After more than a year of he said/she said self righteous political cockfighting, the elections have passed and we Americans now find ourselves knee deep in the annual battle over the role of government as it pertains to the celebration of Christmas. Make no mistake my fellow lemmings, this issue is merely one of the many that make up America's ongoing Culture War. The deeper, end of the day issue at hand revolves around the meaning of the freedom of religion clause contained within the First Amendment. As Christmas is now just days away, be forewarned, any fits of reason that have animated the individual independent mind will once again be cast against the fan, with bellicosity filled rhetoric now making up the verbal oxygen in the public forum. Media pundits, pukes, and parrots from both sides of the partisan peanut gallery are taking up armchairs as we speak.
In one corner, we have the On Loan from God Right and its zeal to wrap the the freedom of religion clause so far around the First Amendment axle that the electorate (that's us) may actually think that forcing school-aged, I miss my mommy children to talk and walk like a windup Jesus doll (no batteries included) is a good idea. In the other corner, we see the Loony Tune Left, and its demands for governmental support for teaching evolution to fetuses in the nude while singing campfire songs and smoking weed (for medicinal purposes only).
There is no doubt that the First Amendment establishes a line in the sand between Church and State. A seismic shift away from the trendy Eurotrash combo deal supported by taxes and thrown down by edict, the question remains, where is that line? There are no definite answers, but I think it possible to gauge a notion by looking to the purpose of Church/State seperation itself. While many a knucklehead may disagree, a person with a brain (this includes me) and in touch with his (or her, See: Suffrage Movement) rational faculties can infer that the purpose of this seperation was to protect the right to dissent in matters of religion: to make certain that individualst would never be forced by government to profess or support a religious idea that he does not agree with. Government officals may handle snakes and talk to the dead (BTW, a new reality show on FOX) all they want, on their own, but they may not use the government's carrot or stick to promote these ideas. In the U.S.A, government promotion of ideas inevitably leads to government imposed psuedo-agreement where the majority rules and minorities are more tolerated than protected. It gets interesting, like here, when the majority is split.
The On Loan from God Right seeks to demand religious agreement by the power of government, ultimately "agreement" by AK-47, when it squawks up and down like a headless chicken with its support of nativity scenes placed on government property by government officals or its fight to keep "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, a political invention implemented in 1954 by Congress as a rhetorical tool in the fight against those silly commies. At the same time, the Loony Tune Left, who have correctly fought against the righteous righties on this issue, are equally guilty in their high pitched cackles for more funding for such secular staples as public funding of the arts. These Loony Tune Lefties do not seem to give a hoot whether you or I in fact agree with or approve of the particular splotch of paint or cow dung that the liberal purse snatchers hold so dear. In the end, the Right attempts to destroy individual thought by imposing religious dogma while the Left performs a shakedown with a smile.
Whether it is the use of the public moola to endorse religious ideas or the advocacy of public dough for the artsy fartsy idea of the month, its politics by the kettle calling the pot black. While each side smacks each other, they have their hands in our pockets and their bullhorns in our ears.The bottom line is that only an individual can hold the spoon to the oatmeal inside his own head. To force a man to adhere to any particular doctrine or to fork over greenbacks to push some idea perpetuated by some depressed French guy is to paralyze the very idea of agreement, the fulcrum of our Democracy. At its core, it disables his ability to seperate truth from fairy tale.
In the end, this Culture War will be decided by truth, not by the political mercenaries and talking heads on the polyspectrum and there tug of war over who gets to control defensless little Tommy's mind while funding the effort by taxing Tommy's parents. Its about time we look a little closer at the First Amendment while at the same time getting the government out of the Meme distribution business. For the people and by the people was not articulated during a burp.
Oh by the way, Merry Christmas.
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