The Ayatollah Comes to Iowa

 THE AYATOLLAH COMES TO IOWA

And it is about time I would say; a theocracy is long over due.  It's time religion replaces parties - - parties have always been insufficient to demand obedience to certain beliefs.  And it's about time to jettison the nonsense in the constitution relegating religion to a subordinate position in the scheme of things.  

Iran has been in the news and gives us a good understanding on the benefits of a theocracy:  when your citizens protest and run amok in the streets, you don't coddle them like we do here, you shoot them.  Religions in charge have always done such.  A few history lessons would be enough for a correct understanding of how theocratic governments work.  If you don't kill them en masse, you do things such as burning them at the stake, or disemboweling them, or breaking them on the wheel - - those activities certainly get the public's  attention.

We're getting there slowly though.  We have got legislation now in the works to get rid of such things as discussing or identifying oneself as LGBTQ.  No one has the right to be anything other than male or female and access to books saying otherwise should be  deemed unacceptable and banned.  It has always amused me how fearful some people are that their children might learn something different.  The idea that a child of religious parents gets an idea that maybe the parents are missing something is not to be tolerated.  Public libraries will be next and should be.  After all, someone's kid might accidentally wander into a public library and pick up some reading material that does not comply with a parent's religious beliefs somehow  involving  self-identity.

Legislation is also being pushed forward eliminating the mandate for school vaccination. Clearly there are many people who continue to believe that your child's vaccination should be a parental decision.  You know, it's about freedom and such.  A person should be free to risk not only their own children but all other children they come in contact with.  It's a free country and nobody should be able to tell me to do the intelligent thing and get  vaccinated.  One caveat though, we need to exempt the failure to vaccinate from the child endangerment criminal statutes.  We can't have parents being prosecuted if their kids die of the flu or become disfigured by polio. You have to realize that there is a difference between driving while intoxicated with your kids in the car and not allowing your kids to be vaccinated for protection from diseases that will kill or maim them.  The risk is about the same, but that is irrelevant.  

Freedom, after all, is simply personal choice.  If I can't choose between vaccines and no vaccines my personal freedom has been reduced and that is not acceptable; this is America afterall.  And, when it comes to books, freedom to read what I want, when I want, about what I want doesn't apply to personal choice.  I can insist that  my kid doesn't read anything I don't want him or her to and I can also insist that your kid can't either.  Books are the same as vaccines in one respect:  there are way too many of them and they are not necessary.

So let's applaud the Iowa legislature and give them our support.  Once passed, such legislation is sure to be signed by the governor and it will ignite further efforts to return to theocracy - - long over due.

Richard E H Phelps II

Mingo