882: God Bless

[Keith]

"Thank you for helping me be a better person."


Jesse Joyce

[mkl]

I was at the mall for the swearing in. The crowd was def. not 2 million. They have jumbotrons set up all over the place with speakers, so you could hear and see from most places, all the way back to the lincoln memorial. When they did camera shots, they only showed the crowded areas, mostly just around jumbotrons. I was able to walk all around without having to bust through crowds anywhere behind the capitol reflecting pool and the very front of the grass part of the mall, where it is very crowded for any event.

I go to the mall for lots of the protests and events, and it was more crowded than any of those things I have gone to, but was not full to capacity (which 2 million would have put it over). I think it was half that, just guessing based on other events I have been to at the mall and their estimated numbers.

No lines for bathrooms (don's johns portapottys) near the lincoln memorial. I got a seat on the metro going there (10am) and coming home (2pm).
The crowds at DC were mostly hype, and just didn't show up in the numbers they were expecting.

I could hear numerous people booing rick warren, bush, and cheney when they appeared, I assume they didn't broadcast that audio on tv.

[gumby013]

Originally Posted by mkl

I could hear numerous people booing rick warren, bush, and cheney when they appeared, I assume they didn't broadcast that audio on tv.

I downloaded the MSNBC torrent. They broadcasted the boos, singing "Na na na na..." and commented on it.

[Thumbnail]

Chemda, I ate sand too!
Sand-eating girl power!!!

[Badger]

Two hours of awesome. I got ball ache laughing at the descriptions of Evil Cheney, Hobbit Strippers, and the finger-saluting of exploding Bushcopters. Cracking stuff. Also amusing that Jesse assumed his likelikelike story edit was on a loop.

Originally Posted by mkl

I could hear numerous people booing rick warren, bush, and cheney when they appeared, I assume they didn't broadcast that audio on tv.

I heard some Bush booing on the BBC footage (though maybe it was a collective sigh of relief that humankind survived his reign).

[Russell McBean]

F.Y.I.

Separation of church and state is often mis understood. It is a rule that the government cannot force a church or religion on it's people. The constitution was found off of the beliefs of our fore fathers. But they knew at that time that not everyone wanted to be under one religion, so they made it so that government could not force it's people to be one religion.

SOOOO Fuck you!

[swiggy]

It was the first time the auditorium at my university aired a live broadcast. Every radio station here had the inauguration. (I'm in Canada)

Just as a side note; do you think that Obama kept the prayer and Catholic connotations to appeal to the America bible belt? One argument for the non-educated republicans was that he wasn't "Christian" enough...Maybe he was playing it up for these people? (Which can be easily misinterpreted by the rest of us who thing god+government=not a good idea).

I agreed with Jessy in the fact that the Our Father prayer had to do with ceremony. Obama follows that particular religion, thus his swearing in will follow that pattern. And I think that (THINK) America is advanced enough that if the religion of the president was Jewish or Muslim, it would have been a prayer from those denominations. We could get into another discussion about how it's doubtful that someone who isn't Catholic or Christian would have a harder run for a president....but I digress.

But, his actual speech contained statements like "as god intended" etc... That I found more astonishing then the prayer. I'm not sure... It just sounded out of place for some reason. Am I right to think that he maybe was playing it up for those who think he's anti-religion?

[brandstone]

The "under God" was added to the Pledge of Allegiance in the 1950's. Reference

[ryanknapper]

Originally Posted by jessejoyce

We need to get me hooked up to a car battery and, like, slam me in the testicles with it every time I say "like."

Fucking epic. Best use of a car battery, ever.

[Mundane Soul]

Keith and Chemda get so up in arms about separation of church and state.

You guys do realize that the people that founded this country left their homeland because they were being religiously oppressed, right? And yet, they were okay with putting things about God on their money, their important documents, etc. So obviously the point of separation of church and state was not OH SHIT NO MENTIONS OF RELIGION ANYWHERE IN THE GOVERNMENT NEVER EVER!!!

The point was to keep people from being oppressed because of their religion. Forcing people to never, ever mention God or religion in relation to the government kind of IS oppressing. If a politician is Christian, they should be allowed to express it. If a politician is atheist or Buddhist or whatever the hell else, they should be allowed to express it. I think it's ridiculous to say that God should never be mentioned anywhere near the government by those who believe in him. Now that's some oppressive bullshit right there.

Obviously we don't want the church running the government, and that's not even remotely the case here. But you voted for Obama knowing that he believed in God, and now you get to occassionally see that played out. If you don't want any God in your government, then stop voting for people who believe in him.

(By the way, most of the founding fathers were not Christians in the classical sense, but Deists, who believed that a higher power created the world and then stepped out of the way to let the laws of science run their course)