The first line of the First Amendment to the US Constitution reads …
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, (the Establishment Clause)
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof … (the Free Exercise Clause)
Let’s say you start with the strictly textualist approach (no law, period, ever, end of story). This is the spot at which I, personally, like to begin when considering any Constitutional/legal issue. This then gets modified to a greater or lesser — usually lesser — degree depending on the exigencies of reality, but I digress.
First, the Establishment Clause …
So what constitutes a religion? Where does ‘cult‘ stop and ‘religion’ begin? And is that a question government should have any business trying to answer? After all, if the government isn’t going to make any laws regarding religion, what does it matter what is or isn’t one?
But the fact remains that the government does just that. For a religion and its followers to be protected under the First Amendment, it must be legally recognized. Further, religious groups recognized by the government receive the benefit of tax exemptions which are not available to otherwise-identical groups that are secular or of a non-recognized religion. And among the ‘recognized religions,’ Christianity is further favored. Many laws are elevate Christian tenets (blue laws, sodomy laws, SSM/multiple marriage laws, prostitution laws, etc.) over those of various other faiths, let alone secular philosophies. Congress has an ‘opening prayer.’ The phrase ‘under God’ was shoehorned into the Pledge of Allegiance. Christmas (but not Hanukkah or Yule) is a federal holiday.
None of these meet the test expressed in the Supreme Court’s ruling in Abington School District v. Schempp — “… to withstand the strictures of the Establishment Clause there must be a secular legislative purpose and a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion.” In fact, violations of the Establishment Clause were and remain endemic (one might even say epidemic) at all levels in the US government, federal, state, and local.
Second, the Free Exercise Clause ..
“… to withstand the strictures of the Establishment Clause there must be a secular legislative purpose and a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion,” could apply just as well to the Free Exercise Clause. Unless there’s some clear secular purpose — such forbidding human sacrifice, ritual rape, etc. — to them, laws forbidding activities which are accepted or encouraged within a religion violate the Free Exercise Clause.
And it harm none, do as you will.
As a quick perusal of post dates will show, I’ve been sadly neglecting this blog. But after the honor and pleasure of meeting various of the Captain’s Quarters posse yesterday, I’ve been inspired to try to put more into it (and to at least get a working grasp of RSS feeds). It’ll be slow, but worth it, methinks.
Currently I’m working on a post inspired by a post on eteraz.org, but it involves reading some IRS explanations which are heavy sledding.
I honestly feel sorry for the Lebanese, though not to the extent many of their bloggers seem to be feeling for themselves. They say they’re in a bad situation and they’re right. They demonstrated considerable courage and political will in the Cedar Revolution and they’re justly proud of that.
But.
They didn’t act against Hezbollah. Some talk about the fact that Hezballah is part of their government, then in the next breath try to disavow any responsibility for their actions. They point out — correctly — that it would have been difficult and painful to shut HA down. As difficult and painful as what they’re experiencing now? Some claim they were working on it, and maybe they were. Maybe they might even have succeeded, given time. But that time was being paid for in Israeli lives and suffering. Easy capital for Lebanese to spend, not so much now that the price of inaction is coming out of their own pockets. And why should Israel believe they could or would do it? When has Lebanon ever shown the tiniest willingness to leash Hezballah? Even now that the chickens have come home to roost, at least one Lebanese blogger has responded by pouting, stamping his feet, and whining “I’m going to run off to Syria, that’llteachyou!” Another is huddled in the ‘anybody who disagrees with me is a racist’ redoubt. Others, to their credit, place the blame squarely where it belongs — on Hezballah’s shoulders — and demand that somebody do something to make it stop.
Who, though? And what?
The Palestinian bloggers are, as usual, in full-blown denial, with heavy dashes of credulousness and hypocrisy. Much gnashing of teeth about the ‘bloodthirsty Zionist warmongers.’ Not a peep about the acts of war perpetrated by their democratically-elected government.
Making the rounds are a couple of sets of pictures. One set is the favorite Pallywood product — dead and allegedly dead children. Blamed, of course, on those evil Jooooooos. Cries of outrage, much moral indignation. What was their reaction to dead Israeli children, murdered by Palestinian terrorists? What was their reaction to the brutal murder of Einat Hanan? Celebration. The second set of pictures is of Israeli children writing messages like “Die. Love, the kids.” on missiles being aimed at Hezbollah targets. More cries of outrage, much moral indignation. What were all these sensitive and nuanced souls saying when Kassems were being lobbed at Israeli civilians? The sound of crickets was occasionally drowned out by shouts of “Go, Hamas, go!” Now, while I don’t approve of encouraging bloodthirstiness in children, I can’t help thinking that behind the Palestinian denunciations is a large bit of jealousy that they didn’t think of it first. And any society that celebrates mass murderers by naming streets, parks, stadiums and schools after them — that hangs heroic posters of them up in kindergarten classes, no less — has absolutely no moral standing in this.
