Monday, May 11, 2015

Apparently, now "we" will be fighting the gays for Rod Dreher's religious liberty

while he reclines in the Cozy Corner with a Calvados and coffee.

As they say, "let's you and him fight". Remember, this is the feckless boy-child still wailing into his 40's about teachers not doing his fighting for him in high school.

Just today, here, we had a discussion of why Dreher's provocative lunacies matter. Here is a prime example of classically provocative Dreher imbecility: there are no "gay rights" - only constitutional rights for all - and "religious liberty" is available to all who will assert it; but unfortunately unavailable to those like Rod Dreher who can't be bothered to assert it himself.

By Dreher's distorting and subsuming the pursuit of religious liberty by any who would have it within his own personal and cynical effort to drive hits to the blog he's paid to write, Dreher knowingly sells out the very social conservatives he so piously appoints himself spokesman for.

This, Kemetica, is why I continuously criticize him, because he persists as a septic boil on the body politic and particularly on the corpus of those social conservatives he attempts to traffic in.

60 comments:

  1. From Dreher's post:

    For the record, I believe in granting employment and housing protections to gays . . .

    Well then. What about the nice religious lady who runs a boarding house, or rents out her house after she moves to the independent senior living complex, but who, for the same religious reasons chooses not to rent to the ever-so-nice gay couple? Because she does not want to facilitate the sin, of course.

    Answer us that, Dreher. Is that just too non-BO for you? Be careful, if you say the wrong thing, the cool kids won't let you play in the sandbox without teasing you.

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    1. This is where a real response will separate the dreaming, Calvados-sipping sheep from the real-world-inhabiting goats.

      On the one hoof, Christians can no more repudiate U.S. accommodation law wholesale than a secular hospital can refuse to treat Catholics for believing in and ingesting the Eucharist; those who play us suggesting that's even an option are charlatans.

      On the other hoof, there will be plenty of Christians who would be happy to rent in Pik's scenario.

      On the other hoof, there will be a few who will not, under any circumstances. While accommodation law will not magically change to accommodate them, they can and should nonetheless be supported legally and financially. Moreover, the same outcry the left raises as purely a matter of social shaming is equally available as an extra-legal tactic for social conservatives.

      And, on the last hoof, compelled speech, as in the case of Memories Pizza or the flower lady, is clearly unconstitutional and can be fought all the way to the Supreme Court every time.

      So we can and will live in a land with people very much alike and very different from us, but, contra Dreher, dhimmitude is not at all our fate.

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  2. Well, as I've said, I'm not a conservative or a trad, and I would tend to disagree with most of the political sentiments here, as well as having no problem with SSM. Thus, I'd say that pikkumatti's "nice religious lady" ought to have to rent the apartment to the gay couple. Even given that, I think a lot of the criticism made here of Rod Dreher and his work are exactly correct. A good example is the way he favors non-discrimination in housing and domestic partnerships, but opposes bakers having to bake cakes for gay weddings and he opposes SSM. I would say that if he supports the former, he logically ought to support the latter; you guys would say he ought logically to oppose the former if he opposes the latter. What we'd agree on is that this is maddeningly muddle-headed and inconsistent.

    My issue is more the tone. Pauli admits, "People first tuning in here might, or people biased toward Dreher might and I'm not saying we never cross a line...." and pikkumatti says, a bit wryly, "Yeah, maybe it looks bad at some times (I remember that someone coined this group 'Assholes for Christ' back in the Contra-Crunchy days), but it's important." This seems to me to be saying, "We passionately believe in what we're doing, but, yeah, we do go over the top at times." Diane says, "I certainly do not hate Rod. I pray for him and his family regularly."

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    1. Thanks for the comment, Kemetica. I appreciate it, even if I don't agree. Keep 'em coming.

      What I'll add in response to your comment in the 1st paragraph is this: to favor religious freedom means accepting (and cheering) people not complying with laws that you yourself think are good ideas.

      IOW, my beef with Dreher on this point is that he's all for religious freedom on SSM -- because he himself is against SSM -- but he'll be as silent as a churchmouse should it be asserted on a law he agrees with (like housing). And in any case, he'll be like the Swede who is willing to fight down to the last Finn.

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    3. Actually, Kemetica, there is a profound legal difference between how the law views accommodating what people are (your former example) (gay, Vegan, Hasidic, Cathothic) and forcing second parties to enter into behavior or otherwise express themselves in a manner that would have the second party substantially endorsing what the first party may be (your latter example).

      Thus, legally, a baker cannot selectively sell a generic cake to a Hasidic, not to a Vegan, to a gay, not to a Catholic; but a Christian very much can refuse to become a participant in a biker stripper wedding, or a gay wedding, or anything else that would force him to substantially traduce his religious beliefs.

      And, need I say it? Exactly the same protections obtain for you. For example, perhaps you are a liberal food vendor and your religious beliefs dictate that animals should not be eaten alive, but some Asian or other client desiring drunken shrimp or live baby octopus or what have you demands you cater their event. Your speech in such circumstances can no more be compelled than that of the Christian baker.

      Where Rod Dreher exhibits his unique and very public heinousness, precisely toward those he so piously appoints himself as the defender of but in fact only exploits for personal publicity and financial gain, is that he explicitly lies on both sides of this situation.

      He first lies by suggesting that religious liberty since 1964 ever allowed legal public discrimination against what people may be. He then compounds and close the circle of his lie by suggesting that the historical impossibility of the first - again, a situation obtaining only in public, civil commerce - will now come to define an entire yoke of dhimmitude, public and private, that will effectively render Christianity publicly impotent.

      But, lo, if that were not enough, somehow his "Benedict Option" will magically create a bubble in the space-time continuum otherwise defining that false double-bind for Christians wherein life can happily go on for those Christians entering its force field: children can still be kept out of public schools and home schooled; they can still get married (which, apparently, is all you need for a good BO); they can still stream Downton Abbey on Netflix while enjoying a choice morsel; etc.

