In a contentious Facebook debate over the Kavanaugh fight, a commenter who opposed Kavanaugh’s nomination said:
What I truly love about this country is our RIGHT to disagree. My only hope is that we can all sit around the table and talk. Guess what? We all live here, we all have families, we all want what is best. If we can’t meet somewhere in the middle, we are doomed.
So true. But the “RIGHT to disagree” has a vital corollary--the right NOT TO BE FORCED by those with whom one disagrees. If two people disagree but one then pulls a gun on the other in order to force submission to his purpose, there is no real “RIGHT to disagree.” For the “RIGHT to disagree” to mean anything, the two who disagree must not only be ready to let each other go their separate ways in peace; they must be legally forbidden to do otherwise--and government should be subordinated to the same principle.
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It is crucial that this principle--live-and-let-live--must be extended to government, given its unique nature as the one institution that can legally compel obedience to its edicts. All people accept the right NOT TO BE FORCED principle in their private lives. But more and more people don’t see it as applying to government, so the government is increasingly becoming the tool or “hired gun” for victorious electoral factions to force their values on those who disagree. The conflict between those who believe live-and-let-live must apply to government and those who don’t lies at the heart of the increasingly hostile SCOTUS nomination process. It’s destined to get a lot worse, because there’s no middle ground between the two sides.
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