A Follow On To Yesterday's Post

Once upon a time the Geek's mother sat him down and said, "Geek don't ever discuss either religion or politics--and above all else don't talk about them together." Mom was right. People tend to see or hear what they want to see or hear and not what is actually said or written.

So it was with yesterday's essay on "Christianism" as the first cousin of "Islamism."

The Geek has been contacted by some good, sincere Christians who took his essay to mean that he was under the impression that all Christians wanted to roll back the calender to pre-Enlightenment times and wanted to install some sort of Christian theocracy.

Of course the Geek wrote nothing of the sort. The fault must, of course, reside with him and not the readers who missed his point, leaping to the erroneous conclusion that the Geekster had turned anti-Christian in his dotage. To make the record clear: The Geek is not against any particular religion or even religion in general.

The Geek is, however, very much in opposition to groups or individuals who attempt to enforce or impose their belief system through either the power of the state or the even more potent force of fear.

Islamism is a subset of Islam in which the goal of the proponents is the eradication of the "House of War" as all non-Muslims are dubbed by the sacred writings of the faith. Similarly "Christianism" is a subset of Christianity in which the political goal of the adherents is the creation of the mythic days of long ago when the Great Chain of Being was the official paradigm for a secure, orderly, harmonious, and just social and political order.

To both the Islamist and the Christianist the accomplishment of the goal reigns supreme. The presumed benefits, it is believed by members of both groups, would be so beneficial to the entire human race that all methods might be used with ethical justification.

The Islamists, particularly those who have embraced jihad have made it abundantly clear that even the most violent and fear producing tactics are acceptable, even laudable, in pursuit of the goal of defeating the "House of War" and those Muslims deemed to be apostates.

Given the nature of the majority of Muslim majority states in which the instruments of democracy are either weak or absent, the rush to violence can be understood even if not applauded. Also quite easy to understand is the frustration and anger bred within the Islamist community by the existence of major disparities in political power, social status, and economic security which exist in so many Muslim majority states. The perceived failure of either society or polity to solve the many problems along with the palpable lack of judicial, economic, and political independence, transparency, and incorruptibility provide a sound basis to advocate a return to the putatively"pure" faith of the early years of Islam as illustrated by the Koran and the life of the Perfect Man, Mohammad, and his Companions.

The motivations of the Christianists in the US are also easy to both see and understand. When the Christianists critique contemporary America, they emphasize their perception of moral decay on a massive scale along with rampant materialism, a degenerate focus on the rights, privileges and worth of the individual, the corruption of business and politics. In these criticisms the Christianists take a position identical to that of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood after his short stay in the US immediately after World War II.

In their criticisms the Christianists are no different from a large number of Christians, Jews, and secular humanists. One need not be a Christianist or even a Christian to view with dismay the end effect of the multitudinous changes which have manifested themselves in the US during the post World War II period.

There is nothing unique, nothing new, nothing noteworthy in the Christianist indictment or its bill of particulars. It has all been said before. Many, many times.

The difference between Christianists and all other Christians--and non-Christians as well--is their view of the necessary solution and the means which might be justified in securing that solution. The Christianist is identified not by religion per se or the nature of the complaints but simply by the nature of the solution and acceptable methods.

This is precisely the same mechanism by which the distinction between Islamist and all other Muslims might be parsed. Or, to err on the side of accuracy, parse themselves.

Now for the hard part. Take a deep breath, we are going to enter some deep historical, anthropological, and psychological water.

The first, most important task for a community of faith to undertake is one of decision. A decision must be made between several options. The community may remain silent, detached from social, economic, and political matters, focusing instead upon the religious development of every member of the community. Or, the community may choose to actively join the political process with a view toward becoming an integral part of the governing elite. Finally, the community may decide to stand back, apart from the political class, and engage in the prophetic activity of criticism and exhortation.

At different times in the history of the US and Europe, the assorted communities of faith have chosen each of these options. The distillation of historical experience demonstrates that a community of faith has the greatest, most positive impact upon the larger society when it uses the third option--the prophetic option.

The avenue of avoidance, of ignoring the problems, turbulence and disorder of the larger society so that maximum efforts can be made on the individual's development in the faith by definition assures a smaller impact on society generally. Still, a close reading of the historical record for both Europe and the US shows clearly that leaders in all fields of endeavor have been guided and motivated by the principals and beliefs of their faith. Sometimes the outcomes have been bad. At other times the result has been good, even very good. On balance, the latter has been more common than the former.

