I think the disagreement is right here:
Once people accept the belief that they are *entitled* (for whatever reason) to force others to live by their beliefs – they have started down a particular road of thinking that has to do with control and domination. Would you agree with that?
You have said that you don’t agree.
That’s a big deal. I think once people have crossed the threshold of believing that they have some *right* some dominate and control others – that the possibility of tyranny comes closer. And further – if that inclination is not corrected or changed – tyranny is inevitable.
Why do you think the Taleban is a tyranny? Because they believe that they can *force* everyone to live by their beliefs.
I want to put a bit about *force* in:
Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. - George Washington
I am going out now for the evening. I will write more when I return.
This is why I began our conversation on this point by asking you if you had beliefs. Which, of course, you do.
However, you appear to believe that you don't believe you are entitled to take those beliefs and dominate and control others.
Okay. So my question is why don't you accept that others, who, like you, have beliefs, can have them without feeling entitled to use them to dominate and control others?
That's my point on this aspect of our discussion. I think you can trust that many people are like you: a person with strong beliefs and a strong willingness to advocate and argue your beliefs and to attempt to persuade people to your beliefs, which is what you have done on this thread.
As I see it, the only problem you can have with people acting as you have on this thread, except on behalf of ideas you don't agree with, is that you see it as they are attempting to persuade people to pass laws influenced by their point-of-view and you are not.
However, the law is the sum of what it says AND what it does not say. IOW, you are advocating using the "force of law" just as much by *omission* as someone advocating using the "force of law" by *commission.*
That's the first thing. The second thing is what we talked about previously: that is, that you cannot equate "force of law" with laws *being forced upon us.*
The first---the "force of law"---is the agreed-upon (in the social contract sense) result of legitimate legal and constitutional processes of a legitimate government. (And it includes legitimate legal and constitutional processes to change laws if the people so choose.)
The latter---laws *being forced upon us*---would be the implementation of the illegitimate results of the illegal and unconstitutional processes of an illegitimate government.
The latter is not occurring when you or I or anyone else simply advocates using legitimate processes to reflect---by omission or commission---a particular point of view.
Living with legitimately enacted laws with which we disagree is unpleasant or worse. But it is not, in process terms, the same as having those laws "forced" upon us.
Oh, man, I just lost a long post to you!!
Okay, I'll try again.
Okay, here's my reconstruction of my "one more thought" on your comment.
All laws impose moral judgments. Speed limits, for example, exist because we collectively have made the moral judgment that it is wrong to subject the many to the dangerous, stupid and risky conduct of the few.
Previously and presently in our history, including a time when major religion played a much more dominating role in our culture than it does now, there were and are many laws that reflect the moral judgments you rail against. Laws against adultery, incest, bestiality, pedophilia, homosexuality and so on.
Yet tyranny did not occur.
Prior to Roe v. Wade, many states had various restrictions on abortion---surely reflecting a major moral judgment.
Yet tyranny did not occur.
At one time, one of the most immoral moral judgments known to man---slavery---was imposed through our law.
Yet tyranny did not occur.
Why not? If these type of moral judgments are the slippery slope to tyranny, as you argue, how did America remain a free nation, and how did our legitimate legal and constitutional processes continue to work, including continue to work to bring change?
So, for purposes of our discussion, I'll agree with you that some people come to believe that they are entitled to force others to live by their beliefs, and so have "started down a road of thinking that has to do with control and domination."
Again, and I am being sincere not sarcastic here: so what? Short of staging a coup and running the country by sheer brute force (which I do not think is possible), how do you think such people would obtain enough power to exercise "control and domination" over the rest of us?
The answer is that they can't.
And you have already said that the "force" you are concerned about is the "force of law," the "force" of government. But unless our government is abolished, the only avenues to power are legitimate processes for building social consensus and enacting that consensus into law. If you cannot abide that, then you are saying you cannot abide the fact that people with all viewpoints can participate in the marketplace of ideas.
I don't think you want to go there.
Advocate anything you please about homosexuality or any other topic, but it's not appropriate to label those doing the same (albeit from a POV with which you disagree) as equivalent to the Taleban.