Concerns Over Religious Freedom

[One Bad Pig]

Fox News has been playing the "Christians are losing their freedoms and getting victimized and persecuted!!!!!" card as much as they can for some time now, in order to wring all the ratings possible out of it. So it's not at all surprising that US Christians think they are losing their freedom. The poll is just them repeating back to us what the media has been telling them.

The fault lies with the right-wing media for falsely portraying the Christian right's loss of absolute power to impose their will on others and force others to conform to their demands, as a persecution of those Christians by the minority groups they have been forced to stop persecuting. It's a situation where the bully is saying: "Waaaah! You stopped me from bullying all those other kids! Waaah! It's so unfair! You're basically bullying me and taking away my freedom to bully them!"

Christians can no longer force their own values onto others, and prevent two Buddhists getting a same-sex marriage on the grounds it isn't "Christian", and they're upset. Cry me a river.

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[Teallaura]

It's clear from the statistics in the article that some respondents think "worse" means less freedom, and some think it means more freedom.

*emphasis mine

Right. And you concluded that I had looked at the stats only, how exactly?

Because it's what you said - literally.

Quit assuming anyone who disagrees with you must be wrong.

I'm not assuming you are wrong - I know you are based on what you wrote. It's not possible to evaluate survey research the way you did using what you said you used. The only logical reading is that the math (statistics) and not the key questions is what 'made it clear' to you. Further, you state that this comes from the article, so all I see is you read an article. If the questions are included great - why didn't you refer to the key questions and not the statistics? If it was a simple misstatement, why didn't you just own up to it initially?

You could be right about your conclusion - dunno, haven't looked at the thing and don't even particularly care - but you cannot prove your conclusion based on what you said you used to assess the results. My one and only point was that the assessment you said you did could not do what you said you were doing with it. SR 101 - math isn't a key question.

You were the one making unfounded assumptions. That said, I probably should have been more civil in the initial response and I apologize for the antagonistic tone. It wasn't intended.

[Starlight]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]10365[/ATTACH]

As your cartoon amply demonstrates, the idea of maximizing free choice is a poor lens through which to try to understand liberal positions. You might as well go ahead and make a cartoon showing liberals being in favor of some things that begin with the letter 'A' but not others. That would be just as irrelevant.

The underlying logic behind nearly all liberal political positions is utilitarianism. If you were able to show liberals being inconsistent on that, then people would care.

[Jedidiah]

As your cartoon amply demonstrates, the idea of maximizing free choice is a poor lens through which to try to understand liberal positions. You might as well go ahead and make a cartoon showing liberals being in favor of some things that begin with the letter 'A' but not others. That would be just as irrelevant.

The underlying logic behind nearly all liberal political positions is utilitarianism. If you were able to show liberals being inconsistent on that, then people would care.

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[Knowing Thomas]

Well its certainly my biggest concern this election cycle.

[Sam]

Well its certainly my biggest concern this election cycle.

The "decline" of religious freedom? Not alleviating poverty, reducing the number of uninsured, increasing the quality of life for lower-income children, etc?

[Starlight]

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OTB seems to have thought his cartoon was making some sort of worthwhile point, and 8 people 'amen'ed it. I facepalmed when reading it, and responded by explained the basic facts of why it makes no useful point.

You're not usefully adding to the discussion by facepalming in response to my basic facts, unless you intended an ironic self-facepalm of "Oh, I realized how stupid I was previously being"?

[Starlight]

The "decline" of religious freedom? Not alleviating poverty, reducing the number of uninsured, increasing the quality of life for lower-income children, etc?

I think corruption should probably be most people's biggest concern in the election cycle, as it ultimately causes the US government's inability to deal with any of the other major issues.

[Sam]

I think corruption should probably be most people's biggest concern in the election cycle, as it ultimately causes the US government's inability to deal with any of the other major issues.

I'd say the most likely curb on corruption that can happen in the next decade will come from SCOTUS revisiting campaign finance laws, which will necessitate replacing retired justices with more liberal (or real conservative) ones.

One of the Top 5 reasons to suffer Clinton, in my opinion.

[Starlight]

I'd say the most likely curb on corruption that can happen in the next decade will come from SCOTUS revisiting campaign finance laws, which will necessitate replacing retired justices with more liberal (or real conservative) ones.

