The Wrightwing

Over on NoGodBlog, the ‘house’ Blog of American Atheists, there is a post and comment thread about an attempted railroading of an Oklahoma Atheist family because their daughter objected to being forced into a prayer circle in her tax-payer funded Public School. The story is chilling in what can happen in America today. It is not just Islam that will engage in oppression and tyranny when it gains hegemony over a community. Without a courageous attorney and the support of American Atheists, and innocent man may have been imprisoned and a family run out of a state, forced to abandon their home and business.

So far, this case has attracted little attention outside the Atheist and Freethinker community. I can find no news sources on Google that mention it. Yet the only things this family did not endure were night riders and lynchings.

Corrupt and lying school officials, police, prosecutors and judges, along with biased and bigoted attorneys seeking to exploit and cheat them. It is a story out of the Jim Crow South. All you would need to do is change ‘Atheist’ to ‘African’ and you could not tell this story from others of that era.

Which brings me to arms.

I spend a lot of time, more than I probably should, on the NoGodBlog discussing and arguing with Atheists over politics, against collectivism and gun control, which many, though far from all, seem to support. At least within that grouping.

But one fellow there had a change of heart on guns, like I did over 25 years ago:

…I used to think as you do. I used to believe that guns were evil and the people that rely on them are cowards, afraid to back up what they say and do with little else but violence.

I swore I would never resort to gun promotion.

Then I took a job that required me to be armed, to take on the responsibility of protecting others. I leared how to safely handle a firearm.

The gun changed in meaning to me. I realized that it was little more than a tool. A tool when, in the right hands, has as much potential for good as it does for evil! Gun ownership did not transform me into a criminal. It did not give me any more desire to use a firearm on another human being than I already possessed.

It made me question the reason a free nation needs such a tool at all. I had my epiphany - arms make and keep humanity free and safe. Our revolutionaries did not merely bander harsh language with a tyrranical, abusive theocracy. They took lives and gave their own because they believed in their freedom!

I know how I must sound to you. Paranoid, delusional, even insane? I assure you that I’d have held those same sentiments not so terribly long ago! But I was an idealist. I believed in our police, our courts, our laws (and for the most part still do).

But I’ve also taken the bitter pill of realism, I’ve stood face-to-face with men that threatened my very life and the live of those I love. I’ve been forced into the harsh light of the truth: we will never, as a species, stop killing one another and we will never live in the utopias we dream of. The only solution to certain kinds of people will always be violence and it can only be met with violence.

There is more. Go and read the entire post and comments. A worthy story to become familiar with.

In my mostly wasted youth I was also very anti gun. I had stickers on my car from Handgun-Control Inc. The ones with a revolver inside an international ‘NO’ symbol, the circle-slash.

Then I went into the Army, (for the wrong reasons and all too briefly), and actually used some: M-16, M-60, M1911, M2, as well as taking the Armorer course, (not intentionally, it was ‘on the way’).

I still thought they should be severely restricted, but also kept reading on the subject, (among many). Being an activist in the LP, though coming to it from the left, for reason of personal freedom such as an end to Drug Prohibition, as well as an obsessive reader, I was exposed to ideas and thinkers from a wide variety of sources.

Having read the arguments on both sides, and having experience with arms, how they operate and their capabilities and just as important, their limitations, my mind was changed.

Everything I have seen, including the tragedies, since then has only reinforced my belief, a belief based on empirical evidence.

Like drug prohibition, gun prohibition is worse that whatever social ills it is supposed to cure.

While gun prohibition is no guarantee of political tyranny, it sets the stage. Every oppression or slaughter of minorities in history has been prefaced by a disarming of the targeted group. Go back in history before firearms were invented and you will see it. Look at modern history and you will see it.

In the past century alone, disarmed populations have been slaughtered in Armenia, Germany, Russia, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Uganda, Somalia, Rwanda, more.
The banning of guns has lead to massive increases in crime in Jamaica, Britain and Australia, not to mention cities like Washington, D.C. and Chicago.

Guns in the hands of individuals can lead to tragedies, but they are tragedies limited to what a single person can do.
Guns in the hands of governments, without an equally armed populace to restrain that government, leads to tragedy on a national scale, if not outright slaughter.

Minorities of all persuasions, racial, religious, political, all of them, should always keep arms, and not let the government know it.

The day the government decrees that you must give up your arms is the day you must use them, even if it is just to flee over the border to the safety of asylum in another country.

Recently, an Amendment to the Constitution was barely defeated. This Amendment would have authorized Congress to pass laws prohibiting the physical desecration of the flag.

The Text:

The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.

This would have been only the third time in U.S. history that the Constitution was used to oppress the rights of people under the jurisdiction of the Federal Government. The defeat was a good defeat, and hopefully this will not come up again. The upcoming elections in November will change the configuration of Congress, so that this will have less chance than ever of passing. At least it should if we have any respect for freedom.

Does anyone remember the two times violations of human rights were written into the Constitution?

The first time was at it’s very creation, and officially became law upon ratification on June 21, 1788 with that first and most egregious oppression of human rights, the Three fifths clause that institutionalized slavery in the US. The delegates knew that it would lead to conflict later on, but without it the slave states would not join a union, and fearing a division of strength in the face of the global powers of the day, not to mention the threat of mother England trying to regain control of her former colonies, the abolitionists relented.

