Honesty about Separation of Church and State

I believe that our government favors certain religions. It has values and ideas embedded in it that come from Christianity. Some of these values and ideas were in turn derived from Judaism and that, I believe, is the reason that Jews and Christians get along so well in the United States, along with Hindus and many others. I also believe that, while we claim that we tolerate all religions here, in reality we only tolerate compatible religions. There may be some of us who truly tolerate every religion even if it's to the detriment of our society as a whole, but I believe that most of us do draw a line, even if we aren't aware of it. I believe that Islam is fundamentally incompatible with the values and ideas of the United States. However, I also acknowledge that millions of Muslims do live here and the vast majority of them seem to do alright - and in my opinion they only way they are able to conform to American culture is by deviating from their religion.

I believe that to create a government that truly allows freedom of religion, we would have to remove from it some of our core values and beliefs because they are uniquely Jewish and Christian.  I believe that we wouldn't want to have such a government if we were able to attain it. I also believe that we are better off being honest with ourselves about what we do tolerate and announcing to the world that anyone who can conform is welcome, all others beware.

The religious values embedded in our government are exposed by our laws. Murder is not allowed, and government prescribes a punishment. Theft is not allowed, and government prescribes a punishment. Adultery is not allowed, and government prescribes a punishment. Buying alcohol on Sunday is not allowed in some states, and they prescribe punishments. At one time we even had a national prohibition on alcohol with prescribed punishments. These are distinctly religious rules and they favor the values of some people while discriminating against others.  The special and holy day of the week for Jews is Saturday. A Jew should be able to buy alcohol on Sunday, but this is not the case in Arkansas, Georgia, Minnesota, and more. In some places we have laws prohibiting other kinds of business on Sunday and we pretend that it's for a non-religious purpose. I believe that a comparison of our laws to Christian religious beliefs and practices would show a very strong correlation.  I believe the state of the union is not consistent with our claim to separation between church and state.

If our government truly allowed people of different religions to live their lives in accordance with their religious beliefs, then it would have to allow for completely different sets of laws as well as for laws governing interactions between members of different religions. I think that in order to get this right, it needs an abstract treatment with as few distinctions as possible. I propose the following distinctions: crimes against a person of the same religion, crimes against a person of a different religion, crimes against society or against the environment, violent crimes in each of these categories, non-violent crimes in each of these categories, and victim-less crimes. When I say religion I also mean to include in the discussion people who are atheists or who otherwise wish to set themselves apart from people of any known religion.

When a person from one religion commits a crime against another person of the same religion, should their religion and its institutions be solely responsible for administering punishment according to its own values and sense of justice? Do we all want that kind of autonomy for our own religion? Do we sincerely believe that each religion is a system of government and that they should all be allowed to function as designed in order to bring about some greater good?

If the religious punishment for said crime is murder, can we accept that?  After all, if a person doesn't want to be held accountable to those laws they could convert to another religion. What if the religion has a punishment for converting away from it?

Does geography matter? If a person from one religion commits a crime against another person of the same religion, but this happens in an area dominated by a second religion, should the authorities there apply their own laws? Or the laws of the religion of the criminal and victim? Can we trust people from one religion to apply laws from another religion? I think not, mostly because the legitimization of justice requires people to believe that the administrators are experts in the law. So should the authorities send the criminal to his own people to be tried? There may be several nearby communities of that religion, so how would the local authorities choose to which community they will send the criminal to be tried? Should the local authorities contact the closest religious community of the criminal? Is it possible that community will refuse to accept the criminal for trial? Should the local authorities then try the next possible religious community or should they then try the criminal by their own laws? Should they keep the criminal imprisoned until they find a suitable court?

If a person commits two or more crimes before being caught, and one of them is against another person of the same religion but another is against a person of a different religion, should they be processed in the order they occurred? Or should they be processed in the order of their seriousness? Do we compare the seriousness of the crime or the seriousness of the punishment? Is it possible this order might differ for different religions?

