On not making people pay for things they morally oppose

Bill Moyers applauds the Presidents position on mandating birth control coverage:

The president did something agile and wise the other day. And something quite important to the health of our politics. He reached up and snuffed out what some folks wanted to make into a cosmic battle between good and evil. No, said the president, we're not going to turn the argument over contraception into Armageddon, this is an honest difference between Americans, and I'll not see it escalated into a holy war. So instead of the government requiring Catholic hospitals and other faith-based institutions to provide employees with health coverage involving contraceptives, the insurance companies will offer that coverage, and offer it free.
At Huffpo (same link as above), a writer named Michael Dodd, perturbed that many conservative politicians oppose even this compromise, turns their argument (why should citizens be made to pay for things that they morally oppose) on its head:
Okay, people, those of you who think it is all about "why should we pay for anything?" Why should churches NOT pay taxes? Why do I have to support THEM by paying taxes so that the roads to their buildings are built and the snow plowed? Why do I have to support churches who use the money they save by not paying taxes to pay advertisin­g firms to produce anti-equal­ity ads to suppress equal rights for tax-paying citizens who happen to be LGBT? Why should my taxes make it possible for them to use the money saved to pay salaries to lawyers to shield pedophiles­?

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CNN beating the drums for war against Iran

Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone dissects a recent "news" broadcast by CNN, the story being that, even in the absence of any evidence, the United States should be preparing for attacks by Iran:

As a journalist, there’s a buzz you can detect once the normal restraints in your business have been loosened, a smell of fresh chum in the waters, urging us down the road to war. Many years removed from the Iraq disaster, that smell is back, this time with Iran. You can just feel it: many of the same newspapers and TV stations we saw leading the charge in the Bush years have gone back to the attic and are dusting off their war pom-poms. CNN’s house blockhead, the Goldman-trained ex-finance professional Erin Burnett, came out with a doozie of a broadcast yesterday, a Rumsfeldian jeremiad against the Iranian threat would have fit beautifully in the Saddam’s-sending-drones-at-New-York halcyon days of late 2002.

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Citizens United redux?

Josh Silver of United Republic reports:

On Friday night, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the Montana Supreme Court's December, 2011 decision upholding the state's century-old ban on corporate political spending. The implications of this are huge, as it paves the way for a potential re-opening of the disastrous Citizens United decision that has spawned billionaire-sponsored super PACs. And if that happens, Chief Justice John Roberts better buckle up for a grassroots mobilization unlike any the court has seen in years.

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On the great value of science, and the many challenges it faces

This is a long but excellent discussion centering on the value of science. D.J. Grothe leads the panel discussion; the panel includes Richard Dawkins, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Ann Druyan and Victor Stenger. The values of science go well beyond the practical benefits of understanding how the world works. Those benefits include the following: Science keeps us from pretending that we are the center of the universe. It keeps us from fooling and misleading ourselves. Neil deGrasse Tyson argues that science shouldn't be considered as a specialized endeavor; it should be considered the study of reality. The challenges to science include pop culture, post-modernism, religion and fear of death. At the 40-minute mark Richard Dawkins argues that a huge challenge is helping students to understand the vast scale of the universe-he gives a terrific illustration. Note the exchange between Dawkins and Druyan at the 45-minute mark. The question is how vigorously should one push back against people who attack science because it conflicts with their religion. Dawkins, as is clear from his books and many media appearances, has little patience with religious people attacking science. Druyan insists that no progress can be made by calling religious people "stupid." She advocates taking the time to cultivate a relationship, because this is more likely to result in a believer who starts to listen. She adds that the fact that there are religious scientists demonstrates that religion is not amenable to logic. Tyson indicates that he strenuously avoids discussing religious dogma; instead, he works hard to keep nonsense of all types out of science discussions and science classrooms, and to make scientific discussions only about science. If people want to talk religion on their own time, that's their prerogative, and he doesn't have a stake in that. Moderated by D.J. Grothe (of Point of Inquiry), this conference took place at the New York Academy of Sciences at a Center for Inquiry conference titled "Secular Society and its Enemies."

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