      This stuff is Traveling Snake Oil Sales 101, straight out of the 19th Century. And there will always, always be takers.

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    4. pikkumatti: [T]o favor religious freedom means accepting (and cheering) people not complying with laws that you yourself think are good ideas.

      Well, yeah. No disagreement there. Civil disobedience to fight for one's beliefs is always admirable, even if one views the cause for which it stands as not admirable. What applies to one side applies to all.

      FWIW, I think refusing to bake a cake or do photography for a gay wedding is silly, but I don't have a problem with supporting the right of a baker or photographer or florist to make that refusal. I'd even say that in the recent case of the gay couple who were turned down by a bed and breakfast owner, that's slightly different from renting a regular hotel room or apartment, since the B & B owner is renting his or her own home. I wouldn't have a problem with exemptions for cases like that, as long as the B & B owner explicitly lists in advance who he or she won't serve.

      The problem I do have is that I think a lot of social conservatives want to use issues like this to gradually chip away at post 1964 laws to eventually return to a status in which a person may be refused accommodation for what he or she is--e.g. gay--and not just for what he or she does. I used to hear a lot of commenters at Dreher's blog argue that all the public accommodation laws that came out of the Civil Rights movement were wrong, and all ought to be repealed, even those dealing with race.

      It is sometimes said that proponents of the "gay agenda" played a long game with an ultimate goal not just of tolerance and acceptance, but of complete destruction of traditional marriage and the family. I think that's paranoid, but I think there is truth to it in that there had to be a "chipping away" at public attitudes. I suspect many on the right want to do the same thing, but in reverse: chipping away until the closet can be reinstated. Just like many on the right were suspicious that there were hidden goals in the gay rights movement, I suspect many on the left now suspect the same thing in the opposite direction.

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    5. FWIW, I think political arguments ought to be straightforward and not have hidden agendas; but in the real world, that's often how you get things done. I think the pro-gay activists ought to have been more upfront that it was about affirmation, not just tolerance, and should have disavowed the more radical groups (IMO a minority) that wanted to destroy marriage as such.

      Likewise, I think conservatives ought to be upfront as to whether it's just about cakes or if it's part of a longer-term strategy to restore the status quo ante.

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    6. The cake thing is a canard; there are tons of bakeries which will accommodate these people but they seek out the ones which will feed their persecution complex.

      If I was a baker I'd make a cake for 2 dudes with a plastic cake top showing the one dude taking the other up the sludge. Then I'd say, "Artistic freedom, dudes."

      That's probably why I'm not a baker.

      This is a must-see.

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    7. The problem I do have is that I think a lot of social conservatives want to use issues like this to gradually chip away at post 1964 laws to eventually return to a status in which a person may be refused accommodation for what he or she is--e.g. gay--and not just for what he or she does.

      No. I can't let you get away with this. Not only is it false as a matter of fact, it is the gay-marriage-is-just-like-interracial-marriage lie used today -- not to convince the nation that SSM bans are wrong, but to enlist the racial struggle by association.

      MLK showed the Nation and the world that racial segregation and discrimination were wrong as against reason and God's laws. That is the basis of the 1964 civil rights laws, and why he is rightly celebrated as a national hero.

      But that strong solution is oh-so-tempting to others arguing for other uses of the same tool, while skipping the part about "reason and God's laws" (especially in the case of SSM, which is contrary to reason and God's laws). One federal law to rule them all -- make that a constitutional requirement, better yet, so no state may say otherwise and to trump that nasty 1st amendment (see Hill v. Colorado, in which the 1st amendment was tossed aside by the Supr Ct so as to prohibit sidewalk counseling at abortion clinics).

      No.

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    8. Oh BTW, Kemetica, please don't go away. It's good to be challenged -- it makes me think and rethink. We all need someone who will tell us when we're full of it.

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    9. I absolutely second Pik's BTW, Kemetica. This is one of the few if any places outside the TAC Hermit Kingdom where Dreher (when his person is his product, as in his last two books) and his ideas can be discussed with anything approaching freedom.

      We certainly need a Kemetica at least as much as we need a mangy monkey sheep dog like me. Maybe even more.

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    10. I think it's debatable whether race and sexual orientation are analogous. From long debates in the past with defenders of natural law theory, I think such theory has many fatal flaws, and cannot be used to prove that SSM is "against reason". Against God's laws, perhaps (thought that's a can of worms)--but "against God's laws" and "ought to be illegal" are different things (and recall, many segregationists believed interracial marriage was "against God's laws").

      Anyway, I was just referring to Keith's reference--comparing SSM to race wasn't my point. My point was that those who oppose SSM must be very clear on what it is that they want:

      Just to be allowed to dissent (e.g. a clerk doesn't have to file an SSM marriage license) because of conscience?

      To be allowed to refuse gays service for arguably expressive activities (e.g. cakes and photos and flowers)?

      To be allowed to reject any service to gays in any context (e.g. housing)?

      To eventually be able to ban SSM?

      To eventually be able to ban domestic partnerships?

      To eventually be able to reinstitute the closet?

      In short, it's not enough to say what can be accomplished or what is possible now under existing law; what needs to be clearly expressed is what the ideal situation would be. Would gay still be in the open and out of the closet in an ideal world, just without SSM? Or would the ideal be the closet?

      The reason this is necessary is that a lot on the pro-SSM side see the debates as not principally about religious freedom, but as the beginning of a long-term strategy to put gays back in the closet and to reverse the advances gays have achieved in the last fifty years. If that's the real goal, it's hardly a surprise that the supporters of SSM don't trust the arguments of the other side, no matter how much they may be framed in the language of religious liberty. Does that make sense?

