Dr. Frank's What's-it

Mark Steyn on the Establishment

Mark Steyn on the Establishment clause:

The founders were men of God: they just didn't think the government should be in the business of approving and licensing one particular denomination over all others. Their view prevailed so successfully that two centuries on the very idea seems so nutty and incredible to Americans that Establishment Clause fetishists have nothing to do but sit around plotting how to get the Third Grade Christmas concert to ban Frosty The Snowman. If the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional for including the words "under God," then so is the city where the court sat in judgment -- San Francisco: How can you have a government jurisdiction named after a saint?

This is incidental to the main point of this excellent July 4th column, which is that America's separation of powers makes it the odd man out vis a vis the rest of the "civilized" world. Fortunately. Another quotable line, about EU discomfort with Bush's Palestinian reform ideas: "if separation of powers were to catch on in Palestine, who's to say it mightn't spread to the Continent?"

Posted by Dr. Frank at July 6, 2002 11:50 AM | TrackBack