Fair enough slythe,
I should go more.
But I don’t think privatizing schools is taking the easy way out. I think it would be the way to improve education of our children. Tell me one thing the gov’t does better than the private sector? Hmmm?
I don’t know if you gave an answer but I bet you can’t think of one. So couldn’t the private sector do a better job than the gov’t in teaching kids? If I remember right, home school kids were kicking tail in the national spelling contest were they not?
Oh great ghod. That old argument.
Me first!
Head Start.
Who’s next to finally bury this hoary “fact”?
Ptahlis:
Strangely, this very same argument could also be applied to the issue of teaching religion in public schools. Would you apply it in this context?
Big difference. Wildest Bill represented all schools by their worst element, engaging on hyperbole. As you said earlier “Pipe bombs and bullet dodging may very well be a factor in some of the worst schools out there, but of course you are characterizing the whole system by the bottom of the barrel example.” By contrast, there is no connection at all betwen the religious right and the militia movement, and your statement that the religious right “are so fond of” them is patently false. The only connection between these two groups is that left wingers are opposed to both.
Well then the same point that applies to slythe applies to you. Whether you agree with it (i.e. the aims of the school system) or not, a person living in a country whose education system is designed, in large part, to make sure that his children do not share his worldview, can feel persecuted without suffering from a “disingenuous persecution complex”.
*Originally posted by IzzyR *
**
Your statement is slanderous and categorically false. What religious right groups have demonstrated any fondness for militia groups? Unless you mean Branch Davidians and the like. I think not.
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Big difference. Wildest Bill represented all schools by their worst element, engaging on hyperbole. As you said earlier “Pipe bombs and bullet dodging may very well be a factor in some of the worst schools out there, but of course you are characterizing the whole system by the bottom of the barrel example.” By contrast, there is no connection at all betwen the religious right and the militia movement, and your statement that the religious right “are so fond of” them is patently false. The only connection between these two groups is that left wingers are opposed to both.
[/quote]
**
Erm, excuse. Ever heard of the Identity Christians?
They are right-wing politically, they are fundamentalist Christian religiously, and some of them are very involved with militia groups & such. In other words, there is definitely a link between some members of the religious right and some members of the militia movement. That does not mean that the religious right, in general, approves or supports militias.
Please note that I am agreeing with Ptahlis’ original intent, which was to point out that these sorts of inflammatory statements are neither appropriate nor accurate. Ptahlis and Wildest Bill did EXACTLY the same thing, i.e., use an extreme example and falsely generalize to the whole.
However, his statement was, in fact, not slanderous and categorically false. Unless you consider any Christian group who has less than some minimum membership level that you’ve set or with whom you disagree to be “Branch Davidians and the like” and by implication to therefore not be a part of the religious right. That’s a nifty opinion, but in no way invalidates Ptahlis’ statement.
Many of these CI groups are small, but en masse they’re pretty scary.
It’s simple. I don’t want my kids learning about your religion in PUBLIC school. If I want to do that, I’ll go to your church. And if your family’s religious teaching is so weak that attending a public school is going to screw up your family, then I’d say that’s your church’s fault, not the school’s. Your Kid can pray at home all he wants to BEFORE he goes to school. Your kid can pray IN SCHOOL all he wants to (as long as he isn’t disrupting/disturbing others). Your kid can pray all he wants to when he gets HOME from school. So why isn’t this enough?
And why is my believing this should be upheld ‘persecution’?
Under our constitution? No.
Some leftist elements have long noted that there seems to be quite a strong connection between the religious right and the militia movement. I would not define the religious right by the militia movement in the way that Izzy characterized public schools by the most violent ones. However, I did not reach into thin air to get the idea that there is a relationship between many members of these two ideological circles. Besides the Waco folks you already noted, there are the Freemen, who espouse the lovely philosophies embodied in the Christian Identity movement, as well as the Embassy of Heaven folks. Of course there was also the alliance between Bo Gritz, militia sympathizer and lecturer, and David Duke, that wonderful Christian man, whose public embrace of the KKK’s principles garnered him enough popularity to run for president on the Populist party’s ticket. Many of the militia groups have worked out specific theological platforms in addition to common-law and Constitutional doctrines for themselves, and The protocols of the Elders of Zion is a rallying call for militias worried about the New World Order as well as the various anti-semitic Christian groups out there. Indeed, the only book I have heard mentioned more among those two groups is the Bible itself. Christian separatists, millenialists, and patriots seem to differ in many cases only as to whether violence is approved of.
Some URL’s that SurfWatch didn’t have blocked:
http://www.berkshire.net/~ifas/fw/9607/militia.html
http://www.isrp.org/articles4/militia.html
http://apocalypse.berkshire.net/~ifas/fw/9610/militias.html
In any case, the fanatical fringe of the religious right is not a fair representation of the group as a whole, in the same manner that the most violent inner city schools are not a fair representation of the public school system.