I do hope they’re not indicative of their people, because their complete imperviousness to reality doesn’t bode well for their future. They’re at the bottom of a very deep hole and calling for more shovels.
The Israelis bloggers are all unhappy about the current situation, but overwhelmingly support their government’s response. There’s a bit of saber-rattling, but suprisingly little for a people who have endured decades of escalating provocation. Mostly they’re just quietly resolute, even a bit relieved that it’s finally come to a head.
And, to judge by the news reports, they’re indicative of the rest of Israel. If Hezballah thought the rocket attacks on civilian population centers would demoralize them and turn them against their government, HA was sorely mistaken. It’s illustrated that HA is not just a ‘northern problem’ and united the country behind finishing them once and for all. Even the de rigour appeasement demonstration thrown by the usual leftist suspects garnered only a handful of people.
I’ve been following the latest Middle East War (let’s face it, that’s what it is) via Pajamas Media’s excellent roundup coverage and reading the various Israeli, Lebanese, and Palestinian blogs linked in TTLB’s Mideast Crisis blog roundup. The latter have been especially informative, not so much in hard news but in the mindsets of their authors. As bloggers are even less ‘generic’ than the much-overrated man-on-the-street it’s impossible to tell how representative their opinions are of those of their fellows, but the windows they provide into their experiences and how they see things provide much food for thought. So much so that I decided to address each separately in the following series of posts.
I saw United 93 yesterday. Left the theater feeling stunned and wrung out. When the passengers started to gather themselves, even though I knew how it was going to end I found myself in a tight little knot hoping and praying for them to succeed.
At first after it ended there was just stunned, awed silence as we all tried to absorb what we’d just experienced. (It’s not a movie you just see, it’s one you experience). I heard people agonizing that they hadn’t acted sooner — why didn’t they act sooner, if only they’d acted sooner. I understood why they didn’t, which made it all the more wrenching for me.
One sunny Sunday afternoon three years ago I came home to find three men burglarizing my house. Instead of running when they were discovered, they told me it was their house now and made me a prisoner in my own home, going around ripping the phones out of the walls. It’s impossible to truly convey what that’s like. It was surreal, unbelievable, unthinkable. It simply couldn’t be happening.
Then the one guarding the front door moved away, giving me a shot at escape. Still, I hesitated for a moment before I ran. Looking back later, I realized it was because reacting to it acknowledged what was happening as real. I had to think about the unthinkable. There’s this huge temptation toward ‘just ignore it and it will go away’ that’s very hard to overcome, even to just run, let alone fight. The passengers aboard United 93 didn’t have that option, and the fact that they did fight leaves me all the more in awe of their courage because I have some idea what it cost them.
What I experienced, terrible as it was, doesn’t hold a candle to what those people went through. I survived where, tragically, they didn’t. But I learned from it the same thing they did:
You cannot count on rescue.
This doesn’t just apply to violent crime. It’s any crisis, big or small, sudden or slow, happening to you or someone else. Medical, financial, legal, romantic, whatever. It may be that all you have to do is call for help. Maybe you only have to get to help. Or it may be you just have to be that help, however ill-equipped for it you may be.
White knights aren’t some alien species. White knights are us.
A few days ago, I read an interesting post by Kathy Sierra on mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are brain cells which, when functioning normally, tend to make people imitate/emulate people around them. (On the reverse side, a recent article in Science Daily discusses the theory that malfunctioning mirror neurons are the primary cause of autism). Of course, imitation is a large part of the way children learn, but mirror neurons affect adults as well. We’ve all seen manifestations, such as picking up someone’s accent, facial expressions, or mannerisms after talking to him for awhile. Ms. Sierra’s post deals more, however, with picking up emotions and attitudes from those around us.
This got me to thinking.
