www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Government regulation in our lives

Forgive me there was a typo in what I said.

I meant to say that some of your points are in fact valid, at least in theory if not in practice.

Also if you think that freedom is perverse I would suggest that you pray on it and take a look at the former USSR, China and other countries that have put human rights as a collective before individual rights. This kind of philosophy always ends with oppression.

Dear Dcn Borislav:

Then I ask your forgiveness for me unthoughtful attack. In fact, while I disagree with you on the particular matter of whether a government can prohibit discrimination, I do not reject as being invalid your concerns about the extent of government power. I do not believe that freedom, rightly understood, is perverse. Freedom, rightly understood, is freedom to choose what is right and good--ultimately freedom to give oneself fully to God. Furthermore, I don't believe that there is any individual right to discriminate against individual persons on the basis of an individual person's skin color.

Sincerely,

Ryan

I think we should all agree to disagree. Asking your forgiveness and assuring you of mine.

Also, let us be happy that we are still in a country that allows us to agree to disagree. But I would add that we need to be vigilant in this regards because it can be taken away very easily.

I am not angry my friend.

What I posted came out sounding very offensive, sarcastic and nasty. You are not a mind reader. You had no idea what I meant to say.

With all of this, I can agree.

I'll try to summarize my point in as few words as possible:

Once you allow the government to tell you whom you should discriminate and whom not, then you shouldn't be surprised if some day the government will tell you to stop discriminating people your Church discriminates on everyday basis: aborters, homosexuals, women, sinners, atheists and many others. I don't want my Church to be forced to bow to the prince of this world, which is one of the reasons why I can't support anti-discriminatory regulations.

You are at odds with the teachings of your Church.

Furthermore, there is a vast difference in discrimination on the basis of conduct that is freely chosen and discrimination on the basis of race. I support the right with respect to the former; there is no right with respect to the latter, and I detest the very idea that there should be such a right.

The problem, Athanasius, is government knows no stops. It quickly expands its power to fill any voids, in a highly opportunistic manner. Thus, while the elimination of racial discrimination was a worthwhile goal, one must be honest and say that the Civil Rights Act created an entirely new "rights-based" culture that elevated group interests above individual interests, and which is constantly creating new protected groups with new grievances that must be redressed.

Thus, today you find homosexual rights advocates using the language of the civil rights movement to obtain special status for their constituency (much to the anger and chagrin of black civil rights advocates), women's rights advocates seek a host of special privileges for women, and so on and so on. The impact upon traditional Christians can already be seen. If you can't see it, it's because you aren't looking.

There is a saying that hard cases make bad law, and so it is in the case of the Civil Rights Act, which redressed one wrong but created a host of abuses in its wake: a culture of grievance and entitlement, judicial activism, expansive government, and so on.

Inter alia, I was not aware that the Church had spoken prescriptively on how government should address the issue of racial discrimination. In fact, the Church should never speak prescriptively with regard to government policy, whether on this, or health care, or war, or anything else. Those are areas for prudential judgment, and when the Church deigns to prescribe government policies, it is exceeding its competence. Worse, when it does, its incompetence invariably shows.

The problem, Athanasius, is that the "cure" of institutional racism has been legislation discriminating on the basis of race.

In once employment opportunity, the AAEO point totals were the same... the person who obtained the job received 5 points for being 1/8th amerind, and 5 points for being female; points I had no access to being caucasian and male. She got the job, since the tiebreaker was gender.

Had she not been given discriminatory preference for either race or gender, I'd have gotten the job.

Wait until sexual orientation is added to the list.

Stuart and Aramis:

It's not that I can't see the points your making about the problems of a "rights-based culture" or affirmative action. However, no one has yet come close to persuading me the least little bit that racial discrimination with regards to either hiring or providing services should be legal. Perhaps the law has gone to far, in some cases. Furthermore, it was not my intent in joining this thread to defend every aspect of any particular piece of civil rights legislation. However, history has made it clear to me that in numerous locales within the country there was no intent ever on the part of the white majority to end color discrimination voluntarily. For this reason, I believe that some form of civil rights legislation was necessary. I ask both of you, given the widespread discrimination black Americans faced as recently as fifty years ago, should the government have done nothing? Should black Americans have been forced to endure second-class status for all eternity? And should it really be a right for people to be able to discriminate against someone with respect to even the possibility of employment or access to basic necessities of life simply because you hate that person because of the color of his skin?

Dear Athanasius, in a free society a private business owner should be able to turn away any customer for any reason. I can't quite wrap my mind around the fact that folks seem to think they can dictate to private citizens what they can't or can't do in their homes or in their place of business.

Again we have free will and we will be held accountable for our actions before God.

Great video on the subject!

Fr. Deacon,

Very Good video. They also mention the group Young Americans for Liberty, which I am a member of! I also write from time to time for their online journal Foreign Policy Handbook. So if I can plug it- http://interestofthestate.com/

While I don't agree with all that YAL promotes I find within the broader Liberty Movement great promise. Ron Paul is very popular with University Students. If you do look at the website one of my articles is under issue number one.

"End the Fed!"

Paul VI did, wrote and spoke many unfortunate things. But the Popes very rarely act infallible. In the matters we are discussing I side with Pius XI who wrote that "no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist".

Sad but true.

I don't know how does it look in the US but here we have legislation that was introduced to "protect women". So a pregnant woman after birth is eligible for 20 to 37 weeks of maternity leave, depending on the number of children. During that period there's no possibility to fire her and full salary must be paid, though she doesn't work. When she goes back to work she is protected for another 12 months, or she can also choose to take a 3-year leave. In that case the expenses on the side of the employer are significantly reduced, but she's still formally employed and there's no way to fire her. The obvious effect of such laws is that no one wants to employ young women and the potential employer will do much to find an excuse to employ somebody else. Now they're trying to solve this problem by deepening the regulations: they're trying to prevent potential employers from asking questions about whether you're married or not on the job interviews. That's the way all systems introduced to combat discrimination work. They introduce distrust, suspiciousness and malevolence towards the groups that they allegedly "protect", do them harm, and cost much money.