>So is public education a form of coercion?
-Damned right--and a good one, too! People must be Taught to be -Liberal if the necessary political regime to Force Them to be Free is -to be stable.
Well and honestly said. And a big reason why many of the religious have turned against a host of related liberal values. The Establishment Clause decisions of the 60s came at a high tide of secularism and were followed, I don't think coincidentally, by a massive upsurge in religious mobilization.
Liberalism cannot be imposed and by its nature builds allies by its practice, not its dictates. Those times when liberalism seeks supremacy by illiberal means and coercive means is where it loses most decisively.
I think the secularism cases, reflecting the class nature of the secular elite, is rightly resented for its coercion and has been largely counterproductive.
-- Nathan Newman