Political Philosophy and Ethics discussion
Political Philosophy and Law
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Separation of Religion and Government; Liberty of Conscience and Toleration
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Side note: Back in 1940, Robert A. Heinlein’s short novel “if This Goes On —“ described the overthrow of an American theocracy. It was expanded in 1953 as “Revolt in 2100,” originally as the title story in a collection, later published separately. (See Wikipedia on Revolt in 2100 for some details.)It was part of Heinlein’s Future History, and he supplied the projected title (“The Sound of His Wings”) of the story of how the theocracy was established, and its charismatic Prophet, but never wrote it. I sometimes feel we are finding out how it happened.
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Heinlein is a darling of the right libertarian movement. On this kind of issue he is correct. I'm not sure whether he was an economic libertarian or even whether he publicly identified himself as a libertarian. I don't think I've read any of his writings, but these look interesting.
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See this interesting and informative article regarding the famous trial combat between Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan concerning teaching about evolution in American public schools: https://mag.uchicago.edu/law-policy-s....
The 18-mile long strand of handmade twine / plastic fishing line which is jury-rigged to encircle Manhattan Island:https://www.npr.org/2019/05/13/721551...
Whenever this topic is discussed (more frequently in New York than anywhere else, I'm sure) I myself have raised objection to the intrusion of a purely religious device into a secular, public street.
The grounds for my objection is solely that it is a hazard to public safety.
For the same reason, we would never allow snake-charmers to bring dangerous cobras into an American city street; no matter how sacred they are in the Indian subcontinent.
Before posting this item, I did check to ensure I've never mentioned it before.
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https://www.npr.org/2019/05/13/721551......"
I had never heard of this. On the surface, it seems a violation of the First Amendment Establishment Clause. On the other hand, the article states: “More than 200 cities around the world are partially encircled by an eruv. Manhattan's certainly isn't the largest, but according to Mintz, it's the most expensive eruv in the world. It costs between $125,000 and $150,000 a year to maintain. Mintz helps raise the funds every year from synagogues and private donations” (emphasis added). If everything is privately financed, that would be a factor to consider. But using public streets and walkways (if that’s what they do) may be another. Has any court opined on this issue? I would need additional details to formulate my own view of the constitutionality of this matter. In any event, I don’t have time in the near future to analyze it.
Like all religious fundamentalism, this seems crazy to me, but it doesn’t seem to be as bad as Christian fundamentalism, which seeks to create a Christian theocracy in order to cram religion down everyone’s throats. See Matthew D. Taylor, The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy (Broadleaf Books, 2024). Under the First Amendment Free Exercise Clause, they can believe and practice what they want to believe and practice, as long as it doesn’t affect anyone else via taxation or other law.
If you want a mind-bending, jargon-ridden, description of the halachic (Jewish law) aspects of an Eruv in a city like Los Angeles, see https://eruvfinder.com/wp-content/upl...I understood the general import of about 75% of the Hebrew-based technical terms, although I would be hard put to give literal translations.
I also had to keep transposing Ashkenazic final S to Sephardic and Israeli (modern) final T. This dialect difference accounts for some discrepancies between the Guidebook and the much clearer Wikipedia article on Eruv, which is probably a better alternative.
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Thanks, Ian, I'll read it when I get a chance.
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The foregoing is the title of this July 7, 2025 New York Times gift article: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/07/us....
That is occasionally true, as in the Polish resistance to Soviet domination near the end of the Cold War, though the Solidarity labor movement also had something to do with it. And, yes, the French and Bolshevik Revolutions went to the other extreme of persecuting religion, though they were reacting to the historical merger of church and state in their respective countries as well as adopting a warped view that “reason” must be enforced at the point of a guillotine or gun. Reason and freedom are interdependent; both are hostile to the offensive use of force.
Again, I don’t know the historical background and context of the Mexican situation discussed in your posts, and I accordingly will not comment on it except to say that persecution of religion is wrong just as persecution by religion is wrong.
Most of European and early American history was characterized by religion being in control of government and using that influence to persecute dissenting religious sects: Calvin’s theocracy in Geneva, the Catholic Inquisition in continental Europe, the persecution by the Church of England against dissenting religionists, the murderous Puritan theocracy in New England, the Anglican/Episcopal persecution of religious dissenters in Virginia, and so forth. My book on Roger Williams discusses such religious persecutions against “heretics” at length. As explained therein, Roger Williams opposed all such mergers of church and state and the consequent governmental persecutions of religious dissenters. Williams’s mantle was picked up by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, other US Founders, and Baptists of the Founding generation to formulate the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment to the US Constitution.
Today, religion is mobilized in Putin’s Russia and Trump’s America to support their respective authoritarian agendas. In fact, Christian Nationalist “prophets” have claimed personal revelation that Trump has been appointed by God to destroy liberals and to establish an authoritarian theocracy: see my review of Matthew D. Taylor’s recent book The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy at https://www.goodreads.com/review/show.... Taylor is himself religious, but he opposes the Christian Nationalist movement so prominent in our politics.
The Christian Nationalists claim that government has been persecuting them, which is nonsense. They should look in the mirror. Again, freedom of religion does not mean that religionists should have “freedom” to persecute other religionists or secularists. This is the kind of Orwellian distortion of language that is becoming endemic to our era.