I still fail to see how not advocating a religion is “designed, in large part, to make sure that his children do not share his worldview.” Remaining neutral on an issue is not the same thing as denouncing it, and I do not believe the “either with us or against us” argument is valid. When the government says “your religion will not be promoted,” and the practitioner equates that with persecution, then I have to disagree.
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I mean in the context of this thread. Many people who favor a strict interpretation of Church/State separation are fond of pointing to the coersive nature of prayer in schools or football games etc. The argument that you give here, if applied consistently, would also weaken the argument against school prayer and the like. Your latest statement implies that you would inherently agree with this, but are constrained by our constitution. I am inclined to think that this was not your intention.
**(This point was also made earlier by redtail23). Are all the people and movements that you list actually religious movements, or merely attempts to reconcile their agendas with their religion by modifying their religion? I must confess that I’m not familiar with most of the movements that you describe, but I do know that David Duke is not in any way a religious figure. In any event, I think there is no continuum between what is commonly referred to as the Christian Right (Falwell, Robertson etc.) and these groups, which are completely distinct. I don’t think these groups are even “the fanatical fringe of the religious right” in a sense of being the same only much more so. This is not the case with public schools, which are distinguished only by the place that they occupy on the good-bad-worse scale. (This is an insignificant point - arguing about implications of words that you don’t actually espouse, and only used to make a point. So I don’t propose to continue with this after you respond, should you wish to do so.)
I assume that should read Wildest Bill. Never confuse Wildest Bill with Izzy, who is actually a relatively calm guy.**
I initially responded to the point made by slythe, which you said you agree with. Your position is presently unclear. What is better about public schools than schools that the parents chose?
If I read you right this time, and your point is about the nature of coersion inherent in banning prayer and proselytizing in schools, then we have been talking past one another. Plainly put, I think of it like this:
The state has decided, whether rightly or not, that there is a necessary bare minimum set of skills and knowledge needed to produce a useful citizen in most cases. The state requires that children receive instruction to meet these standards. (Wrangling over the particulars of the standards, as well as exceptional cases like mental retardation and the like are matters for another thread.) The state has also provided a public education system that attempts to provide the necessary education should the parents be unable or unwilling to do so. Parents are afforded the opportunity to educate the children themselves, or send them to privately run institutions if they like. This whole setup is indeed coercive to the extent that parents lose the right to have an uneducated child, as well as that taxes are levied on the populace to support it. I personally have no problems with this level of coersion. Unlike Libertarian and his political brethren, I dismiss the idea of a workable government that is free from coersion of some sort, and I agree with the implied social contract of taxation in a representative system. I also do not equate all forms of coersion, and agree with the assessment that it is in its own necessary self interest that the state acts to insure itself of a literate populace.
Regarding religion, however, the government’s specific coersion is different. In this case, it has taken the position that no state body can favor any particular belief within the religious arena. That means that individuals, when acting in any capacity that can reasonably be deemed officially sanctioned by the school, must refrain from promoting or denigrating specific religious beliefs or belief in general. This prohibition against prayer and proselytizing can be viewed as coersion in that the state is forbidding the practice of religion in a specific situation. The converse is that allowing same would constitute coersion as well, in that a public institution, or representative of same, would be endorsing a particular religious view to a captive audience of impressionable children.
Either way, some coersion is unavoidable. I believe that when weighing the individual rights of all involved, the current SOCAS arrangement uses the least amount of coersion while safeguarding the most important rights. Parents and churches are still free to provide any religious instruction they see fit, doctrinal disputes between competing faiths are kept out of the classroom, and if there are prejudices or altercations between people of varying belief, they will arise from sources other than the curricula of the school systems. The abuses of a marriage between state and religion are not by any means universal, but there are enough examples to show that it can lead to extreme intolerance and persecution of those who dissent.
I am not trying to put forth the argument that state prohibition of religious practices is noncoercive in nature. Any prohibition of anything by an authority is coercive by definition. What I am saying is that the degree of coersion is both reasonable and acceptable, especially when compared to its opposite.
