Week of 12/18/2000

Target: Moralism
Part 5 - The Expert Game
- by David Matthews 2

"The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it." - H.L. Mencken

During the highly publicized sexual harassment lawsuit by Paula Jones against President Bill Clinton, Clinton sympathizer and head cheerleader James Carville likened the suit to dragging a twenty dollar bill across a trailer park and seeing who would take it. The comment was understandably criticized as being crude and insensitive, especially after liberals spent all that time trying to make the issue of sexual harassment a serious social problem. Carville’s comment was a cheap shot, and completely unrealistic. Just ask anyone who worked with daytime talk shows.. it takes more than just a twenty-dollar bill to bring out the trailer park residents. It often takes airfare, hotel rooms, and television exposure.

The point is that many people have a price they’re willing to pay that they would otherwise not want to just to get exposure. For some people, it’s getting into a cat fight on the Jerry Springer show. For other people it’s doing a string of lame-ass sitcoms until they find the right motion picture.

And for some people, it’s putting your name on a study or a law that would otherwise make them look like fools… all to get some exposure.

Once upon a time, the moralists who lorded over the people didn’t need any justification for their actions. It was the mere fact that they were who they were that gave them justification. You hear that today with several Christians who proudly proclaim "THE BIBLE says it, I believe it, case closed!" There is no other justification needed for them. That’s it. Leaders back then were considered accountable to nobody except to themselves and to God, so they had essentially unlimited power.

Unfortunately for the self-righteous among us, today’s movers and shakers no longer have that absolute power to play around with. They need justification for their actions, and this time something more substantial than that parental retort of "because I told you so".

Ideology is often not enough. A nation that is founded on ideals of freedom and liberty require something a little more substantial to break away from those ideals. You can’t promote censorship to a land founded on the notion of free speech, unless you give people a reason to set aside that idea.

That’s where the "experts" come in. Doctors, researchers, scientists, criminologists, all out there with one purpose - to try to give credibility even to the most ludicrous of laws and ordinances.

Case in point: the Montgomery County Council in Maryland recently approved a local resolution to ban all smoking in outdoor areas maintained by local government. This is not just a ban on smoking in buildings.. this is a ban on ALL outdoor areas. Parks, sidewalks, streets, schools, public parking lots.. anyplace "maintained by local government" would be designated non-smoking areas.

This whopper of an anti-smoking ordinance was spearheaded by a doctor by the name of Al Muller, who claimed that the ordinance would protect people with health problems. It should also be noted that Dr. Muller is also the mayor of Friendship Heights, the town that the ordinance will take effect in.

Now let’s get brutally honest here… where’s the health problem? We’re talking about open spaces here! How about some facts here to back up your claim, doc? Perhaps the good doctor could cite some actual cases where someone with asthma or allergies suffered breathing difficulties because someone was smoking a cigarette a hundred feet away in a park.

What is really annoying about the passage of this ordinance was not that it wasn’t based on any reasonable facts, but that county commissioners simply passed it to respect the "wishes" of the town leaders. In fact, several county commissioners said that it WAS a bad ordinance, but they passed it anyways because they didn’t want people to question the "spirit" of their laws.

Insane, isn’t it? But that’s good old-fashioned moralism for you! Even the most pathetic of rationalizations get instant gratification simply because it supports a law or ordinance!

Here’s another example: The Tampa City Council, in their effort to shut down strip clubs, banned lap dancing and required that dancers stay at least six feet from any patron. An expectation as unrealistic as the rationality behind the ban. The so-called "expert" was the local health inspector, who claimed that the ban would eliminate the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

Uh, excuse me Doctor Quack, but could you set aside your framed diploma from Cracker Jack Medical University for a second and explain how sexually transmitted diseases could be spread if one person is clothed and there is no genital-to-genital contact?

Of course, nobody questions the "experts" as long as they’re for the government. That’s the biggest problem when confronting moralists. So-called expert opinion is simply accepted and taken as gospel as long as it supports whatever legislation moralists want enacted.