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    11. For example, pikkumatti seems to think the "nice religious lady"--or presumably any religious individual--who owns rental property should have the right not to rent to a gay couple. I strongly disagree with this, but at least it's honest and logically consistent. It's not in any way close to logical for Rod Dreher to say not baking a cake or catering a wedding is a matter of religious freedom, but renting a building is not (especially in light of the fact that such practices of refusing tenancy were once OK).

      If it's OK for a nice religious lady to refuse lodging, what if the head of a large, international hotel chain got religion and banned gays from all his hotels? Is that OK? Can he fire employees who are in all other ways great employees merely because they're gay?

      If the answers to these questions are, "Ideally, yes," then why should the other side trust conservatives? If that's the desired end goal, what's the motivation to make nice now and allow religious exemptions?

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    12. Bigoted people had no argument from a Judeo-Christian perspective to ever oppose inter-racial marriage. Nothing in the Bible or oral tradition has ever been established against it. The exact opposite is true of same-sex relationships. This is a well-established truth and everyone accepts it, albeit some reluctantly.

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    13. But that doesn't answer the question. What would the ideal society, from your perspective, look like WRT gay people? Pre-Stonewall? Pre-domestic partnership? What? And ideally do all, some, or no businesses get to discriminate? If some, which, and why?

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    14. For example...

      Kemetica, didn't I just explain the legal distinction between public accommodation under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and compelled speech?

      In any case, as Kevin Williamson, I think it was, pointed out, at the real root of all this is freedom of association: who are citizens free to associate with and who are they free not to associate with, who are they compelled to associate with, and under what conditions?

      Liberals on college campuses these days seem to have no difficulty invoking "trigger warnings" and "safe spaces" to shield themselves from having people of different beliefs even present on campus at all. Should this precedent be universalized into law?

      It really doesn't matter a whit what gays feel about social conservatives or vice versa - or at least it only really matters when the Constitution has effectively disappeared and all that's left is a matter of which tribe can most effectively dominate and exterminate any other.

      And, as Pauli pointed out, what illegally compelled speech/compelled association cases are occurring right now are both vanishingly small and contrived, and, moreover, nothing remotely resembling the legislated apartheid of the Jim Crow South.

      So to get straight to the freedom of association to the roots of things, what freedom not to associate with me, let's say, in what places, under what conditions, would you demand under law? Assume anything you don't specifically rule out I will then arrogate as my right, and I will try to sue you into bankruptcy if you refuse my demands.

      Plus, I like to sing loudly, and off-key.

      Come, now, what common principles of law shall we live under together?

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    15. I understood the distinction between public accommodation and compelled speech perfectly well. I can see the difference between a cake for a gay wedding and a hotel. That wasn't my point.

      My point was that, IMO, a lot of conservative--religious traditionalists and social conservatives, at least--appear to object to public accommodation for gays, and seem to be fighting on issues of compelled speech as a short term strategy so they can later conflate the two categories. You know as well as I that a lot of people on both sides won't see any difference.

      Thus, a supporter of SSM might be perfectly fine with opposing compelled speech and not seeing a problem with the baker, photographer, etc. not participating in a gay wedding. What they're not fine with is refusing gays public accommodation, or laws that permit people to be fired (or not hired) solely on the basis of sexual orientation. What a lot of pro-SSM people fear is that the anti-SSM crowd are using compelled speech issues as a way of chipping away until they can eventually go after public accommodation.

      Now you've laid out the law, but you haven't said what you think. If you're libertarian, I'd assume you'd agree that someone ought not to deny a hotel room or an apartment to a gay couple, or refuse to bake a generic cake for said couple. I don't know if you agree that gays should be a protected class in terms of hiring and firing.

      In any case, my broad question to those who oppose SSM is, "What would your ideal--not necessarily currently obtainable now, but ideal--setup look like?" In short, is it really just about compelled speech? Or is it a desire to return to a regime more oppressive towards gays?

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    16. As to your questions, I think gays--and everyone else--should be served equally in all public accommodations (hotels, restaurants, apartments, etc.), subject to their not doing anything illegal (e.g. a meth lab in an apartment) and subject to hygiene rules (shoes and shirt required for service, black tie only, things like that, that don't target classes of people). I don't have a problem with protecting people against compelled speech (bakers, etc.). There are gray areas, but those can be adjudicated case-to-case. I believe it should be illegal to refuse to hire, or to fire, a competent employee on the basis of his or her sexual orientation.

      Private organizations--the Boy Scouts, the Freemasons, golf clubs, etc.--have been given a pass by the courts, and I agree with that. They can be all-male, all-female, all-straight, all-gay, all-transsexual anarcho-syndicalist Koreans, whatever. Of course, anyone is also always free to boycott such organizations, oppose them by any legal and constitutional means, and so on, until they do--or don't--give in.

      All this seems reasonable to me.

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    17. Kemetica, I'll reply to both of your questions by telling you what I think. Before I do, though, let me point out that it isn't up to proponents of SSM to grant or withhold religious liberty from social conservatives depending on how socons do or don't satisfy their doubts or for any other reason. This former is basically Rod Dreher's position: gays don't like us or trust us and they will pull our pants down on the high school hotel floor and the teacher will just let them do it so because there won't be any teacher to stop them we need the Benedict Option. The end.

      Rather, it's up to socons to act on the religious freedoms they have and, if enough feel they need more, get ugly enough until those further freedoms are granted. Currently, despite your hypothecating, the public accommodation issue is not one; what does a "gay" person even look like? The compelled speech avenue, OTOH, is wide open. The only real problem at present is that socons are rubbing the sleep from their eyes and saying to themselves, "What? You mean we have to act? Why, we haven't had to do stuff like that since, oh I don't know when."

      And, further, even though capitalist economics is a powerful counter-motivator (and, remember, not knowing what a gay person looks like can be a powerful psychological exit from potential conflict, even for the committed socon), if enough socons in, say, a hospitality industry say, "You, know, I'm really just not going to countenance any same sex cohabitation under my roofs." there are all sorts of legal ways to push back and push back hard against those who would force the issue, beginning with simple civil disobedience and running the whole gamut of counter social pressures available. (continues)

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    18. But here's what I think, and I think, entirely the opposite of Rod Dreher, that the SSM will probably precipitate a revisiting of the 1964 Civil Rights Act thinking entirely and this time rebuild things from the fundamental freedom of association roots ground up.

