The recent Supreme Court rulings are more than disheartening. The United States Constitution may have been written on paper with a quill pen but since then man has invented and utilized erasers, Wite-Out, word processors and I’m afraid, as in the case of Roe v. Wade, bungee cords.
I’m saddened by all the decisions I’ve included in my cartoon but one in particular I relate to from personal experience and am worried will only be expanded upon to put kids in a situation I had to endure so long ago. A situation that I thought America had resolved.
When I attended public school growing up in Pennsylvania we had daily Bible readings. Each of us was expected to read aloud to the entire class a passage from the Bible selected by our teacher. Often mine was from the New Testament. We recited the Lord’s Prayer every morning as well. Neither was my Bible or my prayer. I’m Jewish and I didn’t like doing either but never protested. I wasn’t yet a teenager.
Exactly 50 years ago this past June the United States Supreme Court– the Warren Court –decided in Engel v. Vitale that a prayer approved by the New York Board of Regents for use in schools violated the First Amendment by constituting an establishment of religion. The next year, in Abington School District v. Schempp, the Court disallowed Bible readings in public schools as well.
By then I was in high school but not before another incident involving religion took place that really bothered me. We Jews were a small group and one of us organized something less than a protest but more than complying with the status quo.
Our high school had an annual Easter assembly and the crucifixion of Christ was front and center with a large cross positioned on the stage. Liz– the daughter of a rabbi –got our principal to agree to permit Jewish students who wanted to absent themselves to have a study hall instead of attending the assembly.
Everything was fine until the high school guidance counselor peeked in the classroom where we were sitting. I remember she frowned at us and then said, “We’ve never had any trouble with you people before.”
I’ve never forgotten that moment and I’ve never forgotten the times growing up I was called a “dirty Jew” and even once was asked why I didn’t have horns. The recognition by our public institutions of a majority religion means others are more likely to become the other.
And I’ll go further. For me freedom of religion in America has always meant there should be freedom from religion. Last week’s Supreme Court ruling that a public high school football coach should be permitted to pray on the field privately after games but not be allowed to turn this practice into leading prayers with his team may seem benign, however I fear this is the beginning of a return to the past when others were made to feel like the other like I was long ago.
It’s telling that the Court’s recent decisions were announced after a fence was erected around the Supreme Court building and by issuing PDFs and not with an in-person ceremony. Maybe the Justices’ feel a little bit like the chagrined people in the Southwest Airlines commercials who just “Wanna get away!” But I doubt it.
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“Live so that when your children think of fairness, caring, and integrity, they think of you.”
–H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
American Presidential Insight through the Centuries
“I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.”
–George Washington
“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.”
–Abraham Lincoln
“The point in history at which we stand is full of promise and danger. The world will either move forward toward unity and widely shared prosperity or it will move apart.”
–Franklin D. Roosevelt
“And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”
–Donald Trump
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I admire beautiful cars. Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Maseratis and if you have the money to spend on one, I’m sure there’s an argument to be made that you aren’t just purchasing a car, but a work of art as well.
The average fuel economy for a car today is roughly 25 mpg and the aforementioned luxury cars do about 5 miles a gallon less. That in and of itself doesn’t seem like a big deal but fossil fueled vehicles may likely become fossils themselves as climate change makes many of us consider abandoning them for all electric ones like Teslas, Nissan’s Leaf and Chevrolet’s Bolt.
Jo and I have owned a Toyota Prius for 8 years and love it. Despite the fact that it’s a hybrid, which means we still visit the gas station every 400 hundred miles or so, it gets nearly 50 mpg and in nearly 140,000 miles of driving has only had oil changes and one brake job. We’ll likely get another. We don’t have a garage that we can park a car in and during winter that’s a problem for the battery of an electric vehicle.
Luxury cars aren’t necessarily a prime target of environmental activists but last year the driver of one was. In November Senator Joe Manchin was walking from his houseboat on the Potomac River where he stays when he’s in D.C. and not home in West Virginia into a nearby parking garage and was surrounded by protestors as he climbed into his car.