And it did. A mere 73 years later, within the lifetime of many alive as youngsters when ratified, this bastard clause led to the Civil War in 1861. One of the bloodiest battles in history, the bloodiest in U.S. history so far, Antietam, occurred during that war. Wounds were created that still fester to this day, generations later.

The second time rights violations were written in was when Alchohol Prohibition was enshrined by way of the 18th Amendment. An attempt at human social engineering the world had not yet seen the like of in modern times, until the truth of the horrors of the Soviet and Red Chinese revolutions that were hidden at the time, saw light.

This rasp of idiocy led to a decade of violence, corruption and cynicism on the part of the American populace. It started the tear in the fabric of trust the public had in government, a tear that has grown ever larger as the decades since have rolled on. But we did learn one big lesson form that mistake. Never put these things into the Constitution, a lesson learned well by Franklin D. Roosevelt when he implemented his rape of the Constitution during his New Deal. A lesson learned by those that later went on to wage “wars” on Poverty, Drugs and Guns.

Both of these attempts to restrict rights through the Constitution led to violence and death. It could be argued that Prohibition still does, through the never abandoned idea that simply banning something potentially harmful, can make society all better.

What could be the consequences of a ban on Flag Burning?

The first erosion of the hard won victories in free speech, for one. After all, if we can ban something as offensive as flag burning some people, what can we ban next? Gay porn is offensive, so ban that. Next could be Heterosexual porn of certain genre’s and then of course all of it.

How about offensive political speech? I could certainly stand to see less of Rick “Gays ‘R Bad, mmkay?” Santorum, Ted Stevens, Cynthia McKinney, Jabba the Kennedy.

Those folks all spout stuff offensive to many, can we ban them next?

How about Intelligent Design nonsense? Can we ban that? No? Not enough support? Well Evolution then, that pisses a lot of people off.

What kind of response will we see from the population when more and more speech is banned as a desecration by more and more Amendments, provided the bother of further Amendments is even pretended. This would seem to be a perfect laboratory for the Law of Unintended Consequences. I, however, do not care to be a rat in that maze.

Flag burning is such an infrequent occurrence that to pass a Constitutional Amendment to ban it, it is clear, is nothing more than a cynical attempt to pander to the most rabid right wing ideologs in a manner that will intimidate the weak-kneed on the left to go along.

And it almost worked.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

Why the First Amendment?

This is why:

A large Delaware school district promoted Christianity so aggressively that a Jewish family felt it necessary to move to Wilmington, two hours away, because they feared retaliation for filing a lawsuit. The religion (if any) of a second family in the lawsuit is not known, because they’re suing as Jane and John Doe; they also fear retaliation. Both families are asking relief from “state-sponsored religion.”
…
Classmates accused Alex Dobrich of “killing Christ” and he became fearful about wearing his yarmulke, the complaint recounts. He took it off whenever he saw a police officer, fearing that the officer might see it and pull over his mother’s car. When the family went grocery shopping, the complaint says, “Alexander would remove the pin holding his yarmulke on his head for fear that someone would grab it and rip out some of his hair.”

In addition:

Special privileges for christian students not available to jews or other non-christians, taunts, physical harassment, deliberate, premeditated violation of law and U.S. Supreme Court rulings by both the school board and a local judge.

Sounds to me there area few folks down there that need to start looking to their Second Amendment rights. And it aint the christians.

hat tip fark

Recently, I have fed a troll over on another site who either refuses to, or is unable to, separate the sacrifices our soldiers have made, from earliest history up to today, from the actions of the politicians that sent them into harms way. This person, deficient in human understanding, paints all veterans, living and dead, with the stains of those that used them for reasons dishonorable, with no exception for those times that were honorable. It is people like this that have given Liberalism a bad name: The self righteous intolerance of the fanatic is not confined to religion.

Today I went online just to look up some poetry, thinking that would persuade and I found a lot.

Perhaps the most famous one:

In Flanders Fields
John McCrae
(1872-1918)

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Or this from Abraham Lincoln, while not poetry in the strict sense, is poetic how much it says in its brevity:

Executive Mansion
Washington, November 21, 1864

To Mrs. Bixby, Boston, Mass.

Dear Madam,

I have been shown in the files of the War Department
a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts,
that you are the mother of five sons who have died
gloriously on the field of battle.

I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words
of mine which should attempt to beguile you from
the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot
refrain from tendering to you the consolation that
may be found in the thanks of the Republic they
died to save.

I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the
anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only
the cherished memory of the loved and lost,
and the solemn pride that must be yours, to have
laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom.

Yours very sincerely and respectfully,

A. Lincoln

There is too much.

Perhaps I am getting soft in my old age, but much of what you will find brought tears to my eyes, and will to yours, if you have a heart and any human compassion in your being.

Do your own search, either online or in treeware, and find what affects you most.

A question for, and from, my liberal friends and readers:

Why should we teach our children, indeed ourselves, about guns, gun safety and gun use?

This was brought to mind as I was perusing the site of the Spiral Scouts after my previous post about the Boy Scouts. The Spiral Scouts are a scouting organization originally founded by Wiccans, but open to all minority faiths. (I am waiting to hear if that includes Atheists and freethinkers). So this is directed primarily to them.

