"Including none at all" 16 Jan 2010 Just when I start to get cynical about Obama’s agenda, he proclaims this: Long before our Nation’s independence, weary settlers sought refuge on our shores to escape religious persecution on other continents. Recognizing their strife and toil, it was the genius of America’s forefathers to protect our freedom of religion, including the freedom to practice none at all. And then he proclaims this “a critical foundation for [America’s] liberty”. God bless him. Or is it a cynical move to appeal to the light and dark skinned black community? Politics Race and politics Religion
Censorship Why copyright is censorship 16 Dec 2008 Here’s an excellent discussion by Lawrence Lessig on the creeping nature of regulation through copyright. Quite apart from anything else it’s an amazing use of presentation software. Sure, it’s 2002, but things have only got worse… Read More
General Science Rights for nonhuman apes? 14 Jun 2007 New Scientist is reporting that a case in Austria (not Australia – we share a love of beer, but that’s about it) is set to decide if chimps have rights. They already do in Spain, and in New Zealand (which was, I think, the first country to enact rights for… Read More
Evolution Spencer was no social Darwinian 30 Jul 20084 Oct 2017 For a while now, and in particular since I read Robert Bannister’s Social Darwinism and then actually read Herbert Spencer’s own work, I have been unable to reconcile the mythology about social Darwinism with the actual writings of Spencer himself. Supposedly the founder of the justification for robber baron capitalism,… Read More
Long before our Nation’s independence, weary settlers sought refuge on our shores to escape religious persecution on other continents. There may have been some early settlers who fled religious persecution but not many. That’s a great myth. One set of my ancestors were Dutch settlers in the Hudson valley. They were members of the Dutch Reform Church – the same church they belonged to in the Netherlands. Another set were “Puritans” who settled in Connecticut. They belonged to the same Protestant churches that they left in England and the relatives they left behind suffered no obvious persecution – indeed, they took over the government during the civil war! As far as I can tell, my “Puritan” ancestors were more interested in setting up their own system of religious persecution in the new world than in fleeing persecution in England. Settlers in other parts of the 13 colonies included large numbers of Catholics from England and Protestants from Germany and I don’t think it’s fair to claim that they were motivated to emigrate because of religious persecution.
Could you explain your last question? How is it a “cynical move to appeal to the light and dark skinned black community”?