Separation of Church and State

Blatham -- I abhor religious fundamentalism no matter what the religion. But reading your interesting post, I realize that I also believe religious fundamentalism and political fanaticism to be equally horrible and (this was the realization) in most cases indistinguishable. We're looking at various forms of extreme nationalism expressed in fundamentalism. Even the leader of Korea has the patina of a "god". So when we see the Bush administration welcoming an alliance of church and state, we see an acknowledgement of the partnership of fundamentalists -- hawks and zealots.

Tartarin, funny that you will get almost 99% agreement with:

except, add - "except concerning my religion"

Tartarin

Yes, that is the formulation I see. The commonality between the two is discomfort with complexity and the need to think and see in binary simplicities...with us or against us, good vs evil, literalism vs ambiguity, dominance or submission.

I came home tonight to find my daughter had downloaded "Bowling for Columbine". She is 20, has dual citizenship, completed her high school in California and plans to move back there after graduating her theatre program here. Watching the documentary, she just seen the news footage of the high school kids telling what they had seen "I begged him not to shoot me and he turned and shot the girl beside me in the face" and then Heston, in Columbine, holding up a rifle and exclaiming it would be taken away "over my cold dead body" (cheers from those gathered). Wiping her eyes, my daughter asked "What's wrong with them down there, Dad?"

Please assure your daughter that we are not all like Michael Moore.

Blatham, I spent most of my adult life overseas and was truly shocked when I came back and am still shocked. As you may have noted, I'm trying to understand the point of view, the anger, but, uh, am not very successful!!

Wow, I just read Tres' post as mine went on the screen and I think I know part of the problem. There are many Americans saying to many other Americans -- equal citizens, equally American -- we don't like your country. Two groups of Americans saying to each other, I don't want to live in YOUR America. I suspect (and have said this) that it is a Great Divide of age, upbringing, education, expectation... much more complicated than a simple right/left political divide, or even an over/under thirty divide. One side is ruled by anger and occasional violence, the other by disappointment and anomie.

I don't think she was crying about Michael Moore; just some of the folks that he writes about...

I believe people know the difference, they just refuse to see!

The strongest argument for separation of Church and State is fundamentalism of any stripe. And blatham, tell your daughter I often wonder what's wrong with us down here ... still, I'd rather be here than anywhere else, and I have both the means and the experience to be just about anywhere I want to be.

Tartarin, there are plenty who don't wish to live in anyone's country but their own, or to allow others to live in countries of their own divergent satisfaction. That is largely the problem, IMHO.



timber

Driving home just now I caught a few minutes of the second hour of Talk of the Nation http://discover.npr.org/rundowns/rundown.jhtml?prgId=5&prgDate=current available later on today on audio. The subject was the Constitution and in particular a new book about it by Linda Monk http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0786867205/qid=1046380043/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-8713592-9896653?v=glance&s=books. One of the callers was Alan Dershowitz who noted that, although religion is mentioned as subject to regulation, there is no mention of god. There have been efforts to add god and even Jesus to the Constitution -- fortunately they failed. It was -- what I heard of it -- a wonderful discussion. Made me want to go home and sit down and reread....

its seems interesting to me that at the founding of this nation the only religion was various factions of protestants essentially critical of each other, the many deists who were founding fathers had great fear of religious factions attempting to dominate the national body politic. was it not Rhode Island that was created as a santuary for people escaping the intolerance of the pilgrims of Mass?

Now there is an attempt to create state sponsered religion again-

it would be my guess that both Jeffersonian and Hamiltonian philosophies would be agast at the current infiltration of religion into govenment.

Against the Republicans and the Federalists views, he says. Now the Republicans are the Federalist. How silly are labels?

Not all Republicans mind you, only the Extreme Vast Right Wing Conservatists!

I'm not sure which you think is which, but without painting one side as "right" and the other as "wrong" I think your comments have a lot of merit. Unfortunately, it seems absolutely impossible to engage people in the valuable debate as to what future United States we want to create by the decisions we make today.

That's a debate I'd love to take part in, but I don't think it is possible here.

I have never feared for the future of our government as much as I do now. The religious bigots, modern robber barons, and paranoid "patriots" are using 9/11 (admittedly an indication of the crazy fanatics we are up against), to follow through with their previously made plans which have the effect of subverting our government, and are being aided by a delusional and unelected president.

Hit it on the nose nelsonn, good work for a Newbie!

Trespassers will said: "I'm not sure which you think is which, but without painting one side as "right" and the other as "wrong" I think your comments have a lot of merit. Unfortunately, it seems absolutely impossible to engage people in the valuable debate as to what future United States we want to create by the decisions we make today.

That's a debate I'd love to take part in, but I don't think it is possible here."

Why not give it a go, Eeyore, I mean Tres? It might be very interesting!

EEYORE. GUFFAW.