Who Would Jesus Play For?
LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY lullabypit)
The way a lot of us think, the Constitutional guarantee assuring us freedom of religion is a de facto promise that we're entitled to be free of religion if we choose. (In fact, there's no informed way of reading the clause otherwise.) Sadly, there are way too many religious extremists in the country who think that the 1st Amendment says we all have the right to worship Jeeezus just like they do. I guess this is part of the price we pay for living in a country founded by Puritans, and most days it's more of a philosophical annoyance than anything.
I don't mind people believing what they want and living in accordance with those principles, up to a point. And that point, of course, is where you begin intruding on my rights. I'm a real old-school live-and-let-live conservative in that way. But the Wide Right won't leave it alone. They insist on projecting their narrow beliefs into every corner of American life they can reach and they seem not respect the rights of anyone to be left the hell alone.
This leaves a lot of Americans - a lot more than I suspect we realize - feeling like they're being beat over the head with Jesus. Instead of focusing on political policies that will make our nation stronger, we have to devote way too much effort to fending off the theocratic impulses of our worst element, and even when we do address our most critical issues - say, education - we don't talk about how to foster the smartest crop of young minds in the world, we talk about whether Genesis 1 is a suitable text for freshman biology. The 21st Century is presenting our country with the most brutal global economic competitive challenge in our history, with countless of European and Asian nations lining up to eat our lunch. I imagine China is laughing its ass off at "intelligent design." In fact, if I were running the economic development arm of the Chinese government, I'd be funneling millions of dollars to American crusading conservative organizations and doing all I could to help get evolution out of US schools completely.
Call it an investment in my future.
Baseball, hotdogs, apple pie and Jesus Saves
So, what does all this have to do with baseball? ( Read more... )
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Current Music: "Numb" by U2