whats the big picture Metal, I want to see a 2 paragraph explanation explaining the whole big picture, not 1 sentence bits of innuendo. Lay it on us metal, I can't wait.

@ Draug - Fair enough. I can already see this is going to be like debating a younger, less coherent version of Darwyn. Not how I would choose to spend my evening.

I dont want to see any question marks, I want to see authoritative sentences, I want to see thoughtful analysis, come on Metal, enlighten us!

And if he wants to be taken seriously, let's let him try...

OK, Mr. metal.

Pretend I, obiwanobiwan, am an idiot, oblivious to all political and philosophical activity in the world today. (You will find a few who would support that idea.) ;)

Now, explain to me, as if I were an ignorant fool, step by step, blow by blow, if you are so sure of your facts and that YOU can "connect the dots!" just how this "agenda" works, who it's propagators are, what it's aims are, what its steps are, and how you know about all this in the first place or, if you say we can connect the dots...

Provide the dots to connect, if it's so easy and obvious, Mr. Metal.

Actually I'm going to create a whole new thread for this

@obiwan - I agree. Requiring any religious ceremony in a public place should be against the rules. But that is not a separation of church and state. That falls under the prohibition of establishing a state religion. However, even private prayer groups with students who want to meet have been banned on school grounds and the Supreme Court has backed these bannings. That is wrong. In fact that is a "prohibition of the free practice thereof." And, in fact, the Federal Government is the only one banned from enacting laws establishing a state religion. Many individual states had established specific religions or were founded by a group of like minded followers att eh time of the drafting of the Constitution and it's amendments. Therefore, that particular amendment was put in place to prevent Congress from overriding a State's right to have their own "state religion" shoudl they choose. Now, to the best of my knowledge, all the states' constitutions now have that same prohibition, but they didn't at the time.

It was once said that aguing on the internet is like the special olympics...even if you win you are still a fuckin retard. And yeh, call me a cospiracy theorist if it makes you feeL big. But as is have stated ealier, I haven't the time or the will to wake you up from your coma. One day soon you will find out what is really up. Yea, go ahead, tear me down and laugh...I have thick skin...Oh and before i leave i just wanna say..FUCK YOU.

Heh. Oh yes, I can see you're very thick skinned, not at all touchy.

School is not the place for prayer. If you want to pray on school grounds, then give up your tax exemption status and stop abusing your non-profit status to manipulate the political process.

Of any broadcaster/opinion-giver/hack on TV, at least Beck is about THE ONLY PERSON to ***consistently*** give the research for his claims. I DEFY you to find any pos talking head on MessNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS etc that actually DOCUMENTS their claims.

All you idiots that hate Beck, I'll put a $1,000 on the table that 95% of you assholes never even watched Beck, but instead just hate him because of the slander thrown out their by his competition.

HE choose to leave Fox because he is thinking of going private; paid internet channel.

Maybe if any of you morons did research instead of jumping on the uninformed hate-wagon you would have a clue. Instead, you come off looking as informed as such smarties as Katie Curic and friends...lol.

@Putin - Why can't a group of like minded students have a prayer support group? If they were gay they'd be allowed a gay pride support group. Why discriminate against a group just because they happen to share religion as their common factor. And I'll point out again that banning this practice *is* against their constitutional rights (shall not pass a law prohibiting the practice thereof).

You're asking a guy who names himself after the Ex-KGB head of the former Soviet Union why kids can't have prayer groups....<smack head...> Because GOD doesn't fit in with authoritarian government control DUHHH.

@ krellin
"Of any broadcaster/opinion-giver/hack on TV, at least Beck is about THE ONLY PERSON to ***consistently*** give the research for his claims."
That may be so, but Beck had a tendency to rely on unreliable sources for his research. that's just as bad, if not worse than not showing your work. Sure he found people and reports and so on and so forth on the internet which backed up his claims but they wer often factually incorrect. You don't get any marks for including a bibliography with your essay if all the sources you cite are complete crap.
"I DEFY you to find any pos talking head on MessNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS etc that actually DOCUMENTS their claims." - Most actually do have research departments. They just don't all actually show that they did their homework during the broadcast, now, that might be problematic, but many of them actually tend to report more reliable information than Beck did.

You had me up until the "Congress should not be able to override a "State's religion"" bit.

I agree, kids should be able to pray privately in schools.

But a state religion?

I don't think ANY body, the schools, the state, the federal government should totally prohibit or totally mandate a certain religion.

It must be ENTIRELY up to the individual, and must be done on the individual's own time...

