Though I’m not sure she would agree, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is an amazing woman. Raised to be a good Muslim, she tried very hard to do right by Allah. But when her father arranged for her to marry someone she had never met – and refused her plea to not go through with it – she ran. It wasn’t easy for her; just the opposite. But she knew there had to be more to life than being a submissive wife and mother. She did not want to end up like her mother.
Infidel is the story of her life so far. Her story is moving and at times very tragic. This is a very powerful book, full of imagery that shocked my Western mind. Continue Reading »
I’ve often had conflicting opinions of Hillary Clinton. On one hand, she’s very ambitious – some would say opportunistic. On the other hand, she’s highly intelligent and she sees the big picture and understands the details. Of all of the Democratic candidates that have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting the nomination, she might just be the one I would prefer. She’s not as liberal as I would like – neither was Bill, but I think she has the most potential to bring this country out of the hole of shame that Bush has dragged us into. Continue Reading »
Al Franken is running for Senate in Minnesota. Personally, I think it’s an awesome idea and I hope he wins. We certainly need to shake up the status quo in Washington and I think he’s a good start. Hell, I don’t even live near Minnesota and I’m considering donating to his campaign.
Ya know, I’ve been waiting as patiently as I’ve possibly been able for Bush to leave office. 574 days to go. Unfortunately, Bush’s legacy will be with us long after he has been replaced and we will likely be a long time repairing the damage he has done both here and abroad. Many people forget (or count on) a lasting effect brought about by the Supreme Court Justices that the President appoints, given the opportunity. Bush has had the opportunity to appoint two justices to the bench and he held to his promise of ultra conservatives who will likely undo decades of social progress as well as knock that pesky wall of separation of religion and government down once and for all.
One of the most striking examples of this damage happened yesterday when the US Supreme Court ruled (5-4 with strong dissent) that it’s AOK for the President to ignore the Constitutional separation of religion and government (regarding the funding of faith based initiatives), since he isn’t Congress and he’s not “officially” making any laws. Never mind that he is giving millions of tax payer dollars to religious organizations without any kind of oversight. Also, the religious organizations that benefit from our hard earned tax dollars are getting preferential treatment. They don’t have to show that they have a better track record than their secular alternatives and they are allowed to discriminate in hiring and use the tax money they get on promoting religion. If it had been Congress, it would have been different, they said, but hey, it’s the President, so what’s the big deal?!?
Well, the big deal is that there were very good reasons as to why the Framers separated religion and government. They had come from an active theocracy and they saw the oppression that the ruling religious regime so very often caused. They purposefully wanted people to be free to pursue any religion they wished or none at all. In the dissenting opinion, Justice Souter stated:
As the Court said in Flast, the importance of that type of injury has deep historical roots going back to the ideal of religious liberty in James Madison’s Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, that the government in a free society may not “force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment†of religion.
I fear that many of the folks that feel that Bush’s faith based funding is a good thing don’t really understand the slippery slope that goes with it.