And for the expert, there is a reward for their endorsement of a risky piece of legislation. That reward is credibility. No matter how eccentric the reason, and no matter how flawed the legislation, the "expert" opinion is rarely questioned, and used quite often for other such legislation. Moralists have used studies as old as thirty years past to enforce new legislation today. They use it because they know that nobody will question it.

That has to change. If we are to confront moralism and restore individual freedom and individual responsibility, we have to attack the credibility of the moralists.. and that means attacking the experts themselves. Especially if it involves some of the more asinine laws like those in Montgomery County. If rights are going to be made null and void, if people are going to risk fines and a possible loss of freedom, there had damn well be some pretty solid reasons behind them. If not, that action should be shut down immediately, and the people behind them should be held liable for any damages or loss of property or freedom incurred.

Look, not everyone who works lame sitcoms become the next Tom Hanks or the next Jim Carey. Not everyone who appears on the Jerry Springer Show deserve to have their 15 minutes of fame. There is a level of risk involved with those things. There needs to be risk in government as well. Risk for the moralists, and also those who support the moralists in their efforts to destroy freedom for the sake of their own egos.

Week of 03/20/2000

Target: Moralism - Part 4
Confronting Moralism
- by David Matthews 2

"In any free society, the conflict between social conformity and individual liberty is permanent, unresolvable, and necessary." - Kathleen Norris

There is a scene in the Brian De Palma movie "The Untouchables" where Sean Connery’s character asks Kevin Cosner’s Elliot Ness just how bad he wants to get Al Capone. Ness replies "I’ll do everything under the law to bring him down."

Connery’s street cop character nods and then asks "And THEN how far would you go?"

When Ness didn’t understand, Connery explained how things were done in Chicago.

"He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He puts three of your men in the hospital, you put three of his in the morgue. THAT’S the Chicago way!"

Of course, Ness is hesitant about going that far. He still had principles and values that he respected. But he eventually realized that the people he was fighting against didn’t have such principles and values. They did whatever they had to do to get the job done. No boundary was off-limits to them. By the end of the movie, Ness realized that the only way to beat Capone was to fight "the Chicago way."

If only things were that simple when confronting a moralist. I really don’t think there would be a problem with moralism if things were on such an even playing field.

Unfortunately, moralists prefer not to involve themselves in such actions. They’re instigators, not participants. They would much rather hide behind the shield of more powerful thugs - namely government. They are lazy, cowardly tyrants who would much rather influence people by force than through the strengths of their arguments. And although they consider themselves to be the Elliot Nesses of this endless struggle for dominance, in action, attitude, and principle, moralists are no better than Al Capone. Or perhaps even worse, because at least Capone was willing to take matters into his own hands when he had to.

So how do you fight that?

Well, let’s get brutally honest here… you can’t fight moralism the way it has been fought. Moralists have always been on the offensive; pushing, shoving, and insisting that government heed their will. They are constantly pushing government officials to enforce antiquated laws, write new laws, and rewrite laws that have been ruled unconstitutional. The people fighting moralism have been forced to fight a defensive war, fighting for every legal inch of freedom, desperately trying to maintain the status quo.

Moralists do not play to win. They play for keeps. One law gets struck down, they get that law re-written and passed all over again. If a judge rules against them, they do everything in their power to replace that judge with one that is more sympathetic to their causes. Same holds true with politicians. If a mayor or council member doesn’t do their bidding, moralists work to replace that elected official. They continue to fight, because they know that it is a battle of attrition, not how many battles are won.

The first way, then, to fight moralism is to change tactics. It is no longer acceptable to play to win, as it has been in the past. If one really wants to fight the scourge of moralism, one has to be just as active as they are.

In other words, it’s time to fight this fight "the Chicago way."

By that, I don’t mean through violence, although some extreme moralists have advocated that route. What I mean is to fight the fight on the level of the moralist. To be passionate and spirited about not letting some dysfunctional thug dictate how things must be in the community. They must be prepared to fight not just one battle, or two, or three, but a struggle that continues until their opponent drops.

