Deadwood ...
Also, Tiassa, what do you mean at the ballot box. I've heard you say that but never really been sure what ballot box means. Prehaps this could be explored in another topic?
It's a simple idea best expressed by Lysander Spooner, that if the Moralists would look to their own affairs, they would find that they have great work to do at home. In the long run, yes, we can expect a topic on it at some point, but I have before thought to have this notion nailed down, only to find myself unable to communicate it.
A common experience: Walking down the street you may or may not pass change along to the panhandlers seeking a meal or perhaps the satisfaction of vice. A distinction of conduct exists 'twixt Christians and "other people" in a certain sense. The absolute morality or immorality of either giving change or not to a panhandler is equal for all people; but those who choose to adopt Jesus' blood as their crest and standard have
willingly accepted additional moral burdens. By the choice of Christianity, to
not pass some change, a smoke, an apple, or whatnot along to these outstretched, hungry hands is to imperil the Christian salvation (Matthew 25;
whatsoever you do to the least of my brethren ...).
Perhaps as an inner response to guilt, these failing faithful often begin to first externalize their fear--that is, project its fearsome attributes onto something worldly--and then enact a desperate ploy for salvation through the brutalization of the externalized fear.
You know,
Shoot 'em Down by Twisted Sister has never made me want to walk into a roomful of churchies and "shoot them down with the f---ing gun". Yet for this baseless fear, the album the song was on was banned from sale in the US. The whole of the censorship movement in the 1980's looked like this. Reagan apparently wouldn't say the words, "AIDS" or "HIV", and locked his surgeon-general into policy that promised only to augment the HIV crisis; our government sold weapons to our enemies in order to buy drugs to sell on the streets to Americans; warfare became the standard ambition of American society. And yet, strangely, these problems were apparently caused by musicians. Or gay people. Sometimes both. Maybe a photographer in Cincinnati.
Protested books, banned albums, felonious photographs. How many people ever actually
saw Serannos' (I believe was his name)
Piss Christ? There was more Freudian dysfunction at play in the Frohnmeyer hearings for the NEA than can be described. Senators were demanding the criminalization of things they could not pronounce, and of words they were incapable of reading.
A friend of mine further notes the political decision (by a California actor turned politician) to release psychiatric patients from federal institutions. Anyone wonder why we have so many homeless? It was an act of
love to send these people forth without food, shelter, or compassionate families to care for them, and then to criminalize them for living on the street.
What was the result of the 1980s Drug War? Statistics note that per-household use of drugs was on the decline when Reagan took office; furthermore, the statistics noted that while drug use was declining, more and more arrests were taking place. Propaganda spread, creating all sorts of myth and misinformation. The result of this has been a travesty: 1995 DoJ statistics show that of 2,400 people prosecuted under the federal crack cocaine sentencing standard (100 times more aggressive than powdered cocaine, despite the fact that the drugs are chemically identical), eleven were not black, and three were white. Same-year stats from over at HHS assert that 65% of the nation's crack smokers are
white.
It is such that the police force in my own town is now under pressure for targeting blacks in the Drug War. Women are victimized in ridiculous judicial dog-and-pony shows. The inability of European-descended culture to handle their intoxicants has resulted in the widespread suspension of the right of personal conduct, and a wholesale abandonment of judicial due process. (In what other legal structure do we find such a
de facto assumption of guilt, and a burden of proof upon the accused?)
Never should we measure an effort solely by its intent. A consideration of the consequential weight of failure is imperative:
Prohibition of alcohol was repealed because the result of prohibition was less desirable than an alcoholic society.
I understand compassion; I understand the compulsion to piety. But if one's Christian compassion and piety motivated someone to act on behalf of the whole society, should not that piety and compassion strive toward a pious and compassionate goal? To wit: Having recently dissolved my last conjugal relationship, I can say that had someone told me when I was 18 that my standards would lead me to the state of this last relationship, I would have been horrified and offended. In a like manner, as one goes forward with pious compassion to save, redeem, or otherwise influence another soul in the name of Christ, should not that pious and compassionate one seek a pious and compassionate result? It sounds good:
Just say no to drugs. Would one, however, vote to
Suspend Constitutional liberty; focus police action against gender and racial distinctions; create a growth-industry for human incarceration; lie, lie, and lie some more; demand that the downtrodden declare themselves guilty of imprisonable felonies before achieving help breaking their addictions ...? Would one seeking to create a pious and compassionate society vote to reduce bedspace to house sexual and child predators in order to house more potheads?
