SDG here making a rare foray from occasional-blogger semi-retirement spurred by a recent screening of V for Vendetta, scripted by the Wachowski brothers from a graphic novel by Alan Moore.
The scene: In the English-speaking West, a happy couple sits at home, minding their own business. Suddenly, jack-booted Lifestyle Police swoop in and arrest first one, then the other.
Q: Who are these people and what is their offense?
-
Conservative homeschooling parents guilty of withdrawing their children from mandatory kindergarten sex ed and diversity training about different kinds of families.
-
Lesbians guilty of violating the religious lifestyle laws of the fascist conservative Christian theocracy.
If the question is which of these two scenarios represents a more reality-based fictionalization or projection of actual current trends in the English-speaking West or anywhere in Europe, it seems to me that the obvious answer is A. Every so often I get a bulletin from the Homeschool Legal Defense Association detailing incidents from around the country of government harrassment of homeschooling parents. If there’s a GLBT Legal Defense Association dedicated to combatting government harrassment of that constituency, I’ve not heard of it.
But of course it’s scenario B that we find in V for Vendetta, which imagines a world in which homosexuals are actively hunted down, owning a Koran is a capital offense, the media is a mouthpiece of the conservative government (!), high-powered Catholic bishops conspire with the government and have kinky sex with child prostitutes, and razing the bastions of Western civilization (e.g., blowing up the English Parliament building) is a moral victory.
Alan Moore, the writer of the original story, has taken his name off the film, which he claims the Wachowskis have turned from an ambiguous story of anarchy vs. fascism into an allegory of the American Right (Evil) vs. the American Left (Good).
In principle, I suppose that Moore, who considers himself an anarchist, would be equally against any form of coercive, overbearing government intrusion into people’s lives, beliefs and expression, whether liberal or conservative (though this is just a guess and I could be wrong).
As Moore complains, though, the film turns the story into a parable of the American left (good) vs. the American right (bad), completely blowing over the facts that [a] both sides are capable of intrusive oppression of dissenters, and [b] right now, in spite of certain conservative trends in recent years, it still looks like being conservative is more likely to get you in trouble in one way or another than being liberal — at least, in the English-speaking West as well as throughout Europe.
At least, that’s how it seems to me, although I tend to be pretty isolated from political issues (which is one reason I avoided reviewing most of last year’s crop of politically themed films, Good Night and Good Luck, Syriana, Munich, The Constant Gardener, etc.).
I seem to recall hearing about, e.g., Catholic leaders in Canada running afoul of the law over the Church’s teaching on homosexuality. It also seems to be that while university professors are typically free to advocate the most radical and extreme leftist points of view, there have been a number of incidents in universities in which individual professors or other faculty members have been internally persecuted and forced to apologize or resign over expressing politically incorrect views.
Here’s an interesting tidbit: Earlier this week, apparently, the Netherlands instituted a "tolerance test" for would-be immigrants that requires applicants to buy and watch a video that includes footage of two men kissing in a park and a topless woman bather, in order to ensure that they’re all right with such behavior before the Netherlands will accept them.
On closer examination, it turns out that this law seems specifically targeted at conservative Muslims, since there are apparently generous exceptions to the requirement for Americans and Australians as well as citizens of EU members, making the Middle East the obvious target of the law. But this merely illustrates that discrimination against Muslims is not the province of the conservative Christian right; here are ultra-liberal, anything-goes secular lefties doing this very thing. But of course that’s a provocative nuance you would hardly expect to find in an ideologically oriented Hollywood film.
Anyway, I’m writing my review tonight, and would like to be able to cite a few well-chosen specifics on the subject of liberal/secularist government/institutional opposition to, harrassment or punishment of, or otherwise discrimination against conservative/religious individuals, values, expressions, etc. So this is ultimately an info-bleg post. Help me out, politics watchers Who’s oppressing who, and how, and where?
Massachusetts comes to mind, with the issue over Catholic Charities and forcing Catholic hospitals to give patients the “morning after” pill. The link is here:
http://620wtmj.com/_content/talk/charliesykes/index.asp?id=8&entry=16626
Ultimately, I think this (from my husband’s wise words): The “right” in America (for the most part) tries to reach people through their hearts and conscience. The “left” in America (for the most part) tries to mandate and force their beliefs on others. Which, in my opinion, is more oppressive.
