Sometimes trying to write a clean essay confuses matters more than it clarifies. In my experience, even the most organized of speeches usually only leave listeners with only one or two impressionable lines, often forgotten but sometimes ingrained in the subconscious in a transformative way.
So, this morning, due to time constraints, I am just going to print a free-style commentary largely inspired by MSNBC. I’ll name it after one of those fictitious pilots, “Sum Ting Wong.”
In fact, that’s where it all starts. What’s missing is freedom to use the concepts of right and wrong. A verse from the Bible, in 2 Peter, precipitated some thoughts. It mentioned, “using liberty for a cloak of maliciousness.” I got to toying with the idea of corrupting the language further to have two words for liberty. Freedom to be a fool is all the rage these days, but freedom to live meaningfully with good intent will get you on a terrorist’s watch list. Domestic terrorists, people who love the US Constitution, are lumped in the same dysfunctional heap as people who hate the Constitution, hate liberty, and enjoy chopping fellow humans up. We are taught it is good to revile the former as hate mongers and consign them to enhanced airport gropings and sensitivity training. The latter, MSNBC tells us, have an identity crisis. They’re reaching out because they don’t feel empowered. If I were more entrepreneurial, I’d sell a new, guaranteed weight loss program: Eat as much as you want whenever you want and watch MSNBC to get your heart rate up when you’re doing your morning workout. I digress.
What I said above probably offended many people. I am told I can be a Christian as long as I only walk the walk when I’m locked in my closet. That is wrong. I am free to tell you I’m Christian, and you are free to call me a donkey for saying so.
I once had a white Buddhist boss. One day I asked him what the greatest good was. After taking some time, he got back with me and said, “Increase choice and do no harm.” I agree. I love the US Constitution because it names evil, as do libertarians, as the initiation of force. Some get hung up because they interpret “initiation” to mean “use.” That is absurd, as Newton taught us we would all fly off the planet if our weight didn’t exert a force. That’s beside the point, which is sometimes not so much retaliation but confinement of a human uncontrollable exerting force on others is the wisest course of action. It’s not initiation in the instigative sense, but helpful reaction.
The difference of opinion matters because none of us are omniscient, and none of us sees the end from the beginning. Consequently, people who think like me and love the Constitution deem it best to let people work out their own salvation, learning things in their unique order of operations. The only limitation, of course, is that their power ends where another’s body begins.
Back to the above scenario, I can say I love Jesus. You can say that offends you, and it may well be so. But the fact is, my saying so is not compelling you to go into victim mode. You are just as free to call me a donkey to my face and walk away. After the exchange, we are both free to follow our bliss as before. If, instead, you choose to shoot me in my face for saying so, you have now seriously limited my options. Is there any question which is the greater virtue?
In another example, not too far removed from real life, I could be peacefully filing my fangs when somebody out of the blue calls me a racist and oppressive because I don’t think black people can and should only relate to other black people. I call that ideology racist. I can’t argue with bad logic, but the history of slavery throughout all cultures and eras, is not always a matter of skin color. It is a problem of oppression, of one group claiming to limit the choices of another group. It is wrong, but the remedy is not to loot and shoot, and my skin in no way has a magical force field that is chaining you in a dungeon.
So-called ministers inciting violence are a curiosity. My boss, in one of the best one-liners ever, once asked if “pastor” on the TV preached at the Church of the Eight Commandments, but that, again, is beside the point. The point is, if you are a Christian preacher, than surely you have heard of Jesus, that he died to atone for every sin in the universe. If you are telling me my blood is required for the sins of people who lived 200 years ago, who through no relation only share one physical characteristic with me, then you are elevating me to some Messias status, saying Jesus missed a spot that by my superiority I am somehow able to expunge. You are free, at the very least in the name of cardiac health, to dismiss internally-contradictory rationales to initiate force. Violence is unrighteous, think about that word, because it cripples others in their pursuits, which to you could look as stupid as filing one’s teeth.
Some like to serve a craving for fame. I like to serve truth and justice. Though I’m not very good at it, in my better moments, I’m reminded that that is my focus. I admire ancient cultures who treasured wisdom so much, they personified it. It’s like it was so thick back then you could feel it. Today, mentioning wisdom is considered hate speech and oppressive, but where are the scars? If you want to tie me down for seeking the Word, you, not I, have committed the crime in limiting another’s options.
Getting back to the concept of two liberties, I recently cringed as I read an otherwise good book by John Stossel. He kept bringing up the subject of being free to do what he wanted with his own body. Granted, I don’t have the freedom to do what I want with any body but mine; but maybe I should rethink what I do with my own body. Again, my domain does not extend to others, but how far does it extend to myself?
To say this body is my own again assumes some kind of omniscience, as if I know what life means and how creation occurred, and consequently I owe this amazing meat machine no respect. What if it was created by a Superior Intelligence for a glorious mystery beyond my ability to comprehend? That’s for you and me to disagree about, but until I know, maybe I shouldn’t be playing games with the way I treat what, in spite of my high propensity for bungling, remains a marvel beyond my comprehension.
In a similar vein, we often get the impression these days that we are charitable when give people whatever they demand. I get off work at hours when it’s just me and the homeless who have been kicked out of the shelters moving about. I get a lot of requests, and I don’t believe I provide a service by feeding the beasts that are wrecking these peoples’ lives. I don’t interpret the commandment, “of him who asketh of the, turn thou not away” to mean that. Rather, I like what the Apostles said about, “silver and gold have we none, but such as we have give we unto thee.” In other words, a disciple would not look the other way, but they do have the option of supposing somebody’s need for alcohol might be better served with encouragement, tough love, or an attitude adjustment. Personally, I would benefit more from budgeting skills than an ongoing stream of material subsidy.
Back on the subject of two types of terrorists, MSNBC would have me believe I am not free to use certain words. Right there, they did something evil because they were trying to deprive me of freedom. Their rational, and I kid you not, this week has said that people are lashing out in murderous ways because they don’t feel empowered, and people like me are insensitive. I can clip a cartoon out of a newspaper and chase people around the office with it, but most would tell me to get back to work and be done with it. Why is it that nobody calls for sending those who enjoy turning beautiful human beings into bloody heaps in for sensitivity training. They are decreasing choice, whatever their excuse, it is lame in comparison to the damage.
There is no understanding terror. Thinking it makes sense to murder or otherwise ruin people who are not trying to do the same to others, is about as irrational as it gets. Whatever else is in the mind of somebody not struggling for their own survival, whatever it is, is likely unfathomable.
MSNBC’s response to the initiation of force, from what little I saw of their programming, is to call for the tolerance, embracing, and celebration of diverse cultures that would just as soon we carry pictures of bloody stumps as smiling children in our wallets. The solution, we are told, is to take weapons from law-abiding citizens. The arguments against gun control have been made too many times to no avail. The best defense is self-defense, and self-defense should not be dismantled and stored in three tricky-to-open containers. Again, it is those who go on the offensive, not the defensive, who initiate force. Think of potential innocent victims.
In closing, the word “terrorist” is used to lump those who support the Bill of Rights and live-and-let-live personal freedom with those who want to destroy individual liberty with my-way-or-the-highway tyranny and live-and-let-die insanity. That is just weird. People will continue to stir up media hype to call for deprivation of traditional American liberties. They are getting drawn into the game as accessories to the crime. They are free to call me a terrorist for saying I love God, and I really want to create something beautiful and meaningful with this mystery called life. I am free to say I think they’re wrong.
There’s my tweet for the day. I am not even going to think about proofreading it.
