Monday, February 2, 2009

Military Clerics should respect rights of nonbelievers/Trade Agreements

Respect rights of nonbelievers

There is currently a campaign to guarantee military clerics have the ability to pray according to their religious beliefs during military ceremonies. I agree that chaplains should have the ability to pray within chapels, within a voluntary gathering of soldiers/sailors that are not obligated to attend. But, outside of voluntary gatherings, where military personnel are required to attend, then the military chaplain does not have a right to pray any way he or she so wishes.One does not have the right to evangalize to those who are forced to hear a prayer. If one did have that right, then the atheist soldier in the ceremony should have the same right to get up and give a rebuttal. Remember, a military chaplain isn’t there to further his/her religion, it is to meet the religious needs of the members of the military who seek the chaplain’s services.There is a cross on Mt. Soledad, San Diego, that is a war memorial and meant to symbolize all the war dead of America. Now, maybe many Christians truly think that such a cross memorializes even non-Christian soldiers who have died in our nation’s wars but I must ask if the war memorial was of a Muslim crescent or even an atheist symbol would they still argue that those symbols represent dead Christian soldiers?In Alabama there is a private monument on private land (in contrast to the quasi private/public nature of the San Diego Cross) that recognizes and memorializes “Atheists in Foxholes.” This monument doesn’t pretend to symbolize the sacrifices of non-atheist soldiers in our nation’s wars as the cross supposedly does with non-Christian soldiers.The reason for this atheist monument isn’t because atheists don’t honor the sacrifice of non-atheists but because for too long atheist soldiers were and still are disparaged with statements such as “no atheists in foxholes.” This statement is an insult to the untold thousands of atheists (some I have known) who have died in our nation’s wars and who served in combat.People would be disgusted if someone said “no Jews in foxholes” or “no Buddhists in foxholes” so why do we as a society tolerate the one toward atheists?



Trade Agreements, good things?

Milw. Journal (colleen Kronquist)The Journal Sentinel has come out in support of expanding trade agreements with developing nations because of mandates in these agreements on enforcing existing labor and environmental agreements in those nations. The problem is, those standards are so weak compared to the standards in the US, that they are the equivalent of 19th century standards. American workers should not have to compete with nations where the minimum wage is 50 cents an hour and workers losing hands in machines that are only somewhat regulated. We shouldn't water down our standards for the profits of multi-national corporations who have no loyalty to any country, including ours.

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