Update: I received the following reply on 11-May from TJ Smith of the Spiral Scouts:

Thank you for your interest in SpiralScouts. SpiralScouts is open to anyone, regardless of their beliefs or lack thereof. The founding group was based with the Aquarian Tabernacle Church, but each individual group is free to incorporate religion in whatever manner they see fit if they incorporate it at all. SpiralScouts is meant to be all inclusive, not discriminating anyone based on any beliefs or orientations they hold. As such, there is no separate requirements for anyone of any subgroup. Hopefully this clarifies things for you, and feel free to contact me should you have further questions or need additional clarification.
Anthony “TJ” Smith
New Charters Coordinator, SpiralScouts International
Tribal Coordinator, Sunshine Tribe
Circle Co-Leader, Emeraldfire Circle #48

So it would appear that each group can choose the policy that fits best. So perhaps Camp Quest can become part of the Spiral Scouts? (chuckle).

They do not list any formal activities or ‘merit badges’ as the BSA does. But they are fairly new, so may not have their program as formalized as it may become in the future.

But I suspect that they would object to any sort of ‘merit badge’ for firearms, similar to the BSA’s Rifle Shooting and Shotgun Shooting badges. I do not know why, but I perceive that Wiccans and other minority religions tend to the leftist/liberal corner of the political chart (take the quiz here). I could be wrong about that, if so, let me know.

So this is for those who think that we should not allow children access to guns under any circumstances. That guns are something that should not be a topic of education for the young.

That, I think, is a mistake. Now, there will be many who will refuse to consider what I have to say, so be it. But for those with open minds on the issue, I ask that you consider my arguments here.

We are a technological species. We extend out abilities in every direction by the use of technology. Whether it is as simple as using fire for heat and cooking, to launching satellites into orbit or exploration of the stars.

Guns are also part of our world. There is probably not modern a human settlement on the face of the planet without them. They are a technology older than the printing press, older than motor vehicles or bicycles, older than electrical systems or modern indoor plumbing. They are, indeed, one of humanities oldest technologies.

Firearms are an extension of the ancient technology of the spear and the bow and arrow. They are a tool, a machine, used to throw a projectile at a target. This target can be a simple piece of paper or wood or some other stationary object. But the intent of this tool is to stop a living animal or human. Usually to kill it. This can be for food to sustain ourselves and our children. It can be an act of defense, to stop, capture or kill an animal or person that is a threat or has done injury to those we are obligated to protect and defend.

And as with all inventions of humanity, they can also be used for evil. But so can a spear, a bow and arrow, a knife, a club, or any of the myriad other inventions we remarkable apes have conjured up in our history.

Guns are things, with no nature of good or evil. That nature lies in the one that uses them. We must teach how to use these tools with good intent and with responsibility, so that the irresponsible and those with evil intent do not rule us.

We can choose to ignore them, and try to raise our children without knowledge of them.
But what has ignorance ever achieved other than tragedy?

I argue against ignorance. I argue that knowledge and responsibility are what should be taught instead. That good intent and responsibility are better than fear and irresponsibility.

Would we send our children off into the world without sex education of some sort? We can argue the nature of it, and yes, there are those that think ignorance of sex is the moral way to spend ones life. But the majority of us, I think, would agree that knowledge of the potential consequences of sexual activity, heartache, disease, pregnancy, responsibility for a child, are all things our children should be aware of before we send them out into the world.

Would we send them out into the world without knowledge of the bad things people can do or the dangers of the world? Cheating when making change for a purchase? Robbing you when you are unawares. Crossing a street full of cars? The dangers and uses of fire?

All of these potential dangers, and more, we teach to our children. And how to handle them responsibly and avoid their dangers.

Guns are a tool of survival. They exist in every corner of human society. They can be dangerous. Our children need to know enough to be safe around them, even if it is just enough to know how to take one away from a child that somehow gets its hands on one. To take it away safely, so that something more tragic does not occur. If just for that, we should be teaching firearms knowledge to our children, even if we intend they never own or handle a firearm in their entire life.

We, as a species, are omnivores. Yes, many of us choose to live a vegetarian or vegan life style, but the majority do not. Firearms are a tool uniquely suited to hunting animals in as humane a manner as possible. They kill faster and with less pain than do arrows, spears or snares. If we choose to teach woodcraft and survival skills to our children, why would we withhold knowledge of a tool so important and useful for survival and for humane treatment of those animals we hunt? Respect for nature includes not abusing it, which I think includes taking animals for food in as least a cruel and painful manner we can use.

We as a species can be violent. While a firearm can be used to commit violence, it can also be used to defend against that violence. We do not pull the fangs of a sheepdog because a wolf eats our sheep with his fangs. We do not pull the quills of a porcupine, because it may injure us should we touch it, those quills are there for a reason, there are considerations other than our own comfort. A firearm is uniquely suited to fending off an attacker before they get close enough to lay hands on you. Something we should all be able to teach our daughters, the most vulnerable of our children.

Many argue that unarmed self defense can be used. But can you teach every person to a sufficient level to guarantee that? Can you teach everyone to the level of a Bruce or Brandon Lee, or a Chuck Norris? Must all our daughters become Lara Croft, and our sons Kwai Chang Cain? And if you do teach everyone those techniques, what is to prevent some miscreant from using those techniques we taught them for evil any more than they would a firearm? And what of those that can not attain this level of skill? Do we leave them to the mercies of the silled? This would lead back to a time when the physically strong ruled over the physically weak. Think hard on that consequence.

