Telegraph

Hanging for the men, life in prison for the women

by one of Australias leading on line Catholic journals

http://agonist.org/20081012/hindu_threat_to_christians_convert_or_flee

...should not ally themselves with any nation riven by internal religious conflict targeting Christians? I tend to think that there's any number of external observers that would ask what so privileges the anti-Christian violence here that it's worthy of particular note while much, much larger instances of religious violence involving other sects as well as inter-caste and political violence go unremarked. We need to be sensitive to that quite understandable impulse.

Moreover, how is the nuclear issue particularly relevant to anti-Christian violence - how is it that we get from aid to a civil nuclear power program to anything that's going to support this type of campaign? Me, personally, I'd argue pretty strongly that a more developed civil nuclear program is more likely to help than to hurt here.

“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.” ~ Sir Ernest Benn

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Note that the very first line of the very first amendment to the US Constitution bans the establishment of a state religion. The Framers ranked freedom FROM religion as the most urgent, most vital addition to their new Constitution. Why? Because the Framers studied history, and history revealed beyond doubt that when any religion is allowed to make itself the "official" one, then all other freedoms are inevitably doomed.

The Framers concluded that the only way to prevent religious strife in their new country was to ban the establishment of any state religion. They knew damn well that without freedom FROM religion, none of the other freedoms could survive.

That is why fundamentalist theocrats like Sarah Palin are so dangerous. Tirelessly they seek to weaken the very first line of the very first Amendment. Through trickery and deceit they seek to impose their religious beliefs on all other Americans, gradually establishing a national religion in America. They realize that the process of subverting the First Amendment takes time, but they are patient. They whittle and chip a little here and there, softening the edges of the Constitution's ban on established religion. The realize that if they can codify in law all the goals of their religion within the framework of our secular government, then they will have achieved a de facto national religion.

The genius of the First Amendment is that it got the priorities exactly right. Only by first guaranteeing freedom FROM religion can a society hope to avoid the bloodshed and oppression suffered by people in Europe and the Middle East over thousands of years of religious strife. It does not take a historian to see the problems created when religions get their way. If we wish to avoid the incessant, eternal bloodshed of religious strife, then we must always thwart the wishes of our nation's tragic collection of theocratic would-be rulers like Sarah Palin.

Good times for Smiley! :-D