Moralists have several weaknesses. The first is the truth. As demonstrated in the past, moralists often rely on unsubstantiated rumors, innuendoes, idle speculations, superstitions, and sometimes outright lies to get the public’s attention. Unfortunately, it often takes time to gather real facts, which is often why moralists don’t rely on them. Timing is everything to them, and the same must apply to those who are fighting moralism.

If you are going to take on a moralist and win, you must respond to their accusations immediately. Don’t wait and formulate what you are going to say later. Don’t wait to gather facts. Take the moralists to task immediately and demand proof. If they can’t provide it, then be quick to paint them as the unreliable liars they are.

If by chance the moralists have proof, question it. Question everything about it; who provided it, when was it provided, how relevant is it to this instance, how did they come to their conclusions. Be skeptical of their information, and make others skeptical of it as well. Don’t ever let it be accepted as fact until you are able to counter it with your own information.

As I stated earlier, moralists love to be instigators. They love to hide behind the shield of government and let politicians do their dirty work. So to counter moralism, one must be willing to remove that shield. Make the battle personal. Do not let the battle be "The Government versus you", but rather make it "the moralists versus you". Find out which group is behind the latest outrage, and name names. Make the government’s role in the issue nothing more than the puppets they are, and show that what is being done is not "the will of the people" but rather the will of a group of elitists.

It also wouldn’t hurt to create your own political organization to rally against the moralists. Moralists use this tactic all the time. Some group called "Mothers Against Offensive Things" sounds a little more important to a politician than simply a gaggle of pissed off housewives with time on their hands and a collective chip on their shoulders. Likewise, a group called "Parents For Free Speech" sounds more respectable than a group of swingers trying to keep the local adults-only club open.

The next step is hard, but one that must be done if you are to truly win out against the moralists. You must become politically active, not just on the national level, but on a local level as well. Be aware of who is running for office, and what their stances are on issues that affect you. Pay attention not just to the city council and mayor’s races, but also to the local zoning board, school board, and library commission. You would be surprised how such branches of government would have an effect on the community. Being active in local politics lets the moralists know that you will not let them run roughshod over your life or your livelihood. Not now, not ever.

Fighting off this evil called moralism not an impossible task. The community of Holland, Michigan, recently fought off the scourge of moralism as it pertained to their regional library system. The various special interest groups both local and national managed to get a resolution placed in that state’s primary election that would force the regional library system to install filtering software on all of their Internet-active computers. The moralists thought this would be a no-brainer vote, especially since they pulled out all of their usual scare tactics. In the end, however, the voters shot down the resolution.

How was this done? How could a conservative community like Holland strike down what many thought would be a no-brainer? Simple. The people who fought for freedom and real personal responsibility did it by playing the same game as the moralists. They formed their own local political group. They took advantage of the fact that those who were pushing for those filters were being sponsored by several national organizations, and they argued that a group of outsiders were going to tell the people of Holland how to live their lives. They matched information and spin, questioned the arguments made by these pro-censorship groups, and urged people to get out there and vote.

And therein lies the real solution to fighting moralism. It doesn’t come from letters to the editor or lawsuits, even though those have been the only traditional recourse. The real solution lies in perseverance and persistence. It is getting your arguments out there, making your own voice large, while making the moralist’s voice small. It means stop being a passive observer in how government operates, and getting involved if for no other reason than for your own well-being. It means staying in there, fighting the fight, and not letting up until the other side falls.

Here endeth the lesson.

Week of 11/29/1999

Target: Moralism - Part 3
Lying Is Par When Moralism Is Involved
- by David Matthews 2

At 8am, police officers, federal agents, and several vans surrounded the Gold Club of Atlanta. The news first hit traffic reporters and morning radio shows before the traditional news services started reporting what was going on. But by nightfall, the local news stations were quickly making up for lost time with plenty of allegations and speculations of what federal authorities MIGHT have been doing in the adult strip club.

Months later, the allegations became indictments, and the owner, several managers, and two former Atlanta police officers were charged with a variety of crimes, including credit card fraud and racketeering. They even inferred that professional athletes were given preferential treatment and even dancers who were paid for their time and "free sex".