We are a species that needs to be taught discipline and responsibility in order to live a good life, a life better than that lived by other animals. There are few things that teach that more than the responsibility of handling dangerous tools like firearms safely around others.

We are a species that needs to be taught how to concentrate, focus, wait patiently and then act when appropriate. Few things teach that concentration and patience better than target shooting.

We are a species that needs a sense of accomplishment to engage a love of learning. Few things do that better than over coming the fear of a dangerous piece of machinery and using it effectively. The smile on a child’s face the first time they hit a bullseye shows how effective marksmanship is at this.

I am not advocating that Spiral Scouts or any other group have kids walking around dressed in camouflage like Marine Snipers carrying assault rifles at sleep-away camp. I am advocating the teaching of knowledge, skill and responsibility.

If you believe that guns should only be held at armories or centralized shooting clubs, fine. But you can still teach the knowledge.

If you believe that only government authorities should have guns, fine. But until that happens, you can still teach the knowledge.

The truth will set you free. Knowledge is power. Ignorance is slavery.

Many philosophies and religions teach these in different ways. I do not know what the various Wiccan groups teach about protecting life, humane treatment of animals, the reponsibility of defending children, the weak and others in general, but I can not imagine most advocate ignorance of firearms the way so many on the Christian Right advocate ignorance of procreation. I can not imagine most would forgo teaching knowledge of the single most effective piece of technology we clever apes have devised to fulfill so many of the responsibilities that life entails.

For all those reasons, and more, I hope Spiral Scouts, and other youth groups like the Girl Scouts or Camp Quest or those of any minority faith that are springing up in response to the BSA’s intolerance, will include some sort of ‘merit badge’ for firearms.

Besides, why let the intolerant and the bigots have all the power, or, for that matter, all the fun?

GeekWithA45 has had a thought others have also entertained:

What if we granted statehood to all cities of greater than a million population? That would create 10 new states. There would be 20 new Senators seated into a senate of 70, and the overall number of seats in the House, and their composition would remain pretty much the same. My presumption is that most of these new Senators would be of a neoliberal bent.

I have contemplated this occasionally, but also have some qualms as does Geek.

The number of electors is equal to the number of Representatives and Senators a state sends to Congress, except that every state is guaranteed one Representative, so the number of Representatives may, or may not, change a bit depending on how the division is made. So if a state already had only 1 Representative and 2 Senators, and split, that would mean 2 Representatives and 4 Senators for the same area. But for larger states, like NY and CA, there may not be a change to the total Representatives, though there would be more Senators, as Geek points out. But since most, if not all of the states/cities involved have larger delegations already, I think the increase would be mostly, if not completely in the Senatorial numbers.

There is a limit on the number of Representatives: No more than one rep per 30,000 counted in the census. Though right now I think it is one per 650,000, though I do not have a source for that.

So all in all, the number in Congress would certainly increase, at least in the Senate if not the House, though the House would also likely get larger as well. So would the number of electors.

What would change would be the proportion of seats held by either of the two old parties.

Since the large, Democratic run cities would no longer be able to rule over the less populous rural areas, the number of rural conservative Representatives and Senators would likely increase. We would see a decrease of conservative Democrats, ala Lieberman, (who is conservative relative to say, Kennedy), as they are marginalized or absorbed by the Republicans, and ostracized by the usually intolerant radical left in the party, causing a shift farther to the left from the center in the Democrats, making them look like clones of Nancy Pelosi. I shudder at the idea.

But there would also be a similar shift in the Republicans. The less conservative republicans, like Guiliani, Specter, Whitman, etc., would tend to lose influence, since their base is largely in the urban areas, which would be monopolized by the Democrats. Moderate Republicans would start to disappear as they were either marginalized or absorbed by the liberals and Democrats in the cities. So the Republicans would likely start to look more like clones of Rick Santorum, a truly scary thought.

So there are pluses and minuses to this idea. The cities would cease to dominate the rural and suburban folks, but since the increased number of Senators would be mostly part of the conservative persuasion, and probably Republican, we would see a swing to the right in the Senate. The balance in the House would likely be a wash, since if there is any increase in the number of Representatives, it would probably be evenly distributed between rural and urban areas.

But the political debate would, I think, become even more polarized than it is now, since those controlling each party would tend be more part of the extreme part of each, than the moderate part of each party.

The problem I think, is the winner-take-all nature of our political system, which, if you look around the world, is uncommon. It leaves little room for moderates or minority points of view, and tends to give the most power to extreme points of view.

This can be illustrated by the tactics our own politicians use when they seek the nomination of their parties during the primaries, by catering, often pandering, to the ‘base’ of their respective parties by making speeches and taking positions to motivate the more extreme ends of each parties membership, but then after nomination, moving to the center by moderating their language and tactics for the general election.

This is also illustrated by the change in the makeup of Congress after the 1940’s, when, during the height of the cold war, at-large elections were eliminated and the winner-take-all Congressional District system was put in place, slowly, state by state. The small but dynamic representation in the House of minor parties has all but disappeared, and in most sessions, does not exist at all.