I haven’t posted very often to this blog, certainly not often enough to put it on anyone’s must-click blogroll. This has mostly been due, as I mentioned in an earlier post, to not much really pissing me off enough to snark about it, at least not at length. I’m generally a happy, easygoing person (little though some might believe it). But, looking back over my posts thus far, I realized that they’re practically solid snark. Even the two or three exceptions tend to have little digs in them. Now, while some things are too jaw-droppingly asinine to let pass without comment, such wall-to-wall negativity cannot be healthy … not to mention it’s one of the things the left is so justly castigated for. (Sorry, I just couldn’t help it).
In Wicca, there’s a precept called the Law of Threefold Return — that which you send out into the world returns upon you threefold. It’s not just about ‘doing unto’ others inspiring behavioral reciprocity, though there is that, it’s your attitude being reflected in those around you. And, in a way, it’s how what you go looking for is what you find.
What I’ve been finding to blog about has been examples of stupidity, ignorance, cowardice, hypocrisy, corruption, and viciousness. Over the past week I realized that that’s because that’s what I’ve been seeking. Not things that inspire me, intrigue me, make me think, or make me laugh, things that piss me off. On the plus side, that hasn’t been very much. On the minus side, that’s all it’s been.
That’s going to change.
This isn’t a badness-free world and this will never be a snark-free blog, but that pic up at the top of the screen is supposed to be a sunrise, not a sunset.
It’s always entertaining to see the left go into paroxysms of hypocrisy, and the current display is no exception.
On the one hand, we have a half-dozen retired Generals slagging on SecDef Donald Rumsfeld. Of course, as Dr. Victor Davis Hanson brings up, there’s money in this for them. And, as FormerSpook reveals, they have grudges to avenge. And, as the Powerline guys mention, they’re some of Clinton’s clowns. And, as Q and O points out, it’s pretty easy (not to say chickenshit) to try to cast yourself as a whistleblower from the safe side of retirement. But, too late, they said what the left wanted to hear, they’ve already been elevated to Sacred Cow status. Their sincerity and wisdom have been declared self-evident and irrefutable. Any less-than-fawning examination of The Beltway Veterans for Book Sales, their arguments, or their motives will find the left with its collective hands clamped securely over its collective ears accompanied by a rousing rendition of ‘lalalalarightwingsmearmachinelalala’ in impressive four-part harmony.
Contrast this with the left’s reaction to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, where 15 out of 19 (about 79%) of Dem Golden Boy candidate John Kerry’s fellow officers considered him unfit for the Presidency. The lefties skipped right over Shock and into Denial, with frequent forays into Anger (though foaming-at-the-mouth tantrums better describes it). The Swifties were declared lying, scheming opportunists, doubtless in the employ of Chimpy Satan McBushitler and his Handmaiden-of-Evil KKKarl Rove.
Then there’s the MSM, which did their damndest to bury any mention of the SBVfT for as long as humanly possible, but promptly and cheerfully make the BVfBS headline news. It’s not as if the Belties are a higher proportion of the sample group than the Swifties (I’m not sure how many retired flag rank officers there are, but I’m willing to bet it’s more than eight). Yet the anti-OIF movement’s hurdy-gurdy monkey Cindy Sheehan represents an even smaller (to the point of requiring several decimal places to accurately describe) percentage of military parents, but she gets many times more publicity than all the rest of them put together.
Bias, super-sized.
Not much from me lately, since I’ve been working on a research project and nothing had really prompted me to strap my snark on.
Then Jimmy Carter went and opened his mouth.
How did this man ever become President? He goes so far beyond stupid, he redefines the word. He’s like an avatar of the Gods of Stupid, sent by them to do their work here on earth.
Israel has consistently flouted world opinion in its occupation of the Palestinian territories,
Translation: World opinion is always right (just ask Galileo).
and the Road Map can go nowhere without a genuine and abiding respect for territorial integrity in the region
And the Palestinians daily demonstrate their genuine and abiding respect for Israel’s territorial integrity with rockets and suicide bombers.
As part of the Quartet, including Russia, the UN and the EU, George Bush has endorsed a “Road Map” for peace. But Israel has officially rejected its basic premises with patently unacceptable caveats and prerequisites.
Only a leftist could define the Pals eschewing terrorism and behaving like civilized human beings as ‘patently unacceptable caveats and prerequisites.’ And Jimmy dear seems to’ve missed the fact they signed it, which doesn’t exactly qualify as officially rejecting it.
With Israel’s approval, The Carter Center has monitored all three Palestinian elections. Supervised by a blue-ribbon commission of college presidents and distinguished jurists, they have all been honest, fair and peaceful, with the results accepted by winners and losers.