But the media in this land of rampant hypocrisy was not satisfied with those allegations. They wanted more. So they got hold of a copy of the search warrant, where all the allegations were made by federal agents to authorize a search, and that’s where they hit gold. Claims by "informants" of rampant sex and drug use in the private rooms of the club. Claims that could not be substantiated for a criminal indictment, but were more than enough to conveniently leak to the media in order to demonize this nightclub and give any possible juror enough prejudicial information to side with the government. Also more than enough to cause Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell to use his "emergency powers" to suspend the club’s liquor license.

Rather damned convenient for the federal government and the City of Atlanta to be so open with those warrants. Apparently the notion of a person being considered "innocent until proven guilty" doesn’t apply here. Then again, these are the same two government bodies that did such a phenomenal job of protecting Richard Jewell’s rights when he was wrongly suspected of being the Olympic park bomber in 1996.

Fortunately, those with working brains questioned the City of Atlanta’s allegations and demanded proof that criminal activity was still going on at the club. The city couldn’t prove it, so a county judge said Mayor Bill Campbell exceeded his authority and let the club resume serving alcohol until a formal hearing of the Licensing Review Board.

A typical reaction from an elected official who put the "jerk" in "knee-jerk"? Just another day in the office of a political thug? Perhaps.

Meanwhile, in a neighboring state, the City Council of Tampa, Florida, is considering a ban on "lap dances" - where a nude dancer can have full contact with a clothed customer. The city already banned the sale of alcohol in these clubs, and with a six-foot "no contact" ban being considered, it could very well force the closing of the few remaining clubs.

Supporters of the ban say that lap dances "promote prostitution" and the transmission of diseases.

Transmission of diseases? If one party is fully clothed, and there is no genital-to-genital contact, HOW IN THE WORLD is that possible?

One has to wonder what kind of demented, wacko physician would be willing to stake his career simply to support that kind of allegation. No doubt someone who still believes that all the world’s ailments can be solved with leaches.

Of course, it should be noted that the person making the allegation that strippers somehow transmit diseases by mere physical contact is a LAWYER, not a doctor. Probably the same kind of lawyer that steps on a crack and complains he suddenly developed whiplash.

I hope you’re noticing the trend.. unsubstantiated allegations to support some kind of moralistic action. In both cases, the credible facts are somewhat lacking.

Now let’s get brutally honest here.. when it comes to moralism, ANYTHING is fair game. Real facts, if one can find them, are nice, but a moralist is never above using rumors, distortions, superstitions, absurd speculations, false allegations, and outright LIES to get what they want.

One has to remember that moralism itself is based on a lie. After all, a moralist wants everyone else to believe that THEIR vision of the world is the absolute, unquestionable, vision of how things must be. Image and illusion is everything to a moralist, so the seeds of denial are already a part of their lives. What’s one more lie to them?

When Congress passed the Communications Decency Act as part of the Telecommunications Deregulation Act of 1996, it was mostly based on a research study by Martin Rimm, who was then an undergraduate of the Carnegie Melon University. Rimm’s study suggested that over eighty percent of the Internet contained sexually-explicit material, even though the study’s own notes stated that their search was confined to the most sexually explicit areas of the Internet.

Rimm’s study was not only questioned and criticized by many more credible net-savvy researchers, but even the university and Rimm’s own advisors quickly distanced themselves from the report. But by then it was too late.. the damage was already done. Time magazine had their cover story, moralists had their PR ammunition, and Congress had their excuse to step in and violate the US Constitution yet again.

Remember all those allegations that you can catch AIDS from drinking fountains and toilet seats? Guess who started those nasty rumors? You guessed it! Moralists who wanted to use the issue to isolate those with AIDS from the periphery of their world. They preyed upon the fears and ignorance of other parents to railroad their views into becoming law.

