No Subject

[Douglas <dougwils@moscow.com>]

Dear visionaries,

Scott Dredge asks (in effect) if I would want to allow someone to be able
to discriminate against Christians with his rental properties. The answer
is, of course. If you give people liberty, some people will sin with that
liberty. That is one of the costs of liberty. However, I do not believe a
landlord should have the right to terminate a lease on the basis
of someone's faith if the renters had completely kept the terms of the
lease. But if I applied for rental, and the fellow told me he didn't rent
to Jesus freaks, I would move on down the street, and that right gladly.
No lawsuits from me, nothing. I would think to myself as I walked away,
isn't it great to live in a free country?

Our culture needs to learn the difference between a sin and a crime. But
modern idolaters of political power have this deep attraction to
coercion, and want to outlaw everything they don't like. 

Too much sugar in the Twinkies? Make a law.
Did someone hurt my feelings? Make a law.
Is Wilson inadequately appreciative of government education? "That's
all right, we got his wallet." 

Modern fans of civic intrusiveness are simply addicted to coercion, and
take this kind of thing for granted to such an extent that it is hard to
get them even to see that they are doing it. This is why we now have the
ludicrous category "hate crime." Is this to distinguish it from
all the ordinary, run of the mill love crimes? Crimes should simply be
crimes. No one should have the right to beat up, rape, steal from, etc.
other citizens for any reason--whether it be ethnicity, color of
skin,sexual dyslexia, or poor table manners. If someone assaulted a
homosexual for being a homosexual, the assailant should be punished for
the assault--and not for the thoughts he was entertaining while doing
it. 

Boil it down. The fundamental issue in our debate thus far (and we have
offered different examples) is that we do not want to force you to do
things nearly as much as you want to force us to do things. If you just
admit that your system of education rests upon coercion, and you say that
you like it that way, our subsequent debate will be much more
honest.