Property and Culture War blowback

I don't have a sophisticated theory of property rights. I know what doesn't belong to me. I know I shouldn't take or control what isn't mine, and that the State has no more right to take or control my neighbor's property than I do.

I also agree with Ryan McMaken, who argues that when you have property rights, you don't need religious freedom. The specific issue he discusses is the legal quagmire of the Catholic Little Sisters of the Poor being forced to provide abortion-related medical coverage. Abortion is against Catholic teaching.

McMakesn argues that if we protected property rights, we wouldn't have to make far more subjective judgments as to when to provide a religious exemption to a mandate. There wouldn't be mandates.

Commenter "Laughing Target" notes, "Debates over marriage, bathrooms, etc, all of them exist only  because we allowed the State to violate property rights."

I agree. The entire Culture War seems to be about socially "conservative" and socially "liberal" factions trying to control the property of others.

That's not the right war. All sides should be defending property rights against The State.

But I can't but help think that religious institutions and leaders have helped make the bed they now have to sleep in.    

If you ask most religious leaders if brothels should be free to set up shop next to their church buildings, they'll likely say no. They'll also probably say that racial discrimination should be illegal. And they'll support, or have supported, drug prohibition and bans on "obscenity." Most probably don't have any principled objection to the minimum wage.

In short, they'll often applaud when The State treads on the property of their neighbors. Instead of reaching out to "sinners" in charity and friendship, religious leaders have helped throw them into the nightmares of the penal system  and/or civil lawsuits.
 
But then they'll demand religious exemptions for their own hospitals, clinics, and social services. They'll defend their hiring practices from LGBT lawsuits on religious grounds.

They had little regard for the property rights of others, and now are shocked when the tables have turned. It's the blowback of using The State to impose one's preferences on others.

That's why religious communities should repent of their Statism. To defend their ways of life, they must defend the freedom of their neighbors as well. Which means protecting their property.

By all means defend the caterer who refuses to serve a gay wedding celebration. But also defend the strip club owner from arbitrary zoning laws. Defend the right of the brothel or marijuana dispensary to exist. Defend the right of any establishment to allow smoking on their premises.

Not because you agree with them, but because their property doesn't belong to you, or to The State.

If you defend the property rights of others, they'll see the principled consistency of your efforts and will be more willing to defend you.

Faith in Authority

Check out my latest at The Partial Observer. Excerpt:

And yet people who have the authority, without your personal consent, to discipline your children in school, to pull you over on a highway, to inspect your business establishment, or to review your financial records, are really your masters – even if they are called "public servants." Their "right" to do these things is just assumed. It is taken on faith, even though there is no evidence whatsoever that any of these intrusions on your life, liberty, and property serves "the common good." The only people who really benefit are those in authority who are paid to do these things to you.

The Golden Rule, Reformulated

Check out my latest at the Partial Observer. Excerpt:

Humility also has political ramifications. Before saying "There ought to be a law!" against this or that supposedly harmful activity, a dose of humility is helpful:

• How do I know that a law will actually curb this behavior?
• I may find this behavior disgusting and unhealthy, but are the people engaged in it violating other people's rights?
• My intentions are good, because I will be saving people from this destructive behavior – but is it really merciful and compassionate to throw them in jail instead?

Generosity

Check out my latest at The Partial Observer. Excerpt:

The universe is already generous to us, giving us life and energy without receiving anything in return. But since we are part of this universe, it only makes sense to emulate and reflect what Nature and Nature's God have given us. Generosity may be the one virtue that can save the world from collapse.

A Proposal

If your religion (that is, your belief system, whatever it is, that you would want everyone else to have) can't flourish in an anarchic society (that is, a society without other humans forcing you into doing things), then 1) Your religion is fake; 2) Your religion, even if it's the true one, is malevolent; or 3) YOU are malevolent. There may be other options. I'm just throwing this out there. Comments?

Happiness and Suffering

Instead of my regularly-scheduled Thursday column, there is a special message this week from Discordian Pope Iacobus Rex at The Partial Observer: http://partialobserver.com/article.cfm?id=3267

Insane in the Membrane

Check out my latest at the Partial Observer. A little longer than usual, but hopefully interesting.

