Ha! Doesn't seem like they're too worried about it, they may even welcome it. :-)
... about how political correctness had become tyranny. Sorry at the moment I do not remember his name. this is a slice of the many ideas regarding tyranny ...
about “The Tyranny of the Minority”,
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This is from Goggle ...”
When a Christian shows respect in order to honor his father and mother, he is not always thinking of attaining a long life, even though we can all agree grant that that is not a bad motive at all. Truth of the matter is, he is really just trying to show his love for them.
Writing the name of his mother and the name of his father in the passport application is one means of demonstrating obedience, love, respect and appreciation for them. It is what we simply would call a Christian sharing testimony to the world of where he stands in relation to two special individuals who gave him life. It is straightforward but very meaningful acknowledgment of his birth origin. Even many Americans outside of the Christian spectrum would find it difficult to disagree with that. Combined they represent 97% of America – people who are mostly professing heterosexuals. The remaining 3% are gay-lesbians, some of whom have become same-sex parents or legal guardians, if you will. They are confronted with an embarrassing dilemma imposed upon them by the old passport application form - they claim. The resolution of this dilemma is what brought the State Department into the center of the storm.
Whether one is religious or not, we all know what mother and father mean biologically and striking a balance between what is natural in the context of normal human behavior and acceptable societal traditions is right behavior and is not oppressive to the 3% who cannot agree with the 97% on how to fill out 2 meaningful spaces on the passport form just because those terms are a cause for self-embarrassment since those limited descriptions exclude them, they allege. After all is said and done, of these 3%, each has had had real biological parents who gave them life. Maybe they have forgotten that basic truth. Or are there some people out there who really just want to hide under the cover of “parents” for their own special reasons? As in the not-so-distant past, didn't “legal guardian” notarized by an attorney considered sufficiently legal to cover children who have had no traceable or willing parents stepping up for passport purposes? The switch from guardian to parent 1 or 2 is, ah, a quantum leap! A remarkable victory for you know who. Why can't everybody win sometimes?
I may not speak for everyone of the 97 % but I believe that an overwhelming majority of them - Christian or not – would want just two meaningful spaces on the passport application form to read mother and father. Is that too much? We have been doing it in America ever since overseas travel began requiring travel visa many, many years ago - perhaps a few centuries before. Marriage license, some work documents, applications to academic institutions, and other important documents require father and mother data. The birth data and father/mother identity have always been part and parcel of bureaucratic paperwork. Would the State Department issue a passport to a US-born child whose parents were illegal aliens? Would illegal aliens turn themselves in for the sake of getting their child a passport? Perhaps not. But they can arrange for parent 1 and parent 2 to do the honor while preserving their anonymous illegal immigration status. That is just one loophole in the new ruling.
There have been no loud indications that may lead one to believe otherwise that the vast majority wanted this bureaucratic change. It was fractionated fringe groups from the 3% who shouted the loudest and apparently got heard. Should we believe that the majority of 3% do have adopted children and have become their legal parents? It's hard to say unless a scientific survey was conducted. Even then, all of 3% is still vastly small. Some statisticians have actually alleged that they are really less than 0.5%. Now that is really, really incremental.
I ask again: Would the 97% accept two spaces on the passport form that can be mother, father, parent 1 and parent 2? Four choices as compromise solution, why not? My guess is that they would since the mother and father answers are still available, anyway. That’s marvelous flexibility of calculated compromising, there you go! Orwellian or Machiavellian? Pick your thistles or thorns. Shall we then say, oh well, everyone is happy, aren't they?
The America Constitution was drafted in order to create a republic that will move towards a perfect democracy. Philosophically, the founding fathers wanted to avoid all risks of tyranny by a minority or tyranny by a majority. It is simple to define tyranny. Simply defined, it is dictatorial power of tyranny by a minority led by a dictator. Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, and Mao Tse Tung are recent examples of when a minority group led by a dictator seizes control of a nation and forces its will upon the majority.
However, tyranny can also be created in republics or democracies when tyranny by a majority subjugates a minority. More recently, we have seen how ethnic subjugation leading to ethic cleansing has occurred in a number of nations such as the Bosnian-Serb Republic 1991-1992 and Republic of Rwanda 1994. In the Republic of Sudan, it started in 2003 and still ongoing. In these cases, the tyranny appears to have been silently approved by a large portion of the people. Not too removed from those examples was the quiet indifference of “good” Germans who “allowed” by default the unjust and barbaric extermination of minority Jews.
