Parents are not "too busy" to care.. they simply can not afford it. Yes many families have at least two incomes just to survive and many have more than two incomes coming in with no health coverage. Look around you and ask how many people you know in the middle class are indebt just to survive. The American Dream is becoming an Amerikan Nightmare. 98.9% of the American population have no clue about the Pyramid Scheme they are in with the Corporations. The game is pass on the debt to the middle class before the economy collapses so that the middle class and upper lower class are stuck with the debt burden as corporations move off shore laughing to Chinese and Swiss banks. Remember after 9/11 "be a patriot and buy a truck" and now you are stuck with the debt and gas prices. The US rates 46th on life expectency in the world. The US has the highest infant mortality rate in any post-industrial country.

Religion? please remember that most of the founder fathers of the US were Deists. Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, John Adams, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison and others were all Deists. Deitism believes that there is a SuperNatural Being (the Great Watchmaker) who set the world in motion and then stays out of the universe. Deists also believe Jesus was just a man.. though many like Thomas Jefferson would say Jesus was a socio-political revolutionary who was later misunderstood as a "god" or son of. Jefferson even republished the bible editing out all miracles especially those associated with Jesus called The Jefferson Bible [www.angelfire.com]

Read up on Deism [www.religioustolerance.org]

Lincoln too was a Deist.
[www.ronaldbrucemeyer.com]

I think Deism is a great religion and since it was the religion of the founding fathers it would be a great "specific beleif system" that "is nessasary for this government to work" if you are going to think that way.