Hmm, I think in general Congress has the most power to act against corruption (if they were so inclined). There are, of course, a select few things they can't do due to SCOTUS decisions. But there's a lot more they can do than not:
- public funding of elections
- removing special access to politicians for lobbyists
- reinstating neutral advice to congressmen
- transparency laws regarding donations, and PACs and PAC ads
- limiting how easily people can move between jobs in industry and politics
- provide retirement packages for congressmen that encourage them to retire somewhere other than into an industry job

Basically, Congress could almost completely eliminate corruption if it really really wanted, and SCOTUS's dumb past decisions don't really hinder it all that much. I don't really buy the hand-wringing "oh, there's nothing congress can do now that the Supreme Court made a few bad decisions" defeatist attitude.

If the public funding laws say, for example, as they often do, that if a private interest spends money against you then you get immediately given extra public money to spend in your defense, then it removes the motivation of the private funders to even try to interfere too much in the election, as they know their own money is essentially being wasted (not to mention how upset the taxpayers get at them every time they hear "person X spent money helping candidate Y therefore more of your tax dollars are being taken in order to help candidate Z against the attacks"... it ends up working very strongly in the favor of private interests to cease attempting to interfere).

If Congress had the will to implement that, they could. All it needs is a sufficiently solid Democratic majority in both houses to get it done.

One of the Top 5 reasons to suffer Clinton, in my opinion.

In general I agree that restoring sanity to SCOTUS is crucial, although I don't think it's necessarily required for this particular issue. I agree Clinton is immeasurably preferable to any Republican candidate for that reason alone.

[Roy]

It's clear from the statistics in the article that some respondents think "worse" means less freedom, and some think it means more freedom.

*emphasis mine

Right. And you concluded that I had looked at the stats only, how exactly?

Because it's what you said - literally.

I said I had drawn a conclusion from the stats. I did not say I had looked at only the stats. The statistics by themselves mean nothing except in relation to the questions to which they apply.

I'm not assuming you are wrong - I know you are based on what you wrote. It's not possible to evaluate survey research the way you did using what you said you used. The only logical reading is that the math (statistics) and not the key questions is what 'made it clear' to you.

Yes. See earlier explanation of why.

That said, I probably should have been more civil in the initial response and I apologize for the antagonistic tone. It wasn't intended.

Ok. I probably should have checked your intent rather that biting your head off. Sorry 'bout that.

Roy

[Adam]

Now that I "amen'd" Starlight's #25, I have to disclaim certain portions.
1. I am no longer the Democrat I was before Christian persecution judicial tyranny unconstitutionally put Kim Davis in prison for five days. No, I can't stand any of the 15 Republicans who are still running, If the Dems nominate Warren or Webb, I enthusiastically vote Dem. (What a dream ticket! Elizabeth Warren for POTUS for being strong enough to fight Wall Street and Big Banks--lacking only the courage to take on the Federal Reserve as well--and James Webb of Virginia for Veep as knowledgeable enough to advise her on foreign policy and be sort of Acting Commander-in-Chief. Slight problem, of course: Warren refuses to run for POTUS and Jim Webb says he's not running for VP.) Otherwise, I'll vote 3rd or 4th party like I used to before 2000. (I was even a volunteer campaigner for Perot in 1992 and 1996.)

I dislike the current SCOTUS far more than he does. I am an active volunteer with Move to Amend to undo Citizens United, so I also support changing the nature of the Supreme Court. I'm more radical. I want to IMPEACH all those......... (censored in advance by Adam)! That means I want Scalia, Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Kennedy REMOVED from SCOTUS because they are judicial activists who violate the Constitution and who also preserve the fiction ("lie", let's be frank, I won't get another infraction for THAT) that Roscoe Conkling in 1880 said the XIVth Amendment committee intended corporations to be people. (To correct this does not require repentance by SCOTUS nor a constitutional amendment, Congress could correct this mistake by resolution--my opinion, anyway.) I did not mention Chief Justice John Roberts because he had the judicial restraint not to overturn Obamacare. (He may have been wrong to cave to POTUS on this, but the principle here is "judicial restraint", that justices "keep in their place" of interpreting law, not making it. Roberts ever-so-skillfully and effectively INTERPRETED the law in a way that allowed it based on a stretched rationale that even Obama did not believe.)
But I part company with Starlight in demanding we IMPEACH all the liberals as well. Heedless of the conservatives on the court (all those named above except Kennedy) who foresaw all-so-correctly that violation of the First Amendment Freedom of Religion was inevitable, the liberals not only MADE law, they even made a NEW CONSTITUTION that includes the flagrant violation of all established law throughout all previous history of homosexual "marriage". So doubly impeach Kennedy for flagrant malfeasance in office and all the other liberals Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan. (Two of them even had to violate all their teachings and commitment as Roman Catholics!)

