Chuck Norris Facts

This appeared in my feeds this morning. Rather than respond at Martial Development I’m going to respond (more or less) over here. For those of you that don’t know it, Prime Chuck has a weekly column at WorldNut Daily. He is also a die-hard uber conservative right-winger and proud of it!

Well it looks like Mr. Prime Chuck has written a two-part series called “God and guns”.

• Part one
• Part two

What I think I’ll do is pick some select quotes from these fine articles and make some commentary. Lets start with a few quotes from part one:

God and guns are what our country was founded upon. Any new student of the Revolutionary period quickly learns that.

Yes, I’m sure that our U.S. Soldiers were praying to God when they used guns to slaughter the rightful owners of this land: The Native Americans. Seems to me I remember that stealing is supposed to be a bad thing. But, I digress…

God and guns were so important to our founders that they established our protection to exercise them in the first two amendments to our Constitution – the uninhibited and unrestricted freedom to choose our own religion and bear our own firearms.

I’ll deal with the religion comment in the next part. Here’s my thoughts on firearms: Dear Chuck, methinks you took one too many hits to the head during your karate tournament days.  The firearms issue is not as black and white as you and other gun advocates make it out to be.

If the Second Amendment does create an individual right, how broad is the right?  Does it include the right to possess arms that would be useful to a militia today–hand grenades, rocket launchers, etc.?  Or does it create only a right to possess arms that would have been used by a militia in 1791–muskets?  Or is the right answer somewhere between these extremes?

OK, now part two:

I don’t believe, however, in an erroneous interpretation of the Bill of Rights, or Jefferson’s and Madison’s interpretive words, that would restrict religious or speech freedoms or produce a secular-progressive barrier that bans any religious influence in society.

Heck Chuck, there’s a lot of things I don’t believe either. For example, I don’t believe your hair is real but you don’t see me getting all hot and bothered over it. Yes, yes, I know– that’s an ad hominem attack on Prime Chuck. So lets attempt to take Chuck seriously because we all know he’s a Constitutional scholar.

…he joined the United States Air Force as a Military Policeman. He was sent to Osan Air Base in South Korea, where he acquired his nickname ‘Chuck’ and soon became interested in martial arts. He began training in the Asian form of Tang Soo Do.

Upon his return to America, Norris continued to act as a Military Policeman, this time at March Air Force Base, California. He was discharged in August 1962, without ever having seen any combat. Norris then worked for Northrop Aviation but his passion for martial arts could not be quelled. He moonlighted as a karate instructor and two years later, found himself teaching full-time and running a number of martial arts schools.

Sort of like a lawyer with no martial arts experience writing about martial arts topics. But, again, I digress…

If you can actually read both of Prime Chuck’s columns without your eyes bleeding you’ll notice that in the second one he mentions an awful lot of Christian monuments and also makes an awful lot of Christian references. He also makes the argument in many of his columns that the United States is a Christian Nation ™.

I believe in the separation of religious sectarianism from government and protecting our religious institutions, such as churches, from the long arm of the federal government. I don’t believe, however, in an erroneous interpretation of the Bill of Rights, or Jefferson’s and Madison’s interpretive words, that would restrict religious or speech freedoms or produce a secular-progressive barrier that bans any religious influence in society.

Something tells me Prime Chuck would be all hot and bothered if the “religious influence” on society was anything other than Chuck Norris Christianity.

Prime Chuck really needs to spend time at this site and also read this entry.

Like many other perplexing constitutional issues, the issue of what religious symbols may occupy various public spaces is essentially a where-to-draw-the-line question.

Government action violates the Establishment Clause unless it:
1. Has a significant secular (i.e., non-religious) purpose,
2. Does not have the primary effect of advancing or inhibiting religion, and
3. Does not foster excessive entanglement between government and religion.

Let me type this slowly and attempt to make it so even Prime Chuck can understand: This means public displays are allowed by private citizens. It also means that those displays which give the appearance that government is promoting a certain religion are typically not. As for those monuments that already have references to God, well, it’s sort of like the right to bear arms question. It’s a matter of time, place, and historical context. Did the founders base their law on the technology of the time? Did they even consider how technology would evolve? Does the right to bear arms include artillery pieces? Same goes for religion: Did the founders even envision how religiously diverse this nation would become? Probably not.

Oh and speaking of history we can thank McCarthyism for this:

The use of the National Motto “In God We Trust” on all currency has been required by law since 1955. It first appeared on paper money with the issuance of the $1 Silver Certificates, Series 1957, and began appearing on Federal Reserve Notes with the 1963 Series.

And a little more history…

The motto IN GOD WE TRUST was placed on United States coins largely because of the increased religious sentiment existing during the Civil War.

Again, it’s more than just “we are a Christian Nation”. You need to consider time, place, and cultural context.

-BCP