The random political thoughts thread (Part Deux)

[Strangler Lewis]

Originally Posted by Nephythys

Sorry- but the date of the article is in 2006. Last I checked there is NO current comparison in any modern religion.

The question is not what any religion does, it's what any society does to maintain order. Most countries with capital punishment kill people for what appears to be trivia in order to maintain order. China is a prime example.

We kill people for supposedly serious reasons. However, some states are now expanding the death penalty beyond murder cases to serial child molesting. I have no doubt that if you phrased your supermarket survey correctly, you'd find support for greater expansion of the death penalty, just as you find support for repealing much of the Bill of Rights.

Further, since America is not currently a Christian theocracy, it makes no sense to predict what would happen in such a country. One need only look at the English-only movement to have one's confidence shaken. One hears about this or that community trying to get non-English books out of their libraries and trying to punish non-English usage.

Given the religious rights attempt to make this a Christian country, and the not entirely implausible view that the First Amendment only prohibits a national church, not state churches, it is not inconceivable that we could live in a state with an official state church. I would be terrified to live in such a place at least shortly after its inception when the call for abuses of newly acquired power would be greatest. Maybe there would just be fines and imprisonment rather than beheadings, but that would be a distinction attributable to how cheap life is in poor societies. It would not change the fact that the minister running the state with a gun and the imam running the Somali village with a gun would have been cut from the same cloth.