The right to declare the right to violate someone’s rights
Conflicting ideas of rights, chapter 793.
It’s normal to feel nostalgic for cherished practices once treasured and now disgraced. Sometimes, being forced to give them up is a violation of rights. At other times, it means retracting a privilege that should never have been extended in the first place. Some Southern whites spent the 1960s pining for the old days, when they could lynch whom they pleased; few today would portray that as a right transgressed! Today, conservative Christians behold society falling from their faith’s exclusive grip and, like their Southern racist predecessors, sigh, “There goes my everything.”
Just so. Sometimes, being forced to give up a privilege that should never have been extended in the first place feels to the forcee like a violation of rights, which is why we are so often treated to petulant arias on the violation of various rights that aren’t rights. That, plus of course it’s a highly useful tactic, always likely to convince a few unwary observers. Don’t let this happen to you.
But OB, can’t you see that Christianity (and hence all civilised society) is indeed UNDER ATTACK??
The secularised hordes of baby-eating serial-gay-marriers are taking away the rights of decent, honest folks to speak their minds and worship in the way they se fit…and all in “one nation under God”.
It’s an…an…ABOMINATION!
;-)
My cunning plan is coming to fruition at last! [rubbing hands together in glee]
Mwahahahahaha!
Mwahahaa!
General evil gloating… indeed…
So exactly which Christians are the equivalent of people losing the privilege of hanging whoever they pleased? And did conservatives in general really say ‘there goes my everything’ when the right to hang whoever you pleased was taken away?
Framing this debate in such offensive terms does not deserve your rationalist approval. Framing debate in these terms is inflammatory dreck.
Strangely they turned me down when I offered.
Oh, ChrisPer, get a grip. Nobody said “Christians are the equivalent of people losing the privilege of hanging whoever they pleased”. And nobody said “conservatives in general really [said] ‘there goes my everything’ when the right to hang whoever you pleased was taken away” – the subject in that sentence in the article was “Some Southern whites”, not “Some Christians”. Calm down and read carefully.
“Christamas” is a pagan Midwinter festival anyway.
Which is why those excellent christians, the Puritans, banned it.
So, let’s PARTY anyway!
However, as usual, getting the message across to brain-f*ck*d religious believers is always going to be an uphill struggle.