The name of the game for moralists is to frighten, intimidate, and browbeat others into doing their bidding. Like obsessed stalkers, moralists prey on your fears. They eat away at your defenses, doing everything in their power to make you feel weak and afraid, to make you dependant on others to tell you how to live your life.

Moralists also use deceptions and lies to demonize that which they abhor. That’s where the media comes in. The members of the media live for headlines and things that get the attention of the general public. That’s why they prey on issues involving sex, violence, and scandal. They prey on our most imbedded forms of dysfunction.

In the play "The Flies" by Jean-Paul Sartre, the Greek god Zeus tells King Ægistheus of a deep, dark secret: "The bane of gods and kings. The bitterness of knowing that men are free…. But your subjects do not know it, and you do."

And that is also the terrible truth about moralists as well. They too know that men and women are free, but most do not know it. It is their need to make others dependant on them that motivates the moralist to act. And for that, they will utilize every trick possible.

For a moralist, the truth is their worst enemy. It was the truth of how the Internet works that defeated the Communications Decency Act. It was the truth that helped stem the wave of discrimination against those with AIDS. And it has been the truth that is slowly helping break the dysfunctional views we have about sex.

But the truth does not come quickly, which is why moralists are always quick with their attack. Those that pretend to be like gods must act quickly, because once the truth comes out, they have no control over it.

Or as Zeus said it best in "The Flies": "Once freedom lights its beacon in a man’s heart, the gods are powerless against him. It is a matter between man and man, and for them only, to let him go his gait, or to throttle him."

Week of 08/30/1999

Target: Moralism - Part 2
The "Tin Drum" case
- by David Matthews 2

"The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic." - H.L. Mencken

In 1997 a band of pathetically hypersensitive moralists in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, went to the city’s district attorney’s office and demanded a movie be deemed obscene. The movie in question was the 1978 German film "The Tin Drum" - which got an academy award for best foreign film. The film was about a man who could not physically age beyond that of a child, and who could only protest the actions of Nazi Germany by shouting and banging on a tin drum. The moralists however got upset at a scene where the character supposedly was intimate with a woman.. even though nothing even remotely explicit was shown, only inferred.

So the district attorney took this one scene to a local judge, who - without reviewing the rest of the movie - deemed the movie itself to be obscene. Mind you, the legal definition about obscenity demands that the material in question has to be taken IN ITS ENTIRITY! You would think that a judge would know that, right?

But armed with this clueless judge’s declaration of obscenity, the moralists then had the police storm the video stores, seizing any and all copies of the video. Then they went further. They intimidated the video store managers into surrendering the list of people who rented the movie, then the police stormed their houses, threatening and intimidating people into surrendering those videos.

So you think moralists won? Well… not entirely.

You see, one of those people whom the police acted like the Nazi stormtroopers in the movie towards was Michael Camfield, who was also a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union. He appealed the judge’s ruling that the movie was obscene, and a federal judge ruled that the local judge was wrong.

Furthermore, the judge ruled that the OKC police - in their zeal to appease the self-centered interests of the dysfunctional elite - violated a federal law that says that information about video rentals is private and can not be surrendered without a specific court order. And indeed a jury in Oklahoma City has ruled that three members of the city’s finest did violate the Federal Video Privacy Act. (The law, ironically, was written after the confirmation hearings of John Tower, when Democrats were able to go through his video rentals as an excuse to block his being named Secretary of Defense.)

Case closed? Justice served? Not yet, and probably not ever, because there is one group of people who are getting away with a heinous crime - and that’s the moralists who started this in the first place! The so-called "Oklahomans for Children And Families" who pushed for this anti-American censorship will be walking away from this mess without one shred of retribution!

Let’s get brutally honest here… That’s why moralists are so dangerous to America - because they are considered to be untouchable! Moralist groups can go to any prosecutor or police chief and demand their will be done, and usually if they have enough political stroke, they can do it. But when the action is clearly in the wrong, the people responsible for starting the trouble escape any kind of justice.

