Theological Ballsiness

Yes, the Naked Villain disagrees with no less than God Himself when it comes to the question of so-called "inalienable rights." A quick quote:

At any rate, your Maximum Leader is a big believer in much of what Hobbes has to say about the nature of rights and government. Although it pains me to admit (as until the MWO comes your Maximum Leader is a loyal patriotic American), he has never really fully agreed with the famous words of Thomas Jefferson that men are "endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights." This is to say that your Maximum Leader has not agreed with God giving all humanity the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I know this might come as a shock to you, but it is true. I believe that we were all created with free will, and self-determination. But, I don't believe God went a step further and started to enumerate political rights for us all. The rights that we enjoy are not God-given. They are, in fact, Man-given. They are the product of our civilization and traditions. They are our customs. As such they can change. The prospect of our rights changing gets most people's knickers in a knot. Liberals want to create a whole bunch of new rights (at the expense of old ones) and Conservatives want to keep the ones we have (at the expense of changing times). We all have to admit that rights evolve as our civilization evolves.

Let your Maximum Leader go on the record now as saying HE and HE ALONE will be the font from which all rights flow down to you, my minions, in the MWO (i.e., Mike World Order).

[italics and boldface mine]

Whoa.

I know that Mike partakes of the Heinleinian school of thought (cf. Colonel duBois' speech in Starship Troopers for a quick summary; too bad this speech didn't make it into the movie, though I'm happy that Dina Meyer's breasts did)-- i.e., if you're stranded out on the ocean, in your little inner tube, with an increasingly frenzied shark biting progressively larger chunks out of your ass, it becomes obvious you don't enjoy divine protection-- inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the protection of your buttocks. Quite the opposite: you have to resign yourself to your new role as chum. I find most of the elements of this argument persuasive, though for me, it's safer to say that we don't enjoy God-given protection because there's no literal God there to do the protecting. Just ask the people killed by Clint Eastwood just now (cf. previous remarks, two posts down).

There, I said it. There's no literal God. Just as "there is no Dana, only Zool," there's no cosmic Big Daddy or heavenly security camera, monitoring our progress, propping us up when we get struck dead by old men in fast cars, and so on. That still, small voice you hear? Blame the shrooms.

Wanna know more about my buddy's views? Check out his blog.

UPDATE, 9:48PM: With Jedi reflexes, the Naked Villain surveyed my remarks and quickly determined that it would be better to disagree with Thomas Jefferson than with God Almighty, thereby completely invalidating my post. Damn, damn, damn. I told him I'd delete my own post, since it's no longer relevant, BUT I CAN'T FIND THE DELETE BUTTON! Which is why I'm providing you an update. Shitticles.
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