The Growth of Intolerance in America

"A nation usually loses its liberties under the pressures of fear or under the anxieties of actual war. Every ruler or leader, every prosecutor or judge, every legislator who has denied the citizen freedom has been propelled by the feeling of great urgency. Emergencies mount and become an excitable fact in the public mind. Everyone sees the crisis through his own spectacles and doubtless deems his motives the most patriotic of all."

William O. Douglas, p 16 America Challenged 1960

Benjamin Franklin observed that loyalty oaths were "the last resort of liars." Abraham Lincoln said, "On principle, I dislike an oath which requires a man to swear he has not done wrong. It rejects the Christian principle of forgiveness on terms of repentance. I think it enough if a man does no wrong hereafter."

Tolerance of other's differences has always been the key to America's technological and economic growth. Our openness to new people and ideas acted as fertile soil for the seeds of greatness that were swept to our shores by the waves of intolerance from the fascist, communist and other intolerant regimes of the Twentieth Century.

I was raised in the Jeffersonian tradition that what a person thinks is not the government's business. It was an accepted truth that "actions speak louder than words" and that a person was only accountable for their actions. Indeed, a person was ultimately only accountable for any actions that violated some law of the land. Then the government became interested in what that person thought only in order to determine if there was any malicious intent. Today, it is rare that a day goes by when you don't read about a mother or father somewhere being charged with manslaughter, or even murder because their child died due to a mistake of the parent. If a person kills a child - any child much less their own - with malicious intent, then I can think of no punishment too horrible for that person NOT to be subjected too. But what other punishment can matter to a parent whose actions or inactions caused the death of their own child? My training as a lawyer and as a former infantry officer prepared me to think and plan for worst case scenarios. Yet I cannot even approach the idea of my son dying. It is hard to even type it out right now as I try and make a point in support of an ideal that I think made America what it was at its height and the loss of which is slowly but with ever increasing speed leading to its decay.

Did I just say "America at its height" as in we are no longer top dog? Yes and at the same time no. I think that we have a lot going for us and, in the balance we still represent the best path to take. After all, even Karl Marx thought that America might be the exception to the progression of his dialectic. But I do think that we have lost something with the development of single-issue litmus test politics, the growth of religious intolerance and the sense of entitlement to being able to prevent others from acting in ways that we disapprove of. In other words, we no longer believe in compromise in order to get something done, that only our individual belief system is valid and that your right to swing your fist no longer stops at my nose - it stops at the ability to move your arm in case I might decide to walk into where I see you swinging your fist!

Now this rant came about due to my efforts to post a comment to an article regarding Mrs. Manhart posing for Playboy Magazine. I tried to post several times, but my reply was deleted each time - within seconds! Here is the gist of the original post:
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Every service member of the US military takes the following oath:"I,____________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to the regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God"

Notice that the first and foremost duty is to the U.S. Constitution. Arguably the freedom of expression is the most fundamental of our "inalienable" rights. I personally don't think much of the KKK, militia and patriot movements throughout the country (to my Uncles and Cousins, sorry guys but ya'll know how I feel!). But I respect their right to hold their point of view and that was what I swore to protect when I was in the military.
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I'm not really sure why it so hard for America to acknowledging that we are biological creatures. Turning your back upon the appeal of sex doesn't make it disappear - it usually just makes it more desirable. It is generally thought that simply ignoring something isn't a sign of maturity. Remember that true courage isn't the absence of fear - it is facing your fear and not letting it control you.

Finally, it wasn't Mrs. Manhart that was using the military - it was Playboy Magazine magazine using it to sell magazines. And isn't that the American way too?