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.” Continue reading →