But I'm not done yet in disagreeing with Starlight's otherwise excellent brief against political corruption so endemic now in Congress, the executive, and SCOTUS.
As I said, I can't think of any other candidates for POTUS in 2016 except Warren and Webb. What about Bernie Sanders? Yeah, what about him, other than before completing eight years in office he would be 83 years old! He's already older than I am, and believe me it makes a difference. It's been years since I was hired for a full-time job. (17 years actually, as the job I got in 1998 when I was 56 I kept until the Bush Depression in 2008, after which I have had two contract positions not really in my field as a Controller but as a revenue accountant and a decennial census enumerator and staffer, after which I have only had seasonal work as a tax preparer.) Why are so many people enthusiastic about "hiring" a 75-year old (as Bernie will be by November 2016) when in "real life" they would not hire anyone 60 or over for ANYTHING?
Clinton is hopelessly corrupt as a corporate shill and a congenital liar. O'Malley left both Baltimore and Maryland messed up after his tenure by his give-away of tax breaks to mega-corporations. (At least he's YOUNG enough, younger by far than even Warren and Webb.) Lincoln Chaffee might be all right in the old Modern Republican Eisenhower vein (I'm so old I still think, "I like Ike!", even though Robert Welch thought Ike was a Communist in his Black Book, "The Politician", but even though I knew about that book (and bought it later) I joined his John Birch Society in 1961 after Eisenhower lost us Cuba to Castro the year before), but no one these days is going to elect a quintessentially ESTABLISHMENT politician, and his wing of the Republican Party is so dead he switched to Democrat. OK, you got me--I would vote for Chaffee if he were my only choice.
Did someone say, "Joe Biden"? He's ONE YEAR YOUNGER than Bernie. Enough said.

[Sam]

Hmm, I think in general Congress has the most power to act against corruption (if they were so inclined). There are, of course, a select few things they can't do due to SCOTUS decisions. But there's a lot more they can do than not:
- public funding of elections
- removing special access to politicians for lobbyists
- reinstating neutral advice to congressmen
- transparency laws regarding donations, and PACs and PAC ads
- limiting how easily people can move between jobs in industry and politics
- provide retirement packages for congressmen that encourage them to retire somewhere other than into an industry job

Basically, Congress could almost completely eliminate corruption if it really really wanted, and SCOTUS's dumb past decisions don't really hinder it all that much. I don't really buy the hand-wringing "oh, there's nothing congress can do now that the Supreme Court made a few bad decisions" defeatist attitude.

If the public funding laws say, for example, as they often do, that if a private interest spends money against you then you get immediately given extra public money to spend in your defense, then it removes the motivation of the private funders to even try to interfere too much in the election, as they know their own money is essentially being wasted (not to mention how upset the taxpayers get at them every time they hear "person X spent money helping candidate Y therefore more of your tax dollars are being taken in order to help candidate Z against the attacks"... it ends up working very strongly in the favor of private interests to cease attempting to interfere).

If Congress had the will to implement that, they could. All it needs is a sufficiently solid Democratic majority in both houses to get it done.

In general I agree that restoring sanity to SCOTUS is crucial, although I don't think it's necessarily required for this particular issue. I agree Clinton is immeasurably preferable to any Republican candidate for that reason alone.

[Adam]

Just barely too late to edit my #27, but I feel I should add at least this:
Yes, I was extremely far Right in 1961, but already in 1962 I put aside politics as a hopeless quest and turned my interests towards religion. I was basically liberal mainline Protestant at that time, which made Roman Catholicism attractive to me as an antidote. My 1963 Inquiry class "aborted", but in 1969 I finally got baptized, and as a Roman Catholic (after my third inquiry class). Along the way I was among the 40% who voted for Barry Goldwater the Republican for POTUS in 1964, spent all of 1966 and 1967 in the US Army and (as a direct result) turned Peacenik and was among the 0.4% who wrote-in Eugene McCarthy as the only Peace Candidate in 1968 (Which would you have preferred among George Wallace, Richard Nixon, and Hubert Humphrey?). I never voted again for a major party nominee until Gore in 2000. By then (@1992) I was Episcopalian. In 2004 I turned Lutheran, and am currently switching to NALC as my Lutheran affiliation.

[Teallaura]

The "decline" of religious freedom? Not alleviating poverty, reducing the number of uninsured, increasing the quality of life for lower-income children, etc?

Without the former, the latter will suffer.