Re: Fw: Role of God in government

[Jed Rothwell]

This is just a passing phase or fad. All nations, including the US, periodically go to extremes with one belief or another. In the 1920s and again in the 1950s in the U.S. people became obsessed with communism and subversion, but after a while they came to their senses. At present a small number of people are on a religious binge. This happened in the late 19th century ("The Great Awakening") and again in the early 19th century. Today's obsessions include religion and obscenity on broadcast television. Complaints about obscenity have risen from 111 in the year 2000 to over 1 million last year. Most of these complaints are lodged by members of "family oriented" right-wing pressure groups. They are of no consequence, in my opinion. Actually, I am pleased to see extremist groups (on the left or right) waste their political momentum on trivial issues such as obscenity on television.

The US also went to extremes with the prohibition and with today's "war on drugs." These had much more serious consequences than the obsession with television pornography. The Civil War was obviously the worst case of extremism in US history.

As for the humanist origins of the Constitution and the federal government, throughout most of US history the federal government has been considerably more liberal than the population at large. There have been glaring exceptions such as the incarceration of Japanese-American citizens and the 1950s anti-Communist witch hunts.

- Jed