On 2/16/06, Collin R Brendemuehl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: <snip> > The Left wants to control culture and religious belief just as much > as do some religions.<snip>
Sorry, Collin, but you're simply wrong. Many years ago, was a member of a radical revolutionary leftist group (which I'm not anymore, for reasons that I won't get into) called the International Socialists. It really doesn't get much farther left than those guys. In my several years as a member of that group, including a year on branch committee, not once did I ever hear of any policy regarding the control of religious belief, nor were any of several practising Christians or Jews in that group belittled, chastised or ridiculed for their beliefs. If they wanted to control religion, it was not merely a hidden agenda, it was ~very~ well hidden. In Canada, the New Democratic Party, a democratic socialist party (which won some 40 seats in our latest election), is farther left than anything you have in the US - they don't want to overthrow anything, let alone religion. Yes, Marx and Stalin and those boy abolished religion in the USSR. Those guys were dictators, which had nothing to do with whether they were on the left or right side of the political fence; dictators come in all shapes and colours. In my experience, among agnostics and atheists that I know, no one wants to abolish religion or limit religious beliefs of others. I don't mean to speak for all irreligious people, but for myself, I want the religious to stop telling me what's right and wrong (which most don't, it's the vocal few who do all the talking), and I want the government to get out of the business of religion: that means tax churches just like other property owners, that means all government organs should have no reference to God - including prayers in schools, using phrases such as "in God we trust", and refering to God in the pledge of allegiance or the national anthem (as the Canadian one does). I'm not telling anyone what to do or how to worship, rather, I'm telling them to leave me alone, and stop pushing their views on me. cheers, frank -- "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept." -Henri Cartier-Bresson
