Tidbits: Jane Caro

Here’s another short piece by Jane Caro. This one is from a TedTalk and she talks about getting older. There’s a lot here that is relevant to the next presidential election. For example, if you’re no longer attractive to the opposite sex, does it matter what you say?

And then there is this weird video by a guy named James White. He’s a baptist minister in Phoenix. I’m not going to delve too deeply into his religious beliefs because, frankly, I don’t care what they are. But he does seem to know the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Maybe that’s why it came up in my YouTube feed. You can watch it or not. That’s not the point. No, what I found interesting was this little nugget at the bottom of the “show more” portion of his video. It’s in the Universal Law Trumps All Others and it goes like this:

1. No man or woman, in or out of government shall initiate force, threat of force or fraud against my life and property and, any and all contracts I’m a party to, not giving full disclosure to me, whether signed by me or not are void at my discretion.

2. I may use force in self-defense against anyone that violates Law 1.

3. There shall be no exceptions to Laws 1 and 2

If this prominent Baptist preacher is suggesting that he has the right to use force to defend himself against government, or any other, authority over him, how does that make him materially different from someone who wants to join ISIS or thinks it is Ok to gun down a bunch of satirical cartoonists?

You can say I’m overreacting but don’t forget what the Waco disaster was about. Just because we’re used to our own home grown fundamentalist extremists doesn’t mean they are less dangerous.

Just because they are religious doesn’t mean we have to respect them or give them liberty to do whatever they want.