Thanks for the reply. While I do appreciate your thoughtful response, I think I misdirected you with my phrasing of the question.
Your response presumes that if the Est.Clause were interpreted in line with your views, that the result would would be "a system of liberty of religious expression". And that's a fine hypothesis, but you are leaving out the details, and that's what I'm most interested in.
Let me put it another way:
If the Supreme Court were to issue a landmark ruling interpreting the establishment clause in line with your views, the effect would be that (a) some "things" which are currently prohibited by rule of law would become acceptable by rule of law and (b) some "things" which are currently acceptable by rule of law would become prohibited by rule of law.
These "things" referenced above would be laws, institutions, behaviors, etc.
You said: (1) Nothing at all would change in terms of our formal governmental arrangements and institutions.
But a reinterpretion of a major piece of our Supreme Court's jurisprudence would certainly have "formal" implications. I don't see how this can be denied. Furthermore, I don't see how you can argue your point (1) italicized above while also stating "Under a system of liberty of religious expression, there would be greater diversity of viewpoints in the public square". How would this "system" come about if not by formal revisions of centuries of jurispudence that upholds the current system with which you disagree? The reinterpretation itself is not going to bring it about; it's just the catalyst. Your reply focused on a somewhat nebulous end result, but what specific changes would actually get you there?
I don't see how you can argue your point (1) above, [i.e., "Nothing at all would change in terms of our formal governmental arrangements and institutions"] while also stating "Under a system of liberty of religious expression, there would be greater diversity of viewpoints in the public square". How would this "system" come about if not by formal revisions of centuries of jurispudence that upholds the current system with which you disagree? GETMAIN, what your question really boils down to, it seems to me, is: To what final authority do human beings seeking to live their lives in a system of ordered liberty and equal justice appeal to, when the public discourse is as "disordered" as ours now appears to be?
Do you want to trust the judges? Or do you want to trust the people?
Myself, I'd put my money on the people, if I were inclined to gambling (which I am not). When it comes to life, people tend to be the "real experts"... or so it seems to me. And it seems to me there are many viewpoints to recognize and reconcile, so that a just polity may exist in the first place.
Would you rather live in a science lab, or in some itinerant abstraction perpetrated by the fervid mind of, say, Noam Chomsky? Or a just civil order constituted in individual liberty, personal responsibility, self-government, and equal justice?
On any fair reading of history, one would conclude that acts of suppression of religion everywhere and everytime give evidence of a totalitarian act in progress.
Fact is, GETMAIN, I don't disagree with the current system. The current system, in its political dimension, is defined by the Constitution of the United States of America.
What I disagree with is the historical and jurisprudential revisionism that has recently been applied to it, by "legal positivists" and other professional destructors of human meaning. (Check out Sandra Day O'Connor these days if you need a case study.)
. That, and "shoot from the hip" legislation to curry favor with narrowly-defined support groups.
We see this sort of thing in politics. We see it in corporate boardrooms. We see it in academe. We see it in the mass meida and the public discourse more generally, notably including the Hollywood phenomenon, et al.
Go figure, dude.