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Playing the God Card
by Ann Morgan
septithol -+at+- yahoo -=dot=- com

Attribute to The Libertarian Enterprise

During the past few weeks, I have identified a specific sort of human behavior which is nearly universal (probably at least 99% of all people engage in it at times) and also responsible for many of the problems that have existed in human societies since the dawn of history.

I refer to this behavior as 'Playing the God Card' after the far more recognized phrase of 'Playing the Race Card', which is sarcastic terminology used to refer to someone who eludes their personal responsibilities by making reference to their particular, supposedly discriminated against race, and then claiming that the responsibilities they wish to avoid are actually the responsibilities of others, of a different race.

How 'Playing the God Card' works is: A person with some Freudian disfunction 'decides' they have a 'problem'. Mind you, no actual problem exists, because whatever the 'problem' is, it really isn't affecting them. (Such as, for instance, my altering my own DNA not affecting other people's DNA, yet they still have a problem with it. Or two or more people on the other side of town having sex for money, or in unusual numbers or gender combinations. Which doesn't affect anyone else, yet people have had a problem with it for thousands of years).

Anyway, this person does not feel like going to see a psychiatrist, or otherwise having to make an effort to deal with their imaginary problem. So rather than simply claiming they have a 'problem' with whatever is bothering them, which would probably get them laughed at and told to deal with it by anyone with a real problem, such as a toothache, they puff their supposed 'problem' up, and make it GOD'S problem, by saying that GOD is against whatever it is they have a personal problem with. There are a variety of phrases used in this argument, including the disliked action being 'EVIL', 'IMMORAL' or that old standby, 'PLAYING GOD!'.

It's not possible to disprove these argument. It isn't possible to prove it, either, but for some reason, every time someone up and says that GOD said so, almost everyone else is afraid to ask them for concrete proof, and automatically accepts what they say.

So anyway, the result of this, is that once they 'Play the God Card', saying that GOD is against their supposed (and largely imaginary) problem, poof and bang, all of a sudden it isn't THEIR problem any more, they are no longer the ones who have to deal with their own problem. Instead, it is now EVERYONE'S problem, except theirs, and everyone else, except them, has to alter their own life in order to accomodate this person's imaginary problem.

A real good example of this: Men in Moslem countries have developed an imaginary problem with the sight of a woman's face. Which, since other countries exist just fine while women's faces are in full sight of the public, is provably an imaginary problem. (as is the problem in our own country with the sight of human genitals or sexual activity, btw). But these men don't feel like dealing with their own imaginary problems, by the obvious means of staying in their house so as not to see any strange women, or blindfolding themselves, they instead 'Play the God card', and claim that their particular unproven deity, 'Allah' is 'against' women 'immorally' exposing their faces in public.

Despite the Muslims being able to produce concrete evidence that this particular deity, 'Allah' exists, that 'Allah' even has such an opinion, or that this opinion should be taken into consideration even IF a psychotic deity happens to have it; nobody wants to question the 'God' card, any more than most people want to question the 'race' card.

So now, instead of their irrational problem at the sight of a woman's face being their own problem, it now becomes the problem of everyone EXCEPT them, namely the women, and instead of the men having to wear blindfolds or see a good shrink, the women have to wear veils.

And this habit of 'playing the God card' is so ingrained in so many people that I think it will probably prevent humanity from ever being able to acheive freedom. Case in point: Would you be willing to live in a society where a large group of people could legally have sex on the front lawn of the house that belonged to one of them, in full sight of a school of gradeschool children across the street, playing outside at their 2:00 recess? Mind you, they are not speaking to or involving any of the children across the street in their activity.

If you think something governmental should be done about that, you don't want an entirely free society, you want to 'play the God Card' and have a theocracy of some variety or the other. But don't feel bad, as L. Neil Smith pointed out in a scene from his novel The American Zone where people from our world were horrified by vending machines in his Confederacy that sold drugs and ammunition to children, exceedingly few people in our society are ready for anything resembling real freedom.

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