"We must erect a wall of brass around the country for the exclusion of Catholics."

[underpants]

Top lawyers – the best! – tell Donald Trump that the president can deport whoever he wants. Of course, Donny T is just pulling that out of his royal heinie, but here’s the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, John Jay:

"We must erect a wall of brass around the country for the exclusion of Catholics."

You want traditional values? That’s a Founding Father. Eat that, Confederate Battle Flag. Jay, Madison and Hamilton wrote the freakin’ Federalist Papers. It doesn’t get any more constitutional than that.

There’ve always been a measurable percentage of Americans who think horny foreigners, usually Catholic, are coming for our lucky charms. Trump has just tapped into that. The good news is, it only gets you so far.


http://www.real-time-with-bill-maher-blog.com/index/2015/8/27/everybody-loves-a-wall

[Maedhros]

1. So much of what is happening right now makes me think of the Nativist and Know Nothing movements

that reared up just prior to the Civil War:

http://score.rims.k12.ca.us/score_lessons/nativism/pages/historical_bg.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_Nothing

Back then, it was German and Irish Catholics (rather than Hispanics) that were the hated group that must be repelled, but the raving lunacy is the same.

[CTyankee]

2. It always is. Next it was the Italians and then the Puerto Ricans (west side story)

and on and on. The sad thing is one ethnic minority who gets accepted then looks down on the next one down the line...

[meaculpa2011]

6. Tony (Anton) was Polish...

My father, who arrived in 1922, told me that Italians who got off the boat six months ago made fun of the Italians who got off the boat last week.

[CTyankee]

7. sad, isn't it?

[pnwmom]

3. Nothing much has changed. The vast majority of those Mexican rapists and criminals are Catholic.

[MisterP]

4. they got a bunch of Papist-baiting media on Wiki and Archive

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Citizen
https://archive.org/stream/freethinkerspict00hest#page/n0/mode/2up

heck, many of the "humanists" against Ratzinger's visit to Britain were worried that it was a redux of the Armada ...

[pampango]

5. "If you’re selling racism, you’ll have customers. It’s a good product. But it doesn’t get you the

nomination."

By the way, John Jay’s phrase, “wall of brass,” seems to be from Jeremiah:

“And I will make thee unto this people a fenced brasen wall: and they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee, saith the Lord.”

Those goddamn Babylonians – raping, dealing drugs… some I assume are good people.

Xenophobia (and its close cousin religious intolerance) has been around for a long, long time - way before the Pilgrims landed and started to worry about the 'foreigners' in the ships behind them. The Donald has tapped into a "good product". He has many "customers". Some things never change.

[LuvNewcastle]

8. I was wondering why it had to be a brass wall.

Why wouldn't an iron wall work? I guess you can't question Gawd.

[underpants]

9. Thanks for posting the rest of it