An observation from Steven Hayward on RFRA, Indiana, Memories Pizza, the tipping point of the absorption of the private sector by Government – and the unmasking of the Left for who they really are (emphasis mine):
The “end of liberalism” can be taken to have two meanings, reflecting the ambiguity of both “end” and “liberalism.” “End” can mean the final or logical destination of an idea—the goal, if not its perfection (think telos); or it can mean that something is finished, over and done with, gone forever. And “liberalism” is a confused term in modern times. It originally stood for individual liberty, and was the cornerstone of limited government that respected not just individual rights, but the basic distinction of the public from the private. But today’s liberalism has become wholly authoritarian, though it is obviously ill-liberal in the extreme. Perhaps the increasingly overt authoritarianism of American liberalism was its telos all along? (Pat Moynihan thought so as early as the 1960s; he remarked to Nixon in 1970, “I know there is an authoritarian Left in this country, and I fear it.” What would he think now?)
This is what makes the controversy in Indiana so ominous. Forget the narrower questions about whether gays should be classified fully as a “protected class” for civil rights purposes like blacks and other minorities, whether bakeries (and wedding photographers, for some odd reason) should be considered the equivalent of public accommodations like hotels and restaurants, which is the other civil rights law category in play here, or where the boundary of religious liberty should be drawn in relation to discriminations of any kind. The larger question of whether the implications of the assault on religious conscience doesn’t entail the end of liberalism—in either sense of the phrase—is not being given sufficient notice.
Has the Left, once again having claimed to be the “weaker” and supplicant for “tolerance” when descendant, having grown and shown strength and momentum, doing what all totalitarian movements have throughout time – thrown aside the no longer needed idea of tolerance and demanding fealty to all that it is? Which is the more apt description: it’s own image of King Nebuchadnezzar or “Everything in the State, nothing outside of the State, and no dissent of the State”?
(H/T: Powerline)
