Regardless of his religious preconditions, PEPFAR was both an extremely generous foreign aid investment and highly effective at providing antiretroviral treatment against AIDS, although yes some of the funding did go to abstinence education. If anything Bush's still high favourability ratings in Africa are testament to that.

How was the election of a Muslim theocracy in Lebanon Bush's doing? He supported Israel's invasion post-occurance, but unless he exacted any direct control over Israel's foreign policy there I can't see the connection.

Olbermann infers connections to the Mumbai bombings, the killing of Benazir Bhutto, again where is the link? The US was never proposed to be the sole global guardian against terrorism.

Preventing Kim Jong-il from acquiring nuclear weapons again is a global failing. Applying more stringent sanctions, whether they would have had any effect or not was vetoed by China. You could argue more effective diplomacy was required, but as it stands it is not a failing specifically of his administration but more of an unrealised success.

As for the rest, there's little I can argue on. I'm no apologist, but I take offence to Olbermann and for that matter, much of MSNBC providing factually correct, but one sided news.

As for why I sifted it, I want to raise my star rating and no one likes my music >.<

Allowing arbitrary political, religious or market forces to veto what may be part of the general cultural and political discourse is antithetical to the concept of free expression in an open society.

This is also an issue of "religious" persecution. If I'm turned away from a restaurant on the basis of my (non)religion or ethnicity, that's illegal. The billboard company should not be at liberty to refuse to do business on the open market with people or groups on the basis of their beliefs, or how others respond to their beliefs.

If theology has veto power over the market, and the market makes these decisions, the market is simply a tool of theocracy.

If churches where buying up all the billboards in order to control what is on them, that is a legitimate (and expensive) market intervention.

When people call in and file complaints and threaten boycotts of companies who do business with people they disagree with, they are demanding religious persecution, that is a political intervention in the market. Don't try and cleanse this by passing it through the market, this is systematic religious persecution, the government permits it and the business enacts it. Selling billboard space does not give one the right to discriminate against people on the basis of their religious views, that is a "freedom" the government does not, and should not, permit its citizens.

>> ^SSIops:
>> ^brain:
>> ^quantumushroom:
I wonder how American atheists feel when they watch this, then turn around and accuse the US govt of being a "theocracy". They even get to keep their heads attached to their necks while criticizing ALL religion.

BTW, that didn't make any sense.

I think what he's getting at is: America(and other countries) has the luxury or being able to criticize any religion with little consequence. But in some countries, criticizing you're country's religion can lead to your execution.


Well yeah, but it's nonsense:
1. Not all theocracies chop people's heads off for criticizing religion.
2. People can still criticize a government that is fusing with religion, even if it is not an official theocracy.
3. People can still criticize a government that is fusing with religion, even if they don't chop people's heads off for criticizing religion.
4. People can still criticize a government, even if you've heard of a government that's worse.

>> ^brain:
>> ^quantumushroom:
I wonder how American atheists feel when they watch this, then turn around and accuse the US govt of being a "theocracy". They even get to keep their heads attached to their necks while criticizing ALL religion.

BTW, that didn't make any sense.


I think what he's getting at is: America(and other countries) has the luxury or being able to criticize any religion with little consequence. But in some countries, criticizing you're country's religion can lead to your execution.

>> ^quantumushroom:
I wonder how American atheists feel when they watch this, then turn around and accuse the US govt of being a "theocracy". They even get to keep their heads attached to their necks while criticizing ALL religion.


BTW, that didn't make any sense.

I wonder how American atheists feel when they watch this, then turn around and accuse the US govt of being a "theocracy". They even get to keep their heads attached to their necks while criticizing ALL religion.

>> ^imstellar28:
they need a lot more than a poll tax, they need a 100 question multiple choice quiz.
first question would be:
The system of government which best protects human rights is a:
A. Monarchy
B. Oligarchy
C. Democracy Theocracy
D. Anarchy
E. Republic
Anyone who fills in A-D doesn't get to vote.


