The Crowhill Journal

It’s strictly forbidden to have a religious test for office in the United States, but it is reasonable to ask a person if their moral, social, political, religious or economic convictions will interfere with their ability to do their job. After all, it’s not just religion that can cause a problem. People have non-religious convictions that can interfere with their ability to judge impartially.

How far can you go down the road of questioning the influence of a person’s religious beliefs without breaking the prohibition on a religious test for office?

There are some things that would clearly be illegal religious tests, such as rule that a person has to be a Trinitarian, or swear allegiance to the pope, or be baptized in order to hold office.

But it gets tricky the further you get from such obvious examples. What about requiring that a person hold to a religious point of view — say, that all men are created equal? Can we require that from a candidate? It’s an extraordinarily useful dogma that lies at the heart of our system and laws, but … it really is a religious idea. What if someone didn’t hold to it? Would that disqualify him?

One theme in the fight over Judge Barrett has to do with the fact that she adopted two kids from Haiti. There are a lot of angles on that story, but the one I find particularly troubling is the idea that cross-racial adoption is a bad thing — as if a person’s race determines what culture they should be raised in, and to raise them in another culture is wrong. That’s ridiculous, but it’s also extraordinarily racist.

Why isn’t it called out as such?

The boys drink and review Black Sheep Ale, then discuss ganster rap, outlaw country, and what’s similar and different about them.

In outlaw country, the emphasis is that mama tried, but the singer ended up bad anyway. In gangster rap, there seems to be a celebration of being on the bad side of the moral code.

And now we have ganstagrass, a band who made the theme song for the hit TV show Justified.

By the way, when bluegrass gets mixed with rap, who’s appropriating whose culture?

P&C drink and review their own pale ales, which were made from the same batch, but used different dry hops. The differences are very interesting.

Then they discuss the first Americans — their history in Beringia, and how they may have migrated into North and South America.

The boys discuss some of the strange details of the ice age, and how early humans lived in the “Mammoth steppe” of Beringia for tens of thousands of years before a passageway opened up to allow travel onto the continent, where they quickly spread across all of the Americas.

They discuss “Clovis first” and some newer evidence that humans may have been in the Americas before then.

P&C drink and review Rasputin, an imperial Russian stout from North Coast Brewing Company, then discuss Indigenous Peoples’ Day and Columbus Day.

The U.N. designated Aug. 9 as Indigenous Peoples’ Day in 1994, but nothing much has been done with it since. Instead, people want to replace Columbus Day with a celebration of indigenous people.

Why can’t we honor Columbus and indigenous people?

Do people have to be perfect before we can honor them? If so, we shouldn’t honor Columbus or anybody else.