Commissar

That's true, that most Christians are mellow and mild-mannered, but in the States, those aren't the spokesmen for the religion. Like it or not, it's Jerry Fallwell who's out there yapping, and then the 'religious right' goes and votes, and 99 times out of 100, they've voted the same way Fallwell did. Which makes it seem to those of us in the secular cheap seats that you just might agree with the guy. And you're right, many of the founding fathers - including Jefferson - were deists, which is why I think they'd probably be turning in their graves if they read that article.

Oh, and having just read that article, I'm fairly well shocked. Forty percent of Americans think that religions should play an active role in defining state and federal policy? I hate to use the slippery slope argument, but...the implications of that worry me. And I imagine the numbers are only going to go up.

I honestly didn't know he was quite so fanatically religious when I voted for him in 2000, and I was probably more involved in presidential politics than the average voter - I was one of McCain's volunteer spokesmen in southern Virginia during the primary - but, then again, I wasn't really voting for Bush, I was voting against Gore. Kind of like how I wasn't voting for Kerry, but against Bush in 2004. As far as the Schiavo case, I don't think Bush jumped in only because he decided to let Republican Congressional leadership do so instead. And believe me, they did. Do I think religion and government have become too much entwined in the States? Yes, I do, but then again, I'm quite clearly biased. I have no trouble with a candidate being particularly religious, but I am strongly against the government - any government - being run on religious principles. Faith has never been an acceptable reason to do anything but go to church, in my opinion. As soon as a politician makes a 'religious' argument, he's lost me. What it really boils down to is that if something's the right thing to do, it can be justified by other lines of reasoning. I think that politicians on both sides of the aisle - especially now that the donkeys got the snot beaten out of them in '04 - prefer the religious argument to the secular simply because it engenders more sympathy.

Well, the panel appointed to investigate intelligence failures - appointed by Bush, mind you - conclusively said they weren't there.

The oldest surviving city in Russia is Novgorod. The name translates, predictably, as "New City."

Thats very Sith of you actually you have a point because rather than solve problems or stand upto to their dictators people flee the country and seek asylum. Of course your method would result in 100,000's if not millions of deaths since the dictators are the ones with the tanks and in Sadams case the chemical weapons. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Eastern Europe might disagree with you.

Russia's holding onto Chechnya for more than the oil. In fact, Russia has, in one form or another, been trying to hold onto Chechnya since at least the 19th century. Chechnya is also not nearly as oil-rich as, say, Azerbaijan, which was allowed out without armed conflict. They don't need Chechnya; it's a point of pride thing. And there's this much to be said about democracy, by the way: it's the system that put Socrates to death, left Athens prostrate, allowed slavery as long as it was needed for a good economy, and elected George W. Bush twice.

I don't know about Georgia or the eastern countries that used to be part of the old USSR (Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, etc), but Ukraine for one isn't doing that bad. For instance I think their importance as a touristic destination is rapidly increasing. And as for the others, well, they are now free from the Russian rule, so it's up to them to get the country going. At least now they have a chance to to run the country, which they didn't have under the USSR. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> States like Estonia could be considered to be doing very well indeed, a NATO & EU member. Hard to say really. Depends how you define improvement. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The Baltic states are all better off economically than when they were under Soviet rule. Most of the 'stan' states - Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and the like - are a hell of a lot worse. Belorus is in that category as well. Georgia and Ukraine (despite the recent "revolution") and Russia are about the same, though there's a hell of a lot of Russians who think that the fall of communism was the worst thing that ever happened. And I don't mean like a small sect, I mean...well, like I said. A hell of a lot. One of the reasons why an authoritative Putin is viewed with favor by Russians. Giving Reagan credit for defeating the Soviet Union is like calling the guy who slips on a banana peel on the sidewalk, falling down and accidentally tripping the robbers as they're running out of the bank a brave hero. We didn't know at the time that the economic model of the USSR wasn't going to work; it was theorized by some economists at the CIA and think tanks, but it was only a theory. We had an arms race because we were afraid that we'd eventually have to go to war, and we wanted better equipment; there was not, to my knowledge, a secret plan to outspend the Soviets until they were economically exhausted, and thus bring about bloodless defeat. It just kind of happened, and Reagan got credit for it. I actually give much more credit to the Eastern European populations that revolted - despite such draconian measures as the secret police like the Stasi in East Germany employed. While they weren't part of the USSR, they were part of the Eastern Bloc, and, I might add, demonstrated that if a people as a whole want a change of government enough, they can make it happen without outside intervention. And yeah, that's a thinly-veiled call for Iraqis to sack up rather than have us do all the work. Credit also has to be given to Gorbachev; he probably could've held on if he wanted to, but instead decided that a massive change was needed. That took some balls.

