It occurred to me in a discussion with a Republican Christian (who will remain unnamed) that there is a dichotomy in world view between left and right on the issue of bad things. I’d like to take a look at three of them and how they’re treated on the left and the right.
First, sex. The Right would prefer abstinence. The problems of sex primarily exist because abstinence did not occur. And in fact can’t not occur. Millions of years of human history can’t be wrong. Without lust, none of us would be here. The Left would prefer to address the problem; given that people who shouldn’t will have sex, how do we deal with unwanted outcomes? This works for everyone and doesn’t arbitrarily divide us into good (chaste) and bad (sexually active outside of a heterosexual marriage). Evidence the (VP-R) eldest would-be first daughter.
The black and white of abstinence is appealing apparently for its clean, neat delineation. Life, however, is rarely clean, neat nor clearly delineated. The fixing what’s broke approach is complicated, and offers no clear set of winners and losers, no sinners and saints. That definitely makes it harder, but also makes it more just and merciful. Education and available birth control would be a nice start.
Second, drugs. From the beginning of time, man has sought to alter his state of consciousness, whether through sacramental wine, herbs, whirling, snake handling, opium, tobacco, mushrooms, peyote or holding one’s breath till blue.
The right generally says, “Don’t.” and enacts absurdly punitive sentences for people who either have a disease or a good handle on free markets. Drop me anywhere in the US with $200 and I’ll get you smack, pot, LSD and a clean needle in an hour. Legalizing makes it harder for underage users, and we could afford a hell of a lot of education on the profits and taxes. Basically we’d be saying that if you’re dumb enough to bang smack, we’re smart enough to have you do it in a controlled setting, and have no reason to rob us for the next fix.
The left (more and more) recognizes that people are going to continue to get high, so how to handle the situation? Legalization, taxation, regulation and treatment seem like a good idea. Want to defund most gangs, mobs, the Taliban and the FARC? Want to cut prison populations by 80%? Want to annihilate the deficit? Legalize, tax, regulate and treat.
Third, immigration. As long as there are more opportunities on the north side of the US southern border than the south, there will be immigration, whether legal, illegal or hard to say. Once again, the right has the clean, neat response of “Go away.” It’s simple, it fits a neat slogan, “What part of illegal don’t you understand.” It’s really tough to defend in Biblical terms, but most of the right I hear from use the gospel for lipservice, cherry picking or worse.
On the left, the messier, but much kinder and more practical reform to a path to citizenship. Nothing would fix social security as quickly as 20,000,000 new taxpayers.
It’s funny that besides being impractical, the right’s solution to each of these dilemmas is drastically more expensive, undeniably cruel to millions and just plain not nice. How a bunch of alleged libertarians can stand for this is absurd. Especially the ones who call themselves Christians. Like the sticker on my truck says, “As you do to the least of these…”
Oh wait. I get it. The song goes, “red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight.” They obviously left out brown on purpose.
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