Since the Catholic Church scored big with its first Seven Deadly Sins back in Century Number Six, they've recently decided to do a sequel (Seven Deadly Sins II?).
Predictably, the new Deadlies are a mix of politically correct, socially manipulative, and ruling-class-friendly injunctions. And vague. What is "obscenely" rich? What is "social" justice?
Since everyone loves lists, here they are:
1. Polluting.
2. Genetic engineering.
3. Being obscenely rich.
4. Drug-dealing.
5. Abortion.
6. Pedophilia.
7. Causing social injustice.
The church, of course, is full of deadly sins itself, such as pedophilia and power-drunkenness. The Vatican, with all its gold- and ivory-inlaid art treasures and bejeweled crucifixes and priceless paintings and statuary and such, is "obscenely" rich.
What they could and should have done was identify real sins that really make real people in the real world worse off, like these:
1. Advocating universal health care.
2. Advocating climate-change hysteria.
3. Advocating taxation.
4. Advocating big government, world government, or any government.
5. Advocating public propaganda masquerading as "education."
6. Advocating a mindless drug war.
7. Advocating any form of collectivism whether it's called communism, Nazism, fascism, socialism, Marxism, welfare-ism, or Modern American Style Liberalism laundered as the benign-sounding Progressivism.
Beyond that, why should the Catholics, or any other group, have a monopoly on Deadly Sins? In a free libertarian world, everyone would get to play the sin game.
Hollywood's Seven Deadly Sins:
1. Staying married to one person for more than two months.
2. Holding intelligent political concepts.
3. Failing to surgically modify your features.
4. Doing a nude scene that is not tasteful, meaningful, and absolutely essential to the storyline, and doesn't pay really big bucks.
5. Adopting an American baby when it's oh so chic to adopt a Third World baby.
6. Being politically conservative.
7. Failing to say, "What I really want to do is direct."
Conservative's Seven Deadly Sins:
1. Voting for anyone named Clinton.
2. Failing to coercively impose your own concept of morality on everyone else.
3. Voting for anyone named Clinton.
4. Failing to see gay and lesbian propaganda in every children's storybook and cartoon show on earth.
5. Failing to bomb every country that has oil.
6. Piling on ever more mindless regulations without pretending to believe in the "free market."
7. Voting for anyone named Clinton.
Liberal's Seven Deadly Sins:
1. Individualism.
2. Self-Reliance.
3. Rationality.
4. Merely looking at a crayon scribble of a gun without experiencing heart palpitations.
5. Failing to blindly champion minimum-wage raises even though it harms the very people you say you're helping.
6. Failing to fly from country to country in private jets to decry global warming caused by people other than the jet set.
7. Continually raising taxes without pretending you're helping the "poor" and "disadvantaged."
Bureaucrat's Seven Deadly Sins
1. Thinking for yourself.
2. Admitting any wrongdoing.
3. Being genuinely helpful.
4. Being courteous.
5. Not making everyone take a number and stand in line.
6. Creating regulations that make sense.
7. Speaking to the media in any known form of ordinary English.
Business' Seven Deadly Sins
1. Opening enough checkout registers.
2. Hiring help-line people whose first language is English.
3. Failing to bombard everyone's inbox, mailbox, telephone, newspaper, and doorknob with advertising.
4. Contracts, warranties, product-assembly instructions, and fine print written in any known form of ordinary English.
5. Maintaining shopping carts that actually roll in a straight line.
6. Saying "no" to corporate welfare siphoned from taxpayer's pockets.
7. Passing up opportunities to steal people's property through eminent domain.
And just to fuel your thoughts on sin, libertarians, uniquely among the world's "-isms" that believe it's not their business to control other people's lives, have only one deadly sin:
1. Thou shalt not initiate force nor the threat of force nor fraud against any other person.
How's that for sin fuel?
More of Garry Reed's writing can be found at (http://www.freecannon.com).
