Will Franciscan throwing of money at schools and teachers be now deemed "a new way of helping our children", or likely all by itself to increase odds young people will become brainier, find or create new enterprises, be more creative, and otherwise save their and our economic futures? That seems to be what many public personalities are telling us, while forgetting to mention little things like ongoing collective poor student performances (q.v., e.g., http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/education/25reading.html ; it seems the smarter kids get at math of less than advanced levels, the less they understand about contexts which math might help them assess...like giving someone a great tool, but forbidding them anything to use it on).   

Twenty years ago, in a book entitled "Politics, Markets, and America's Schools", John Chubb of Brooking Institution and Terry Moe of Stanford University said:

"Among the reasons why direct external control may interfere with the development of an effective school, perhaps the most important is the potentially debilitating influence of external control over personnel. If principals have little or no control over who teaches in their schools, they are likely to be saddled with a number of teachers, perhaps even many teachers, whom they regard as bad fits. In an organization that works best through shared decision-making and delegated authority, a staff that is in conflict with the leader and with itself is a serious problem . . . such conflict may be a school’s greatest organizational problem. Personnel policies that promote such conflict may be a school’s greatest burden." [End of citation]

A much more in-depth exploration of this topic, in a condensed overview, was done in 1993 by John Hood, then research director of the State policy think tank known as the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh, North Carolina; one of his historically comprehensive topic articles, "The Failure of American Public Education", currently appears at http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/the-failure-of-american-public-education/# . This article appears to articulate the same kinds of issues people such as myself currently consider.

To reiterate a recent opinion of mine, I fail to see how simply funding teachers and materials/facilities has GOT to make things brighter where it shall remain status quo that more and more people will not understand what they see or are told but will compute it as educators spurred by government agendas have instructed.

“A society in which power is widely distributed is also likely to be the one characterized by the existence of wide possibilities for choice and individual initiative”. – The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Crowell Collier MacMillan, 1967, Freedom and Choice”.

Boy, that old-school textbook sure played to a concept that humans had minds not simply extensions of their bodies, and which in fact existed at all…or COULD choose along non-self preservation lines.

However, assume in our modern age there is a sentiment afoot which says free will is impossible as everything a human can do, say, or imagine is either guile for self-preservation, or a projection of desired leniency for one’s self, or both. In other words, though infinitely trainable, every last human is but a talking monkey incapable of transcending itself…whether upon its own mettle, some deity, or otherwise; thus secular power could seem best exercised treating all humanity as pets, regulating everything from breeding to terminal redundancy to “limited and pretend rights of choice given by government to appease or confuse the beasts”.

This is why some, known for real as “radical behaviorists” and actually having a division within the American Psychiatric Association plus its own journals, exert influence in demanding the concept of “mind” itself be abandoned as a relic of a superstitious pre-scientific past, and say governments should assign all life options to “the herd”.

Armed with little more than the fact THEY have degrees and want you to be as impressed with that as they are with themselves, those who reject the very existence of ANY mind are hardly free of as-degreed or better critics. As mere example, “The Oxford Companion to the Mind” (Oxford Press, 1991, p.385, paragraph six) in part states: “Dispensing with intentional theories is not an attractive option, however, for the abstemious behaviourisms and physiological theories so far proposed have signally failed to exhibit the predictive and explanatory power needed to account for the intelligent activities of human beings” (sic in orginalis).

I could also sum up rebuttals to me of those admiring radical behaviorism this way: “You, sir, have as your greatest grandmother a four million year-old ape-woman, just ask National Geographic, and she has certainly passed no mind to you! Thus, you in your case have to be epigenetically imagining one or more autonomous facts could exist about anything, or that you’re more than just blind S/R! On the other hand, we in control positions opt to fly in the face of opinions of you, your common herd, former law and stuff, in favor of a well-regulated society steered by radical behaviorism”.

This is where such radical behaviorist enthusiasts become their own worst critics: when one has a position of authority or other self-serving interest, and there would be no real challenge to such self-interest if one acted as autonomous facts relevant to them and not self-interest suggested, yet they select what is most epigenetically appealing for themselves instead…guess what, they just admit someone of human birth CAN make choices not essential to the comfort or propagation of ANYTHING radical behaviorists say some four million year-old grandma gave us mindless critters. They’d have their self-interested status either way and choose without coercion or labeling as mentally abnormal.

