There is a wonderful book written by the great G. K. Chesterton, called The Ball and the Cross, which I read for the first time at college and couldn't put down until I was finished. It is the story of a hard-core atheist who is completely convinced of the truth of his atheism, and has a shop set up with inflammatory anti-Catholic posters in the windows in order to attract somebody of a religious persuasion to debate. The world passes him by for a good portion of his life, being too self-involved in its own ennui to give a care, until one day a Catholic man sees the shop and in a fit of righteous rage smashes the window, challenging the atheist to a duel in defense of the honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The atheist is so happy to finally meet someone who will take him up on his challenge that he drops everything and the two try to find a nice quiet spot to duel with swords.
Only they never actually do much fighting at all, because they are constantly being interrupted by busybodies and the authorities. But the various people they encounter only fuel their passion to cross verbal and literal swords in a spiritual duel.
If you think I relate this story in order to defend or tear down one side or the other, then you would be mistaken, this time anyways. I do in fact believe one of these men's positions to be true and disbelieve the other, but at the moment that is unimportant. The point is that each man believed in his own position so thoroughly that they were willing to do what was necessary to defend it and propagate it, and that is what got them both in trouble with the rest of the world. They unfolded their philosophies to the bitter end and only one position withstood the test of truth. I will not tell you which, you have to read the book and find out for yourself.
Let us all take off our political, ideological, social, and religious aluminum foil hats for the moment and set them aside. The world has need of opinions and positions and views well enough, but it needs something else first, something that has been most desperately lacking in the modern world. Brutal, unforgiving honesty.
The Catholics of the United States received a shock of brutal, unforgiving honesty just a couple of months ago, when the Department of Health and Human Services declared that religious institutions were required to purchase services that they were morally opposed to. It was a backhanded slap in the face for anyone in this country who gives a damn about conscientious objection. But it was straightforward and out in the open, not underhanded and guarded. The president and his HHS secretary threw down the proverbial gauntlet and demanded that the Catholic Church comply. I can only imagine that this demand arises purely from the president's own ideology concerning what rights he thinks women have and how they are allowed to exercise said rights.
In a weird way it is a breath of fresh air. Now the spiritual fistfight can occur out in the open for everyone to see. Finally our ennui has been broken by a good old fashioned brawl. In the same spirit as the president, the Catholic Church and many other religious leaders have accepted the challenge with fighting words. Chesterton's passionate Catholic man in the book is against everything the atheist believes, and yet still calls the atheist a real man for being willing to do battle over those beliefs. We should respect our enemy in the same way.
In a similar way, a reputable medical journal has just published a piece putting forward a justification for the killing of children outside the womb, as opposed to simply in the womb like with an abortion. They use the rationale that we kill a child inside the womb, so what makes being outside the womb any more special? All one needs is a weak economic or psychological reason and voila! killing may commence. I actually applaud this piece of journalism, not for the good or evil of its content, but that the people who want to justify killing children have finally taken the intellectually honest step of justifying the killing of children at any stage, not just in the womb. If life has no sacred quality to it, who gives a damn where the killing happens, to whom it happens, and for what reason. Now these same people just need to go the next logical step and justify removing murder from the books as a crime, since every murder has an understandable reason and the life being taken is not sacred. Right? That would be the endgame of their line of thinking.
Can I be any more clear? If you are going to be one thing or the other, believe one thing or the other, then go the whole way with it and don't hold anything back. Don't be a half-hearted murder justifier, proclaim it from the rooftops! What's stopping you? If you are going to defend life at all stages, then make sure everyone knows it, whether you be labeled saint or lunatic. If you believe the rights of conscience should be trampled willy-nilly, then be as willy-nilly as you possibly can. If you believe in justice and the punishing of real evil, then pursue it with all your might. Whether your position unravels in the end is dependent on how much of the truth it contains, but intellectual brawling tends to squeeze out the truth.
If you are going to pick a position, then make it count and make it real. The president has done it, in many ways even as a hindrance to his reelection campaign, but he has done it. We may despise him or love him for it, but at least he is finally being honest about his disregard and there is no mistaking it. He is merely playing out his philosophy to its bitterly logical end. We should deign to answer that sort of honesty with our own.
Nobody should be afraid to do battle for what they believe. The catch is that we must know where that belief will take us and go the distance to make sure we follow through. Every argument has an end, let's be gutsy enough to battle to that point. We will all be better off if we do.
(I am saving my comments against the infanticide justification for a later date. It is a morally abhorrent case that needs answering; I simply wished to use it as an example of following one's own argument to its logical conclusion.)
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