The lure of power is more seductive than any aspect of sex. Indeed it has been observed that power is the greatest aphrodisiac known. Thus it is not at all surprising that communities of faith have joined not only the political process but the governing elite as well. Historically, right on down to the years of the Bush/Cheney administration, this option has been the worst choice.

OK. That is one set of basics. Take another breath. Time for the second round.

In the US a community of faith has three avenues available to it in seeking to address the problems it believes demand solution. These are the same three alternatives available to all groups seeking to solve problems, change the status quo in any manner.

The three avenues are these: persuasion, litigation, coercion.

It must be understood that communities of faith--including those of the Christianists-- deserve access to the Public Square on an equal footing with all comers. Unfortunately, perhaps tragically, communities of faith have been denied their rights to the Public Square increasingly over the past fifty years. This wrong-headed denial of access has been incorrectly predicated upon the requirements of separating church from state.

As a result faith predicated speech in the Public Square has been denatured to the more-or-less formula sort of "God talk" which typifies election campaigns. Far from being a triumph for the secularists amongst us, the suppression of faith derived speech in the Public Square has been a defeat for all of us.

Arguably the blockage of communities of faith from the Public Square has been a major contributor to the sense of alienation and victimization which has characterized much of the rhetoric coming from Christianist groups.

Persuasion is not guaranteed to work. Certainly history demonstrates that efforts to persuade a large and diverse population of the necessity of a given action do not bring quick results. Nor do they bring results which are necessarily satisfactory to the initial proponents.

Everything connected with politics whether local or national is inherently messy, slow, untidy in outcome and the result of necessary compromise. This is guaranteed to dissatisfy many people, particularly those for whom the compromised "cause" constitutes a matter of core belief, basic principle, or, most importantly, personal identity.

It is the slow, messy, and uncertain nature of persuasion in the Public Square which leads groups to seek a quicker, more certain, and more complete solution through litigation. While never predictable in outcome, litigation does have more rules and less ambiguity than the Public Square. It is easier to convince a single judge or a majority of the justices than it is to win an outright victory free of any taint of compromise in the Public Square.

The problem comes with the nature of the final decision. It is imposed from on high, from a remote and unaccountable authority backed by the full weight of the state. Thus the outcome of litigation can (and sometimes does) run counter to the views held by the majority of the public.

In and of itself this is not a fatal difficulty. The courts exist in large measure simply to protect the minority against the power of the majority. Without this factor in play the vox populi could easily become the voice of tyranny.

Over the centuries communities of faith have both initiated litigation or, in the role of defendant, been the cause of major changes in law and social or political attitudes. Resorting to (or even welcoming) litigation is a valid approach for any community of faith including Christianists.

Coercion is the third option. It is a valid approach simply because it works. After all how long could the state exist without the mechanisms of coercion at its disposal? Communities of faith have a long and distinguished record of employing non-violent means of coercion to achieve their goals. The American civil rights movement of the Sixties is an outstanding example of the potency of non-violent yet coercive means to achieve a goal against very significant opposition.

There is no reason that Christianists (or Islamists for that matter) cannot or should not use the methods of non-violent coercion which have been employed often and well by other communities of faith. Used in conjunction with persuasion coercion of this sort has been proven highly effective in altering deeply rooted behaviors in a majority population.

Violent coercion can be justified only on the basis of the pragmatic consideration. It works. The anti-choice movement in the US which is in large measure manned by Christianists has shown the effectiveness of sub-lethal coercion, sub-lethal terror, particularly when punctuated by high profile episodes of lethal coercion, genuine terrorism by anyone's understanding. Violent protests, facility destruction, and the occasional homicide have proven far more effective in preventing women from exercising this particular aspect of reproductive choice than have either litigation or access to the Public Square.

With the possible exception of the use of sub-lethal but still violent coercion there is nothing in the use of methods which distinguishes the Christianist from all other communities of faith or any pressure or special interest group of a purely secular nature for that matter.

So, how come there is any utility to the use of the term, "Christianist" in describing a particular sub-set of Christianity generally? It isn't as if they resemble the Islamists let alone the jihadi.

Well, bucko, the distinction gains its utility from the issue of goals far more than it does methods even if methods employed finally does play a part, even a major one in distinguishing the Christianist from others of the Christian faith.

