Thursday, October 01, 2015

You have to choose your freedoms

There's a report in today's Herald Sun that the Government is planning to make all religious clerics take out an annual licence. They would face a state registration/training system similar to that applied to school teachers.

Under the plan the state would effectively set the norms (the educational/professional development standards) under which religions would operate.

Here's the thing. It is obvious that the Government is keen to do this to try to rein in the more radical Islamic imams. In the process, though, all churches are being brought further under the sway of the state.

One political point to draw from this is that classical/right liberalism has again failed in its approach. The "freedom" of open borders has led, in practice, to a more intrusive state. In other words, there is a contradiction between the right liberal policy of open borders and the (supposed) right liberal policy of a small and non-intrusive state. You can't have both - you have to choose between them.

My prediction is that right-liberals will choose to become statists.

6 comments:

  1. "Here's the thing. It is obvious that the Government is keen to do this to try to rein in the more radical Islamic imams. In the process, though, all churches are being brought further under the sway of the state."

    It's a product of multiculturalism. The state can't just admit that Muslims are different and need special laws to keep them in line.

    The government has to maintain the facade of being 'unbiased'. So the law must be applied to everyone, non-offending Christians as well as Muslims.

    I agree the right liberals are going to go more statist as well. I think we've seen that globally across the Anglosphere. There's too much vested interest, in business and in politics, in open borders. Though closing them's the only way to preserve a functioning society.

    I think we can expect to see the police states continue to grow, to try to curb the problems. Once that's proven inadequate to contain the situation, I hope we'd see populist uprisings across the Anglosphere, of the kind that seem nascent in Europe. Though by that point in time I fear it will be too late for a wholly peaceful solution to the multicultural crisis.

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    1. Excellent comment Kastle. The liberal state is invested in the idea that we are all interchangeable units within a managerial state. Lawrence Auster used to point out that there are liberals who react to evidence that this is not so by doubling up their efforts to prove that it is:

      "•“The worse any designated minority or alien group behaves in a liberal society, the bigger become the lies of Political Correctness in covering up for that group.”

      •“The more egregiously any non-Western or non-white group behaves, the more evil whites are made to appear for noticing and drawing rational conclusions about that group’s bad behavior.”

      •“Once the equality of all human groups is accepted as a given, any facts that make a minority or foreign group seem worse than the majority native group must be either covered up or blamed on the majority.”

      •“The more illegitimate and dangerous you are, the easier it is for you [to immigrate to the West], and the more legitimate and productive you are, the harder it is for you.”

      There do exist a few right liberals on the margins who are more pragmatic and clear-sighted and who are willing to point out inconvenient truths in order to keep the system going; maybe they will rise to prominence or influence in a crisis.

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  2. In Perth there was a recent mini-furore over Prayer Rooms in hospitals. To cut a long story short, the argument revolved around multi-faith prayer rooms, plus, one (with special requirements) for a Muslim Prayer Room. I read one comment that suggested there are intrinsic characteristics in Islam that justify and warrant this special treatment.

    I would argue, for the fact Muslims require a separate and distinct Prayer Room, this is a very pragmatic demonstration that this religion does not co-exist well with others - unless of course the Muslim community has the weight of numbers for dhimmitude. It is these 'little' things that are indicative of the greater cultural/religious incongruity between Islam and other religions that readily co-exist in a democratic country.

    On a broader scale I see and hear arguments from imams where they utilize democratic freedoms to criticize and justify counter-cultural arguments and demand for rights - halal foods, Islamic Schools, etc. This is where Kastle's comment has merit: "The government has to maintain the facade of being 'unbiased'. So the law must be applied to everyone, non-offending Christians as well as Muslims."

    This 'unbias' politicking from our Government and Bureaucrats presumes moral equivalence in the religious and cultural spheres. History, common-sense, and Current Affairs, paint a very different picture on this notion of 'moral equivalence'.

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    1. "History, common-sense, and Current Affairs, paint a very different picture on this notion of 'moral equivalence'."

      Yes, could hardly be more clear.

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  3. A free society only works as long as a significant majority of the population wants the free society. Even assuming that a majority of the population wants and maintains a free society (arguable at best in Western democracies) any influx of immigrants not raised to support that society and its norms will inevitably destroy the society through voting patterns. This is why open borders is incompatible with a libertarian state, in spite of the libertarian ideal of a free flow of population.

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