Sharing a Better Spirit Makes Even More Sense
Lynn Has This [click to read] to say at The Washington Examiner. Here are a few thoughts of my own:
First, the state always creates a conflicting situation for itself when it sells a product it also regulates. Any legal product with clear regulations and guidelines for its sale and use needs to be offered to the marketplace by the private sector. Government's role must always be limited and clearly defined.
Second, communities should always see themselves empowered on a local level. Localities already control signeage. It is reasonble to say that localities could restrict such establishments and, say, keep them a certain distance from schools and residential areas. Fears of neon signs on every corner are greatly overrated. Most distribution licenses, I would imagine, would be sought by existing retailers. These retailers are a part of the community fabric and would likely comply with the values of their customers.
Read the histories of great revivals, such as the one in Toronto in the late 19th Century [1.]. One of the outcomes of such spiritual awakenings is a marked decline in the sale of spirits. William H. Howland's [2.] tenure as mayor saw a decrease in the number of places selling adult beverages. As a person of faith, this tells me that an overabundance of beverage outlets might be best addressed by the offer of a Spirit of a better sort. What regulation cannot achieve, choices that offer more lasting satisfaction can.
The state cannot, by law offer this Spirit. It can, however, acknowledge that human needs must be met by sources beyond the state. The simple excercise of limiting the scope of government says that. There is a beautiful tensegrity created by the First Amendment's 'establishment clause' and the 'free excercise clause' that should allow faith to freely operate in the marketplace. Unfortunately groups such as the ACLU and some courts have twisted the clause so as to protect and promote vile expression and surpress the sharing of the Spirit.
The result is that the state finds itself endorsing one and not the other.
This morning I read about the Farmville rapper who went to a concert where the artists engaged in their First Amendment right to sing about raping, killing and mutilating people [as the ACLU would have you understand it] [3]. Then he bludgeoned his girlfiend and her parents to death.
What would have been the outcome if this young man could have come under the influence of a fine Youth Pastor? I know a few who's lives and message have indeed changed lives just like that of this young man. Yet the state takes great pains to keep the expression of faith out of the public square. Think of the College of William and Mary, where the cross in Wren Chapel had to be removed, but the student union hosted a 'sex workers' show,' presumably for 'educational purposes.' Teachers routinely censor student work for religious references and Heaven help the Valedictorian who acknowledges that her life is what it is because of Heaven's help!
Our nation today stands at a crossroads. Either we acknowledge that government cannot possibly solve all of our problems and limit it; or we must continually expand its scope to deal with an ever growing number of problems. These can only increase in number and severity as people no longer seek answers outside of government.
Toronto in the late Nineteenth Century.
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