singsong

Some issues I care about:

Religion, Anti-Religion and Government

First, the First Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Well, Congress did not make any law about saying the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools, but a federal court banned it in California based on this exact Amendment! What is wrong? A teacher leads the students in reciting the pledge, thus providing some necessary order and focus. Whoever does not want to do it is free to stay silent and just wait for his buddies to end. If this was not enough, the father of such student could have simply talked to the school administration and have the kid attend the counseling room or any other place under supervision. Instead, the father sued the entire state and demanded that the pledge BE BANNED from public schools. Now, the pledge has nothing to do with laws that establish religion but banning it clearly a PROHIBITION OF THE SLIGHTEST RELIGIOUS EXPRESSION. A PROHIBITION SET BY THE COURT. Wait a minute here, we have a larger problem - THE COURT CREATED A LAW. This is not what the courts are for. In fact, all courts but the Supreme must pass judgment on laws AS PASSED BY CONGRESS. Only the Supreme Court can pass judgment on State of Federal LAW or ORDINANCE based on the Constitution. No court should be allowed to create law or ordinance - THIS BREAKS THE CAREFULLY SET DIVISION OF POWERS. I'm over with the legalities. The US Justice System have failed us. It can be changed, it should be changed. The Congress has the power to do it. Call your representative. Let's now take a look at the forces that drove us here. The forces of anti-religion. Anyone who opposes religious expression outside of their own property is anti-religious. I don't care what their theistic belief is, anti-religious are those who oppose religious expression on public or government places. It's not hard to see, that if such beliefs became a law, they would be straight against the First Amendment. I'm not aware of any Congressional law in this regard but there are quite a few COURT ORDERS. In other words, court-created law trumps the First Amendment. Given the sinister way in which such "law" is passed, there is no wonder that anti-religious people are viewed as arrogant bigots. They oppose harmless religious expression because they themselves don't do it. It would make as much sense for me to ask the courts to ban TV because I don't watch it, or ban advertisement in papers because I have to skip it, or ban sport shoes in government offices because they irritate me. Anyone who wants even a single one of these things is truly an arrogant bigot. Yet, anti-religious people want something that is equivalent and they even get enough friends in some courts to achieve it. Notice that no one is seeking solution for themselves - otherwise they would not ask for bans but for private schools vouchers, or spare rooms with a teacher for themselves to study evolution, or simply to stay silent while others recite. But no, anti-religionists insists on banning everyone else on any public property or when a public official is involved.

Anti-religionists don't want school vouchers
Let's first see what the present system looks like and what more the vouchers give us. Currently, the government (local and Federal) take our money as taxes and pay a vast government bureaucracy to select what our kids are going to learn and how. The results are tragic, public school kids are far behind private and home schooled children. And the reason is simple, the bureaucracy is accountable to no one but themselves. Of course they like it and rather not change. Those who tried, know first hand that public officials will not pay any attention to any special needs your child might have. It's all like factory for cut up wood chops. There is another way though. We could have a school market, where parents would select the school and be closely involved with their kids education. There are private schools now but most parents cannot afford them because they have to pay with their own money on top of the taxes they already paid. If the tax money were given to the parents, they could afford quite good private schools and on top of that a lot of schools would fill their rooms and thus lower their prices. The fight against vouchers is one of the most bizarre things in this country. In 1995 an organization called Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, filed a state lawsuit against Ohio's voucher program. They lost it in 1999 and immediately filed in federal court. After the federal court ruled in their favor, the Supreme Court finally threw out their case and stated that it is constitutional to let parent's decide where their children will study. The program involved a mere 2,500$ per child in voucher money. Public schools charge much more than that and no public school chose to admit pupils from different district for the money. These money would be nothing to their inflated budgets. Several religious schools though were efficient enough and provided a better teaching than them for the given small amount. This infuriated AUSCS to such an extend that untold amount of money were spent in lawsuits on First Amendment grounds. Since some people elected religious schools, the organization claimed that it was government money for religious purposes as if the government worked for the money. Government spends other peoples' money. They only spen what they tax (or WILL tax). The taxes are payed by exact those people who decide where their kids should study. There was no law created by congress or anyone with regard to establishing or forbidding a religion. And yet the Democratic party was outraged that taxpayers money went to satisfy the will of ... the taxpayers. 'Government of the people by the people' - Lincoln wasn't a Democrat after all.