After 9/11, it was the
Right-wing and the political Conservatives who supported the suspending of
rights. They supported the curtailing of speech and censorship. Privacy was
eliminated as was due process – not to mention cruel and unusual punishment.
State prerogatives were superseded by the new Federal juggernaut. To many
scholars and principled liberals, the Constitution had been eviscerated and in
particular the key planks found within the Bill of Rights.
Those that questioned the
narrative we're called terrorists and fellow travelers. The NSA spied on our
communications and habits and this was supported. The TSA humiliated travelers,
literally getting into their pants. This too was justified in the name of
security. People were subjected to obscene delays and lines. I remember the
shock of flying after 9/11 and the first time my wife and re-visited Washington
DC after 2001. The airports had been turned into totalitarian zones where even
a stray whisper or hint of protest (or even an expression of frustration) could
result in incarceration, fines and the like. Washington was unrecognisable as
the city was under some kind of severe lock-down, many of the places we had
once freely visited were now no-go zones or places under such prohibitive
restrictions and barriers that you effectively were driven to abandon your
plans. It was reminiscent of martial law. When we drove there again seven years
later, it still had not changed.
And this was all done
because of the threat of terrorism. We were called upon to give up all of these
freedoms due the threat of Islamist fighters attacking our country. Never mind
the fact that probably 95% of the country was completely outside the radar of
any would-be attackers. Never mind the fact that statistically speaking, you
were far more likely to be struck multiple times by lightning than to actually
suffer from a terrorist attack.
But in this case the
measures were good and necessary consequences of the new post 9/11 reality or
so we were constantly told. Detractors such as myself warned of the power-grab,
warned of the geo-political agenda that had been laid out in the post-Cold War
1990's and some who were still patriotic (by then I wasn't) – they viewed the
instigators of this new order as traitors to the Constitutional order.
I also remember the
frustration of going to church and finding I was a lonely voice in the
wilderness as almost everyone went along with these things – all the more since
their saviour-president was in office.
They believed anything he
told them, including the lies about Iraq – even though some of us insisted they
were being misled and lied to. Some of us knew even then that the administration
was inhabited by swindlers and liars.
In addition to falling for
every hint of terrorist scare and falling for many of the marketing gimmicks
and absurdities regarding home security and the like, some of these same church
folks were also given to believing in wild theories about food preservatives, the
supposed purity of organic foods, raw (or un-pasteurised) milk and the like. In
many cases they also rejected vaccines and in addition to this, they insisted
that many foods cause cancer or that potato chips can make you sterile. I think
I've heard just about every nutty theory over the years – and just like their political
and economic predictions, they are almost always wrong. There are sometimes
hints of truth in what they say – no doubt too many food preservatives and
pesticides are harmful and potentially carcinogenic – but at the same time
whatever truth they possess is plugged into a larger and largely false
construct. Criticism of environmental policy for example is almost always
forbidden.
The truth is far more
complicated but they wouldn't hear it. Some vaccines have been proven to be
problematic and yet for the most part they've proven to be a good. Flu shots on
the other hand are not genuine vaccines but are developed on the basis of an
educated guess – and thus I refuse them. I guess that makes me a little crazy
to some. The only time I've ever had a flu shot was when I was compelled to as
a stormtrooper in the legions. It made me sick. In the more than twenty years
since then I've never had a shot and I've (maybe) had a mild case of the flu
once. I personally believe it's a financial racket but at the same time I take
things like whooping cough quite seriously. We selectively vaccinated our kids
until we starting spending time with anti-vaxxers who in many cases had really
atrocious hygiene practices to boot. At that point we went ahead and pursued
some of the hepatitis and meningitis vaccines as well. We've always rejected
the HPV vaccine as it's behaviour related.
These are complicated
issues but I do not find the explanations given to me by Evangelical naysayers
to be very convincing – all the more when they have an unbiblical view of
nature and what is natural – a Dominionist-informed view that seems to (at
least in-part) reject the effects and realities of the Fall. Nor for all their
talk of Common Grace are they willing to grant that lost people can learn
something when studying germs, viruses and the like. Will these lost people be
able to take what they learn and place it within a larger framework? Of course
not and we shouldn't expect them to. They're lost and the 'larger framework' (as
it were) is revelatory and Sprit-wrought. Of course they're not going to
understand. And in light of Romans 1 we know that they will take what they're
given and use it to generate idols.
That said, it doesn't mean
everything they come up with is totally wrong. And contrary to many Christians
I encounter, I don't believe a bunch of these politicians and scientists
working at the NIH wake up in the morning and (while cackling) rub their hands
together and scheme of ways they can infect and kill children in addition to
destroying America and turning it communist. It's ridiculous. They're lost and
in that capacity they're evil but most of them honestly believe that the work
they do helps people and more importantly they believe in the system and
believe that it's flourishing will help everyone – including their own children
which they certainly care about. They're blind to the larger nature of the
system and what it does around the world but I don't believe they are
deliberately evil. There are people like that out in the world – many in
government, the Pentagon and certainly Wall Street, but as always it's
complicated. People are deluded and deceived. Very few openly embrace evil as
evil and relish in being evil.
