Apparently another blogger by the name of Jesus General (I expect a link back from him) noticed a blog that I wrote in which I said that there is good and bad in killing the president of the United States. He then blasted it across his blog in an effort to shame me but I stand by what I said for several reasons.
The first reason is that wishing someone was dead is not off limits because that happens all the time without anyone raising a certain objection. A good example is Adolf Hitler. No one would ever erect a single argument condemning those statements because most people feel that the actions of this person warrant such feelings. Now some people might say that the current president hasn't done anything to ever justify such feelings but that is a matter of opinion that each individual is allowed to have and my particular individual thinks that the current president is a total shithead who does warrant such feelings. A lot of other people probably feel differently but no matter what opinion you have each person is entitled to be the judge of what makes them happy and if millions of Americans can be happy about the death of Osama Bin Laden and at the same time millions of Arabs can be sad then their is plenty of room in this world for individuals to decide for themselves whose existence on this earth makes them the happiest. I would say that existence of the current president of the United States makes me the least happiest.
The second reason is that I never advocated that someone should kill the president of the United States. I only expressed a F-E-E-L-I-N-G which, by itself is not an action. Perhaps this is a huge difference between rational and irrational people in that they can not differentiate between impulsive thoughts and actions. This naturally leads the confusion (in their minds alone) that someone expressing a feeling is identical to advocating for an action to take place. This also leads to the observation that some people can't differentiate between facts and opinion. The Jesus General blog said I advocated for the killing of the president of the United States when the statement I made merely reflected both positive and negative consequences of such an action. The good consequences will be the end of the current administration (which some people think is good) and the bad will be the death of a human being. It is a statement that merely states that there is both positive and negative consequences of taking such an action. It is not a statement advocating for someone to take the action itself.
The third reason I stand by my statement is that each person is entitled to equal protection of the law and killing anyone whether they be the president of the United States or a bum on the streets is both equally illegal, immoral, and infamous (will Jesus General blast that statement on twitter?). This is where equality under the law differs from the coveted social equality that so many people like Jesus General prize. Equality under the law means each person receives the same benefit from the law as the other which means that the law must extend the same benefits to anyone whether they are gay or straight but this requirement only exist for interactions between the state and the individual. It does not exist for interactions from one individual to another which allows each individual to extend any benefit that they are capable of extending in any manor that they choose. This eliminates social equality because social equality requires each individual to extend all benefits equally to each person in society so if a person wants to socially accept straights and not extend the same privilege to gays then they are free to do so because only the law is required to do this. Individuals are free to decide what privileges they want to extend to other individuals which gives them a lot of freedom over how they treat other people.
It also highlights the danger social equality poses on individual liberty since it demands that each person in their own private lives must extend the same privilege to each person which is why the left says you must TREAT gays the same way as you treat anyone else. If you recognize marriage between a man and a woman then you must recognize a marriage between a man and a man which denies your ability to make whatever moral choices you want and, by design (I think), denies you the power to make whatever independent choices you want with regards about your interactions with other people.
This differs from equality under the law because only the law has to do treat everyone equally which ensures that the power of the state won't be misused to apply arbitrary authority against particular individuals. A good example is separate drinking fountains during segregation in the south. Would white southerners have elected to make black southerners drink out of crappy water fountains if they had to drink out of the same ones? Because the law did not extend the same exact privilege to each person it allowed racist to demean other human beings. The same southerners would not have done such a thing if they had one to drink out of the same water fountains. It is the ultimate check on government power but it only exist in cases of how the law treats people not how people treat other people. The same white southerners were free to think and treat black southerners as they want but the state was not free to do so because it had to treat everyone equally which makes equality under the law is superior to social equality. It doesn't attempt to inhibit the free minds of other human beings but it does ensure that the law will not be used as a tool to destroy someone. Could racist southerners have gotten away with separate but equal if they themselves had to use the same water fountains as black southerners?
Now that I have gotten off of my soapbox I must finish this and explain what did this have to do with Jesus General condemnation of what I wrote. I was pointing out that I, as an individual, am free to extend whatever privilege that I am capable of extending to anyone I like because the fourteenth amendment does not apply to me personally. It only applies to the government which means I am free to withhold the privilege of esteeming someone enough to think their life is a valuable contribution to humanity. The state can not make such a distinction because it must extend all privileges to everyone.