Here’s to hoping that such mental power will again become widely distributed around the globe, and will widely expand options for personal choice and initiative.

In re recent political charges religion rejects science.

In their work “Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia” (1972, but spawning a whole genre of ‘me-toos’), Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari articulated a “materialist psychiatry” which requires the unconscious to be conceived of as “an orphan and an atheist”; Deleuze made Baruch Spinoza central to his Marxian critique of Freudian psychoanalysis.

Per Deleuze and Guattari, liberal-democratic capitalism and psychoanalysis should pick up where Protestantism left off, and replace waning external authority with forms of subjective authority. The infinite debt owed to God then transfers to an infinite owed to capital or the presuppositions of modern social life, with society then governed by economic forces rather than moral principles. As the cash nexus subverts all religious and popular authority in society at large, all that remains is one’s own conscience now nothing but a vestige of religion in one’s own superego (because religion has no liberal-capitalist analog)…why Obama forbids medical and other conscientious objections by Executive Orders?

This creates something officials and DHS April 2009 to date appear to pay keen attention to: such new atheism not only is against religious beliefs, but a general disbelief in totalism of any kind (God, monarchy, Kommissars, SS, clergy who take faith funds or espouse ANY government policy is Godly, whatever) which attributes the productive activity of society to itself as its “quasi-cause”.

In other words, some vote-seekers will tell you they’ll help you bash religion to prove THEY aren’t your problem because God is an easy “totalist” to pick on, yet as mere psychology of placation with no tether to reality and in denial of growing vertical dependence on government for inclusion with society.

I remain a Christian respecting science (including physicists who time and again prove the universe had a transcendental causal agent) and the likes of Fulton Sheen, Billy Graham, John Paul II…even Barack Obama, insofar as page 256 of his 2008 book the “Audacity of Hope” (representing that back THEN, he thought Socialist agendas sapped people of initiative and dignity). But if Schizoanalysis tells you to hate or shun me, just as I have to live with that, please remember that it is not I who is responsible for your urge to be anti-totalist…it’s a by-product of Schizoanalytical agendas of those who told you to bash me and my like-minded colleagues, or the misguided advice of lost souls.

Every election year, at any level, there are certain “dog and pony show” staples that politicians trot out because of their no-thought sound byte values…education has long been the prime such staple, and this year’s great bill to secure the ongoing employment of teachers (at obviously somewhat higher pay on the whole, given shrinkage to date divided into bill’s dollar value) proves the beat goes on.

Back to about thirty years ago and from there forward to present, it is painfully obvious that those who educate grades K through college doctorates collectively haven’t done much more than teach: “this is how this and that is being done today, so here’s how to go with the flow and keep the status quo”; if it were otherwise, it wouldn’t be possible to have all the Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush II, and Obama economic and job scrunchings all essentially repeating each other’s mistakes…too much credit, ever less currency in the money supply, mass job losses, more housing, repeat ad infinitum. Whatever teachers have been teaching, it certainly can’t be learning from one’s mistakes.

Another election staple is “throw a bandaid to little guys”. This year’s entry is the new bill allotting $600 million to folks who have their own mortgage, lost their job, and could use the Feds paying up to twelve months of their mortgage or up to such time as they’re re-employed. Who could criticize that?

Well, for starters, it applies only to those now and in future who are actually on unemployment insurance benefit recipient rolls including the up to 99 weeks “EB” system (a sure sign itself prosperity is known by officials to be so close after your job loss, the years will pass like days). If you are one of the many who lost a job/trade/career before the recent “favored” EB schema went into effect, tough cheese…stay in your netherworld of “affiliated families” (http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/planning-to-retire/2010/03/19/more-multigenerational-families-living-together  ), don’t expect reverse mortgages to Mom or Dad to help you, but do expect to be told YOUR failure to stay current with bills after non-UI extension job loss IS a reason to bar you forever from employment of ANY kind, as well as bar you from new jobs/housing/education things, because, well, Socialistically speaking, when YOU experience this YOU are a deadbeat, chaotic, frenetic, and just plain throwing good money after bad…goodbye, and good luck.

