Consider the opening clause from a comment I recently found while perambulating around the Internet.
It’s all fun and games until the religious zealot removes your freedoms
Taken cold, it could be seen as having been written by a liberal bemoaning the evangelical Right, or by a conservative bemoaning the encroachment of Islam and Sharia. The balance of the quote, which I will share at the end of this post, will make the author’s leanings clear. But, for now, lets consider the fact that this phrase could indeed be uttered either by a liberal or a conservative and what that says about both.
There are countless people and countless ideas that seek to “remove your freedoms.” It often seems that removing freedoms is the government’s top priority, in fact. Most government regulations restrict our free interactions with others. Our right to do as we please, to speak as we please, to use our property as we please, to engage with others economically or socially as we please, and so forth should limited only by others’ equal rights, not by government saying “no, you can’t,” but that’s what government LOVES to do.
On the speech front, government is eternally eager to limit our political functioning, and since they can’t get away with overtly telling us “you can’t say that,” they try to control us by controlling our spending. On the personal front, we are told we can’t put certain things into our bodies, we can’t sell parts of ourselves, we can’t kill ourselves, and we can’t sell certain physical activities. On the economic front, we can’t sell our goods or services to others, or buy goods or services from others, without complying with endless rules and regulations. When it comes to self defense, we are denied free access to the best tools.
Both liberals and conservatives do this. A lot. For some, it’s as natural as breathing. If it moves, regulate it. If it doesn’t move, regulate it. Liberals and conservatives also love to warn us that the other side is looking to take away our rights, to fear-monger that, should we allow them into office, we’re going to end up being stretched on a rack or boiled in oil.
While it is true that religious zealots of various flavors do want the nation to conform to rule sets that conflict with our natural, Constitutionally protected rights, it’s pretty safe to say that these zealots are a far, FAR smaller threat to our rights than our “reasonable” liberal and conservative friends, simply because the “reasonable” folks are far more numerous than the zealots are.
Hyperbole sells, fear sells, and demonizing religious excess sells. We have countless examples of actual horrors of religious excess, both from history and from today, and they’re not limited to one religion. ISIS is doing terrible things in the name of Islam, and it’s not hyperbole to note that Sharia is the (oppressive) law of the land in many countries.
But, if you are most worried about religious zealots removing your freedoms in America, you really do need to get away from social media for a bit. What our non-religious government has been doing to our liberties for decades should be your primary focus and main concern, and I’m not differentiating between parties. The “religious zealot” angle is first and foremost a tactic of division and partisanship, intended to scare people away from whichever party the declaimer opposes. It’s not a serious point, because America is not going to displace her secular law with either the fundamentalist teachings of Bible literalists or with the rules of Islamic Sharia. Worse, it dehumanizes millions of your fellow Americans by association with a particular party, no matter that they may not be dogmatic evangelical zealots or radical Islamists.
So, if you are weaponizing religion, stop it. And, if you are falling prey to the weaponization of religion, open your eyes to the primary enemy of your freedoms i.e. big government.
Finally, as promised, the full comment:
It’s all fun and games until the religious zealot removes your freedoms, the creationalist turns your schools into idiot zones, and the Nazi beats you up and arrests your American friends because they look illegal. Fuck Hillary, and fuck all of you morons who elected Trump. It’ll be fun watching you cry as he destroys your life, family, and circle of friends.
Do you find yourself nodding in agreement with this sentiment? Or do you see it as the unhinged ranting of someone who has lost touch with the real world? Is the infiltration of religious zealotry into the legal system high on your list of worries, or do you understand that such rhetoric is fear-mongering intended to deflect from the real threat to your liberties: big government run amok?
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