Consequences

I was listening to a radio talk show the other day where the host, a self proclaimed liberal, was having an issue with a local medical research project that pays volunteers between 1 and 4 thousand dollars to be inoculated with malaria and undergo treatment with test medications. The anticipated health impact on volunteers was described as equivalent to someone who contracted the flue, in other words similar symptoms and down time. Obviously when you are dealing with medical research there is the chance that something could go wrong resulting in a more severe situation than anticipated, including the possibility of death in rare cases.

The host's objection was that the research was somehow unfair to poor people, because there was a risk to it, and because it offered a pay amount that might entice someone who needed money to volunteer. The host said that he understood how medical research was important and necessary and he did not object to the research being done, but he felt this project was somehow unfair to poor people. Since none of the callers seemed to understand his concerns, the host kept trying to re-explain his objection but was unable to explain it any better than it "seemed somehow unfair".

Eventually I shut the radio off in annoyance, because as far as fairness was concerned, his objection had absolutely no substance. The problem with this host's state of mind wasn't about fairness, it was about consequences. What he was really concerned with was that someone in greater need of money might be more apt to disregard the possible dangers of volunteering for such a research project. So in order to be fair in his mind, you would need to remove any risks that the volunteer's financial state presumably caused them to disregard. It wasn't that the poor person would be taking a greater risk than the rich person. It wasn't that the poor person didn't have equal intelligence to make the same decisions as the rich person. It was about wanting to change the risk based on financial need. The only "fair" action from this perspective would be to give the poor person the same pay without requiring them to participate in the same research.

This is the greatest flaw with the liberal mindset. They believe that fairness is about having equal consequences for actions that are not equal by any means. They want the consequences of uninhibited sex to be equal to abstinence. They want the consequences of socially unaccepted same sex partnerships to be equal to marriage. They want the consequences of a lazy "what's in it for me" work ethics to be equal to the productive hard worker. They want to be treated equal when they are not equal.

That is what is happening to our country. In their strive for "equality", liberals are putting laws in place to try to change society into their distorted concept of "equality". Now you don't have to abstain from sexual lusts because you can take a pill to eliminate the pregnancy that resulted from such lusts. Now legal marriage is redefined to include same sex partnerships, and anti-discrimination laws prohibit objectors from expressing the opinions that such perverted behavior deserves. Now labor unions assure that lazy workers cannot be fired and must be promoted ahead of their more deserving co-workers, and people too lazy to work are provided free government handouts. Now liberal laws have made everyone more "equal" than ever before.

Only they are not equal...

Galatians 6:7-8 - Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. (NIV)

There is always a consequence, and the liberals will never be able to legislate it away. A person may kill their unborn baby, but that does not remove the guilt of their sinful act, nor their own responsibility for taking an innocent life. A person may get the government to call their same sex partnership a marriage, but it will never be recognized by society in the same way as traditional marriage, and even while they lift their noses proudly at what they have done, inside they continue to feel the shame and reproach for the lie they are living. A person may be promoted above their co-workers or given a free ride in their laziness, but they will never have genuine respect from their undeserved promotion or handout. God is not mocked. As the grass of the field is thrown into the fire and forgotten, so they will also go.


James :)