Political Divisions of the House of Representatives (1789 to Present)

You will note that at many times minor party representation in the house exceeded 10% of the membership, and in the 18th session, 1823-1825, minor party members totaled 36% of the membership, actually exceeding the majority party membership by 5 seats.

I tend to think some sort of system of proportional representation would make for a better system. It would eliminate the need for politicians to indenture themselves to positions they do not agree with and encourage parties with actual view points and principles to form. Voters would need to make fewer compromises, which I think would encourage more people to vote, since they would then have something to vote FOR, rather than fewer things to vote against. There would be more honesty in the political process, (which is not saying much as any increase in honesty would be breathtaking), since people could support parties and candidates that they actually agree with, rather than having to choose between two equally disagreeable choices or staying home and having no say.

This would also provide an outlet for more extreme viewpoints, allowing the major parties to cease pandering to vocal internal agitators.
It would also provide a platform for new ideas, where they can be offered without the dilution and marginalization that occurs when they are proposed in the current two major party system.

Of course, both ideas, city-states and proportional representation, stand little chance of enactment. The two old parties have too much invested in the current system to allow change. Just look at something as rational and desperately needed as tax reform. It has been debated for DECADES, with no real change. Something as fundamental as this will take the type of upheaval this country has not seen since the Great Depression or the Civil War.

In this article it is reported that both Borders Books and Walden Books will not be carrying the current issue of Free Inquiry magazine, due to it containing four of the Danish cartoons of mohammed that so offended mohammedans that they went on a murderous riot spree across Europe and the Middle East.

Borders Books and Music, one of the country’s largest bookstore chains, has refused to stock the latest edition of Free Inquiry magazine because the issue includes controversial cartoons that spurred violent and sometimes deadly protests in parts of Europe, the Middle East, Africa and South Asia.

A Borders spokeswoman said the company declined to sell the Amherst-based publication this month out of concern for the safety of employees and customers.

Barnes and Nobel are reported to still be reviewing the issue.

Please write to Barnes and Nobel and ask them to stock the magazine. Borders/Walden have already caved in.

Here is a copy of the email I just sent, encouraging B&N to stock the magazine:

Subject:
Free Inquiry magazine
From: Tom Wright
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 12:17:00 -0500
To: mkeating@bn.com

Dear Ms. Keating,

I read today that there is controversy over the most recent issue of Free Inquiry magazine, due to the inclusion of some of the editorial cartoons from Denmark that sparked violence on the part of religious extremists in Europe and the Middle East.
These same cartoons have not caused such problems here, due, I think, to our long tradition of non-violent political debate, in contrast to the traditions elsewhere of repression, riot and revolution.

Your competitors at Borders/Walden Books have already caved into the fear of retaliation presented by this pogrom of censorship engaged in by the forces of repression.

While I am not a regular reader, nor a subscriber of, Free Inquiry magazine, I am a loyal Barnes and Noble customer, both on line and at the stores. Indeed, I just renewed my Readers Advantage membership yesterday at your Paramus, N.J. store while making a purchase.

I urge you to not give in to these same fears, and to show the reason and courage that a free society demands of its citizenry.
Please stock Free Inquiry magazine in any store that normally does.

Thank you for your attention,

Tom Wright
xxx xxxxxxxx xxxxx.
xxxxxxxxx, N.J. 0xxxx

Update: Andrew Sullivan points out:

And if you want to draw a lesson from the entire episode, it’s obvious: violence against free writers and artists gets results. We have all but invited more.

Andrew Sullivan seems to have become a nexus for secularists this past week, and with good reason. As I noted in the previous post, he has had his own struggles with faith, and has dealt with them openly.

From that, he has opened a conversation that is long overdue.

His most recent gems:

A reader points to this quote from John Adams -

“Government has no Right to hurt a hair of the head of an Atheist for his Opinions. Let him have a care of his Practices.” as offered by Jon Rowe and unearthed here.

A reader writes in on his families non-religious, though not atheist life style, wishing that the ‘haters’, on all parts of the political spectrum, would just leave us all alone.

And some posts on the evangelical right and how John McCain has seemingly abandoned a previous position against religious extremists, only to embrace them now.

There are reasons A.S. is so popular, one is his open journey in his own faith. This is much appreciated, all the more so because it is honest, conflicted and sincere.

So to all my conservative ‘friends’ who are religious and continue to think they have a corner on the market in morality, and to my fellow secular and atheist citizens, who think they have no place in conservative circles, maybe it is time to re-think.

Since last Thursday, when Andrew Sullivan noted the survey that detailed just how hated atheists are in the U.S., he has had a series of posts and exchanges with readers on religous freedom.

Today, he points to what Thomas Jefferson wrote about children being taken from parents due to lack of religion on the part of parents, as well as to a very long article Eugene Volokh and Gary T. Schwartz have written for the New York University Law Review on judicial discrimination against Atheist parents.

From the introduction, some of which A.S. also quotes:

“Percy Bysshe Shelley was a poet and a cad. He married his wife, Harriet Westbrooke, when she was 16, but left her for Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin three years later. When Shelley left Harriet, their daughter was a year old, and Harriet was pregnant with their son. Two years later, Harriet drowned herself. When Shelley decided to raise the children himself, Harriet’s parents refused to turn them over, and Shelley went to court. Though fathers had nearly absolute rights under then-existing English law, Shelley became one of the first fathers in English history to lose custody of his children. Percy Shelley was also an avowed atheist—and the Court of Chancery mostly relied on his views, not on his infidelity or unreliability, in denying him custody.2 Shelley shouldn’t be put in charge of the children’s education, the Lord Chancellor reasoned:

Shelley endorsed atheism and sexual freedom, and would teach his children the same values. Twenty years later, Justice Joseph Story likewise wrote that a father could lose his rights for “atheistical[] or irreligious principles.”