Fixed that for ya. There is a surprising number of people who would piss on the graves of our founding fathers and push us towards a Theocracy.

I only had to wait for the volunteers to find my name in the voter rolls. No line, even though the polling location was serving 2 voting districts. There was only one touch-screen machine, so I went with the available paper ballot option. I even got to load it into the Optical Scanner.

Of course...prop 2 got passed because of the ignorance of people who listened to PETA and prop 8 got passed because of the ignorance of people like YOU who think this country is a theocracy.

>> ^CaptainPlanet420:
>> ^Grimm:
>> ^Nebosuke:
It's so screwy that one of the most liberal states will now ban gay marriage.

Or that we care more about farm animal rights (prop 2) then human rights.

Then go hate on PETA.

The horrible truth is that compared to Europe, we're in a fucking theocracy.


Thats absolutely the truth. The US is, with the current government in power, barely more secular then many Muslim nations.

It's rather striking that this country was founded on religious freedom but we are the least secular 1st world country in the western world. The good thing is more and more people every day see crap like our supposed leaders saying stuff like 'fruit fly research is inconsequential', and become part of the secular movement in this country.

>> ^zombieater:
>> ^JiggaJonson:
yes of course people have a right to their own beliefs but but but your beliefs have a HUGE impact on the decisions you make. She would and will make decisions based on her belief system which right now does not fall in line with what our government is. We are maybe the only secular country in the world right now and it's a damned good thing we are. I think all too often people forget that the first amendment is not just freedom of religion it's freedom FROM religion. Religious interests should have no role in politics today.

I'm pretty sure many European countries are much more secular than we are. President Bush states that god helps him in his policy decisions. When your highest government official takes advice from an imaginary being, I'd be hesitant to call that government secular. The horrible truth is that compared to Europe, we're in a fucking theocracy.


The irony is that ON PAPER, the United States Constitution forbids government entanglement with religion, while the UK and Sweden have tax-supported official state churches of which most of the population are lapsed members, despite having a majority of nonbelievers. In practice US policy is much more influenced by religious fundamentalism.

>> ^JiggaJonson:
yes of course people have a right to their own beliefs but but but your beliefs have a HUGE impact on the decisions you make. She would and will make decisions based on her belief system which right now does not fall in line with what our government is. We are maybe the only secular country in the world right now and it's a damned good thing we are. I think all too often people forget that the first amendment is not just freedom of religion it's freedom FROM religion. Religious interests should have no role in politics today.


I'm pretty sure many European countries are much more secular than we are. President Bush states that god helps him in his policy decisions. When your highest government official takes advice from an imaginary being, I'd be hesitant to call that government secular. The horrible truth is that compared to Europe, we're in a fucking theocracy.

It's not a slippery slope argument. Faith is believing in something without a good reason. Believing in something without a good reason increases your risk of being wrong. Social norms accept some types of faith and not others. But collectively, people believing in things without good reasons increase the risk of social norms being wrong. This gives us problems with theocracy, sexual repression, antihomosexuality, antiabortion, antiatheism, etc. Fifty years from now much of that will be disdained as segregationists are disdained now.

Any one of the following points is enough to refute Pascal's Wager:

*If a god exists, and he is such an asshole that he would send people to hell for doubting his existence, then he is unworthy of worship.

*One cannot simply choose to believe something that one does not actually believe.

*It's not a binary choice, but a choice between atheism and thousands of different religions. What about all of the other religions, which if true, would punish you for choosing the wrong religion? It's all bullshit anyway. Whatever probability you assign to the truth of each religion, I can make up another false religion with an even worse penalty for not believing in it.

If Iran is a democracy with a ruling theocracy, then I ask you: what makes America any different?

This video is important because of all the trash-talking we do about these middle-eastern theocracies. To those who believe that this country has separation of church and state, watch this video and realize that our current leaders (and those that have a DAMNED good chance of being elected soon) honestly believe that they can talk directly to God...

Sigh.... brings new meaning to the term american taliban... we are just this || close to a theocracy people...