Whether a single issue entity such as Operation Rescue, a more-or-less moderate group such as the Discovery Institute, or a totalistic (and so far very fringe) bunch such as the Christian Dominionists, all Christianists seek the end to all perceived contemporary problems, turbulence and injustices by turning back the calender to a presumed historical Utopia.

Of the assorted Christianist organizations, Operation Rescue and others of similar nature have the most limited retrogressive goal. They will be satisfied, at least in major part, by going back in time to the years before various court decisions including but not limited to Roe v. Wade provided women with a wider selection of legal mechanisms to control their reproductive destinies.

As the "Wedge Document" as well as various writings make abundantly clear the Discovery Institute as well as other entities in the Creationist camp want to roll the calender back to the centuries preceding the Enlightenment in both its Scottish and French forms. In the estimate of leaders within this segment of the Christianist movement the sins attendant upon the Enlightenment far outweigh its benefits. The campaign against Darwin (to use the incorrectly and grossly oversimplified icon of the totality of evolutionary biology) is intended simply to be the nose of the camel in the post-Enlightenment tent.

The Creationists have used the Public Square in a sort of stealth jihad to gain control of school systems on both the local and state level in order to ban the teaching of evolution unless accompanied with a Creationist or Intelligent Design slant on the comings and development of life on Earth. The expansion beyond Darwin is explicit in such intellectual castrations as eliminating the Big Bang and continental drift from curricula. Even when ultimately rejected by voters or the courts, the effort is to deny the Enlightenment and bring back the supposed halcyon days of stability, harmony, and justice presumed to have existed during the static days of the Great Chain of Being.

The extremists of the Christian Dominion have the most expansive goal. Their intent is to establish a theocracy in the US. In this vision a Godly, harmonious and just society would be brought into existence by the application of the plethora of laws in the Old Testament and complete obedience to the laws of the deity as interpreted and applied by the clergy. (Sound familiar? Thought so, just insert Koran and Shariah in the appropriate spots.)

While there is no realistic probability that the most extreme goals such as those of Christian Dominionism will come to pass, this is no reason to ignore the potency of the Christianists. Nor is it any reason to overlook the similarities in motive and method between the Christianists and the Islamists.

Most importantly the existence of Christianists just like the obvious presence of Islamists in the world today provides the most robust justification for fully understanding not only religious doctrine and belief systems per se, but for appreciating the close, even intimate relationship between religion and politics.

And, this, mom, is why the Geek put your well meant advice aside.

Lurching Through The Swamp(s)

The first swamp is, no surprise here, Afghanistan. The early reports (they're all over the web, no real need for links) have it that President Obama, after only three months of study and palaver, and distractions over the "credibility" of Karzai's election, has finally opted for the least worst course of action. This means that another 34,000 US troops will hit the ground over and above the 22,000 already tabbed by the President for service there.

If the early reports are right (and the Geek hopes they are), the mission of the new increment will be against the Taliban strongholds in the Kandahar and Helmand areas. The goal will be the suppression of the Islamist jihadists both soft and hard core. The intent is the creation of an area which is quiet enough for the Afghan national forces to take over and the Afghan government (if any) to provide essential services and establish both functional and existential legitimacy.

By implication at least, the US military is officially out of the nation-building game. If correct, that is a move that is long overdue. While there is much a military force can and should do to provide assistance to local civilians, the top job is restoring sufficient quiet that purely civilian efforts can build a nation--from the base on up to the pinnacle. To date, the building efforts have been in the reverse and thus doomed to fail.

President Obama is to be congratulated for having listened to such advisors as SecDef Gates rather than those such as Vice President Biden--or even National Security Advisor Jones, who was apparently overly traumatized by his service as a junior combat leader in Vietnam to take a fully mature view of the ways in which the effort in Afghanistan differ from the debacle in Vietnam.

The strict focus on suppressing Taliban as an effective combat force coupled with an eye to the exit emphasizes the difference between the approach currently and belatedly underway in Afghanistan and the long delayed and poorly executed "Vietnamization" exercise during the Nixon administration. Now, if Congress does not play the spoiler role it had during the Vietnam endgame, there is a chance the US and its allies will achieve the minimum necessary strategic goal of "not losing."

In Afghanistan, as in Iraq, "not-losing" is the best that can be hoped for in the real world. As the Korean War paradigm shows, "not-losing" is not really fully satisfying but it is enough. It works imperfectly but it works.

