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Well I’m not sure we are going to get much further than this. But, even if that’s the case, it was worth the try, imo. Based on your statements, I don’t think you have a clear understanding of my position. Let me go back and try again to present it.

Here is the quote that you took exception to:

” The similarities between the *purists* here and the *purist* Islamists are striking. Neither has any use for personal choice and I really think that they don't understand it. I don't think that someone can comprehend something that is beyond their current capability - if you know what I mean :-)”

Now that is my opinion. It is not your place to tell me whether or not I can have that opinion. You are free to criticize it or disagree with it – but not to tell me that I can’t hold it. Because I clearly do hold that as my opinion. Please note that I used the word *similarities* - not the word *equate* which you seem to think I said. And please remember that you have agreed there are indeed similarities.

Here is my view: We have something exquisitely wonderful in this country. There has been nothing like it in the all the history that we are aware of. Our country was founded on the brilliant idea of self-government. The Founders believed that too much government was dangerous. As Thomas Jefferson put it:

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

In other words there is a natural tendency for individuals to lose liberty and government to gain in power. As I said in the previous post, government is force. Government is like poison – like the poison that an anesthetist gives to enable a healing surgery to occur. A little of the poison is necessary – but too much and you will die. Limited government is necessary – but too much and liberty will yield to tyranny. It is the nature of government – of *power over* to try to grow and become absolute.

That's the first thing. The second thing is what we talked about previously: that is, that you cannot equate "force of law" with laws *being forced upon us.*

Now, that is your opinion, not mine. My view is that anything that government does is *forced* upon us because government, by definition, is *force*. Whether it is taxes, or speeding limits (which on freeways are far too low, imo), or regulations on business or the banning of trans fats in NYC, or no-knock laws that allowed the police in Atlanta to shoot and kill an 88 year old woman, or the absolutely out of control anti-smoking measures. I agree that we MUST have government – but the government that governs least – governs best. I think it is vitally important to work to restrict government – especially at the federal level. Let me give two more quotes from Thomas Jefferson:

Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.

With respect to our state and federal governments, I do not think their relations correctly understood by foreigners. They generally suppose the former subordinate to the latter. But this is not the case. They are co-ordinate departments of one simple and integral whole. To the state governments are reserved all legislation administration, in affairs which concern their own citizens only; and to the federal government is given whatever concerns foreigners and citizens of other states; these functions alone being made federal. The one is the domestic, the other the foreign branch of the same government - neither having control over the other, but within its own department.

So I am advocating for less government, for individual liberty and an almost sacred respect for individual rights and self determination, free will or free choice. What that means in this context is that I think those who want to restrict the rights of folks like Mary Cheney are promoting tyranny. Just as I think that the Taleban’s treatment of women is obviously tyrannical. Those who think they are somehow *entitled* to *force* others to live by their beliefs are tyrant wannabes, imo. The Taleban have succeeded in gaining the power over all those around them. Just as Iran has a tyrannical theocracy. Free will, free choice are not allowed. Those who speak of individual freedom and self-determination are jailed, beaten, tortured and possibly killed.

The similarities that I see between fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist Muslims concern me. Reading the posts on this thread (and others) is pretty upsetting to me and that’s not just the vileness and perversion. People are advocating taking away the individual rights of folks that they don’t approve of. That’s pretty scary to me. Hopefully, you are wise enough to see – that if government were given the power to decide who could and could not have children or who could adopt children – Christians would be just as at risk as homosexuals. Government is not just. Nor is government accountable. Government is force. Government likes to have more power.

I think we are much better off having the greatest amount of power in the individual – even if that means that we know individual humans will err – and some will not handle their freedom responsibly. We have a legal system to deal with those who misuse their freedom. But we are, in the long run, much better off working toward having the least amount of government as is possible and the highest level of freedom possible – even if that means that people are free to *sin* (by your definition). Even if that means people are free to fornicate, to divorce, to commit adultery, to engage in homosexual acts, to have children outside of wedlock, to drink too much, to smoke cigarettes, to eat things that aren’t good for them. In other words – I think we are much better off having a society that is not structured around religious or secular rules – or as has been said so well * a nanny state* – but is structured around individual freedom and individual rights and individual responsibility.

Previously and presently in our history, including a time when major religion played a much more dominating role in our culture than it does now, there were and are many laws that reflect the moral judgments you rail against. Laws against adultery, incest, bestiality, pedophilia, homosexuality and so on.

At that time – government was not big and those laws were at the state level – which is where those kind of things should be decided. But I would argue there was tyranny. The lack of individual rights and the respect for those rights was tyranical. And the kinds of things that happened to those who broke those laws were pretty tyrannical.

At one time, one of the most immoral moral judgments known to man---slavery---was imposed through our law.

Yet tyranny did not occur.

It was the ultimate tyranny for the slave. Just as there was tyranny for women. Women were denied their basic human rights – as were the slaves.

Those who do not understand the importance of individual freedom, self-determination, free will, free choice and individual rights should not be writing laws, imo. They are a danger to others, imo. Self-government is pretty self-explanatory :-)