Well, suffice it to say that I agree with you in most cases. I think there are a lot of folks within these organizations that attempt to use religion as a cloak of righteousness to clothe an ugly agenda, as is the case with the KKK. Nor do I think that there is an unbroken continuum between the bulk of these groups and what is traditionally known as the religious right. Whether or not they can be legitimately viewed as coming under the broad heading of the religious right largely depends on who is doing the defining. Certainly there are doctrinal similarities between some of these movements and some of the more fundamental factions of the religious right, but I should think that many mainstream Christians wouldn’t even truly consider these groups Christian at all, let alone a subset of Christianity. There is enough overlap between the mainstream of the religious right and these groups in both political philosophy and religious philosophy that a leftist can conclude that these groups are merely splinters of the more moderate whole. On the other hand, the moderate mainstream within the religious right can justifiably point to the numerous differences between their thoughts, aims, and methods to say “Hey, these guys are not us!” It would be like a Muslim saying that Mormons are Christians, while a Baptist might say they certainly are not. It just depends on how inclusive or exclusive you want to make the term “Religious Right.” The way I personally see it, these groups generally take Christian doctrine and rightist politics and twist them so far from their original forms that I no longer consider them to be either Christian or right. They are so far right of right that they are off the page.
Oops! Sorry about that. Regardless of the typo, I was and am aware that those were his points and not yours.
**
Well, while I could not weigh every private school against every public school, I would have to say that there is nothing at all better about public schools. I am not saying that public schools are in any way better than a private school selected by the parents.
After rereading the thread, I can see why you are asking me this question. slythe’s comment about broadening our children’s educations was one I agree with as a response against those elements in society that would fail to instruct their children in the basics of science regarding biology, geology, evolution, and other subjects that some fundamentalists think threaten their faith. Ignoring the evidence and scientific consensus is IMHO equivalent to forcibly burying a child’s head in the sand. It is this type of willful ignorance that the state’s minimum standards of education should address, and it is why I brought that argument into the thread.
Since upon rereading I see that slythe’s comment is actually in response to Libertarian’s free market suggestion, I would have to rephrase somewhat. I do indeed feel that the public school system is very likely a better option than a free market one, but for reasons other than slythe’s. A free market school system that was nevertheless held up to a set of minimum standards (which Libertarian would doubtless object to) would not be one I would object to on the basis of content, whether religion were involved or not.
Actually, only a small part of my response was to Lib’s “free market” idea. I was, for the most part, responding to Wild Bill. But let’s talk about the supposed “free market” idea for a bit.
The public school system as it is currently run has limitations that private schools do not. They have to take all students at the onset, provide for the needs of the many types of disabilities that are possible, answer to the whims of politicians and voters(some of whom might not even have children in the system at all!), and constantly take attacks from all sides. Taking what monies are available from the public schools to create vouchers for private schools, taking the best and most-behaved of the students, teaching what a small group has deemed to be sufficient without interference from the various local, regional, county, state and federal governments-how the bloody hell can you say that said “competition” can be called “fair”, or even more ridiculous “helpful” to the public school system.
We still are. My point was not about the coersive nature of non-religion in public schools. It was about the idea implicit in the words of slythe that “one of the purposes of school is to broaden the horizons of a child. This cannot be done if the only reading the child is allowed is that material the parents find familiar and comforting”. This implies that the purpose of the school is to expose the child to material that the parents find unfamiliar and discomforting. And that since the parents would obviously not chose to do this, we must establish public schools which will. I find this to be a coersive act similar to exposing the child to a religion that the parents find unfamiliar and discomforting. When you expressed the notion that its no big deal because the government is not forcing anyone to attend public school, I extended the analogy to religion. However, as it now seems that you are not endorsing the sentiment expressed by slythe, and meant something a bit different, this issue may be moot.
Okay. But you would agree that at least from the perspective of such a fundamentalist parent, they would have grounds to feel persecuted. You would of course feel that this persecution is justified - “need to give the child an opportunity” etc. But it is not fair to do this and then claim that such a parent has a “disingenuous persecution complex”.
A parent who holds young earth creationism as a tenet of religious faith may in fact genuinely feel persecuted if his child is taught evolution, geology, or cosmology. Whether he justifiably feels persecuted is open to debate. I would contend that his justification for feeling persecuted is nonexistant, in that science is a system built on evidence, and when properly done does not concern itself with other considerations.
As to parents who feel persecuted because the school system will not endorse their prayers, their feelings are even less justifiable IMO. They are merely being denied the opportunity to use the state to elevate their beliefs over other beliefs. Lack of favoritism is not persecution.
OK, OK, I know I should probably let this go, but it’s jut driving me nuts…
The difference between the mainstream Religious Right and the Christian Identity movement is quite often (please note that I did NOT say ‘always’) one of degree, not kind. That is NOT to say that the two are identical or that the RR in general holds the exact same beliefs as the CI, but rather that the Identity Christians are indeed the far fringe of the RR movement.
In the first place, y’all seem to be saying that since these people don’t belong to mainstream churches, but rather are members of small, fringe congregations, they are not ‘real Christians’, especially since most mainstreamers probably would agree with that assessment. Got news for ya, boyos. Christians have been pointing fingers at each other and yelling “Us Christian, You Not” since the religion started. (Which religion, incidentally, began as a small wacko cult on the extremist fringes of Judaism.) Hell’s bells, a large chunk of the Pauline writings in the New Testament are nothing more than half of one of these arguments. Yeah, many mainstream U.S. Christians would deny association with the CI groups, just as they deny association with the Latter Day Saints, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Seventh Day Adventists, the Catholics, the Orthodox, the Copts, and (in many instances) any other sect besides their own.
