Should we let Bill Frist & Co. change the rules of the senate ?

A slight correction: he ran on a compassionate conservative platform.Basically it's the Democratic platform from 1968.
JK.Anyway, I've seen video clips of Gore speaking and BUsh speaking during the 2000 campaign, back to back. Their speeches were nearly identical, at least in rhetoric.Hmm, almost sounds like 2004 in reverse.
Rhetorically, Kerry and Bush were opposites, but policy-wise, they weren't that different (except of issues that really matter like gay marriage!)I get really depressed whenever people start complaining about Republicans, then I start doing it, then I look around, and the only alternative is the Democrats.

As if there remained any doubt we live in a nascent theocracy:

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Judge: Parents can't teach pagan beliefs
Father appeals order in divorce decree that prevents couple from exposing son to Wicca.

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The Indianapolis StarOh, no. We don't live in a theocracy at all do we now?

Wow. Words fail me.

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Oops! Wrong Planet

As if there remained any doubt that secularist want to rub out religion:

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A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a graduating Virginia high school student who was prohibited from singing a Celine Dion song at her commencement ceremony because of its religious content.

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No Celine Dion Allowed

How is disallowing a religious song at a publically-funded event "trying to rub out religion"?Religious people can have all the religion they want, it's just that our government can't sponsor it.Hey, are you ever going to list the reasons why Kennedy's choice for a SCOTUS justice would be worse than Dobson's?

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Religious people can have all the religion they want, it's just that our government can't sponsor it.

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The gov't isn't sponsoring it. Others were allowed to voice their religous beliefs at the same ceremony.

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Hey, are you ever going to list the reasons why Kennedy's choice for a SCOTUS justice would be worse than Dobson's?

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I've been waiting for you to list why Dobson's is worse than Kennedy. Are you going to do that anytime soon?

There are at least two fallacies here:1) This assumes that the default viewpoint for an intelligent, educated person is the Democrat viewpoint, and that any failure to arrive at this viewpoint must be attributable to some individual deficiency.I find this assumption not only unsupported by the evidence, but somewhat arrogant.2) This presupposes that vapid political commercials are a phenomenon of recent origin, and limited to Reppublicans.On the contrary, I recall a whole series of commercials produced by MoveOn on behalf of Democrats that exploited every logical fallacy in the canon.I particularly recall one with a depressed looking factory worker, claiming the economy was the "worst since the Great Depression". This would seem on the face of it to assume and exploit a general lack of knowledge of American history among its target audience, as at the time it was running, the national unemployment rate was below 6%, i.e. comparable to that at the time of Mr. Clinton's 1996 campaign, and far below the 20-25% level actually seen at the nadir of the Great Depression.

Perhaps I missed it but I didn't see where the school system prevented the student from practicing a particular religion. Whether or not we agree with this particular decision, it seems that at any other time the student was certainly free to do what she wanted. Did the school prevent her parents from giving her religious instruction? Did the school prevent her from celebrating her religious holidays?I don't think that you can throw this up as a counter example to From this arcicle.

Not so. I assume that the default for intelligent, educated, individuals is to scoff at ALL political commercials and read or watch some actual news coverage that relates to party positions on real issues (preferably something other than the mind-pablum offered by Fox and CNN).Given the apparent effectiveness of political advertisements, and the massive expenditures on them, I am tempted to conclude that the majority of voters are neither intelligent, nor educated, regardless of whom they vote for. Not so, as you rightly point out. It is not their mere existence that bothers me, but rather their apparent effectiveness in influencing public opinion. The other thing that bothers me is how wealthy people can channel vast sums of money through this '527' organizational loophole to buy commercials to slander the party they want to defeat. You have to admit, this was one tactic that Republicans took much greater advantage of than Democrats in the past election. It was an integral part of Karl Rove's strategy, which is fine, but my point is it wouldn't work so well if we had a more informed population of voters.

Monk, you really do not see a major difference in what happened in Crash's post and what was going in in yours?You actually equate a Judge ruling that a parent cannot raise their child according to their religion, to a school system judging a girl cannot sing a song at a public school function because it has religious content that other families might not want?Honestly?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

On this one, I have to agree that the Indiana decision is a bad decision. Barring parents from instructing their custodial children in a particular religion seems to be unconstitutional on its face. That the religion is not mainstream is irrelevant.However, it is difficult to see how preserving government neutrality toward religion requires the banning of a student-selected song at a graduation with religious themes, unless songs with themes from other religions were treated differently.I don't think either example served up in this thread is very strong evidence for either protagonist's point (incipient theocracy vs. incipient stamping out of religion).It seems everyone has their hypersensitivities.

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I don't think that you can throw this up as a counter example

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Well, I did throw it up as a counter point. I did it mainly because I don't see the use of one example as being a substantive argument that we now live in a theocracy. I realize crash was just being cynical with his theocracy comment, so I returned a cynical post in response.But aside from that, my article does show how sensitive and politically correct some school boards are becoming and that standards and rulings are not evenly applied.Doesn't the singer have a right to select the song of her choice, isn't it her right of free speech? Where is the ACLU?Other speakers at the same commencment event walked to the podium and proclaimed their religous faith in various ways. One student quoted a bible story, yet he was not censored. So why was the singer censored?

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The lawsuit contended that, in banning Ashby's song, Windsor High School had violated clear guidelines based on the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution -- guidelines issued by the U.S. Department of Education that prohibit censorship of a student graduation speaker's personal religious viewpoint.

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However, Judge Jackson found that the high school had not violated Ashby's rights, a decision which Knicely says "turned a great deal on technical legal arguments as to whether or not there could be a claim [against the district] for the actions of the principal."

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The Rutherford Institute attorney maintains that Ashby was definitely a victim of unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination, and that the school violated her rights to free speech and religious expression by prohibiting her musical selection solely on the basis of its religious content.

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"In this context," Knicely explains, "where a student is simply performing a song, which was titled 'The Prayer,' that seemed to be the big bugaboo among school officials. They were afraid to even permit that to be sung, even though other students were free to say what they wanted to say in their speeches." In fact, the litigator points out, one student at the graduation ceremony even "gave a fairly lengthy, two- or three-minute rendition of the biblical story of Joseph and the obstacles he faced from the Bible."

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I do see a difference Holmes, and on the surface I agree with the parents who have every right to raise their kids as Wiccans.But I wonder if that's all there is to the story. If the parents are that concerned with the religious education of their son, then why are they sending him to Catholic school?Regarding my article, why is the singer being deprived her free speech rights when other kids at the same ceremony were free to express their religious views?ABE: spelling correctionThis message has been edited by Monk, Fri, 05-27-2005 02:10 PM

This article may offer an insight. It is a report on a hearing as to whether the lawsuit could proceed. From your original article: I don't pretend to fully understand what this means (in the UK we didn't have commencement or graduation ceremonies or anything like that), but this suggests to me that this is more than an individual student expressing their religous views. Would what she was doing have some sort of quasi-official status - which means it is subject to the establishment clause?But what do I know about the way you wacky colonials do things? Edit: Fix tpyoThis message has been edited by MangyTiger, 05-27-2005 03:51 PM

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Oops! Wrong Planet

Perhaps they want to make sure he is taught evolution in biology class