The Iranian swamp has grown both deeper and more murky with the mullahs' men announcing that the country would construct another ten enrichment centers while Russia indicated it would not stand in the way of any new sanctions consensus. In a way both announcements merit a mere "well, la-de-dah and humma-humma."

The threat from Tehran to proliferate centrifuges at an awesome rate of knots was a completely expectable response to the IAEA Board of Governors smiting the regime on the hand for its previous actions in that area. If the Iranian regime expected any other action such as a mea culpa from the body for having ever suspected the mullahs of any motives other than the most lofty and humanitarian, they must have been sampling too much of the cargo surreptitiously brought across the border from Afghanistan.

The Russian protestations of solidarity with the sanction oriented West is nice and might have a symbolic value but is nullified in actual effect by the probable blockage from the Chinese. The Gnomes of Beijing have too much invested in Iran and too much need for its oil to move to support sanctions. This means there is no real consensus for the Russians to join or to block. They can, in effect, put the caviar on both sides of their cracker.

Another ship has been sunk in the pirate swamp of Somalia. This time the jolly raiders of the region snatched a tanker bound from Saudi Arabia to the US with about twenty megabucks of cargo on board. Nine men in a skiff took over the thirty man crew of the VLCC without any mention of a struggle, resistance, or the arrival of the naval cavalry.

With the ending of the monsoon which flattened the seas north of the Seychelles, the pirates have been out in full and effective force while the large multi-national naval presence has driven their boats around with little effective impact on the piracy business. As usual many of the MSM (look them up yourself, it isn't hard to find the usual suspects) characterized the pirates as "unemployed fishermen." This is akin to calling the thugs of Al Capone's Chicago Outfit, "unemployed beer delivermen."

There are few effective ways of draining the Somali pirate swamp. And, worse from the soft and sentimental Western perspective, all the ways which would have any effect whatsoever involve both violence and the potential of "innocent" lives being snuffed out.

Unless and until two actions are taken, the pirate swamp will continue to suck in hapless victims. The two actions are easy to describe and easy to take--if political will exists. The first is to require convoying of all vessels transiting the dangerous waters. This could be enforced by the insurance industry--but only if the navies involved drafted and implemented a convoy system.

The second action is to use lethal force. Both security details onboard ships and the naval vessels should have "shoot to kill" authority. Period. Yes, mistakes might be made. "Hold harmless" clauses must therefore exist to immunize ship owners, crews, and security details from either civil or criminal liability.

It would also be of great use if the UN would create another one of those special courts of which it is so fond to deal with pirates captured on the job. The current ad hoc ways of dealing with pirates are both unworkable and unjust. Even better would be an acknowledgement by the UN that ever since Julius Caesar cleared the Mediterranean Sea of pirates, members of that sub species of brigand have been the common enemy of mankind whenever and wherever they have done their dirty deeds.

The final swamp du jour is that of Islam in Western Europe. The Swiss in a referendum have banned by a 57.5 percent margin the construction of minarets. The Swiss government was against the idea. The UN has (of course) deplored the vote's result. And, (again no shock) most published Arab and Muslim opinion is dead against it as well.

While the elites of Europe bemoan this lack of cross cultural sensitivity, the hoi polloi have voted for keeping their little part of Europe, well, European. It is hard if not impossible to accuse the Swiss of prejudice or racism given the way in which their tidy nation has allowed for complete sectarian peace for over five hundred years, but the accusations will--and are--being made nonetheless.

The Muslim press of the Mideast has made the charge that the Swiss and, therefore, by implication all Europeans are practicing a double standard in that they uphold the freedom of speech but oppose cultural items such as minarets and burquas. Of course, the difference between the two matters is palpable.

Then there is the unpleasant and equally uncommented upon reality that Muslim states prohibit the construction of churches, or other non-Muslim religious structures. They fail to note that the Swiss have not banned the building or use of mosques, merely towering minarets. Likewise the critics fail to note all the Muslim countries including some which purport to be democracies prohibit even the use of public buildings for purposes of worship.

The double standard swamp seems to be located more in the Mideast than in Europe. Not that this ground truth will inhibit the same countries from seeking to limit global freedom of expression in the name of protecting religion from criticism.

There it is. One more day of mucking about in the mud of the world, trying to keep one's head above the cloying waters. Will tomorrow be any different? Any better? Any more filled with firm ground and dry boots? Not in this lifetime, bucko.