So in light of the negativity towards Christianity, why is Guy Fawkes, Catholic terrorist/tyrannicide extraordinare, invoked as a forerunner in the trailers? Are they “making incoherence fun” as Roger Ebert said?
To be fair to side B, there is indeed a gay equivalent of the Homeschool Legal Defense Association. It’s called the Lambda Legal Defense Fund (www.lambdalegal.org (note: I wasn’t willing to actually go the site so viewer beware regarding their website content)). They spend most of their money fighting for “gay rights” like “gay marriage” but they do also spend a small but significant amount of time defending gays who have been prosecuted under sodomy laws (in fact, I’m pretty sure it was them who got the Texas law overturned through the SCOTUS). Of course they’ve mostly won that battle at this point so less and less of their time needs to be spent on that. However, historically it was a big part of their mission.
As a grammar vigilante, I demand recognition of the objective case:
“Who’s oppressing whom?”
Don’t make me split your infinitives…
PVO
OK, now that I’ve given side B the credit they deserve, back to the far more logical choice, side A. Here are the examples I can think of:
1. California law requiring Catholic Charities to include health coverage with contraceptives.
2. San Francisco law requiring all Church employees to give marriage level benefits to “domestic partners”.
3. Laws preventing abortion protestors from having normal protesting rights, particularly in the vicinity of abortion clinics.
Actually the “tolerance” test you are mentioning here is backed and introduced by conservatives, not liberals (who are fighting it). The same holds for Germany (same debate, some german states plan on doing this as well). This is framed as a National security issue, not a tolerance/diversity thing.
The idea is not that they accept it as morally fine, they idea is that these things are protected by the constitution, and that this protection is respected. Basically saying, if you cannot accept this protection (without moral judgement about this), you should not come here. Personally I don’t believe that this approach will be working, but who knows.
Actually your point a is actually reality in Germany, my home country has mandatory schooling laws (homeschooling is legally not possible). Some small baptist group tried to resist, the police intervened and brought the kids to school…. though that was also a media stunt on the side of the parents, usually authorities are quite flexible to find solutions to satisfy the law.
On the other hand, my state also has mandatory crucifixes in classrooms. Is that oppressive ? (well, parents can ask the school to take them down in certain cases)
My state has quite some catholic feasts as public holidays (for example, Epiphany, Assumption of Christ, Corpus Christi, Assumption of Mary), now you can argue that it is oppressive, that the state fixes free days based on one particular religion.
Some european state have blasphemy laws inclusive Germany. Recently I think there was the first case won against insults against Islam, usually the cases all deal (and some are actually won) with insults against Catholicism. Is this oppressive ?
Amy, your comment can also be reformulated, while the left uses the legal tools society has instituted to deal with these things, the right prefers to use peer pressure, marginalization and emotional guilt.
I do believe that it is pretty hard to judge whether something is oppressive. It is often a matter of beliefs, something is oppressive under one system of beliefs, but is not under a complete different system. So change the beliefs, and you change whether something is oppressive or not.
“On the other hand, my state also has mandatory crucifixes in classrooms. Is that oppressive ?
My state has quite some catholic feasts as public holidays… now you can argue that it is oppressive…”
No, you can’t make such an argument with any degree of seriousness.
These two examples make no sense. How is either of them oppressive in the least? They seem very tolerant. No one is being kept at all from practicing their own beliefs.
Making homeschooling illegal is oppressive by definition. The State has forcibly prevented these parents from the harmless exercise of their faith.
How in the world can you seriously compare the two?
As to your other comments, are you really of the opinion that it is worse to make someone feel bad than to use the police (the “legal tools”) to drag their children away?
I’ll take a little Catholic Guilt any day.
It has always struck me odd how liberals talk about how “tolerant” they are of people of differnt beliefs, yet they only “tolerate” those beliefs if they change themselves to conform to liberal dogmas. Liberals don’t mind Muslims . . . so long as those Muslims leave their moral code at the doorstep. They don’t mind Jews . . . so long as Jews deny that there is one, true God, that all must worship.