Christians and the State

Check out my latest at the Partial Observer. Excerpt:

I question why people who do believe in God, specifically Christians, attach so much importance to the State. I don't question why they would obey the State, but I do question why they would be so emotionally committed to it.

Consider that neither Jesus nor the Epistle authors call on Christians to take or assume any sort of earthly political power, which is the control of land and domination of its people through a monopoly of force. Jesus says his kingdom is "not of this world."

Faith in God, Faith in the State

Check out my latest at the Partial Observer, where I ask if it's more sensible to believe in a Creator, or in Democracy.

Get Rid of the Prayer

There is apparently a concern that Rick Warren is going to actually pray to a God he believes in at Obama's inaugural.

And that this might be offensive to some people.

Here's the problem:

1. A prayer to a specific God is offensive to some people; but
2. A prayer to no God in particular is an empty charade.

So what's the point? Why bother anymore?

And if these types of prayers are considered unconstitutional at the local level, at high school football games, for instance, why are they not unconstitutional at the federal level? (After all, the First Amendment as written applies to Congress, and says nothing about local jurisdictions.)

And in any case, evangelical Christians of all people shouldn't care one whit if there's a prayer said at an inauguration. I could be wrong, but I don't recall in the New Testament any practice of, or endorsement of, ceremonial prayers. Jesus seemed to indicate instead that prayers were a private affair, to be said behind closed doors.

So Obama should have thought this through beforehand and canceled the whole deal. He may have been criticized, but he'll get criticized no matter what he does.

What Duty?

Pat Buchanan looks at the Dobson-Obama flap, and thinks Dobson makes a couple of good points. "At issue: What is Christian truth? Does the true Christian put social peace ahead of his duty to make God’s Law man’s law?"

Indeed, Obama celebrates the Underground Railroad and the abolitionists who, to end slavery, took us over the brink into Civil War. He invokes the defiant marchers of Selma Bridge and Dr. King, who chose confrontation and tore the nation asunder rather than see segregation endure.

Obama, however, is now preaching a kumbaya Christianity where leaders who believe abortion is the killing of the innocent unborn are to set their convictions and cause aside in the name of ecumenical amity.

But what is this "duty" to make "God's Law man's law?" Is it a law to love another, or a law to sow discord and conflict in order to object to the choices other people make? Did Dr. King have a "duty" to call for unprecedented federal intervention in property rights and freedom of association? Does Christian A have a duty to force racist B to kinder to minority C? Or should A just love B and C and do unto them as he would do unto himself?

Does Dr. Dobson have a "duty" to criminalize the killing of the unborn? And if this is accomplished in the U.S.A., do we then have a "duty" to save the unborn in Canada? In China? Why not? A few months ago I was told by a friend that she was pregnant. Even at ninth months it was hardly noticeable. What if she had a miscarriage months before, and never told anyone? It wouldn't have made a difference to anyone else, any more than every time she had sex and didn't conceive. What then would have been the difference to the rest of us if she had an abortion (not that this friend ever would)? To what lengths is The State supposed to go to make sure abortions don't happen, or to prosecute those who perform or procure them?

Frankly, I think social peace is often underrated.

An Inconvenient Spiritual Abuse

I haven't seen Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, but a friend did. This friend was actually expecting to be convinced of the threat of man-made global warming. That is, she assumed it to be true (because that's what we've been told), and was looking forward to the movie presenting actual evidence to back up her belief.

She didn't get the movie she was expecting.

• No evidence was presented that humans were the cause, only assertions.
• Climate change was presented based on the last thousand years, although the earth has been around for 4 billion years and had its share of warming and freezing periods long before man entered the scene, and even since man has been here in the pre-industrial age.
  

My friend admits to getting bored by it and not seeing it all the way through, so she could be wrong. Assuming she isn't, then how in the world are ordinary people supposed to be "convinced" of man-made global warming, if something as well-publicized as An Inconvenient Truth isn't persuasive?

But this failure to be convinced apparently makes my friend worse than a child molester, if an English Bishop is to be believed. From The Birmingham Post:

In a hard-hitting letter to parishioners, Bishop Mursell maintained those who refused to accept the climate change argument shared a 'common philosophy of life' to [Josef] Fritzl, who imprisoned his daughter in a cellar for 24 years during which he sexually abused her and fathered her seven children.