On the other hand, those “freshmen” going through exactly what all their predecessors did are found to be erstwhile, worth saving, to some States worthy of poor CRA report forgiveness re jobs, and in these harsh all-evolution times, “only able to get some scraps if we let the losers fend for themselves and free up cash for bennies, eh, wink-wink?”. But even so, all “freshmen” are getting is up to a one-year mortgage price reduction, which balance they will still then owe in an economy even the government doesn’t think will spawn more jobs for THEM. Worse, as of January 01, 2011, Federal personal and capital gains taxes go up significantly, and a number of local officials nationwide say sales taxes will either have to be started or increased…all just to pay for “who’s left”, and not a harbinger of strong job or wage growth. 

Such is the status of teaching “how it’s done these days”, an educational motif obviously dear to funding officials who’ll pay more to fewer teachers to push it.

Despite the hype, it appears the only ones benefitting from modern feudalist economics are those who gladly don’t work, gladly produce no-tax government-paid lives for themselves by producing children out of wedlock, gladly mock the need for families or ethics, and wouldn’t care if that’s all their kids are taught…or were taught at all…and given the diversity of players it is impossible to say that one race or gender today participates over any other(s); it’s a slacker mentality only.

I may seem to identify three economic classes of people, omitting those WITH jobs presently as a fourth, but really there are just two classes: those the government is culturing, and everyone else deemed and described in academia as undesirable.

Thus is my impression of the value of the latest Federal mortgage help and educator funding bills.

[ Editor's Note: Yes, there ARE mass-media personalities, including licensed psychologists/psychiatrists, who DO say those up to current who have been affected by the weak job market ARE lazy and such; a very handy example of someone who thinks all you have to do to get back on the economic horse is try harder along traditional means is good old Oprah Winfrey cohort Dr. Phil, as he describes his opinion on the relevant matter at http://www.drphil.com/articles/article/138 . Say, didn't the Soviet Union used to have problems with its nationalized psychiatrists mass diagnosing people they'd never met as being willful drains on Russia, based solely on the circumstance of their personal economic situation? And wasn't there a famous Austrian leader of Germany who sent some people to the left, others to the right?]

Yes, it IS grim for many out there today when it comes to finding jobs (or being ALLOWED by national, State, or Local policies to HAVE a place to Do work from or preach religion, for that matter).

But there are also many people who don't like immigrants coming to America, resent the fact these immigrants get food stamps and housing/medical aid that "could help REAL Americans" and so on, and of course, "the Socialism Bozo Clinton started, Bush stoked, and Obama sees as his crowning glory".

To be sure, many things in the USA DO have the patina of telling us "getting like Castro and Mao and Marx" will make mean ol' epigenetically driven/Godlessly evolved humans a manageable herd sans ANY problems at all...even though, kids and young folks, we "codgers" remember your Castros, Maos, and Marxmen have been around since 1959 or longer as leaders, and one need only Google on say Cuba or the KGB to see how the way things are going NOW in those "purer" lands and all their human rights abominations en masse from the start of their Socialism to date.

In other words, if Raoul or Fidel Castro say "Viva Estados Unidos!" and vote for a Nobel Peace Prize for a President embracing THEIR ideas of culture, the tune "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow" seems less apropos than the phrase "Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here".

However, many of those same "real, Constitution-thumping patriotic" Americans who SOUND Conservative or at least pro-America are all too happy to live on perpetual unemployment handouts themselves, with a number of States actually coaxing them into pulling in fast Federal cash to "save more local grocery, tattoo parlor, liquor store, lottery vendor, and movie jobs". Because a new job would pay the same or so as propagandized unemployment extensions, many "Americans who WANT to work" actually avoid getting out of bed to search for jobs while the extension gravy trains keep rolling.

Cudos to the Illinois Department Of Employment Security (IDES) for recognizing that while some people just need help pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, many could easily be partying on fraudulent claims of "never find work, never get offered ANY job period". IDES adds some toothy rungs to unemployment extension benefits claims, as shown at EB_worksearch.pdf ;  you have to provide who you talked to, where, when, contact data/numbers, and so on...risking at any time a fraud investigator will burn you if caught in a pack of lies.

Compare that to the mind-numbing array of "free money" tactics used by a State like Oregon, so bad that someone who had a job paying $1,920/month UI expire YEARS ago, then WORKED AT INSURED WORK FOR A QAUARTER AT LOWER PAY, then sat on extension after extension BACK ON the old $1,920/month is STILL eligible thanks to Oregon's view of the newest extension; Oregon Employment Department's miasma of tiers and calculations is so hard to follow I list it only as a link to the OED website for such data: http://www.employment.oregon.gov/EMPLOY/UI/extensions_overview_12-16-08.shtml .