Shelley’s case may look like something out of another time and place. That time and place, it turns out, is 2005 Michigan, where a modern Shelley might be denied custody based partly4 on his “not regularly attend[ing] church and present[ing] no evidence demonstrating any willingness or capacity to attend to religion with [his children],”5 or having a “lack of religious observation.”6 It’s 1992 South Dakota, where Shelley might have been given custody but only on condition that he “will agree to present a plan to the Court of how [he] is going to commence providing some sort of spiritual opportunity for the [children] to learn about God while in [his] custody.”7 It’s 2005 Arkansas, 2002 Georgia, 2005 Louisiana, 2004 Minnesota, 2005 Mississippi, 1992 New York, 2005 North Carolina, 1996 Pennsylvania, 2004 South Carolina, 1997 Tennessee, 2000 Texas, and, going back to the 1970s and 1980s, Alabama, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Iowa, Montana, and Nebraska.8 In 2000, the Mississippi Supreme Court ordered a mother to take her child to church each week, reasoning that “it is certainly to the best interests of [the child] to receive regular and systematic spiritual training”;9 in 1996, the Arkansas Supreme Court did the same, partly on the grounds that weekly church attendance, rather than just the once-every-two-weeks attendance that the child would have had if he went only with the other parent, provides superior “moral instruction.”

While I have faced some discrimination and bigotry for my atheism, it has been rather minor and easily borne and deflected.

But to lose your child? That is an outrage worthy of armed defiance. Why these judges still draw breath is testament to the peaceful nature of most Atheists. Or perhaps to their compete subjugation by the religious hegemony in this country.

Yet sources such as Fox News and conservative commentators have been flogging a ‘war on christianity’ meme for the past few years. I would ask them, if there is such a war, where are the christians that have had their children seized due to their faith? Where are the laws discriminating against christians? Where is the government funding for atheist or even non-christian monuments and public displays?

We Atheists may not be under threat of summary execution here in the U.S., as we are in some mohammedan countries, but there is still work to do towards true equality under the law, and religious neutrality in the government.

This is important work. Anyone with concern for religious freedom in this country should take the time to read it. Atheists involved in custody suits should print it out and give it to their lawyers.

The saddest thing about this, is that I am not surprised. Traveling legally, obeying the law, under protection of Federal law, is apparently illegal in New Jersey.
What’s your point? You’se gotta problem wit’ dat?

When Gregg Revell packed his bags for a trip to Pennsylvania last April, he had no idea how far he’d be traveling.
Before the week was out, the 57-year-old suburban real estate agent and grandfather would be arrested, thrown into one of the country’s most notorious jails, strip searched and inoculated against his will. The soft-spoken Utah native would be on his way to becoming a poster child for the National Rifle Association in a $3 million lawsuit.
During a nearly five-day stay in a Newark, N.J., jail, he would meet a terrifying side of America that most Utahns see only on television and briefly would become a jailhouse mentor to drug dealers and violent criminals.

All because New Jersey has a pathological, hysterical, fear of freedom.

I gotta get out of this state.

Is it starting to be time to consider Canadian Citizenship?

Is there nothing in the Constitution this sock puppet will fail to molest?

King George has issued a Royal Edict:

Executive Order: Responsibilities of the Department of Homeland Security with Respect to Faith-Based and Community Initiatives

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to help the Federal Government coordinate a national effort to expand opportunities for faith-based and other community organizations and to strengthen their capacity to better meet America’s social and community needs, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Establishment of a Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives at the Department of Homeland Security.

via Balko

ASSemblyman Peter J. Biondi, Repugnantican from the Somerset/Morris area of New Jersey, has introduced a bill to forbid anonymous posting on public Internet forums, and to require identification of those that do post.

2. The operator of any interactive computer service or an Internet service provider shall establish, maintain and enforce a policy to require any information content provider who posts written messages on a public forum website either to be identified by a legal name and address, or to register a legal name and address with the operator of the interactive computer service or the Internet service provider through which the information content provider gains access to the interactive computer service or Internet, as appropriate.

It is clear from this that Biondi is ignorant of current technology that does not involve paper, boots and brown shirts, and that he is ignorant of the needs of free speech in a free society, and is irrelevant to modern society after about, oh, say 1970. Your papers please!

This man is a laughingstock to anyone capable of programming their own VCR, which is all the more sad, considering that VCRs are nearing obsolescence.

Just as Democrats make themselves irrelevant by continuing to call for bankrupt ideological laws on gun control, socialized medicine, and the drug war, so Republicans throw away any credibility they have by promoting clueless ignorance such as this, along with anti-evolution, anti-gay laws. There are many other things these two old parties do to drive away good people of reason, but those are enough to list here.

If this should pass and be signed into law by our fuhrer governor Corzine, NJ would become the butt-pit of free speech, in complete accord with the goals of the federal authoritarian McCain-Feingold act.