But the question is, why should anyone accept the argument? Because politicians and researchers living off government grants say so? Because your priest says so?

It is people like Bishop Mursell who, by using the issue to enhance their own authority, make the man-made global warming theory less believable. Why believe that man-made global warming exists? "Because WE say so, and WE are credible because of our power and prestige. If you don't agree with what WE say and do as WE command, then you are worse than [insert Hitler, child molesters, or your favorite villain here]."

Saying the same thing over and over again doesn't make it true, and demonizing the unconvinced doesn't actually make them monsters.

What it does suggest, however, is that Bishop Mursell likes to spiritually abuse his parishioners through false comparisons and guilt-manipulation. Perhaps he sees a little bit of Fritzl in his own behavior, and his projecting his self-loathing outward.

The Good Intentions of an Ignoramus

Almost all of my knowledge is from hearsay, not direct experience. But most of it is reliable. I knew that Manhattan existed before I arrived there on a road trip, and even though I've never been to London I trust it exists on the same kind of reliable testimony that had told me Manhattan exists. The theories that the Earth is a spherical planet and is orbiting the sun, I accept on similar grounds. Everyone else tells me so, as do the books and tv shows. In the same way, I trust that persons I was told existed and events I was told happened did indeed exist and did indeed happen, and that the world today is the Effect of their Cause. I believe this is more reliable wherever there is clear continuity in the record-keeping. It is more believable that U.S. President Millard Fillmore actually lived, than that Moses or Jesus lived as described in the Bible - even though the latter two allegedly accomplished more important things. That's because the existence of Moses and Jesus depend on more remote hearsay evidence; there are definitive records of Fillmore's existence in our federal government's archives, and, presumably, in the archives of the Foreign Offices of foreign countries. In contrast, you have to accept Moses and Jesus on faith, not evidence.

But a lot of what I know amounts to associating names and categories to visual recognition: gold is an element, water is a compound. Chimps and humans are both primates. Housecats and tigers are felines. Wolves and poodles are canines.

And so I am also told that oil from the ground comes from fossils of preexisting life on earth. The Big Bang happened because it makes the most sense, I am told. "Darwinian" Evolution is true because it makes the most sense, I'm told.

Then I'm told that Evolution somehow proves there's no God, as if progression in four-dimensional space-time is the only Reality there is. But then physics tells us there are more dimensions than that, and one wonders if consciousness and creation can't exist in those dimensions, and that some sort of God or spiritual/supernatural force might exist after all.

And then I'm told that Global Warming is real, and then I'm told it's a myth. That it's impossible for the Twin Towers and Building 7 to have fallen as they did according to the official story on Sept 11, and then I'm told it is quite possible for them to fall.

Because I have a lot of Oscar and Super Bowl trivia in my head, I don't see how I'm expected to form an intelligent opinion on these matters. Heck, the only reasons I know it's foolish to microwave a metal plate or drop a radio in the bath is because I've been told about these dangers - I wouldn't know enough to figure them out for myself. On most matters relating to the physical universe, I am an idiot, and have no way of knowing when "respectable" science is corrupted by greed and power, or when "alternative" theories and therapies become too paranoid or cult-like. Is the homeopath selling snake oil? Is the hospital grossly overcharging? How am I supposed to know? And why should I trust the "mainstream" and the "respected" as opposed to the despised and rejected?

I don't know if I'll ever trust my own judgment. Every sound argument for an "established scientific fact" is countered by, to me, an equally persuasive counter-argument. I'm not smart enough to figure it all out, and even if I did have the time and intelligence to get it right on one subject, I wouldn't know enough about other subjects to form an educated opinion.

I do know that what has appealed to me about Christianity and other religions and philosophies is the degree to which they express genuine love and respect for every human being. The more theological and technical their dogma becomes, the more I'm turned off. And that's also why I'm attracted to Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment theories of Constitutionalism, Classical Liberalism, and Libertarianism. They also invoke similar love and respect for every human being, including giving them room to make choices I may disagree with, provided they don't harm anybody else. They don't reduce other people to pawns in ideological struggles, but treat individuals as ends in themselves.