Also, it is always liberals who are willing to circumvent the democratic legislature to force their will of the people. Conservatives tend to try to elect people into office who will pass the laws that they wanted passed; liberals run off and get a judge to overturn a law passed by the legislature. Leftists, it seems to me, have a very “might makes right” mentality; they think that they can make all of humanity conform to their views if they can just get the Supreme Court to mandate it so. Such a sad state of affairs.
Not to mention that this sort of liberalism makes for really bad movies.
Also: Here! here! Mulopwepaul! We musn’t discriminate against the objective case form of our pronouns! Today it’s “who’s oppressing who,” tomorrow it’s “he hit he with the baseball bat”! If this trend continues, it won’t be long until all case forms are forgotten, no one can speak proper Engrish, and everyone ends all of his sentences with exclamation marks!
As Churchill might have said,
“This is the sort of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put”.
Kevin, without giving any spoilers, the rhyme about Guy Fawkes (“Remember, remember, the 5th of November”) makes sense in the graphic novel. I highly recommend the graphic novel. I will see the movie, but I truly hope that Hollywood has not again butchered another of Alan Moore’s works.
*sigh* My husband was so looking forward to that movie. The only thing I hate more than wrecking a perfectly good comic book when moving it to film is being PREACHED AT BY HOLLYWOOD. The Left has this paradigm that they live in, a sphere of opinions that they are willing to entertain, and if you’re outside that bubble, you’re not just wrong, you’re an evil dirty bigot and a hatemonger. I haveta tolerate THEM in my world, but they don’t have to tolerate ME. It gets ever tiresome, and I don’t need the prostletizing in my “entertainment.” Nor do I wish to be “challenged” by a movie that “makes me think.” I go to grad school and I work full time. I do my thinking in the REAL WORLD. When I am trying to relax, I want to watch something enjoyable and maybe, even, comforting. Ugg.
I used to work for gay rights and one of the biggest scams pulled off by that group is how they have managed to convince everyone that homosexuality is somehow genetic WITHOUT A SHRED OF EVIDENCE.
The evidence all points to a common psychological pathology which you can read up on by talking to members of Courage. There might be some info on their website.
By using the genetic argument they have been able to ride the coattails of the 60’s civil rights movement, as it were, arguing they can no more change their orientation than a black man can the color of his skin.
But behavior is not genetic and by embracing this argument, they are actually playing the expendable pawn. The left cares about sex more than anything else. The left could care less if all babies diagnosed with homosexuality in the womb were aborted (that is, if the gay rights supposition were true to begin with). Not to mention that pedophiles would have no problem living up to that same exacting standard of “proof”.
The “behavior is genetic” argument holds so many more Nazi-demonic ramifications if more sci-superstitious people decide to swallow that pill whole. This is what the left is best at: untested Master Plans to rearrange everything and make it better. More tidy. More free. Less restricting.
If you are looking for good examples of the seculars oppressing believers, I would stick close to sex. No one cares about homeschoolers (meaning they have no sympathy currency) and the oppression is strongest when it touches issues like AIDS, birth control, pornography, and homosexuality. This is where the Church takes her hardest knocks in today’s society. The situation in Europe and Canada tends to yield results.
I would take some quotes out of Anti-Catholicism the Last Acceptable Prejudice (written by a former Catholic, no less) but I loaned that book to a friend. It provides example after example of the blatant double standard employed by a clearly biased media.
Actually, Steve, I am glad you brought this up because I have noticed a trend in the X-Men comics recently as they start to use the word “mutant” interchangeably with “unproven gene-homosexuality hypothesis.” The intolerant anti-mutant humans are often equated with the murderously intolerant believers and Prof Xavier as the crusading gay rights spokesman.
This is weird because Prof X’s mantra of “peaceful coexistence through self-control” most closely echos the teaching of the Church, while Magneto’s mantra of “the future belongs to homo-superior” is an exact match of the fatalistically “progressive” attitudes of the gay-rights movement (and the gay-supremacists who are starting to flock to the gnostic revival — a philosophy the Wachowski brothers used to promote, and then ruin, the Matrix triology).
