Chloe, we secular liberals are perfectly aware that Christians, as a group, are not the enemy. Liberalism has never seen Christianity, or any religion, as the enemy. Regrettably, the idea that liberals and Christians are naturally at each other's throats has become such a successful Republican talking point that even liberals, whether secular or religious, have to spend time arguing about it; this has more to do with the success of the Republican propaganda machine than it does with any inherent political divide between believers and nonbelievers. Liberal Christianity has a long and proud history in this country, from the Abolitionist movement on.

But.

The fact of the matter is, there are a large number of Christians, generally self-identified evangelicals, who are the enemy. These are the people who cheerfully disregard their Savior's advice in regards to the poverty, suffering, and intolerance, while telling us quite earnestly that God wants them to get rich at others' expense, spy on their neighbors' bedrooms, teach our children fairy tales in place of science, and fight an apparently endless war in, um, Babylon and the Holy Land. In short, they're theocrats, which makes them the enemies of America. And in case you haven't noticed, these are the people who have been the public face of evangelical Christianity in politics for quite some time.

Fighting against these people does not imply any intolerance of religious belief; it implies a belief in America, no more and no less. Do liberals need to prove themselves to evangelicals? Maybe so. But evangelicals also need to prove themselves to liberals. If Obama can do that, on both sides, more power to him. But there's a long way to go.

... you're right. There is no way that today's Republican party is going to nominate anyone who would be acceptable to anyone who gives a damn about America. Certainly neither Giuliani nor McCain fills the bill; both of them are pretty much guaranteed to continue the failed policies of the Bush administration in every way that matters. So I say to Salon: bring on the hatchets!

... humans evolved for life on the central African savannah. You may have noticed that we've spread to quite a few other environments since then. We didn't evolve for environments such as subarctic tundra or tropical jungle, yet we seem to manage there just fine.

And tfl, there's an entire country north of North Dakota, and a damn big one too -- did you miss that?

... but unfortunately the leaders of rich nations are a lot less vulnerable to prosecution than the leaders of poor ones. The absolute worst that is ever going to happen to "the decider" and his cronies is that they leave office in disgrace, spend a few years in obscurity, and then come back to make a(nother) fortune on the right-wing speaking and book circuit. I'd love to see them as fugitives, hounded by an angry world until their flabby bodies finally give out from the strain, but I can't actually believe it's going to happen.

Let's suppose you kill a child. Not take dirty pictures, not touch inappropriately, not even rape -- just murder in cold blood. Let's also suppose that you manage to avoid the death penalty or life in prison, and get out after, say, thirty years. Unless there's something in this law I'm missing, you are then perfectly within your rights to buy a house across the street from an elementary school.

But if you're someone who, thirty years ago at the age of nineteen, had sex with your seventeen-year-old date ... why then, you're a sex offender for the rest of your life, and God forbid you should go within a third of a mile of children!

This focus on sex offenders as some unique brand of criminal is absurd. Yes, sex offenses (real ones, I mean, not the kind of Romeo on one side of the age of consent, Juliet on the other silliness above) are terrible crimes. So are murder, armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, and arson. And you know, I'm not wild about the idea of a child molester living down the street from an elementary school -- but on a day-to-day basis, I worry a lot more about the firebug down the block from me, who had a decades-long record of torching other people's homes for fun. (True story.) They finally hauled her away the last time she set an entire apartment building on fire, but what do you want to bet she'll be back out again in a couple of years without her new neighbors having any idea what her hobbies are?

Here's the deal, with any crime: punish the criminals, which in our society we've decided is best done by locking them away for a specified period of time. (Whether that's the best solution is, of course, a whole 'nother debate.) When they've served their time, let them out so they can get on with their lives. If certain people, or certain classes of crimes, carry a risk of recidivism such that we decide they're not safe for civilized society, then keep them locked up; that's what prison is for!

This half-and-half, you're-not-being-punished-but-you-really-are treatment does no one any good. And applying it only to sex offenders says a lot less about the nature of their crimes than it does about our society's weird Puritanical obessions, and willingess to close our eyes to the violence and destruction caused by criminals of all other kinds.

We must ensure that our scientists are entirely in accord with the Marxist-Leninist principles of eternal socialist brotherhood underlying the glorious people's revolution!

Same shit, different century. And it worked out sooo well the last time.