The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. - TJ, Notes on the State of Virginia, QUERY XVII (page 24, In the Hands of the People, edited by Jon Meacham)
We have solved, by fair experiment, the great and interesting question whether freedom of religion is compatible with order in government and obedience to the laws; and we have experienced the quiet as well as the comfort which results from leaving every one to profess freely and openly those principles of religion which are the inductions of his own reason, and the serious convictions of his own enquiries. - TJ, to Virginia Baptist Associations of Chesterfield, November 21, 1808 (ibid, page 25)
It appears clear that neither Jefferson nor any other of the Founders much imagined or contemplated the egregiousness of demagogues like Donald Trump ever presiding over the federal government of the new Republic. If they had, we likely would have read of it in their writings.
Further, the insidiousness of Dominionist actors such as Cathi Herrod on state legislatures such as Arizona's likely crept in because a century or more of elapsed time blurs experience and the words of philosophers and political scientists.
Herrod's rhetoric is especially insidious because she strives to make it sound innocuous. Unless one understands why she frames depriving women of personal sovereignty regarding their body and health care decisions, "protecting the unborn," deceives the listener into being an unwittingly co-conspirator in the deprivation of sacred rights and liberty for already breathing humans, roughly half of the population. If questions of women's rights weren't consistently mislabeled as "right to life," so much more than forced birth would have to be included.
No comments:
Post a Comment