Religion a higher order than state
I commend the Bush administration’s last-minute plan to prohibit recipients of federal money from discriminating against doctors, nurses and other health care workers who refuse to perform or to assist in the performance of abortions or sterilization procedures because of their religious beliefs or moral convictions.
James Madison recognized religious freedom as a fundamental right that precedes the state and cannot be severely curtailed or denied by it. Religious freedom constitutes the very heart of human rights.
Secularists who oppose the Bush initiative are motivated by a totalitarian concept of the state. According to this mentality, the state is a sort of supreme being that is above us and tells us how to live.
But this is not reality. It should be the state that conforms to the society it serves – not the other way around. This is the essence of democracy. The opposite is dictatorship and totalitarianism.
Contrary to the political pundits, President Bush, a man of deep faith and conviction, will one day be judged kindly by history. He will be judged as an authentic promoter and defender of life, liberty and happiness.
Paul Kokoski
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
JFK’s demise strikes at the heart of what USA is
Re the recent 45th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy:
Perhaps known as one of the greatest murder mysteries of all time, the assassination of President Kennedy has for years intrigued scholars, authors and the average American citizen.
The assassination can be classified into two distinct categories: method and significance. Few would argue that too much emphasis has been given to the method and very little to the significance. This is exactly how the perpetrators would like it to be.
Photographic evidence, along with eyewitness testimony, has already conclusively proven that JFK was shot by more than one assassin. The Mary Mormon photo clearly shows the profile of a shooter behind the picket fence on the grassy knoll. It is obviously someone wearing a policeman’s uniform. Some speculate it was J.D. Tippit.
This was the fatal head shot. Two other bullets struck the president: The first one entered at the base of the throat and the second struck him in the back. While the positions of the assassins makes for a good game of Clue, the more important issue is the significance of the assassination.
Many have speculated that the former Soviet Union, Cuba, the KKK, the Mafia, Lyndon B. Johnson, the CIA and the FBI all had strong motives to attempt this. However, given the connection of Lee Harvey Oswald to the CIA and Jack Ruby to the Mafia, along with the altered autopsy reports, the evidence points to a coup d’état by the CIA.
They did it because they believed JFK was taking the United States on the wrong path toward dealing with communism. That is the reason why the cover-up has been sustained for so long.
The perpetrators honestly believed they were doing the right thing for the United States at the time. The will of the people was discarded in favor of preserving the nation as they saw fit.
Unfortunately, they didn’t realize the long-term effects of the assassination. One result was the increased power of capitalism over democracy. Profit has become more important than freedom. Corporations are more concerned with increasing the wealth of a select few than with promoting the general welfare of the very nation that allows them to conduct business.
A second result has been the subordination of this nation’s civil liberties to the private agendas of the powers that be. The only opinions that are accepted today are those that further the bottom line. Contrary opinions are discouraged and distorted by spin doctors.
The only explanation for the lack of attention given to the significance of the assassination is because the government, the military and the media all know what happened and to expose the event for what it really was goes to the central core of what constitutes the United States of America.
Joe Bialek
Cleveland