No wonder Oregon's unemployment rate "can't" fall below 10%!  Especially given that OED's scrutiny of claims/extensions is that you pinky-swear you simply looked for work, no facts needed (https://ssl8.emp.state.or.us/ocs4/claim/advisory.cfm?ID=45122619&lang=E&CFID=4249051&CFTOKEN=91642710 ).

So for all those "real Americans and Christians and so on" who just HATE Socialism, turn down or avoid work that exists for malingering...I mean, unemployment...benefits with eternal extensions, and can't STAND immigrants wanting to work: YOU are the of the Red October Hymn, YOU are the parasites, and YOU are a needless surplusage and drain to ANY advance of work, trade, or Capitalism of any nature.

My brother-in-law, a man now 55, obese, and for over three years living on SNAP/unemployment extensions/his two years' deceased mother's reverse mortgage home in foreclosure (no one, not even GNNDs, wants it, as it needs a roof, septic system, and bearing walls dry rot fixed inter alia) was ecstatic to learn unemployment benefits have AGAIN been made available to him; after all, just weeks ago a local cannery turned him down for failing an unchallenged THC test, so no "summer work" for this lifelong "beach bum"...don't worry, anyone...he'll never read this, and even if he did and figured it out, I have so much legal "cootie" stuff on him he'd never press an issue. Anyway, he's also the kind who lost his own home nine years ago and told mom's neighbors he "rented it out to come help mom", moved in with mom and an adult sister, all of whom then lived off the HECM without repairs to property (tax payments now years in arrears but nobody evicts due to condition of property); when mom died two years ago, they put the house up for sale at a few thousand above HECM outstanding, split up mom's cars and property without probate, and so on. They and their local realtor last year conned my wife and I into coming out to do house/grounds refurbishing but even then, the in-laws get in the way on greedy unemployed worries of some mythical "share" of sale if any...which worries ought to stop, because I'm pulling the plug on helping narcissists who think such help is an "annoyance".

Truly, from my own experience, I KNOW people like the GOP claimed existed on eternal UI benefits really DO exist...slugs who'll never think of anybody but themselves, never help a parent they live with, and so on, just going to bars and sporting events and tattoo parlors and such for pure hedonism...people who probably hate the fact they ever had to work at anything at all, period.

Indeed, there SHOULD be SOME mechanism whereby parasites ARE weeded from State SWA and related governmental benefit programs, instead of lumping them in with more normative majorities of the work force. Indeed, even I would love to see ANY peaceable, erstwhile immigrant GET a job if the choice were between them and someone wanting work just long enough to "earn" sympathy benefits.

But the problem is, with JUST yet another unemployment insurance extension, and no fleshed-out jobs creation programs, all USA government has done is certify that most of the diverse USA unemployed work force is idle through no choice or fault of its own, this has only been added to for years even under Obama, and for the rest of this year no reason exists to believe anything will change (except, perhaps, that even MORE will be unemployed as housing continues to force out places TO work at).

So just like it's nice Obama has had this and that nominee, an oil spill, a sweeping finance bill, a stock market that "sings" because iPods are up, and all the other things done so far, not one bit of it has positively changed or is reasonably/rationally expected to turn mass personal economies around...not for "old immigrants", USA nationals, or any newer immigrants.

Just pointing this autonomous fact coincidence out for the benefit of those living abroad, who may hear that when even someone like me questions governmental success, I'm just being "racist" or "nationalistic" or "epigenetic" or whatever...to reiterate, I have and will always favor ANY peaceable erstwhile person on earth for a real job over ANY deadbeat or slacker, but the latest renewal of unemployment extensions suggests that neither erstwhile USA nationals, current immigrants, or immigrants about to arrive have any realistic expectation of work or trade opportunities appearing anywhere in the near future...which won't help keep folks current, through no fault of their own, on mortgages and such which HUD has made it way too simple to foreclose upon.    

The story currently appears at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/19/us/politics/19evangelicals.html?pagewanted=1&hp .

Through the story, one presumes an inference that America is largely Caucasian and African-American together battling Hispanics from pushing their way into a land of so much milk, honey, and manna that eternal generations of earth in total could live off it...in other words, that Hispanics are coming into the USA to partake of easy living had by all but the scurviest, lilliputian losers, and the non-Hispanics are simply greedy and jealous, or words in such nature.