Whether or not this passes, I hereby declare this website private. Membership is open only to members species whose genetic code is within 99.01% of the genome of Homo Sapiens. While I realize this is an extremely exclusionary requirement, excluding over 99% of the life-forms on the planet, I believe that this will make for a much more manageable site for the primary readers.

I will also consider auxiliary memberships for non-human sentients that are capable of making a cogent request for membership, in English, via the on-line registration process. I expect such requests to be very few, but none the less, welcome.

via drudge

Via Andrew Sullivan here is a secular Arab-American woman confronting an islamo-fascist on al-Jazeera TV, and ripping him a new one, in defense of western liberal values and condemnation of islamic terrorism and tyranny.

Link to video.

Transcript on jihadwatch:

Wafa Sultan, a psychologist from LA, here speaks with Dr. Ahmad Bin Muhammad, an Algerian professor — this was aired on Al-Jazeera on July 26, 2005. Sultan starts out by asking him why Muslim men become suicide bombers. She speaks plainly about the role of Islam:

Wafa Sultan: [...]In our countries, religion is the sole source of education, and is the only spring from which that terrorist drank until his thirst was quenched. He was not born a terrorist, and did not become a terrorist overnight. Islamic teachings played a role in weaving his ideological fabric, thread by thread, and did not allow other sources – I am referring to scientific sources – to play a role. It was these teachings that distorted this terrorist and killed his humanity. It was not (the terrorist) who distorted the religious teachings and misunderstood them, as some ignorant people claim.

When you recite to a child still in his early years the verse: “They will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternate sides cut off,” regardless of this verse’s interpretation, and regardless of the reasons it was conveyed or its time – you have made the first step towards creating a great terrorist…

Astounding. Possibly suicidal. While here in America we have seen very few killing over things like this, or honor killing of women over family honor either, an action this brave and defiant by a woman may be more than some extremists can bear.

I hope she has made provision for security and self defense, though if she lives in California her rights regarding self defense are oppressed by the state. I would rather hear her voice again, than here of her being martyred on the altar of liberal democracy.

Via Andrew Sullivan, a dystopian version of the near future presented by the ACLU:

The Pizza Order. Safe for Work, has sound.

If only they could see reason on Gun Rights.

Gun registration is bad for this very reason: Minorities, of any kind, can be targeted for harassment, and the lists used for confiscation.

If you think that is paranoid how about this: Last summer Federal Agents targeted women and young Black males for harassment at Virginia gun shows, who were making perfectly legal purchases. Apparently, this occurred in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area as well. They were followed, harassed, and visited at their homes days after the fact by more agents. Some were arrested without authority.

Agents of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), allegedly acting without warrants or legislative authority to do so, seized firearms from at least 50 gun show patrons in Virginia according to congressional testimony and an agency document made public Wednesday. Witnesses also testified that African-American and female gun buyers in Richmond, Va., and Pittsburgh, Pa., were profiled based on their race or sex and some in Pittsburgh were threatened with arrest by ATF agents for alleged actions that are not violations of law.

The message is clear: If you are a minority of any sort, the government does not want you armed. All you folks in blue states where government restrictions on gun purchases are the most severe, California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and others, think about this.

In states with large minority populations, why do they want to keep you unarmed? Why is it that the politicians in those areas that you have allowed to co-opt your political allegiance have also convinced you to give up your guns?

Every minority group in this country, racial, (Blacks, Hispanics, etc), religious, (Jews, Atheists, etc), social, (Gays), political, (Greens, Libertarians), should all be arming themselves and most importantly learning to use those arms. Wherever possible, this should be done using private sales that are not under the scrutiny of the government. In some states, like NJ, this is legally impossible, but in many states, private purchases are unregistered.

Think this is paranoid? Go back and read that story again.

Via John Lott.

Via samizdata we find the dissident frogman has produced graphics in support of Danish free speech and against mohammedan insanity.

He has released them publically, and I have copied them to my flickr account so we do not eat up his bandwidth.
You can access the originals on his site or my copies here: Wrightwing.net flickr images.

I have placed one on my sidebar, please do the same on your site.

Police murdered a peaceful man down in Virginia. They claim it was an accident. Tell me. When you bring ninja-clad, para-military stormtroopers pointing loaded guns to a non-violent situation, and one of you kills an unarmed, non-threatening, peaceful optometrist, who’s only crime was liking to run a few bets, what do you call it? ‘oops’?

Fairfax County’s police chief said yesterday that one of his officers accidentally shot and killed an optometrist outside the unarmed man’s townhouse Tuesday night as an undercover detective was about to arrest him on suspicion of gambling on sports.

As Radley Balko points out:

“Tactical officers” is a eumpemism for SWAT team. So yes, the Fairfax County police department dispatched the SWAT team to arrest an optometrist suspected of gambling. They had their guns drawn. The descended upon him. And one of them killed him.
.
.
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SWAT teams don’t diminish the risk of violence. They escalate it. In rare situations — hostage crises, barricades, or violent crimes-in-process, for example — escalation is necessary to stave off immediate harm. In inherently nonviolent, routine police work — like serving warrants on optometrists — they’re needlessly provocative and dangerous. A growing pile of bodies testifies to that.

And until spineless lawmakers put an end to this idiocy (and yes, risk being called “soft on crime” as a result), the pile is only going to get larger.

