Saturday, August 22, 2015

Double Standards

A minor follow-up to last night. I was reading Facebook and there was a post about religious persecution from last night, featuring the people who have been hit with fines and lawsuits for not serving gay weddings or having and stating opinions against homosexuality and losing their jobs for the mere statement of opinion. These are the people who spoke last night, to give a face to the impacts of some of our legislation.

And they are often combating the idea that "religious persecution doesn't exist."

So for this Facebook post, one of the comments said, "Yes, yes... those poor poor Christian souls who have to hide their religion, worship underground, and are persecuted daily for their beliefs. If only there could be houses of worship on every corner. Brazenly display objects of worship, say a symbol around their necks, without having it ripped off and trampled in the gutter. Maybe... just maybe some day they can have their beliefs displayed in our national motto. Oh if only they weren't persecuted so..."

To sum up: They aren't persecuted because look at all the things they have that real persecuted Christians don't have. In a very sarcastic tone, so you could probably interpret a little bit of snark to it as well.

And... the Facebook commentator is right. Christians in America are definitely not persecuted like Christians in other parts of the world. They haven't been beaten, forced out of their homes, had to meet underground, etc.

But the idea has a few problems.

1) It applies a double standard. Someone was getting on the comment author's case in the comments to his comment (track with me here) and asked if he was bitter. "No, not bitter. I just find any idea of Christian persecution in the United States laughable. They are confusing not getting their way with persecution." And replying to that, another person said, "Funny how the LGBTQ advocates are confusing not getting their way with persecution, too." Insightful. The original poster is comparing Christian complaints of persecution to Christians in persecuted countries, but failing to see that the people who are coming after the Christians, the LGBT activists, are also far far less persecuted that LGBTs in other countries. Maybe that's laughable. Maybe they should shut up and just be grateful they have so many freedoms, like the freedom to get married, the freedom to live openly with their gay partner, get symbols tattooed on themselves... etc. Why is it only Christians who have to shut up and be content with the living standards?

Well, obviously, it goes back to viewpoint censoring. Christians can be fined and verbally attacked and blasted in the media and threatened and that's ok because their viewpoint is BAD and you know it's really not that hard for them and they should really just abandon their viewpoint anyway. LGBTs however deserve to have access to all the businesses everywhere regardless of the feelings of who owns it because freedom isn't enough for them, they need total acceptance and confirmation and will suffer psychological harm and pain and suffering if they imagine someone somewhere doesn't agree with them and doesn't want to be involved with them.

How is this fair? How does one side have to suck it up and forfeit and the other side get given everything? Why does one side have to lose their rights of association and have their viewpoint get called into question and the other side gain the aggressive privilege of forcing their patronage and viewpoint on the first side?

It's a double standard.

2) It's a cop-out. Because Christians have all these benefits, it somehow negates the harms suffered to some because of viewpoint discrimination and government infringement of their rights. But these things have happened. And last I checked, this was America, and at some point in our history, we were founded on the idea of freedom for everyone equally.

So why should we stand aside and be like, "Eh, they've got it good enough. What else happens to them doesn't matter."? Do we do this for anyone else's rights? How about women? Other races? They're better off here, so why bother? No, because that's un-American. We fight for freedom and equality. We fight for the freedom of the LGBTs, but it isn't a freedom to force your business on someone, that infringes their rights of association. I covered that my last post.

But anyway, my point is that in fighting for freedom and equality, why should we just tell one group to shut up and give up, they don't get the same freedom and equality as everyone else cause they've already gotten so much.

Again, it comes down to viewpoint discrimination. Gay "rights (i.e. privileges)" are GOOD and Christians not agreeing with them and holding disproving viewpoints is BAD, so it's ok to persecute the Christians because they don't subscribe to the sanctioned viewpoint.

Which is thoughtcrime. And Big Brother is watching.

Friday, August 21, 2015

Rally it up!

I am at the Ted Cruz religious freedom rally, and, as usual at a Republican event, I feel really out of place.

It started with the Von Trapp family, I mean, the Bontrager Family Singers (I counted 10 kids), singing, playing instruments, and endorsing Ted Cruz.

I mean, I like Ted Cruz. He seems genuine where a lot of other people seem like campaign conservatives.

But, I am not a Republican. I don't like having to defend freedom of association under the religious liberty umbrella. And I don't even know if I'd vote for Ted Cruz.

However, I like politics, I'm much closer to Republican than Democrat, religious liberty is important, and it was the right price (free. And Dad bought my dinner, so net gain I'd say).

Also, now I have a small copy of the Constitution with Ted Cruz's face on it and a cheap American flag (courageous conservatives for Cruz). I passed up the Cruz 2016 sticker.

So bring it on.

"Our rights come from God, not from the government." - England

My libertarian self can get on board with that.

Now they're going to show the people who have been hit recently with discrimination lawsuits and fines for refusing service to homosexuals in the context of marriage services.

First off, I think that any private business should be able to discriminate against anybody for any reason. And by "private" I mean not government owned. The Post Office can't discriminate because it's a government monopoly and we have no choice but to use it. I think that if someone started a business, even if it has expanded to the point of public trading, it is still a private business. It is owned by the shareholders, but it isn't (or shouldn't be) a government enforced monopoly. And people can go to another business if they don't like it.

But does that mean that businesses can discriminate against [insert favorite bleeding heart group]? Homosexuals, black people, white people, men, women, people with tattoos, people without blue hair, whoever? Yes. If you built the business, you should be able to choose who it serves. You should have the freedom of association, the freedom of discrimination.

But that's wrong! That's racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.

