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Purplehood wrote:The absence of religion makes it a religion?

Yes. To not believe in something takes an equal or greater amount of belief than to actually believe in something.

For example. I don't believe there is an invisible, all powerful polar* bear in my study. That is therefore a religion called antiursinism.

*This religion has various sects. Some of us don't believe it's a black bear, some don't believe it's a grizzly bear. We argue about it a lot.

bdickens wrote: Curiously, those same "athiests" who complain about the mythical "separation of church and state" whenever Christians want to pray in public spaces or display historical artifacts such as someone's Bible in them are strangely mute when it comes to schools having a "pretend you're a Muslim" day.

No complaint from me as long as my daughter and her friends can have "pretend you're a Mossad agent" on the same day!

But seriously, if my daughter came home with such a thing, I'd be going ballistic. She doesn't need to pretend she's anything but an armadillo in her theater class.

mr.72 wrote:... 24/7 Alex Jones

Oh, you have a cruel and twisted mind to even think of such a thing!!

I toast and salute you!!

The Annoyed Man wrote: 1) violates the freedom of speech clause of the valedictorian's 1st Amendment rights, and it violates the establishment clause of the valedictorian's 1st Amendment clause.

No it doesn't. It only restricts said valedictorians ability to preach at a government sponsored event. She or he still has the complete and total first amendment right to preach on the street corner, in church or on TV or anywhere else they can afford and to whoever wants to listen. They just can't preach at a government sponsored event with a captive audience.

Prayer is a private communication between you and God. I don't see how government could ever restrict this even if it tried. Public prayer is either so that other believers in you faith can "pray along" and admire your artistic use of the language or to preach to those who you want to convert.

I have never seen one single instance of a Christians right to practice religion being denied. I have seen many instances where a Christians desire to preach to those that are not interested have been denied. There is a huge difference. Bowing your head in quiet prayer is allowed in any public school in the country. Trying to lead the class in public prayer is not. It is easy to see the difference unless you are blinding by the desire to proselytize every non-believer that passes by.

The Annoyed Man wrote:
This stuff cuts both ways.

Amen.

Wow, it's interesting to see that there are others that have equally eclectic political views. I'm very much in the same camp as Purple Heart and marksiwel but with a few exceptions....

I think the Federal govt should mostly get back to doing the stuff it was originally given in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. It should be a very limited govt. Stuff like housing, urban dev, education should all be up to states. National Defense is definitely part of what the feds should be doing.

States should be able to do what they want, but should not be allowed to override the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Basically incorporation of BOR should be a given. The city of Chicago should not be allowed to overrule the 2nd amendment of the United States.

The thing that keeps me from being 100% Libertarian is that I do think Feds need to regulate business. Caveat Emptor was a fine concept when my business was walking into a general store and buying a bag of flour. I could examine it and make a deal that both buyer and seller agree to. But in this day and age, corporations are financial bullies. They can hire a room full of lawyers and write a cell phone contract that the average person can never really understand, yet we agree to them every day. There is a game theory in poker. If equally good players all come to the table with $1000, but 1 player has $10,000, the player with greatest resources will eventually drain the other players dry. That is the state of big business in my opinion. And we're not even on a level playing field since they can afford the room full of lawyers. But it need to be evenly applied. Too many lobbyists on the hill getting the laws written in their favor has led to most of the problems we are in.

I am tired, Tired, TIRED of hearing about some school district in TX telling some kid how he should cut his hair. If he's an native American, it's too long. If he's black, it's too short (yes, these are real cases in the last few years) Shut up already with the hair, OK.

There are too many stupid laws about how we can't do something because it *might* lead to something else. Example: I can't carry a "too big" pocket knife, because I might stab somebody with it. We have far too much of this nonsense on the books.

XtremeDuty.45 wrote: There are soldiers, airmen, sailors and marines sitting on their "duffs" ALL over the world and they are in those places for a reason...a tactical reason.

I think you might mean strategic here. Military strategy is concerned with longer term goals and how specific actions are related. Tactics usually pertain to short term actions like how to take a hill or defend a position.

Regardless, having a worldwide US military presence is a very important part of US defense strategy. It keeps bad guys off of our shores, shores up our relations with our allies and allows us to keep an eye on hot spots from a much closer position.

Abraham wrote:
My drug of choice is the occasional single malt scotch...

Sorry, but I really think the entire state should be dry and nobody should fall under the clutches of demon liquor. You can't be trusted to not get drunk on Saturday night and it will make you too hung over to make it to church on Sunday morning.



Ha! Just kidding...

Not fond of Scotch, but Jameson's Irish Whiskey is mighty fine!

frazzled wrote:No actually. Many of the restrictive laws were put in place in the 20th century. Prior to that we were a hard drinking, opium smoking, gun toting, manifest destiny kinda place.

You forgot bordello visiting and saloon gambling...

chamberc wrote:

android wrote: Conservatives don't really believe in freedom to make choices any more than liberals. They just want everyone to be free to make the same choices they would make.

How about let's legalize marijuana, gambling and prostitution?

All those conservatives are going to come down on those ideas like a ton of bricks.

"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." -John Adams



Ours is a Christian nation, formed with Christian values, and is to be enjoyed by folks who accept those values as the law of the land. It isn't that they have to subscribe to those beliefs, but they must abide by them.

Quod Erat Demonstrandum

frazzled wrote: I have to respectfully disagree. While there are two camps and your construct often works I don't think its base is necessarily freedom vs. state control. I'd proffer there is that, but also "both sides" tend to want to control me, just on different issues. If I pop up that abortion should be legal in all circumstances I not going to get a fight from the "liberal side," but from the "conservative side." However thats a freedom from government point.
I've often found its both sides that are trying to tell me to do something. I resist both.

I agree.

Conservatives don't really believe in freedom to make choices any more than liberals. They just want everyone to be free to make the same choices they would make.

How about let's legalize marijuana, gambling and prostitution?

All those conservatives are going to come down on those ideas like a ton of bricks.