It’s as if some alt-right pranksters created the Church of Adolf Hitler … but wait, I don’t need to invent a hypothetical. They already did something like that. In the 2000s, a white supremacist set up the Worldwide Church of the Creator, and claimed for it the legal privileges of any other church. The problem is, the organization was atheist, and by “Creator” it meant … white people, whom it credited with creating everything worthwhile worldwide. Should the Iowa State Capitol accommodate a giant Hitler statue if asked by the Worldwide Church of the Creator? What if the Klan declared itself a church, and wanted a burning cross?

The secularists among us have changed the rules, as the British government did. What’s more they don’t even respect the rules — attacking public statues whenever it suits them, confident that they can act above the law. The left is now acting like a boxer in a ring who whips out a switchblade and puts on brass knuckles. If we keep fighting by the Marquess of Queensbury rules, does that somehow keep us “pure”? Or does it just mark us as reckless, gullible fools who don’t really care what happens to our neighbors and our descendants, as long as we can keep our soft, uncalloused hands clean?

[I’m not sure I agree with John here. I support the rule of law as the only thing that keeps the Devil truly at bay in this fallen world, as the classic excerpt from “A Man for All Seasons” argues. On the other hand, the rule of law has already been flattened in these instances, and entirely in one direction. At any rate, John’s essay is well worth the read, and entertaining to boot. — Ed]