Don't Be The Bad Guy

     I believe living the prototypical conservative lifestyle is conducive to human flourishing and liberty. I refuse to support enforcement of this lifestyle via the barrel of a gun. 

     The irony of modern day conservatives wanting to use the state to enforce what they see as the “proper way to live” is not lost on me, but it’s lost on people like Matt Walsh. The state cannot ever be the arbiter of what is socially acceptable. If we must have a state, and I’m not sure we need one, but if we must have one, then the state must exist only to protect the blessings of liberty, and not to enforce flourishing under the boot. Even typing “enforce flourishing” gave me Stalin vibes. 

     I truly believe that first sentence though. Go to school, learn a trade, get married, make babies, work your ass off, enjoy your family, teach the next generation how to live in this hostile world that is trying to kill us constantly, without giving in to the harshness of it all. That’s the secret to human flourishing. The moment you force others to live that way, or make any other option illegal, you have also ensured flourishing is diminished. 

      I spent 3 years as a trainer at the Joint Readiness Training Center, and during an after action review my team leader once told his counterpart commander that “Here is a way you can do this, but it’s not the way” and that is a line I often used in similar situations. The lifestyle I described above is “a way” it’s not “the way”. You can’t be for liberty and simultaneously run to the state every time an image of Satan appears on the TV. You can’t claim righteousness and tell a grown human being how they have to dress, who they have to love, how they have to raise their family, etc. 

    Sure, you don’t understand it. I don’t understand being gay either, because I’m not gay. I do understand the moment I use a third party to enforce my lifestyle on a gay couple or person, then I’m the bad guy. Don’t be the bad guy. 

In Liberty