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The words "belief" and "believe" aren't in the Declaration of Independance, the Constitution, or any of the Amendments including the Bill of Rights.
Are you arguing that the government has the right to tell people what to believe? That's pretty hard to reconcile with the spirit of the first ammendment, which guarantees us the rights to communicate what we want, petition for what we want, and practice religion the way we want without government interference. All of that freedom would be fairly wasted if the government were aloud to establish what we believe. "Yes, you have the freedom to say what you want, but you are not aloud to believe the things you are saying, so you're in trouble now . . ."

In fact, if we don't have the freedom to believe what we will, why doesn't the government just tell us all to agree that the war in Iraq is good and throw anyone in jail who believes differently?

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So what do you mean by it?
What I mean by it is simply that we all have the right to think whatever we want and that it is not the governments job to correct our mis-beliefs. The government should reflect the beliefs of the people, not impose beliefs upon them.

Edit: Also, "Life liberty and the persuit of hapiness" also strongly suggests the freedom to believe what we want.


Edited by JeffS (14/06/2006 02:06)
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-Jeff
Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.