But freedom isn't freedom without the right to pursue what you value—money or knowledge, pleasure or sacrifice, God or atheism, community or misanthropic solitude—rather than what others think you should value. It includes the right to go to hell, and the right to tell others to do the same.That defines us as human beings. It's why we have free will. It's why it's up to us make a choice and then reap the consequences or rewards.
Without meaning to sound overly religious, it's why anyone interfering with that choice, by threats or force and for reasons other than defense of self or others, commits an act of blasphemy.
[Via Ron W]
I own myself. I am the captain of my soul, as the poet says. I respect the right of the other person to navigate life as they so choose, as long as they don't ram MY vessel, and I will do the same. Is that so hard?
ReplyDeleteIt is the police deciding who's right and who's wrong in regard to an anti-abortion protest in Maryland (they side with the abortion rights supporters. This time.) who roughed up and strip-searched pro-life demonstrators who were protesting on a public sidewalk.
Or did they just see an opportunity to do it to ANYONE? Maybe so.
Don't like guns? Don't buy one. Don't approve of abortion? Don't have one. Deciding for everyone else is called fascism, and we used to sort of frown on that around here.
Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the U.S. House, says she can't be concerned with individual rights, she's got a planet to save. (No offshore or Alaska oil drilling.) Think about that when you're freezing in the dark this January.
A Greek philosopher observed "Boys throw stones at frogs in sport, but the frogs do not die in sport but in earnest."
We need no Deciders making little hashmarks on a list of pet causes.