[Vision2020] An Open Letter

[Andreas Schou]

Phil --

I'm willing to accept that it's Jews' special privelege to violate
Godwin's Law however and wherever they please. I'll give you a pass on
comparing me to a Nazi if you'll give me a pass on violating the
three-post rule, though it's more than a little upsetting to see my
entire argument tossed aside while you pound the table and scream
"Nazi." (1)

I suppose you have rather more reason to worry about religious
discrimination than I do.

When making accusations of facism, I would remind you that if I ran
the world according to my most idealized system, you would still be a
Jew, and if Doug did you would be one of the above: Christian, a
slave(2), or dead. It's also worth noting that in my ideal world, Doug
would continue to be a Reformed Christian with the right to vote, bear
arms, hold property, speak in public and private however he wished,
even if it offended me, and have all the associated rights due a human
being.

I repeat: these are all rights due a human being. Any human being;
even the worst human being. I honor those rights.

Doug has a right to speak. I'd stand beside him the moment the
government denied him that right. Doug has a right to vote for
whomever he likes, speak on the behalf of whatever candidate he
prefers and whatever policies he believes necessary. Doug has the
right to bear whatever arms he likes short of a rocket launcher. The
religious rituals he conducts and the  manner in which he conducts
them are none of my business.

There are, however, rights which belong to no one:

Everyone has the right to speak. No one has the right to use my
megaphone to do so. Everyone has the right to advocate for the
politics they prefer. No one has the right to use my money to do it.
Everyone has the right for their faith to dictate their actions. No
one has the right for their faith to dictate my actions.

Everyone has the right to speak. No one has the right to my silence.

It's simple for the politically religious to throw up their Bibles in
defense and, in a simple move of ideological ju-jitsu, use my respect
for their right to their beliefs as a shield against any criticism of
their policy reccomendations. My fundamental respect for freedom of
conscience doesn't obligate me to stand mute as Latah County's public
defender calls for the execution of the gay members of my friends and
family, nor does it obligate me to say nothing when a pastor excuses
the worst atrocity in American history.

What's more, it does not obligate to spend my money to subsidize his
rhetoric. If I spend three dollars on cheesecake at Bucers, I have
donated thirty cents (3) to print _Southern Slavery: As It Was_, to
illegally channel into the Constitution Party's coffers, to call for
the execution of myself and people I hold very dear. If Christ Church
did not demand tithes, I might buy the cheesecake because Gary
Greenfield, from my experience with him, is a decent and honest human
being whose business serves excellent cheesecake.

This isn't the case, so I don't.

-- ACS

(1) As a gentile, I risk invoking Godwin's Law when I note that Peter
Leithart, who teaches at NSA and who was at the time an elder of
Christ Church, wrote a glowing eulogy for notorious anti-Semite and
Holocaust denier Rousas Rushdoony for the Weekly Standerd. This is not
to mention Doug's attempted rehabilitation of Confederate racist and
anti-Semite R.L. Dabney.

(2) According to _Southern Slavery: As It Was_, the primary usefulness
of slavery was to convert non-Christians to Christians by force.

(3) Assuming there were no other reason for a boycott, Gary, as head
of the local AFA chapter, arranged a boycott of all stores that carry
Cosmopolitan without plastic sheets covering them. As one who enjoys
Cosmopolitan sans plastic sheets, I am inclined to make sauce for the
goose equally good for the gander.