Responsibly exercising your freedoms

 I was reading an article over on Dark Brightness this morning about the church in Alberta that is under attack by the government for holding services.  I'll let you read the article if you want more details but it boils down to a) they are being very careful about tracing the Chinese virus, and b) they are insisting on having church services because they feel that it is necessary for the spiritual health of their congregation.

What struck me, however, was a quote by the premiere of Alberta (governor for Americans) who said 

I renew my call for all faith communities to responsibly exercise their freedom of worship

Key word here is "responsibly". What he really means is "do it the way I tell you to" since from what I have read they are, in fact, being very responsible. They aren't, however, complying with government dictats. 

Have you ever noticed that the phrase "responsibly exercise your freedom" ALWAYS means stop doing what you are doing and do what I am telling you to do instead?  That 100% of the time it actually means "don't exercise your freedom".  Do we need examples?  

I'm guessing that you can come up with some on your own but "hate speech" exceptions to free speech come to mind.  If you say things we don't like then you are being irresponsible with your freedom of speech and we will have to regulate you. 

"Common sense" gun laws might fall under this.  It is irresponsible to own semi-automatic, powerful rifles that hold multiple rounds because someone might use them for ill purpose.  If only you would have the guns we approve of we wouldn't have to enact more laws to prevent you from owning the ones we don't like.  

Sure religion is fine, but you should only do it in the privacy of your own home, otherwise we'll have to take action to prevent you from exercising your freedom of religion irresponsibly.

It is hard to argue against being responsible which is why this phrase is used so frequently.  The argument then shifts from whether or not you have freedom to whether or not you are being "responsible" and what exactly that entails.   It is hard to argue from the point of view that if freedom of speech only protects inoffensive speech then it isn't freedom, especially when the definition of inoffensive is then weaponized to marginalize one side of a polity (look at the current kerfuffle over "incitement" by the President and compare what he said to what the left in America said about the BLM riots and looting over the past year).

The Death of the Grown-Up

It will be interesting to see what happens in the aftermath of the Western Washington University party riot.

The President of the university announced that any student who had participated in the riot would be expelled immediately if identified.  There is sure to be pushback from parents of said students if the university follows through on this threat.  I had my doubts that it would ever happen but that remains to be seen.

What I did find interesting was this quote that I stumbled across in an Ed Driscoll article on PJMedia about movies in the 70's.

as Diana West noted in her 2007 book,
The Death of the Grown-Up: How America's Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization , (available here at Amazon.com)

Indeed, at the University of Chicago, which may be the one campus where administrators acted swiftly to expel students who had occupied a building, “parents took out newspaper advertisements protesting the draconian punishment visited upon their darlings, thus providing a clue to what had gone wrong with their children.”

Ms West is referring, of course, to the late 60's college riots where leftist students took over buildings on multiple campuses to protest.

However, I've seen too many situations over the past few years where parents defended the horrific acts of their children to have any faith that maybe today's parents, given the opportunity, will sit down with their college age children and have a talk with them about the consequences of their behavior. My suspicion is that much like the situation in Chicago in the late 60's, we will instead see an outcry from these parents about what a good kid Johnny really is and how unfair the university is being. If Western actually follows through with their pledge.