Wednesday, April 7, 2010

The only fundamental difference

While writing a response a few days ago to another post, I said something which I really think needs to be reitterated and expounded upon.
I had said that the only difference between the far right and the far left is that the Right wants to legislate morality, while the Left wants to legislate social concience (You can substitute social justice in for that, since it amounts to the same thing).
There is a difference between the two goals, as we can see in the arguments and platforms on each side, but the mechanism they are both attempting to use is the same. Government.

The Right Wing wants to use government to enforce what their God has told them are the right things to do in life- do not kill, do not steal from others, etc. These ideals sound good, but coming from a religious standpoint, only their own definititions of what constitutes these moral behaviors matters to them. Our society has too many diverse opinions on what constitutes “moral” behavior, beyond the obvious necessary to continue as a working society, for any real agreements to come about with the Far Right. Judeo-Christian moral boundaries are not the same as my own, for instance, and I will never tolerate any government entity to force me to change those that do not coincide with their own (common sense, based on societal need) already. I don’t expect people of other religions to do so, either.
For instance, it is common sense that we not allow people to murder others, thus depriving them of the right to life. However, it is NOT common sense that a belief of when life begins, formulated from a religion dominated by men for 2,000 years, can determine what a woman can or cannot do with her own body. Nor is it common sense that a book written by men over 2,000 years ago be a foundation to disenfranchise a person for not being attracted to the opposite sex, depriving them of the same protections, benefits, and rights as those who do- ie marriage to the one they love, raising a family, and equal protection under the law for taxation.

The Left Wing also wants to use government to enforce thier beliefs that we are all equal, thus deserving of the same lifestyles, and of respect and nonjudgement. Again, these sound like good ideals, but they fall flat.
It is common sense that we allow others to live within the constraints of the constitution, without demanding compliance to our own biases.
However, it is NOT common sense to expect all to be equal, as we are all born with different talents, intelligence, and ambition. Some are predisposed to a nasty disposition or a lack of intelligence, and the Far Left would have us believe that it is simply because they do not have what others have in life. This may or may not be so, but what stops them from TRYING to attain it, instead of bitching and moaning about their lot in life? Some people may very well have less advantage than others, but the glory of our system is that they can crawl out of their own puddle of shit, should they chose to do so. And too bad- its HARD. It’s hard for everyone, really it is.
It is also not common sense that we not judge others. We do it every day, in everything we do. We chose our friends through judgement of others. We base every decision in every social situation on how we judge the others around us. It literally dictates everything we do, say, and chose! However, it is NOT common sense that we allow our personal judgements to dictate what constitutional rights we allow to those who are different from us.

Both sides’ goals are absolutely impossible to attain, for many reasons. The primary being that changing laws does NOT change minds. As long as we have freedom of thought, it cannot and will not change how people perceive their world, it will not change fundamental human behavior, nor will it change what we are taught at home and within society itself just by living within it.

This is why our government was set up as it is, with as LITTLE government interference in morality AND social concience as possible. Our founders knew that neither religious nor secular ideologies can coexist when one or the other dominates through law. Its why we have both freedom of religion, AND a secular government. They even things out, so to speak, so neither one has the opportunity to dominate our lives through law. The government should no more be allowed to tell us we MUST not drink on Sunday or women MUST not have bodily autonomy than they can tell us we MUST not gather in faith, or that we MUST accept government enforced charity to those we don’t believe are deserving of taking what we have earned.

You may believe that anyone who isn't far right or far left is wishy-washy and can’t make up their minds, but this is far from the truth. We certainly CAN, and we’ve decided that both sides are out to do nothing short of controlling- not governing- the populace through the same mechanisms, and are simply pursuing a different population management strategy.
Both the Far Left and the Far Right are WRONG. Plain and simple.

(originally posted at http://lmliberty.wordpress.com/2010/04/07/the-only-fundamental-difference/ )

1 comment:

auntypsychotic said...

Excellent piece here, Moon. It is both painfully accurate and desperately dishearting. The Right wants to make everything forbidden (gay rights or marriage; any kind of social program, whether they are cost effective and/or successful or not; basic logic and common sense) and the Left wants to make everything required (belly-crawling and reparations for past misdeeds of descrimination or racism regardless of how long ago it may have happened; reeducation camps aka "sensitivity training" and political correctness at all costs; eco and environmental care to the detriment of the top of the food chain (ie homo sapiens sapiens aka US); basic logic and commmon sense). The stated goals, as opposed to those that they discuss in private, both sides are not and will not EVER be possible.

Personally, I think I am going to go back to living in the forest without a permanent structure or utilities but with lots of extra ammo and a few booby traps for the enviro-weenies.