So if a kid in Louisiana wants to pray during recess, he should be allowed to.
But a state shouldn't set it up so there's a "state religion" and it's a state's choice whether or not there's public prayer time for the kids in the schools.

Now, where I think the line grows fuzzy is with prayer GROUPS in schools--say a bunch of kids all go to the same church, and they want to pray together.

Is that to be allowed?

On the one hand, I'd be against disallowing private prayer, but there are two issues with allowing this:

-Suppose the kids are influential and 90% of the school is praying with them...well, they then ahve quite a kid following to do whatever they want to do to that 10% without a religiuon or with a different one or who jsut don't want to attend their prayer service...kids can be cruel AND charismatic--it could be a miniature kid cult situation, and those outside the cult...well, if you thought you were treated differently if you were a "geek" rather than the "norm," and you didn't like the latest fad everyone else did--what if that "fad" is some kid's min "First church of the Playground" and you're a 14-year old heretic freshman? Are teenagers REALLY going to be sensible about this and say "Oh, well, that's just his opinion, let's leave him in peace?" In small numbers, probably, but with a large mass...

-What if the kids are "encouraged? to pray in schools by an adult, and so waht would appear to be their own private practice is a grassroots movement by a teacher, parent, or church?

I know that in some of the specific instances there were pretty clear situations of preferential treatment to the groups that would amount to a tacit school endorsement of them, or at least a situation where the perks of joining would convince people who otherwise would be uninterested in prayer to join.

However, I think that's basically true for ANY organized group at a school. I was in soccer because it made it so I didn't have to go to gym class.

@obi - I was just explaining the history of it. I'm not saying I agree with it and it no longer applies as I believe all the states also have a similar clause in their constitutions.

Wow, I'm disappointed...

I was totally prepared for some cock-and-bull conspiracy story, and now I don't even get the entertainment of that, just an unoriginal "FUCK YOU?"

As literate as I hope to be, I cannot help but admit the words "epic fail" come to mind...

No it is not against their constitutional rights. Schools are for education, they're not churches. Nobody is taking away their right to worship. It is no more against their "rights" than a dress code is against "free speech" or a gun ban is against their second amendment "rights". And anyway, since religious thugs are trampling all over everyone else's rights, they don't deserve any. When they stop trying to force women to have answer questions about abortion on tax forms, then maybe my opinion will change. Or maybe when they stop terrorizing women who go into clinics for papsmears, or maybe when they stop supporting pharmacists who refuse to distribute contraception. Or maybe when they stop trying to charge women for "manslaughter" for having a miscarriage, or for falling down stairs.

"You're asking a guy who names himself after the Ex-KGB head of the former Soviet Union why kids can't have prayer groups....<smack head...> Because GOD doesn't fit in with authoritarian government control DUHHH."

Haha, a Beck fan whining about authoritarianism. So precious.

And as far as the prayer groups... I hope you aren't seriously suggesting that 90% of a schools populace would be in the prayer group. I could maybe see that in old fashioned small towns where the town was founded around a single church (think Footloose) but in most of America today, that is a bygone era. You'd be lucky to get 10% of the kids in a given populace who were devout believers and went to church because they wanted to, much less the same church and wanted to pray together.

What tax form are you talking about, Putin? I just did my taxes and there wasn't a single question on any of the forms (Federal, State, or Local) about abortions.

And I fully expected the exagerrated reactionary Putin to come through. I've grown accustomed to your rants on here. Hell, I look forward to them sometimes.

all worth it for da catholic schoolgirls ;P

@Draugnar:

The 90% case is the extreme, obviously that wouldn't be the norm, and if that happened at all it'd likely happen in one school, become a media circus, and then diffuse...

But while the circus went on, some nasty things could occur, is my point.

Because they haven't passed the bill yet, genius. Hence the word "trying".

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/gop-bill-irs-abortion-audits

Learn to read.

@Putin

Really? Motherjones? Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha...

This is the same source that has numerous times started rumors about congress trying to pass this or that when it was one whack job senator who couldn't even get his whackjob idea to the a committee, much less past the committee and to the full floor. Motherjones is so reactionary. Please find a better, more reliable source than that.

@Obi

I see what your saying. And yes, that could be problematic *if* it ever happened. But I just don't see it happening even in small town America where the "church that runs the town" is dead or dying all over.

@ Draug - but the thing about constitutional jurisprudence is that if such a situation is possible even if improbable you still have to close that loophole.

Putin is so full of left wing-spin I believe the Earth is slowing down...

Nah, I wouldn't worry about it krellin, you offset him quite nicely.