ask if he can take his oath on Prager’s testicles…then accidently squeeze until Prager’s eyes pop out and he passes out.

One of the many things I like about myself is that when I engage in full-blown geek mode, I at least have the decency to be completely wrong. The Mayor was the big bad in season three.

But now, to be more topical, I shall treat my error as if I was a Powerline blogger:

It is a well-established fact that the television show “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” was initially aired as a mid-season replacement. Clearly, when I referenced the Mayor as the big bad, I was referring to his *initial* appearance, which would have occurred sometime in the episodes numbered 40-52. Since a full television season is generally accepted to be 26 episodes long, barring seasonal specials and counting double-length episodes as two separate episodes, objectively speaking, the Mayor was the big bad for *both* season two *and* season three.

Any attempt to disagree with me is just rewriting history.

Dennis Prager.

Sin Den Raper G.

Warm milk?

“Wild Ducks Flying Backwards” is Robbins latest. nonficticious.

Dorothy, I don’t know very much about Keith Ellison (or Dennis Prager’s testicles, thank God), but I’ll say this – Ellison has some mighty big balls to put himself in the position he has, which is, I am sure, in the crosshairs (sadly, I fear, literal) of extremists on both sides of fundie continuum should he ever make a misstep.

Assholes like Prager have no concept of what sort of courage that takes.

Poppy Bush famously said that atheists aren’t really citizens and can’t be considered patriotic.

Then he lied later and denied he said it.

Beyond that, hell, any of the Elvis Cole novels will sufice…

Oh, God, please not LA Requiem. Christ, that thing was insanely depressing…

Can we agree on Indigo Slam? But either way, I’m swearing on “A People’s History of the United States”. (Actually not. As far as I know, in my home state of Washington, they just go with a generic affirmation. And you should see our civil ceremonies for weddings. We’re unchurched like nobody’s business!)

I think any dog-eared titty mag would also work fine.

..and it must be the KJV, not one of those modern Liberal bibles written by homos!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

Keith Ellison seems to be the one Muslim who hasn’t mentioned the Muslim name that he picked.

Ellison taking the oath on that book isn’t the biggest problem with Ellison, that is just a diversion to fool Conservatives into overlooking Ellison’s ethics problems while also branding any criticism of Ellison as anti-Muslim.

There are bigger problems, like how ol “Deer in the headlights Nancy” Pelosi thinks that there is no Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

So, is “Gary” your real name, or one you picked when you joined the Morons?

Swearing on “The Origin of Species” is the way to go.
Mikey, why doesn’t it surprise me that you’ve read the Cryptonomicon?

I don’t think it’s ol “Deer in the headlights Nancyâ€? Pelosi.

I believe the correct form would be Nancy “Deer in the Headlights” Pelosi.

You’re not very interesting, or even original, but at least try to give it your best shot when it comes to form. OK, Gary?

Jeez, it’s like you’re not even trying. Ever since earlier this month.

Something happen to get you down?

Also, any Democrat may swear on a copy of Johnny Cash’s “Man in Black” album (vinyl preferred, but compact disc acceptable too).

Did someone call Captain Hyperbole?

Hyperbole is the best thing ever.

I thought it was traditional for lefties to swear on “Tales of The City”, with their San Francisco values and all.

Speaking as a European, I couldn’t join the boy scouts without swearing an oath upon Mein Kampf and pledging allegiance to the President of Iran.

Gary Ruppert serves us to remind us of how far the human race has progressed in terms of poetry and rhetoric. 3000 years have taken us from “grey-eyed Athena” to ‘“Deer in the headlights Nancyâ€? Pelosi’.

I think I just compared Gary to Homer. Excuse me, I need to go and throw up.

I don’t like this version of Gary. Can someone please reboot him?

Every once in a while you get a version of Gary that has a sense of humor. I know, it’s rare. But that’s why I’m not too hard on Annie; she’s at least a bit of fun.

I can’t believe nobody’s mentioned ANY book by Douglas Adams (“The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul” being my personal fav – loads of deities in there!) – I mean, c’mon, he does reveal THE SECRET OF THE UNIVERSE fer crissakes!

[Pat pat] Very good, Rob. We’ll have the training wheels off your sense of humour any day now…

It’s all Orson Scott Card’s fault. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

I think I just compared Gary to Homer.

Doh!

No, no, no, everybody! There’s only one text that’s appropriate to swear politicos in on–The Stupids Die.

Y’know, if I was elected to office or called up to testify tomorrow and they brought that book up to me, all I’d have to do is say ‘d00d, no, I R t3h Quaker’* and they’d be all ‘Oh, our bad, Sir. Would you like a martini with your affirmation?’ Then I’d put my hand up, affirm instead of swearing, not throw in the ‘So help me skyfairy’ and swig my martini and we’d all be good.**

But having someone say the exact same oath with their hand on another book, man, we can’t have that.

* Kind of true. I was raised Quaker, it’s what I still default to if I think about religion.
**Some of this may just be my pleasant fantasy. Though I have to say, for one of my fantasies, I notice a distinct lack of Julian Casablancas.

Oh, and as far as Buffy and the Big Bads/Season go…
*ahem*

Season 1-The Master
Season 2-Spike, Drusilla, and Angelus (!)
Season 3-Mayor Wilkins and Faith the Vampire Slayer
Season 4-Adam
Season 5-Glory
Season 6-The Nerds of Doom and Dark Willow
Season 7-Preacher Caleb,Ãœbervampires, and The First Evil

Glory was awesome, but unfortunately, her appearance coincided with the spontaneous generation of the most obnoxious “little sister” character ever to grace the WB. I’m convinced that the show never would have switched networks without that turd of a sudden inclusion.

