Originally published at: God’s Country: America250 History Comic Book Has Very Strong Opinions About the Constitution - TPM – Talking Points Memo
By now it’s clear Donald Trump has ruined America’s semiquincentennial. From the corporate cage fight on the White House lawn to the unloved American State Fair on the Mall and the soldiers keeping people from contemplating the algae-choked allegory of corruption and incompetence that is the Reflecting Pool, Trump and his allies have made our…
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“So why is an official U.S. congressional commission effectively endorsing this unbalanced and evidence-challenged version of our national story?”
Why, indeed? An appalling story.
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A propos America250 vs.(?) Freedom 250:
For instance,
Last September, America250, the nonpartisan organization authorized by Congress in 2016 to plan patriotic activities for the anniversary, applied for a trademark for the design [of the Betsy Ross flag] with 250 in the center*,** as shown by U.S. Patent and Trademark Office documents that were cited in a report released by House Democrats yesterday. The $5,350 application was for nine usage categories, that include flags, jewelry, digital media, paper goods, printed media, clothing, and toys. Yet in April, America250 quietly transferred ownership of the trademark application to Freedom 250, a public-private partnership created by the White House that has been putting on events with a partisan flair…*
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Not a panel showing Trump as Jesus? I’m surprised.
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I’d like to dispute that America 250 commissioned these comics. They were first published in 2024 and expanded in 2025. I suspect this was meddling by Freedom 250 that put them here.
In one of the articles, it mentions sending a copy of Part One to TFG for his birthday in 2024. And that these were created, in part, as a response to Project 1619.
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Was my hard-earned, hard-taxed money used for this partisan and religious fiction?
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Because it is bipartisan and Evangelical Nationalist Christians have taken over religious thought in the Republican party and have forced the Democratic party to tone down support for separation of church and state.
Something to keep in mind is at its best Christian morality is just the same morality that we find in virtually every other world religion. Religions often teach morality. Nearly all of them embody
the same sort of ethical teachings.
For example Buddism embodies the following moral precepts.
- Abstain from killing: Refrain from harming or taking the life of any living being, fostering an attitude of loving-kindness and non-violence. [1]
- Abstain from stealing: Do not take what is not freely given, which cultivates honesty, respect for others’ property, and generosity. [1]
- Abstain from sexual misconduct: Avoid sexual exploitation, adultery, and harm to oneself or others in sexual relationships, which promotes contentment. [1, 2]
- Abstain from false speech: Refrain from lying, gossiping, harsh language, and deceit, encouraging truthful, constructive, and compassionate communication. [1, 2]
- Abstain from intoxicants: Avoid alcohol and drugs that cloud the mind or cause a loss of mindfulness, as awareness is essential for spiritual growth. [1, 2]
Do those things sound familiar. They are mostly found in some form in the bible.
Of course the Ten Commandments are taken directly from Jewish teaching.
Those same Ten Commandments are incorporated in the Quran. It doesn’t repeat the list found in the bible but it does incorporate the following ten fundamental principles.
-
- Worship God Alone: Do not associate any partners with God (Monotheism).
- Honor Parents: Treat your mother and father with the utmost kindness and respect; do not even express annoyance to them.
- Protect the Vulnerable: Do not kill your children out of poverty (God provides for everyone), and protect the wealth and rights of orphans.
- Maintain Justice: Fulfill all measurements and weights honestly and fairly when conducting trade.
- Speak and Act with Truth: Be just and honest in your speech, even if it concerns your own close relatives.
- Keep Your Promises: Fulfill your covenants and promises made to God and others.
- Protect Life: Do not take a human life—which God has made sacred—except in the course of justice.
- Avoid Immorality: Stay away from all shameful and indecent sins, whether committed openly or in private.
- Stay Away from Bribery and Theft: Do not unlawfully consume the property of others, and do not use your wealth to bribe authorities.
- Follow the Straight Path: Steadfastly follow God’s defined path of righteousness and avoid pathways that lead to division. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Damn, they sound like a cross between the Scout Oath and the heart of the ten commandments.
In truth the ethical beliefs of most non religious people adopt similar underlying eithical principles. Why? Because living any other way isn’t much fun and isn’t really productive.
