I woke up this morning from a dream that Rob's house was a giant warehouse space (but still located out here). When I got home, he was scribbling all over the walls and floor, building a giant skate ramp inside he house… If I've reached the point where I'm projecting my desire to build the skate barn onto other people even in my dreams, I think it's safe to say it's going to happen.
Anyway, I could tell you a scare story about how Japan lost 206kg of plutonium, and how al Qaeda (yeah, the guys Bush defeated in the “war on terror”) has a nuke now… Or I could explain the details of the fraudulent and misleading evidence that Bush plans to use to justify war. But you don't really want to hear that, do you?
There are (in some ways) greater concerns closer to home. The new “Big Brother” database system, the TTIC that Bush announced in his SOTU speech, represents the death of privacy in America. The fact is, if you know every website a person visits, every credit card purchase they do (Shannon predicts: cash will be made illegal or at least largely unobtainable within a ten year window in the US), and so on, you basically know their thoughts. Now, that tool in the hands of a benevolent omnipotent God might be appropriate, but we all know that no man should have access to that level of power over other men — it has never worked, and never will. I believe that we are inherently good, but we are also inherently weak. The temptation to corrupt this is too great.
I'm also rather concerned at Bush's announcement that the US government will start paying to have churches constructed — as long as a church is also used for social services (and very few are not; on the whole churches do good for the community, but obviously with extreme bias) it can be covered by these vouchers. Not only that, but drug addicts may be forced by circumstance to accept God in order to get treatment. I have no problem with private programs preaching — but it is utterly inappropriate for the government of a modern multi-cultural nation to make it the default.
Government must be unbiased to be fair. As soon as a government accepts religious overtones, it ceases to be fair. As soon as funding is given to a specific religious demographic, it is being given unfairly. No matter what one's faith, that should be obvious. Am I saying Christianity is wrong somehow? Of course not. I'm saying that in order to protect our own freedom in the long game, we need to ensure an even playing field for all.
The end effect of giving government backing to religious organizations is to amplify the power of the dominant religion in a given area (since they are who are eligible for these vouchers). This is a thinly veiled attempt — only a fool can't see it clearly — to financially drive Christianity back into a dominant sociopolitical role in the US, and, more importantly drive out all faiths “invading” on their territory.
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