A Common Thread Among Young-Earth Creationists, Gun Enthusiasts, Marriage Exclusivists, and the 1%

A Common Thread Among Young-Earth Creationists, Gun Enthusiasts, Marriage Exclusivists, and the 1%: 



" I was watching the HBO documentary "Questioning Darwin" and was struck
by one of the passages in the film. Basically, some of the young-earth
creationists interviewed expressed disbelief, even resentment, over the
idea that Man is not "special." Meaning, if Man is simply the result of
natural selection, nothing more than a highly-evolved species of animal,
and not created by God separately and distinctly from all other living
things, then ... well, then man was not created by God separately and
distinctly from all other living things, and is therefore not "unique"
or "special" but is instead rather ordinary. The resentment comes, I
think, from being thought of as ordinary, rather than as extraordinary,
when one feels deserving of the latter...



I wrote about this recently, on the topic of gun enthusiasts and the Second Amendment. I came to the realization a while back that the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is grounded in property rather than liberty,
as "Arms" are themselves property, viz., consumer goods that must be
purchased before they can be Kept and Borne. As one insightful commenter
(and gun enthusiast) rightly pointed out, thinking of gun rights as
property rights instead of liberty interests has no real practical
effect; it certainly doesn't enable any regulations or restrictions that
are not already permissible. But it is taken, perhaps also rightly, by
gun enthusiasts as an attempt to "diminish" them, their guns and their
"rights," even though it really doesn't. Characterizing guns as property
or as consumer products, merely thinking about them that way,
implies that guns are about sales and profits, not Liberty and Freedom.
It makes those who take such great pride in owning and using guns feel
like nothing more than ordinary retail consumers. It tells them that
owning guns doesn't make them heroes, doesn't make them "unique" or
"special." It tells them, or seems from their perspective to tell them,
that their pride is unjustified...."