That is a line from Jurassic Park, where scientist Ian Malcom (Jeff Goldblum) is expressing his concern about the wisdom of reincarnating dinosaurs into the (then) 20th Century.
I'm going to tell a short narrative about why I have utterly no respect for anyone shameless enough to defend Rand Paul; and to a degree, for those of you who know my antagonism (I say self-defense) towards people of religion, about my watershed moment when I realized I was dealing with people far more intellectually bankrupt than I could ever fail and myself become.
Their duplicity is not masked by their chicanery in language.
Follow me, please...
"Your scientists were so worried about whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think about whether or not they should"
Surely there is some wizard of youtube who can find this scene.
West Lafayette, Indiana, 1998. I have been invited (cajoled, encouraged, implored) to attend a "Passion Play" at the Assemblies of God church where a good friend of mine is a member. I've been an atheist most of my life, and so I say to myself at age 26 that it was time I gave Jesus his chance to find me.
Fast Forward: Sermon two weeks later:
Pastor says that Lafayette City, inside the boundaries and a component of Tippecanoe County Indiana, wants to amend the anti-discrimination statute to include homosexuals in protected classes. Brace Yourself: Amongst the already protected classes: religion.
So the new ordinance will read "No business, landlord, or organization shall descriminate based on Race, Gender, Creed, Religion, National Origin, and Sexual Orientation".
See that?
Religion is already a protected class, sheltered safely by this very law.
And more amazing - (seriously, brace yourself) - churches and religious organizations already had an exemption from this very law. Don't want to force any Jew, Muslim, Christian, or Atheist to have to put up with someone of another mindset, right - I mean...that would be an infringement of their religious rights...so we have to let their religious beliefs infringe on someone else's civil rights.
Ugh.
And so I told my friend and his church to check their mortal souls at the door every Sunday because they had clearly sold them already - there they were, protected by a law that they alone, for reasons they alone could justify, declared that some other group should not be protected by.
Um, Jesus? Isn't this why we needed a law? Can I get a ruling on this one?
Jesus has yet to return my calls.
On to Rand Paul.
What this bastard has effectively said, in a horribly unforgivable failure of transparency, is (paraphrase)
"I don't believe in descrimination, but I think it should be legal"
Hey, you dumb bastard -
why would you need to make it legal unless you plan to provide sanctuary for those who engage in it????
...Which is what I said on my way out the door to my "friends" at the church.
If you have no intention of breaking a law, then you should have no fear of a law that only asks that you not engage in whatever is prohibited. If the law you object to only asks that you not mistreat someone, and you object, does this not logically suggest that you might have some intrinsic or personal reason to indeed mistreat someone?
So Rand, what you're saying is -
in the name of libertarianism, mistreatment and abuse of people based on personal reasons should be the law of the land - because the government is not allowed to pass any law to demand otherwise?
Then guess what's going to happen...(we've seen this movie before)
That's right - every group, every individual will decide based on their own criteria who they can discriminate against, and those they discriminate against will realize that it's a free-for-all and hoo-rah...
...break out the fire hoses and dogs again folks, because Bull Conner ain't dead yet.
I got one thing to say before I set my life on fire:
What if I decided that it was OK to discriminate against people who are politically conservative, fanatically libertarian, and sanctimoniously religious?
Will that be all right with you, Rand?
I think I know how this is going to play out -
but given how this country seems to have surrendered logic as a lost art for a bygone era, I am not looking forward to living through it.
God Help us.
Oh, wait...I don't believe in one.
Oops.
(note to those who think I'm being provacative towards religion: Those Christians with their Bibles in my face tell me that every single act is somehow part of "G"od's greater plan - so if what I say pisses you off...
...remember, it's all part of the plan. I'm only a drone in a larger script)
For those of you who support free thought based on logic, this one is pretty cut and dried and Democrats/Liberals/Progressives - anyone with a hope of keeping that "domestic tranquility" our founders thought may have been important - had better grow some courage and in a hurry. Because if we play nice while the Republican'ts play by like this, the 60's are going to look like a picnic with Yogi and Boo-Boo.
From a little-known document called the "Constitution of the United States of America", specifically the "preamble"
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
I might suggest that some forms of libertarianism takes a back seat to "domestic tranquility", unless you're such a Civil War buff that you'd like to see us have another one. This not-so-fine distinction that Rand Paul makes between "institutional discrimination" and (whatever else he thinks could be different) is such a shameless revealing of his lack of character and integrity, his daddy ought to whip him for bringing shame to the family.
Then again, shame in the Republican party is not a big worry lately.
Of course, given that Rand and his merry medlers are hiding under the auspices of a political party that threatens seccession like a three year old holds his breath, and doesn't realize that one of their role models - a guy named Abraham Lincoln - had a few words to say about the lengths he was willing to go to keep the union together...
well, if there is a "G"od - he surely is a fan of irony, and he seems to have little worry about rank hypocrisy amongst some of his most devout posers...I mean followers.
Have nice day.
If I figure out where they're hiding them, I'll get one for all of us, but I'm at a point where I am starting to believe they may have discontinued that model.