jseal, i love it when we agree to get valuably involved.
but i spoke for myself in my previous post; not lakritze, or anyone else for that matter.
when i say debate, i don't mean the timed, formal, standardized kind we all learned in highschool, i mean an exchange of differing ideas and opinions...the key word there being opinion. and while i can respect, understand and welcome your penchant for finding documentation and statistics to support your ideas, they do not and will not sway me - it's just not how my mind works. but, if you’d like some footnotes, i suggest you check out the yurika report (it’s online) and some of what katherine yurika and her colleagues have to say: their opinions are chalk full of footnotes and documentation that support their ideas. then again, give me – or anyone - enough time and they could likely locate documents to support any idea - as the saying goes: figures lie and liars figure. i just like to go with my gut and i know you can appreciate my style as much as i can appreciate yours. heck, i'll even try to throw an honest to goodeness reference in this ... eh-hem ... rebuttal.
pointing out again that the mayor’s statement nor the article itself say that religious reasons were behind the splitting up of a family, although true, is wayward (although i still stick to my point that neither did it
not say it.) this article is what led to this discussion, no need to wonder why or say it shouldn’t have or couldn’t have. it did.
the point of the link to the reader entitled "dogmas and dreams", while interesting, was sorta lost on me. unless you only meant to point out that dogma can also mean a set of beliefs, not just religious beliefs. but i would have thought that what i was referring to when i referenced dogma was obvious because of how it related to what i was opining about. but to clarify the point, i meant it as this: - noun - the doctrine or a corpus of doctrines relating to matters such as morality and faith, set forth in an authoritative manner by a church (copied from dictionary.com) to put it in more bluntly and in my own words: the practice of certain churches to command that the rules set forth by the mortal leaders of the church automatically become religious law, accepted and upheld by their god, because that is a power that their god granted them as the chosen.
perhaps things will change when a new general assembly, president and local officials are elected, perhaps not. i don't mean to try and precict what will happen in the future, only what i see right now.
faith based initiatives have been around since, well since the beginning of faith, but they have never before been supported by a standing president, although i’m not sure if they have been attempted before. either way, they are now because…and i quote from the white house web site…” all too often, the Federal government has put in place complicated rules and regulations preventing FBCOs from competing for funds on an equal footing with other organizations. President Bush believes that besides being inherently unfair, such an approach can waste tax-payer dollars and cut off the poor from successful programs. Federal funds should be awarded to the most effective organizations—whether public or private, large or small, faith-based or secular—and all must be allowed to compete on a level playing field.” i.e. he has changed what the government - for almost two centuries - has done before him because it’s not fair. fair to whom, i wonder? the poor? there have always been places they could seek support. the churches? they receive money from private donors and if that has declined - as your statistics show - then so be it. if that latter is the reason for these monies, does that mean our government is subsidizing religion now? i have a personal problem with faith based initiatives taking money from our government but to take it a step further - what if they use this money to proselytize? is that o.k.? what if they already are? i suggest to you that it (FBCI) was begun as a personal expression of his own belief that churches must take a bigger role in the stabilization of our society and need money to do so.
the establishment clause of the first amendment is not as clear-cut to me. yes, it says that “the congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”. but that could be reasonably argued to mean any religious over any non-religious institution or philosophy in general.
respecting - trans. verb - relating to
establishment – noun - institution
so perhaps it means the congress shall make no law that has to do with an institution of religion, not the actual establishment (i.e. appointment) of any one religion as a state or national religion.
and perhaps the attempt to keep religion out of policy is doomed, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be tried or at the very least bitched about.
especially when said pollicies, even if they are supported by the majority, are turning good people into criminals or second class citizens. an apropos quote that puts a nice literary point on my opinion (and this may be paraphrased, i can not remember the quote exactly) … "the majority *never* has right on its side. never, i say! that's one of the social lies that a free, thinking man should and will rebel against. who makes up the majority in any given country? is it the sage or the fool? we must agree that the fools are in a terrible overwhelming majority all the world over. damnit, it can never be right that the stupid should rule over the clever!" ~ henrik ibsen, "an enemy of the people."
i suppose i consider myself a freethinking woman and must rebel against
any majority.
not to mention the problem i have with the machiavellian nature of many religious leaders who are trying to take a bigger role in the forming of u.s. policy. if a person believes that what they are doing is right and good, then why try to hide the reasoning behind the actions? (please refer to the article titled “the despoiling of america” - it’s about a third of the way down the home page of the yurika report - for footnotes on why i believe this to be true.).
a government of the people, by the people, and for the people is such a beautiful phase and has come to be as representative of the american way of life as the bald eagle has but it is so vaque to me...what does that mean, anyway? i put these ideas to you: a government of the people, by the people, and for the people would be a direct democracy not a combo liberal/representative democracy with the nebulous term
republic thrown in to confuse us all. in a government of the people, by the people, and for the people 50456169 would not be more than 50996116. in a government of the people, by the people, and for the people a president wouldn’t make a mockery of the congress by attaching more signing statements to bills than the previous 42 presidents did before him combined. a government of the people, by the people, and for the people wouldn’t make judgements on a citizens’ choices as long as those choices were fairly harmless to a prosperous society, after all, no matter what one's choices are, one is still
one of the people this government is supposed to be for.
(def went over my time on that^^^
)