I still favor the Mayor as the Best Villain Evar. He was just so smarmy and understated.

Edmund Schluessel said,
November 30, 2006 at 3:24
I want Bernie Sanders to take his oath on the Communist Manifesto.

I nearly peed my pants laughing when I read this.
Seriously, what did Joe Lieberman sware his oath on?

ACG has described my position on buffy precisely, except I still ultimately have the hots for glory, teh hottest goddess EVAH….

mikey

If DVD’s are acceptable, can I swear on Season 1 of Battlestar Galactica?

Can I swear on Tricia Helfer? 😉

[…] WASHINGTON, D.C. — President George W. Bush has named Dennis Prager of Van Nuys, CA, to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, the governing body of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The Council consists of 55 Presidential appointees in addition to… […]

Does someone actually pay this guy to write? Are there no editors or factcheckers who will stand up and say “You can’t print that, it’s blatantly false.”?

gahhh

37. Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’ Anything more is from the evil one.
I was brought up to understand that line as a divine sanction for binary numbers.

thedarkbackward–

Reading Prager’s email “debate” with Sam Harris was like reading a pompous, stupid, and dishonest person’s email debate with Sam Harris. Favorite moment: When Harris said that even if a ‘belief in God’ were necessary to the survival of society, it wouldn’t mean that God exists, and Prager (with disingenuous wonder) claimed that that was obviously absurd.

Oh, and that religious people were overwhelmingly more “wise” than atheists.

You can’t make this stuff up.

MrWonderful, I read that passage of the debate about six times, unable to believe that this supposedly intelligent guy Prager could possibly be that thick. I finally had to admit that he is. Harris, responding to Prager, graciously conceded that “belief in God” might be beneficial to a society at some stages of development, whether or not God exists. The point being that “God” and “belief in God” are two seperate things. After all, even atheists concede that “belief in God” unquestionably exists. And Prager simply didn’t get it. He could not see the distinction. Wow.

It also helps Prager’s argument immensely when he can tacitly redefine “wise” as “agreeing with me.”

thanks Marq. Sheesh. People mixing up their Buffy seasons.

and the Mayor rocked, though Adam had his creepy moments…

I’m with Mikey on the Elvis Cole stuff, but really, after the cleverness of the original The Monkey’s Raincoat, the rest had nowhere to go but down. I enjoyed them, but they lacked the freshness of the first.

Anyway, I would like to be sworn in on Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time for the Xbox.

Demogenes Aristophanes: “Me, I’d swear on “Flashman at the Chargeâ€? (IMHO, the best of the lot).”

Oooh. That one was very good. But what about “Flashman in the Great Game” and “Flashman and the Redskins”?

You know what this atheist would really like to swear on? George Meredith’s “The Egoist.” What an unblinking take on human nature.

Um…..it’s all very fun to think about what book we’d swear in on if we were elected to Congress (me, I’m torn between “A Confederacy of Dunces” and “The Secret Garden) — but according to Think Progress:

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/11/30/koran-bible-prager-ellison/

“the swearing-in ceremony for the House of Representatives never includes a religious book. The Office of the House Clerk confirmed to ThinkProgress that the swearing-in ceremony consists only of the Members raising their right hands and swearing to uphold the Constitution. The Clerk spokesperson said neither the Christian Bible, nor any other religious text, had ever been used in an official capacity during the ceremony. (Occassionally, Members pose for symbolic photo-ops with their hand on a Bible.)”

NEVER. INCLUDES. A. RELIGIOUS. BOOK.

So not only is Prager wrong via the Constitution, he’s also just factually WRONG. No one has every been sworn in to the House of Representatives using a Bible.

Of course, I suppose if Ellison said he’d use the Koran, I guess he was factually wrong, too.

On the Buffy train.

I still hold a soft spot for Adam, mostly because his season was the one to introduce Riley, who I, even as a dispassionately heterosexual guy, would like to sleep with. Mm.

But in terms of best villains, it’s a tossup between the Mayor and the Master. On one hand, the Mayor was smarmy, understated, and always had something that almost made it look like he was an alright guy, but then he’d have something going on behind the scenes to make you hate him again. Perfect politician.

On the other hand, Needermeyer in full-out vamp makeup. And let’s be honest, the guy seemed imposing despite living in one spot the entire season. He was the first Big Bad, and I think the Big Bad all future Big Bads had to be measured by.

“I’d kinda like to see somebody be sworn into office on This Is
Spinal Tap, but I’m willing to accept that it may just be me.”

OUR bill of rights go all the way up to eleven!

Just wondering, regarding comment under picture of Dennis Prager ,”the seat cushion smelled like pastrami farts”, if Mr. Prager had been of African-American descent, would the seat cushions have smelled like watermelon or fried-chicken farts? Just want to know if you are as much of a racists as you are an anti-semite. Thanks.

Dennis Prager misspoke when he said “he should not be allowed to do so.” He has made many public clairifications about this point, but this blog is still using an old quote. Mr. Prager ment to say that he should not use the Koran, not that there should be a law against it. Siteing the constitution in your favor does not invalidate his point becaure he agrees that there should be no law.