Saturday, March 04, 2006

Utopia?

"We are at heart so profoundly anarchistic that the only form of state we can imagine living in is Utopian; and so cynical that the only Utopia we can believe in is authoritarian." -- Lionel Trilling


Reminiscent of a company town ... where God is the CEO ... Domino's Pizza founder Thomas S. Monaghan is trying to establish a town in Florida where abortion, pornography, and birth control are outlawed:


Catholic Town of Ave Maria


Some details of the town:

  • massive church with what is being billed as the largest crucifix in the nation, 65 feet
  • "stores will not sell pornographic magazines, pharmacies will not carry condoms or birth control pills, and cable television will have no X-rated channels"
  • homeowners own land but all commercial property will be controlled by Monoghan so that provisions will be put in leases to control what is sold

~~ "I believe all of history is just one big battle between good and evil. I don't want to be on the sidelines," Monaghan, who sold Domino's Pizza in 1998 to devote himself to doing good works, said in a recent Newsweek interview. ~~

Governor Jeb Bush, a convert to Catholocism, was at the groundbreaking and hailed it as an example of "faith and freedom". How is a place where you are told what you can buy an example of "freedom"? Typical Bush family double-speak.

Understandably and thankfully, not everyone (even Catholics) are on board with this:

~~ Frances Kissling, president of the liberal Washington-based Catholics for a Free Choice, likened Monaghan's concept to Islamic fundamentalism.

"This is un-American," Kissling said. "I don't think in a democratic society you can have a legally organized township that will seek to have any kind of public service whatsoever and try to restrict the constitutional rights of citizens." ~~

I'm thinking about building a town as an answer to Ave Maria. It will have:

  • no place to purchase books of the "Left Behind" series
  • no place to watch FOX News
  • centered around a library and theater
  • a place where families of all kinds are encouraged instead of ostracized
  • a place that makes abortions safe and rare instead of illegal and frequent
  • The town will have it's own hypocrisy police. You will be cited if you are against abortion yet beat the drums of war.


"Not in Utopia, -- subterranean fields, --
Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where!
But in the very world, which is the world
Of all of us, -- the place where in the end
We find our happiness, or not at all!" -- Williams Wordsworth

10 comments:

CyberKitten said...

Beat me to it..... I was going to post something on that next week.. [snigger]

Weird idea huh?

dbackdad said...

Yeah, this story was like hitting it off the tee. Almost too easy.

Maybe a town like that would be the answer. That way it would be a lot easier to avoid people like that. :-)

Laura said...

I was waiting for one of you guys to post about this...

Does this mean we can all form our own little towns around our narrow ideologies and pretend we don't live in a diverse country? Too freakin weird for me.

Sadie Lou said...

Oh God, can I move to your town? Seriously. Or just run for president. Your are so logical it slays me.

Great post.
I might post about it too from a Christian perspective.

Sadie Lou said...

*you're

I hate typos.

greatwhitebear said...

In the interest of fairness, Monahan is on record as saying those rules will apply only to those businesses and residences located on the campus of Ave Maria college. The man who is developing the town has said that the town will be neither exclusively Catholic, nor would there be bans on the other things mentioned, as this would be unconstitutonal.

I think Monahan's grand vision has already begun to unravel in the harsh light of reality. Kinda like his Tigers did before he sold them to pizza rival Mike Illych!

dbackdad said...

Sadie,

I'd love to see your take on it also.

GWB,

I didn't realize that was the same Monaghan that used to own the Tigers.

greatwhitebear said...

Yessir, one and the same!

greatwhitebear said...

Actually, I like Laura's idea. I think I will start a town where everyone is a cynical athiest who likes 60's rock, Americana, hopelessly romantic movies, camping, baseball and hockey. Of course the challange for dbackdad and I will be to find any women who fit the criteria to inhabit this town.

dbackdad said...

GWB,

He-he. I'd definitely move to that town.