"Tim Wescott" wrote in message
...
SNIP
| "The idea that what I want overrides what you want has increasingly
| become part of our thinking, our policies and even our laws.
|
| Both with left- and right-wing extremists. It's the "Christian" "right"
| that wants to ram their brand of "religion"* down all of our throats,
| the constitution notwithstanding. Mandatory prayer in schools. Not
| being able to pledge allegiance to the flag without also confirming the
| existence the Christian god. Government-funded displays of religious
| texts. When they don't get their way about it they whine and moan and
| see to it that liars and cheats get elected to make it happen.

As a Christian, I could care less about what religion you are, and under
no circumstances will I attempt to make you change your mind. Healthy
discussion is one thing, but coercion is another. I do however, find
offense to any school teaching "no religion" as a religious belief to my
kids. Like it or not, atheism is still a religion, just as is humanism and
so forth. There is no such thing as mandatory prayer in school, and never
has been. No one is monitoring my kids' mouths to make sure they speak the
words, or even if they speak at all. To deny the history of our country,
regardless of whether you see it from a historical perspective or not, is
ludicrous when Quanzaa, Islamic thinking, and Jewish holidays all seem to be
acceptable. You can't deny one religion in its entirety and not deny the
others.

| There is
| literally a federal case before the Supreme Court over the fact that
| many colleges and universities refuse to allow military recruiters on
| campus. Why? Because, as the academics will tell you, they are opposed
| to the military, either in general or because they think the military
| are discriminating against homosexuals or for whatever other reasons
| they have. These academics have every right to be against the
| military, for any reason or for no reason. If they don't like the
| military, they can stay away from the military, since there is no
| draft. But what they want is to keep other people away from the
| military, by preventing students from hearing what the military
| recruiters have to say, as students hear what recruiters from all
| sorts of other institutions and movements have to say on campus.
|
| And the "Christian" "right" doesn't want to control what people learn
| about their own bodies, or force schools to undermine good science with
| thinly veiled creation myths? Oh yea, those conservatives are all for
| free speech.

Excuse me. If you take my dollar and do what you want with it with no
strings attached, I could call that charity or a gift, but if you go about
looking a gift horse in the mouth, why should you be offended when I change
my mind? My money in your pocket is not a right, its a privilege. The
schools, when they made the decision to accept government money, agreed to
the strings that were attached. On the subject of creationism, Darwinism,
and intelligent design, well, I hate to tell you, but they are _all_
theories. Each has strong and weak points. To present one theory to kids
and not present them with the whole picture is shortchanging their
education. In one part of the science class they are hopefully taught
analytical process concerning proofs, theorums, and so forth, yet another
day that part gets disregarded because a handful of ideologues don't want
kids to be able to make up their own minds? In this newsgroup, and many
others like it, free thought is critical, and refutation and gentlemanly
discussion is encouraged. The classroom should be no different. Do you
want a whole segment of the population thinking one way or not? Is that
diversity, or just what you define it to be?

| The
| reason there is a legal issue is that a federal law has been passed,
| saying that colleges and universities that forbid military recruiters
| from coming on campus are no longer eligible to receive federal money.
| Academics are outraged.
|
| Given the amount of power that the feds have garnered over the years by
| taxing and bestowing money it makes sense. I can't say that I fully
| agree with them because they can always just say no to the money -- but
| they can't say no to paying taxes; they can't just say "don't subsidize
| me or all of those right-wing ranchers out west" and have it stick.

I send some of my kids to a private school. If I don't like what they
are learning, I can pull them out and find a competitor. Or not send them
there at all. That's the way the free market works. Its my money, after
all, and I can do what I want with it (well, then there's what you want to
do with it...) I don't have to send any of my kids to public school,
either. I can keep them home and teach them survivalism, or atheism, or
paganism, or whatever I feel they ought to know. When they get out in the
real world and find that their education isn't good enough to get them
along, then they come back to me complaining. I, being a private citizen,
am therefore reponsible for the results (and will be held to account by the
authorities,) but when public schools do the same thing, well, tough ****.

| There was some famous guy a couple of thousand years ago who was quoted
| as saying "by their acts you shall know them" or some such. Those are
| good words to follow, now and then.

Action, not words. Stop listening to the rhetoric from your leftist
friends and look for the results. Conservatives have to hear the leftist
stuff all day because it surrounds us in the media, so we actually have to
seek out dissenting opinion. Liberals, on the other hand, never have had to
do that, nor feel the need, so are never exposed to the true diversity of
opinion necessary to the vibrancy of a free society. Nothing is different
in public schools or universities, either.