If you visited Springfield Mall (now Springfield Town Center) in the late 1990's and early 2000's, you may have had a "stress test" performed at a kiosk as you walked on the upper level near Target.
In case you weren't told, the kiosk was set up by the fine folks at the #churchofscientology.
In case you weren't told, the kiosk was set up by the fine folks at the #churchofscientology.
Now, I take this view of their whole schtick. Pure. Tee. GRADE A. BUNKUM. Utter nonsense.
Clearing your engram may cost you thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars. Can you say, scamolicious? I can.
Still, I also visited the Orlando church of Benny Hinn in the mid-1990s. You know Benny. He of the whacky "bam and down goes the audience" videos?
During a single service, attended over a weekend when we were stuck in Florida waiting for action from a court, Joel Thornton, I, and a couple others attended. The service was stupendously long. Remember, I grew up in the Catholic Church. Mass, except Midnight Mass and Easter Vigil, was always a 50 minute and done deal. During Benny's Sunday service, they took up FOUR separate collections. Count 'em. One. Two. Three. Four.
During the last collection, Benny "The Ringmaster" Hinn, took to the podium to preach the collection. In the sanctuary there were at least two stretchers with attendees that had been brought by ambulance, and a couple thousand others, including many who were, no doubt, in need of miraculous interventions for their health, their families, their lives. Benny's collection message was straightforward: "If you leave here today and have not GIVEN, YOU are a THIEF and a ROBBER and God's Spirit has no part of you!" Call me a thief and robber if you will, the only thing I gave was a hearty wish that he would regret his vile perturbation of Xianity.
And, of course, there's the machine gun preacher. Not Sam Childers, whose true life story is told in the eponymous movie. I mean Creflo Dollar, another fine and outstanding example of the Gospel of Christ in the American Pulpit. You may remember Creflo because of controversy over his pursuit of a church purchased 65 million dollar Gulfstream jet for his travels. Yes. 65 million. $65,000.000.00. What you may not remember is his scamalicious announcement that he would like to line up those that come to church and don't tithe and mow them down with a machine gun outside the back door.
Now, I hope you see I am an equal opportunity critic of asinine banality dressed as counsel, instruction, teaching, and preaching.
Yet.
Yet.
I would not stop the Scientologists, Hinn, Dollar, or others from their hucksterism. It is contrary to my basic view, that liberty should be maximized for all so that it can be maintained for me. So let Tom Cruise clear his engram and let him try to convince others to clear theirs too. Let Creflo and Hinn milk the willing with their ungospel.
But to my point.
There continues to be a decidedly anti-LIBERTY strain that overarches progressivism in America.
The assaults and batteries at Trump rallies -- bloodied heads, broken windows, etc. -- are evidence of the INTOLERANCE of progressives.
The proposal to create a power in California's Attorney General and District Attorneys to criminalize disagreement with the decidedly unsettled "settled science" of anthropogenic climate change is evidence of the INTOLERANCE of progressives.
The effort to ban therapies that are, in the view of many, quite unlikely to succeed in changing sexual orientation, to intervene and impose a state or federal government screen between willing patients and willing practitioners, these are evidence of the INTOLERANCE of progressives.
Now, I may have offended you. Perhaps you are a subscription donor to the Jet-of-the-Month Club on Trinity Broadcasting Network? Perhaps you donate to the American Center for Law and Justice without knowing that the organization is a nonprofit funnel that has passed some 40 million dollars through to the Sekulow family that constitutes its board and chief officers? Perhaps you had a clear engram till I started mocking the very idea of it?
My goal was not to offend.
My goal was to demonstrate to you that your need for maximum liberty -- to preach the need to punish us climate change denialists, to donate funds for your Pastor's Gulfstream, etc -- depends on RESPECTING the liberties of others. You destroy the liberties of others only by destroying the innate and natural rights of every man.
