I like Inga Barks, I really do. I can disagree with her opinions, think she reaches incorrect conclusions, and still like her. But sometimes a point is reached when a disagreement is no longer about opinions or conclusions, but about basic facts.

     Now "fact" is (ironically) a bit of a nebulous term. Stephen Jay Gould said "In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms."

     With many issues there are few (or no) facts which have been confirmed to that degree, but if someone making an argument refuses to acknowledge the facts that are available, any attempt at discussion is likely doomed to failure.

     An obvious example are creationists who, regardless of any potential points they could have, often blatantly lie about what the scientific theory of evolution states and the claims it makes. Using arguments made over a century ago and ignoring current information, they usually present a convenient strawman which they are ready to attack. Now often times those doing this really are merely ignorant, but after being presented with current data, those that continue to support using misinformation cross over the line from only being ignorant (or even just intellectually lazy) to being willfully ignorant and thus dishonest. Now they may still believe what they say, but by continuing to present arguments which they have good reason to think are erroneous, they are effectively lying.

     In regards to Inga, I think she really believes what she says. I think that because she does not actively want to cause harm to those she disagrees with, she believes that she is not being "hateful" when she ridicules them (usually using those strawman versions of their positions). I think she believes that, because much of her religious dogma is made up by people using just their opinions, that science operates that way as well. I think she believes that it's ok to ignore information which is difficult to understand or that she simply can't be bothered to research, particularly if someone she has faith in reinforces her beliefs. But she's wrong.

     She claims that as far as she (can be bothered to) knows, the "bullies of god-fearing Americans", just want to be god themselves. Now she presents no good evidence for this, and ignores the arguments that those who disagree with her actually make, but she believes it.

     She believes she knows what people who do not share her beliefs really believe and she believes it's not hateful to utterly dismiss them based on her strawman version of their beliefs. "there's no reason to fear bigoted atheists. Atheists believe they are the result of randomly clumped particles. The concept of "rights" is meaningless in their world view. So why should their opinion matter?" Apparently because others ideas are much more complex and harder to understand than "god did it", it's just fine to remain ignorant and ridicule them with made up propaganda. It's probably much more comforting at least.

     She continues to believe and state that if our rights don't come from her xian god, they can't exist. She can't seem to understand how disrespectful this is to the unknowable numbers of people who gave up their freedom, were tortured, and died so that those rights which they developed and supported could have a chance of working. No supernatural entity presented or defended our rights, men and women did, and many paid terrible prices for doing so.

     She believes that whenever god or any variation thereof is mentioned by the Founders of the USA, it refers to her idea of her deity. She can't bring herself to understand that in the Declaration of Independence, the word "god" is proceeded by "Laws of Nature and of Nature's" (which is not an xian idea), and that it specifies where our government gets it's authority "deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed". She believes that the US Constitution is somehow based on the Declaration, and because the Declaration has the word "god" in it, the Constitution acknowledges and authorizes the imposition of her version of her deity's rules on the whole US population, and can't seem to understand that those who wrote and approved the Constitution (most of whom were xian), did so with a document that acknowledges no deity, and only even mentions such in regards to not allowing the belief or lack there of in such entities to be used as a test for admission to public office.

     Inga believes that the government can boldly promote her particular religion without worry because a group of xian lawyers will defend this type of activity without charge, ignoring the facts that even if the government agency wins it still faces significant costs, and if it loses it faces even more.

     She believes that prayer before public meetings reminds officials that they are under the authority of her deity, and ignores that this takes away from the officials acknowledgment of the true source of their authority, the consent of the governed. She also ignores the xian lawyers group saying that they can win cases like this, not by proclaiming the prayer to be an acknowledgment of their deity and it's rules being a higher authority than the US Constitution, but by calling the prayer a (effectively meaningless) ceremonial activity, at least in court. Who cares as long as they win, right?

     Most issues in life are fairly complicated and where our rights came from is no exception. Thomas Jefferson's letter to Dr Thomas Cooper in 1814 provides a good start, but particularly in our modern age, it's not very difficult to research if you really want the truth. While it's much simpler to claim our laws are based on xianity, it's also makes it much easier to disprove. If the US really was based on xianity, then it would be quite simple to show where the unique laws and principals which form our government are stated. But Inga (nor anyone else) can't show were the bible presents or even mentions a democratically elected representative republic, a bicameral legislature, a 3 part division of government as a check and balance, trial by a jury of your peers, or any other of the principalis which made the US such a successful "great experiment", no less show how our laws did not painfully evolve over time, particularly the world shaking acknowledgment that government did not get its authority from (as xianity and other religions claimed) divine right, but from the consent of the governed, from We The People.

