Peggy Noonan - I was reading Peggy Noonan this morning. She wrote about many current events issues but towards the end she wrote about 'banners' -- people who want certain things banned -- in the context of the recent California decision against smoking.
"I have come to hate the banners. No, I don't smoke. I just believe in the right of people to be human, to be imperfect and messy and flawed. I don't dislike the banners because they're prissy bullies, though that is reason enough. I dislike them because their work forces us to look at the shift in values in our country in our time. As I watched the NBC report, I actually thought to myself: I want to make sure I understand. If you smoke a cigarette on a beach in modern America you are harming the innocent. If you have a baby scraped from your womb, you are protecting your freedom. If you sell a pack of cigarettes to a 12-year-old boy you can be jailed, fined and sent to Guantanamo Bay with the other killers. If you sell a pack of contraceptives to a 12 year old boy in modern America you are socially responsible citizen."
James Fitzpatrick - Along a similar vein, I was reading James Fitzpatrick this morning when I came across another paradox indicative of our culture wars. He writes in "Freedom of Expression?":
"Remember the old line (probably mistakenly) attributed to Voltaire: “I may disagree with what you have to say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.” The left used to trot it out all the time when politicians or community groups were in up in arms over radical activities on campus. Do you ever wonder if the members of the faculty committees constructing codes of political correctness, or the Canadian politicians writing laws making it illegal to teach what is in the Bible about homosexuality, are ever troubled by the memory of the days when they would recite Voltaire’s words as if they were a sacred text?"
Normally I leave the linking of stories to the sidebar on the right side of the front page, but when I read those paragraphs, I couldn't help myself.