Your liberty ends where my nose begins

By MT Webmaster Last updated May 21, 2014

But why must only the Christian version of God’s commandments and laws be defended while the Jewish and Muslim version(s) must be opposed? If we oppose theocracy then we must oppose all forms of theocracy and uphold human rights and civil liberties. However, if we uphold theocracy who are you to decide that only the Christian doctrine should be upheld and not the doctrine of the other religions?

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

You can read a comment posted by Pohchee Kay (University of Malaya) below. This comment was posted in my yesterday’s article Like children fighting. I would like to respond to this comment because it is a well-argued comment and this is how we should debate issues — instead of cursing, swearing, scolding, vilifying, belittling and whatnot.

As I said yesterday, democracy merely means the rule of the majority. The critics of democracy also refer to it as the tyranny of the majority over the minority. Another reader, Shiou Loh (Ohio State University), commented that democracy is a form of government, which is not correct. Shiou Loh also said that the rights of the minority are protected in a democracy, which is also not correct.

Sudan is a federal presidential representative democratic republic. In 2010, Sudan held its first democratic election in 24 years where many parties participated. Al-Bashir won the election with 68% of the votes against the backdrop of allegations of gerrymandering and fraud. The US-based Carter Center, which helped monitor the elections, described the vote tabulation process as ‘highly chaotic, non-transparent and vulnerable to electoral manipulation.’

Nevertheless, Sudan is still a democracy that practices majority rule — never mind whether the manner in how the government was chosen is suspect. The selection process or election procedure may be wanting but the system is a democratic system.

But does Sudan respect human rights and civil liberties, and allow the various freedoms (dissent, thought, association, choice, speech, opinion, lifestyle, etc.)? Just because Sudan practices democracy in the way the government is chosen does not mean all the other liberties and rights are also present in the country.

In February this year, a nine-month pregnant girl who was raped by seven men when she was 18 was sentenced to death for adultery (READ HERE). Another woman was sentenced to death for apostasy (READ HERE). She will also be whipped for adultery (I assume before they kill her) and her ‘adulteress’ act was for being married to a Christian man.

Now, as I said, Sudan is a democracy but that does not mean they value human rights and civil liberties plus allow freedom of dissent, thought, association, choice, speech, opinion, lifestyle, and so on.

Pohchee Kay disagrees with civil liberties because it violates God’s commands. In that case I assume Pohchee Kay supports what Sudan is going to do to that girl and woman — put them to death — since they violated God’s commands. God’s commands must override civil liberties as far as Pohchee Kay is concerned.

Pohchee Kay argued that the list of civil liberties is too long and ‘there is no Ultimate Arbiter on what is right and what is wrong.’ Pohchee Kay then used the stealing chicken example.

It is actually very easy to decide what is and is not civil liberties (or what is and is not allowed) and is a very fundamental issue for students of Political Philosophy. Your liberty ends where my nose begins. Basically, this means you are free to do what you want (or think, say, etc., what you want) as long as it does not harm another person.

This is according to John Stuart Mill’s ‘Harm Principle’. It basically sets out the grounds on which government interference with individual lives is justified. How far can the government go in establishing the boundaries of what is permitted and what is not? No doubt we have agreed to abrogate our authority and mandate this authority to a group of people we call the government. But how much authority can this government have in the effort to control what the citizens can and cannot do and say?

As I said, your liberty ends where my nose begins. You are at liberty to do and say whatever you want as long as it does not harm anyone.

But then we come to the argument of how do we define ‘harm’? In the UK, you can even organise protests by cycling nude all over London. This is your civil liberty. You may argue that this should not be allowed because it is harmful. But then harmful to whom? If you do not like to see naked men and women cycling then turn away and don’t look.

Sudan has a different interpretation of ‘harm’. According to Sudan, ‘harm’ is whatever that harms God. And you harm God when you defy God and violate God’s commands. You also harm God’s religion, Islam, when you bring shame to Islam by opposing Islam or by opposing God’s laws. Hence you must die.

