RP>KK>No, it says Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment
RP>KK>of religion.  Your suggestion, that the God of the Bible must be
RP>KK>put firmly in charge of this country, is about as obvious an
RP>KK>example of our government respecting an establishment of religion
RP>KK>as I've ever heard.
RP>Look in the mirror, Keith.  It is you, not I, who seek the power of law
RP>respecting the establishment of religion.  You and your ACLU friends
Robert, I don't think I've ever met anyone who is a member of the ACLU.
You and I both need to be wary of the tendency to lump everyone we
disagree with into one big monolithic bad-guy lump.
RP>seek to use law, be it legislation by congress, or inappropriate actions
RP>by renegade courts, to completely silence the traditional and historical
RP>Christian voices in the public life of this country, and replace it with
RP>one form or another of humanism, itself pronounced a religion by the
RP>Supreme Court.
1) What you are saying here is that when a court disagrees with your
value system, it is 'renegade,' but if it supports your values, you
use it as an authority to support your argument.
2) Could you please present even one instance in which the ACLU
has come into your church or your living room and tried to 'completely
silence' your practice?  Their intent is to make sure that no one
religion or sect thereof can take control of the immense power
of government and use it to coerce everyone.
You doubtless would, if you could, sandblast all mention
RP>of God and the Bible from every public building and monument everywhere.
I doubtless would?  Heavens!  I'm frankly surprised at myself!
Consider this: the New Mexico State Seal, IIRC, contains a cross
over a flock of sheep, with a Latin legend something like 'With
this you shall lead them.'  According to your version of me, I am
at this very moment parading down Central Avenue demanding that the
state spend millions of dollars revamping all of this!
Not to mention that the state has shamelessly appropriated the Zia
symbol which some Native Americans hold SACRED, so therefore at this
very moment, according to you, I must also be parading up at the
Capitol insisting that they should spend more millions eradicating
THAT symbol from their stationery!  Good heavens, Robert, I find all
this parading of mine to be nothing short of reprehensible!
(Of course, this is YOUR picture of me, not what I actually am.)
RP>You would erase history itself, because it so profoundly condemns you.
Speaking of history, consider the many religious sects, like the
Puritans, who came here seeking religious freedom, and who within
half a year of arriving had banned the practice of any sect except
their own.  Do you think that is a proper model for the exercise
of Federal power?
RP>You are of the very same stripe as that contemptible lot who led the
RP>French Revolution and gave it its character, the horrific lessons of
RP>which are completely lost on you.  They too sought a society and a
RP>government without God, and replaced Him with man's flawed reason,
RP>producing an object lesson of bloody disaster.  They were arrogant fools
RP>who thought themselves wise, and reaped the whirlwind.  Arrogant fools
RP>ever since have imagined themselves even wiser and able to overcome the
RP>errors of the French, so incapable are they of comprehending that it is
RP>the idea that is flawed.  It always has, and always will fail, always
RP>ultimately produce tyranny.
That's an interesting model.  But in fact neither democracy nor
parliamentairism were built in to French culture.  Politics is not
merely an intellectual system imposed upon a peole; if it is going to
work, it must be something that has long since been built into the
fabric of that culture.  Franklin and Jefferson and others worked
on the French to foment change, but when the change came, the French
had no parliamentary model built into their culture -- all they had
was the hatred of slaves for their masters.
Second, as someone once said, it's the economy, stupid.
France had a declining feudal economy whereas America had, by
some estimations, the highest per capita income in the world.
When business is good and hope is limitless, people don't tend to
abuse one another the way they do when the pie is shrinking.
(Like now in America, for example.)
The American political culture of individual liberty survived
because it had a strong _cultural_ basis in English culture,
and because the sort of people who gambled everything to come
to America were exactly the people who embodied that culture of
individual liberty.  In that sense, America was a natural
progression of the English idea of individual liberty.
France had no such culture, except among a very few members of
the cognoscenti.  There is another example of a place where
liberty sprouted but could not take root because there was no
common culture of individual rights.  A place called Russia.
RP>In the words of Witherspoon, I scruple not to call you an enemy to your
RP>country, for that is what you are.
Robert, sooner or later you are going to have to accept the fact
that American liberty is based upon freedom for _all_ religions
and favor toward none.  You are going to have to confront the fact
that this goes against your own _quite sincere_ beliefs about the
rightful supremacy of your own particular sect.  This means that
if you believe that your own narrow sect should take and hold
federal power and impose your theological INTERPRETATIONS on the
general population, then sincere Christians are obliged to oppose you.
American freedom means freedom for all interpretations, not just yours.
 * SLMR 2.1a * If evolution is outlawed, only outlaws will evolve.
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