     It may be hard to believe, but I still like Inga. I truly hope that one day she will be able to overcome the fear that was indoctrinated into her when she was so vulnerable and utilize the same techniques of logic and reason which she uses in most every other part of her life to understand and stop the harm she propagates. But even if that day never comes, I will support her rights. Not because of the threat of a magic sky entity who doesn't act no matter what happens. Not even because of the laws of the government (which so greatly contradict the magical beings laws), but because the US Founders, adding to the sweat and blood of so many before them, seem to have gotten the idea basically right. Individuals can argue, offend, and be offended, but the force of government is not to be used if you're not fairly directly affecting other people. Specifically in regards to religion they understood that people don't think or act objectively or rationally when dealing with their beliefs, and thus the government should be as separate from religion as possible to help prevent tyrannies of the majority imposing their ideas through the force of government. Of course in practice the system is flawed, from little things such as endorsing religious beliefs through "ceremonial" procedures, all the way to owning other people as property (as endorsed by the bible), but no magical intervention stops these violations, only humans, often going against their instincts because they have used reason to determine a better course of action then belief or dogma dictate.
 

Ok, Mr Vegas is only a school board member and thus has no real power to enforce his proposal, but this is a very dangerous idea.  Vegas stated on the Inga Barks talk show this morning that he believes atheists cannot uphold the Ca oath of office and that it might be a good idea if a religious test was imposed (that is, that only xians should be allowed to hold public offices). 

Now he did state that he also believes that, for example, Utah could only allow mormons to hold office, and that in the current political environment, a religious test would probably not be allowed by the courts.  Still ...

Chad Vegas may not be rabidly pushing religion in the schools all the time, and he may be promoting some positive changes, but how bad could it become with someone who so misunderstands religious freedom and the basis of our laws being in charge of the education of children? 

Of (comparatively) secondary importance, someone who claims that the bible does not in anyway conflict with the US or Ca Constitutions has, at best, a severe educational problem (like not being able to read). 

Wow.

larger view

Tyrants rarely just take away freedom, they tell you that taking away those unnecessary rights are for your own good.  Although many government drones truly mean well, it ends up costing more when some event happens and people are more helpless because they've relied on the government to take care of them.   Even if you don't like fireworks, just think of all the things you do like that government would "need" to control using the same standards that they are using for fireworks.  
Last year I was pleased to again notice a large number of "illegal" fireworks being used.  I hope that these people will vote & sign initiatives to stop the safety nazis from continuing to gain power.  

 I found this years ago and I think it sums up the issues as well as anything I've read.  

I Want My Fireworks Back!

Where have all the freedoms gone?

 I was born in Miami. When I was a kid, my parents used to take us on trips around Florida. There was one upstate nursery I always looked forward to visiting, where they had a fireworks stand! You could buy all kinds of goodies, from colorful exploding sky rockets and roman candles to cherry bombs and M-80's! All you had to do was sign a paper saying they were for "agricultural purposes", whatever that meant.

 When I was about 9 years old, we had moved from North Miami, out to north Dade County and started out living next to a dirt road on 2 acres of land. When we got these fireworks, I was allowed to take them out back, all the way to the back of the property and use them. Dad taught me how to use them safely, so I never got hurt or lost any of my fingers or toes.  Nor did I ever cause any damage to anyone else's life or property with them.

 I've enjoyed having my own fireworks all my life that way, but in recent years they've been increasingly harder to find and buy. That's because there are apparently some people in the world and in the government who actually believe that they can protect everyone from making mistakes and from possibly getting hurt from anything they do. They're wrong because that's not possible. People have always had to learn from their mistakes and to deprive them of the ability to do that doesn't make them safer, it only makes them have to learn from other mistakes. And no one can ever keep people from making mistakes unless they lock them up in some kind of police state or jail or something. Then they take away their liberty, but still not their propensity for making mistakes and having to learn from them.

