It is an interesting example. I have some knowledge of this through my family.

My brother, who like me is and atheist of Jewish origin, lived in Salt Lake City for about 10 years. His wife was raised as a Mexican Catholic, although I doubt t hat she was active. He is a successful physician and could live about anywhere he wanted to, and when his oldest child (the first of 3) was about 11 (20 years ago) they moved from Utah to Seattle. When I asked him why he said that because they did not belong to an established religious organization his children were starting to feel social pressure from their predominantly Mormon classmates. To nuance this picture, I had a colleague and life-long associate who moved to Utah for a very important position in the arts. Practically the first thing he did was join the largest Jewish synagogue in the area, and he is a luke-warm believer at best. My brother (who has also known this man for a long time) observed that if you belong to a known organized religion, the Mormons will leave you alone. Otherwise...the weight social pressure, especially on children is not to be underestimated. The point to be drawn is that even without an establishment in government, the place of a free-thinker can be made very uncomfortable...and no doubt many "conversions" are designed not to affirm belief, but to simply avoid this discomfort (or worse). Jefferson in describing his "wall between church and state" ponted out how this inevitably nurtures hypocrisy, which damages the church as much or more than the state.

To complete the picture, all the pious repression in the world cannot force compliance. It is just driven underground. I have it on first-hand testimony (I can't be more explicit without betraying a confidence) that all the usual vices, drugs, prostitution, and alcohol abuse --- the ones of which my sources have first hand experience --- thrive in Salt Lake City probably as much as in New York.

All of New England (where I am from), New York, New Jersey (where I live now), plus Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, California, Oregon, and Washington, and maybe Pennsylvania should secede from the morons in the American "heartland" and join Canada. The combination of resources (oil, gas, hydro-electric power), technological smarts (Silicon Valley, Route 128 etc.), financial clout, creativity, and relatively sound common sense shouldn't be shackled to the fire-breathing creationist theocrats of "Red" America (there's an irony!) who take more tax dollars from the rest of us than they give while touting small government (for business and bigotry) and Big Brother (for our bedrooms and love-lifes).

If Alaska wants to go its own way, I say let them. Are the enough moose and caribou to feed them? Without any rules on private ownership (one of Vogler's pet manias) they would be free to have a perfect Hobbsian world for themselves (note: in Thomas Hobbes words, the state of society before law where man is wolf to man, a permanent state of the war of all against all, where life is "nasty, brutish, and short".) Go to it, AKers! And stay out of my neighborhood. Any Alaskan's who want to flee would I am sure be most welcome around here.

I'm not sure just how sarcastic this really is. And I don't care. If the US elects McCain-Palin on the basis of this campaign, I think the republic that Franklin warned we might not keep will be gone, and I would just as soon be gone from what is left. If I were not approaching 70 and have close family here, I would be gone myself.

Sorry. In the heat of the moment I didn't notice the apostrophe in "Alaskan's"; it shouldn't be there.

Thanks for the warning; I guess I'll leave my antlers in the closet when I go out, along with my NE Patriots hat.

I am such an elitist (meaning that I believe competence is not a disadvantage) that I didn't want to be taken as a semi-literate. Pardon me.

who is 100% behind Obama. Republican Jews = Likudniks, who show just how truly human Jews are, since they can be as racist and fanatic as anybody else. Fortunately for the future of my country, which is the US, they are relatively small in number, although they may make up for that somewhat by their evident lack of scruples and blindness to the larger issues at stake.

To my fellow Jews-who-are-Republicans, consider this scenario: You help to elect McCain-Palin. Given what we know about McCain's age and medical history, there is a 20% chance that he will die before the end of his term. (I doubt he will have a second in any case.) Then Sister Sarah becomes POTUS. Her pastor thinks well enough of Jews for Jesus* to have their leader address his flock, and if she is not a pious hypocrite and actually holds with the stated beliefs of her sect, she is expecting the End-times any day now (and if you don't know what that means, read the Book of Revelations). Thus she has authority over the largest destructive force in human history with the power to bring on the End-times all by her little pit-bull self.

This may seem a slim chance, but considering the monstrous negative payoff, so you want to be in any way responsible for such a situation? If you are devout, consider what you would say to the King of the Universe when you come before the Judgment seat. If you are not, reflect on the 2000+ years of Jewish ethical practice, and check out your mirror.

*an abomination to most thinking Jews -- and a betrayal of generations of our ancestors