And the 1990s brought a new campaign against sexuality. Neurotically obsessed people, in the name of religion, throw holy gasoline on the fires of a perceived crisis in order to extinguish it. Sure, reducing teen pregnancy sounds good. But would one vote to
Educate children with falsehoods; deny protection against bad decisions; frighten children into sexual bondage (marriage has been accused of being legalized prostitution by some of our most left-leaning feminists, and with reasonable rhetorical data); encourage children to submit to sexual acts they do not desire (essentially, encourage children to submit to rape); endanger children's health; and ultimately increase the child-pregnancy rate?
We have tried, as a culture, to blame all manner of ideas for sexual "immorality" among youth. Music, television and movies, books. Teachers, politicians .... These parents who insist that it is the responsibility of the family to teach sexuality also do an intentionally poor job of it. Children grow up paranoid of displaying their bodies; they make the flesh a tool of rebellion. I point to Spooner again, who noted that those parents who would keep their children
ignorant of vice in order to
protect their virtue are, in fact, practicing coercion:
The attempts of parents to make their children virtuous generally little else than attempts to keep them in ignorance of vice. They are little else than attempts to teach their children to know and prefer truth, by keeping them in ignorance of falsehood. They are little else than attempts to make them seek and appreciate health, by keeping them in ignorance of disease, and of everything that will cause disease. They are little else than attempts to make their children love the light, by keeping them in ignorance of darkness. In short, they are little else than attempts to make their children happy, by keeping them in ignorance of everything that causes them unhappiness. (Vices Are Not Crimes, Lysander Spooner, 1875)
And then there is the issue of homosexuality. In the most recent OCA measure, sponsors noted that homosexuality was a "divisive issue" that therefore had no place in the classroom. As I noted to Bowser in our long debate last autumn, it is entirely possible that the notion of homosexuality is so divisive in Oregon because a cadre of religious zealots ask Oregonians to vote on the legality of homosexuality every damn year. I'm sorry, but homosexuality has existed since the beginning of humanity, at least. We see it in primates and other mammals as well. Are these zealots seriously telling me that society will be better off without homosexuals? That teen pregnancy and sexual immorality among youth will disappear? So far, that seems to be the assertion. Yet as the culture continues to alienate homosexuality on many levels, the same Christians who feel poorly about perceived "anti-Christian" sentiments in society cannot extend their compassion to other human beings long enough to realize that the most part of the alienation a homosexual might feel comes from anti-gay sentiments in society. Perhaps if the gay-haters stopped hating gays, the gays would not be on the defensive, and subject to the massive concerns of being in the closet and feeling compelled to lie to one's family.
Christianity has abused the political system in the name of securing its "rights". It is not about the preservation of Christian tradition, but about the authority of Christian dogma. It is not about salvation, but about dominion. And all of this in an effort to glorify God and make the world a better place for you and me.
Personally, I think a little bit of human empathy, or the change in your pocket, or even a cigarette, can start that process of spreading kindness. The other factor there is to do it genuinely; when I give to a homeless person, it's as a favor 'twixt humans. It is not charity. It is not "helping out." Rather, it is, "Yeah, actually I do have fifty cents." Or, "No you don't need to
pay me for a cigarette." Sometimes something simpler works:
Beautiful day today. How about those Mariners? To give this infinitesimal degree of oneself is really as simple as choosing not to hate someone simply because they're not you.
And even I stroll past an outstretched hand sometimes. And even I will look away, when my heart cannot carry the burden for a day. But two things separate me from what my experience tells me about Christians:
* When I do pass that hand without giving, I do not, as I have heard so many people do in my lifetime, criticize the wretched state of the least of my brethren whom I have refused.
* I have no doctrinal obligation toward anyone to the degree that Matthew 25 sets out.
This is part of the reason why I am not a Christian: it lets me do more positive work in the world.
Thus I submit, as an answer to the question at hand, an excerpt from the paragraph following my reference to the ballot box:
What's more important to God, then? That Mars is a signpost to redemption, or that we treat the least of our brethren--and therefore God itself--properly?
It's all in the context.
thanx,
Tiassa
Edit: contextual changes from typo; removal of the word
not in relation of statistics.