If a person commits a crime against a person of a different religion, which law applies? Should the criminal be tried according his or her own religion or according to the religion of the victim?  Allowing the religion of the victim to handle the crime could be a deterrent against people of a lax religion committing crimes with impunity against people of other religions. In such a system, ignorance of the law cannot ever be an excuse for a crime. People must know the laws of their own religion and, at a minimum, the laws of other religions that could have serious consequences, or else they must tread very carefully. Such a system might encourage a religion to develop very severe punishments in order to deter crimes against its members. Also, it is possible that some religions may have hypocritical laws, where they themselves distinguish between committing a crime against a member of the religion or against a non-member, and between a member of the religion committing a crime and a non-member of the religion committing the crime. If the religion of the victim has hypocritical laws, should the government demand application of the laws as if the criminal was a member of the victim's religion? Or would such hypocritical laws be abandoned in a system of government that already handles inter-religion issues?

What should happen to govern two people of no religion? Should the law should be applied as if they were from two different religions? So if the victim is a member of an atheist organization that is equipped to handle crimes, should the criminal be handed over to them?

Having multiple religious organizations, each with their own infrastructure for handling criminals, may result in a significant waste of resources. It may also allow a sort of denial-of-service attack against minority religions by committing many crimes in a short period of time against members of that religion and then turning over the actor-criminals for handling, overwhelming the judiciary capacity of the minority religion. Having multiple religious organizations handle their own criminal justice systems also means that some religions may be at a significant disadvantage when handling certain kinds of crimes. How would a religion that forbids certain technology or practice handle a crime committed using that technology or practice? They probably wouldn't have the forensic experts to discuss the evidence.

Should the government provide a complete criminal justice system and a national police force that handles temporary imprisonment and allows different religions to supply judges for their own cases?

If we were to change our government to allow such a large degree of autonomy to different religions, would we place limits on what can be considered a religion? If a group of people organize together and declare that they are following the teachings of some person, alive or dead, and create rituals and codes of conduct, and call it by some name, shall they be recognized as a religion and allowed the same autonomy as other religions?

If any of the religions have practices that are barbaric, discriminatory, or inhumane, can we live with that? And by asking this question I'm of course identifying myself as a person who thinks that his own religion is not one of these. It's convenient to say that a person in such a religion living in a free country could just convert or relocate but the reality is that abusive communities tend to have systems in place to keep people in place. And even if the systems themselves didn't force people to stay, as our founding fathers said over 200 years ago, "all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed".  If I can't stand idly by, knowing that some people in my own country are being abused in a way prescribed by their own religion, then I cannot support a system of government that allows true freedom of religion.

I think that when we talk about religious freedom we mean freedom within some bounds that are shared by most of us and by the founding fathers (and mothers). And I think that when we talk about religious tolerance we mean tolerance for anything that conforms to our basic values. Anything outside of these bounds might receive lip service when it's at a distance but I think we would not really tolerate it here at home.

I think we should be honest with ourselves and say, our religious beliefs are part of the state and we like it. We think it's good. We prefer our religion to other religions, we prefer our culture to other cultures. We want to keep it the way it is or make it better, in accordance with our beliefs of what better might be. Our beliefs, not others' beliefs.

The way I know that I live in a Christian country is that some states and counties forbid selling alcohol on Sundays, which is a special day for Christians but not for Jews or Muslims or Buddhists or many others. Yet I don't know of any state or county that allows selling only Kosher foods. In our constitution, Article I, Section 7, it is written: "If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law...".  Sundays excepted - but not Saturdays! Since every 7-day week has a Sunday, any span of 10 days will include at least one Sunday and some spans will include two Sundays. Therefore, could not the founding fathers have simply said that the President has 12 days to sign a bill? They could have, but they were Christian, so it didn't occur to them. I do acknowledge some religious freedom, such as not being forced to go to church, and a very religiously permissive and accommodating environment in many schools across the country. So I am happy to say that I live in a free country, with our own special definition of free, and a tolerant country, so long as as I live within the bounds of the dominant culture.

