[politician]

Ok, I wish you the best, but I don't think it's productive to continue this conversation. Sadly, you've decided to take the position that Christians should have their right to vote curtailed along with their rights to make decisions for themselves. That's a strongly authoritarian position for an American to take. I hope you'll reconsider.

[paskozdilar]

> I don't think it's productive to continue this conversation. Sadly, you've decided to take the position that Christians should have their right to vote curtailed

If that's all you took away from this conversation, then I agree - it's for the best to end it now. But I'll try to elaborate anyway.

I am not taking the position that Christians should have their right to vote curtailed, I'm taking the position that nobody, not even Christians, should have the right to impose their own standards upon others, unless they made sense outside of the Christian worldview. Abortion laws only make sense in the Christian worldview (and maybe a few other, equally intolerant, worldviews). The fact that Christians are the majority in the US only makes it de-facto a Christian state, while still pretending to be a secular democracy.

Here's a thought experiment:

If Talibans somehow became a majority in the US, would you still consider it "their right" to vote away the democracy and establish Sharia Law?

[politician]

I'll make an exception because you've asked a good question that I think will help illuminate our different viewpoints.

> If Talibans somehow became a majority in the US, would you still consider it "their right" to vote away the democracy and establish Sharia Law?

Yes. The current form of government in the United States is a representative republic that has a constitution that defines processes for dramatic change including a constitutional convention that allows for open-ended changes to the constitution itself.

I don't have a divine right to the land, water, or air here.

[paskozdilar]

> Yes.

That's were we disagree. I believe there are some human freedoms that nobody has the right to deny. I suppose I'm just an idealist.

> The current form of government in the United States is a representative republic that has a constitution that defines processes for dramatic change including a constitutional convention that allows for open-ended changes to the constitution itself.

I'm sure the goal of such openness of constitution was to protect the liberty of people, not to open doors for authoritarianism.

[politician]

How do we enumerate which human freedoms that nobody has the right to deny? What if there isn't consensus? If there isn't consensus and they are just imposed by fiat, then you've simply come around to authoritarianism from the other direction.

[paskozdilar]

That's a hard question, like any other question concerning human freedom. I suppose a good rule of thumb is "if you're not forced to subject yourself to it, you don't get a say in it".