      Keep in mind that, as I said, Jim Crow was legislated apartheid; it was against the law to accommodate a black person, in our discussion, a gay.

      Presently, though, and much to Rod Dreher's chagrin, we live in a much more diverse culture under, handily, an almost perfect pluralistic constitutional republic. And it's only going to get more diverse. Forget gays, wait till you add Asshole Monkeys who leer with their stupid selfie grins at Kemeticas and other women - because, of course, we were born that way.

      So I think, after enough punches are thrown - and not near enough punches have yet been thrown, particularly by socons and other non-liberal fascists - that a new social equilibrium and compact will come to be realized and sanctioned by constitutional reference and case law (if the ACA individual mandate is now a tax, this would be a breeze).

      The new legal standard for accommodation/non-accommodation - really, for free association itself, as mentioned - will be "prevalance of alternative accommodation", legally defined in some manner (percent of commerce) or litigated until it is defined where it might yet not be.

      Thus, if gays (or leering Asshole Monkeys) can find accommodation at A, B, C, D, and E, say, Boardinghouser Grandma Kemetica can effectively raise any reason at all not to associate with the leering Asshole Monkey who keeps following her up and down the B&B stairs and be completely safe legally. This in no way will prevent Boardinghouser Grandma Kemetica from being mercilessly castigated on Twitter, for example, but it would prevent her from being a victim of any other retaliatory crime or harassment.

      Under this system there would be plenty of room for both accommodation - both normally kindly human nature, not to mention market economics will easily generate it - and non-accommodation: people truly willing to stand up for their beliefs are, sadly relatively rare, but they will persist, and in numbers.

      Bottom line: as human society gets both more crowded and more different one from another, two crucial elements will continue to both exacerbate themselves and generate their mutual solution: the need to get along and associate one with another, and the right to not have to.

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    19. Note: non "liberal fascists" in Goldberg's usage, not the non-liberal fascists grammar dictated.

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    20. So, you favor a sort of Hobbsean "war of all against all" (through the channels, at least) with a sort of Dawinian survival of the fittest in that the equilibrium will favor whoever is the most bare-knuckled? And there is no such thing as an abstract moral notion--gays ought to be served--but rather what can be beaten out in legal combat among the contestants, victory to the strongest or craftiest? If I'm misrepresenting you, tell me; but a lot of libertarians do see it that way, and that's the type of libertarianism I see as evil. It's certainly incompatible with Christian notions of human dignity.

      Rather, it's up to socons to act on the religious freedoms they have and, if enough feel they need more, get ugly enough until those further freedoms are granted.

      Of course, "socons" could be replaced with "gays" and "religious" with "social" and it still works. Once more, a Hobbsean free-for-all.

      And, further, even though capitalist economics....

      Well, I think capitalist economics is more or less evil, and I follow Thomas Piketty in arguing that the increasing concentration of wealth in an increasingly small percent of people and the sputtering economy are the ultimate working out of late capitalism that was merely stalled for a century or so by--gasp--quasi-socialist interventions such as the New Deal.

      [I]f enough socons in, say, a hospitality industry say, "You, know, I'm really just not going to countenance any same sex cohabitation under my roofs." there are all sorts of legal ways to push back and push back hard against those who would force the issue....

      Well, one could replace "same-sex cohabitation" with "blacks", "Jews", "transsexual anarcho-syndicalist Koreans" or "people named Keith". Maybe you'd be OK with that on the grounds that it's up to blacks, Jews, transsexual anarcho-syndicalist Koreans, and people named Keith to fight back; but once more, that's a law of the jungle ethos that is the kind of thing I find evil about libertarianism.

      Having said that, I'd fight back just as vigorously against such notions, if that's what it took.

      I don't expect you to agree with my perspective, but that's what it is.

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    21. Kemetica, you didn't seem to bother to read and comprehend what I said on its own terms much at all, much less think through the contemporary implications underpinning it. Instead, you merely used it as a platform to state your already formed alternate position, which is fine, including abstractly consigning whole functions of human existence like capitalist economics as "more or less evil" The belief in the primacy of individual liberty - a precondition to becoming and remaining a living Christian (ask ISIS) you already dispatched to the evil bin. In case you didn't realize it, enough surplus grain to feed one's family over the winter with enough left over to plant next spring is "capital". If you don't have it, believe me, you would want it. If you live outside your head, that is.

      You have found a comfort zone in abstract Christian spirituality and un-thought-through ideas I have no interest in dislodging you from, but since I approach ideas as if they were problems dumped on me I actually had to solve, here is one of the main one's hiding in your sense that the world will continue to tick along just fine with protected classes: in an age of exploding identity politics, how do you limit those classes? Who gets protected in, and who gets shut out?

      Instead of half a dozen protected classes, imagine 6 dozen, or 12 dozen, with every one shut out agitating and fulminating and generating legal disruptions, if not violence. That's what "diversity" ultimately implies.

      So I dispensed with the State deciding morally absolute winners and losers and elected instead to practically see that everyone got what they actually needed ("prevalence of accommodation") rather than what might make them feel completely equal or superior to every last member of every other tribe.

      Because diversity without the safety valves to enable diversity, hitherto largely unknown in the West, inevitably does lead to Hobbes' war of each against all.

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    22. Look, "capital" doesn't equal "capitalism". The former existed for cavemen; the latter--more precisely industrial capitalism--is only a couple hundred years old. I think there are very cogent reasons for believing that it will not be able to endure in the long run, but a combox is not a place to make that argument in detail. Thus, I'm not dismissing "whole functions of human existence".

