As a former conservative (social moderate) turned libertarian, I never really feared the social cons from a policy standpoint. Even when they're in power it seems rarely do their paternalistic ideas materialize, and when they do are often checked or watered down by a more rational wing of the party or thrown out by the courts.

I still do not fear them in this way, but I do fear the harm their rhetoric is causing the limited-government cause.

Still, during my time as a conservative, I never even considered the reunification of church and state, or banning pornography. I mean, you'd have to be illiterate to advocate such, given the first amendment.

I don't think you are paranoid (not much anyway). I'm worse, I think ALL groups are infected with amoral, ambitious, group-think generating, polarizing, self promoting, power seekers.

I'm with Stan. I've never heard anyone talk about unifying church and state. The conservative beef on the issue is about the attempts to eradicate all evidence of religion from public places like schools (saying a prayer during a graduation speech e.g.). I'm pretty secular myself but I've no problem with little things like that. Frankly the conservative argument currently seems less imposing than the liberal one.

From the uniting of church and state site:

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/mbarber/101030

John Adams, our second U.S. president, famously observed: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

And then they go on to about uniting church and state.

As if government could make people moral. I think the article in unintended satire.

The conservative beef on the issue is about the attempts to eradicate all evidence of religion from public places like schools (saying a prayer during a graduation speech e.g.)

But what if I don't want to be subjected to a prayer at graduation. Or be forced to go to an assembly where the praises of Jesus are sung. Yeah - it happened to me numerous times growing up. And led to an intense hatred of Christians for many years. Fortunately I have mellowed over the years and the hate has been reduced to a mild dislike.

Be very careful what you ask for - it may not work out as planned.

And didn't the J man say such things ought be done in private? The sins compound.

Fortunately in America we have all these Christians on parade. So it is easy to see what they stand for.

And if Christians are so motivated by love why do so few speak out against the drug gulags? Well I know how to curse them out in the worst terms imaginable: hypocrites.

And as a parting note: 1 Samuel 8.

As a Christian, a prayer (whether student-led or otherwise) at a public school graduation really makes me squirm. Sure, most of the time the prayers are usually comprised of broad and nonspecific platitudes that most people would have no theological objection to. But what if the student leading the prayer--let's say the valedictorian--is Muslim, and directs the prayer to Allah? I would not be willing to actively participate in that, and it would rankle me that I was being subjected to it. Or what if the Muslim valedictorian tries to be non-offensive, and prays to Allah, Yahweh, Vishnu, etc. and implies they're all the same? That would REALLY make me steamed, as I cannot abide syncretism.

Well, if I myself would not want to participate or be subjected to such a prayer at a public (read: government) school, then by the same token, how dare I subject someone else to the same thing, just because THIS prayer I happen to agree with?

Sure, there are those who truly want to eradicate any trace of religion (specifically Christianity) from the public sphere, from our history, and from our culture, but there's a difference between trying to throw the historical context of religion/Christianity down the memory hole, and those who simply want to disassociate the government (and government institutions, such as public schools) from the religious.

As per usual conservatives are arguing against the results of their ancestor's policies. Public schools as indoctrination centers. See the genesis of the Jewish and Catholic private school systems.

The answer is not prayer in public schools. The answer is vouchers.

I don't get why socons have such a love for fighting symptoms and spend relatively little effort fighting the disease. I believe it is a fundamental cultural defect.

John S.,

A voice of sanity. Thank you.

The demand that fertilized eggs be treated as human beings, and that women who kill them be treated as murderers?

do you approve of partial birth abortion?

Many socons beleive that no one has a right to sin. As such, arguing about rights and liberty with them is futile. To them, it is mandatory that they support "morality" laws in order to be moral themselves.

Because they are approaching the law through a theologial prism, you have to argue against their theology and show them their errors.

I ask them why do they expect sinners to live like saints?

Christianity divides the world between the saved and the lost, and teaches that the lost will do things forbidden to the saved precisely because they are "lost". By making things "lost" people do into crimes, Christianity has positioned itself as the persecuters of sinners, to the harm of both.

