>Most European countries don't have church/state separation. England is the >worst offender, in that the Queen is the head of the Church of England and >the Prime Minister is the one who appoints Bishops (presumably with royal >assent).
It varies a bit. France has pretty good separation, including the recent banning of Islamic headscarves in state schools. In Ireland, there is no official state religion, religious taxes of any kind, or any appointing of church prelates by the state. The state does fund schools run by religious orders, provided they teach the approved syllabus (so Marcus, creationism can be taught in religion class, but evolution by natural selection must be taught in science classes :-)). >Beyond that, few European countries have anything resembling the >Bill of Rights. To be fair, western European countries are democratic, and political dissent is certainly not suppressed. I do wish that we had the equivalent of the 1st Amendment (though emphatically not the 2nd), which would see some of the more bizarre abberations removed, such as Ireland's Official Film Censor, or Germany's law that makes merely stating a public opinion that the Holocaust didn't happen a criminal offense (notwithstanding the overwelming evidence against such an idiotic view). The main difference I've noticed, is that Americans tend to see the biggest threat to their freedom as coming from government, whereas Europeans tend to see the biggest threat as coming from powerful individuals, groups or corporations. The American constitution certainly has this attitude (e.g. the Bill of Rights doesn't have a list of "Citizens have the right to ..." but instead "Government shall not ..."). Not surprisingly, since most other states at that time were ruled by despotic monarchies. To this end, many Americans seem to view the right to keep guns as an essential freedom to prevent an excessivly oppressive government, whereas in Europe the threat to our freedom from gun-toting criminals is considered a bigger one (and the price Americans pay in terms of a homicide rate many times that of comparable Canadian and European cities as too high). As has been demonstrated in Northern Ireland, if a sufficient portion of the populace wants to institute an armed rebellion badly enough, they'll get the guns anyway, without the need to make it too easy for your local crack-head. To keep this relevent to the topic of this list, this difference in attitude certainly has a bearing on how metrication should proceed. Whereas Europeans tolerate -- and even expect -- their governments to act in their best interest (and turn out in higher proportions in elections to turf them out if they don't), Americans have a deep distrust in central government, and want to minimize its impact on their lives. Thus an approach that would work well here in Europe (for example, there has been zero, nada, NO opposition to our impending metrication of speed signs in September), may not over there; the mere fact that a government instituted it would be enough to cause a sizeable opposition in America. Because of this, I am persuaded by Jim's recommendations that the government not try to force metrication too obviously. That is not to say it isn't taking an active enough role to accelerate it. It should certainly take the position that not metricating industry leaves the US at a disadvantage when compared to its competitors, and that it is justified in favoring metrication. Good progress could be made by metricating the government itself, removal of laws requiring colonial units, and restricting of federal funding unless metrication programs are in place (e.g. DOTs), effectively saying to the people "we are not forcing you to use whatever units you want in your private life, but we would be failing in our patriotic duty to ensure that American industry had the best tools available to compete with our overseas competitors, and that government itself used the most efficient systems to minimize waste of tax dollars". If you want to harness public opinion, don't paint metrication as being good because it makes you like us Europeans, but because it enables you to compete better with us. (apologies for being long winded). ------------------------------------------------------------------- Tom Wade | EMail: tee dot wade at eurokom dot ie EuroKom | X400: g=tom;s=wade;o=eurokom;p=eurokom; Unit A2 | a=eirmail400;c=ie Nutgrove Office Park | Tel: +353 (1) 296-9696 Rathfarnham | Fax: +353 (1) 296-9697 Dublin 14 | Disclaimer: This is not a disclaimer Ireland | Tip: "Friends don't let friends do Unix !"
