Comment Re:States Rights (Score 1) 665
Wow ! This is quite a polarized view. Seen from the other side of the Atlantic, such attitude seem as extremist as the extremist you want to be expelled from 'your' society. I am not an history wonk, but I believe that at some point in time all nations and all religions were welcome in the USA ("Bring me those poor, tired, huddled masses, yearning to breathe free..."). I am sure, not to be too cynic, that it was a ploy to grow the 'european' population faster and 'occupy' the western and northern territories taken from the natives and in order to expand demographically and militarily the young nation ; but nevertheless many immigrants must have held that belief and transmitted that to their descendants.
Well after Waco, TX and 9/11, I am sure the dialogue between religious and atheists must have been a little soured, and I would not think to have reacted differently. But take example on our European mass shooter: Anders Breivik was not acting upon religious imperatives but over cultural purity.
Try to always keep in mind that the mainstream media only shows the extreme opinions, the rarely occuring events, the peculiar trends, the single narrow point-of-view, and that politicians (from either side) only react to those because they want to be in those media for their name to be remembered comes the election. If only people would pay attention to what politicians DO instead of what politicians SAY, well first of all we would put in jail the majority of the politicians who occupy the front page, then we would let the politicians who DO things be heard instead, and eventually we would elect the politicians who would defend your values based on past actions instead of having to decide blind folded between the least crooked of them all. Then we would have a political discourse able to address social issues, which of course the media would put on the front page under misleading or blatantly erroneous titles (why am I thinking of Slashdot right now ?) and which would try to play on misunderstandings and rejections from the people who would not have the time to read the piece or discard the whole thing ; the former (i.e. sensationalist journalists) would have to be fired or only be allowed to do obituaries, the latter (i.e. over-stressed people or shallow people) would have to get trained to put into perspective, to challenge any point-of-view, to question any certainty, to test any axioms, or to accept the impact the beliefs of others (corporations, political or religious groups) has upon ourselves ; my point is: you either think by yourself or you accept that others do the thinking for you, no knowledge is free.