No, he means the *other* founding documents… (UPDATED)

Paul Ryan is unhappy with the Democratic Party. In other news, water is wet and I like donuts.

Specifically, Paul Ryan is unhappy that the Democratic party’s platform doesn’t mention the capital-G man even once. (Because if Democrats should be taking pointers on their platform from anyone, it should be the other party’s Vice Presidential nominee.)

The Democratic Party’s platform makes no reference to God, drawing criticism from Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan.

Ryan tells Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” the change is not in keeping with the country’s founding documents and principles and suggests the Obama administration is behind the decision. The Republican platform mentions God 12 times.

The 2008 Democratic Party platform made a single reference to God, referring to the “God-given potential” of working people.

“Founding documents and principles,” he says. Does he mean the Declaration of Independence? I’ll throw him a bone there, since it does mention “God” one time.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Well, it says “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.” Is that different from Paul Ryan’s God? Probably. Thomas Jefferson is credited with writing the Declaration of Independence, and he generally does not seem like a man who wasted words. Historians can argue over the precise meaning of “Nature’s God,” but the important thing to note is that, between this and the U.S. Constitution, i.e. the two “founding documents” that matter, this is the only time anyone uses the word “God.” He uses the word “Creator” elsewhere in the Declaration of Independence, but that’s even more ambiguous than “Nature’s God.”

Little known historical fact: The original U.S. Constitution used the word “God” more than 1,357 times, but Barack Obama used a North Korean-built time machine to go to the year 1787 and switch it with the version now in use.

I see three possibilities, in roughly descending order of plausibility:

  1. The Founding Fathers did not intend to make God a central feature of the nation’s founding documents;
  2. The Founding Fathers meant to include God in the Constitution, but were too drunk/stupid/lazy/distracted by the lack of air conditioning to remember to actually do it. Then nobody thought to remind them during the ratification process.
  3. As stated above, Barack Obama used a time machine to go to 18th-century Philadelphia to swap out the original Constitution for his clever forgery, and we have all been living in his constructed reality for the past 226 years.

As fans of either Ron Paul or Alex Jones are fond of saying, think about it.

But seriously, the 2012 Democratic Party platform mentions God one less time than the nation’s founding documents. Do the Republicans think they get extra points for mentioning God twelve times as often as James Madison and the Gang?

Wait, Republicans mentioned God twelve times in their platform, and Tropical Storm Kirk petered out at sea. It’s a miracle!!!

UPDATE (09/05/2012): That didn’t take long. The Democrats caved and put “God” into the platform, along with a statement that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. The platform is strangely silent on the status of Ottawa, Canberra, Nairobi, Skopje, Montevideo, Thimphu, and other generally unremarkable national capitals.

I won’t be holding my breath for any statements of approval from Paul Ryan, though.

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