College presidents and distinguished jurists being, by definition, experts on election fraud in third-world countries.
Hamas will control the Cabinet and prime minister’s office, but Mahmoud Abbas retains all authority and power exercised by Yasser Arafat.
Being as Arafat controlled the Cabinet, no, Abbas does not retain ‘all authority and power’ Arafat had.
He still heads the PLO, the only Palestinian entity recognized by Israel, and could deal with Israeli leaders under this umbrella, independent of Hamas control.
He could go take a leak off the Muqata balcony independent of Hamas control, too, and it would have about as much impact. Even when the PLO was actually in charge Hamas didn’t honor its deals — in fact, they’ve spent the past few weeks expressly and publically repudiating those deals, just in case anybody was still in any doubt as to their position.
He has unequivocally endorsed the Quartet’s Road Map.
Not taken a single step toward meeting the Pal’s Road Map obligations, but hey! he’s endorsed it, which is just as good in leftyland.
Post-election polls show that 80 percent of Palestinians still want a peace agreement with Israel and nearly 70 percent support Abbas as president.
And yet those wacky Palestinians still voted control of the government to the party dedicated to war with Israel.
Israel has announced a policy of isolating and destabilizing the new government (perhaps joined by the US). The elected officials will be denied travel permits, workers from isolated Gaza barred from entering Israel
Translation: Israel has announced a policy of not respecting unrepentant terrorists and not giving them and their bombs access to Israeli civilians. They wanted Gaza, they strutted and crowed about getting it, now let them stew in it.
… and every effort is being made to block funds to Palestinians.
Can’t really complain about not being given money by a state you refuse to recognize — especially when your avowed first priority for that money is blowing up that state’s children.
The Quartet’s special envoy, James Wolfensohn, has proposed that donors assist the Palestinian people without violating anti-terrorism laws that prohibit funds from being sent directly to Hamas.
In other words, donors should make some effort ot ensure the money buys butter, not guns. Perhaps Hamas will be forced to hold bake sales to buy suicide bombers, to paraphrase an old hippy-dippy bumper sticker.
Hamas wishes now to consolidate its political gains, maintain domestic order and stability and refrain from any contacts with Israel.
Must be why they keep firing rockets at Israel, that burning desire to refrain from any contact.
It will be a tragedy — especially for the Palestinians — if they promote or condone terrorism.
Hamas? Promote or condone terrorism? Perish the thought!
The preeminent obstacle to peace is Israel’s colonization of Palestine.
The preeminent obstacle to peace is Palestinian terrorism — which Hamas personifies.
There were just a few hundred settlers in the West Bank and Gaza when I became president, but the Likud government expanded settlement activity after I left office.
And yet, somehow, Israeli casualties dropped after you left office, Jimmy me boy, going from 114 during your tenure to 73 in the next four years. Even as those dang peace-obstructing settlements were growing.
President Ronald Reagan condemned this policy and reaffirmed that Resolution 242 remained “the foundation stone of America’s Middle East peace effort.”
Sounds like he ‘unequivocally endorsed’ it … like Abbas did the Road Map.
Although president Bill Clinton made strong efforts to promote peace, a massive increase of settlers occurred during his administration, to 225,000, mostly while Ehud Barak was prime minister. Their best official offer to the Palestinians was to withdraw 20 percent of them, leaving 180,000 in 209 settlements, covering about 5 percent of the occupied land.
In other words, despite having lost not one, not two, but three wars, the Pals were offered 95% of what they had utterly failed to take by force … and turned up their noses at it. A sharper lesson in ‘vae victis’ would seem to be in order.
The 5 percent figure is grossly misleading, with surrounding areas taken or earmarked for expansion,
If they’ve been turned over, then they’re hardly ‘taken’ or ‘earmarked for expansion.’
roadways joining settlements with each other and to Jerusalem, and wide arterial swaths providing water, sewage, electricity and communications.
And, as we’ve seen in Iraq, it’s so ridiculously easy to secure roads and pipelines. Not.
This intricate honeycomb divides the entire West Bank into multiple fragments, often uninhabitable or even unreachable.
Pals can’t cross running water? I know they’re bloodthirsty, but c’mon.
Recently, Israeli leaders have decided on unilateral actions without involving either the US or the Palestinians, with withdrawal from Gaza as the first step.
So now leaving a portion of ‘occupied territory’ is a bad thing? Make up your flamin’ mind.
