Reply #2: This is what I want to write to CNN - your thoughts? [View All]

[rickrok66]

I know it kind of a rant, but I was upset and had to get it
out of my system:


I watched with disbelief a February 4th video clip of Paula
Zahn’s so-called panel discussion of “Are atheist tactics too
militant?”  The discussion included Mr. Steven Smith, an ESPN
commentator, Ms. Karen Hunter, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and
Ms. Debbie Schlussel, a conservative columnist.  I am ashamed
of CNN.  You first hire a know right wing thug like Glenn Beck
and turn him into a smiling wacky independent who still fronts
for the right.  Then, you follow it up with the biggest
disgrace to the legal system that you find in the almost human
Nancy Grace.  Now, you get Paula Zahn who is reprising her
role as Fox News talking blond on the news channel that “you
can trust”.  Well, I don’t trust you.  It seems that the best
news that Americans can watch can be found on the BBC, CBC, or
the France24 network.

The premise of the show is ridiculous.  I have never met an
atheist who is too militant.  I guess this militant atheist is
another conservative urban legend like the “Welfare Queen” and
the “Protestor who spits on soldiers”.  The question should be
rephrased to:  “Are people sick and tired of Christian
Fundamentalists who spend all day at work bible thumping and
not doing their jobs?”  

No, I don’t like people in my workplace shoving their religion
or politics down my throat.  It usually comes from the
Christian Right.  It is not just atheists that I see being
verbally attacked all the time.  They also attack gays,
Catholics, Jews, Wiccans, Mormons, Quakers, Muslims, and
everyone else that is not of their particular brand of
Christian. 

The discussion itself had so many holes that even a college
major in journalism could find.  The points that Karen Hunter
brings up that atheists have no beliefs is false.  Many
atheists are secular humanists.  Remember the Renaissance, the
Age of Enlightenment, the Age of Reason – it seems most
Christian Fundamentalists in America are still upset over
Galileo, Copernicus, and Darwin.  That’s what most atheists
believe in.  

Karen Hunter asks, should we should remove the motto, “In God
We Trust” from the currency and the phrase “One Nation under
God” from the Pledge of Allegiance? Yes,  they were both
placed there by a Republican led Congress in the 1950s.  The
old motto on the currency was “Liberty” and the original
Pledge of Allegiance was written by a socialist.  Go figure. 
It is representative of another era of people using stupid
wedge issues and meaningless gestures to gain support and not
actually do anything.

Debbie Schlussel pulled out of her conservative holster the
old “attack by exception” maneuver.  “There was once this
school in California [of course] who made all the kids were
Muslim clothes and read the Koran.”  That kind of crap is
either isolated or in most cases it never happened.  If you
want more examples, watch Bill O’Reilly – any episode.

The final argument was that, well, this is a Christian nation
anyhow, so it is okay to bully minorities into being quiet. 
Has anybody at CNN ever read the Constitution or taken a
Political Science 101 course?  The purpose of freedom of
speech is for the smallest minority to have his or her say
without fear of attack, not for Ted Haggard to declare himself
“Completely Hetero” or for the puppets on Fox News to blame
everything on France, gays, and Bill Clinton.

Paula, go back to Fox News where you belong.  They will
appreciate your biased and half-assed approach to journalism.