Thought for the Day

[trish]

Pretty much the same story was covered in the Sunday edition of NYT ( https://nyti.ms/2s3vGHc ).

“An exclusion without exceptions would violate the cultures and traditions of some communities in New Jersey based on religious traditions,” - Chris Christie

Christie must be talking about the culture of child rape. There are religious groups in the U.S. (like the Mormons - who have a disproportionate representation in the Federal Government and certain State and local governments) which have a history of polygamy and child marriage.
Although the main branches of Mormonism have disavowed the principle of polygamy and child marriage, practice has not always followed suit. Officials in power have been able, repeatedly, to obstruct laws and against it and to obstruct the enforcement of existing laws against polygamy and child abuse. (This was one of the themes of the HBO TV drama Big Love.)
Not sure that this explains Christie's behavior, however. As far as I know, Christie is Catholic. Although the Catholic Church has had its own pedophilia scandal, the Church has not endorsed child marriage.
I can imagine some protestant sects in the American landscape would privately endorse the marriage of a pregnant child in lieu of abortion, which seems to be the case with the 11 year old Florida girl in the Independent's story.

[Stavros]

Trish, thank you for the link to the NY article which is even more disturbing than the one in the Independent that I cited in my earlier post. I still don't get it, to put it simply. I can only explain to myself this situation- in which a State can rule that the age of consent is 18 yet a local judge allow someone much younger to get married -as an example of how the 'institution' of marriage is taken to be so pure and necessary for a decent society that once two people are married, they are legally and morally a valid couple. I speak as someone who was once insulted by a relative for not being married, yet when I point out how many marriages fail and contain violent partners, or how many people get married and violate their wedding vows on a regular basis, it cuts no ice. Marriage and children are the acme of success, regardless of whether or not they work. This has even infected the LGBTQIAPN/B communities demanding the right to be hypocrites like everyone one else who elevate marriage from the 'so what?' level it naturally occupies to the 'must have' fantasy where suddenly everything become respectable.

Clearly there needs to be a nationwide change in the law, and for the law to be applied, and this should be universal, not just in the USA. I have not hear of the programme Big Love and will investigate.

[broncofan]

I agree there should be a national law on this. Some Republicans seem to deliberately misunderstand the free exercise clause of the first amendment.The Supreme Court ruled in Employment Division v. Smith that even though ingesting peyote was an essential practice of the Native American Church, its use could be prohibited by law and someone could be fired from their job for using it. The court stated that a generally applicable law that is directed at the practice in general, and is passed without an intent to single out a single religion or religion in general, is not prohibited under the free exercise clause. Prohibiting the use of peyote for everyone, even if it has the effect of impinging on a religious practice is acceptable. Prohibiting its use for religious ceremonies only and allowing it for other secular purposes on the other hand would be unacceptable.

I'm sure Jews, Muslims, and other Christian sects would not like this reasoning to be applied to them. It could mean for instance that banning circumcision for children would not violate the free exercise clause. Same goes for banning Kosher slaughter or Halal, again as part of a broader attempt to regulate treatment of animals rather than directed against a particular religion. I'm not saying state legislatures should pass these laws, but if the court believed they are generally applicable laws that were passed without a discriminatory intent, then they would not be struck down for violating the free exercise clause.

Most importantly, it does not violate free exercise clause to demand that someone who owns a store not discriminate against gay couples, even if they (probably wrongly) claim that their religion prohibits them from interacting with gay men and women. It does not violate the free exercise clause to ban child marriage. This should be obvious. In fact, the court has said that states have extra leeway to protect the interests of children, which means that even if such a law were to violate the free exercise clause, protecting children is such a compelling interest that a law sensibly crafted for that purpose would not be unconstitutional. So why would Chris Christie block this law? Cowardice, ignorance, and callousness towards the victims it protects.

[sukumvit boy]

Republican Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska ,leader of the 'never Trump' coalition prior to the election and author of the new Best Seller "The Vanishing American Adult" has some interesting and compelling things to say...
http://charlierose.com/videos/30529
http://www.amazon.com/Vanishing-American-Adult-Coming-Crisis/dp/1250114403/ref=sr_1_1/135-2945788-2159349?ie=UTF8&qid=1496716699&sr=8-1&keywords
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...rm=.e517328bf3

[Stavros]

Republican Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska ,leader of the 'never Trump' coalition prior to the election and author of the new Best Seller "The Vanishing American Adult" has some interesting and compelling things to say...

Thanks for the links. I read the article in the Post, and what I think this relates to is something we call Curriculum Development, and the debate on what it is that children should be taught in schools. In the UK there has been a rift between those who think 'modern' teaching methods and curriculum development are not teaching children 'the basics' in reading, writing and mathematics, and those who argue that has not been sacrificed but is part of a more interactive learning environment which allows pupils to 'own' their lessons, the kind of language that drives UKIP mad and who think a degree in 'Media Studies' is a symptom of everything that is wrong with modern Britain, even though it is one of the most successful degrees in securing graduates a job because of the demand for people who know how the media in all its manifold glories works -and a reflection of the ignorance and prejudice that condemns education as a 'left-wing' conspiracy . Thus it is just not about what it is that children are learning, but how.

