I am not people who get along with people.

I am a skeptic, a rationalist and strong proponent of the scientific paradigm; which means I generally don't get along with Christians or other religious people.

I am a devout Christian, steadfast in my faith (albeit rather outside mainstream denominational dogma); which means that I tend not to get along well with skeptical rationalists (who tend to be agnostic, if not stridently atheist).

I am a fiscal conservative and strong advocate of personal responsibility and opponent of special considerations for any particular ethnic or arbitrary socioeconomic group; which means I typically don't get on with liberals, who call me a fascist.

I am a transgendered, bisexual social liberal, who believes in full and equal rights for all, and that the government has no business interferring in any consentual, informed decision made by any competent adult, whether that involves sex, drugs, or entertainment; which means not getting on with conservatives consider me a deluded, mentally deficient and diseased, hippy pervert.

I am a minarchist, gradualist libertarian; which means I find myself placed opposite the majority of the Libertarian political community, whch is predominantly anarcho-capitalist and fairly radical, as well as statists who believe that government exists to implement and enforce their particular worldview.

I believe in seperation of church and state, seperation of school and state, seperation of business and state, and seperation of bedroom and state; which means I'm fairly well divorced from both mainstream and fringe political groups.

I'm an artist who believes that the arts are among the highest intellectual and spiritual pursuits mankind is capable of, and that "marketability" is more often a detriment than a useful goal; which means that I am fairly far outside mainstream culture. But I also hold to objective standards of artistic achievement, believe that the aesthetic quality of the work is far more important than any propaganda value, and feel that if it's "non-representational" then it's "non-art"; which means that the predominantly post-modernist art community isn't really fond of me, either.

I don't believe in conspiracy theories of any sort, whether they involve the "patriarchy", "The Man", the "homosexual agenda", "feminazis", "international Zionists", biomedical corporations, communists, "western imperialists", or "secular humanists"; preferring to take things at more or less face value, in context, letting actions speak for themselves, and not assuming malice when incompetance is a resonable explanation. Obviously, this doesn't make me popular with the majority of people, who tend to believe in some sort of shadowy manipulator responsible for what they see as the problems in their society.

I am a technophile transhumanist who doesn't believe there should be any limits to genetic engineering, and would jump at the chance for electro-mechanical immortality; which brands me as anti-nature among the back-to-nature crowd. I also believe that, despite whatever form humanity may take in the future, it's only worthwhile if we still maintain a solid core of the morals, ethics, and spirituality that makes us human, and that part of that is being good stewards of nature and using it responsibly and sustainably; which sets me apart from the majority of the technocrats.

And finally, I believe that Elvis was a poser; Ringo was vastly underappreciated; a lot of Star Wars, Star Trek, and Monty Python fans desperately need to get a life; Spinal Tap was the greatest band of all time; curry is the perfect food; bacon is greatly overrated; and 4Chan /b/ is the purest expression of human nature. All of which has pretty effectively alienated anyone who was left.

Sufficiently Jewish for the Government?

Just read an article in the NY Times website, about a Jewish parochial school in the UK.

Who Is a Jew? Court Ruling in Britain Raises Question

Excerpts:

The questions before the judges in Courtroom No. 1 of Britain’s Supreme Court were as ancient and as complex as Judaism itself.

Who is a Jew? And who gets to decide?

On the surface, the court was considering a straightforward challenge to the admissions policy of a Jewish high school in London. But the case, in which arguments concluded Oct. 30, has potential repercussions for thousands of other parochial schools across Britain. And in addressing issues at the heart of Jewish identity, it has exposed bitter divisions in Britain’s community of 300,000 or so Jews, pitting members of various Jewish denominations against one another.

"This is potentially the biggest case in the British Jewish community’s modern history," said Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle newspaper here. "It speaks directly to the right of the state to intervene in how a religion operates."

This appears to be a complicated issue, which has sparked a considerable amount of debate. Not only on the definition of Jewishness, but on state intervention in religion, scholastic autonomy, and sectarianism. And G-D knows that if there is anything that Jews are good at, it's arguing.

And it's not just the Jews:

It is unclear what effect the ruling, if it is upheld, will have on other religious schools. Some Catholic schools, accustomed to using baptism as a baseline admissions criterion, are worried that they will have to adopt similar practice tests.

But in my personal opinion, that is irrelevant hair-splitting in a debate that is, in fact, very simple; and has one clear and obvious answer. Yet no one has really addressed the most salient point; or at best, glossed over it. The answer to this entire debate can be found in two sentences.

This one:
Britain has nearly 7,000 publicly financed religious schools, representing Judaism as well as the Church of England, Catholicism and Islam, among others.

And this one:
"JFS is a state-funded school where my grandfather taught, and it’s selecting applicants on the basis of religious politics," he said in an interview.

The key phrases, for anyone who missed them, are "publicly financed" and "state-funded".

If you're accepting government money, which comes from taxes on everyone, gentiles as well as Jews, then you're accepting government regulation and control. Period. It's the same regardless of what religion you are. If you don't want us telling you how to run your school, then don't take our money to finance it. If I'm paying for something, then I damn well will have a say in how it's run. The problem is, too many groups want to receive public moneyl; but without public accountability. It doesn't, or at least shouldn't, work that way.