Live Free or Die

A few weeks ago a beloved cousin warned me that if I continued to support Trump she would unfriend me on Facebook. This assertion was based upon her conviction that Trump is a racist, homophobic, misogynistic narcissist. I told her that if she really thought that of me, that I would knowingly support such an evil person, then truly we had nothing more to say to each other. When I was a small child in Maryland, my Yankee father was a member of the NAACP and participated in boycotts. Being a racist was the worst thing you could be in our family, other than being a liar. I also suggested to my cousin that if she would read any of the many political articles I have posted about Trump, she might understand why myself and 75 million other Americans voted for him. For a lot of us in 2020, Trump was the only choice. How could any person of common sense and integrity vote for Biden, who not only shows the obvious signs of dementia but whose family has enriched themselves throughout his half century in public office? Trump's presidency, on the other hand, has led to many successes, including a booming economy and numerous advantages for ordinary Americans, all of which ave been documented on this blog.

On New Year's Day 2021,  I noticed that my cousin made good on her threat. She, like many others, believes the erroneous reporting about Trump by the mainstream media. Now how ironic it is that if I violated my conscience and  supported candidates like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, who support late-term abortion, all my cousins would love me. But because I know how much Trump has done for the pro-life cause and because I continue to fight for his presidency, I have been shunned. Sorry, but I think that killing babies is unspeakably evil, and most especially late-term abortion. Not only must we NOT endorse politicians who support it, but we must do all in our power to elect pro-life politicians. I pray for my cousin and for all the other friends and relatives with whom there has been a falling out because of my refusing to go along with left-wing politics. Perhaps the problem is that I have been too tolerant of those who are pro-choice or even with those who are wishy-washy about abortion, trying to keep the lines of communication open, hoping that reason and charity would triumph. But the culture of death has too strong a hold. I pray for those who continue to support pro-abortion candidates and who do not understand why I have to choose life. I will pray for the weak Catholics as well as for all the apostates in the once devoutly-Catholic extended family I was once proud to belong to. Now, I am ashamed to be related to such weak and immoral and amoral people. We all have to take a stand for our beliefs, those of us who have beliefs. If we cannot take a stand for our beliefs then we are not truly free.

 

 From Crisis:

Liberalism’s advocates certainly argue that America’s political philosophy both maximizes personal autonomy, and vociferously protects it. There has been, however, a centuries-long tension between preserving individual freedom, and the coercive demands of the state. Some libertarians call any form of taxation theft. Others, particularly pacifists or isolationists, chafe at the federal government’s periodic application of conscription, now managed by the Selective Service System. The fact that federal and state governments have exercised these functions without massive, violent resistance suggests that most Americans acknowledge some concessions to freedom are required for citizenship.

There are, nevertheless, some more tricky cases, many of which have to do with religious liberty. Can an organization be compelled to offer medical services (like contraception) to its employees, for example, even if those services violate the organization’s religious beliefs? In July, The Supreme Court ruled in Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania that it cannot. Can an organization engage in selective hiring and retention, not only in reference to religion, but sexual or gender identity? Also this year, the Supreme Court ruled that employees of religious organizations enjoy a “ministerial exemption” that precludes the enforcement of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Of course, a Supreme Court with different members, who perhaps hold to a jurisprudence less sympathetic to religious liberty, could have ruled the opposite in both of those cases. Why, one might ask, does religious freedom necessarily trump sexual, gender, or economic freedom? Indeed, in some jurisdictions, adoption agencies’ religious beliefs have been viewed not as sacrosanct, but subordinate to contemporary progressive norms about gender and sexuality. Moreover, what actually constitutes religion in the first place? And who gets to decide that? Herein lies a problem, and it is one that Scott Hahn and Brandon McGinley discuss in their new book, It is Right and Just: Why the Future of Civilization Depends on True Religion.

Hahn and McGinley discuss what other prominent thinkers, including Columbia University professor John McWhorter, have similarly identified: a lot of socio-cultural and intellectual movements, parading as neutral and empirical, actually possess a lot of the same qualities as what we traditionally think of as “religion.” The ideology of woke progressivism, for example, has its own dogmas (e.g. primacy of racial identity, sexual libertinism, et cetera), its own conception of sin (“white privilege”), and its own soteriology and eschatology (the dismantling of racist power structures, racial reparations, et cetera). Those who refuse to conform are maligned as heretics. Fearing cancellation, the latter then employ ritual-like penitential language to seek mercy. (Read more.)

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