Academics and their use of language.
We won’t force you to provide that service. We’ll just mash you with a lawsuit and fines if you refuse.
What is nonviolent about “Do what we tell you or starve because you either cannot start a business or you will lose the one you have?”
“We have no government armed in power capable of contending in human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our
Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.”
John Adams
Bottom line: WE ARE NO LONGER THAT PEOPLE and are now nearing the end of the process fulfilling Mr. Adams’ dire prediction.
It will get worse from here.
Tocqueville spoke to the same problem after his visit here, to wit:
“I sought for the key to the greatness and genius of America in her harbors...;in her fertile fields and boundless forests; in her rich mines and vast world commerce; in her public school system and institutions of learning. I sought for it in her democratic Congress and in her matchless Constitution. Not until I went into her churches and saw pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.” (Alexis de Tocqueville, 1840)
“When the religion of a people is destroyed, doubt gets hold of the higher powers of the intellect, and half paralyzes all the others. Every man accustoms himself to have only confused and changing notions on the subjects most interesting to his fellow-creatures and himself. His opinions are ill-defined and easily abandoned; and, in despair of ever solving by himself the hard problems respecting the destiny of man, he ignobly submits to think no more about them. Such a condition cannot but enervate the soul, relax the springs of the will, and prepare the people for servitude. Not only does this happen, in such a case, that they allow their freedom to be taken from them; they themselves frequently surrender it.”
-—Alexis de Tocqueville, “Democracy in America” (1840)
The end game of the secular progressives is in sight! Will we resist or submit and surrender?
BTW, If you believe this “stuff” is just so early 1800s, you are part of the problem.