I am apparently the Blog Queen. Everyone else I talk to says they are usually one or two posts behind, or they've only got two or three posts, etc. Some do manage to keep up. And here I am, with 33 posts or so...
Sigh.
Anyway, our speaker tonight was Dr. Santanu Borah, a professor from the Department of Management and Marketing. He was asked to speak on globalization and a 'New World Order'. I don't know, but those last three words sounded awfully ominous to me. Sinister, even. Does it suggest to anyone else dystopias, the evil plans of evil criminal masterminds/politicians/tyrants, and science fiction end-of-the-world blockbusters?
Dr. Borah began by attempting to define values, saying it was an abstract term encompassing beliefs (tied to emotions, not objective, cold ideas), that it is motivational (setting us goals), that it transcends actions and situations, guides our selection or evaluation of actions, others, scenarios, etc. I can't really argue with anyone of that, except for the first part. I am not a moral relativist. I am a moral absolutist. But the thing is, moral absolutists are only relatively absolute, whil moral relativists are absolutely relative. (Ha!) See, we only hold some things as absolute. But moral relativists, to soothe their consciences, insist everything is relative. That way they can live in a gooshy, feel-good world and insist on blaming everyone but themselves for the consequences of their own stupidity/sins/accidents/etc.
Dr. Borah then launched into a series of highly-controversial topics, ranging from abortion to gun control to the death penalty- you name it. He favored presenting both sides and making us think, rather than offering definite answers- which, I suppose, had a point. But I do believe there is a moderate position between the two extremes on just about every topic that is neither wishy-washy nor diluted in New Age weakness. Gun control, for example. No, I don't think just anybody should be able to have a gun. Obviously, there are idiots out there. But I certainly think we have the right to keep and BEAR arms. In Europe, many people do not have that right. The citizens are helpless if their government wants to oppress them (sound familiar, anyone?). In Britain, you can't practically carry a knife across your kitchen. We should be thankful for our rights here- and fight to hold on to them!
Of course, my experience with guns comes from living on a farm. Out here, there are coyotes that hunt and kill our animals. We want to protect our animals against predators- coyotes, raccoons, hawks, and so forth. My uncle even saw a mountain lion one night... You may think, "Oh, they're harmless. They'd never go after people." Oh, yes, they do. Have you seen no article in the paper talking about desperate coyotes attacking people- even killing them? It does happen. They are not scared of people anymore. They waltz through our backyard every night.
And of course I see that, if a person has a gun, they might be able to stop some nut who is shooting up the place. Whether they would do so or not, I don't know, as Dr. Borah pointed out: the person might fear that others will think he is in league with the nutcase instead of trying to stop him. I don't know. But I think the right to self-defense is extremely important in as crazy a world as ours is right now.
As for the rest? Meh. I'm chatty enough on my blog without dragging up every single topic Dr. Borah mentioned and lengthening this post out to novel-length. Everyone else does a paragraph or two and signs off... But I'll add this. A state's claim on a citizen is not as great as the claim of the citizen's conscience. The commandment to honor our father and mother implicitly includes honoring- and thus obeying- all our lawful superiors, including our government. But only in all things that are not sinful. Would you rather be found striving with men, or with the Almighty? 2000 years ago, Gamaliel spoke rightly.
The moment the government of any state acts in violation of the natural order and oppresses their citizens, it is forfeited its right to their allegiance and loyalty.
And on that profoundly secessionist note, I shall sign off.
In Pace Christi,
Elyse
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