Punishing Liberty

It’s big news in the American media this week that Christians in Iran are being sentenced to 80 lashes with the whip for the “crime” of drinking wine as part of their religious communion sacrament -- “a shocking punishment meted out even as a new United Nations report blasted the Islamic republic for its systematic persecution of non-Muslims.”

Well yes, it is indeed a shocking punishment of liberty, imposed by savages stuck within a 7^th century mindset, but that is what we can expect with any government of savages, run by savages for savages. This is exactly the kind of thing all barbarous statist and religious savages do to the hapless multitudes under their domination and control.

Four Christians were arrested in a house church and charged with consuming alcohol in violation of the government theocracy's strict laws. Iran is a place where the “crime” of converting from Islam to another religion can commonly result in the death penalty. The clerical rulers there see Christianity as a threat to Iran’s majority ultra-orthodox Shiite Islamic religion.

Understand that when any authoritarian rulers within a group of religious fanatics begin to doubt their own faith in the imaginary dogma, they resort to cracking down on others who decide to leave the fold. If you don’t happen to accept their brand of religion they see that as a threat to their existence.

Americans see it as a human rights and freedom of religion issue. “It should be no surprise that Iran’s human rights record as documented by the UN is nothing short of atrocious," observes Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "If the regime thinks that its international charm offensive will help whitewash its appalling human rights record as documented by the UN report, they are sorely mistaken.”

“The sentences handed down to these members of the Church of Iran effectively criminalize the Christian sacrament of sharing in the Lord’s Supper and constitute an unacceptable infringement on the right to practice faith freely and peaceably,” explains Mervyn Thomas, chief executive of Christian Solidarity Worldwide.

Yes, but this story isn’t confined to just a Christian thing. If any self respecting Muslim man residing in the savage nation of Iran is caught enjoying an alcoholic beverage, he’s going to get the same 80 lashes from the whip.

The Christians in this story were not punished for being Christians – there are some 370,000 Christians lawfully living in savage land – they’re being punished for drinking alcohol.

The Iranians are punishing liberty as a crime.

Does that sound familiar?

It should, because that is exactly what the government of the United States of America does.

Americans once suffered under the same kind of alcohol prohibition laws. Folks weren’t sentenced to 80 lashes from the whip then but they often received stiff jail or prison sentences which were every bit as much draconian.

Our government routinely sentences innocent people even today for the “crime” of ingesting substances that the authorities have deemed by fiat illegal.  We have our own War on Drugs and the victims are filling up American prisons to overcrowding. It was done with alcohol in the early 20^th century just as its being done with other recreational drugs today.

Would some of these innocent prisoners rather endure 80 lashes by the whip and go free as opposed to suffering a lengthy prison term? The prison experience seems a far worse human rights violation by my reckoning.

By my reckoning the United States government is just as downright savage to its people as the government of Iran when it comes to punishing liberty.