That is why, as much as I would love to kill Mugabe in Zimbabwe, or the junta in Burma, it is simply not my decision to make. Bad as the inflation is in Zimbabwe, and the post-cyclone misery in Burma, an invasion or civil war in either country will probably bring even more suffering. I don't believe it's my call to make, nor is it the call of the U.S. President or Congress.

I'd kill Mugabe and the Burmese junta because I hate them, not because I believe killing them will actually accomplish anything good for the suffering in their countries. Should I act on my hatred, or should I do what I can on behalf of the innocent and helpless? Ideological justice says "Kill the tyrant!" but real justice is motivated by love for the innocent, not hatred for the guilty. In any catastrophe, the poor, the innocent, and the weakest will always suffer most of all. Taking the meek and humble path means that not every one of these will be rescued. But they won't be rescued in any case. Not by authoritarian means. And certainly not by an invasion or civil war.

What I'm saying is that I believe Love is the Ultimate Reality, and the only true God. Though I may err in situations, I hope I never abandon my best intentions.

Don't Blame Britney and Miley

This is my latest at the Partial Observer. Excerpt:

By 1997, some Christians decided to boycott Disney because Disney - which was never anything remotely like a Christian company - started to give out same-sex partner benefits to their gay employees. If your business employs large numbers of animators, make-up artists, costume designers, and dancers, this sounds like a sensible business decision. The new generation of Christians, however, demanded "wholesome" entertainment from a "wholesome" company, when their grandparents would have warned that seeking "entertainment" was itself the problem. The very fact that a Christian boycott of Disney was called for was proof-positive that the Old Time Religion had died and the boycott could never work. The real problem was not Disney, but the fact that conservative Christians watched Disney videos and vacationed at DisneyWorld. The problem was not the symptoms of sex, violence, or profanity in the movies, but the disease that Christians caught when they had fallen into the hypnotic trap of mass media and pop culture. They would watch the same television shows as everyone else and, perhaps to a lesser extent, the same movies. They would watch the same sports and the same news programs. They would be swayed to want something they didn't need through advertising. They would be presented with a narrow range of choices in the ballot box, and be told this was "freedom" and "democracy."

Had the old-time Christians been as vehemently against radio, records, and television as they were against cards, alcohol, and shows, conservative Christianity may actually have become a counter-cultural movement today, rather than a whiny, paranoid subculture within the mainstream culture that it has become.

Sexually Mature, Emotionally Mature

It is one thing to have sex with children who are not sexually mature. What about those who are sexually mature, but not considered "emotionally" mature enough to give their consent?

Who's to say they're not emotionally mature, the dominant culture and the laws of the State that the dominant culture produces? What if they're part of a subculture in which physical and emotional maturity coalesce at the same time? In which marriage and the responsibilities of marriages are expected in the teenage years? Why is that culture warped, whereas the culture in which teenagers are treated as "too immature" for sex despite their impulses, and thus do become "too immature" for sex, is assumed to be "normal?"

In The Nativity Story Joseph was depicted as an established, respected adult, whereas Mary was 14 or 15. Their betrothal was considered normal for the time, and Protestants, at least, consider Joseph, this "pedophile," to be a righteous man who is the earthly father/mentor of The Lord Jesus Christ.

(As I understand it, Catholics, apparently, believe that Joseph and Mary never did get it on even after Jesus's birth, because they consider Mary a perpetual virgin and that allusions to Jesus's brothers is a translation that could be interpreted as cousins. This page is vague concerning what this meant for Joseph.)

Christians dismiss this marrying of younger teenage girls as "the culture of the time." It was alright for the earthly father/mentor of The Lord to crave underage girls, but that was way back then. Morals are different today, even though Christians are normally the first to claim that morals are timeless and universal.

So if a religious sect tries to recreate the culture and values that prevailed where Jesus Christ was born, what do these same believers in Jesus Christ do? They (or at least American Christians) would have those people arrested, because in today's culture, sex with "underage" teenage girls is about the most evil thing they can imagine. Torturing Iraqi civilians is okay for them, but a sect in which 15 year-old girls get married? That's inexcusable (except, apparently, for Joseph, earthly father/mentor of Jesus).

I don't want teenage girls to marry. I don't like polygamy. The wives at the El Dorado sect that I've seen are more brain-dead and creepier than the Stepford Wives. I wouldn't want to be a part of that culture, or see children raised there.

