Our forefathers’ genius built a political system where institutional checks and balances prevented the abuses of the past – religious oppression, foreign occupation and economic exploitation by the wealthy and privileged. Their gifts of religious liberty and personal freedom allowed us to emerge out of a wilderness into the most powerful nation on the planet while much of the rest remained in a theocratic dark age.

America’s Taliban – President George Bush (campaigning to end religious liberty), Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, the Southern Baptist Convention and others – want to take that all away, forcing us to live under the oppression of theocracy.

The Rev. Paul Bastien wrote (June 20) that democracy and theocracy are compatible. The reverend may know his Bible, but he doesn’t know politics. Theocracy requires that we abandon the Constitution and let religious leaders, not our representatives, determine what laws are or are not in accordance with God’s will. God’s will, of course, will be determined solely by these men. Starting with displays of the Ten Commandments as a “basis of law,” ending with stoning juvenile delinquents and fornicators, they would gradually unravel civilization; substituting barbarism for law.

I challenge the good Reverend to name a single theocracy, which has protected freedom of thought or public peace. Don’t tell us that theocratic democracy is possible. Tell how it is possible for there is not single example in history to guide us.

Fundamentalism, at home and abroad, threatens our peace and freedom. It must be defeated.

Jon Albrecht, Dixfield

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