One Nation? Under God

Back when the Geek was a professor he put what he thought was a properly high emphasis on the role of religion, specifically Protestant Christianity, in American history. His co-workers in the history department were scandalized by this effrontery. In the unforgettable (to the Geek at least) words of one, "Of course you're right, but do you really have to make a point of it?"

The Geek realised long before that memorable encounter at the department mail boxes that he was out of step with the elite of his generation. They had almost without exception replaced the long standing American zeal for religious belief with one which celebrated secularism and the absolute separation of the communities of faith from the dialogue(s) in the public square. While being one with the famed aphorism of Laplace two hundred years ago and being a strong advocate of the "liberty of conscience" enshrined in the "no establishment" and "free exercise" clauses, the Geek was (and is) unwilling to distort history, least of all the history of his own country.

America was founded on religious passion. It must be recalled that the Puritans came to the wilderness of New England not in search of religious tolerance but in order to freely practice religious intolerance. As the legal history of the Massachusetts Colony shows clearly the theocrats of the Bay cheerfully instituted a regime based on religious precepts which was so narrow minded, intolerant, coercive and rigid that the most intense Taliban adherent could not improve upon it in the slightest.

Throughout the colonies religion was the kingdom and Christ was King. Laws looked both to the English common law and the bible for their justification. Community solidarity depended upon conformity of behaviour based on conformity of belief. The dissenters were neither welcomed or tolerated. Even Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, the (semi-mythic) icons of religious tolerance and inclusion were actually thin-skinned, insecure strongholds of fanatics.

The need for a "liberty of conscience"clause in the basic laws of the several colonies was recognised even before the first shots of the War of Independence were fired. The Virginia Statute on Religious Liberties authored by Thomas Jefferson was a firm sign pointing in the required direction.

Unless carefully constrained the religious enthusiasm and zeal of competing sects would rip the political and social fabric of the new republic apart. Unless citizens felt themselves both protected in their individual rights of conscience, the tyranny of a religious majority would crack a sharp whip on the backs of nonconformists. Thus the "no establishment" and "free exercise" clauses were at the top of the post-Constitution "must do" list along with liberty of speech and the press.

Religion was not bared from the public square. That was not the intent of those who wrote and approved the clauses in question. The purpose was one of civilizing and controlling the passions so easily stirred by matters of faith. A republic, the founding generation correctly saw, demanded restraint, control and civility in the public square, and they realized that these were readily destroyed by the passions of religious belief. They also correctly saw that the minorities, the dissenters, the nonconformists, were at risk in their individual holdings and persons once the genie of belief driven zeal was released from the bottle.

Religion stayed alive, well, potent and pervasive throughout the Nineteenth Century. It, or to err on the side of accuracy, one Protestant sect, became the virtual "state religion" in the states of the Confederacy both before and after the War Between the States. Ironically, this "state religion" was a sub-set of the Baptists. The irony springs from the fact that the Baptists of the late Seventeenth Century had been the strongest proponents of a wall of separation between state and church.

Religion featured heavily not simply in the internal crisis of the War Between the States, in the fight between abolitionist and slaveowner, it was just as important in the American identity crisis which developed with increasing speed between the late 1840s and the end of the century.

Identity crisis?

You bettcha! The American people have undergone several bouts of intense anxiety over just who-are-we? and how-do-we-know-we're-us? over the past two hundred years. This is completely understandable. The US is an artificial nation. It grew around a set of ideas. These ideals coupled with the very real possibility of material betterment in a vast and underdeveloped country served as a people magnet without equal.

People from different lands, cultures, languages and--ta-da! religions came in ever increasing numbers to the US. The most critical problem through much of the Nineteenth Century was the arrival of Roman Catholics. To put it bluntly, Catholics, particularly those from Ireland and later southern Europe, were not easily or warmly accepted by the Protestant majority.

Absent the "no establishment" and "free exercise" clauses, the conflicts between native Protestant and new arrival Catholic would have been more violent and extensive then they were. At the national level the "civilizing" effect of the twin clauses showed itself by repeated Congressional rejection of anti-Catholic measures. Ultimately the clauses provided the breathing space and time necessary for the multiple American nations to sign a series of separate peaces over differences of religious belief and agree that we could all be Americans--what ever that might mean.

It is true that the public square seems to have become ever more secular during the first three quarters of the Twentieth Century, but that is more a matter of appearance than reality. It is more that obvious passions faded along with the identity crisis during the opening years of the century. Sure, there were moments of conflict such as the Biblical Literalists opening shots in the anti-Darwin campaign eighty and more years ago.

