Libertarians vs. Theocrats

Functional Ambivalent has an exceptionally insightful post on the coming war between Libertarian Republicans who believe that business should be allowed to do pretty much whatever it wants, and Theocratic Republicans, who want to use government to enforce a single interpretation of the Bible. An excerpt:

So now we have something called a “pharmacists’ rights movement.” This movement seeks to protect the right of pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions they don’t approve of. Laws proposed in several states make it difficult or impossible for pharmacy operators to fire pharmacists who won’t do thier jobs, so long as theyr’e not doing their jobs out of a deeply held, conservative Christianity.

You can’t protect just one religious group, under the law, so any success at protecting Theocratic pharmacists will inevitably broaden to protect lots of other deeply-held beliefs. Vegitarians working at grocery stores, for example, could refuse to let people buy meat. Sporting goods store clerks could refuse to sell bullets to hunters and car salesmen could, with impunity, refuse to sell gas-guzzlers when what everyone really should be buying is gas-electric hybrids. Let’s let everyone anywhere enforce their own morality in any business environment, and take away the businesses ability to cope with these rogue moralists!

One thought on “Libertarians vs. Theocrats”

  1. It seems to me that, since Pharmacists went to school for 7 years before they got hired for their current jobs, they surely must have been aware that the job “pharmacist” meant they would be required to dispense any legal prescription that came their way. I wonder if, during their job interviews, they bothered to mention that they would be unwilling to fill any prescriptions that went against their religions beliefs.

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