In their demands that we leave our hearts and souls at home when we go into their world, the secularists also embody the group of people who want to “cure” the mutants of their “disease”.
Normally, I would look forward to the next installment of that movie franchise but from what I can see in the previews it seems to carry the message of anti-believer propaganda to the next level.
Also, you want your jack-booted thugs? I got yer jack-booted thugs right here! For all their belly-aching about how believers like to spend their Saturday nights hunting down homosexuals, the death toll is much much higher on this side.
All throughout the 19th century, the liberal revolutions, many of which were backed by faithful Catholics, led to reform laws in Central and South American places like Mexico, Peru, Guatemala, (all of them, actually). These laws nationalized Church property, decreed restrictions on who can enter religious orders and when, forced religious to become secularized, and even in some instances forbade following the pope. There were also people killed for their faith. (The Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy 1218-1992: A Historical Synthesis. Mercedarian Press, 1998 pp 224-233)
But that was just the warm-up. Never mind the huge numbers of Catholic martyrs in Hitler’s death camps (I heard Catholic religious were officially the second-largest group to perish there). Secularists would point to the deliberate targeting of homosexuals and Hitler’s “devout” (and goofy) personal beliefs as foreshadows of the horrors of a believer-led society. We could just as easily point to the fact that Secularism is also a belief — one that is tailored to justify the holder’s lifestyle and political ends. Just like Hitler’s.
Catholicism demands contrition of the belief-holder, pointing a big ol’ God-sized finger with the words “your fault” echoing out from Eternity. It does not liberate you to do whatever you want, no matter how you slice it.
But it was Marx who paved the way for the penultimate (except for Canada and Europe) battle between State and Church. With his words “all that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face his real conditions of life …” that relegated the realm of the supernatural to the natural and breed widespread societal contempt for believers (The Communist Manifesto. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engles, Simon and Schuster Inc. 1964 p63).
The Communists hated the Church so much, they openly waged war against it, even to the point of trying to assassinate our leader. This did not just happen in Russia and China (bloodbath), but also in Eastern Europe and Asia (big red streak of Catholic blood across two entire continents), as well as in (surprise) Central and South America! Here at last we reach the “jack-boot thug in the night hunting and killing believers for not bowing to secularism” scenario. In Mexico, Bl Padre Pro has the rare honor of having his martyrdom on film.
Communism is unarguably the greatest blunder, the bloodiest mistake, the worst fiasco in the entire history of human development. It is so bad that many people are willing to give this generation’s liberal secularists the benefit of a doubt and not associate this liberal secularist failure with liberal secularists. That is a kindness they have abused and I say it high time to do a little reminding of the shame they must bear (perhaps an official apology from their leader would do).
And that is only half the story.
Don’t forget the Feemasons, who worked diligently in governments in non-Communist nations to sow yet more soft oppression. Then there is the Klan, who, in the late 19th century decided it better persecute Catholics as well as blacks and Jews. The American press in liberal New York spoke out vociferously against the latter two prejudices. But they were fine with the first.
In Clare Asquith’s book on Shakespeare called Shadowplay, she credits the Elizabethan government for creating history’s first oppressive police state. It’s goal? Persecute Catholics and Puritans.
If history has one real lesson to take from all this, it is that if you want to create an intrusive, oppressive, totalitarian government, then you first have to deal with the Catholics. We are the ones who should be afraid, crafting fear-inducing propaganda demonizing our opponents like in Brokeback, VfV and possibly X-men.
In all the countries that have passed marriage “rights” legislation, they have also passed laws strictly forbidding religious groups (and I mean all religions — no faith condones homosexual acts) from speaking against homosexuality. Wow. Those are two inalienable rights (speech and worship) down in one fell swoop.
These laws are designed to “protect” homosexuals from criticism — a “right” they deny us daily. So much for equality.
Also, you want your jack-booted thugs? I got yer jack-booted thugs right here! For all their belly-aching about how believers like to spend their Saturday nights hunting down homosexuals, the death toll is much much higher on this side.