Now, we all know that world migration including Hispanic is NOT run by everyday Americans, Hispanics, or anyone else; in fact, as the International Organization for Immigration, for example, says at http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/about-iom/lang/en , even FORCED immigration is part of its routine around the world...and not just for the Western Hemisphere (or Eastern Hemisphere alone, for that matter). It's IOM and UN types to which even the USA government conforms all its policies on immigration and health care, inter alia.

Thus, Hispanics usually hope for the same kind of lives they've been promised by IOM types, but continue to be singled out as the only transborder immigrants in North or South America. That's not true, and more importantly, it makes no sense to say Jesus/God is for the IOM way of forcing migration to the USA or elsewhere, apparently on Christian inferential canard IOM represents "leaders whom God has appointed"...thus the psychology of peculiar clergy actually allowed by governments to stay open that if one questions end results of Hispanic or other even forced migration, they oppose God's holy will and are racists or nationalists or otherwise have cooties.

Well then, "God" appointed once all at the same time FDR, Churchill, Hitler, Tojo, and Adolf Hitler; how was it possible that a "good Christian" could oppose any of them on any side of world war II? Ah, of course! That pesky use of autonomous facts that reasoned Hitler and pals weren't doing too much in the positive interest of all humanity! So maybe even God or Jesus would expect "their" leaders and representatives to have a purpose better than just being in charge for all people...like I, many people, many Muslims, and even the USA government say against folks like bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and Iran's President. 

So maybe the issue isn't "get more Hispanics here STAT!!!!!!" as if gold awaits them, but why having so many Hispanics and others here for years hasn't advanced security in home ownership, ability to conduct a trade or have a job, broader civil liberties, increased participation in education or the humanities, and so on for either immigrants or nationals; and how will merely using Hispanics to smack down critics of IOM groups improve the audacity of hope within the USA or any immigrant's homeland?

By the way...how are land rights in Mexico today, and how much cheer have Castro and Chavez been sprinkling throughout Latin America?

Has anyone ever thought that when things like economies go really sour for most people, "culture vultures" seem to soar ahead, whoop up this or that hatred as if then anyone THEY endorse de facto will be a saviour, and pending say all we have to do to fix this or that is organize rage against scapegoats without looking in-depth at anything else? You know, like MyMood Alibabajihad or bin Laden or Hamas or Hezzbollah says "wipe out all Jews, THEN we can relax and not be mean to our own people", or a cult leader says anyone speaking against him is "the devil" so stay only in the cult compund, or Stalin said "smash capitalistic Western nations, comrades, and then the Soviet inner ring will extend to all of you as part of a great nomenclatura"?

Well, it's pretty sour in the USA these days, social phobia is at a global zenith, and so many desperate people want to believe quickies like sending all the jobless to showers in the east, raging at gays, and changing the rate of immigration but NOT anything else will turn America into a land of milk and honey again for the "remaindermen".

Many officials in the USA, Governors to Courts, are all of a sudden this HOT summer in bad times coincidentally tossing out same-sex civil unions; I propose that such officials in this instance may be interested NOT so much in extinguishing some peoples' rights, but preserving order on the whole; an email I made to Hawaii Governor Lingle's office might best exemplify what I mean here:

"As a Christian, I appreciate that many people of diverse or no religious beliefs together do not care for homosexuals, even though many critics then have no problem with say Registered Domestic Partnerships in lieu of marriage for heterosexuals; obviously, the main objection is lack of preference for a lifestyle rather than any even religious moral objection despite gloss and soundbytes.

A certain Catholic-based group asked me to send the within communication but on basis I would be congratulating you for upholding God's word; but even there I myself run afoul of Catholics when I ask why Acts 10:34 and relevant et sequitur doesn't make new-style male/female unions and activities "abominations", or point out that the earliest Christians re Roman soldiers taking and having relations with young men they mentored for military careers thought that the only thing that mattered was how such in such "union"...and like ANYONE else...how such men treated then everyone else on earth in comprehensive life.

I'm sure that your Honorable office also grapples with the obvious gaps in moral compass even critics of same-sex partnerships, and feels frustration over salient nonsense...especially again as the root of public disdain is based on will, and given current culture, "culture-vultures" who pander to any expression of vented public frustration(s).

