Without God, no consent of the governed

It has been frequently said here that once transcendence and tradition are gone, all that matters is the individual and his will, and since there is no longer any truth or standard outside the individual will, all individual wills are of equal value. Further, as Mark D. said the other day, since equality among the wills is the only standard, the only rule for adjudicating a conflict between wills is that the majority of wills must be prevented from imposing its will on the minority, since such imposition would mean that some wills are superior to others.

We have a classic example of this advanced liberal thinking in an amazing decision from the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California. John Leo writes:

[T]he court ruled that a California student, Tyler Chase Harper, had no First Amendment right to go to school wearing a T-shirt condemning homosexuality.

In response to a “Day of Silence” sponsored by the Gay-Straight Alliance at Poway High School in Poway, Calif., Harper wore a shirt that said, on the front, “Be Ashamed, Our School Embraced What God Has Condemned,” and on the back, “Homosexuality Is Shameful. Romans 1:27.” The principal ordered Harper to take off the shirt. Harper refused to comply and sued. He argued that the purpose of the “Day of Silence” was to “endorse, promote and encourage homosexual activity” and that he was entitled to use his T-shirt message as a rebuttal. He cited his First Amendment rights to free speech and freedom of religion.

Much T-shirt jurisprudence turns on the question of whether direct threats or the likelihood of severe disruption or violence are involved. In this case [Judge Stephen] Reinhardt and his colleague Judge Sidney R. Thomas argued that T-shirt messages could be excluded from First Amendment protection if they strike at a “core identifying characteristic of students on the basis of their membership in a minority group.”

The clear implication is that a racial minority student could wear a t-shirt saying, “Whites are racists,” since only the majority is being attacked and no one, presumably, could be threatened by this. But a white student could not wear a t-shirt saying, “Blacks are racists,” because that would be striking at a “core identifying characteristic of students on the basis of their membership is a minority group.” But attacking a core identifying characteristic of majority students is fine. All this is completely consistent with modern liberalism, the logic of which leads it first to diminish majority power, in preparation for destroying it altogether.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 24, 2006 02:22 AM | Send