      By the way, people with more knowledge of economics--both theoretical and concrete--than either of us have strongly criticized capitalism; so unless you want to say it's self-evident that capitalism is a morally superior system, then you can't say that those who oppose it just don't understand it.

      As to abstract terms, "the primacy of individual liberty" takes the cake. Everyone agrees (I think) that it doesn't mean, "I can do any damn thing I want any time and no one ought to be able to stop me"; but short of that, not even libertarians agree on what that entails. I know you're not Catholic, but Catholic thought tends to think of what we're free for, not what we're free from. For the last hundred years, popes have also strong criticized a lot about modern capitalism, too, as you probably know. Not your church, of course; but there it is.

      So I dispensed with the State deciding morally absolute winners and losers and elected instead to practically see that everyone got what they actually needed ("prevalence of accommodation") rather than what might make them feel completely equal or superior to every last member of every other tribe.

      You are mistaken if you think I believe that everyone ought to get "what might make them feel completely equal or superior to every last member of every other tribe." Merely to assert that doesn't make it true.

      In any case, you're more optimistic than I am that your system would indeed lead to a "prevalence of accommodation" that everyone would be happy with and that would fit all their needs. I'm inclined to think it wouldn't go well. You think it'd be the best thing since sliced bread. Until and unless it's actually implemented, though, neither one of us can prove it would work. If it ever is, we'll see; but I hope I don't live to see such a mess.

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    23. FWIW, I point here and here for some of the detailed argumentation that frankly I don't have the time or energy to do here.

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    24. You are mistaken if you think I believe that everyone ought to get "what might make them feel completely equal or superior to every last member of every other tribe." Merely to assert that doesn't make it true.

      I was describing absolutely protected legal classes as they currently exist and function, not what you think.

      Let me conclude by categorically disavowing anything you've written that contains words I wrote. That seems to me the simplest and most comprehensively efficient way to extract any words you've placed in my mouth in error without re-explaining or re-writing everything I just wrote.

      Instead of merely continuing to misunderstand what I wrote in ever increasingly wrong detail, why don't you instead simply supply your point of view on how contemporary problems of competing individual rights, or the continued creation and distribution of sufficient wealth to support continually expanding populations, or anything else should be handled.

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    25. There is and can be no perfect way to solve problems of competing individual rights. I gave an outline of my views on that above, which was quite clear. As to "sufficient wealth to support continually expanding populations", I don't have any views on how that should be handled because it seems to me that there are certain problems (declining energy resources, pollution, increasing overpopulation) that neither capitalism, socialism, or any other "-ism" have given credible solutions for. I'm of a mind with John Michael Greer that over the next couple centuries industrial society as we know it will slowly collapse, no matter what anyone of any political persuasion does. I hope that's wrong, but I'm not very optimistic.

      Anyway, we're clearly talking past each other here, and my intent was not to get into a long and pointless discussion of economics and libertarian social theory. I'll end with a quote from one of the sites I linked to:

      There are roughly 200 nations to which you could emigrate. They are the product of an anarcho-capitalist free market: there is no over-government dictating to those sovereign nations. Indeed, the only difference between the anarchy of nations and libertopia is that anarcho-capitalists are wishing for a smaller granularity. These nations have found that it is most cost-efficient to defend themselves territorially.

      If any other market provided 200 choices, libertarians would declare that the sacred workings of the market blessed whatever choices were offered. The point is that choices do exist: it's up to libertarians to show that there is something wrong with the market of nations in a way they would accept being applied to markets within nations.

      Libertaria is a combination of values that just doesn't exist: the government equivalent of a really posh residence for very little money. You can find nations which have much lower taxes, etc.: just don't expect them to be first class.

      And the reason these combinations don't exist is probably simple: the free market of government services essentially guarantees that there is no such thing as the free lunch libertarians want. It's not competitive.


      If libertarianism is so great, put your money where your mouth is--go out and seastead or something, and prove it. I'm not holding my breath.

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    26. And I know you're not an anarcho-capitalist--I assume you're not, anyway--but I think the basic point still holds.

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    27. If libertarianism is so great, put your money where your mouth is--go out and seastead or something, and prove it. I'm not holding my breath.

      But, Kemetica, I never said I was a Libertarian.

      Thank you for expressing your views on what you believe Libertarianism to be, though, for those Libertarians or those interested in them who may be reading.

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    28. "Libertarian" is a spectrum. You yourself said you were the most (little-l) libertarian here; and your suggestions for accommodation sounded little-l (and a little bit big-L) libertarian in tone. That is, keep the state out as much as possible, eschew protected classes, and let the parties involved find an equilibrium as best they can, with (limited) state involvement (e.g. courts).

      Whatever you want to call your position, until it's actually tried, we won't know if it will work or not. I'm strongly inclined to think not; you think so. Since I think it wouldn't work, I'm opposed; since you think it would, you're in favor. We must agree to disagree and then see if what you suggest does happen, and if so, what the results are.

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  3. In your comments, though, Keith, you seem to show an actual rage at and hatred for him, and even seem to revel in it. I ran across this in a different context, but I think it's worth qutoing:

    To the ears of many, both in the church and out, Christians have collectively become clanging cymbals. We are easily dismissed because we often rip our own kin apart for trivial reasons. Blogs and microphones have become tools of warfare as we beat others down over disputable matters. There’s a place for passionate disagreement. But there’s never a place for dehumanizing rhetoric, straw man arguments, or ad hominem attacks. (boldface in the original)

    What is such a statement as "giant, fraudulent, consuming gullet of a caterpillar, big hole on one end, little hole on the other" if not dehumanizing?