Therefore, I believe it possible you vetoed the legislation not as a "culture-vulture" yourself, but in nature of doing the best one could to quell "ego raging" and promote safety of the persons at-large in your State...including homosexuals and anyone who could be lashed-out at as or coincidentally present near "scapegoat targets".

In such spirit of belief that you have properly acted in vetoing the bill on same-sex unions to keep peace and more easily identify the truly most bullying for processing by State authority, wherefore, I commend you for doing what needed doing to prevent the public from being exploited into using their own frustration(s) as the useful idiocy of those pushing hate for personal aggrandizement." [End of Citation]

In other words, whether in the USA or elsewhere, maybe...just maybe...some officials are trying to re-focus attention from reactionary primitivism back onto things that DO actually have major control or influence over the affairs and dreams of most peoples' lives, with hopes people will stop waiting for a narcissistic, wholly uncaring culture vulture to be the epicenter of their intelligence and ideas for the future.

You could anything from George Washington's farewell address (http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/milestones/farewell/ ) to Thomas Jefferson's FULL letter re separation of Church and State (http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpre.html ), or the writings of Founding Fathers like Noah Webster, Benjamin Rush, or golly ANY signer of the Declaration of Independence (http://www.ushistory.org/DECLARATION/signers/index.htm ) and get the picture that "separation of Church and State"...to THEM...at all times and into the infinite future BY them was conceived of as ONLY the Federal government could NOT establish or respect one denomination over others (as was and is the practice under the Church of England, or Anglicans, started by Henry VIII as its head and continuing to date with QEII as head).

That is, the Founding Fathers easily thought religion and its objective morality were the surest guardians of freedom, liberty, personal growth and responsibility for ANY nation...they just didn't believe it was government's job or place to set up a new one like England had, or even proclaim one orthodoxy for one or any or all.

The first ever Supreme Court variance to this came in 1962, when the famously political Earl Warren Court not only invented new rights and entitlements, it truncated Jefferson's letter to the sentence about a separation of Church and State and on such "ground" commanded that religion and government must operate by completely different ideals.

Now, to be sure, at that point in history the Federal and most State governments were first-ever converting from common law...where prosecutors/police ex rel or upon inquiry by their own reasoning found offenses for trial by Juries...to statutes of civil and criminal procedure, where a statute has to spell out a remedy or offense, if no statute exists neither does duty or relief, and each and every part of a statute must be proven or the whole case fails. All this fuzziness seemed needed at a time America was geared up for the Great Cold War, out to disprove Kommissars and  Presidentes De Por Vida who claimed capitalism...not strongmen... stifled rights and demanded locked-down nihilism of "the masses". Remember, that was the time of Federal Regulation of everything (ended together with defense bases by Reagan 1985) so that no matter what it took only the most recalcitrant among us couldn't make it regardless of creed, color, or national origin.

It seems...in the absence of political will or spine to continue the "Warren Anime"...today's pols and officials transcend even a separation of Church and State not on the Warren Court's propaganda, but by a "modern" concept that if so many leaders around the world call ALL religion psychology, government must control all of it. No, we lilliputians only THINK Scalia and Kagan types actually want the same kind of power Committees of 100 or Politburos have over folks being in or entering their borders...see, USA pols high, low, and petty all hold THEIR reason is sure something superior to humans created everything, there's just "no evidence" that this power wants ANY religion to spring up, be practiced, or has otherwise spoken to humanity this side of eternity...otherwise, see, they'd carry on Washington's view of religious benefits and at least spare mere objective suggestions and analysis of autonomous facts from being "of interest or potential harm to government initiatives and policies"; why, many might even stop saying Church meetings "hurt sales tax revenue" and what have you.

So religious people, keep working on proofs your Deity or equivalent has set forth for us all peaceful, reasoned ways for continuing positively through eternity.

As a true Conservative and not mere "culture-vulture", on this Fourth of July in the spirit of Acts 10:34 I would like to salute all people of earth...no matter their position or status or location...who persevere pro bono publicum under reasoned religion, non-religious reasoned public and private service, or any other sane ways. Your efforts show that even though nations deserve to be autonomous, we could again indeed produce a world wherein responsible creative individualism (from where we find ourselves) makes the world a rich quilt woven by the human spirit under some Creator's aegis.