Taming of Religion
A recent blizzard of liberal columns has framed the debate over American Islam as if it were no more than the most recent stage in the glorious history of our religious tolerance. I pause to take part in a thought experiment, and to ask myself: Am I in favor of the untrammeled "free exercise of religion"? No, I am not. The taming and domestication of religion is one of the unceasing chores of civilization. Those who pretend that we can skip this stage in the present case are deluding themselves and asking for trouble not just in the future but in the immediate present.
The Death of Theocracy
The term "theocracy" is an accurate description of a system where mortals claim the right to dominate other mortals in the name of God. But it is also a word that has uncomfortable implications for those who hope to stay out of the "internal affairs" of other societies. The Iranian theocracy, and the crisis of its regime, is a near-perfect illustration of this dilemma. A country that attempts to govern itself from a holy book will immediately find itself in decline: the talents of its females repressed and squandered, its children stultified by rote learning in madrassas, and its qualified and educated people in exile or in prison. Any government that imagines it has a divine warrant will perforce deal with its critics as if they were profane and thus illegitimate by definition. A failed state that cannot allow any grown-up internal debate, or any appeal against the divine edict, will swiftly become an even more failed state and then a rogue one because its limitless paranoia and self-pity must be projected outward. Thus we have a very direct interest in having the Iranian people permitted to interfere in their own internal affairs.http://www.newsweek.com/id/228744
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