These people consider themselves Christian, and (as far as I’ve been able to determine) they follow the basic tenets of fundamentalist Christianity, albeit with their own bizarre quirks thrown in. IOW, if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and calls itself a duck…who are you to say that it’s not a duck, just because you don’t like the way it quacks?
In the next place, y’all seem to be saying that they’re not a ‘real religious movement’ because they have a socio-political agenda, or because they “merely [attempt] to reconcile their agendas with their religion by modifying their religion”. Religions almost always change to meet the needs of those who belong. If you’re going to deny ‘real religion’ status to everything that began with a socio-political agenda or that changed the religion to meet socio-political needs, you’ve got to toss out a bunch of those mainstream religions as well, y’know: Church of England (Anglicans) and all of their offshoots (remember Henry VIII and his wives?); the Puritans and their descendants; pretty much all of the Protestants, actually, since much of Martin Luther’s motivation was socio-political as well as religious; and the Southern Baptists (the issue of slavery being a prime cause in that split), will do for a start. I won’t even start into Falwell, Robertson, et.al, founders of the RR movement, who blatantly use their religion (or the bits & pieces they need, anyway) to promote their political careers.
The roots of the CI movement were in basic Christianity, with the added notion that Anglo-Saxons were the ‘chosen people’ and (IIRC) one of those ubiquitous lost tribes of Israel. According to their interpretation, they have Biblical justifications for those beliefs. Shall I start listing all of the Christian sects that consider their followers to be the ‘chosen people’, the ‘only saved’, etc etc etc? Oh wait, that would pretty much be all of them, wouldn’t it? Shall I start listing all of the Christian sects that have used Biblical principles to justify their actions and/or socio-political agendas? Oh wait, that would again be most all of them, huh?
So on those grounds, I’m going to precede on the premise that these are, indeed, Real Christian Religions ™, despite your snobbery. As I stated before, these guys are politically right-wing (way, way, right!) and religiously Christian. They share many of the motivations, purposes and goals of the RR - they decry the degeneration of our culture, call for a return to Biblical morality (of course, their definition of ‘moral’ is a bit different than standard), would like to make this nation a theocracy (of course they’d argue over whose version), so on and so forth. They just want to use more extreme methods to reach their more extreme ends - as I said, a difference in degree rather than kind. In fact, they even (please note clever segue back to the OP ;)) make the same claims of persecution. Of course, these poor folks are even more persecuted, because they & their kids aren’t only subjected to unChristian, immoral atheism, but ALSO unChristian, immoral mongrelism, but hey.
As previously stated, I know that the mainstream RR doesn’t share ALL of their goals and beliefs, but there is definitely some common ground there. On what grounds do YOU separate these folks out from the herd?
If you’re gonna try to do that, please explain the following:
What is the difference between Identity Christians, who advocate the use of violence and terrorism to promote theocracy, and Operation Rescue, who advocate the use of violence and terrorism to promote theocracy? Operation Rescue is, at least tacitly, admitted as part of the RR movement.
What is the difference between David Duke, a politician who is Christian and who at one point advocated racism but has since rescinded those statements, and Jerry Falwell, a Christian politican who at one point advocated anti-semitism, but has since rescinded those statements?
What is the difference between a member of a CI church, who will tell you that Jews are the spawn of Satan, and my Southern Baptist neighbor, who will be glad to explain to you that Jews are evil, soulless, God-killers? (Not to mention my Church of Christ mother-in-law, who will tell you all about how the evil Jews are trying to take over the world. :rolleyes: ) Ask most any average fundamentalist Christian & they’ll tell you the same sort of thing. Those church organizations will say that it’s not part of the religion, but it’s certainly what the churches are teaching.
What is the difference between a CI church that refuses to allow blacks as members and a Southern Baptist church that does the same? (The one my spouse went to with his family, if you’re wondering.)
If you answer all those, I’ll be glad to find some more. 
Really, I think that y’all are seriously naive or something. I’ll agree that some of it may be perspective, but I think some of that perspective may be geographical as much as religious or political. Y’all don’t live in the Bible Belt, do you? I suspect that if you did, you’d see a lot more similarity between these groups than you’d like to believe.
Well, that, and I suspect that y’all just don’t want to associate these groups with Christianity or with the right-wing conservatives, because y’all belong to or relate to those groups, and y’all don’t want to be personally associated with these nuts. Tell ya what: I won’t associate either of you with these whacks if you don’t associate me with the Animal Farm feminists. Deal?