Sick and Tired of "Con" Games...
I just call things as I see them. When Madonna blasphemes just to make money and tries to step on others' property rights to make even more money, I take her to task for it. When George W. Bush or Democrats trying to imitate him use theocratic rhetoric, I take them to task for it. I must be a "leftist" who personally likes pornography if I don't support Big Brother censoring it (in reality, most actual leftists on the site don't like the garbage). I'm not a "real" Christian unless I'm loyal to Pope- I mean President- Bush. Sorry, I just get sick of it. Criticism of Bush is seen by some as equivalent to criticism of God. I hate many things that I think should be 100% legal. Most anti-PC conservatives defend the legality of racist hate speech (as do I). Does that make them racists? Of course it doesn't, but by the same token the fact that I don't support criminalizing all immorality doesn't make me immoral. Do these social conservatives really want to ban everything that Christianity states is immoral? Logically, then, they should be seeking a way of giving the government the ability to read our thoughts at all times to make sure that we don't have sinful thoughts. I would call that a reductio ad absurdum, but given some of the rhetoric I see on this site, some of the authoritarian right-wingers might think that was a good idea. I hope that these people are on this site for a reason, i.e. that their ideas, like those of the anti-Semites, are too extreme to gain real ground in the "real" world.
I should note, moreover, that I'm not an extreme social liberal. There are some gray areas about free speech, for example. Books giving instructions on how to commit crimes often cross the line and thus should be banned or restricted in their distribution. If I had my say, I would legalize gay marriage and even (reluctantly) polygamy, but I oppose legalizing prostitution. I also oppose legalizing hard drugs.
Finally, I don't see the connection between hawkishness and anything Godly. Pat Buchanan, whose rhetoric is otherwise similar to that of certain hard right-wingers on this site, sees no connection, and those who do see a connection must truly believe that we are on a Seventh Crusade, meaning that they want to drag the world back to the Middle Ages. I now understand why nawbut chose a sarcastic "We don't 'do' the Enlightenment" as his signature at one point.
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"I am a Tory Anarchist. I should like every one to go about doing just as he pleased- short of altering any of the things to which I have grown accustomed." (Max Beerbohm)
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