People who buy this “shining city upon a hill” business and paint all others as unpatriotic have a hard time reconciling stuff like this.

I say we privatize even more vital and sensitive government functions, let companies like Prince’s operate abroad not only with impunity but with a shared custody in the legitimate use of violence – and then wonder why we’re losing the war for “hearts and minds.” Oh, I almost forgot the part about proclaiming “Mission Accomplished.”

Then we can vote for “change” only to have these contracts extended and let anal rape slide (and obviously waterboarding, too, since it got more attention) for the sake of moving forward instead of looking back – no big deal.

I guess if we’d only studied physics instead, we’d already know that the universe’s entropy only ever increases. Though America seems to be in an alternate universe, there’s no escaping this.

We also cannot forget that ultra-conservative or fundamentalist religious groups often view their worldview and way-of-life as having been sanctioned by God and perceive of it as being under attack.

This has a set of geo-political implications ranging from a disparate view of foreign relations with other groups to war mandates (like in the case of George Bush’s “war of ideals” and for “hearts and minds”).

Many of the atheists that I know have far more stringent sets of morals and – as you noted, are far more tolerant than the uber-religious in my life.

They often turn away from religion because of the hypocrisy of “believers.” We often hear from them the argument that “more people have been killed in the name of God than for any other purpose.” Although simplistic, it’s compelling and thought-evoking, to say the least.