Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! - Jesse Ventura [28]
I noticed there were people in my class that day whom I’d never seen before. They were too old to be students. Their sole purpose in being there was apparently to debunk any conspiracy theories. They didn’t completely disrupt the class, but they would speak out of turn and insinuate that it was un-American and undermining our great country to bring up the past and question the integrity of all those great men on the Warren Commission. Never question your government, was the message. (Kind of like what former president George H. W. Bush said at President Ford’s funeral; We know the Warren Commission is accurate because Gerald Ford said it was.) So where did these people come from? I suspect they were plants, sent in by somebody in the government.
If I ever became president, I would push for opening up every document in the National Archives after a limited number of years. Unless, as Judge Tunheim said, it was a case where someone’s life might be in jeopardy if a particular document were made public. But the moment that person died, that document would automatically become public record. I just don’t like the idea of secretive government, and we’re going in that direction more and more, by leaps and bounds. I do not believe that a democracy can survive when it’s hiding secrets.
Another sign noted in Terry’s journal: Accept Jesus as your savior and live forever. Or you will regret it forever.
Leaving the Dallas-Forth Worth area, we passed through a small town. On the outskirts, there was a huge cross. It seemed almost the size of a skyscraper, the biggest built structure in the entire area. And it wasn’t the last one we’d see.
I created a furor in 1999 when, in my interview with Playboy, I called organized religion “a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people.” Looking back on that comment today, I might be accorded prophet status.
My belief in spirituality is probably not the norm, I’ll admit. Definitely not in the United States. I don’t go to church on Sundays. I believe we all worship God in our own diverse ways. And I view organized religion as strictly a business, top to bottom, like all other businesses. I am still very frustrated over the fact that the Catholic Church is not being prosecuted under the federal racketeering laws that apply to organized crime, the RICO statute, when it comes to the rampant child abuse practices that some members of the church hierarchy knowingly allowed to take place. Nobody’s even brought that up. Apparently the church is untouchable. Well, I don’t believe that religion should be untouchable. God is untouchable—He doesn’t have to worry—but to me, religion is created by man.
I’ll also say this: If Jesus came back today, I think he’d throw up. Didn’t Jesus throw the money-changers out of the temple? By all accounts I’ve read, he was with the downtrodden, the underdog. Not with the people living in suburbia, for whom everything is going great. Or, as I like to call them, born-again Republicans.
I was the only governor out of all fifty who would not declare a National Prayer Day. I took a lot of heat for that, and my response was very simple: Why do people need the government to tell them to pray? Pray all you want! Pray fifty times a day if you desire, it’s not my business! On the counter-side, I said, Look, if I declare National Prayer Day, then I’ve got to declare National No-Prayer Day for the atheists. They are American citizens too.
Instead, I declared “Indivisible Day” one Fourth of July. The proclamation went like this: “WHEREAS: The unique feature of this nation at its founding was its establishment of a secular Constitution that separated government from religion—something never done before; and WHEREAS: Our secular Constitution has enabled people of all worldviews to coexist in harmony, undivided by sectarian strife; and WHEREAS: President James Madison made clear the importance of maintaining this harmony when he said, ‘The purpose of