But then many of these same
folks who embrace ideas about potato chips and sterilisation and even stranger
notions, will at the same time (in many cases) submit to 'routine' medical
procedures such as colonoscopies and mammograms – even though the 'science'
behind such procedures is highly problematic.*
Many of these procedures
are unnecessary but when voices try to make this appeal they are not believed
because they're trying to 'ration' healthcare or other Christians will argue
that such rejections constitute poor stewardship of the human body, a failure
to appreciate the blessings of medicine or are even a manifestation of Gnostic views
of human physiology.
Some of these positions are
echoed by mainstream Middle Class conservatives and Christian Rightists as well
– people who don't believe potato chips make you sterile but at the same time
people who are determined to keep up with all their tests according to the
guidelines provided (before some in the 21st century began to
question them) – and certainly before Obama became president.
Part of the problem is
these tests (such as colonoscopies and mammograms) produce lots of false
positives and people end up undergoing invasive, difficult, and costly
procedures that weren't necessary – the irregularities that were found in said
tissues were just that, irregularities. They didn't require action or
intervention and in many (or even most) cases they would have never resulted in
cancer. Or if they did, it might not actually become fatal until you were well
over one hundred years old – in other words, they were non-issues.
We have some folks who
simultaneously put their trust in wacky untrustworthy medical science and yet
in many other instances blindly accept mainstream medical science – and it's these
same folks that in many cases refuse to wear a piece of cloth on their face
when they're out in public. It's ineffective, they argue. Or, it's a
curtailment of liberty and rights. It's a conspiracy or some even argue it's
harmful.
Again, they willingly
tossed aside all their rights in light of the largely bogus threat regarding
terrorism – which I would also point out was in response to US actions abroad
and sometimes an aftereffect of former US policies. Additionally I would also
argue that we have in fact experienced a fair amount of smaller-scale terrorism
since 9/11 but almost all of it has been domestic and Right-wing in its
orientation. And yet, there's been very little reaction to it. To be clear, when
I'm walking around in an urban shopping mall, I'm far more worried about a
Right-wing gunman opening up on the crowd than I am a member of al Qaeda setting
of bombs. And statistically speaking, my 'fears' make sense.
The reasons given by Right-wing
Christians for refusing to comply with mask orders do not stand. Their own
inconsistencies are glaring. I personally found it humiliating to have to
remove my shoes and scramble like a fool with my small children while being
'wanded' and the like in order to board an airplane**
Now mind you I hate wearing
a mask and this reality has certainly changed my behaviour. There are a lot of
things I won't do now unless I absolutely have to because I don't want to walk
around wearing it. I will be very happy when this is all done and yet while we
watch states like New York and other countries get a handle on the virus spread
– through mitigation efforts such as masking – the rest of the United States is
moving the other direction.
I will grant many people
still do not understand. The guy in church who shakes my hand and says "I
figure if I'm going to get it, then I'm going to get it," demonstrates
that he still after all of these months doesn't understand the issues or the
notion of asymptomatic spread. For my part, I'm not worried about getting it
but I am worried about spreading it. It's a strange disease and I continue to
question what they know, how its spread and even whether or not there are
multiple strains at work. There are people who get sick and die. Others
recover. Others recover but then deal with sometimes debilitating side-effects
for months afterward. It's strange and I am the first to admit there's a lot of
funny business going on right now in the world of government and medicine. But
I don't believe mask wearing to be a communist plot.
Trump wants to be a
dictator but doesn't know how. This was the golden opportunity for him to
consolidate and exercise power but he's clueless and weak. Instead he just
keeps sowing chaos and now whether he wins or loses in November there will be
doubts. Yes, it's been politicised by both camps.
But the reality is this –
it's spreading. They've learned more about treatment and so the death rate has
dropped some but of course all predictions are off. We don't know what's going
to happen this fall or winter.
----
*On a stranger front I personally know (or rather at this
point in time knew) some Christians who insist on home births (which of course
is fine) but then take the placenta and cook it in the oven and the mother
subsequently consumes it. Besides being grotesque and obscene if not maybe a
hint of the cannibalistic, the science is also bunk. They argue that mothers do
it in the animal world – a point which also exposes some of their bogus
theology. How so? We're not animals! And besides animals also eat their young.
Would they have us do that too?
** And this was in 2005 before they had full body scanners. I
doubt I will fly in or out of the United States ever again. I will be more
likely to fly in and out of Mexico if I had to go overseas. But most likely if
I do that – and I would love to someday if I can afford it – I won't be coming
back.