So your another let him die of old age. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Why not? Want me to start a running list of oppressionist, non-democratic regimes that we haven't gone to war with? A close look at our international anti-terror partners might even turn up a few... Either we want to be the world's policeman, or we don't. If we do, we can't pick and choose easy fights. If we don't, then we've really got to stop trying to sell wholly self-interested actions as being for the better good of the world.

Article 42 authorizes use of military force in the event of non-compliance only if the UNSC votes to authorize that force. Did they do so for the recent invasion of Iraq? They did not. Therefore, the UNSC resolutions against Iraq have absolutely no bearing on the legality of the war. My point, since it's clear that I'm going to have to explain it to the meanest understanding, was that since neither (recent) resolutions against Iraq nor against Israel were voted on by the UNSC to require the use of force to gain compliance, they have an equal force. If we want to use UNSC resolutions as a causus belli, even if the UN says they're not, what does it matter what chapter they're filed under? The UNSC did not vote to sanction force against Iraq, despite our best efforts to do so - which included presentation of false documentation, I might add. And in hindsight, of course, it turns out that they were dead on the money, whereas we were either so poorly informed by our intelligence services that anything ever concluded by them in the future should be immediately thrown out, or we were lying about it all in the first place. The deep irony of it all is, most anti-war folks I know would have supported the war if we'd gone in for the reasons we now claim to have gone in for; namely, to liberate the Iraqi people from harsh oppression. We, however, generally aren't Machiavellian types who feel that a good end justifies any means. We happen to believe in, you know, rule of law and that sort of thing. Like it or not, this war was sold to us as being vital to our national security, which it simply was not. You want to make it a humanitarian thing now? Fine, but that still doesn't work in your favor. We work hand in hand with oppressionist regimes every day in that region, and we ignore other, graver humanitarian crises. Why? Working with the Saudis to bring about democracy in the Middle East is like having orgies in support of abstinence. But we can't get on without them, so we turn a blind eye and make them our buddies. We turn over terror suspects to countries with no limitations on torture to get the information we need, all while claiming to be a paragon of human rights and respect. Come on.

By the way - I quote from fallible memory - large protests in South Korean history today outside one of the military bases over there. And yeah, I did say South Korea. That I just simply do not get. Do they really think the North wouldn't come rolling across the line if we pulled out?

I don't know; I'm taking the word of the panel appointed to investigate the appalling intelligence failures that led up to the invasion. They say nothing was moved out, and they also say he never built any in the first place. They also say that the claims he could've ramped up to production capacity in three months' time were absurd.

What are the UNSC resolutions concerning Israel I mentioned concerning? Human rights violations (including murdering its own people), and the possible threat of nuclear weapons. You want more reasons? How 'bout the interesting little tidbit that Israel has started more wars in the region in the past 60 years than any other nation? Come to think of it, don't we prevent UN inspectors from getting a look at Israel's suspected nuclear facilities? Pretty sure the answer to that's yes. I'm not saying we should roll into Tel Aviv with the 101st, I'm simply saying that maybe we're not as hard and fast with our rules as you might like to think.

What was it Churchill said? The best argument against democracy is spending five minutes with the average voter? People voted for Hitler, too, don't forget. Success in an election that found the middle American more concerned about "them darn gays" getting health insurance from their partners' job than education, the environment, the economy, or deficit reduction doesn't really argue your point for you. You know, I used to try and argue the point whenever someone referred to me as one of those liberal intellectual elites. Now I just admit that I can indeed read and move on.

Tell that to Rush Limbaugh. Or Hannity himself. These portly gents are the voices of the "Middle America" that won Dubya his latest election; I'd say they serve their causes pretty damn well.