As has been said before, when only the police have guns, you live in a police state. I say disarm all police while they are on duty. Make them rely on armed civilians when they need it. I’ll bet you deaths involving police, whether dead officers, suspects or bystanders, will drop 90% the first year.

In the name of “safety”, we now need to be registered and scanned to access our own children.

When a parent arrives to pick up their child at one of three grade schools in the Freehold Borough School District, they’ll need to look into a camera that will take a digital image of their iris. That photo will establish positive identification to gain entrance into the school.

Funding for the project, more than $369,000, was made possibly by a school safety grant through the National Institute of Justice, a research branch of the U.S.

So rather than allow parents and teachers the ability to defend their children with lethal force, we should instead be registered like domestic dogs or endangered species?

While I am not sure he intended it as such, remember the words of Roger Waters:

…did they get you to trade
your heroes for ghosts?
hot ashes for trees?
hot air for a cool breeze?
cold comfort for change?
and did you exchange
a walk on part in the war
for a lead role in a cage?

Yup. We have traded strong, defensive parents, neighbors and communities, for the cold, mechanized false comfort of locked doors, barred windows, machines and bureaucrats wielding regulations.

We have traded the small everyday risks of freedom, for the cowardly comfort of a cage, dependent on the good will of those that control the feed trays, water jars and doors. Woe to him who sings the wrong tune or squawks too loudly.

And now we are training our children to accept this without a question or a whimper.

MSNBC has an item detailing online consumer review sites for the worlds oldest profession. No, not politicians, but close.

Before review sites came along, hobbyists had no way to protect themselves, said David R. Elms, president of The Erotic Review, which began in 1999 and claims that it gets 350,000 unique visitors a day.

Prostitution has gone on for as long as there has been humanity. There is no culture or civilization we have found where it has not existed. Attitudes towards it have varied, from complete condemnation to complete acceptance. Yet no matter what the attitudes or laws, it had continued.

And from the prices listed in the article, I am both the wrong sex and in the wrong business. Someone could retire after only a few years, as opposed to the decades required for most jobs. Maybe that is also why it is illegal. No sense in letting women get that financially and personally independent, especially by exploiting men.

And from the comments on Fark, where I first saw this, this is nothing new, nor uncommon, with resources like this in the US, Canada, the UK, and no doubt elsewhere.

Of course that is tax free. And there are the police and probably organized crime to deal with.

So why is it illegal? I do not know, though oppressing women is probably part of the reason. But I suspect it is primarily due to Abrahamic religions, since other religions do not seem to have so much of a problem with it.

If anyone can give me non-religious reasons for it to remain illegal, please let me know, but read what follows first.

It exploits women. Really? Who pays the money and who gets the money? Men pay, women keep it. Pimps and madams only get a cut when it is illegal, or legal but highly repressed as in parts of Nevada. So keeping it illegal actually CAUSES the exploitation of women, as well as men. Legalizing it shifts that exploitation solely onto the woman.

Women are trafficked into. Yes, that is horrible. It is the closest thing the chattel slavery that exists in the world, outside of the Sudan. But if it is legal, how would this occur? If we create minimal licensing, we can ensure that those involved are doing so voluntarily. No business or customer would want to be involved with what amounts to kidnapping and slavery if they can avoid it by working with legal establishments. And all the penalties for kidnapping and slavery would apply to the illegal operations.

Children are involved. Yup, when it is illegal we have no controls. A case is going on now in Pennsylvania, involving a 17 year old from NJ. But if it was legal and licensed, we can make sure all involved are adults.

Drugs are involved. Probably, though whether they are involved more than in any other part of society, I do not know. Probably so. But again, if it is legal, this can be controlled. What employer wants a drug user on the payroll? What patron wants to patronize a drug user if there is a safe, legal, alternative?

It spreads disease. Yes, it does. Part of licensing can be periodic health checks. Can you do that now, while it is illegal? In Nevada, the last I heard, there has not been a single case of a licensed sex worker contracting a Sexually Transmitted Disease. Yet what is reported for illegal sex workers in NYC is HIV infection rates above 50%. This should terrify us. ( I can not find a link, sorry). Further more, even if you are not patronizing prostitutes, can you guarantee those you know are not? Your girlfriends previous boyfriend? Your boyfriend? The date you have planned for this weekend? How about them? Do you know every one they have ever had sex with? Again, from the comments on Fark, marriage is no shield.

Keeping it illegal spreads disease, exploits women, encourages the trafficking of women and the involvement of children, enriches criminals and corrupts society.
Over all, keeping it illegal makes it far worse than it needs to be, for everyone.

I do not know if the Nevada model is the best, or if there are other models, such as those in Europe or elsewhere that may work better. But something needs to change.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating legalizing streetwalkers. I do not want them in front of my house any more than you do.

Here is what I propose:

License it off the street, behind closed doors, away from homes and schools. By licensing we can also make sure minors, illegal aliens, trafficked women, and people with disease or a history of crime or violence are kept out of it.

So legalize it, regulate it, license it and make it safe for everyone, but, most importantly, for those of us not involved with it.

Comments welcome.

People are starting to object to our budding police state:

Several people broke into the police chief’s house and burned it down early Friday, a few hours after a man died in police custody, authorities said.

So, when will the people of Prentiss, Mississippi do something about the Cory Maye Case?