Unorthodox And Unafraid

Consider the case of the young atheist:

He loans a friend a book. Then the boys' school administrators freak out because, in loaning another student a book about religion, the atheist somehow violated the "establishment clause."

Funny.

The kid has a great blog, and he tells his story much better than I could.

(His reading list is very good, by the by, if heavy on the R. Dawkins and Nietzche. But give him a break, he's young.)

I'm quite glad there are others in the world who support free thought. Actually, I just wrote a Sir Salman Rushdie tribute for Wishtank which veers off into a discussion about why we should never limit language/thought/questioning.

Basically, telling kids they can't question their faith is as ineffective as it is immoral. The kids--all of them, bible-thumpers, young Saudis bound for the Madrasah, or even little Dawkinses who think themselves Brights but have never really asked the Hard Questions about existence, consciousness, etc.--are going to find out that others don't necessarily agree with them.

And then they will probably blog about their findings. O Internet...

Tipping Power's Scales

Our free speech-defending Wilton High Schoolers are in The Nation. Nice.

Also in the news, check out a great little summation of how our current administration has undermined the balance of power that has--in this country and, in many ways, in this country alone--kept the fragile candle-flame of democracy burning for over two hundred years.

We are appalled at Mr. Bush's actions, as usual, though we can't say we're particularly surprised.

The New York Times, June 22, 2007, Editorial, "Don’t Veto, Don’t Obey"

President Bush is notorious for issuing statements taking exception to hundreds of bills as he signs them. This week, we learned that in a shocking number of cases, the Bush administration has refused to enact those laws. Congress should use its powers to insist that its laws are obeyed.

The Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan arm of Congress, investigated 19 provisions to which Mr. Bush objected. It found that six of them, or nearly a third, have not been implemented as the law requires. The G.A.O. did not investigate some of the most infamous signing statements, like the challenge to a ban on torture. But the ones it looked into are disturbing enough.

In one case, Congress directed the Pentagon in its 2007 budget request to account separately for the cost of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was a perfectly appropriate request, but Mr. Bush issued a signing statement critical of the rule, and the Pentagon withheld the information. In two other cases, federal agencies ignored laws requiring them to get permission from Congressional committees before taking particular actions.

The Bush administration’s disregard for these laws is part of its extraordinary theory of the “unitary executive.” The administration asserts that the president has the sole authority to supervise and direct executive officers, and that Congress and the courts cannot interfere. This theory, which has no support in American history or the Constitution, is a formula for autocracy.

Other presidents have issued signing statements, but none has issued as many, or done so with the same contemptuous attitude toward the co-equal branches of government. The G.A.O. report makes clear that Mr. Bush’s signing statements were virtually written instructions to executive agencies to flout acts of Congress. Senator Robert Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, has said that the report shows that Mr. Bush “is constantly grabbing for more power” and trying to push Congress “to the sidelines.”

Members of Congress have a variety of methods available to make the administration obey the law. They should call the agency heads up to Capitol Hill to explain their intransigence. And they should use the power of the purse, the authority the founders wisely vested in the people’s branch, as a check on a runaway executive branch.

When the Bush presidency ends, there will be a great deal of damage to repair, much of it to the Constitutional system. Congress should begin now to restore the principle that even the president and those who work for him are not above the law.

Amy Goodman on Wilton High School

Recently, Wilton High School drama students performed Voices in Conflict here as part of our Conversations series as well as at The Public and The Vineyard. We're proud to have hosted them, and we're always happy to have Amy Goodman give us some on-air love.

Check cultureproject.org for more clips soon.