The occsional cases the ACLU takes for conservatives does nothing to offset its imposition of an extremist, anti-freedom agenda on America. Ed

Hmm Ed, imposition would imply that the ACLU has some direct control over your life. From what I remember, the Constitution gives them no power whatsoever to create legislation in this country. So, for them to have any effect over you, their actions have to go through legitimate governmental functions. If those governmental entities are following the constitution, as our system of checks and balances ensure they are, then it seems to me that everything's working as intended.

I love how lately, judges that see folly in governmental action and put stops to laws that go counter to our Bill of Rights and Constitutional Articles, are suddenly being called activist judges. It's interesting though that often in history, it was "activist judges" that initially put the spotlight on some horrible abuses of United States law such as slavery and civil rights horrors. Many of the judges were initially appointed by conservative administrations but there's this funny thing that happens when someone gets what amounts to a lifetime appointment to a seat on an appeals bench. The political party they may have belonged to becomes irrelevant. They no longer control that individual and the person becomes free to think and react to law uncluttered by the graft and favors that public office normally requires.

Take the case of Sandra Day O'Connor. There was great fear from the left that she was an arch-conservative and yet she turned out to be one of the more thoughtful and balanced justices.

Ed, I suggest you step back from your party platform and religious beliefs when you examine an issue such as the display of religious symbolism in public structures. An in-depth study of the history of the framing of the Constitution shows how greatly concerned our founding fathers were with even the tiniest creep of religion into our government. The main movers and shakers of that document were not the typical citizen of the time, not the religious zealots that so dominated so much of society, but rather some of the most open-minded and radical thinkers of the day. I'll bet if they were alive today they'd be labeled as "activist judges".

Our Constitution came from this bizarre mixing of minds that is unparalleled in human development and has never been duplicated in modern history. Maybe we'd have better success trying to start a democracy in Iraq if we'd remember our history and instead of pre-loading the government with businessmen and politicians, we'd throw them all out and bring in artists and philosophers to frame their rules. The creators of our nation called themselves "Republicans" but the party with that name today doesn't walk the walk of those visionaries. Neither do the Democrats by the way. The only party with a platform that somewhat mimics the early Republicans is the Libertarian Party but they've gotten so wacked out with the concept of absolute personal freedom that they we might as well create a separate nation for every citizen.