All throughout the 19th century, the liberal revolutions, many of which were backed by faithful Catholics, led to reform laws in Central and South American places like Mexico, Peru, Guatemala, (all of them, actually). These laws nationalized Church property, decreed restrictions on who can enter religious orders and when, forced religious to become secularized, and even in some instances forbade following the pope. There were also people killed for their faith. (The Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy 1218-1992: A Historical Synthesis. Mercedarian Press, 1998 pp 224-233)
But that was just the warm-up. Never mind the huge numbers of Catholic martyrs in Hitler’s death camps (I heard Catholic religious were officially the second-largest group to perish there). Secularists would point to the deliberate targeting of homosexuals and Hitler’s “devout” (and goofy) personal beliefs as foreshadows of the horrors of a believer-led society. We could just as easily point to the fact that Secularism is also a belief — one that is tailored to justify the holder’s lifestyle and political ends. Just like Hitler’s.
Catholicism demands contrition of the belief-holder, pointing a big ol’ God-sized finger with the words “your fault” echoing out from Eternity. It does not liberate you to do whatever you want, no matter how you slice it.
But it was Marx who paved the way for the penultimate (except for Canada and Europe) battle between State and Church. With his words “all that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face his real conditions of life …” that relegated the realm of the supernatural to the natural and breed widespread societal contempt for believers (The Communist Manifesto. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engles, Simon and Schuster Inc. 1964 p63).
The Communists hated the Church so much, they openly waged war against it, even to the point of trying to assassinate our leader. This did not just happen in Russia and China (bloodbath), but also in Eastern Europe and Asia (big red streak of Catholic blood across two entire continents), as well as in (surprise) Central and South America! Here at last we reach the “jack-boot thug in the night hunting and killing believers for not bowing to secularism” scenario. In Mexico, Bl Padre Pro has the rare honor of having his martyrdom on film.
Communism is unarguably the greatest blunder, the bloodiest mistake, the worst fiasco in the entire history of human development. It is so bad that many people are willing to give this generation’s liberal secularists the benefit of a doubt and not associate this liberal secularist failure with liberal secularists. That is a kindness they have abused and I say it high time to do a little reminding of the shame they must bear (perhaps an official apology from their leader would do).
And that is only half the story.
Don’t forget the Feemasons, who worked diligently in governments in non-Communist nations to sow yet more soft oppression. Then there is the Klan, who, in the late 19th century decided it better persecute Catholics as well as blacks and Jews. The American press in liberal New York spoke out vociferously against the latter two prejudices. But they were fine with the first.
In Clare Asquith’s book on Shakespeare called Shadowplay, she credits the Elizabethan government for creating history’s first oppressive police state. It’s goal? Persecute Catholics and Puritans.
If history has one real lesson to take from all this, it is that if you want to create an intrusive, oppressive, totalitarian government, then you first have to deal with the Catholics. We are the ones who should be afraid, crafting fear-inducing propaganda demonizing our opponents like in Brokeback, VfV and possibly X-men.
In all the countries that have passed marriage “rights” legislation, they have also passed laws strictly forbidding religious groups (and I mean all religions — no faith condones homosexual acts) from speaking against homosexuality. Wow. Those are two inalienable rights (speech and worship) down in one fell swoop.
These laws are designed to “protect” homosexuals from criticism — a “right” they deny us daily. So much for equality.
Holy double post, Batman! I almost never do those!
Some helpful sites.
Canadian bishop’s response to the rise of totalitarianism in Canada:
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/jun/05060308.html
Godspy article on the oppressive culture of silence within the gay-rights community:
http://www.godspy.com/reviews/Gay-Conservative-Writer-Disgusted-By-Pride-Weekend-An-Interview-With-Steve-Yuhas.cfm
This site has links a plenty on the situation in Canada:
http://www.marriageinstitute.ca/pages/issues.htm
You will find it notable that many opponents of same-sex “marriage” are women and women’s rights groups. One of the dissenting opinions, written by a liberal says:
“The proposal to redefine marriage takes sides on this issue in a dramatic way. It declares full victory to a particular ideology of marriage and imposes it as the authoritative norm. … It denounces as discriminatory and unconstitutional the conjugal conception of marriage. It throws this public meaning — a conception that informs the life of most faith, cultural, and aboriginal communities — under a legal cloud. It places their shared meaning of marriage in direct tension with the Charter.