But there are lots of cultures that I think are damaging to children. That doesn't mean I have the right to intervene. They're not my children. I believe all custodial rights over children belong to their mothers, and the only reasons to strip mothers of their rights is abuse or neglect. Following a "wrong" or "abusive" belief system doesn't rise to that level. If you think polygamous Mormons should have their rights stripped because of their belief system, perhaps I think you should, too, if I think your belief system is also abusive. Whatever argument you make, you are guilty of the same allegations by somebody else. If you say somebody who makes more money than you is greedy, than I can say the same about you if I make less money than you do. Likewise, if you believe these Fundamentalist Mormon views are quirky, extreme, and dangerous, than I, too could make the same charge against your religious beliefs if I believe they will be similarly dangerous to the status quo.

If the mother is one of many wives, or if the mother has many husbands, that is none of the State's business. If physically immature children are used for sex or in sex rituals, I could see State intervention. But the fact that sexually mature young women in a sub-culture are getting married - at the age they expect to get married by their teachings and upbringing - doesn't seem to me to be a "crime." Especially in a southern state where most people are Christian, and the girls of this sect are marrying at the same approximate age that by all accounts was the age that Mary was betrothed to Joseph.

If "Bible-believing" Christians concede that Mary was just a young girl, and was still young when the marriage to Joseph was consummated, who are they to judge others who today believe it is right and natural for sexually mature young women to get married? Indeed, it seems to me that it is more screwed up to design different ages for sexual maturity and emotional maturity. That might be what we have in this day and age, but it doesn't seem natural. God creates sexual impulses at one age, the maturity to handle them at another age - that is screwed up. Sects and cults that try to right this wrong should probably be encouraged, not obliterated. Otherwise, we will only raise the next generation to be even more sexually neurotic than we are already.

In any case, the initial call against this Fundamentalist Mormon compound appears to be a hoax. So let the children return to their mothers. Children shouldn't be ripped from their mothers to accommodate some aberrant Victorian rule about the "appropriate" age to get married.

Projection

"Bush Putin has eliminated or co-opted all other centers of political influence. There is a puppet legislature, a weak judiciary, and a neutered press. The Evangelical Russian Orthodox Church has become a tool of the state. Symbols of empire and the Cold War Soviet past, including smearing of dissenters as unpatriotic the anthem, have been restored. And, as in Cold War Soviet times, the leadership is constantly telling the people that they are threatened by foreign enemies— Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, and Russia Ukraine, Georgia, the Baltic states, the United States—as well as by internal extremists rebels." - The New Yorker

Everywhere I look, we Americans are saying bad things about the extremism, aggression, or human rights abuses of foreign countries. Meanwhile, at least two of the three leading Presidential candidates are war criminals who support an unprovoked invasion and illegal occupation of Iraq - but people are more angry at the third for being an "elitist," as if that's the bigger crime even if it were true. It's like we project onto others the evil that we don't want to see in ourselves.

Another example of this comes from Martin Marty:

William Franklin Graham famously called Islam a wicked and evil religion, but I don't think he called for its extinction through violence, as in war. Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo, a wild politician, did call for the bombing of Mecca to shatter the Muslim center. Now, Parsley—as in Rod Parsley—is the flavor of the month among the controversial clergy being spotlighted in the camps of the three presidential campaigners. Parsley, pastor of Ohio's mega-est megachurch, twelve-thousand-member World Harvest Church in Columbus, calls for "destroying" Islam.

Parsley is most explicit in his well-selling Silent No More and in broadcasts to large and presumably assenting audiences. While Americans know that some who claim Allah would like to destroy Christian civilization, citizens often overlook the tit-for-tat or tat-for-tit (that is, "who started it?") calls for war from militants on both sides. As reported in Mother Jones (March 12), Parsley says there is a war and he wants bigger war, as America can only "fulfill its divine purpose" by seeing to it that Islam, "this false religion, is destroyed." Though he spells out no specific strategy, he writes things like, "We find now we have no choice. The time has come" to destroy "this anti-Christ religion," inspired by demons who spoke to Allah.