But, in the main, Americans were content to put the fires of belief on hold and concentrate on matters at hand. Matters like the Great Depression, World War II and ultimately the Cold War. Indeed, the American people reinforced their sense of national self by reducing the apparent differences between religions. It was Americans who invented the unhistorical notion of the "Judeo-Christian tradition," and sought to meld the differing--even conflicting--theologies of Protestantism, Catholicism and Judaism into a sort of bland, one-size-fits-all civic religion which defined America and its ideals vis a vis Communism.

It was the need for a Cold War appropriate way to differentiate the US from the Soviet Union which gave rise to the sudden insertion of the words, "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance where it sits to this day as an indigestible lump to those of us who first learned the Pledge in grade school in the dark days before God was invoked. This brings up another delicious piece of irony.

Ironically, in view of the past few years, the US was the only non-Islamic country which differentiated itself from the Soviets on the basis of the latter being "godless" and the former "godly." The notion of godliness took such firm root in the US during the Cold War period that for a while at least it was open season on any person who was not a full, seemingly eager participant in one or another of the several flavors resident within the "Judeo-Christian tradition."

During the last decades of the past century, faith driven political ideologies re-emerged from the shadows. With the same sort of Wahhibist dedication and zeal that had typified the Puritans, the resurgent Christian "Conservatives" sought to enlist the political process in their particular (and often peculiar) view of biblically based morality. The flames of True Belief flared high, bright and hot, particularly among those who drew their nourishment from the the "state religion" of the Old Confederacy--the Southern Baptist Convention--and others from the same theological (not to say theocratic) model.

Not surprisingly the opposition reacted by elevating the "no establishment" and "free exercise" clauses to a level never before seen. The intelligentsia, particularly those born in the Forties, Fifties and Sixties, demanded a total removal of religion not only from the public square but from American history as well.

The result has been that the elite, the opinion molders, the academics, the journalists and even many of the political class, are dedicated True Believers in the secular agenda.

The other result has been that many, even most, of the rest of the American public remains faithful to the several communities of faith which co-exist in more or less harmony throughout the US.

The purpose and intent of the twin clauses barring establishment and assuring free exercise was to civilize and restrain passions. Without this moderating influence the fires of belief--whether religious or secularist--would imperil the still very delicate balance of the republic.

Get a grip on it. The American republic has charted a narrow and twisting course through the rocks, shoals and reefs of religious zeal. We still are. Even with more than two centuries experience we don't have it right yet.

But, we do have a tradition of separating the political sphere to a substantial extent from that of religious practice and belief. This is all that separates us from the countries of Islam.

The challenge is for us to understand not only how intertwined religion and state are in the Islamic countries and what that implies. We must also understand just how delicately we are balanced on the razor's edge of too much religion and too little. Both the Christian "Conservatives" and the secular intelligentsia must curb their passions.

Both must recognise that the Founders were right--passion destroys and civility creates. Otherwise God (or something) help us all.

Time to Give Speech to Our Liberty of Conscience

Between them the "no establishment" and "free exercise" clauses constitute what the majority of Americans two hundred and more years ago called "the liberty of conscience. It was strongly and universally believed that the State had no right to interfere with the individual's personal beliefs either by compelling support of an official religion or by preventing religious practice.

At the same time Americans strongly and universally supported the contention that the State had no right to limit the right of the individual to speak and write freely. At least by implication the same right applied to people speaking and writing collectively. After all, collective entities are groups of individuals who operate in concert.

As a result of the second belief, that in free speech, Americans today have the most open public square in the history of the world. Our speech whether verbal or written is free, boisterous, rowdy, even over-the-top. That's just the way it should be. Here. And everywhere.

There is one glaring black spot in this glittering picture of a raucously, joyously open public square. Religiously based speech is absent to an alarming and totally unjustifiable degree.

Sure, religiously based speech occurs regularly and in uncensored form in print, on the airwaves and over the Internet. That's the way it should be.

However, that reality does not eliminate another. The other reality, the dark hole in the public square, is that religiously based speech (and ideas) are rigidly barred from those portions of the public square marked by the signs "education" and "public buildings."

It is ironic and hypocritical that American coins bear the legend, "In God We Trust," while symbols of a particular religion such as Christmas creches are barred from courthouse or city hall lawns. It is ironic and hypocritical that presidential candidates exchange "God talk" in debates while a survey of American history textbooks currently used in high schools and colleges gloss over an apparently unmentionable fact about the history of the United States.