“It declares full victory to a new ideology of marriage and defeats the historic conception of marriage as the bridge to future generations, the bridge to generations past and the social contract to perpetuate society.”
http://www.johnmckaymp.on.ca/publications/04-samesexstatement.htm
The criticisms of the special hate speech laws, like Canada’s C-250, which are aimed solely at protecting homosexuals and marginalizing believers abound. Here’s one site:
http://www.cwfa.org/articledisplay.asp?id=9672&department=CFI&categoryid=papers
Finally, I would like to say that most people when they kill Catholics have, from the beginning actually, given them a choice to “repent” or die. This is a tidy way of making their martyrdom their own fault — which it kind of is.
Would Martin Luther King have faced the assassin’s bullet had he just been born black and stayed quiet like he was supposed to? Would the Tuskegee Airmen have faced as much discrimination had they resigned themselves to be born black but not pilots? When people suffer under the yoke of oppression, it is not just for what they were born as; it is also for what they want to become.
There are intolerant religious zealots on the other side, too. People like lesbian theologian Mary Daly, who argue for the balanced superiority of homosexuals compared to heterosexuals. Of course, the left just call them “brilliant.” We, on the other hand, just murmur: “Here we go again.”
Agenda + accident + inertia = legislation
Tim J,
having a cruxifix in a public classroom can be seen as the implication that the state is preferring one religion over another, which can imply a feeling of oppression. I don’t think it is, but I can understand if somebody does.
A religous holiday being also a secular holiday implies the same, why chooses the state the holidays of one religion and not of another ? Isn’t that oppression of other religions ?
If a US government forbade homeschooling, I think that would be oppressive. On the other hand I don’t that it is oppressive in Germany.
There are differences in what societies perceive as the right way to educate children and how to guarantee certain citizen rights for children.
Image parents spanking their children, would you think the police has a right to drag the childrens away from the parents ?
And yes I do believe that using laws might be preferable in some circumstances, because laws clearly define what is allowed and what is not, and because laws also give protection.
Hypothetical case, two societies, one in which homeschooling is illegal, but the government will not intervene if you admit it and pay a fine to keep your kids out of school, the neighbours however don’t really care. The other allows you to homeschool, but everybody else thinks what you do is wrong and marginalizes you because of this. Which of the two societies is more oppressive ?
Are you sure it was a crucifix in the classroom, and not just a cross? For all we know, it was a plus-sign in a math classroom. (JK)
Thank you, StubbleSpark.
This is why the Church calendar is chock-full of martyrs – to remind us of how it has been throughout history, from Nero/Diocletian through the murderous, Stalinist police state that existed in England after Elizabeth I to the murders in Communist countries, in Mexico, in Viet Nam, in Spain, under the KKK, and now at the hands of people trying to pass laws that are aimed at Catholics alone, not to mention the lawyers who say that there job is to “eradicate the Catholic Church.”
Talk about hate crimes! But Jesus promised that the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church, and Mary promised that her immaculate heart would triumph.
I meant the police state UNDER ELizabeth I, not AFTER.
“Image parents spanking their children, would you think the police has a right to drag the childrens away from the parents ?”
Umm… No. Are you really suggesting that children should be removed from their parents by force because they have been spanked? That’s nuts.
Anyone who can not understand the difference between a spanking and a beating is seriously deluded.
The same goes for the difference between acknowledging one religion and oppressing another. They are not the same. How does the presence of a cross in a room deny anyone the free exercise of their religion?
Good grief, if I travelled to Tibet, I would expect to see Buddhist references everywhere. If I let this offend me, or make me feel “oppressed”, that would be MY problem. It is just WAY too self-centered and over-sensitive.
