Suggest a score with meaningful rationale. Naturally, the most comprehensive response will be chosen as the best answer. I may decide to major in English in college so give me a worthwhile critique, so please don't waste your time and mine.
The prompt:
Describing his vision for the world's future, President Franklin D. Roosevelt told Congress in 1941 that "...we look forward to a world founded upon for essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression.... The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his [or her] own way.... The third is freedom from want.... The fourth is freedom from fear."
Assignment: All four freedoms are crucial in a free society. Yet, Roosevelt may be faulted for not adding a fifth, a sixth, or even more freedoms to the list. Given the opportunity to add another freedom, what would you choose? Feel free to invent a new freedom or simply pick one that already exists in the Bill of Rights or elsewhere. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your observations, experience, studies or reading.
ESSAY
Can we ever truly separate church and state in society? Can politics really exist outside the realm of religion? As long as religious fundamentalism proliferates, I doubt it. While freedom of the government from obstructing religion has been long sought, freedom of religion from obstructing government is far less ostensible but far more exigent.
The catastrophe on September eleventh, 2001, a day the world will never forget, epitomizes the danger of the influence of fundamentalist regimes in government. Fatal are the consequences of any mass movement which advocates homicide and brutality; thus, the Taliban who exemplify such a movement should not ever rise to power or myriad lives might be devastated. How can any society function effectively when the heads of state preach murder and hatred? When religious radicalism becomes out of hand in a region and infiltrates the government, it is unlikely any progress can be made. For example, the formerly Taliban infested Iraq has been anything but productive during the last several years. Instead it is war torn and leveled in many areas. Consequently, there should be safeguards in government that can truly desist any religious minority from speaking and acting for the majority. Although religious fundamentalism may only seem to affect only foreign countries like Iraq, it is closer than people might think.
During the Bush administration (lol), Conservative Christian values often influenced many political decisions. More than any other controversy, g*y marriage has sparked a powder keg of political animosity and further stratified opposing political parties. Ardently opposed by Bush and his sympathizers, g*y marriage is seen as immoral through the lens of the bible. As a result, g**s are deprived of their right to a pursuit of happiness, which is cited by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence as a fundamental, innate right. Religious principles should not dictate the decisions of political leaders not only because they often have destructive consequences but because they defy the very logic that our country espouses. So how is it possible that religion could have such a stronghold in politics! In the United States of all places, religious fervor continues to cloud the minds of those in power. Their decisions not only have political ramifications but scientific ones, too.
In the field of medicine, the advent of stem cell research holds immeasurable promise but inflames much debate over its religious considerations. As piquing as a fully body rash, debates between stem cell research pundits and religious "scholars" over the extent to which scientists "play god" only waste time that could be used to save lives. But even still, Senators, Governors, Mayors, City Councilmen and representatives with any form of political power deny scientists of their much needed grants to continue research. Religion and government really only cause people to butt heads about matters that would take merely a fraction of a second to decide in a more logical body politic.
Might a Senator be stricken with incurable liver cancer one day god forbid, it would be a pity for him to realize that he petered his own chances of survival when he struck down grants for stem cell researchers. It is no surprise that when religious extremists be it the Taliban or a Congressman of the Bush Administration seize power, a wake of destruction follows in their path. Freedom from religion, thus, is indescribably vital to any society. Therefore, the "United" States of America that FDR had in mind will forever be a misnomer if we continue to let religion in government tear us apart.
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