Now let’s say you are one of the video store owners in Oklahoma City whom were visited up on by the police. The police have stormed your business, seized your property, and threatened and intimidated you into giving up your list of renters so they can be equally threatened and intimidated, and possibly even arrested. No doubt this whole fiasco was done in the presence of the local media, because both the police and the moralists LOVE to have their handiwork show up on the 6 o’clock news. And even if they don’t make the nightly news, no doubt the morning papers will have the store names and street addresses listed. That’s not good for your business.

Now, all of a sudden, a federal judge says the police made a mistake. They shouldn’t have stormed your business, seized your property, intimidated you into giving up your renters, and drag your name in front of the press like a child molester. Just a mistake. Sorry! No hard feelings, right?

Who do you go after for justice? You can sue the police and the city, but all you’ll get if you’re lucky is monetary damages. The police officers themselves can’t be touched. They claim all they were doing was following orders. The district attorney who pushed the effort to the judge and to the police can’t be touched. He or she was only following a complaint by "the public." The judge who initially ruled the material obscene can’t be touched because he was simply "doing his job." Each of these groups claim this outdated legal notion of "sovereign immunity." It’s not their fault, they’re just doing the work of "the people."

And the moralists? Well you certainly can’t touch them because they weren’t the ones who told the police to storm the video stores and to harass you. All they did was "file a complaint."

So what do you do? You’ve got your name wrongly dragged through the mud. People don’t want rent videos from you for fear that their choice could mean a visit by the police. You don’t even know if your property (the videos) can be returned, and usually the only way it can be is if you file a lawsuit, which means more money lost to attorneys. You could very well lose your business over this. Meanwhile, the police officers responsible still have their jobs and their pensions. The DA still has his or her job and pension. The judge still has his job and pension. And the moralists responsible go about their lives absolutely guilt-free!

Let’s face it, there is no justice here. The true villains in this case - Oklahomans for Children and Families - walk away unscathed with their money, their freedom, and their self-righteous indignation intact.

And people wonder just what happened to the notion of personal responsibility?

There is an easy fix to this - eliminate the sovereign immunity defense. Agents of the government (that includes the police, prosecutors, and judges) make decisions that affect the lives and freedoms of individuals. As long as the government can claim they are only doing what the will of "the people" dictate - as they do now - then only the most blatant and egregious cases of abuse of power by government is prosecuted. Agents of government should be held to the same kind of responsibility as those they claim to govern.

What do you think would have happened in Oklahoma City if the notion of sovereign immunity was removed? Well, for starters, the district attorney’s office probably would have been a little more cautious about hearing a complaint about a film like "The Tin Drum." The judge who ruled the movie obscene probably would have taken a little more time to review the federal standard of obscenity and taken the film in its entirety instead of just judging that one questionable segment. And the police probably would not have made a big production out of going after the video stores and public libraries, never mind violating a federal law to go after video renters in their homes. Each of them would know that if they were wrong, they themselves would have to face some kind of retribution, either in civil court or possibly in criminal court.

It would also hinder a very powerful weapon the moralists are able to exploit on a regular basis. If the "Oklahomans for Children and Families" tried to get rid of "The Tin Drum" themselves, they could be sued, forcing them to lose money, property, and possibly even their freedom. Instead, they get government to do it for them. No risk on their part, or on the part of their new whipping boys.

Eliminating the notion of "sovereign immunity" puts risk back into government, because right now there is none. Legislators can currently pass a law that tramples on your rights, give police the power to seize your property, and have you arrested and thrown in jail. Even if that law is thrown out in court, legislators can simply rewrite that law, maybe change a few words here and there, and have the whole process repeat itself over and over again. Oh sure you can sue the government, but the legislators themselves can’t be touched. There’s no risk for them if they’re in the wrong. They still have their property, their money, and their freedom, while they conspire to take yours away.

And what is your recourse? Vote them out? No big loss for them, because they still have their pensions. Sue them? If you’re lucky, you’ll get monetary damages, but it will come from the very taxes you pay! No risk off the backs of those in government, because its not their money involved.

