You have no business being outraged at Trump's plan to ban Muslims or at those who support his plan. You see, that's the problem. We're dealing with two competing ideologies. One that still hearkens to old viewpoints that tend to see 'those people' over there as the ones who are the enemy. And the other that sees 'those people' in our own back yards who refuse to conform to progressive ideals as the enemy. And both have no problem feeling that rights, freedoms, liberties and general human dignity shouldn't apply to their pet groups of enemies.
In fact, the only ones being consistent right now are the non-Donald Trump GOP candidates, at least those who condemned the incarceration of Kim Davis and are now condemning what Trump has suggested. If there are Democrats who have done both, then they are in the clear as well. But if you support one or the other, or in some ways have tried to dismiss or minimize one while attacking the other, then you are part of the problem. A problem that is moving fast toward tearing down what America ever was, and rebuilding it in a likeness unlike anything we've seen in our past that isn't associated with the worst of our history.
Oh, and that includes those who shuffle their feet and him-haw around trying to redefine our stances by saying things like 'maybe if you work in the world you should support gay marriage, you just don't have to once you're behind church doors.' You aren't helping.
I wonder at your reasoning here. You paint some broad stripes, then appear to throw everyone into the categories separated by those stripes. And yet, there are many more positions, and many reasons for those positions.
ReplyDeleteI paint with the same brushstrokes I see. Kim Davis was given a choice to give up her livelihood, compromise her faith in a way advocates of Gay Rights said believers would never have to, or go to jail. Many who are quite fine with those choices are the ones who are upset at what Trump proposed. This based on the idea that our country is founded on religious liberty as a first principle. Or so say the pundits.
ReplyDeleteAs my son asked, I wonder what would have happened if Kim Davis was a Muslim? Unless your view is that we should open up our arms to all Muslims, but once they are here if they don't conform to liberalism's indisputable moral standards, then it's unemployment or the jail cell, there is a problem here. Not that there isn't a problem with that view, FWIW. But at least it is consistent.
To be more forward, then, I would suggest that it is indeed possible NOT to condemn Davis's incarceration, if you believe, for instance, as I do, that one's independent decision to ignore a court order is both foolish and, potentially, dangerous to order, and condemn Trump's comments as both foolish and idiotic.
ReplyDeleteI see what you're saying. And if you accept that any law of a land demands obedience, and to disobey that law makes you, not the law of the land or the land itself, culpable. Then yeah. I doubt you'd say that, and you probably know what land I have in mind when I think of our celebration of those who ignored laws and orders of the respective land. That's the issue here. We have two sides who want to impose their moral absolutes in such a way as to compromise religious liberty. They simply disagree over which one should be compromised, or at least why it should. In Kim Davis's case, she was caught in the grand shift of moral absolutes that are being legislated and enforced. Only a week earlier, and she was fine. But with one court decision, she was now either to compromise her religious principles or face punishment. The same goes for doctors or pharmacists who don't wish to partake in abortion services but are threatened to do so or else. What Trump proposes is the same thing, to a point. Though I doubt he has given much thought as to just what Muslims could do to win entrance into the land. Would conversion do it? What could they compromise to circumvent his proposal? Nonetheless, it is again the same: absolute moral systems that demand conformity or compromise...or else. That's the point.
ReplyDelete"But with one court decision, she was now either to compromise her religious principles or face punishment."
ReplyDeleteI am curious as to your reasoning here - and it follows up from one of your earlier comments. Scenario:
I am working for a private corporation which engages in behavior I find immoral. Let's say, they're an advertising firm which has just been hired by Maxim to produce sultry softcore porn signs.
Do I have:
1. A right to demand that they desist?
2. A right to refuse to perform work for Maxim within the company AND keep my job?
3. A right to a livelihood from that company?
If they demand I work for Maxim, and I chain myself to a desk in protest, and refuse to do the work, and I am arrested and imprisoned for trespass, is my behavior laudable? Should other Christians be outraged that this has happened?
Let's say, then, that the company is a state entity, engaging in behavior I similarly find immoral.
Do I have:
1. A right to demand that the State desist?
2. A right to refuse to perform work for the State AND keep my job?
3. A right to a livelihood from the state?
If the answers are different....why?
I also wonder, would you have said St. Thomas More should have demanded that he both keep his office and refuse to support Henry's illegal marriage in 1532? Why did More resign? I believe it was because he could not serve a state any longer which the Monarch was dragging into schism and immorality.
My point with Kim Davis isn't that it's impossible to say she shouldn't have gone to jail. Of course you can. Likewise, there are some who aren't loony who have made the case that a temporary moratorium on Islamic immigration isn't out of the park. It's being consistent.
ReplyDeleteIf you think Kim Davis should have gone to jail, then clearly it could be argued that Thomas More, MLK or Gandhi got what they had coming. If yes to Davis, but no to the others, then the question is, why? Especially if we then turn around and believe that allowing Muslims into our country is a non-negotiable because religious liberty is a cornerstone of our country. Somewhere, something isn't adding up.
Davis and the others got what they had coming to them and there wasn't anything wrong with the powers that jailed them, or there was, but not for Davis, or there was for all because religious liberty is a first principle for our nation. Somewhere, consistency has to step forward and make a call.
For me, what happened to Davis was an affront to the principles being used against Trump. It is also a foretaste of things to come. Likewise, those who imprisoned the Mores, Kings and Gandhis were also equally wrong.
The only thing that gives me pause is exactly how many gays were in Kim Davis' county in the first place. (if there were two around to get married, color me shocked)
ReplyDeleteSeriously though, Sardonicu, think through what Dave is saying here in a slightly less technical manner.
Kim does something illiberal, goes to jail.
We import Muslims.
If they do something illiberal, will the newly arrived Muslims go to jail?
If we're jailing them for being illiberal, then why did we bring them to the nation in the first place?
Or let's put it in a reverse way: Do you think it would be as just, if not more so, to have exiled Kim Davis to another nation more befitting her views than throwing her in jail?
P.S. Dave, isn't it "Thomas Moore" (two o's)?
I'm pretty sure the Thomas More I was thinking of is with 1 'o'. I'll have to look that up.
ReplyDelete