Security guards cleared his path and he quickly drove away but the senator who as an elected Democrat has done the most to obstruct the Biden administration from taking meaningful action to tackle climate change and a host of other challenges facing the country has shown that he’d rather drive his Maserati Levante than even a hard bargain.
Manchin would no doubt be happy to put coal in everybody’s Christmas stockings, but he doesn’t realize that in the history books he may be remembered as the Grinch Who Stole America’s Future.
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Everyone may live and work in Svalbard indefinitely regardless of their country of citizenship.
The Svalbard Treaty grants treaty nationals equal right of abode as Norwegian nationals. Non-treaty nationals may live and work indefinitely visa-free as well.
It has been a chosen policy so far that we haven’t made any difference between the treaty citizens and those from outside the treaty.”
The Governor of Svalbard
Box 633
9171 Longyearbyen
Summer Hours: Monday–Friday 10 am to 2pm
Telephone 79 02 43 00
I’d never heard of Svalbard until I googled “the easiest countries to move to from the United States.” It topped the list I found followed by Mexico, Portugal, Ecuador and Malta.
I didn’t think anybody I know had ever heard of Svalbard either but when I mentioned it to a friend of mine who is a skilled and experienced sailor, he had. Svalbard is about as far north in the Arctic Circle that can be sailed to and therefore during its near total daylight stretch in summer some people do.
Did you know that in nine states in America there are more cows than people? In Svalbard substitute polar bears for cows and because the residents are actually outnumbered, it’s illegal to leave town there without a gun. We see cows and think milk. Polar bears see us and think food.
One might surmise that a lot of NRA members might possibly want to move to Svalbard where they would never have to leave their AR-15s at home but over two thirds of the place is covered in ice and the two top states in America where there are the most guns in homes are Texas and Florida. Can’t see Ted Cruz– Svalbard is way too cold literally for him –or Ron DeSantis– he’s too cold figuratively for Svalbard –living there.
One other thing about Svalbard, it’s illegal to die there. Yes, that’s right, if you fall ill or are near death, you’re flown out to Norway proper. There is one graveyard but it hasn’t been used for burials for decades after scientists found that bodies already interned were perfectly preserved. They hadn’t decomposed because of the permafrost being so close to ground level.
So, if Svalbard isn’t your cup of chai, where might be the next easiest place to move?After Mexico, where it is estimated that nearly 900,000 Americans already live either part time or as expatriates who have renounced their U.S. citizenship, we have Portugal.
If you’reable to prove your connection to ancestors who fled Portugal due to religious persecution in the 16th century, you can now acquire Portuguese citizenship. So far nearly 60,000 Jews have been granted penitent and permanent citizenship there with another 80,000 pending applications.
Americans seeking second passports for a less expensive retirement and just plain less stressful and simpler living somewhere else seems to be trending.
Add the “just in case” scenario where Donald Trump returns to the presidency and totally obliterates life as we knew it in the United States before he was elected the first time and lots of us might be channeling Blanche DuBois and depending on the kindness of strangers. So, here are some more choices for an accelerated exile…
Ecuador is considered the country with the lowest cost of living and decent quality of life and their currency is ours– they use American dollars.
Malta has a “Golden Visa” where you invest a certain amount of money in government bonds or simply make a nonrefundable contribution and buy a house and you’re in.
Spain has something similar and if you teach English you can even get a government stipend.
There’s South Korea and Australia and of course Canada… I was curious about what it takes to become a Canadian resident or citizen and googled to a site that looked official and then filled out what was asked of me… I’m 75, no longer work and have an indolent cancer but voila! Hey, it looks like there’s room for me anyway! Here’s what happened next…
I didn’t feel this recruited since I got three letters from colleges when I was captain of my high school basketball team sixty years ago. But my optimism was quickly quashed. Up front each number wanted a thousand dollars to start the process.
Statistics on how many Americans today live outside the country part time or have actually given up their citizenship and are expatriates are only estimates but it’s accurate to say that the numbers have increased since 2016.
Svalbard wouldn’t be my first choice but if indeed you wanna get away, they’ll leave the light on for you.
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