Beyond Evangelism
Sam Aurelius Milam III
Evangelism is among the most harmful of all human behaviors.  That's true because of the incrementalism that's usually inherent in evangelism.  If devout people simply lived their lives according to their beliefs, then that would be acceptable, even commendable.  Sadly, living by one's beliefs is seldom sufficient.  Devoutness is likely to deteriorate into pride, then haughtiness, then arrogance.  What begins as a group of devout people will often fall prey to evangelistic zeal.  If the evangelists win some converts, then that will only encourage them.  The more successful they become, the more power they will have.  Persuasion will be replaced by coercion and then by force.  As the evangelists become powerful, enforcement will become their agenda.  As Robert A. Heinlein noted long ago, freedom varies inversely with the strength of the strongest religion.
Throughout history, the forcible imposition of beliefs has probably been one of the primary causes of repression.  Left to themselves, people are not likely to cure the defects in human nature that lead to such repression.  Those defects might even lead to such scenarios as were predicted by Aldous Huxley in Brave New World or by Theodore John Kaczynski in Industrial Society and Its Future.  Those two documents are worlds apart in many ways, but they each predict a future in which human nature itself has been intentionally redesigned to satisfy an agenda.  Neither of the documents predicts an end to evangelism.  They predict human societies in which evangelism has reached its ultimate goal of universal compliance, by means of the complete elimination, among the people, of any ability or even of any desire to deviate from orthodox behavior.  George Orwell noted that orthodoxy means not thinking, not needing to think.  Orthodoxy, he observed, is unconsciousness.
In the meantime, evangelism is so pervasive that most people don't even notice it.  Evangelism is the accepted way of life.  We swim in it like fish swim in water.  We're inundated by reformers, all working feverishly to prevent us from eating dolphin, buying ivory, texting while driving, peeking up a woman's dress, parking in the wrong spaces, calling somebody fat, kicking the dog, starving the horse, throwing away plastic, using the wrong words, and so forth.  The common feature is the forcible imposition of an agenda that will prevent us from behaving according to our own beliefs.  Deviation in all but the most trivial of matters isn't tolerated.  Institutions, particularly schools, even boast about their "zero tolerance" policies.  Where did America lose it's way?  When did intolerance become a virtue?
Intolerance is a breeding ground for hatred.  It isn't surprising that we're gradually being subjected to so-called hate crime legislation but few people seem to understand the implications.  If somebody kills a man, then he's punished for killing.  If he did it because of hatred, then he's additionally punished.  The additional punishment isn't for his behavior.  It's for his attitude.  Hate crime legislation doesn't punish someone for what he did.  It punishes him for what he believes.
Hate crime is a special case of thought crime, as described by George Orwell.  The evangelists can't enact thought crime legislation all at once.  Little steps are necessary.  Hate crime is one of the steps.  Once attitude is a cause for punishment, then behavior becomes not so much the crime as the proof.  Therein lies the Orwellian connection to evangelism, as we creep ever closer to a future in which orthodoxy means not thinking, not needing to think.  Orthodoxy means compliance.
I don't know how we'll retain any liberty in the culture of mindless obedience that the reformers are trying to create, but we need to try.  My best idea so far is personal sovereignty.  I'm still trying to prove that it will work.  If it does, then it will come at a price.  Maybe you can think of something better.  Whatever we do, we need to do it without becoming evangelists ourselves, without forcing other people to "be free like us", or we'll only be contributing to the evangelism and perpetuating the problem.