As presently circumscribed and isolated, without access to the air, sea, or the West Bank, Gaza is a nonviable economic and political entity.
You’ve just described Liechtenstein, and they seem to do okay.
The future of the West Bank is equally dismal.
And yet uniting these two money pits will magically transform them into a successful, peace-loving whole? Look at a map, Jimmy. Only one of those two states is going to be geographically contiguous, so just grit your teeth and start respecting Israel’s territorial integrity.
Especially troublesome is Israel’s construction of huge concrete dividing walls in populated areas and high fences in rural areas — located entirely on Palestinian territory and often with deep intrusions to encompass more land and settlements.
Even more troublesome is the Pal predilection for sending murderous gunmen and bombers across any space where there isn’t such a protective barrier. Besides, they’ve already turned down two offers of that land, apparently they don’t want it.
The wall is designed to surround a truncated Palestine completely, and a network of exclusive highways will cut across what is left of Palestine to connect Israel with the Jordan River Valley.
The wall is designed to keep a pack of neo-Molochian thugs away from civilized people.
This will never be acceptable either to Palestinians or to the international community,
Nothing short of the complete eradication of Israel will be acceptable to the Pals or the ‘international community,’ so they’re just going to have to suck it up.
and will inevitably precipitate increased tension and violence within Palestine and stronger resentment and animosity from the Arab world against the US, which will be held accountable for the plight of the Palestinians.
The Arab world throws tantrums over cartoons for crying out loud. They’re egotistical, spoiled, delusional children who are going to regard the west with jealous resentment and animosity regardless, the reasons they cobble up for it are irrelevant.
Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and others pointed out years ago that Israel’s permanent occupation will be increasingly difficult as the relative number of Jewish citizens decreases demographically both within Israel and in Palestine. This is obvious to most Israelis, who also view this dominant role as a distortion of their ancient moral and religious values. Over the years, opinion polls have consistently shown that about 60 percent of Israelis favor withdrawing from the West Bank in exchange for permanent peace.
And they’re still there because ‘permanent peace’ has never been on offer from the Pals. Must be one of those ‘patently unacceptable caveats.’
Similarly, an overwhelming number of both Israelis and Palestinians want a durable two-state solution.
So we can dispense with that ‘Right of Return’ nonsense? Good.
Casualties have increased during the past few years as the occupying forces imposed tighter controls. From September 2000 until this month, 3,982 Palestinians and 1,084 Israelis were killed in the conflict, and this includes many children: 708 Palestinians and 123 Israelis.
As can be seen here, casualties actuallly peaked four years ago. Interestingly, they begin to drop with the start of the construction of the security barrier in the West Bank and get consistently smaller as the barrier gets longer.
There is little doubt that accommodation with Palestinians can bring full Arab recognition of Israel and its right to live in peace.
There is no doubt that this is the most asinine and ignorant statement in the whole op ed, and that’s really saying something. It wasn’t Israeli ‘accomodation’ to the Pals that brought recognition from Egypt or Jordan. Get it through your head, Jimmy, Israel throwing itself on the mercy of the Arab world won’t get Israel anything but annihilated.
Any rejectionist policies of Hamas or any terrorist group will be overcome by an overall Arab commitment to restrain further violence and to promote the well-being of the Palestinian people.
What’s the weather like on your planet?
Down through the years, I have seen despair and frustration evolve into optimism and progress and, even now, we need not give up hope for permanent peace for Israelis and freedom and justice for Palestinians if three basic premises are honored.
Peace. Freedom. Justice. Very nice words.
One, Israel’s right to exist — and to live in peace — must be recognized and accepted by Palestinians and all other neighbors.
Since Hamas is utterly and unequivocally opposed to the very notion, this would be a major stumbling block. One might even term it a thorn in the side of peace.
Two, the killing of innocent people by suicide bombs or other acts of violence cannot be condoned.
In the Pal’s case, you’ve got a long way to go to get to merely ‘condoned,’ since you’re starting at ‘exalted and institutionalized.’ Another of those pesky thorns.
And three, Palestinians must live in peace and dignity, and permanent Israeli settlements on their land are a major obstacle to this goal.
Aren’t any settlements in Gaza anymore. And yet they don’t seem to be making much progress on that ‘peace and dignity’ thing there. Perhaps (and I know this is a radical concept) the Pals themselves are responsible for their bad behavior and the negative results thereof vis-a-vis peace and dignity.