I think the “Catholic holiday” isn’t a sign of oppression at all. Here’s why: I grew up in a county in which the first day of hunting season was a school and work holiday. Why? Because over 2/3 of students were absent and over 2/3 of workers wanted time off. For the same reason, despite attempts to keep school in session, our public school system finally decided to close for Good Friday – too many Catholic students were passing out during class and so many Christians left for church services.
Heck, the international company I worked for had a similar policy during Muslim fasting days – many of our co-workers worked half-days or came in to work later in the evening. I hardly think that I was being oppressed because our employer recognized the importance of treating employees well.
Tim J.,
I think we can both agree that violence against children is wrong, and that the state should interfere if parents become violent. Now the border between spanking and beating (with the second constituting physical violence, although you can find people arguing that even spanking already constitutes such) is not that easy to discern. And again societies might come to different conclusions about what is the prudent choice in such situation.
About the connection of state and religion as being oppressive, it depends on what definition of freedom of religion you apply.
If you define it as freedom TO religion, saying the state guarantees that you can freely excercise your religion, then yes, the above examples are not oppressive (and for the record, this is my point of view as well)
However if you define it as freedom FROM religion, then any use of religion by government is giving preferential treatment to one religion, and then these things become oppressive
The problem with oppression is that it is always possible to find something you believe oppresses you. The same way catholics can find evidence of oppression against them, protestants, muslims, any ethnic group, race or social group can find it. The problem we all face is to seperate true oppression from imagination or in worse cases, paranoia.
oh, and you didn’t answer my question about the two societies.
Jamie Beu, well, mostly they are plain crosses, but some of them are also full cruxifices (which one to use is up to the individual school)
And small historical example about oppression by catholics. In the 1830’s the government of a state in Europe (majority catholic, considerable minority of protestants) decreed that its protestant soldiers had to genuflect to the eucharist at eucharistic processions, which they had to attend as part of their official duty. Well, oppressive ?
Flo-
Let me answer your question about the “two states”.
I would much rather live in a country where I felt ostracized than one in which I was actively oppressed by the machinery of the state.
All societies engage in one form of discrimination or another. This often manifests through attitudes and social pressure. While this is unpleasant, it is better than bringing the weight of the legal system to bear against those with whom you disagree.
Therefore, the country that oppresses through state institutions is more oppressive, in my view.
At least as far as Catholic holidays are concerned, I do not think they should be considered oppressive. Mainly because they are the most fun.
Look at Christmas, Easter, Halloween, Mardi Gras, and St. Patty’s everyone seems to have a ball celebrating these even if they are not (or especially if they are not) Catholic.
How many of those drunken revelers crowding the cameras to show their parts in Mardi Gras are actually Catholic? How many of those fat beer-drinkers stuffing their faces with brats on a Friday during Lent are actually Catholic?
Christmas without the Advent and Mardi Gras without the Lent — they seem to like it just fine!
V for Vendetta is just one gigantic leftist cliche. The Wachowski brothers are slipping big if this tripe is the best they can come up with.
BTW, a new and improved, anarchist-approved way of converting people to your point of view…torture and lesbian bedtime stories!!
Tim J.
thanks for your answer.
I guess our different views on this is probably somewhat dependent on our cultural backgrounds (I assume you are American ?)
Despite horrible experiences in the last century, Europeans still have a rather positive view of the state, seeing it as a necessary force to stabilize society and are content to hand over certain tasks. Americans, coming from a frontier culture where the state was basically non-existent and self-reliance was necessary to a much larger degree, come to see state interference as unnecessary and therefore as interfering with their freedom and then oppressing.
(it’s a little bit generalized, but I hope you see my point here.)
Put traffic lights on a crossing somewhere in the Midwest, absolutely unnecessary and interfering with freedom.
Put traffic lights in a densely populated european city, absolutely necessary and guaranteeing us the freedom to actually be able to drive somewhere.
To continue this conversation, I would need to reflect more on the role of laws, their creation, application and justification.
Anyway thank you for your time and effort.
