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Entry: Ron Paul and Pius IX Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/ron_paul_and_pius_ix#16236 Post contents: Ah, the eternal argument about the State, which has been made to take center stage to the detriment of a balanced view of the situation. Certainly, a too strong and overpowering State is a problem, and it ought to be cut down to size **but** not by those who refuse to see that some of the opponens are as troublesome as the STate itself, and can be more dangerous. It is one thing to preach about keeping the State out of certain areas, another to wonder what we enable by that. For example, I like to point out that we could not have freedom of religion until the Aztec religion was wiped out - or any religion which depends on human sacrifice. Same with religions which support sacred prostitution. I think that it was Bernard Shaw that tolerance was OK, but some things cannot be tolerated. It is not the same thing to tolerate a vegetarian than a cannibal. Too many enemies of the State are in the curious position of the man who fought for the right to keep pets in his appartment, but when he drafted the regulations, he was not careful wiht the wording, and found out that his neighbor was keeping cobras. There must be way that allows you to keep cats but not poisonous snakes or alligators (unless you are the late Steve Irwin). If you refuse to see the problem and allow for it, then you will not find many allies. For example, it is one thing to say the universal principle "Parents should be the ones who decide about their children", and another wonder what you can have recourse to when such parents want to genitally mutilate their daughters to keep them sexually pure. Or sell them to a brothel (practices more common that we like to think). Face it, forbidding the State to have a say on certain practices, amounts to general toleration - even of the intolerable - and from that we are in the sliding slope towards multiculturalism and moral relativity. Sent at: 2008 10 07