Tuesday, November 09, 2004
I went into a bar two nights ago to get some chicken wings. I was on my way home from work. This was a neighborhood bar, a downscale, dart-board, Karaoke, beer-on-draft, T-shirt kind of a place. Everyone was smoking and drinking and I immediately knew that I would be there only as long as it took to get my wings. I took a seat forward of the bar near the Karaoke setup to wait for my order.
The drinking was excessive, and I was being harassed by a drunken mumbling patron who was trying to make conversation with me as I sat watching the wailing Karaoke singers wreak havoc on the music culture. Suddenly I had this vision of American freedom as I sat there. Our system enables this kind of freedom. Our system encourages the sale and use of alcohol and cigarettes. This was not the first time since my the onset of my sobriety that I have been able to recognize the deep and profound level of social destruction that substance use/abuse engenders. This was truly a place where I would have to "shake the dust off my sandals" after I left.
It is no wonder why Arab nations are struggling to build Islamic republics which ban such activities, including (God forbid) music. I am not in favor of this, but I understand it. "Freedom" can bring on this kind of social dissolution, immorality, cheating, drunkenness, gambling, etc. that we find so entertaining over here. The Muslims have issues against "freedom" and these issues possess a degree of validity, I think. At any rate, they should be "free" to determine the moral character of their own country and not have to pander to West just because we have the military force capable of overpowering them with death and destruction if they refuse to accept our "gift" of freedom.
When I considered Christian freedom during my Divinity School days, I thought this way: We are free to choose to follow or reject God. Freedom to choose God means freedom to accept the "blessed tyranny" that comes with the package. It means that you are free to either live your life willy-nilly without God or any observance of legislated morality, or choose God and decide to live according to His law. In God's law, there is no freedom to live as one chooses. Christians are yoked (through a "loving" relationship with God) to a narrow morality very similar to Islam. Their existence in a free secular society, however, encourages them to redefine and re-invent their concept of Christian morality to include behaviors that some Muslims find appalling.
The very freedom that we are said to be fighting for in Iraq is the same poison that is enabling the dissolution of our society. It helps to create the same affect that Christians describe as sin. We are free to live as we choose, but not enough of us embrace the degree of responsibility and self-management that needs to accompany such freedom. Many Muslims don't like what they see in our world and blame it on our attitude about personal freedoms.
What about guidance? What about legislated morality? I don't believe in legislated morality, but many Muslims do and all they want is the freedom to enact their own forms of government in a quest to assure morality and control of self. If what that takes is Imams, Princes, Dictators, and Sheiks, then so be it. That is their history. That is their culture. We have Priests, Rabbis, Potentates, Elders, Reverends, and the like fomenting evangelistic influence upon our elected leaders as well as the constituency that elects them. If our "freedom" is so great and desirable, then why do we have to bomb it into their throats and declare it with their blood?
Finally, I should point out that my understanding of freedom in America is that we are able to choose our leaders. We are able to reject our government through free elections. I think the idea of living anyway you want to live is distorted from the principle of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. This comes with a commitment to responsibility which is often neglected in the way some people live their lives. I understand the concept of supporting these elected governments, but there is a limit. The following excerpts are from our beloved Declaration of Independence:
“to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
“when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
Here are some excerpts from the grievances named in that same document directed against the British Crown:
“For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us”
“For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States”:
“He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.”
Now George Bush has quartered large bodies of troops among the Iraqis. He has plundered their seas, ravaged their coasts, burnt their towns, and destroyed the lives of their people. I don't even have to paraphrase the Declaration here. I'll just repeat it verbatum:
“He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized” nation.
For these and other grievances, the colonists formed a band of "insurgents" who hid behind rocks and trees, sniping at the British, and committing acts of what could be described as terrorism in defense of their fledgling nation. We must remember our roots. We must respect other nations and their will to self-govern. We must depart from Iraq.
Robert Hamilton 11-9-2004
The drinking was excessive, and I was being harassed by a drunken mumbling patron who was trying to make conversation with me as I sat watching the wailing Karaoke singers wreak havoc on the music culture. Suddenly I had this vision of American freedom as I sat there. Our system enables this kind of freedom. Our system encourages the sale and use of alcohol and cigarettes. This was not the first time since my the onset of my sobriety that I have been able to recognize the deep and profound level of social destruction that substance use/abuse engenders. This was truly a place where I would have to "shake the dust off my sandals" after I left.
It is no wonder why Arab nations are struggling to build Islamic republics which ban such activities, including (God forbid) music. I am not in favor of this, but I understand it. "Freedom" can bring on this kind of social dissolution, immorality, cheating, drunkenness, gambling, etc. that we find so entertaining over here. The Muslims have issues against "freedom" and these issues possess a degree of validity, I think. At any rate, they should be "free" to determine the moral character of their own country and not have to pander to West just because we have the military force capable of overpowering them with death and destruction if they refuse to accept our "gift" of freedom.
When I considered Christian freedom during my Divinity School days, I thought this way: We are free to choose to follow or reject God. Freedom to choose God means freedom to accept the "blessed tyranny" that comes with the package. It means that you are free to either live your life willy-nilly without God or any observance of legislated morality, or choose God and decide to live according to His law. In God's law, there is no freedom to live as one chooses. Christians are yoked (through a "loving" relationship with God) to a narrow morality very similar to Islam. Their existence in a free secular society, however, encourages them to redefine and re-invent their concept of Christian morality to include behaviors that some Muslims find appalling.
The very freedom that we are said to be fighting for in Iraq is the same poison that is enabling the dissolution of our society. It helps to create the same affect that Christians describe as sin. We are free to live as we choose, but not enough of us embrace the degree of responsibility and self-management that needs to accompany such freedom. Many Muslims don't like what they see in our world and blame it on our attitude about personal freedoms.
What about guidance? What about legislated morality? I don't believe in legislated morality, but many Muslims do and all they want is the freedom to enact their own forms of government in a quest to assure morality and control of self. If what that takes is Imams, Princes, Dictators, and Sheiks, then so be it. That is their history. That is their culture. We have Priests, Rabbis, Potentates, Elders, Reverends, and the like fomenting evangelistic influence upon our elected leaders as well as the constituency that elects them. If our "freedom" is so great and desirable, then why do we have to bomb it into their throats and declare it with their blood?
Finally, I should point out that my understanding of freedom in America is that we are able to choose our leaders. We are able to reject our government through free elections. I think the idea of living anyway you want to live is distorted from the principle of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. This comes with a commitment to responsibility which is often neglected in the way some people live their lives. I understand the concept of supporting these elected governments, but there is a limit. The following excerpts are from our beloved Declaration of Independence:
“to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
“when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
Here are some excerpts from the grievances named in that same document directed against the British Crown:
“For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us”
“For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States”:
“He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.”
Now George Bush has quartered large bodies of troops among the Iraqis. He has plundered their seas, ravaged their coasts, burnt their towns, and destroyed the lives of their people. I don't even have to paraphrase the Declaration here. I'll just repeat it verbatum:
“He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized” nation.
For these and other grievances, the colonists formed a band of "insurgents" who hid behind rocks and trees, sniping at the British, and committing acts of what could be described as terrorism in defense of their fledgling nation. We must remember our roots. We must respect other nations and their will to self-govern. We must depart from Iraq.
Robert Hamilton 11-9-2004
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