Then don't go to the business. Write nasty Facebook reviews, convince other people not to go, try and drive them out of business. But don't aggress. Don't call the bully government to force your fight, don't threaten them, their families, whatever. This is a (supposedly) free country. They don't owe you the use of their business. Go somewhere else. Can we agree to disagree? But let the market decide. That's freedom.

Are some people awful and discriminatory? Yup. But not everybody is going to agree with me on a lot of things and I'm not going to go around trying to force right thinking on everyone. As long as they aren't aggressing on me, they can be ignorant. God knows we can't get rid of ignorance.

Just don't bring the bully government to ensure everyone does what you think is right by aggressing on the rights of people. Not "right to cake" and "right not to be discriminated against," but right to life, liberty, and property. Rights to discriminate are under property, if you were wondering. Freedom to use your personal property as you see fit.

That said, religious liberty is important. It's part of our right to liberty. As disturbing as it is that we have forgotten the right of association, what is also disturbing is that the "tolerance" camp is busy trying to enforce against thoughtcrime of what they consider the backwards bigots of Christians. Thoughtcrime isn't a real crime. And they have their crosshairs on Christians. They have decided our point of view is wrong.

Thoughtcrime isn't a crime. Well. It was in 1984 by George Orwell. And Big Brother is watching.

I hate they way they come after Christians, trying to destroy our point of view because they disagree with it. Even if they are right and we are wrong (which I don't agree with), they should not be able to force their views on us.

The America I was raised to believe in doesn't look anything like the America I see now.

"Nothing says tolerance like death threats." - Steve Deace

And it's being enforced by the government. "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." They no longer secure our rights. They violate them. Big Brother is watching.

But the rally is good. I'm enjoying it more than I thought. There is a lot of truth being spoken. People are very enthusiastic. I can't imagine being this enthusiastic for anyone short of Dr. Ron Paul.

Also some protesters outside. I'm not sure what their beef is. And then some protesters inside interrupting. "Citizenship Now!" They were shouted down by chants of "U S A!" as they were escorted out. Ted Cruz thanked them for their speech, but informed them this was not a Town Hall.

All in all, some political fun on a Friday night. Even got some up-and-down standing clapping reps. Newsboys are here. Free concert!

Add pizza and beer and it would have been a real party.

Monday, August 17, 2015

Shiner

Now that the swelling is down, the bruising is pretty much gone, and the black eye is fading, I'll tell you what happened.

It's kind of a funny story. Although we did try and come up with all sorts of easier, and funnier, alternatives.

Coworker 1: Tell them you were slacking off. And so I kicked you in the face.
Coworker 2: No, say that you were talking back!
Me: That does sound like me. And that you backhanded me!
Coworker 1: Say you fell on a doorknob.
Me: Or I'll say I fell down the stairs. And then look away.
Coworker 2: Say you got hit by a table. Or that you punched yourself while trying to move chairs.
Coworker 3: Man, that is swelling.
Me: He's getting me ice.
Coworker 3: I would say that he was being a gentleman, but...

So at Scheman, sometimes people want classroom sets (rows of tables with chairs) and sometimes they want power to those tables to run laptops or whatever. We pull out our huge collection of extension cables, quad boxes, and power strips, and tape them down under the tables, daisy chaining them from any available outlet. This building is from before personal computers. On this day, we had to strike a bunch of classrooms with power. One of my coworkers, Isaac, likes to make balls out of the duct tape, making it bigger and bigger as we pull up the cords. He prides himself on being able to make it very firm.

Three of us were waiting for another coworker to go and check exactly what we had to pull in a particular room and started playing hackysack with this duct tape ball. I suck at hackysack, but wasn't the only one. And then Isaac bounced it twice and then kicked it off his toe. It hit me in the face on my right cheekbone so hard it rebounded to the back of the room.

We all burst into laughter, even as I'm clutching my face and Isaac is leaning on the table. "Ow, my toe!" are the first words he managed.

"I can't say I feel very compassionate about your toe," I say between laughs.

"You okay?" he asks.

"I might cry. But just like I would if I got hit in the nose."

One coworker walks in, sees us, and walks right back out.

For the rest of the day, when Isaac says to do something, Dean is like, "I'll do it, I don't want you to hurt me!"

I didn't cry, I did get ice, and I got a bit of a shiner. And that's the actual story. I was attacked by a vicious duct tape ball. Later Bryan kicked it in the general direction of Isaac and nailed him in the knee.

Isaac: We need to make it bigger.
Me: Seriously?
Isaac: Yeah. So we won't be tempted to kick it.

I'm sure that will work brilliantly.

Monday, August 10, 2015

Smoooooth...

I would like to start this post with a confession. I have seen my muse. I have seen what I desire in a blog post, in a continuing blog, and I do not have the ability to produce it. I have seen the Crisler blog. I shall spend the rest of my life attempting to achieve that level of humor and balance. This is one of my favorite posts. Enjoy. I'll understand.

Still here? Well, practice does make perfect I suppose.

I shall now attempt to segue, meaning a smooth, uninterrupted transition from one thing to another. Pronounced seg-wey, for whatever reason. It's Latin, I guess, I don't know. And it really kind of amuses me that they named those two-wheel powered scooter things Segways, the actual pronunciation spelling. Like the scooter thing (which makes you look silly) is a real life smooth, uninterrupted transition from one place to another... a really clever name.

Yeah, I blew that segue.

Did you know that the Segways can keep pace with bikes, on like a biking tour or something? You could be the tour guide. It's like a rolling podium. They should give them to politicians or something. Or politicians can buy them, whatever. It'd at least give me a laugh.

I'm not transitioning anywhere, much less smoothly.

You know what? Nevermind. I'll post something else some other time.