A few Desert Storm era mortar shells with Sarin gas is not WMD's, sorry mate, the war was illegal. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Have you seen what Sarin gas can do? And you are aware that he was testing this, as well as many other biological/chemical weapons on his own people, right? Besides, according to Bush, it was bad intel. I don't really know if that is the truth, but the fact of the matter is that we ARE there. Worry about all that sh*t when the war is over. And really the objectives of the war have drastically changed. Now it is a mission to liberate Iraq and give them the freedoms that we enjoy everyday. And personally, I think that we needed to free these people from the tyranny and oppression of that piece of crap Saddam. IMO, we should have taken him down when we had the chance during Desert Storm, but we made the mistake of not doing it. If we had, I'm sure we would have found the WMD's that he was hiding. Just think; he had an ampel amount of time to export them out of the country or hide them. Not to mention when the UN held us up, he had even more of an opportunity to get rid of anything he had left. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yeah...yeah. Look, every single report done on the matter states, clearly, that Iraq's WMD program was in a state of decline in the years leading up to invasion; they also unequivocally state that absolutely nothing was exported out of Iraq prior to us going in. Actually, pardon me; every single report, except for good ol' Halliburton ****'s constant insistance that Iraq has a nuclear arsenal on par with our own. And you're right, we should've gotten him in Desert Storm. Or we should've never sold him the weapons he used to kill his own people in the first place.

That's not the reason we went to war, however. We went to war because Iraq represented an immediate threat to the States, not because we wanted to help Iraqis; that's become the reason now that our initial justification has gone out the window. If we're talking UNSC resolutions, however...by that logic, we ought to be in Israel, right now. Israel, after all, holds the world record on UNSC resolutions broken, most of them dealing with Geneva Convention violations and nuclear capability pursuit/disclosure.

Well, I guess that kind of depends on what you view as international law and what you don't.

I actually liked Alexander a hell of a lot more than I thought I would, judging by the reviews. I mean, it had Angelina Jolie with a sexy accent... Rosario Dawson in a nude scene - who knew that chick had a RACK, by the way? Some good battles. No whitewashing over the homosexuality. Too long, in my opinion, but an interesting Stone movie, like all of his tend to be, like 'em or not.

Jesus didn't ask me to do ****. And in all probability he didn't ask you to do ****, either. I don't understand how you can have a faith where you consider roughly half of your holy book to be metaphor (at least, if you don't want to be branded an absolute nut for flying in the face of proven fact), disregard about twenty-five percent of the rest, and take the remaining quarter as undeniable truth. You call it metaphor or figurative when the Bible states that God created the earth in seven days, but do not question the virgin birth as absolute truth. You ignore all of the laws about when and where you can stone your wife/mother/son/brother, but eagerly devour the castigations against homosexuals. You cherry-pick what you like (and what still has not been proven false) from the Bible, and merrily go on your way without reference to the stuff you didn't pick. And that is the foundation for the way you view the world. Hell, I could come up with a pretty damn good religion myself by doing the same thing with 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea.

Please tell me you didn't actually type that. While it contains no Laws it was an official document of our government, you know kinda like the Congress is an officialwing of our government. It was a document of our government? Really? I didn't think our government was established until the drafting and ratification of the Constitution. The government we now have is the one laid out by the Constitution, which was established and ratified long after the writing of the Declaration of Independence. And the proof that it is not a part of our government and was never intended to be is that no one is required to swear to any god; no one is required to believe in any religion. There is no compromise in that. There is no trade-off along the lines of, "Well, as long as we don't have the church running the state, we'll let you have some religion in government." The swearing on Bibles and the use of the word "Creator" in the DoI have absolutely no legally binding status as far as the civil government is concerned. They mean nothing beyond their personal significance to whoever is swearing to whatever. They have no governmental significance whatsoever. These small imprints of government are not enforced by the Constitution or the law of the United States of America. At best, they're allowed under the First Amendment. You're not getting what I'm saying. I'm not trying to force my beliefs on the government; quote me once as saying that the government should come out with an official denouncement of Christianity as superstition or any such thing. What I'm trying to do is keep both your beliefs and mine out of the government. Because the government is not a place for faith, but for reason. And you're damn right, the minority should be protected, and is required to be protected by law. This "majority rules" business ends precisely where the minority's personal freedoms begin. The rule of the majority, for example, should not legally be able to draft a law outlawing paganism, or Islam, or Judaism. The majority should not be able to force its beliefs on the minority simply because there happen to be more of them. I choose to see the Constitution as regarding all faiths as equally baseless; you could also argue that it sees all faiths as equally important. The moderate way of saying it would be to suggest that no religion is more important than any other as far as the law of the United States goes, and yet we've violated that, haven't we? No, it was drafted before our government was established, as I've said. Nope, provided the Satan worshipper at the next desk can set up her shrine. And the Buddhist can have his statue. But we only ever hear about Christians trying to do this kind of thing, don't we? I'm curious why the hell Christians feel they need to make such displays of faith. So from the fact that they recognize Jesus as a prophet of Allah, you somehow get that they're actively recruiting? I may have missed a step in the argument.

