From my perspective the biggest problem is that even those most frustrated with government pushing a pro-statist agenda, are unintentionally supporting a pro-statist agenda on some position. The key is people need to educate themselves on individual rights and when they see one of their positions is in contradiction to individual rights, not to stubbornly defy reason and hold on to that position but to modify it, not because they agree with it but because they agree within rights. Because compromising individual rights, on one issue for the whims of pragmatism is what got us where we are. You keep compromising individual rights and before long you won't have any.

bigdog107,
Liberals may not have any credibility but they are not wrong on the church and state issue. I like to think of myself as having an objective mind. So I'll answer any of your questions that ProudAgnostic didn't.

Vorengard,
The reason god is elusive in schools is because they are government schools. The fight should not be to get god in government schools; the fight should be to get government out of schools.

rfife912,
I would say that phrase "separation of church and state" is a nice summary of Amendment 1 of the Constitution.

great post, Mr_Libertarian! I agree with everything other than the statement that secular humanism is a religion. It is not and even though I disagree with secular humanism - that is not the problem. The problem is government. When you have a secular government that takes over the nation's education, the result is a secular education, for everyone that is educated by the government.

Christians need to start fighting their battles on the most fundamental of fronts and then it will be possible for victory.
Government is brute force. For Christians to advocate that brute force should be applied to keep homosexuals from getting married and that it should be used to indoctrinate children with Christian beliefs - Christians will lose every time. The religious are ignoring that government should not be licensing marriage - it should be a religions issue, period; then they maintain authority over their own traditions. They are also ignoring that government should not be educating our children, it should be a private education, period; then they maintain authority over what is taught to their children. Religious conservatives are fighting liberal positions with liberal rules or more precisely, they are fighting results and accepting the cause.

What does finding something offensive have to do with caring about what others think? That makes no sense. If one day you woke up and found that a law had been passed that stated from that day forward all currency in th US would state "In no god, we trust". Would you find that offensive? What does that have to do with worrying about what others think? It doesn't. Being offended is when someone shows disrespect for something you value but in a free society you are free to be offended and free to offend others.

The second principle has nothing to do with moral values. Those who give credit to "god" for a moral code are just living by some moral code created by some other man - that lived 2000+/- years ago. Instead of looking for your own moral code, you uncritically accept another man's - who claimed to talk to the creator of the universe; probably the last person you should be submitting your mind to.

Christians hold moral judgment against all men. Man cannot escape from holding moral judgment; he can only decide his standard and yours is Christianity, which is based on the irrational concept of faith. Do you oppose gay marriage? Stem cell research? abortion? That's moral judgment and it's not a coincidence that the Christian faith results in opposition to these issues; the cause is their core beliefs.

Regarding Iraq.
1) The cease-fire agreement was between the two parties involved; the US and Iraq but Iraq was also in non-compliance with many UN resolutions that followed the cease-fire. The US is a sovereign nation and is not dependent on approval or support from the UN.

2)I agree that the US is not the world's police but North Korea should not be able to develop WMD's and neither should Iran. Neither respect individual rights and we can't let heads-of-states that are willing on using WMD's on innocent people. Which Ahmadinejad admits he will.

3.)What I meant to suggest is we can't worry about how other countries are going to percieve us by acting in our best interest. This was in response to your "it has taken away our international good faith from all our allies. "

Regarding Obama:
Where does the money come from that pays for these jobs? Force. Is there a market for these jobs or do they only exist because government made law to provide funds for these unneeded jobs. If it was a needed job it would have already existed do to demand of the market.

ProudAgnostic,
Welcome, it's nice to see another non-theist in here; someone that recognizes the superiority of reason to faith. What I don't understand about you is how you apply reasoning to metaphysics but not to politics.
I just want to provoke some thought with you and also offer an alternative for all the theists reading this that think all non-theists resort to pro-statism.

In response to your comments about Iraq:
1.)Due to our peace treaty with Iraq, Hussein was to provide evidence and access to inspectors to prove he was dismantling his WMD's; he did not.
2.)Hussein was a tyrant who did not support the concept of individual rights; I hope you would agree that it is a rational position not to let heads-of-states that constantly abuse, torture and otherwise ignore individual rights, to possess weapons of mass destruction.
3.)America's foreign policy should not be influenced by the impact it is going to have on our relationship with other countries.

Now, in response to your comments about Obama's domestic policies.
You first mentioned you want to see a return to impartial science; as do I but what is science founded on? Reasoning. The economy is a science and Obama's economic policies are founded on anything but reason or science. In other words we have a president that will give praise to science but ignore it when he wants, essentially slaughtering the definition of science.
Now, to offer a little support for the above statement. Government is nothing but brute force. To break down a legislators job - they essentially decide where to apply force. Nothing a government does cannot be done without first applying force. Now your position suggests that you think applying force can and will stimulate the economy - it cannot. It can only redistribute wealth that was or is already being produced. Force cannot create jobs; it can only be applied to other jobs and then the loot can be redistributed in the form of a unnecessary job but nothing has been created - only the productive have been enslaved. What do you call it when one person is forced to work for another sake?
Your support for Obama seems to be founded on a lot of resentment for the last pro-statist president we had. Obama took Bush's statist positions and multiplied them; Obama's statism is bigger, it is just gift wrapped and comes with a side of Vaseline but don't be fooled by the charisma and charm - his policies are just as dangerous as Bush's and having these two back to back is literally shaking America's foundation.

Ewww. "poor man's greed, that is envy or jealousy" Nice!!!

I understand what your saying but of those addicts, 100% of them made decisions that led to their addiction - it was not forced on them and should not be used as a justification to force the ideology of prohibition on the rest of us.