    I'm not disagreeing with the content of your criticisms--as I've said, I think there's a lot of validity there, and a lot I'd agree with. I am also not trying to attack you or to be personal. Rod can be and is assholish as well, and more frequently so as time goes on, it seems. However, I really do think that "speaking truth in the power of the spirit" too often, especially on the internet, gets conflated with a take-no-prisoners approach that is frankly out of bounds for Christians who take their faith seriously. Yes, there is "brand protection" in the "secular business world", as Diane points out--but Chrisians are not free to use all the tools of the secular world, if "Christian" is to mean anything. I think a lot of people who are sympathetic to the criticisms are going to be turned of by the rhetoric.

    More seriously, though, is this: You say that Dreher sets a bad, even false example of what it is to be a Christian, particulartly a traditionalist Christian. But what kind of example is it to non-Christians when Christians "rip their own kin apart", "beat others down over disputable matters", and "dehumanize" each other? If I were a non-Christian reading his blog and this one, I wouldn't want anything to do with either side, frankly. As a Christian--a very sinful and flawed one, as I'm all too aware--I wish both sides would get a grip and act in a more--well, Christian--manner.

    That's my two cents, and the last I have to say here. I'll do my best to pray for Rod and his family and for all of you here and yours. Pax et bonum.

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    1. I don't think anyone would disagree that I'm the least good Christian here. And, personally, in the words of Chris Kyle's father, I'm content to be the half-Christian, half-human sheep dog if that's what it takes to defend against wolves in sheeps' clothing. If I can add to the content of what you understand, that's enough: you, then, can, rather than retreat into prayer, go forth and express things rhetorically better and more effectively than I. Can't you.

      Because the passive-aggressive nature of Dreher's assault and exploitation of his fellow Christians depends on them bringing a potato salad to a knife fight instead of a gun. It depends, while he weasels and dissembles and lies outright, on them hesitating to speak up, on them passively retreating into prayer instead.

      As I said, those who might get the vapors and clutch their pearls at the form in which I express myself aren't interested enough in anything beyond whether I'm "nice" or not anyway, and, believe me, IRL I'm a hell of a lot less nice in what I do for a living than what I write here. But to understand what I write, to get to the point where one is able to decide how "nice" I am or not at least some of the content of what I say will have to be digested, and it will have to be compared to what the reader - like you - themselves have observed and also to what Dreher might be claiming to the contrary. And from there, it's their responsibility to either step up to the plate or bunt.

      I'm not out to seduce an elderly lady in siritual crisis or some put-upon fellow nerd or some timid academic, the types Dreher plays to and exploits. I'm just a mean, junkyard sheep dog, and I bite wolves. That's what I do.

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    2. I should add, if it were somehow not obvious, that in addition to being the only non-Catholic around these parts, certainly among the contributors, I'm also probably politically the most libertarian here. Again, for better or worse.

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    3. [Y}ou, then, can, rather than retreat into prayer, go forth and express things rhetorically better and more effectively than I. Can't you.

      Why yes; yes, I can. And prayer is not a synonym for "retreat"--we're supposed to "pray without ceasing". And for some, retreat is OK--Mary had the "better portion" than Martha.

      If I'm reading you right, you're saying that you are--and take this in the spirit in which it's intended, please--indeed an "asshole for Christ" and that nastiness in the right cause is no vice. I strongly disagree; but I admire that you make no apologies and step up and own it. I can respect that, if not the method. It's kind of the attitude of Douglas Wilson in A Serrated Edge. I don't agree with him, either, but he owns it, too.

      Anyway, I don't get the vapors or clutch pearls, and as I said, I do agree with some of your content. I think you, I, and all of us ought to try to shoot for something higher than the "least good Christian"; but of course all of us fail to one degree or another, and there are certainly beams in my eye, so I'm not in a place to say much.

      Once more I'll pray for everyone on both sides, and hope that all of us can try to live out our vocations as best we can according to whatever lights we are given, and to always be open any inspirations that come (or don't come) our way.

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    4. Well, I think libertarianism is pretty much evil; but then, you'd probably think the same of socialism, so it evens out! ;)

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    5. I think we all lean (small 'l') libertarian at Est Quod Est. Here's a well-written guest post on the topic to review.

      I don't think socialism is evil. Communism is evil. Socialism is merely unworkable in America because of our character. Seems to work good in Canada (knock on maple) which has a resource economy. But they don't have a bill of rights up there; they're all just sort of compliant.

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    6. Well, to the extent I'm libertarian, I support your right to be socialist, or not, or Christian, or not, or gay, or not, as you see fit.

      For anybody who supports those same and other liberties for me and everyone else, I don't care what they are.

      For anybody who doesn't support those same and other liberties for me and everyone else, I don't care what they are. If they try to take them away from me, I will do whatever I have to do to make that not happen.

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    7. I'm likely less libertarian than Keith. I think that government has a role to play in promoting virtue (and discouraging vice), but it ought to do so lightly -- because when it does so, it had better be right and not infringe on actual (not invented) civil rights and liberties.

      Having said that, I'm very "libertarian" when it comes to the federal government. Rick Perry sold me last time around when one of his campaign statements was "I want to make the federal government as inconsequential in your lives as possible." Hear hear.

      Given the omnipresence and (perceived) omnipotence of the nested multi-level bureaucratic state today, we can use a heavy dose of libertarianism. We've got a long way to go before our modern anarcho-tyrannical* society errs by being too libertarian, that's for sure.

      * I forget who coined the term "anarcho-tyranny" (Mark Steyn?) but it fits. The law-abiding are under the thumb of countless rules, laws, and enforcement actions, at the same time that the law-flouting run wild. That's because policing the law-abiding is far less work than policing the criminals.

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  4. Kemetica: I'll ... hope that all of us can try to live out our vocations as best we can according to whatever lights we are given, and to always be open any inspirations that come ... our way.

    You see this statement is one I entirely agree with, and I would suggest that it is the opposite of the whole push toward "big plans" like the so-called Benedict Option. The question I quietly ask myself is "What should I be doing?" The question the Benedict Option breathlessly asks aloud is "What should everybody be doing?"

