ObameconomyFollow

The point was: "We'd contribute less if we were taxed more". And I think it's pretty obvious that this is true.

You're right, it is true. But it wouldn't be as much money given to organizations that help people as there is when government taxes you for it. Theoretically, it could be, but realisitically, we can all be certain it wouldn't be.

But none of those things, even accepted at face value, is an infringement upon religion.

Of course it is. You may not think it's a significant infringement, but it clearly is. The issue is only of degrees.

If the government taxed 100% of your earnings and provided you with 100% of the goods and services you use, and none of those could include any sort of religious aspect to them, clearly that would mean that there would be 0% left for religious institutions. Churches could not exist because no one would have any money to fund them.

So. Somewhere between the government taxing 0% of our income and the amount we're at now (somewhere around 30% on average?), some degree of infringement has occurred. It's not total, but it's there. It has to qualify as "infringement" at some point prior to actually making it impossible to exist, right? There has to be some impact to private spending on things like religion as a result of government taxing us and providing services for us. This affect would clearly be most prevalent in those areas in which the services duplicate those the private funding might provide (like schools, parks, and charities).


What definition of "infringe" are you using?

So... according to gbaji, it is a right in this country to send your kid to private schools, but not for two adults to get married.

Interesting.

Except if their parents can't afford said teaching because the government has taxed away the money to provide secular replacements for them "for free".



This makes no economic sense. The church has to obtain the money somewhere to provide the education. If no one can pay for it, then they'll eventually run out and then the church will disappear. If no one has money to make donations, the same thing happens. It can't provide education for "free", because it costs them something to provide it.



Correct. However, if government taxation and regulation policies over time force people to sell their land to the government, but allow the government to provide use of the land to the people, then the result is that the same land is being used by the same people, but they are now subject to whatever restrictions on use the government applies. The specific case I was speaking of was private land on which religious symbols and sites existed, being handed over to the government to manage (in some cases with the specific stipulation that they would maintain the monument/site/whatever), and then later generations suing the government on the grounds that their tax dollars are being spent maintaining a religious site, resulting in said sites being destroyed (or in threat of being destroyed).

That is *exactly* what happened in the case of the Mount Soledad Cross here in San Diego. It was a war monument with a big cross as the central element. The private owners couldn't afford to keep it up anymore, so they sold it to the government on the condition that they maintain the monument. We can all sit here and insist that religious values and symbols aren't really being infringed, but the evidence would suggest otherwise.

How about the Boy Scout organization which built a building and maintained it for decades. Then, they made a deal with the city in which the city would own the building and be able to use it for other stuff, but the Boy Scouts would maintain priority use of the building when they wanted it, and would only pay a small token rent. Well. The Boy Scouts don't allow Gay Scoutmasters, and that's discrimination, and somewhere along the line someone passed a law saying that city property can't be used for events by organizations which violate discrimination rules, so well... I guess they just can't use the building anymore...


Of course, the social liberalists out there would say that this is a good thing. We're using the power of the government to eliminate discrimination and whatnot. But that's not the way to do it. It's backhanded. You sit there insisting that you're not infringing on people's rights to live their own lives and make their own choices, but you are doing so. That you're using economic pressure instead of legal pressure doesn't change the objective. Only the means is different. And in this case, it's one designed to be less obvious and avoid actual debate. You can do it in sections. You don't say: "We don't like the Boy Scout's policy towards homosexuals, so we'll make it illegal for them to have that policy". See. That would never fly. No one would ever allow it. But if you put an increasing percentage of the population into a state of reliance on government funds, you can then pass other laws and regulations which seem unrelated and accomplish the same thing.


It's deceptive to insist that this does not have an infringing effect on those private organizations. It absolutely does.



On cars? No. On taxes? Yes. You get that you don't get to choose to pay your taxes or not, right? That's why I keep saying this is about liberty. If I have the money, I can choose how to spend it. I can choose to give it to a charity (also of my choice), or spend it on myself, or save it, or whatever. Once the government takes that money, that liberty is taken. It doesn't matter what the government spends the money on. My choice is gone.




Well. Except that they kinda do as well. We've had the whole "different tax-exempt organizations" discussion before. Those which are identified as religious in nature are excluded from certain government funds. Thus, the government is taking the money away from us in the form of taxes, but specifically not allowing St. Josephs to qualify for the funds, while the Ladies Benevolence Society does.

So yeah. In addition to the other aspects of this, this is also a problem.



Wait! So are you saying that if the government seized all church buildings and property in the country tomorrow, you would not consider that a violation of the freedom to worship clause in the first amendment? After all, they don't need to have buildings to worship, right?



