Thursday, June 7, 2007

You never know when to expect the Spanish Inquisition!

You never know when to expect the Spanish Inquisition! The first immigrants came to America fleeing religious persecution. Our founding fathers knew the dangers of entanglement of church and state. They insured it would never happen here in the adoption of the first amendment of the Constitution.

A state religion requires all citizens to become members or lose their citizenship. With over three-thousand religious dominations in America that isn't feasible, and if it was, how would you pick which will become the official one.

"Render onto Ceaser's that which is Ceaser's and unto God that which is Gods." A Christian is thus admonished, the Bible requires separation of Church and State. There can be no other interpretation of this warning. It also shows the fallacy of the idea America is a Christian nation. Heaven, sitting at the hand of God, is the real Christian nation, not some land on earth.

The Protestant reformation and the chaos of the break up of the Catholic monopoly show the danger of combining church and state. Millions died in the ensuing wars until the Peace of Augsburg in 1555 ended the conflict and established the doctrine "cuius regio, eius religio" the religion of the ruler will be the religion of his citizens. The treaty only applied to Catholics and Lutherans. Other Protestant sects such as the Anabaptists and Calvinists were expressly excluded.

The combination of church and a state still caused problems especially among the Calvinists. That resulted in the Second Defenestration of Prague and the thirty years war, ending with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. All this death and destruction shows the danger when opponents each believe, they have God on their side.

This is the problem with the combination of church and state. Religion forces the state into actions that do not always benefit the state but are necessary because they are demanded by God, or at least God's representatives. No temporal leader can refuse to obey God's orders passed through his representatives in the Church, after all you never ask questions when God's on your side.

Considering the problems caused with the joining of church and state involving only Christians nearly five hundred years ago, imagine the problems it would cause in the modern world with thousands of religions and their offshoots. It would be chaos, with each Church/State Theocracy seeking dominance over all the others. Instead of the millions killed during the Reformation, with today's weaponry the toll would run into the Billions.

You miss Imus, I don't miss Imus, Long live Imus

To some Don Imus is the fount of all wisdom, to the rest of us, he is rude, crude and socially unacceptable. That's why he has been on the air, and paid big bucks for decades. He was hired because he was controversial and now he has been fired for the same thing. That's wrong.

"Nappy headed ho's" is nowhere near the most egregious thing Imus has said in forty decades on the air. It just provided a reason for race hucksters like Al Sharpton to show their power. Faced with what was especially blackmail, Imus's sponsors folded like cheep umbrellas and threatened to pull their advertising. Imus was a dead duck.

This is not a free speech issue as guaranteed by the first amendment to the constitution. The constitution only applies to government, not private companies. They are free to censor their employees any way they wish. The Federal Communications Commission was not involved in the controversy. They didn't have jurisdiction because Imus's remarks did not violate decency provisions that apply to broadcasters. Imus was busted by the Political Correctness Police, not the F.C.C.

In the past half century, the concept of "Political Correctness" has attempted to stifle speech that may offend the "Protected Classes," now defined as anybody except white males. This is a greater danger than any governmental intrusion.

Free speech is not just for that which you agree with. If you truly believe in "Free Speech" than you have an obligation to defend the rights of others to write, say or broadcast speech you find abhorrent. Fail and someday you may find the shoe on the other foot and your speech is the one banned as unacceptable to the community.