I would think the 1st amendment gives atheists the same rights it gives those of any faith. I do however understand that the currency motto may be a bit more challenging.
I don't "feel" in any particular way, it just strikes me as strange that in the USA, faith is defended with the first Amendment but you can discriminate against those with none.
I don't think atheists can be legally discriminated against in the US. Although freedom of religion is an enumerated right while freedom of non-religion might be viewed as merely implied and unenumerated, legal protection still exists. However, one should not expect a religious organization (such as a Christian school, for example) to not have a desire to hire like-minded Christians as their schoolteachers. Yet despite this, many Christian schools have been cowed into hiring non-believers anyway, partly out of a sense of fairness and partly for fear of expensive lawsuits. If anything, I would venture to say that atheists and agnostics currently have a bit of an advantage over Christians in employment situations in the US.
For the record I support the right of Christian schools to hire only Christian teachers if they want to. I realise expensive lawsuits may ensue, but this is only one aspect of all sorts of stupid lawsuits that all sorts of organisations get nowadays. My discrimination issue is I may not discriminate against you for say a job, if you are; gay, over 60, black ,white, male, female, a Muslim ,metally handicapped, etc but I can say I want no atheists. I realise in America this may not in practise be a big issue.
Depending on the state you may discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation/identity, the federal government does not have that as a protected class, but many states do. Atheism is considered a religion for purposes of the first amendment and I would imagion for Title VII (equal employment) too.
This photo graphic example is really very simple, and non maskers are also very simple. “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets". Matthew 7:12. I don't think Jesus Christ had an opt out clause specially for psychopaths, narcissists, and masochists, who have little regard for themselves or other's pain, discomfort or well being. Neither did he have it in mind that those who have convinced themselves that the health of their neighbour is no concern of theirs or is not affected by measures advised by the WHO or governments on the grounds that their personal freedom to infect others is being eroded by complying with a temporary rule to wear masks in crowded public places such as public transport or shops. Is not wearing a face mask the equivalent of giving two fingers up to your neighbour or in fact , by attitude, giving two fingers up to Jesus? Is it not a selfish attitude that effectively says "I don't care what the government says, my belief that it makes no difference is more important than any chance that it might be beneficial to my neighbour, so I won't do it"?
Surely something must be wrong with these figures or is there something wrong with the US politics policies that have produced them.
Duhhh. I don't get it. What are you saying? (scratching head in perplexity) Exactly! I wish people would stop panicking and wearing masks. So I do neither!
We can find less cases. Real easy. You want us to slow down the testing? That'll do it. Meanwhile, there's still only about a 1 in 6,000 chance of someone without co-morbidities dying from Covid in the US.
This guys mask is obviously defective or he is blowing extra hard to try to prove a point and 'fool' us all. There is absolutely no smoke or whatever coming through the fabric of the mask. Mask fabric is supposed to filter droplets from air, not block it completely. If this fellow sealed the edges of his mask he would suffocate. His mask is a fake. Notice the small halo of breath filtering through the non fake face masks in Botolph's example. It proves however that if he wore it in a shop the shop keeper would be OK but the person standing either side of this guy would get his breath if within 2 metres. That's six feet, six and three quarter inches, for those who still don't yet understand sensible metric measurements. (The height of a tall bloke). The persons in front or behind him though would likely be OK if only momentarily approaching the 2 metres 'fire break' zone. .
Maybe that guy's mask is looser than some, but no non-military mask will seal perfectly around the edges (even military masks must be positioned correctly and strapped very tightly to get a seal). Any time one exhales, it has the effect of blowing the edges away from the face and allowing air to exit. Fluid dynamics dictates that the air will seek the easiest route, and that route is the edge. Inhaling causes the edges to suck back toward the skin, making it more difficult to get air into the lungs, but getting air back out of the lungs is a snap. So many people have bought into the prophylactic effect of the face mask. Its presence soothes and reassures all who see it. Humanity is simultaneously being made to seem faceless and de-individualized. It's easier to achieve violation of a faceless population' human rights once they've been automatized in the eyes of the majority. No one can gauge emotions any longer, because facial expressions are hidden. Is the person friendly? Honest? Trustworthy? One can no longer tell. Subliminally, man does not trust the person who hides his face. Over time this will affect people's subconscious thinking, and by the time it surfaces consciously no one will question the thought. Hard-of-hearing are out of luck; anyone who struggles to hear and needs to read lips can forget about communicating effectively. Misunderstandings will increase. Mistrust will grow. Society is being guided through a transformative upheaval, and hardly anyone realizes it. Mark my words, mask wearing is being made the "new normal" and it will not go away. Acute consciousness of viral and bacterial "dangers" are being made a part of the human psyche. This is permanent. And it will be followed by a phobia for physical money exhange (ooh, how germy!), a switch to (100% trackable and controllable) virtual electronic currency, mandatory vaccines, mandatory physical tracking 24/7, and other measures.
