Hey, j8ear! Glad we didn't scare you off. Welcome back to the fray!
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Originally posted by j8ear
Never heard of the Washington Dispatch, but the tone of this article sure seems hardcore Christian right wingish. I found it interesting none-the-less.
Anyone have any comments or thoughts?
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"The truth is, Modern Liberalism does not oppose moral law; rather it haughtily believes that it has a fresher, higher, smarter moral perspective than that contrived by the rough and puerile rabble. Thus, the advocates of this creed feel compelled to share it, to order it, to mandate it—and with the power of the state behind them, they have met with great success in decreeing their religion throughout the land."
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Up till this point the guy's just been blustering. But here I'd say he has a point, witness our late discussion in the Canadian printshop thread. I'll fess up - I do think that modern liberalism (I refuse to capitalize it) has a higher moral perspective than "the people." For the most part I trust people to take care of themselves, but I don't trust people to think in larger moral terms than "I believe X so it must be true, and everyone else should behave accordingly" nor do I believe most people have the capacity or the willingness to consider complex issues in terms of their systemic and long-term consequences.
Where liberalism fails, in my book, is in not fessing up to this! We pretend to be all relativistic and that keeps us from taking a stand and defending our views based not on touchy-feely principles but on moral precepts such as equality, compassion, long-term survivability, and hard scientific facts. (I have to say I part ways with liberalism where its beliefs aren't held up by the facts. I guess the problem is there aren't a lot of "facts" out there to guide policy, so I lean one way and you lean another way till the facts come in.)
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"Among this creed's leading precepts, we find the following moral peculiarities, among many others:
1. Unborn babies do not possess the inalienable right to life; but fungi, fruit flies and convicted murderers do.
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Fungi? Fruit flies? Huh? And the whole "unborn baby" thing is a philosophical issue. Is it a baby while it's still a blastocyst? At 3 months? As an individual egg and sperm, before fertilization? Argue all you want, it's shifting terrain.
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2. Ranchers and farmers do not have the right to control, develop and utilize their private property as they please; but rodents, predators and desert tortoises do.
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That's right. If an individual's actions are going to have long-term negative consequences on an entire species (such as an endangered one), and that individual refuses to exercise proper stewardship over his or her land and refuses to accept responsibility for more than just his or her own welfare, then yes, they should not have the right to do with their land as they see fit.
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3. Business owners who have put blood, sweat, tears and a great deal of financial risk into engendering an enterprise, do not possess the right to manage their employees creatively, as per their best interest; but distant bureaucrats do.
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I'm not sure what this guy's referring to here, but to some extent the same reply above applies here: just because someone has put blood, sweat etc into a business doesn't mean they are going to act in the best interests of their employees. Yeah, yeah, if they don't treat their employees well then they'll leave, which would be bad for the business. That's fine in a healthy economy, or where the work force has transferrable skills. I'd say many business owners, particularly large business owners, CEOs, etc., cannot be trusted to put the interests of the worker (in terms of labor relations) or of society in general (in terms of environmental policies) ahead of the profits of an elite few.
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4. Religious fundamentalists, heterosexuals, capitalists and white males do not have the moral right to equality before the law; but hedonists, gays, socialists and minorities of every stripe do.
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Oh that's just bullshit. How do religious fundamentalists, heterosexuals, etc. not have the right to equality before the law? Blatant rhetoric. He's just pissed that he can't discriminate against people he doesn't like.
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5. Since the advocates of this creed believe in arbitrary law and in the Hitlerian principle of collective guilt:
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Blatant rhetoric, and shame on him - is his argument so weak that he has to drag out Hitler? Want me to drag out the KKK and we'll call it even?
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gun manufacturers, gun dealers and parents who legally produce, sell or own private firearms do not have the right to leniency and protection before the law for crimes committed with those weapons (by others); but criminals who choose to misuse those same weapons do.
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Well here I have to agree with him. Lawsuits against gun manufacturers are pretty stupid.
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6. The children of industrious and intelligent parents who have labored a lifetime to provide property, finances, employment and education for their family members do not have the right to be eligible upon their parent’s death to inherit what is rightfully theirs; but unrelated children of indolent and ignorant parents do. (1)
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First, "poor" does not equal "indolent and ignorant". Second, the children of the wealthy didn't earn that money any more than I did, so why are they entitled to it? Third, shouldn't at least some of that money go back to support the society that enabled the person to get rich in the first place? And lastly, at least in many situations the person got rich through exploitation and dishonest practice (read the biographies of Rockefeller and Carnegie) and why shouldn't it go to help some of the people on the bottom rungs? Which of poor Ken Lay's 10 houses are his kids going to inherit?
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7. Finally, because this creed defends the utilitarian moral position that the good of the group and the rights of the group always exceed the good of the individual and the rights of the individual—except when the curators of this creed say that they don't—its proponents are fully in favor of the state being fully in charge of every businessman's social responsibility, every school teacher's curriculum and every parent's children, and the state being fully trusted and fully the dictator of every fine point of moral conduct (except deviant conduct, which must be protected at all costs)—and thus in favor of the state on the one hand and hedonism on the other being fully worshipped.
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Here he loses me. I get the broad point but...hedonism?
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That is, traditional Christians and Jews do not have the right to worship as they please; but Humanists, Statists and Communists do. (2)
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Again, bullshit. Nobody's preventing "traditional" Christians and Jews from worshiping as they please, just from mandating that it be public practice for everyone.
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This is the ideology of Modern Liberalism, what some call dysfunctional morality, what others call Statism, and what the communists at the UN call “civil society.”
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It is today’s state church, the heavy-handed religion of the left; and the fact that roughly 50 percent of all America worship before this alter of state, begging for free food, unjust privileges and endless moral accommodations, stands as a sad testimony of the pathetic state of religion, morality and education in the United States today.
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How does he figure 50%? What the hell is he talking about?
Sounds like someone doesn't like the taste of secularism and woke up on the wrong side of the bed in the morning.