The Texas Intolerance Bill and McConnell's Intolerance
Texas is planning on legalizing religious intolerance. The bill is Senate Bill 17 and was introduced by Charles Perry of Lubbock and it would, according to reporting in the Texas Tribune,
The bill does not have a name yet but clearly it should be named the Texas Intolerance Bill. This is just what the country needs. We all need to confront, proselytize, demean, or disregard anyone who doesn't believe what we believe. This brings me back to the book How Democracies Die. Tolerance of others is required if we are to live in a democracy. This bill is another sign that the Republican Party is becoming the party of autocratic, ideological rule. Perhaps Texas is intending on becoming an autocratic state even though it is the most racially diverse state in America.
The bill is being opposed by Texas businessmen. Like the Bathroom Bill of North Carolina, they feel it might inhibit folks from doing business with people who discriminate based on religion or sexual preference. This gets a little confusing. Should tolerant people discriminate against people because they are intolerant? Is this morally consistent?
In other news, Mitch McConnell is continue his efforts to move our country from a democracy to an autocracy. Under his leadership the Senate's Republican majority changed the rules of debate reducing the length of debate from 30 hours to 2 hours, undoing 210 years of precedent. When you have no arguments worth using it doesn't take any time to debate an issue. When a law maker is only using ideology to make his or her decisions the process is simple. Do you remember in high school or college having those intense conversations in the cafeteria over pie and coffee about whether God exists, or the nature of consciousness? After an hour or two of arguing the believers would just fall back on faith, on ideology, on what they believed and not what information tells us. I stopped having those conversations years ago because they always ended the same way. Mitch is a good example of a very simple mind with a very hostile intolerance of anyone who is not a white Christian heterosexual. In the book How Democracies Die Levitsky and Ziblatt tell us in order to have a democratic government, one that listens and takes seriously points of view of all of its diverse citizen, we must practice tolerance and forbearance. McConnell is intolerant and not acting with forbearance. He is using their book of how to kill a democracy as his map for using the slim Republican majority to hold on to power regardless of the cost to the institutions of democracy.
If a person is elected by a democratic process, they should respect that process. A good example of the havoc that can occur is the 2012 democratic election in Egypt, their only democratic election. They elected Mohamed Morsi who did not believe in democracy because he was a fundamentalist Muslim. His efforts to change the constitution and the country from a democracy to an Islamic state ruled by sharia law led to a military coup and his imprisonment. Democracy failed and Egypt is still a dictatorship today - all because Morsi did not practice tolerance and use forbearance. Listen up Mitch, because you and Morsi have a lot in common.
would allow occupational license holders like social workers or lawyers to cite “sincerely held religious beliefs” when their licenses are at risk due to professional behavior or speechOther reporting on the bill says that SB17 would allow doctors to refuse to treat patients that they felt somehow were incompatible with their religious beliefs as long as there was another doctor who was available and willing to tolerate treating a Muslim, a gay man or woman, or an atheist.
The bill does not have a name yet but clearly it should be named the Texas Intolerance Bill. This is just what the country needs. We all need to confront, proselytize, demean, or disregard anyone who doesn't believe what we believe. This brings me back to the book How Democracies Die. Tolerance of others is required if we are to live in a democracy. This bill is another sign that the Republican Party is becoming the party of autocratic, ideological rule. Perhaps Texas is intending on becoming an autocratic state even though it is the most racially diverse state in America.
The bill is being opposed by Texas businessmen. Like the Bathroom Bill of North Carolina, they feel it might inhibit folks from doing business with people who discriminate based on religion or sexual preference. This gets a little confusing. Should tolerant people discriminate against people because they are intolerant? Is this morally consistent?
In other news, Mitch McConnell is continue his efforts to move our country from a democracy to an autocracy. Under his leadership the Senate's Republican majority changed the rules of debate reducing the length of debate from 30 hours to 2 hours, undoing 210 years of precedent. When you have no arguments worth using it doesn't take any time to debate an issue. When a law maker is only using ideology to make his or her decisions the process is simple. Do you remember in high school or college having those intense conversations in the cafeteria over pie and coffee about whether God exists, or the nature of consciousness? After an hour or two of arguing the believers would just fall back on faith, on ideology, on what they believed and not what information tells us. I stopped having those conversations years ago because they always ended the same way. Mitch is a good example of a very simple mind with a very hostile intolerance of anyone who is not a white Christian heterosexual. In the book How Democracies Die Levitsky and Ziblatt tell us in order to have a democratic government, one that listens and takes seriously points of view of all of its diverse citizen, we must practice tolerance and forbearance. McConnell is intolerant and not acting with forbearance. He is using their book of how to kill a democracy as his map for using the slim Republican majority to hold on to power regardless of the cost to the institutions of democracy.
If a person is elected by a democratic process, they should respect that process. A good example of the havoc that can occur is the 2012 democratic election in Egypt, their only democratic election. They elected Mohamed Morsi who did not believe in democracy because he was a fundamentalist Muslim. His efforts to change the constitution and the country from a democracy to an Islamic state ruled by sharia law led to a military coup and his imprisonment. Democracy failed and Egypt is still a dictatorship today - all because Morsi did not practice tolerance and use forbearance. Listen up Mitch, because you and Morsi have a lot in common.
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