Give America great credit. It scored 3 great victories against tyranny by the majority. It abolished slavery in 1865; it defeated the spirit of and outlawed pervasive disenfranchisement of women in 1920; and introduced reforms that barred discrimination in 1964. Those were triumphs against forces of oppressive majority.
In view of the foregoing citations from American history, shall we say then that the 97% is oppressively evil in their moral stand on the true definition of parenthood and that the latter 3% represents a non-traditional minority who are being overpowered, discriminated and disenfranchised by the former? To say so is a stretch of fertile imagination. Sprague claimed that the State Department decision was not driven by political correctness. So they just need to use terminology that is more precise and reflective of the new times we are in? Who else is she kidding here?
I like what Family Research Council president Tony Perkins wrote in a statement to Fox News Radio.
“Only in the topsy-turvy world of left-wing political correctness could it be considered an ‘improvement’ for a birth-related document to provide less information about the circumstances of that birth,”
“This is clearly designed to advance the causes of same-sex ‘marriage’ and homosexual parenting without statutory authority, and violates the spirit if not the letter of the Defense of Marriage Act,”
Are we are not then dealing with the tyranny of a minority?
Christianity has lost Christmas nativity scenes in cities across America, has lost freedom of religious expression through prayer in our public school system, has lost crosses on many of our war memorials because one person backed up by a small group of people had their way with the supreme Court, or Congress, or Senate, then the White House. Technically, we did not lose the spaces for the mother and father. In fact, we all gained two or “more” potential answers in order to accommodate many types of parent. However - curse or blessing - we also inherited several problems, some of which have already been cited. Some of them are more moral than philosophical. Such as: who is the better parent? Is it parent 1 or parent 2? Which is really asking, let's face it, “Who is the better parent, mother or father?” Well, the Bible unequivocally commands “Honor thy father and thy mother“, doesn't it?
Would the Christian in his right mind claim that he is categorically a better parent than a gay parent? Maybe not! But he would always say that the title or role the Bible attaches to either of his parents is holy. Father is a holy term; mother – holy, equally. They are holy names mandated from a holy Bible.
Are parent 1 and 2 rightfully mother and father? Who is holier, father or mother? Does the number 2 imply lower title, rank, and substance and by deliberate resolve confer on the number 1 a higher status? No amount of political correctness by way of proffering up 2 or more answers on the passport form can resolve this man-made dilemma. Compromises just serve as timeouts. Pretty soon, the game resumes and proceeds towards a conclusion. We can only foresee more controversies in the near future.
For the Christian, being able to write mother on his mother's name and father on his father's may not be a physical dilemma since the new passport application requires him to do no less. The new rule is a workable compromise for now but it signals the latest victory of a small minority who were in the first place never truly oppressed in the evil sense of the word oppressed. Having people see only the words of mother and father on a passport application form may not pass for tyranny by a majority for tyranny's sake. It is, therefore, not categorically oppressive by democratic and constitutional measures and standards. Tyranny by a minority, arguably, is what it is, no doubt about that. Before long, the minority may become bigger in number and power, at which point they would become unstoppable and literally remove mother and father from the whole process. And a real oppression of a new minority group called Christians whose Bible they hate, and who are ever decreasing in number and influence daily in this country and perhaps everywhere beyond, predictably could take place. The signs of the times are pretty discouraging. Two spaces on a passport application have lost their true meaning. That's just one more frightening sign – though somewhat comical - we have seen in these last days.
We can applaud Hillary Clinton for listening to the demands from the conservative Republicans who wanted the original decision reversed. She is a skilled politician who knows how to defuse a huge controversy through simple compromise. The speed with which it was done is breathtaking. But we know for sure that the original executive act and its follow-through compromised version are by no means a congressional legislative act. However, as government-honoring and law-abiding citizens that we all want to always try to be, we will obey. Again. And again. And yet again.
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NOTICE the following ...
Postscript: Perhaps we may continue to remember what Abraham Lincoln said.
“You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling wage payer down.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away people’s incentive and independence.
You cannot help people permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.”