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    1. would suggest that it is the opposite of the whole push toward "big plans" like the so-called Benedict Option. The question I quietly ask myself is "What should I be doing?" The question the Benedict Option breathlessly asks aloud is "What should everybody be doing?"

      THIS!!! A thousand times this!

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    2. And isn't that Crunchy Con-ism all over again? It's all about telling other people what they should be doing, how *exactly* they should live -- in the most bossy, control-freaky kind of way, like a modern-day Puritan Divine setting the rules for the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

      If you live in the 'burbs, you're a Bad Christian; you should be living in some little funky gentrified urban neighborhood with a farmer's market at every corner. If you buy cheap chicken at Food Lion, you're a Bad Christian; you should be springing for organic free-range birds at Whole Foods (and don't you dare give the excuse that you're too poor to afford that fancy-pants stuff, because you could afford it if you really wanted to!).

      And so on and so forth. Whether it's the Crunchy Lifestyle or the Crunchy Benedictine Religion, it is all about bossing everybody else around. The guy's a textbook-case Control Freak.

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  5. Just want to step in a moment to say I've enjoyed this civil and informative discussion. I mentioned once, when I started reading and occasionally posting here, that I emphatically disagree with most of the political opinions expressed on this blog, but I'm here for the critique of Dreher, so I won't comment on the politics. Politically, I'm likely much more a Kemetica than a Keith, Pik, or Pauli, but I've much appreciated the way all of you have expressed both straight-up honesty and fine hospitality in this conversation.

    Not to mention how this all illustrates once again how ecumenically unifying consternation with Dreher can be. FWIW, I'm Orthodox, as is Rod, but I can't stop cringing when he goes on and on publicly about spiritual matters that are supposed to be kept private between him and his priest. It troubles me that some of his readers who don't know better may come to think that his spiritual exhibitionism is acceptable Orthodox practice. That oversharing is internet culture, not normal Orthodoxy. Speaking of the desacralization of Christian culture . . . ?

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    1. I enjoy your contributions Anon.

      There is a place where I routinely sit and talk about really deep and spiritual matters with people whom I know I differ with politically. You know what it's called? Church. We always go to the coffee/donut socials sponsored by the Social Justice Committee. I get along with everyone there, who knows, maybe they think I see things their way. And truth be told, we probably do see eye-to-eye on many issues.

      There's a guy I know in "real life" who is deeply contrarian. When he's around religious and conservative people he is always trying to scandalize them by eccentric behavior, when he's at a hippie party he is talking like Rush Limbaugh and eating meat he brought to piss of the vegetarians -- yes, that actually happened. But after a few beers the guy settles down and you can have a sensible rap session with him, or a jam session -- he plays several instruments.

      Dreher is like that guy only he never seems to settle down. Or at any rate his writings present himself mostly always at his very worst. So it is a shame that he has set himself up as an expert on Christianity, politics, how to live, how to eat, etc.

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    2. Look at the guy's employment history. After many failed attempts to get along with people at an office he finally has a job where he doesn't have to go in to an office & he gets to phone it in. Can you imagine all the TAC people working in one office? It would be the Purgatorio -- at best.

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    3. Pauli: There's a guy I know in "real life" who is deeply contrarian. When he's around religious and conservative people he is always trying to scandalize them by eccentric behavior, when he's at a hippie party he is talking like Rush Limbaugh and eating meat he brought to piss of the vegetarians -- yes, that actually happened. But after a few beers the guy settles down and you can have a sensible rap session with him, or a jam session -- he plays several instruments.

      Dreher is like that guy only he never seems to settle down.


      Yes, exactly--this. My best friend from college is just like this. Comes off as a total asshole who gets off on pissing off everyone on all sides just because he can; but basically a decent guy, especially one-on-one, especially when he settles down.

      He's also like Rod in that he gets onto really insanely big kicks--science fiction, westerns, guns, weight lifting--and when he's in the throes of a kick, that's all the &#$* he wants to talk about and everything in the whole damned world is about his current kick. Then when it runs its course, it's like "Meh." He's like Mr. Toad in The Wind in the Willows in that way, for those who've read that. Rod is a lot like that.

      You're right that Rod can't seem to settle down. Unlike my friend--who if you nail him to the wall will admit that he goes off on weird kicks--he seems less self-aware. I have the impression that at the ultimate core, he's not evil, but he has more issues than the New York Times; and rather than dealing with said issues, he latches on to whatever his latest kick is because it is the One True Ultimate Fabulous Solution to All His Problems. Which is why he always crashes and is back to it on the Next Ultimate...etc.

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    4. Maybe that's why, for all his faults, I probably go a little easier on him. He really reminds me a lot of my friend; and my friend is an even worse know-it-all, self-righteous asshole in his online persona, believe it or not. There's a human being behind every online jerk, sometimes--as in Rod's case--a very damaged human being. I think the Internet makes it so easy for us to demonize and dehumanize one and other. I know my own faults; and if the Internet had been around when I was younger, I shudder to think how I'd have come off. I always try to work in at least a few prayers even for the online people I interact with who annoy me the most. I don't say that to toot my horn--it's not a fun thing to do, but that means it's all the more important for me.

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    5. There's a human being behind every online jerk

      Very, very true. I run up against this all the time.

      Which is why I say again: I just want him to stop bashing my Church. That's all I ask.

      Well, OK, it would be nice if he would stop bullying people, too. Just because he was bullied himself doesn't mean we have to put up with HIS bullying.

      I once had the Boss from Hell, and I sympathized with whatever made her that way, but that didn't mean it was fun subjecting myself to her soul-numbing, ego-blitzing, manipulative, controlling BULLYING. Sometimes those damaged people are too toxic to deal with, so you just pray for them from a safe distance.

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    6. I just want him to stop bashing my Church.