Um... My definition would be more like "If the government takes an action which limits the actions or expression (religious in this context) which would be less limited if the government did not act". I'm not asking that the government make things "easier". I'm just asking that it not make things "harder".

Seems quite reasonable to me...

Parents can't afford to have a religion impart its religious doctrine upon the kids? Really? If the church is unable to teach kids about Jesus or Allah or whatever without a check, I'd wonder about the future of that church. Then again, I suppose it works for Scientology.


They're not. The government didn't seize the land, did they? The government didn't take privately owned land and tell the owners they can't put a cross on it, did they? Private citizens made the decision to sell the land to the government. Whichever bureaucrat signed off on saying "We'll keep your religious monument here" was wrong to do so.


I'm sensing a trend here. Namely private citizens & organizations, of their own free will, giving control of something to the government and then being surprised when the government puts the same restrictions on it that it puts on every other government owned piece of property.

Protip: Stop selling your stuff to the government if you don't want them tampering around with your religious stuff.


You can say that, sure. You're not making any intelligent argument that it's about Freedom of Religion.


Yeah, you didn't understand the tax classification thing then and you don't seem to understand it now. Religious charities & organizations are able to qualify for grants provided they can keep their government funded activities separate from their religious activities. This goes on all the time.


Only churches or every single piece of privately owned property? If the government made a decision to seize only religious properties, it'd absolutely be a violation. If they seized everything, it'd be a whole nest of other problems but it wouldn't really be a First Amendment issue.


Yeah, except that in the case of the First Amendment, it's really a question of "If the government taking these actions against religious institutions or do they affect every one?" I can't set up a Spirit Yurt on the White House lawn but that's not a violation of my First Amendment rights -- no one is allowed to go camping on the White House lawn and me trying to sue the government on that basis would be laughed out of court. I can't set fire to my kid to appease Ba'al but no one is allowed to set fire to people. On the other hand, if the government said I'm not allowed to have a Friday Fish Fry during Lent (but let other places cook/serve fish with the same health & license qualifications) then we have ourselves a good ole First Amendment case on our hands.

Everything you've tried to list falls into the category of "It's that way for everyone". The local church has no less legal ability to buy a parcel of forest than I do. The local church is perfectly able to become licensed and teach students just like the local Montessori school can. The local church is as legally capable of collecting clothes for the homeless as the local cheerleader squad is capable of having a car wash to buy new pom-poms. "But people don't have as much money to give them!" no more makes it a First Amendment issue than it does when I can't buy a forest, Montessori has lower enrollment due to their pricing or the cheerleaders have to spend another year with old pom-poms because people can't afford a car wash by nubile teenagers.

Edited, Dec 10th 2009 9:32pm by Jophiel

Usually you don't oversimplify so much for the sake of humor. I'm disappointed.

You really can't see how financial resources affects the ability of people to teach and spread religion?

It equally silly to say that the quality of religious education churches provide is indifferent to the amount of financial resources they have as it is to say that the quality of basic education public schools provide is indifferent to the financial support they have.

You don't see how the government can apply a standard to everyone that effectively targets a few?

I'm skipping to this because, again, the question is whether the government is somehow singling out religious institutions. Whether or not I can "see" how the government can do such a thing, you need to show it actually happening before we have a case.

I am because Gbaji did.


It's a "functional attack" upon everyone. If you think it targets the religious unfairly (as opposed to everyone else), then you have a constitutional issue. Which is the argument Gbaji is trying to make.

If you want to say "If I have sixty cents instead of a dollar, then I have forty less cents to spread around", then sure. Of course. And whether or not that forty cents is better used by you or by the government or whatever is a whole different debate. But when you (or in this case Gbaji) makes the argument that religious institutions are being "infringed" upon moreso than Barnes & Noble or McDonald's or the World Wildlife Fund (other places not getting my forty cents) then you need to make an argument proving it.

You start off with one point and come to a conclusion that's entirely unrelated to the point you started with here.

It is entirely possible for a church to provide an education for people without charging money for it. No, it's not "free" in the sense that it costs the teachers their time, but from a strict monetary standpoint, it is free (and the teachers in question may not even mind, depending on if they view teaching as something that needs to be done regardless of money or what).

This is kind of like saying "you can't homeschool your children, where are you going to get the money to do so?" The answer is that you homeschool them outside of your working hours (or you work at home and have a sufficiently undemanding job that you can simultaneously do it and teach).

"Attack?" Well, isn't that loaded terminology.

Edited, Dec 10th 2009 11:44pm by Annabella