The arguement that really dumbfounds the avg. Christian and moreso, the avg. socon, is when I argue that vice laws that prohibit certain actions are unjust and immoral. I argue that support for prohibitions of consensual behaviors is "bearing false witness against thy neighbor" and therefore a sin. The sin being the calling of certain behaviors (drugs, illicit sex, gambling) "crimes", when, in fact, there is nothing intrinsically criminal about any of these things. To call "sins" "crimes" is bearing false witness and a sin. Let me tell you, people who fancy themselves the paragons of virtue don't like to think about this line arguementation. LOL

Do you grok laughter?

M. Simon

Touche.

If no one has a right to sin then we will never see another St. Augustine.

Doug and Stan, I have heard of those who want to unify church and state. In fact, back when I was doing Y2K work, I spent a good amount of time 'discussing' things with a gentleman named Gary North.

His group was a bit more popular back then but they, and those like them, and those influenced by them are still around. They claim to believe in 'separation' of Church (theirs) and state in the sense that only their Church gets to punish moral crimes (including crimes by non-believers, of course). Legally. (Which kinda zaps that 'separation' bit.)

No thanks.

To call "sins" "crimes" is bearing false witness and a sin.

murder is a "judeo-christain sin" so it is not a crime

Sigh. Murder is a crime in all religions, as well as non-religious areas. Depending, of course, on how murder is defined (two cells is iffy). But just up and killing your next door neighbor because you don't like him qualifies everywhere I know of.

Sigh. Murder is a crime in all religions, as well as non-religious areas

not in islam. and name one non-religious area.

Heh. I used to fall into the mired pit of a concept that law is based on morality. Once you go there, all consistency is lost as morality varies in degree and is hardly universal.

Among the few things that should be illegal is violating the rights of others.

I don't think the folks who want to unify church/state are in the mainstream. Because of that and because I think the pendulum is currently more left, I tend to be more sympathetic to the conservative argument. However, point taken that if it does go the other way, things will be no better.

There needs to be a way for people to do what they want without infringing on others. Within those limits, I don't feel threatened.

Re the discussion on morality based law, I'd submit this. Doesn't any law have to be based on some moral standard? The question is what is that moral standard. Which reminds me of one of may favorite articles, a manifesto of sorts for the individual. Among the points is the need for a moral revolution - not the morality one might find in religion but the kind that comprises an individualist ethics.

http://www.atlassociety.org/tni/fourth-revolution

The demand that fertilized eggs be treated as human beings, and that women who kill them be treated as murderers?

when females know that they are pregnant?

Week 4: Through a complex series of folds, the disc-like embryo now has a head and a tail, with buds that will grow into limbs. The beginnings of a spinal column and muscles are apparent. The embryo is about 4 to 5 millimeters long -- a bit less than 1/4 inch.

Week 5:
Eyes are starting to form, a mouth-like opening appears near the "head"; finger and toes are beginning to form. The brain now has three recognizable divisions, as it does in the fully-developed baby and adult.

Week 6:
The beginnings of a nose and palate appear; eyelids cover the eyes. The brain is growing rapidly, making a prominent bulge in the head region. The length is not quite one inch.

link

newrouter,

I accept your point. Now suppose enforcement looks like Drug War enforcement.

Women will rise up against you. And in America they are (thank God) armed.

Now suppose enforcement looks like Drug War enforcement.

the only reason for the drug war inference is that the feds have taken over the issue. if pres. O! and his merry band in illinois want to suck out baby brains in the 9th month that's their choice.the fed gov't shouldn't play a role.

This idea? that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

reagan '64

Grateful Dead - Fire on the Mountain - 4-27-77

Looks like we can add intellectual dishonesty to the list of "sins" of the socons. In my earlier post, I specifically refer to vice laws in my critique of Christians bearing false witness by calling these behaviors crimes when they are not.

Do I have to say it? I guess I do for the dishonest socons. Here goes, all crimes are sins, but not all sins are crimes. Vice laws fall under the latter, not the former, as was clear in my earlier post.

Funny, none of the socons addressed my question as to why they expect the lost to live like saints. Evidently, in their world view, it's a-okay to expect the lost to live like saints. Not biblical, in my view, but pretty typical based on my own interactions with Christian family and friends over the years.

And Christians wonder why they get critizied. Sheesh.