Secularism As a Religion

In the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church controlled society. It saw itself as a parent of the people, guiding them away from sin, by persuasion if possible and by force if necessary. This, as well as Puritan theocracies in early New England, gave religious authority a bad name for intolerance and tyranny.

Religious authorities in those times and places used the power of the state to curb people's natural rights to think and make choices about religion. The United States Constitution responded to such fears by weighing in against the establishment of any particular denomination as an official religion. It balanced this language by providing that government cannot prevent the free exercise of religion either.

This reflects a general trend in Western Civilization towards the religion-neutral state. Certainly this has sparked arguments and dissention as some occasionally go too far in wiping away religious references in government controlled zones. It does not mean that religion has been officially established when high school football teams pray in the locker room before a game.

In recent years, the religion-neutral state has started to transform into the religiously hostile state. France recently outlawed the Muslim practice of burkha wearing among women. They argued that women wear the clothing under duress. I wonder how they determined that every Muslim woman in the entire country has rejected that tradition. Headscarves are also not permitted in that country's schools.

Most frightening is the recent prosecution by Obama's Justice Department of a principal and an athletic director in federal court because they prayed before a meal. The ACLU claims that the entire school district has "flagrantly" defied their interpretation of the First Amendment for years. They could spend six days in federal prison for praying.

Secularism has become, in some ways, a religion. It has no god and no soul, but it does keep a creed and a faith in a flawed perception of the Constitution. When good men go to jail for simply exercising their natural right to speak and freely exercise their religion, secularist tyranny has emerged. These men forced no one to pray with them, whether they were adults or students. However they violated the conformity of thought that secular tyranny seeks to impose, regardless of a man or woman's natural rights. Obama recently removed the legal and liability protections once enjoyed by medical practitioners who refuse to participate in procedures that are against their faith.

The victims of secularist tyranny are not only Christians, but also Jews, Muslims, or anyone else with an abiding and principled faith in their religion. Tolerance of different religions is great and necessary in a free society. Left wing government today actively campaigns against the faithful, proving that our nation grows less free every day that left wing Democrats remain in power.

Obama's Most Pressing Problem, Apparently

Yes there is that War on Terror, I mean Conflict With People Who Kind of Disagree With US (name of war since January) and there is also an economic crisis. But Obama has bigger fish to fry.

Namely texting while driving.

The transportation secretary is calling a national summit on texting while driving. Law enforcement, industry representatives, and a partridge in a pear tree will be invited to talk about the latest grave threat to Western Civilization.

Here's the catch. Obama's Executive Branch cannot do it on their own.

Seat belt laws, the drinking age, and other issues cannot be forced directly upon the states. To get around the Bill of Rights provisions protecting state sovereignty, the federal government has to strong arm the states into passing the legislation on their own. With an amazing amount of work this year, it is doubtful that Congress will be able to act on this issue. Certainly the GOP and conservative Democrats will oppose this assault on states' rights.

Texting while driving is dangerous, probably more dangerous than taking three shots of whiskey and heading out directly onto the highway. Few people disagree with this. How about this for a solution? Instead of inviting a hundred or more nabobs to Washington to party on the taxpayer dime, send a representative to each state capital in the next year. Have them talk to each state legislature and quietly urge passage of a no texting while driving bill. Even better, instead of sending people, ask the congressional Democrats from each state to suggest passage of such a bill. I guarantee no one would fight it too strenuously. That would actually be easier than asking an overworked Congress to act on it.

But we have to do things the old Washington way. Get a lot of people drunk and fed, put them up in nice hotel rooms, and waste even more money. Meanwhile we strongarm the states and violate the spirit of the Constitution.

The Real Villain of Childhood Obesity

The media and many politicians often like to discuss childhood obesity. To them, this issue looms as one of the most horrible social problems of our time. Kids carrying extra weight will certainly cause the decline of Western Civilization as we know it. Most media figures and trial lawyers have a ready villain, the free market system that allows such evil places as McDonalds and such horrible items as video games to be marketed to children.

Video games are in their third decade of use. Ever since Pong and Pac Man, experts have told us that children spend too much time playing these games. Only now have diabetes rates confirmed their fears. Something must have happened between Asteroids and World of Warcraft to account for this. McDonalds served these kids' grandparents so do not blame them either.

The big changes have come in the public school system. Rural children are supposedly at highest risk for obesity, experts love to blame ignorance. So many rural counties consolidated their school systems, closing small community schools in favor of mega facilities at central locations. This means that children in a place like Preston County must ride the bus for well over an hour. Schools in an effort to cram as much knowledge into children's heads as possible whittled recess to a short number of minutes and in many cases do not run year round physical education. Some genius somewhere, probably in California, decided that elementary school children need mountains of homework to reinforce what they learned all day in school.

So the child gets up at the crack of dawn, rides a bus for over an hour, gets to school, sits there almost all day with little activity, rides home, has endless amounts of homework (while he or she does all this work they probably are snacking) and then hopefully has a short period of time to play before sundown. If the child takes the initiative and plays a sport, then there are times the homework simply does not get done and their grades fall. The decreasing numbers of children playing sports in some areas suggests that school has grown overwhelming in its time demands off campus.

I need not remind you of who has held the school system in their stranglehold for decades. Common sense went out the door long ago. Don't blame the students and do not always blame the teachers or administrators. Those up high that make decisions for all have pushed education in some very negative directions.