      I just want Rush Limbaugh to never open his mouth ever again. There are a lot of things a lot of pundits say that I just wish they'd not say. However, I have no control over them. The only control I have is over myself, in terms of whether or not I expose myself to such stuff, and how I let it make me feel. I never, ever listen to Limbaugh, for example, and I don't even read liberal clickbait articles (and I'm liberal myself) about the latest awful thing he said. I hardly even ever think about him.

      I once had the Boss from Hell...but that didn't mean it was fun subjecting myself to her soul-numbing, ego-blitzing, manipulative, controlling BULLYING.

      But you had no choice there. You have a choice to tune out Rod Dreher completely, to not read articles critical of him that will just get you riled up again, to not even think of him. Why flog yourself?

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    7. Anonymous, you're right--"spiritual exhibitionism" and "oversharing" are exactly right. What bothers me is the vibe of "holier than thou" filtered through "humbler than thou": "Oh, I'm so messed up, but I have been given SUCH A RIGOROUS PRAYER ORDER that it's changed my life because Orthodoxy is SO MUCH MORE RIGOROUS THAN ALL THOSE FLABBY LAX PROTS AND CATLICKS and gee whiz everything's rosy now...." I mean, Matthew 6:6, anyone?

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    8. ^Bingo! (to use a Catholic term)

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  6. I think you miss my point. Tuning out the bully does not keep him from bullying. And that hurts other people. Do we not care about our neighbor? ;) Should bullies bully with impunity, unopposed? How does that further the cause of justice?

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    1. There are hundreds of media bullies who hurt people all the time. In the vast majority of cases, they not only are not much affected by opposition, but flourish on it (e.g. Limbaugh or Anne Coulter). Any one person has finite energy and resources, and has to decide how best to budget those. For me, anyway, I think I'm most useful to my family, those in my workplace, and my home and church communities. I don't like that Rush or Coulter gets away with the stuff they do, but I realize there's not much I can do about them, so I have to put my energy elsewhere and not worry about it. We all have to choose our battles, after all. I'm not sure that choosing a battle with Rod Dreher--or Rush Limbaugh or Anne Coulter or whoever--is worth pursuing, really. As always, though, YMMV.

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    2. Oh heavens. Rod Dreher = Rush Limbaugh?? I'm sorry, but give me a break.

      I work for a living, so I do not have the opportunity to listen to Rush. But on those occasions when I have tuned in, I have sometimes agreed with him and sometimes not. But never have I seen him exhibit the sort of insecure bullying behavior Dreher epitomizes. Rush listens to opposing viewpoints, even if he then brusquely refutes them. That's a lot more than can be said for Rod.

      But good grief, how did Limbaugh and Coulter even enter into the discussion here? I thought we were all respecting each other's political viewpoints? And in any case, I personally do not give a flip about Rod's politics. I guess I just don't see the relevance of your objections. WTH?

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    3. Well, pick someone on the other side of the political spectrum whom you find an obnoxious bully and insert his/her name wherever I put "Limbaugh" or "Coulter" and it works as well. (for what it's worth, I don't listen to them, but I never listened to Air America, either; I don't watch Fox or MSNBC). Nothing you or I say is going to affect any of the pundits in question, or any other you can think of. Why waste the energy?

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    4. I could tell you don't listen to Rush Limbaugh by your referring to him as a media bully.

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    5. I actually said I don't listen to him, or any other media types. I am aware of the kind of things he says, such as things discussed here, here, and here, just to give a few off-the-cuff examples. I didn't explicitly call him a bully, but I think that's a fair characterization. However, this is a tangent; I'm not interested in debating Rush Limbaugh's merit, on which I'm sure we have opposite perspectives.

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  7. I put the question to the rest of the house (as Keith has explained his perspective): What does your ideal society look like WRT gays?

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    1. No, Kemetica, I was not explaining a perspective of an ideal society with respect to gays. I was specifically explaining a way to recapture the First Amendment right of free association for all, in the specific context of a contemporary tribal war between gays and conservative Christians, in an environment where that First Amendment right of free association has to date been effectively plowed under and where increasing conflicting identity politics renders the current existing simple remedy of protected legal classes, the ostensible remedy which has in fact done that plowing, increasingly untenable anyway.

      Again, Kemetica, I categorically disavow anything you say about anything I have written here as being my perspective or point of view.

      Now, I still encourage other readers to address Kemetica's question.

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    2. I understand that, but your answer was not an answer to the question I specifically asked.

      Just for the record, you said:

      The new legal standard for accommodation/non-accommodation - really, for free association itself, as mentioned - will be "prevalance of alternative accommodation", legally defined in some manner (percent of commerce) or litigated until it is defined where it might yet not be.

      Thus, if gays (or leering Asshole Monkeys) can find accommodation at A, B, C, D, and E, say, Boardinghouser Grandma Kemetica can effectively raise any reason at all not to associate with the leering Asshole Monkey who keeps following her up and down the B&B stairs and be completely safe legally. This in no way will prevent Boardinghouser Grandma Kemetica from being mercilessly castigated on Twitter, for example, but it would prevent her from being a victim of any other retaliatory crime or harassment.

      Under this system there would be plenty of room for both accommodation - both normally kindly human nature, not to mention market economics will easily generate it - and non-accommodation: people truly willing to stand up for their beliefs are, sadly relatively rare, but they will persist, and in numbers.


      You assert things here: your new legal standard will in fact come about; such a new legal standard would be the most effective in dealing with the issues; market economics would easily generate such a system; and there would be "plenty of accommodation". Any of these assertions may or may not be true. I think not; you think so. Asserting doesn't make it so (including assertions that I lack the slightest clue as to what you're talking about), though (just as, in fairness, denying doesn't make it not so). The only way to know which of is right is to wait and see. If I'm alive by then and it turns out you were right, I'll admit it; and I'd hope the opposite is true as well.

      Meanwhile, I'm not really interested in this particular line of discussion any more. If anyone else in the house wants to address the question I actually asked, I'd like to hear it. If not, that's fine, too. Whatevs.

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