I’m not feeling optimistic today, and I’m trying to avoid all the Chuck Norris foolishness that’s taken over my corner of the Internet today, so I’m not gonna write about the first judge to actually start doing something about the coup; it’s a small thing, but it is something, and the transcripts are hilarious.
Maybe Monday.
Today, though, I’m thinking about what really is the problem with getting a majority to agree to a non-authoritarian State.
That would be a State that does not attempt to enforce the way-of-life preferences of one sub-culture onto all of the people living within it.
Because most activism seems to be focused on authoritarian goals.
It doesn’t seem to be enough for anyone to try to get the State to stop interfering in people’s lives; most activists seem to work instead for a State that enforces their preferences instead of someone else‘s.
It’s not enough that legal-marriage is open to any couple, it must be illegal for people who dislike that fact to refuse to participate in weddings they dislike.
It’s not enough to forbid the State from pushing any religious preference, it must actively support their religious preference.
The U.S. has had this problem since its founding.
The discussion around the prohibition of establishment religion in the 1st Amendment makes it very clear that the authors understood that the problem wasn’t that the previous State was supporting the wrong religion.
The problem was a State supporting any religion.
Because then you have a situation where all religions have to compete to become the one State religion, which just sets the stage for further conflict, forever.
And their solution to this problem was correct.
Forbid the State from supporting any religion.
Forbidding the State from enforcing anyone‘s religious preferences removes the entire basis of that conflict.
And this is a solution we really, really need to deploy more often.
I first started thinking about this back in the days when “gay marriage” was the main front in the culture wars; one side fighting for a State where only mixed-sex couples could get married, and the other for a State where same-sex couples could as well.
The correct solution, the one that would get everyone what they wanted, seemed obvious to me:
The State should stop using the word “marriage”.
Let anyone set up a “domestic partnership” as the legal arrangement, and leave “marriage” to the churches.
But that solution didn’t actually satisfy either side.
Because what they were really after was converting State power from enforcing mixed-sex-only marriage to enforcing same-sex-marriage and requiring everyone from the State (where it was appropriate) to cake bakers (where it was not) to accept that.
It wasn’t enough for either side to get the legal changes they wanted for themselves; they both wanted to win, and for their opponents to be beaten.
To be forced to submit.
And a society that deals with cultural conflict like that is circling the drain.
So, yeah: the problem is not just with the bigots, it’s also with the activists that want the State to force everyone to not be bigoted, even in their private lives.
To not just make the State treat homosexuals equally to heterosexuals, but to also demand that the local school fly a pride flag.
To actually fix the problem, you have to accept that the racists exist, and also that they have to the right to be racist. It’s the flip side of them having to accept that you exist, and have a right to not be racist.
Just like Christians, and Muslims and whatever other religions all exist, and so do agnostics and atheists.
And the State has to treat all of you equally.
In a free country no religion, no philosophy, no race can be allowed to win by forcing the others to submit.