 This is the same kind of mentality that says that if everything were banned that could possibly lead to someone getting hurt, we'd have a "safe" society. They want to ban guns, they want to ban knives, they want to ban sharp objects. They even now want to ban fertilizer, something that's been around for hundreds, if not thousands of years, because some fool used some fertilizer and some motor oil to blow up a building in Oklahoma City.  Should we ban the oil too? Would we be safer? I don't think so. But we WOULD have less liberty.

 The fireworks banning people and news reporters say that every year a bunch of people lose their fingers or toes or that fires are started because of fireworks. They're probably the same people who say that every year a bunch of people are injured or lose their lives because of guns.  But I don't think so. People lose their fingers or toes because they do something stupid with fireworks or because no one taught them how to properly and responsibly use fireworks like my dad did. Lots of people are injured and killed because somebody did something dangerous or stupid with guns too. But I shouldn't be blamed for that, they should. Because if I'm blamed for the stupidity or sins or crimes of others, my liberty gets taken away unjustly. And we were taught by my parents, and the schools we went to, that injustice is wrong and that liberty is right. We were taught that we were supposed to have "liberty and justice for all" and I've always believed very strongly in those principles.

 So now on the 4th of July, when we're supposed to be celebrating those original founding principles that made this such a great nation, fireworks have been getting harder and harder to find and buy. But so many people love fireworks that they try anyway and often succeed. It's called "mass civil disobedience" and it comes about when such a large number of people disagree with what they consider an unjust law that they knowingly and purposely disobey it and do what they please. It's like going over the speed limit.
Almost everyone who drives does that, even police officers, on and off duty (I've clocked them! ), and probably even judges. And it seems like the unjust laws are also the ones that take away our liberty. We were taught when we were kids that the liberties spelled out in our Constitution were bestowed by God upon the people, which is a nice story but I don't think it's true. God didn't make lightning bolts come down from the sky and blast our rights into stone tablets or anything.

The founders of this country who came up with those lists of freedoms were people who realized that governments, throughout the entire history of humanity have strongly tended to take away liberty rather than bestow it.
So they wanted to put in place some basic rights which they called "God given" rights, which were not supposed to be touched by governments.  But these actually turned out not to be rights bestowed by God, but by the People themselves who agreed that these rights should be universal and untouchable by government. Unfortunately in recent years some slick, very crafty people in government figured out that there's a loophole to almost everything except our eventual death. And they're probably looking for loopholes for that too.They've been finding all the loopholes they can so they can set things up where they and they're friends always win and everyone else always loses.
That's the way they've been rewriting the rules. And they've been working on eroding those very untouchable rights that The People so long ago bestowed on themselves and us, and thought should be inalienable. And they've been taking away liberty, guns and fireworks.

 And now it's gotten to where the streets are eerily quiet in our neighborhood on the 4th of July. It doesn't seem like the 4th of July when you can't hear any fireworks. And it feels like the liberty is slipping away at the same time. Because liberty must go hand-in-hand with responsibility.
If I'm going to have fireworks, I've got to be responsible enough not to hurt others with them or I risk losing my liberty. If I do something stupid and harm myself, then that's my own fault and that's the price I have to pay for doing something stupid. But I've always been very responsible with my fireworks and my liberty. I still have all my fingers and toes and I have no police record anywhere, on or off  the planet, you can check!

 I don't like to feel my liberty or my fireworks slipping away. The liberty feels good and the fireworks are a lot of fun!  ( Yes, I'm endowed with Pyro-mania, I actually get euphoric from them! )  Many people around the  world would give anything to have liberty. Many of them already have fireworks but not enough liberty.

 But liberty has always had it's price. In the time of the founders of this country, those people had to stand up to the government of King George and say; we demand these inalienable rights! And they had to be willing to lay their lives on the line to back up those demands. And so it's always been hasn't it?! Liberty has been relatively rare throughout human history and when  people have had it, they usually had to pay for it in blood or at least hard work. And now we see governments, in their attempt to gain increasing power over our lives and our business, working very hard again at taking away our  liberty. They apparently think they can take it away slowly enough where people won't notice. But there are signs. Guns and fireworks. The guns aren't quite gone yet, but I'd really like to have my fireworks back so I can go out and enjoy the 4th of July and my liberty again!

Proclaim LIBERTY throughout the land!   KA-BOOM!  :-)
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- Melissa