The unmentionable?

From its colonial foundation up through the 1950s Protestant Christianity had a profound effect upon the development of American institutions, values and world view.

Don't like that?

Tough. Get a grip. It's true. True beyond the shadow of even the most unreasonable doubt. For over three hundred years the United States and its colonial precursors can be best described by a term that many people resent today: A Protestant Christian nation.

For most of our history the 'liberty of conscience" clauses lay dormant, alive but not controversial. On a few occasions, most notably during the First and Second World Wars, liberty of conscience leaped to public awareness under the force of hyper-patriotism, and the Supreme Court was forced to make decisions regarding the limits--if any--upon its exercise.

When the winds of exaggerated patriotism diminished, the liberty of conscience clauses returned to their usual place in the background of public consciousness. Prayers were said in public schools, the words "under God" were added to the Pledge of Allegiance, President Eisenhower famously said, "All Americans worship God--whatever God that might be," and every Christmas season traditional carols were heard even on rock and roll stations, and creches dotted the public landscape.

No one seemed upset.

The Geek knows he wasn't. He was willing to stand silently with a slightly bowed head when the school day started with a prayer. It wasn't a threatening, traumatic experience. Neither was he offended when Chuck Berry was bypassed for Bing Crosby or some equally boring guy singing Silent Night. And, his aesthetic sense was no more offended by Christmas creches than it was by plastic Santas or red nosed reindeer.

But that was all before the Age of Sensitivity.

The early 1960s was not simply the era of JFK and Camelot, the beginnings of the Civil Rights movement, it was also the dawn of the Age of Sensitivity. JFK and Camelot might have been a public relations triumph. The Civil Rights movement was both overdue and and a victory for what the Pledge of Allegiance termed,"Liberty and Justice for all." The Age of Sensitivity has been and continues to be a disaster area greater than a million Katrinas.

A tragic reality of the American justice system is that a plaintiff can always be found (or fabricated) for any class action or Constitutional litigation. Once the case is filed and not dismissed by a judge with a modicum of get-a-gripness, it takes on a life of its own. If the lawyers are sharp enough and the money plentiful enough, the case will land on the doorstep of the Supreme Court.

If the Honorable Court (or at least four members of it) are out to lunch that day, the case will be accepted. If the national interest is unlucky enough, the Court (or at least five members) will be afflicted with cerebral flatulence and a pathetic decision will be rendered.

Should that happen, the horrid inertia of "let that decision stand" will take over and the Court will be forced not only to keep on a bad path, but perhaps expand it.

So it was with religiously derived speech in the schools and other critical areas of the public square. In the interest of protecting sensitivities, particularly of children, (an unusually elastic term extending apparently from little people in diapers to twenty somethings in jeans) the Court has held in essence that liberty of conscience is a private affair, not to be displayed, talked about or even implied in various portions of the public square lest someone, somewhere, somehow be offended, slighted, diminished, or otherwise impaired by being made to feel excluded from the mainstream of American life.

Parenthetical note: Having recently reread a number of the cases and opinions, the Geek has come to the firm conclusion that judges and justices should stick to the law and not wander off into the linguistic swamps of psychobabble and thera-speak. Likewise, they should stay out of the green pastures of history without employing a competent guide.

Suffice it to say that the liberty of conscience still exists. But, to a significant degree its mouth is gagged.

Why should this matter? So what if religion is not mentioned in schools from Head Start to the University? Who cares if religion as a force is deleted from US history?

The Geek is convinced there are two very good reasons why it matters, why we should care, and why it is important if our history is stripped of the truth.

The first reason is simple. Without full freedom of speech, the liberty of conscience doesn't really matter. Think about it. Even in the most repressive dictatorship, the most totally authoritarian regime one can imagine, an individual can believe whatever he or she wants without fear--as long as the mouth is kept shut, the fingers off the keyboard and away from a pen.

Silent liberty is no liberty at all. Liberty of conscience without a mouth to shout it is no liberty whatsoever.

That's the first reason. It is equal parts ideal and pragmatic.

The second reason is pure pragmatism. Open voiced religiously derived ideas as a full partner in all aspects of the public square is necessary over the long haul--if we are not to lose in the conflict with Islamists.

Kind of boggles the mind, doesn't it? Not when you get a grip.