Shall some Muslims be spared—the moderates down the street or anywhere else, for example? No: "mainstream believers" in the "1,209 mosques" in America drink from the same well as do the extremists whom all citizens condemn. Screaming that he does not want to be "another screaming voice moving people to extremes," Parsley has plunged into presidential politics in the hope that he will find policies that will help "destroy" or lead to the "destruction" of Islam, the goal of his war.

It seems to be the most militant and bloodthirsty of Christians who are most condemnatory and afraid of Islam for being militant and bloodthirsty.

People on opposite ends of a conflict often have similar personalities and values - only their dogmatic beliefs are different, and it is the dogma that is the source of the conflict.

If liberal and Christian societies face a threat from Islam - whether through mass immigration or terrorism from extremists - this can be mitigated through defensive measures on our borders and coasts, and in immigration laws. But a Holy War against the world's 1 billion Muslims as a means for the United States to fulfill its "divine purpose?" This is the talk of fanatics. The more influence they have, the more understandable that Iran would want to develop nuclear weapons. The Soviet nuclear deterrence kept the craziest anti-communists from getting elected and pushing the button. With neocon advisers and support from people like Parsley, what is to deter a President McCain from all-out war against Islamic states?

And how would we be any better than the terrorists we claim to be fighting?

More on The Root of All Evil

My The Root of All Evil essay at the Partial Observer provoked some interesting comments. "Reader" and "Henry" extrapolate on some points I only glossed over with a sweeping sentence or two. I am not, however, anti-religion, but I have noticed how certain conceptions and perceptions of religious doctrines have had a negative influence in my own life and, in my judgment, in society generally.

Obama Was Right to Stay

I suppose some people are upset about Barack Obama attending a church with a racially hostile preacher because, if a white Presidential candidate attended the church of a segregationist pastor, his career would be over.

I'm guessing that Obama initially chose Trinity Church in part because the networking opportunities would be good for his political career on Chicago's South Side. Should he have left the first time he heard extreme words or hyperbolic rhetoric? Or the hundredth time?

Why should it matter?

Leaving the church would have damaged friendships and created other problems for Obama - personal, and career-wise. White people leave churches in a huff all the time, but I don't think this is so in the black community. And even if one doesn't agree with anything said in the sermons, there are other aspects of church life that can retain a person's loyalty.

And besides, is racial resentment the only form of "hate" that is so un-PC that it deserves separation and public condemnation? What about when preachers announce their support of the war in the pulpit? Or some tax-and-redistribute scheme? Or some law against vice that will throw non-violent people in prison and ruin their lives? Any word from a pulpit that would empower the State is in fact a call for violence and coercion - which are grounded on hate, not love.

Imagine, in 2020, a white Democratic Presidential candidate was found to have attended an ultra-conservative evangelical church. Should he be asked to renounce his longtime pastor because the candidate differed with the pastor on the war? Why would this be different? It seems to me that to support the war is worse than anything Jeremiah Wright says or believes.

Unless your own conscience forces you to withdraw from one church after another because of differences with the pastor, then don't judge Obama. But leaving a church leads to broken friendships, disrupts a child's Sunday School education, and a whole lot of other hassles. It usually isn't worth it.

The Root of All Evil

This is my latest at the Partial Observer. Excerpt:

The root of all evil is the mind divided against itself. Evil isn't part of nature, it is only an idea that informs our perceptions. Without the knowledge of good and evil, the body, mind, and spirit would be in harmony. We would be as innocent as animals. Indeed, we would be nothing but animals.
[. . .]
This is because we would have no conscious will. We would have no basis for knowing we are at odds with nature - with the external environment, with each other, or and with our own bodies. Therefore, everything we do would be natural, and we could do no evil.

The Way

This is my latest at the Partial Observer. Excerpt:

The Way also gives advice for rulers. In essence, it is the same message: leave people alone, leave things alone. Even let one's enemies alone because, as they try to force things, they will self-destruct. There have been subsequent historical examples of this. For instance, the Russians beat Napoleon because they refused to fight his armies head-to-head. The Tao offers plenty of sound advice for absolute monarchs. Indeed, in Chinese culture, the Emperor was viewed as the center around which the country revolved. If he just remained in the "center," and kept his own palace in order, the country would run smoothly. The more the Emperor interfered with the country, the more likely it would break down.