The Hunting Liberalist

Remember this: To stay in one attitude for long is stifling.

Disclaimer: Read before you get your panties in a wad.

I never thought much of myself in the political arena. All the candidates seem lacking when I was at the ready to vote. I see members on social media that disdain a Liberalist. I wonder if they know what it truly means. Chumming the water with blood drives people crazy on the internet. Is it just another one of those Edward Cullen versus Jacob moments, where the onlooker has to pick a side for team somebody?

I thought of what it was to be a hunting Liberalist. I tried to fixate on the need by non-liberalist people to rigidly slot Liberalists into a tight definition. It doesn’t seem to matter. The argument is all about not finding solutions, more debates, who wins debates, and how rigidly we can hold people’s ideals and stances up to say, “Look here. You are drawing outside the lines again. That is not allowed.” I say open that box of crayons and gobble them down.

Progress does need order but progress also needs those people willing to move past a problem into a solution. Stagnation and failure to act will incite more suffering. When you have a vast population with varying opinions, the greater good has to prevail. When I state this, it is in the context of what is the core of the problem. Two issues of concern are the wording of sacred text and gun control.

Enter in: Bill Maher, Affleck, and the band of merry political argumentists.

I was watching the episode with Bill Maher and the Ben Affleck shenanigans. One of the questions or statements posed, if I am correct, was based around Liberalist inability to rectify a liberal's belief in freedom of religion when applied to an outside religion's sacred text. This sacred text incites murderous intent against a non-believe, which leads to death.

Then followers of said sacred text impose religious doctrine on a non-believe, as if the non-believe were a member of said religion yet didn’t know it. Thus giving followers religious right to judge, condemn, and murder a human being for breaking their religious doctrine. A religious doctrine said victim or non-believer is not interred into.

Using a sacred text given to you by a higher power, to bring order out of chaos and raise humanity up to commune with a God is found at the end of a knife. The hand wielding that knife kills for the justification of the Word. Purists, indeed.

I thought about Liberalism.

Liberalism is a political philosophy founded on the idea of liberty and equality. Liberals support ideas such as civil rights, freedom of press, free trade and freedom of religion. These are concepts writ in the Constitution.

Each man has a natural right to life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, and property. I say here that when you buy a gun it is considered property. I have a right to my guns. Then there is the second amendment, which politicians and others want to re-interpret for their subsequent agendas.

The problem I believed Maher was pointing out was: in Liberalism, from an American standpoint, is that certain religions have sacred text stating the sanction of murder against another human being, follower or no, yet to be liberal is to support a religious groups right to hold sacred text as a justification to murder another. This stance is as literal as the purist idea of the Koran’s to kill people based on the word. There exists no other interpretation except the rigid boundaries of what is literally put forth.

I was watching the 700 Club. The commentator was stating his case against Islam and the sanctioned persecution, torture, and murder of Christians. I previously was doing a treatise on something from the bible and found this:

Leviticus 20:13 states, “If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.

The commentator was judging Islam for radical wordage and literal interpretation from a purist standpoint yet the sacred text used by this particular group states pretty much the same thing. The commentator seemed to be excusing the passive nature of the Christian application of dealing with the same wordage.

Here I illustrate how I can pick apart the literal information of Islam and Christianity much like Conservatives pick apart Liberalist thinking. “Quid pro Quo, Clarice.”

First one would need to acknowledge this situation exists. Any Christian can turn purist or extremist with the right rotten attitude.

If this were removed from the sacred text landscape, anyone taught such a thing would not have to bear the burden of hate, shame, or discrimination. I would think this would be showing love and compassion to someone that could enter into a heaven, if that is what you so believe. As a Christian or a believer in Allah, you have fulfilled a tenant of alleviating suffering instead of inflicting it. Love and forgiveness is the basis of religious doctrines. People ignore this.

I must admit here when I was on a googling rampage, this little ditty had 22 parallel versions of the same biblical quote. The bible has already been revised several times. Maybe we should rethink that murder-mayhem clause. I guess one could argue that to change one scripture or two would be blasphemous. Looks like it has made the rounds already.

The point I would make here is this:

There is nothing in Liberalism as a rigid doctrine that states a liberalist's has to embrace another's right to religious freedom, if that religion goes against your moral and ethical code by sanctioning religious murder. You can acknowledge the content of that religion but not support flawed doctrine. There is nothing wrong with stating your boundaries on what you will and will not support. If the group understands their behavior is causing harm and will not be tolerated, is to acknowledge their position in the global community. Nations need to grow up and put childish things aside, as does its people.

The offending religion can carry about its doctrines, either extreme or non-extreme but without the support of Liberalist thinking. At Liberalism's core there should be an inalienable right to protect your personal morals and ethics in the presence of another's view that is greatly flawed. There should also be the option of intervening on the part of a group or individual who is at the end of the knife.

There is the responsibility to not profile or stereotype followers of the sacred text in question. The glaring truth is: sacred text wording sanctions murder. To resolve this you would have to alter the sacred text. As a progressive society, not weighed down by conservative thought where religious doctrine is concerned, could look at this as a moment of trial. Does the creator, who gave humans free will, want sacred word used as a murder weapon? Does this make sense when paralleled with the mantra Thou Shall Not Kill? Is the trial really the Creator testing the follower with a choice? What weighs more for damnation, murder or being conscious of the Word? If you truly understand the sacred word, it is not the literal translation but the test.