What is noticeable in our election campaign is that most of the exchanges on education have either been generalised references to financing, or focused on school meals. Proposals by Theresa May to re-instate Grammar Schools has been an issue, yet there has been no serious or extended discussion about what it is that children in 2017 should be learning that will help them make the transition into work in 2027. It is a complex subject, but for that reason needs more discussion. We have known for years that STEM subjects -Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics- are in demand from employers, and schools have been attempting to boost their teaching of STEM subjects, yet we still anchor this in examination results which become important when those are translated into 'League Tables' and parents seeing one school slip down the league want their child to move to a 'better' school. And, in the end, if we are not producing teachers to carry though these policies the education system fails our children and we are all worse off because of it.

But I have to say, as pointed out in the article, Sasse's belief that Aristotle’s “Ethics,” Plato’s “Crito,” Augustine’s “Confessions,” and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s “Emile” should be on the reading list of adolescents is lost somewhere between high ambition and foolishness. I read Plato at 16, but simple stuff like the Symposium, but did so as a personal choice having already left school to work. We did little in the way of literature or the arts in my school because of a lack of resources and a lack of interest in all but one teacher who struggled to control the class at the best of times. I am sure things are different now, and more professional, but ultimately resources are the key to good education, from the building and its staff through to the curriculum. I suspect that in the end we get the education that we pay for.

[sukumvit boy]

Thanks for that very interesting UK perspective ,Stavros.
Considered by some as 'the thinking mans conservative' and famous for his assertion that he would rather watch a "dumpster fire " than attend the Republican Party's 2016 Trump nomination, Sasse marshals some startling statistics about such things as digital addiction - 18 to 24 year olds spend half of their waking hours with either online porn or gaming ,and the average American spends only 19 minutes a day reading.
The 'crisis of loneliness'. In 1990 the average American had 3.4 friends vs today only 1.8 and 40% of American adults have no confidants.
And his assertion that 10 to 25 year olds are stranded in a neverland of extended adolescence and have lost the culture of self reliance and will be ill prepared for the massive changes required in the post industrial economy .

[sukumvit boy]

The Centrist Project, USA. Nick Troiano , its Executive Director on PBS "Open Mind" TV program yesterday discusses the Project's aim to place Independent Centrist Representatives in the House and Senate to break the bipartisan long jam in Congress .

ww.centristproject.org

[Stavros]

Just when you might have thought the hoaxers were being dealt with- a Florida woman convinced Sandy Hook was a hoax has been jailed for 4 months for harassing the families- Megyn Kelly has given Alex Jones a platform to maintain this horrible campaign. How low can it get? Are there really no standards on US television?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...threats-prison

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a7786656.html

[broncofan]

On the theme of the previous post, news from the sewer, Breitbart recently fired Katie McHugh, a woman who has for years made transparently racist statements on her twitter feed. She previously said that "slaves built the U.S. in the same way that cows built McDonald's", and that without Muslims there would be no terrorist attacks. The last straw was when a Persian-American actor told her she was a disgrace and she said, "you're an Indian" as though being Indian would be an indictment.

Was the comment worse than previous comments? About on par, but Breitbart is apparently faced with a different set of pressures. There are few standards, but they don't directly flow from human decency.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...-tweet/529437/

[Stavros]

I wonder what people think about the different attitudes in high politics to being gay that appear to change when one moves from one side of the Atlantic Ocean to the other.

1) At the NATO summit last month, a photograph of leaders' partners released by the White House included, as it was obliged to, the husband of the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, but in the accompanying caption did not name him at all even though the women were named in relation to their husbands.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-luxembourg-pm

2) the new Prime Minister of Ireland, Leo Varadkar, is the youngest PM in Ireland's history, the son of an immigrant from India, Varadkar is also gay and married. Given the strong links between Ireland the USA, how will the White House manage relations with someone who Vice-President Pence may believe will be the architect of 'social collapse' in Ireland? If Mr Pence does not like being alone in a room with a woman who is not his wife, would he be comfortable sitting in that room with the Prime Minister of Ireland?
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ireland-politics-varadkar-idUSKBN1951Y9
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...b02d21bbc8ff9b

3) the leader of the Liberal Democrat party in the UK, Tim Farron, has resigned, even though at last week's General Election his party increased the number of MPs it has in the House of Commons. Farron is an evangelical Christian, and has been criticised for dodging questions on being gay and on gay sex, eventually caving in to repeated questioning to deny that being gay is a sin. Nevetheless, in his resignation speech he complained that "we are kidding ourselves if we think we yet live in a tolerant, liberal society. That’s why I have chosen to step down as leader of the Liberal Democrats.” But then he added "The consequences of the focus on my faith is that I have found myself torn between living as a faithful Christian and serving as a political leader."
Or, to put it another way, he was forced to recognise that in the UK his religious views were a burden, not a benefit in his political campaigns. Something which seems to be the opposite of politics in the USA where candidates for office often make a point of declaring their religious zeal as a flag to be waved, dare one say it, with pride.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...-a7790396.html