Freedom and Democracy

At a family reunion I recently attended, a cousin told me the spouse switched allegiance from one to the other major party and has become more radical since then. My cousin said the spouse once thought I was “out there” but now thinks I’m right.

So, let’s push this envelope.

If the peasant in Vietnam, or the shopkeeper in Baghdad, were killed by U.S. bombs in the name of Freedom & Democracy, then crusading on behalf of Freedom & Democracy is no better than the Crusades of Christianity or Islam.

If all of that violence was done to fuel commercial interests, to enrich and empower the already wealthy and powerful, and to expand the “American Dream” through cheap foreign resources, then American institutions founded on “Freedom and Democracy” are no better than imperialist monarchies and dictatorships.

If females were burned at the stake for being “witches” through the crime of using tradition-approved healing remedies, that discredits Christianity. If such practices and other practices and substances are banned or regulated today based on government-approved “science,” then the government founded on Freedom and Democracy is no better than a theocracy.

And if, in Jesus’s day, he taught it was hypocritical to stone an adulterer, how much worse is “Christian culture” to pass any law against prostitution? I acknowledge that women and girls are usually physically weaker than male counterparts and more easily physically coerced, and kidnapping and slavery should be outlawed. But…