I digress to Abraham offering his son Isaac up as a sacrifice. He could murder his son for God but no. He had a choice. He didn’t have to kill anyone. All he had to do was decide not to murder his son and find a better way; a better way being the main point here. You have choice. You can choose not to murder someone because of the sacred word. Neither God nor Allah wants his creations murdered in their name. To kill is to fail the spiritual test and God-Allah is known for his tests. You court damnation when you condemn another man.

Liberalism can be a forward thinking platform to politics and not rigidly tied to outdated dogmas. Liberalism should be an avenue to look at a problem, see where the weak spot is and plug the hole, not embrace every stupid thing in the name of freedom when it cast death on innocent people. Liberalism should also venture to be a revolving and alternating problem-solver that tries new things and moves society to a more efficient place while cause as little harm as possible. The founding fathers were liberal. The indigent people who supplied them with the ideas were probably liberal as well. The world will always change. People don’t want change because their idea of security is threatened. Things can only stay in one climate for so long, given the influences on it.

I don't consider myself a Liberal but when you apply the political definition I could be. I considered the argument for and against gun control, which is a hot mix of controversy in itself. I also reflected on my personal opinion. I have seen the online works of both sides. I wanted to take my time and look around to see where the solutions were, if any.

When I was thinking on gun control, I believe the issue is not the gun. Anything can be made into a weapon, as the truth goes. If someone wants to kill you they can find all kind of interesting ways to do it. I think of the board game Clue and Edward Gorey’s illustrations based on alphabets, people in cemeteries, and murderers hiding behind vases with assorted weapons. A good assassin could take you out with a paper clip if they wanted to.

I considered the school shootings.

Each one of these shooting incidents occurred because of the mental state of the person(s) doing the act.

Several problems present themselves here. The first problem is buying a gun with no requirement for a mental evaluation. The second problem is profiling to determine who might look like a mental risk and who does not. Third, the mental evaluation could be seen as incriminating, discriminatory, and could be considered private medical information in need of a subpoena. Fourth, when the purchased gun leaves with the owner it can end up in the hands of anyone. We go on the assumption the purchaser is using the gun solely for their purposes. I could go on.

I believe the core problem is anchored in society’s behavior to their fellow man, how we raise our children, the attitudes we pass on, the isolation, discrimination, exclusion, suppression, anger, resentment, suffering, and indifference to the infliction of pain while telling people to suck it up, hide their abuse, hide their feelings, not seek help, and be labeled a basket case or pariah because no one noticed when they start acting out or gave warning signs. The stigma with being honest about feeling cut off from society as a whole or even on the individual level can be deafening to some. As a society, we have been taught not to get involved, turn our backs, or look the other way. We stand and watch people burn all the time. We do nothing, feel like our hand are tied, and watch people die on a video. Somewhere in there we become addicted to the effect of a global violence. Society likes the feeling. People like being in each others faces raging with words, pushing, shoving, and getting nowhere. We stay in that bad relationship hoping one day it will get better but it never does as a whole, only in bits and pieces, here and there. It’s a form of suicide that never fulfills itself. Control and not being able to control vomits up wrath and war.

School can be a place filled with isolation for students. Things I saw were keeping up with the Jones, bad home training of students or lack thereof, not having proper counselors available to student when problems arose, teachers playing favorites, absentee parents due to work, and a form of communism. We’ve all been there with school cliques. You have the Goths, the Emo, the Plastics, the Yuppies, the Creatives, the Troublemakers, and God love the Nerd. These teenage groups can be as vicious as any animal out in the wild that can drag down a wildebeest. If there is a weak one in the herd, they identify that teenager then make its life miserable. I move on from bullying because it's torture.

Once this tortured mind starts to resent the treatment, especially when the teenager sees other people are immune to its infection, can devise all kinds of ways for retribution and revenge. Parents are so busy making a living they don’t introduce their children to consequences until rules are broken then the punishment doesn’t fit the crime. Children and teenagers are ignored because parents are too preoccupied with more important things.

Society doesn’t spend enough time psychologically nurturing children. This is left to parents who are at work for eight to twelve hours a day while the child is at school for eight hours.

There is no class that I know of in my son’s old school that teaches children how to deal with their issues by questioning the thought behind the emotion, challenging ideas which are just thoughts, nothing more, how to counteract the thought before it turns rancid, and re-establishing better ways to perceive and approach problems, feelings, or actions.

I say school here because if parents aren’t conscious of this teaching technique they are passing bad habits to their progeny. Worse yet, the parent may be in denial or resentful of the need to have better mental health.

People do use religious mores to teach each other but that is not always required. The biggest problem with people is they don’t know what to do, who to go to, or how to handle things. Once you have all this pressure on you, the cup runneth over.

Life has become about the debate, not solution options. It’s more important to chew the fat.

The world has not had a holy man or high profile prophet in a long time other than the Dali Lama. There is no new voice to say to the world, this sacred text needs editing. If such a person existed, that person would probably be stones or killed. I guess the Creator has to come up with a more subtle, creative way to get the point across.

There are thing I am sure of. A Cosmic Creator, human angels, and the cumulative voice of billions of people telling the ears of the world to change, to rethink their consciousness, and realize things are getting out of hand. If you want a prophet, those voices could be considered the Word of the Creator because of the magnitude. This is the singular voice from plural sources crying out against great wrongs. Listen to them for they shall not steer you wrong.

Written by: W Harley Bloodworth

~Courtesy of the AOFH~