It has always angered me when others tried to impose their religious views or rites on me.

I grew up in a predominantly Catholic environment, and Catholics frown on people eating meat on Fridays. Fish is okay, I guess, some 2000 year old loophole was created that eventually become policy. Some say fowl in also “fish” in this context, because it floats on water. This alone shows how ludicrous such “rules” are. Anyway, in my youth I was often frowned upon for eating meat on Friday. This is a really benign example, of course, of this need by many religions to oppress others that are not part of their own delusions.

One of the more dangerous examples is the Taliban and, more recently, the ISIS lunatics. Taking away the education of women and girls, making them live covered up head to toe, and oppressing their sexuality and individuality is a more dangerous manifestation. When these rules are forced upon hapless brainwashed girls of their own communities, it is one thing. They actually don’t know any better, and I am not one to argue what really goes on in their heads. But if they conquer others of other religions or non-believers, and automatically interpret that raping an infidel girl is okay because he is already soiled, it has very serious implications.

No society should tolerate religious oppression from anyone.

Then there is oppression by the monarchy of many countries.

For instance, there was an infamous picture of President Obama bowing the Japanese emperor which I wrote about here and a bow to the Saudi King that I wrote about here.

Apparently Obama likes to bow, and it bothers me to no end. Obama should not be bowing to anyone. He is my head of state, and I want to be proud of him. I cannot be proud of my President when he bows to inbred despots, who inherited their positions, who have lived off the public teat for centuries, not done anything for the world or their own people, other than sucking them dry, and in some cases killing them by the millions.

Another example: etiquette requires that mere mortals do not touch the Queen of England. Ok, that may be a rule that affects the subjects of said queen, but I certainly am not such a subject. I had the luxury and incredible luck of being born free, of not being born a British citizen, and therefore I should not be expected to kowtow to the queen. Of course, there is no chance of me ever getting into a position of having to make a decision to that effect, so it’s easy to talk.

Winston Churchill certainly didn’t buy into the foreign monarch rules:

While visiting the King Saud of Saudi Arabia, Churchill was informed he could neither smoke nor drink, for religious reasons, during a banquet thrown in his honor. That wasn’t going to work for Churchill. He informed the monarch that, “My religion prescribed as an absolute sacred ritual smoking cigars and drinking alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and the intervals between them.”

The Saudi king had to deal with that. My respect for Churchill just went up.