But without that shield of "sovereign immunity" to protect them, legislators and other agents of government would have to think twice. If you were a legislator, would you be willing to pass a law that restricts rights and freedoms of the people simply to appease a few dysfunctional moralists, knowing that if you were in the wrong YOU could lose your house, your property, and the shirt off your back? Would it be worth the risk, just for people who risk nothing themselves? I didn’t think so.

Without the instrument of force at their disposal, moralists are nothing more than disgruntled members of society, no better than the rest of us. Without government at their beck and call, moralists will have to do what the rest of us functional human being do when faced with something that disturbs our idealistic view of the world - they’ll have to deal with it.

Week of 08/16/1999

Target: Moralism
The Last Great Evil In America
- by David Matthews 2

Los Angles, California - Buford Furrow is arrested and charged with the murder of a mailman and the shooting of a Jewish day care center in a move that FBI officials say was "a wake-up call for Americans to kill Jews."

Topeka, Kansas - The Kansas Board of Education voted to remove the theory of evolution from the state’s science curriculum. The decision opens the door for local school boards to re-introduce the Judeo-Christian creationist theory in schools.

Atlanta, Georgia - The Georgia State Board of Education holds hearings to decide whether or not to allow Bible study classes in the state’s schools, even though such a decision would fly in the face of the notion of separation of church and state.

McKee, Kentucky - Jackson County school officials allowed the posting of the Judeo-Christian Ten Commandments in every classroom, even though the US Supreme Court ruled in 1980 that doing so would be a blatant violation of the separation of church and state.

Detroit, Michigan - Timothy Boomer was convicted on June 11^th of violating the state’s 102-year old law that prohibits one from using "indecent, immoral, obscene, vulgar, or insulting language in the presence or hearing of any .. child." Boomer was convicted of loudly cursing after falling from his canoe on the Rifle River. The arresting officer said that the language was loud, prolonged, and abusive, even though several of the witnesses said Boomer cursed only mildly and that they did not think it was inappropriate to the situation. An appeal was immediately filed.

The above incidents are recent examples of what could be considered the greatest threat to freedom and liberty in America - moralism.

Brutally Honest readers have heard a lot about moralism and moralists, but never have we really looked at what is moralism, and why it is such a danger to freedom.

First of all, let’s go over what moralism is because too many people equate moralism with morality. Simply having morals does not make one a moralist, any more than simply being male would make one a sexist, or being white would make one a bigot.

Morals are personal, individual rules we set ourselves. They determine how we are going to live our lives. We develop our morals from a variety of sources, but most predominantly from our parents and our friends.

Moralism, then, is a form of discrimination, much like racism and sexism are forms of discrimination. Much like racism is the belief that a particular race of humans are superior over all others; and sexism is the belief that one gender is superior over the other; moralism is the belief that one’s morals are superior over all others. And not just superior.. but in most instances, absolute and without question.

Moralism operates out of pure arrogance. The arrogance of believing your personal morality is universal is very strong, and very seductive. We all consider ourselves to be the protagonist in our own life stories. We always believe ourselves to be in the right, and only think about our actions or stances as being wrong afterwards. Add to that having a few other people who think like you do, and it’s easy to fall down the path of moralism.

Moralism also operates out of mental insecurity. It’s not enough to simply believe something is right or wrong, or to have friends and family members who believe the same thing. They need to have everything around them reflect their beliefs. They need to be able to drive down the street and have it reflect their beliefs. They need to turn on the television set and have programming that reflect what they believe to be right. They need to turn on the radio and listen to music that they approve of, or go to the record store and see music that they would approve of. They need to have every aspect of the world validate their beliefs, because to do so otherwise might make them doubt the validity of what they believe in.

Nothing is more infuriating to the moralist than to see or hear about something that is different than what they perceive the world should be. Look at all the so-called "family values" crusaders out there, railing about at the world because its not what they deem to be "safe" for children. Despite their insistence that this is a "recent" phenomenon, the cold, hard truth is that there have been so-called "family values" crusaders for centuries now! The only thing that has changed are the names of the moralists. Yesterday’s Thomas Bowlder, who rallied against the works of William Shakespeare back in 1818, is today’s Pat Robertson, who rallies against the evils of Marilyn Manson. Neither have made the world any safer for children, but certainly have made their respective communities less freer because of their dysfunction.

