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Our civil liberties and American way of life would be seriously threatened if there were more like you.
Our civil liberties and American way of life are going down the tubes as it is. Precisely because we have adopted a radically secularist culture of "rights".
Our constitution ends with a Bill of Rights. It was, in fact, an afterthought.
Not an afterthought, the Bill of Rights was made as a compromise to make sure our rights would still be protected even with the Constitution. Many of our Founding Fathers refused to sign the Constitution without a Bill of Rights because they believed a strong central government would take away our rights. I would say that recent events have proven them correct.
While you may not be wanting actual ecclesiastical authorities in charge, you do seem to prefer their teachings as law. It is OK for lawmakers to have their religion have some influence on their opinions, but I don't feel like our government as a unit should necessarily favor one religion over others.
Here's the problem: a government cannot be neutral towards relevant truths - religious based morality, for instance - without being prejudiced against those truths.
Pretending to be neutral towards the proverbial "elephant in the living room" ends in absurdity. When it comes to politics, religious and moral truth is the "elephant in the living room".
All laws of every kind are based on someone's idea of morality. Government can't be neutral about that: it has to choose. Even when it pretends not to choose, it chooses.
Not an afterthought, the Bill of Rights was made as a compromise to make sure our rights would still be protected even with the Constitution. Many of our Founding Fathers refused to sign the Constitution without a Bill of Rights because they believed a strong central government would take away our rights. I would say that recent events have proven them correct.
To be clear, I don't think we need a new Constitution or Bill of Rights. What I'm advocating, with respect to religion, is not a lot different than what we had before the Civil War in this country. "Rights" was not a dominating theme of American politics before then. The injustices associated with slavery and race had the negative effect of bringing the Jacobinist strain of American political thought to the forefront as a remedy. Turns out the cure may be worse than the disease.
Last edited by WesternPilgrim; 03-05-2012 at 12:46 AM..
Did you not realize our constitution starts with a "Bill of Rights"!
^^^ This is what worries me - especially when I think about people who do not understand how our Constitution was formed - are actually allowed to vote.
When you have a society as large and diverse as ours you need these "legal rights", or laws, to function.
Part of the problem is that our society may be too diverse to function at all. If we can't even agree on things as basic as the definitions of "person" and "marriage", we're toast.
All political persuasions in the United States - left, right, and center - have completely bought into the liberal idea that the primary purpose of the state is to secure individual rights. This culture of "rights", once adopted, then quickly proceeds to erode genuine liberty rooted in virtue.
The "right to privacy" = duty of children to die, and of everyone else not to interfere, and even to accommodate the injustice.
The "right to marry" = duty to condone immorality, to expose one's children to it, and even to participate in it.
The conservatives and Tea Partiers, with whom I sympathize, often make the same rhetorical mistakes and couch their arguments in the framework of "rights". But this only strengthens liberalism. For every right there is a corresponding duty, and a culture of rights only multiplies the duties of the unwilling. This is the mechanism by which the proliferation of legal "rights" actually undermines human freedom.
The era of "rights" is over. Lovers of authentic liberty now tremble every time another "right" is introduced. We need to reform our political language. We need a politics of civic virtue and the common good, rooted in the traditions of the Christian west and the truth about God and man.
"The world has heard enough of the so-called 'rights of man.' Let it hear something of the rights of God." -- Pope Leo XIII
Which particular "God" are you referring to? Yours?
You are lucky that you have the right to freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Which is what you want to take away from others, especially those who don't believe in your particluar deity or any deity.
Part of the problem is that our society may be too diverse to function at all. If we can't even agree on things as basic as the definitions of "person" and "marriage", we're toast.
Nobody can agree under your scenario either.
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