I may prefer increased separation of church and state, and I may prefer more honesty about what we really do here, but I think I would not like for any religious group to have complete autonomy here. It's better for the world to be divided up for that sort of thing. Each land should have only one set of laws. I  believe that these laws should be the minimum required for people to get along. In a country that claims separation of church and state, that minimum must be carefully considered.

We have our own set of values, American values. Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. Equal opportunity and treatment before the law based on merits, evidence, and without shallow discrimination on race, gender, religion, or age. Due process for justice. Safety. Privacy. Our sense of liberty has evolved since the writing of the Constitution - it used to mean just white people, now it means everyone. Our sense of equal opportunity has evolved - it used to mean just men, now it applies to men and women.

I think that we should have courage and say that anyone who shares our values and abides by our laws is welcome, and all others must find a home elsewhere in the world or face the consequences of breaking our laws, regardless of their religious beliefs. And I hope that our sense of separation of church and state will evolve - from limited separation to greater separation, to mean that we will secularize or abolish national laws that are specific to Christianity, keeping our American values and system of government separate from Christianity's specific beliefs and practices.

More ranting about the TSA

Not flying until the TSA is gone. I won't subject myself or my family to scanners and gropers. I planned a trip to Hawaii next summer - we're taking a cruise to Hawaii instead of flying. And next time I visit my sister across the country, I'm going to take a train instead of flying. The TSA doesn't make me feel safe, it makes me feel like I'm suspicious.

It makes me angry that I, a patriot, can sit in an armchair and list dozens of ways to carry out terrorist attacks that the TSA and Homeland Security aren't prepared to stop. Some of these have already been done in other countries and some are uniquely possible in the United States because of the way TSA does business. I'm thankful that the terrorists haven't figured these out yet, and I'm concerned about what will happen when they do - not about the damage they'll cause, but about the reaction of our government.

I'm angry at my own government today more than I was angry at the terrorists on 9/11. The terrorists killed thousands and it could have stopped at that. But my government embraced the "terror" and proceeded to violate the rights of millions. The terrorists won - they caused massive change in America by murdering only a few thousand innocent people. Or worse, the terrorists didn't strike fear into anyone but our politicians reacted to it anyway.

If we are going to remain the land of the free, we need to start acting like it again. We must abolish the TSA and put all of its proponents on trial for TREASON against the Constitution of the United States. Then we must employ a sensible, libertarian strategy for defending our country.

We need to educate everyone about personal responsibilities of every American.

We need to outlaw outrageous liability damages in courts so as to make it reasonable to help each other again. Americans with good intentions should not be afraid of frivolous lawsuits.

We need to award medals to Americans who display courage and bravery in the face of danger or even death, who try to protect their fellow Americans. Freedom and security isn't something we can abdicate and let the government handle exclusively.

We must educate everyone that complete security is a myth. Practicing security is just creating obstacles, barriers, and alarms against our enemy so that we can have a warning that an attack is coming. If our enemy is concerned about his life and doesn't have a good enough plan or enough resources to overcome our security practices, then we have effective deterrent. We must acknowledge that an enemy with a good plan and enough resources, or with no consideration for his own life, can overcome today's security. It's a risk that cannot be eliminated.

America is the land of the free, not the land of the secure, or the privileged, or the terrorized. All are welcome here, but we must not cater to them. We must learn to recognize their voices in the public debate and ignore them. We must learn to recognize their voices in our legislature and vote against them. We must learn to recognize their voices in the executive branch and fire them. We must learn to recognize their voices on the judicial bench and ridicule and embarrass them to resignation.

Abolish the TSA.
We Won't Fly.
Bruce Schneier's blog.