The Government Owns Your Kittens. Seriously.

Before you get your knickers in a twist, I am not going to say that the Arizona law that caused all the ruckus should or should not have been vetoed. I will say that John McCain's insistence on a veto makes me think the law at least held a modicum of merit, but that's another rabbit hole to jump down altogether.

But this is not the first time this subject has come to the forefront, and if recent history is any indication, it won't be the last. By "this subject" I mean the notion that business owners can be forced to provide services or goods. The media wants it to be about the First Amendment. The left wants it to be about First Amendment. And we are catering to them at every turn, arguing that the business owner has the right to free expression and exercise of religion. All that is true, but that's not all that is true.

So let me ask you this: Do you own anything? Do you own a house? A car? A piece of furniture? A cat? Imagine for a minute that you do own a cat, and that cat has kittens. You take those kittens in a basket to a local park and post a sign that says, "Free kittens, but only if you aren't a ginger." Yeah, I know, that's stupid. It's bigoted. (It also made me giggle.) But that's not the point.

Should the government be allowed to force you to give your kittens to a ginger? And if the government can force you to give your kittens to a ginger - or anyone else - against your will, were those kittens ever really yours? Or did they belong to the government, with you simply acting as the middleman?

Now imagine you own a business. Everything you produce or sell is your individual property unless and until you choose to sell it. If the government can force you to sell it at a time or to a person that is not of your choosing, how can that property truly be yours? If your right to own and control your personal property IS NOT ABSOLUTE, then you DON'T OWN IT AT ALL. 

But they're not really criticizing you. They're criticizing liberty.

Sneaky, isn't it, the way they tell you it's bigotry if you don't give your liberty away? The way they try to tell you that your religious freedom doesn't trump someone else's civil rights. (By the way, it does - go check out which one is enumerated in the Constitution and get back to me if you don't believe me.) The way they tell you that you're small-minded and hateful if you don't believe in the agenda they happen to be championing.

They don't like liberty because it's dirty. It's offensive. It's crude, loud, obnoxious, and frankly, dangerous. Because when people have liberty, they often use it to do things that you don't like. They say things that offend you. They choose not to cater weddings that you believe should happen. And (merciful heavens, no) they take the Constitution at its literal word when they go about protecting their homes and their families. 

But the tricky thing about liberty is that if you remove the dirt and the danger, it CEASES TO BE. 

For people to be free, they MUST retain the freedom to offend others. For people to have liberty, they MUST have the liberty to defend themselves, violently if necessary. For business owners to have the same freedom as the gay couple who can choose whether or not to patronize their establishment, they must have the freedom to turn down business from ANYONE at ANY TIME.