Equality under God

In both his speech on immigration last month and his radio address today, Bush said that immigrants should assimilate and “we must continue to welcome legal immigrants and help them learn the customs and values that unite all Americans, including liberty and civic responsibility, equality under God, tolerance for others, and the English language.” Funny that he should be talking about assimilation and equality while proposing a guest worker program. Also, when will Mr. Patriot Act learn the customs and values of liberty; since when did the draft- and, just yesterday, jury-duty dodger believe in civic responsibility; what does this privileged member of the lucky sperm club know about equality; when did this god-bothering homophobe show a passing acquaintance with tolerance; or the English language? And indeed, which is the English language supposed to be, a custom or a value?

Also, what’s with the “equality under God” crap? Well, I know what the phrase means: that God values all souls equally. It’s a Christian thing (yeah, yeah, other religions too, but the expression is a Christian one), it is not an American thing. Indeed, just as he often says that freedom comes from God, what he is trying to do is Christianize the values that underlie American institutions, and it’s as creepy as the campaign to take that atheist Jefferson off the nickel and replace him with Jesus.

Okay, I made that up, but I wouldn’t be surprised.