My views are hardly exclusive, mostly because I work on the basis of my own personal ideas rather than toeing a line, be it party or religion. I've worked for Republicans and I've worked for Democrats (and I don't mean in the 'my boss is a Democrat' sense, I mean in the campaign sense). My girlfriend of several years is fairly religious herself, and I don't berate her on a daily basis. I think it's mostly because she's rejected organized religion as asinine and the highest form of human arrogance, so perhaps I should say spiritual rather than religious. And Christianity's not any different from Islam or Judaism or any of the others in declaring itself superior - though I've never met the Jewish version of an evangelical, I'll admit, and for that matter, no one's ever tried to convert me to Islam - but that's my problem with it right there. Why is Christianity right and the others wrong? To get more into it, why are Protestants right and Catholics wrong? You have absolutely no way of knowing that your religion is the one God would approve of; after all, millions and millions and millions of people believe just as fervently as you that they're right and you're wrong. And you presume to state that you understand the will of God? That anyone could? That pitiful little humans could understand what a supreme being wants out of us? And if you do, what kind of sick game is it all, then? We have to jump through hoops to reach heaven? He's supreme, why not just put us all there or put us all in hell or sort us all out by omniscience? Ah, free will, you say! Well, why? What is it, some sort of cosmic experiment to prove that some people will make right decisions and some will make wrong decisions? That feeling you have about, for example, pagans or Wiccans or atheists? We have that about you. Everyone tied to one sect or another thinks that any other sect is full of whackjobs. Tolerance or forgiveness or hatred or apathy, it doesn't matter, you still think you're right and the other guy's wrong. Catholics think Protestants are wrong, and Protestants think Catholics are wrong. Sunnis think Shi'ites are wrong, and Shi'ites think Sunnis are wrong. Tell me, then, why the hell you think any religion ought to have a place in a government that rules even one person with a different point of view?

The Declaration of Independence has nothing to do with our current government; it contains no laws. The Constitution does, and the Constitution separates the church from the state. There is no compromise there. I don't know what the hell you're trying to prove, but you've got nothing to back it up. I'm not attacking you, I'm just trying to make you understand that, as deists, the founders tried to separate civil government from religious institutions as much as they possibly could. Any lessening on that point means falling short of the way our country was meant to be governed. And you are still avoiding my question. You're a Christian. If Islam were the dominant religion in America, would you agree that religion should be allowed to influence government policies? And just so you can't talk around it anymore, I'm saying that you remain a Christian in an America where Islam is the dominant religion.

No, that wasn't my question. My question was, if Christianity was not the dominant religion in America, would you still want religion to play a role in government? If Islam was the dominant religion in America, would you, as a Christian, want the president enacting government policies based on his understanding of Islam? I really, really doubt it, but what you and millions of people on the same side are saying is that it's all good because it's Christianity that's doing the dominating. I know there are a lot of people who see no harm in little hints of religion here and there - they see Christianity as a good religion, the best religion, and that we'd probably think so too if only we knew the light of Jesus' love - or something. For the most part I do agree - I attend Catholic mass more often than anyone who could be called an agnostic has a right to, just because I enjoy the pageantry, the pomp and circumstance and the sense of the holy, however artificial - but there are certainly parts of it that are very, very hateful, and I believe, as the founders did, that its place is separate from the civil government. And I said I have no problem with military chaplains because the military is such a special case it almost doesn't bear examination.

Hmm. Sounds to me like tolerance would be better than forgiveness, as what you're describing is the belief that Christianity is superior to everything else. So, essentially, you'll forgive poor little agnostic me and exhort me to change my life, and to accept Christ, the lamb of hosts? You'll be cool with us as long as you become like us? Hell, maybe Christianity really is appropriate for America. That's our current foreign policy in a nutshell right there.