According to CNN, Steve Forbes told a group of Iowa high school students recently that he believes the Ten Commandments should be posted in every classroom because this country has gotten too far away from the principles on which it was founded.

Reach into your pocket right now and grab yourself a dollar bill.

Everything you need to know about what this country was founded on is right there in your hand.

The most obvious connotation for this statement is monetary.

Rich, white, middle-class men unwilling to pay their taxes enlisted the proletariat against their upper-class oppressors in a war of liberation.

Justifiable enough, but all about money nonetheless.

But let’s look at the artwork here.

See that pyramid with the eye over it? The phrase “Novus Ordo Seclorum” beneath is Latin for “new order of the ages.”

“In God We Trust” is over the one, but that’s “new order,” not religious order under the pyramid.

There were enough Masons signing the Declaration of Independence to start a lodge, and it has always been the proactive desire of Masons to establish a “new secular order” for centuries.

When this country was founded, they felt they had succeeded.

Now, Steve Forbes and his ilk would have us all believe that we should be living our lives according to the religious beliefs of a fraction of our primitive ancestors.

Ancestors who had died out in life and spirit long before this country was founded by men of the enlightenment who were absolutely not interested in forcing their religious beliefs down anyone’s throat.

Some of us like to believe that this nation was founded on Christian principles.

There were atheists and deists there at the beginning of this country, as well as theists, and they all agreed they didn’t want anyone telling them what to believe and how to go about practicing those beliefs.

To the extent that phrases like “you shouldn’t kill anyone” are reflected in Christian philosophies as well as the philosophies of EVERY major religious belief system on the planet, this is true.

And while the basic intention of each of the Ten Commandments is perfectly rational and acceptable across the board, it is the idea of forcing any one religion belief system down the throats of this undeniably diverse country that is so offensive.

Forbes thinks if it’s okay for Muslim countries to post writings from the Koran on classroom walls, then it should be okay for American classrooms to post the commandments.

If we lived in theocracy, Steve, you might have a point.

But look at the back of one of those many dollar bills you’ve got in your fat pockets, Mr. Forbes, and realize that you are wrong for any number of reasons.