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Some of it is being paid for by bleeding the NPS entrance fees that are to be used for maintenance and upkeep for the parks. The comic books? I’m sure it’s from the money allocated to America 250 to do something completely different. This is all part of the money laundering.
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By now it’s clear Donald Trump has ruined America’s semiquincentennial.
Which comes as absolutely no surprise!
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Maybe these people shouldn’t be telling a bunch of lies in an attempt to glorify both America and their god. It certainly implies that the truth is less flattering, or they wouldn’t need to resort to lies.
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To make MAGA happy we would have to build a giant triumpal arch with 250 years of Trump emblassened in gold.
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Edward P Jones wrote a book years ago (The Known World) in which a slave master dies and leaves the plantation in the hands of his favorite slave, Henry. Soon enough, Henry starts to enjoy his position of power and becomes a bit of an authoritarian over his former friends, now his own slaves.. I’ve concluded that Clarence Thomas would have loved to be a Henry. He’s so perfect as the clueless, self-loathing black man, in search of any morsel of power over others.
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why personal liberty — “to do whatever is good in your own eyes” — is evil and the moral liberty of the authorities is “good, just and honest.”
This is obscene.
One is free to believe that. But ask any Republican in government if he or she is evil when they do what they think is good.
The fact is that the moral authority of “the authorities” in America is derived from the consent of the governed. And the governed ain’t consenting.
Especially the ones in Republican concentration camps.
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Just put my flag out. Only goes out Veterans Day and Memorial Day.
Dad was an aircraft mechanic in Korea
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Exactly. I can only understand people who avidly pursue things like great material wealth or value libertarian notions of individual autonomy and competition, at the expense of the collective and cooperation, as profoundly unhappy and unfulfilled. Sad cases (and sometimes downright evil).
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The Ukrainians seem to be celebrating July 4 early this morning with large refinery and oil infrastructure explosions in St. Petersburg. Because Russia messes with GPS, Finland’s southern coastal airspace and sea lanes have been closed due to the risk of confused Ukrainian drones showing up.
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It turns out the reason it’s so hot in DC right now because the gates of Hell have opened up to greet Mitch McConnell.
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A geopolitical tenet of America’s oligarchs involves seamless control of the Western Hemisphere, a Lebensraum 2.0. Peter Thiel, for example, already has dubs on Argentina, named after argentum, Latin for silver. It is important to shape all the governments in the region in whatever the US far-right model is supposed to be, a small overclass and very large underclass subject to different sets of rules. Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico, Canada, Brazil, Ecuador, Honduras, have all had to deal with the changes, but we see these policies really bearing fruit with the presidential election in Peru. Something not much discussed in the US media yet. Peru had developed what are widely considered the gold standard in mining laws. This is hardly surprising given Peru’s long history with mining and metals extraction. It starts in 1532 with the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro’s ransom of Inca king Atahualpa, a betrayal, massive theft and murder. The value of the unique artifacts in the Inca treasure room would be worth nearly $2 billion melted, and of course, priceless if preserved. From the 1600s to the 1800s, Peruvian (and today Bolivian) silver fueled global trade. It made Spain rich. In 1950, post-WWII America helped create a new mining code that eliminated the need for giant multinationals to pay taxes for the service of extracting mineral wealth. Jerbs! Peru’s mining laws began to evolve in the 1990s with the idea of returning some of the income (mining accounts for about two-thirds of Peruvian exports and 10% of the economy), to local communities. The victory of perennial loser Keiko Fujimori in last month’s presidential election really seals the deal on the Western Hemisphere project. Or does it? Peruvians have been watching this movie since the Pizarro days and know what comes next.
Fujimori will move in the opposite direction: a fast-track approval mechanism for strategically significant projects, profit-reinvestment tax incentives designed to keep capital inside Peru, and a redirection of 40% of mining royalties to host communities. The royalty proposal is the most consequential because it directly addresses the trigger of most recent mine shutdowns – communities that feel they bear the costs of extraction without sharing its benefits.
Mining is a global industry, so a lot of people are watching to see what happens next. There is this dream of some American oligarchs (fascist nostalgia perhaps) of a return to the 1950 order (Trump even gave a classic Joe McCarthy red scare speech in SD) at least in the Global South.
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This comic book series sounds like another absolute travesty - the Democrats on the Committee should be ashamed to be associated with it.
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USA! USA! USA!