And yes, moralism is a destructive form of dysfunction, because instead of concerning themselves with their own lives and that of their children, moralists wrap themselves around the concerns of other people. They pretend to themselves and to everyone else that what they are doing is for the sake of society, and they presume to speak on behalf of everyone else, but in reality all they are doing is speaking for themselves, and acting only on their own best interests.

That is what drives moralists to government, because as individuals, moralists can only do so much. But with the force of government, moralists can spread their devastation to all stretches of land, with very little risk to themselves. It’s a win-win situation for moralists when they get government to do their bidding, because there is no way it can really come back to hurt them.

There is a saying that one cannot legislate morality, and that is in part true. One cannot legislate what another person deems to be their personal values. However, one can legislate moralism, and that has been going on for countless centuries.

Let’s get brutally honest here… The assumption that all laws are moral laws is simply pure arrogance. The state laws against speeding are not written because of some morals code, rather it comes from some bureaucracy determining how fast someone can drive on that road without getting into an accident. The same goes for helmet laws for motorcycles, and for laws pertaining to the financial markets.

Some laws and regulations are written not for safety or concern for the well-being of others, but to maintain power. The laws governing cable television are the best example of the notion of maintaining power. In the 1980’s, Congress and the Reagan Administration enacted laws that prohibited satellite companies to broadcast local network stations. The rules weren’t designed to enforce some morals code, but rather because the cable companies did not want competition. The cable companies were a government-condoned monopoly, and in many cases they still are today.

But moralist laws are by far the worst kinds of laws, because moralists would dare to presume to know what’s best for others. Many of the so-called "blue" laws written by moralists years, even centuries ago, are still in affect today. Timothy Boomer certainly knows that all too well, having been convicted of a law passed over a hundred years ago.

Think about the laws against having business conducted on Sundays. Why Sunday, you ask? There is no health or safety reasons behind it. Civilization wouldn’t go into complete chaos if a store opened up on Sunday. So why, you ask, were there laws against doing business on Sunday? Why not Friday? Or Monday? Two reasons - first because the 10 Commandments states one should keep the Sabbath holy; and second because ministers wanted people to have no reason to not skip their services! Mind you, if America was colonized by Jewish people instead of Christians, we’d have laws against doing business on Saturdays. But really, there is no basis for such a law except to appease the whims of moralists.

What’s worse is when a moralist goes to extremes to appease their intellectual dysfunction. When legislation does not move fast enough, or its reach isn’t effective enough, some moralists feel it is up to them to take matters into their own hands. Buford Furrow took his anti-Semitic stance to extreme when he opened fire in a Los Angles Jewish day care center, and then killed a postal worker simply because he was "non-white." In Florida, Paul Hill is sitting on death row because he deliberately and methodically killed a doctor who performed abortions. Eric Robert Rudolph is wanted by the law because his moralistic stance reportedly led him to bomb abortion clinics, a gay nightclub, and Centennial Park during the 1996 Olympic games.

Folks, this is why moralism is so dangerous for any society that claims to cherish freedom. The presumption that not every adult individual is capable of determining what is right and wrong for themselves is elitist at best, and downright tyrannical at worst.

You know, there’s nothing wrong with having doubts about what you believe to be right and wrong. In fact, that’s the only way to make such moral beliefs stronger. It’s easy to say X is right because some document or some ancient scroll says so. It’s yet another thing to say X is right because YOU believe it to be so, and to have reasons all your own to validate them. Look at how some of the most moral of people lived. Mother Theresa didn’t have to work in Calcutta, yet she did because of what she did strengthened her moral resolve. Is your moral resolve so fragile that it cannot handle the diverse beliefs of others?

If we really cherish freedom, we need to treat moralism just like we do sexism and racism - something to be shunned and avoided at all costs. Let’s concern ourselves less with our neighbors actions and more with our own.