"[I]n the light of the increasing embrace of authoritarianism on the political right, I’ve tempered my optimism that people of established faiths will see the light any time soon..."
On the one hand, you have people today freely applying the c-word (communism) and Marxism to the government, which didn't happen in the 1990's, when I first started paying attention to politics. Every day I learn of more people who are organizing to raise awareness and fight back against authoritarianism: things like electronic ID tags for cattle, which, like registration for guns, is just a way to make government's job easier when it decides to confiscate (cull) them. Because emissions. It's been done already in Holland and Ireland. A majority believe now that US elections are manipulated if not outright rigged, and anyone who's heard Mike Benz describe the activities of the CIA and IC knows that election interference is no longer a thing the US does just to foreign countries. Awareness is growing. Is it increasing fast enough? Is it widespread enough? Will it matter without an explicit understanding of the moral issues involved? How many times in human history have the people who change history had that explicit understanding? Ever?
On the other hand, you have this relentless push by a coalition of the administrative state, the intelligence community, universities, corporate media, and NGOs--to take only domestic actors--to extend their tentacles even more deeply. Have you seen this proposed Journalism Competition and Preservation Act? It's straight from Atlas Shrugged: It "establishes a corporate media cartel, which can collectively bargain for payouts from Silicon Valley companies. The latter would not have a choice in the matter. The bill allows for agreements to be forced on them through arbitration," according to the Foundation for Freedom Online.
When "the right" is just a different flavor of statist authoritarianism, there is no "right." There's just the statist left. What everyone else--the normal people, the people who know that this is all wrong, who want a "hands off" state--needs is intellectual ammunition. Fortunately such people are more likely to seek it now than ever, so yes: continuing to champion moral ideas is vital. There's an audience for them and it's growing.
As I have indicated to Don, perhaps a topic for discussion at our next luncheon would be a change in moral focus in the arguments for individual rights and political freedom - i.e., the "separation of economy and state."
I am alluding to the fact that "moral agency," the fact that we each possess it and the power of its exercise, logically dictates that we are responsible for the choices and results such agency mandates. Judea-Christain theology recognizes and asserts such agency as proper, valid, good, etc.
While us advocates of freedom have been ceaselessly arguing about "rights" since before Jefferson profoundly "marketed" them, perhaps the better argument (politically- not necessarily philosophically, although I remain undecided) would be to begin with responsibility? JC's begin there and only move on to the "rights" necessary to fulfill such responsibility when, kicking and screaming, are forced to by logic. The "logic" that has forced JD theology to be dragged into the universe of reason for over 2000 years while maintaining only remnants of their faith, now left with but the existence of the supernatural as the remaining foundational one.
Very few of them, though I assume more so among their leadership, will overtly allow the morphing of the supernatural into the superational. At least my experiences with my wife's family indicates this to be the case. I look forward to discussing such things at our next gathering.
"[I]n the light of the increasing embrace of authoritarianism on the political right, I’ve tempered my optimism that people of established faiths will see the light any time soon..."
On the one hand, you have people today freely applying the c-word (communism) and Marxism to the government, which didn't happen in the 1990's, when I first started paying attention to politics. Every day I learn of more people who are organizing to raise awareness and fight back against authoritarianism: things like electronic ID tags for cattle, which, like registration for guns, is just a way to make government's job easier when it decides to confiscate (cull) them. Because emissions. It's been done already in Holland and Ireland. A majority believe now that US elections are manipulated if not outright rigged, and anyone who's heard Mike Benz describe the activities of the CIA and IC knows that election interference is no longer a thing the US does just to foreign countries. Awareness is growing. Is it increasing fast enough? Is it widespread enough? Will it matter without an explicit understanding of the moral issues involved? How many times in human history have the people who change history had that explicit understanding? Ever?
On the other hand, you have this relentless push by a coalition of the administrative state, the intelligence community, universities, corporate media, and NGOs--to take only domestic actors--to extend their tentacles even more deeply. Have you seen this proposed Journalism Competition and Preservation Act? It's straight from Atlas Shrugged: It "establishes a corporate media cartel, which can collectively bargain for payouts from Silicon Valley companies. The latter would not have a choice in the matter. The bill allows for agreements to be forced on them through arbitration," according to the Foundation for Freedom Online.
When "the right" is just a different flavor of statist authoritarianism, there is no "right." There's just the statist left. What everyone else--the normal people, the people who know that this is all wrong, who want a "hands off" state--needs is intellectual ammunition. Fortunately such people are more likely to seek it now than ever, so yes: continuing to champion moral ideas is vital. There's an audience for them and it's growing.
As I have indicated to Don, perhaps a topic for discussion at our next luncheon would be a change in moral focus in the arguments for individual rights and political freedom - i.e., the "separation of economy and state."
I am alluding to the fact that "moral agency," the fact that we each possess it and the power of its exercise, logically dictates that we are responsible for the choices and results such agency mandates. Judea-Christain theology recognizes and asserts such agency as proper, valid, good, etc.
While us advocates of freedom have been ceaselessly arguing about "rights" since before Jefferson profoundly "marketed" them, perhaps the better argument (politically- not necessarily philosophically, although I remain undecided) would be to begin with responsibility? JC's begin there and only move on to the "rights" necessary to fulfill such responsibility when, kicking and screaming, are forced to by logic. The "logic" that has forced JD theology to be dragged into the universe of reason for over 2000 years while maintaining only remnants of their faith, now left with but the existence of the supernatural as the remaining foundational one.
Very few of them, though I assume more so among their leadership, will overtly allow the morphing of the supernatural into the superational. At least my experiences with my wife's family indicates this to be the case. I look forward to discussing such things at our next gathering.