I just wanted to add some food for thought; I am a secular home schooling parent. In our home schooling support groups there are Christians and, really, people of all political stripes and persuasions. I think we have a common goal in mind and that is to protect our kids from what we see as a failing public school system. We don’t like the over-crowded classrooms, the negative socialization, the low-quality instruction (in some cases) and the list goes on. Still, we find common ground and ways to interact positively with each other.
I wish I could see more of that in society at large. Too many people bat around the word “tolerance” but do not give a tinkers dam about actually being tolerant.
Gay, Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Jew, public schooler, pro-lifer, pro-choicer…we’re Americans and we should decide (within reason) what we do and who we are. I’m pro-choice but I feel it is wrong to force someone to, by default because of their profession, to do something that they find morally repugnant. There are others who will do it elsewhere. Let the ones who accept it do it and don’t force the people who feel it violates their principles. Who wins if that happens?
People should be free to speak honestly, openly and sometimes loudly and emotionally about things they care about…BUT…we shouldn’t have the right to impose our beliefs on others. Just because I think daycare is wrong doesn’t mean it is for everyone. Just because I am a homeschooling parent doesn’t mean everyone can or should be.
Maybe that is what the movie is pointing to? Maybe it isn’t a “conservative” government we all fear but, instead, one that dictates our every move and what our values should be? Just a thought from an oddball moderate.
Flo –
Your assertion about our view of the state being colored by our cultural backgrounds may have some validity, but I think it is too simplistic. It would seem to me that any European with even a cursory knowledge of the history of that region in the twentieth century would see the danger in handing too much power over to the state.
The stop light analogy I find more applicable to the urban/rural dichotomy than to any U.S./Europe disconnect. Even from my brief exposure to European culture, I gather that those living in the major cities are more culturally and politically liberal than those living in the smaller villages.
It reminds me of one observation I made while in the Middle East. In the U.S. (Western Europe, also?) people generally abide by traffic laws, including signals. In the Middle East, my experience was that drivers considered that stop lights were for suckers. They seemed to routinely ignore traffic laws. They just made liberal use of their horn and went where they pleased.
I thought that was an interesting cultural difference.
Tim J,
I grew up in rural village in Germany, but commuted every day to a high school in a city, and yes, we also do have some rural/urban differences.
Claiming just a cultural EU/US disconnect might be somewhat simplicistic, however I think it is the result of the fact that Europe tends to have a far higher population density and urban/village structures are tighter (my home village of seven hundred people fits easily into a squaremile), as well as the historical developments. Coming back to the analogy, yes, you are right that it fits better on rural/urban and on Europe/US.
And your observation about driving behaviour, is absolutely spot on. The best example is probably Italy, the behaviour is much less according to the rules, the further South you get. Although when I visited a friend in Naples, he told me something along the lines, they still have rules, they just tend not to be the official ones….
Coming back to Germany recently after spending three years in New England I also had to get used again to German behavior: You could put traffic lights in the middle of nowhere, and Germans still would wait for green light to cross….
Flo
Just a quick minor correction to something SDG mentioned in his post:
“…high-powered Catholic bishops conspire with the government and have kinky sex with child prostitutes…”
It appeared to me that the bishop in question was _Anglican_ rather than Catholic, based on the word Anglican being on some church signs (and possibly some of the liturgical books?) in the scenes leading up to seeing the Bishop walking down the hall of a church.
At least that’s what I saw, amid the fleeting images, as I was trying to figure out if they were portraying him as Catholic or Anglican.
Fr. Terry Donahue, CC
CORRECTION:
You wrote:
>>high-powered Catholic bishops conspire with the government and have kinky sex with child prostitutes,<< The bishop in the movie is ANGLICAN - i.e. Church of England. He is a high-placed and well-paid official in the British govt. regime. He is also involved in the creation of the bio-terror disease. The logic is clear as a bell. I think a second or 3rd viewing of the film might help many. Just as it did with Matrix et. al. This movie establishes Guy Fawkes, a Catholic revolutionary as a hero. Further, there were several criticisms of the Church of England (esp. that gross Bishop). Also it was the evil, corrupt govt. was spreading propaganda against Catholics by calling the dreaded disease the "St Mary's virus" and then there is the impolite questioning the half-Irish cop's loyalty to their party...