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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.

Thank you so much for the heads up to your always excellent analyses!

Earlier you pinged me for my views on the subject and I had bookmarked it for meditation. Frankly, I lost track of it until you posted your thoughts on the subject!

All I have to add is that the Supreme Court has increasingly misinterpreted the First Amendment establishment clause as a freedom from religion rather than a prohibition on the establishment of a state religion.

If they had kept faith with the Founders intentions, I believe the following would have happened:

1. Hospitals and elder care facilities would have remained primarily as property of the various churches. Public funding would not have required a change of hands.

2. Students would have the right to speak a prayer at football games, graduation, etc. (the Santa Fe decision)

3. The Newdow decision in California (the 'under God' prohibition in the pledge of allegiance) would have been the reverse.

4. Private religious schools would have access to publicly funded facilities for the learning impaired, etc.

There's probably more, that's just off the top of my head.