Not only that, but who responds to "We have accidentally destroyed your priceless collection of flutes. Write a letter." with "OMG, I have to write a letter!?"

How many societies can you name that were created by militant atheists?
 
I think 20th century Communist countries come pretty close. They may not have succeeded perfectly in their goal to erase any remains of the traditional order, usually based on religion, and to create a new socialist man, but they sure tried hard enough to kill tens of millions in the process.

I wonder how much the order in which you read books makes a difference in your world view. If you read Ayn Rand first, will Communist Manifesto seem completely hateful and ridiculous and vice versa. Maybe an interesting experiment.

You cannot understand a lot of the modern Western society's norms, customs and even laws, never mind art, music, architecture and so much more without being familiar with the stories of the Bible. It is a matter of basic education about the society you live in which, thank God, was not created by militant atheists like some others I could mention.

Most wars in history were not religious. Early 20th sentury with WWI and WWII which together probably killed more people than all previous wars put together, not to mention Red Terror in China and Russia, Stalin's purges and pogroms, Russian civil war etc had nothing to do with religion (though they did have a LOT to do with Mein Kampf and Das Kapital). The point is, people will fight and kill each other regardless, mostly over power and resources. They sometimes use a particular book, ideology or religion as an excuse and rallying point for their side, sometimes not. It doesn't make any sense to say Bible caused more deaths than another book.

I also think that the fact that the Bible served as a foundation for the most successful civilization in the history of mankind much more than offsets the cases when it was used for evil.

Sorry to spoil your crazy rant but actually these books are banned not because they are too PC (can you even imagine that ever happening? really?) but because they contain depictions of racism, sex, violence etc. It actually is the case of PC going too far yet again.

What part of commercial drones do you not understand? It is not about testing drones as much as developing infrastructure and procedures for widespread civilian drone use.

In more general terms, what they are saying is that successful businesses should be taxed to pay for their unsuccessful competition to catch up.

If French had any talent for making movies they would pay for themselves and wouldn't need to be subsidized. Name one French movie that isn't boring and pretentious crap.

That part has been upheld by the SCOTUS repeatedly.

Doesn't matter.

Exactly.

The focus on the SCOTUS to decide everything is dangerous and it seems to be designed to let the guilty off the hook. The NSA operates within government oversight and it is our elected officials who decide what it does. So blame your Congressmen, your President and yourself for electing them, not the Justices or the Constitution.

The Constitution is a small document and it cannot decide every issue perfectly. For example the government could pass a law that parents do not have right to raise their children and that instead they will be raised by government approved personnel. The Constitution simply does not say anything about that so that would not be found unconstitutional either.

Not unconstitutional (very arguable in this case) != OK.

This childish nonsense is tiring. First of all, neither is really true and many of them wrote against slavery but they operated within the bounds of what was possible at the time. Pick any venerated historical figure from another time and you will find a bunch of things that are wrong from the present day perspective.

Secondly, they are not worshiped as Gods personally but admired for their political wisdom which was ahead of their time. Constitution they wrote is not perfect but it's pretty damn good.

In any case, most of the the value of the Constitution is not in its perfection as a document or the perfection of its authors but in the fact that it stands above the elected officials (rule of law, not rule of men) and that it is very difficult to change to suit whoever happens to be in power at the time. Having a constitution that can be changed fairly easily by a simple majority (like in many countries) is like having no constitution at all since majority can always trample on minority's rights.

It is not. The mission of the NSA is to "Collect (including through clandestine means), process, analyze, produce, and disseminate signals intelligence information..."

It is up to the politicians you and I elect to set the boundaries.

the rich and the big enterprises pay nearly no taxes

That's ridiculous: http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/12/news/economy/rich-taxes/

What rankings are you talking about? This is what I found:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_in_the_World

UAE doesn't compare well with the USA at all.

Yes, but how many more people will think twice about making any kind of satire that makes fun of the kingdom when they see how even such a mild video gets you a jail sentence? That's what it's about.