Covid 19 is a disease, not a conspiracy theory. I would be quick on the lookout for any attempt to divide us further. In the film 'Oh God' John Denver says to God, 'We need help' and God replies 'that's why I gave you each other'. We do need to be on guard, we can not afford to get to the position where every other person in the supermarket is seen as an enemy. But for the moment there is an enemy, unseen to the naked eye, and roaming in our streets. Our forebears travelled to protect the freedoms we have, we are simply being asked to stay home to protect each other and defeat the virus. I don't doubt that there are those who would want to make it so, but I believe the dust will settle, and a somewhat adjusted normality will return. I don;t know about the US, but there is a strong cash economy in Australia, and I don't think it is about to disappear.
You are right to be wary of your civil rights being eroded, but I think that horse shows signs of having bolted already and you never noticed its absence from the stable because you have been encouraged to look the other way. Now, if I were trying to strip US citzens of their civil rights I would make it look like I was saving them from chaos and societal breakdown. That would be the only way to convince them that the takeover is actually in their interests, and absolutely essential to preserve their 'civil rights'. The first thing to go though would be any kind of government accountability, and it seems you are already saying goodbye to that, time after time, at a pace. For sure there will be winners and losers in all this, but the biggest losers will be those who think they live in the greatest democracy in the world.
Your linked tweet originated from biased CNN. To balance the story out, be aware that those troops were stationed around the perimeter of the federal building in Portland to protect federal property. People they arrested were in the act of vandalizing or attempting to vandalize the building. The troops were there because the mayor of Portland has arranged things so the local police won't lift a finger to prevent the building's destruction. He is making a bunch of noise, trying to get the troops to leave. Why? So the federal building can be torched. Why? Because he's a liberal Democrat Trump-hater. I don't know how much the mayor is being paid for his treason, but it must be plenty. We are witnessing a bunch of Demonrat mayors (and governors) working to destroy large US cities. Minneapolis (where riots were permitted to continue for many days), Indianapolis, Chicago (rampant shooting and murders), Portland, Seattle, and NYC to name a few. In NYC, Bill de Blasio (formerly Warren Wilhelm, a Marxist socialist who supported the Sandinistas in Nicarague during the 1980s) is wrecking the police department. He's coordinated the de-funding of the department and enactment of strict new requirements that handcuff the cops and make them fear prosecution for any little mistake or anything that accidentally goes wrong. Cops there are demoralized and suffering from PTSD. They're afraid to make arrests because they think they might get prosecuted on the basis of false allegations. They are retiring, applying for disability, and just plain quitting in droves. Two of this year's four police academy classes for new recruits have been cancelled, so the police force is being decimated. The city gave BLM permission to paint the "Black Lives Matter" message on the street in front of Trump Tower and a number of officers are now stationed there to protect it; meanwhile, crimes nearby occur unhampered and un-responded-to because the city officials have cops too busy protecting the 'in your face' political message. It is obvious to all but the most dense onlooker that a coordinated effort is underway to turn the largest US cities into hellholes and cause extreme dissension in this country. For those who would pooh-pooh the concept of a conspiracy, I'd like to point out that the Bible fully supports the concept. Satan and his fallen angels conspire and labor to deceive the masses. They strive to recruit unwitting humans to their conspiracy by deluding them into thinking of personal gain (riches, power, and pleasure) without revealing that the end game is to drag them along to Perdition Party Central (the hottest place around). Satan is the ultimate "criminal mastermind" in all of creation, and he has had millennia to plot and organize. Can anyone doubt that he has successfully deceived most if not all of the richest human beings on earth today and is planting ideas in their minds to further his plans for the desired downfall and persecution of God's children? Satan comes to kill, steal and destroy; but he wants to victimize God's chosen people, Christians and Jews alike, first and foremost. For many decades the USA was a bastion of Christianity and sent out thousands of missionaries around the globe, and still today it remains one of the safest havens in the world for the faithful and for the propagation of the faith, so therefore the devil hates the USA with particular venom.
I just don't know what to say. Don't you have a National Guard with ID's and badges, in official military vehicles with number plates anymore? Or are the ones filmed here of a new and unusual unmarked covert unidentifiable private hire type? What's going on over there? .
We do, but these aren't national guard. Governors call out the national guard. But the Oregon governor won't. I did a little more checking and found out who that the Department of Homeland Security tells who these folks were. Epoch Times reports: Following arrests that were made in Portland, Oregon, the (DHS) agency said that agents are identifying themselves Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officials. “The CBP agents identified themselves and were wearing CBP insignia during the encounter,” the DHS said in a statement. “The names of the agents were not displayed due to recent doxing incidents against law enforcement personnel who serve and protect our country.” The agents weren’t wearing name tags, citing recent attempts online to identify police and other officials as an intimidation strategy. In my metro area in Oklahoma, when the George Floyd death went viral and the BLM (Black Lives Matter? or Burn Loot Murder?) organizers put together protests in our streets, we had smashed windows and some looting the first night, but then the governor and the mayor called out the national guard the next few nights to help protect the shops, and BLM soon took their dog and pony show elsewhere. (After that first night, the worst stuff we had was people blocking streets and trying to block an expressway, and female protesters walking around topless. Not sure yet how baring one's boobs shows support for African-Americans, let alone stopping traffic, but there you go.)
Couldn't possibly be so that officers who kneel on windpipes can't be identified and charged with assault then, obviously? Is anyone allowed to know where those who were arrested 'dissapeared' to, and what they were actually arrested for? .