Pohchee Kay argues against civil liberties and calls it godless civil liberties where man can ‘stick his tongue out at God’. Pohchee Kay is also against LGBTs and abortion. But then Pohchee Kay is also against the Jewish and Islamic laws of God. And Pohchee Kay added, “I am very glad that no Christian is trying to propose a Jewish or Christian ‘Hudud’.”

So, on the one hand, Pohchee Kay defends God’s commandments. On the other hand, Pohchee Kay opposes God’s commandments from the Jewish and Muslim perspective. In other words, we should defend God’s commandments only as far as it is the Christian version of these commandments and not if they are the Jewish and Muslim version(s).

We cannot be a little bit pregnant. Either we are we are not. And if theocracy and religious doctrine is to be our yardstick then the Muslims have as much ‘democratic’ right as Christians in rejecting human rights and civil liberties in favour of God’s commands and God’s laws.

But then Pohchee Kay only defends the Christian doctrine in rejecting ‘godless’ civil liberties and anything ‘un-Christian’, such as civil liberties, must also be opposed. And, of course, this is also how Muslims see it — only Islam should be allowed and anything un-Islamic must be opposed.

Oh, and is it not also my civil liberty to reject all forms of religion and opt for atheism? And if not, why not? Pray explain!

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Unfortunately, YM Raja Petra, your Civil Liberties movement is a religion which is not utopia. It is also not the only view of Civil Liberties. It is a godless Civil Liberties where man sticks his tongue out at God. He embraces LGBT even though God clearly forbids homosexuality. If man can take Godless liberties in the face of God’s commands, then, why, we might even allow abortion. We might as well allow theft, murder, corruption, etc. The list of what comprises liberties will be never-ending because there is no Ultimate Arbiter on what is right and what is wrong. What is the point of protesting that you may not steal my chicken if there is no agreement that stealing chickens is wrong in the first place? And who is to say what is right and what is wrong?

So what you are proposing is Godless liberties, which are not just libertarian but also post-modernism. That not only is there no right and no wrong, but that there is no way to determine what is right and what is wrong. It is more lawless than the cavemen days, and more lawless than pre-feudal warlordism where only might is right.

There is another kind of Civil Liberties. Godly Civil Liberties where the unalienable right of man against all other men is guaranteed, but based on the Laws of God. Because only God can be trusted with dispensing justice. Every attempt by man to do this has failed and will continue to fail. PAS’ Hudud is an attempt at Godly Civil Liberties. But they went the wrong way. They did not try and prove that their God is actually the one and only God. And they did not try to prove that their law is what God says. So it is not just that people of other religious persuasions are not persuaded; I am sure many Muslims too are not persuaded.

I am very glad that no Christian is trying to propose a Jewish or Christian “Hudud” which you pointed out, would also have stoning to death and other punishments, if they really follow God’s Laws. Firstly, because Christians must prove that their God is THE God Almighty. And they have not done that. And they have not proven that their God’s Law is actually from God. Anything that is from man will not cut it. And Christians cannot prove it either, because if they are following God, then how come pastors steal millions from their churches, make hundred million in salaries (as you pointed out), fly about in huge personal jets, have committed adultery, have been homosexual, have been child molesters and so on. If they say Jesus Christ is God then following Christ is no different that following your Civil Liberties. To use an old cliche, Christ needn’t have died. Surely He died for something more noble than this.

So your Godless Civil Liberties does not cut it. PAS’ Hudud has not been proven to cut it. Even if Jews or Christians say their Law is supreme, so far, we have not seen that this is so. So without God, we have nothing. And with what these religionists are proposing ostensibly with God, we still have nothing. We still have not got a compelling God-based Law to follow, which, when made clear, no one in his right mind would turn away from.

Since your read so much of ancient scriptures, you should try and carve out what God has said, and tell us we should follow that. Don’t read all these ancient scriptures and tell us RPK says his brand of Civil Liberties which includes LGBT liberties, is what we, the common man must follow.

Kaypohchee