Once again I cut & paste one of my GG comments to post here.

Two conclusions are inescapable....

Have you conveniently forgotten that atheists killed more people than religionists by a substantial multiple, last century? Stalin and Mao alone evened the score for a large portion of human history. So much for "reason".

1: Many people have killed many other people.

2: Many people have religious beliefs.

Any conclusions beyond these two are unsupported BS.

For the record, what all the mass murderers have in common is a willingness to classify people into arbitrary but reasonably easily delineated groups and declare members of one of the groups to be "unclean". The stated goal is inevitably the betterment of "mankind" ignoring the fact that mankind is made up of individuals each "created equal" with an equally sacred stake in living, loving and raising families who share their goals and values.

If you are among those, willing to condemn such a group to the point of wishing death upon their members, then you share in the evil that the mass-murderers represent.

Failure of Education....

Since I never raised children, I had the luxury of being able to ignore whatever has been happening in our schools for quite a while now. It's clear to me now that whatever it was, its now a major contributer to the current pollution of our discourse.

While individual reporters are merely churning out whatever is rewarded institutionally by their organizations, in the meantime those higher up in the organization are concentrating their efforts on determining whatever will do the most to enhance revenue flow.

We can all see the results of this process, which of course moves expensive haircuts and continuing saga's of missing pretty white women to the fore of news coverage. (Never underestimate the power of that photo that accompanies the 10 second teaser for the next segment)

So, if as I assert, the lousy news coverage is demand driven, how can we create demand for substantive coverage? Why, in school of course. If we were doing an adequate job of teaching that the demands of citizenship include paying attention, developing informed opinions and voting, then (eventually) the demand for decent serious news coverage would grow.

Needless to say, the process takes years to accomplish, but it is simply one of the better investments we can make in our future.

I always enjoy when libertarianism is discussed...

Because it usually causes everyone to examine their core assumptions. During the Viet Nam era, I was too young to be subject to the draft, but it certainly profoundly affected my attitude toward the coercive power of the state. When you peel away all the pretty words, what remains are people with blue uniforms and guns who reserve the right to shoot you if you don't come quietly. The rest is simply arguing over who deserves to be on the receiving end of such treatment