Which Rights Will You Give Up?
Several weeks ago we posed a simple question in the shortest blog post we've ever done and told you we'd get back to you on that. We asked you if you knew which profession's members were being asked to give up their personal beliefs in order to continue practicing? Before we give you our answer let's set the table.
Where is This Coming From?
Right now academia largely calls the shots in the professions that require two or more degrees. Associated bed-fellows like the accrediting groups, WPATH, the legacy professional organizations and licensing boards are filled with willing participants who dutifully carry out whatever talking points and agenda items academia decides your profession and your personal career path need to take. You don't have much say in the matter.
If you think that's just too big a pill to swallow then ask yourself where all the Woke nonsense is coming from. It starts in elementary school and picks up steam in high school. The deep-end of the pool indoctrination begins in earnest at university away from the influence of those troublesome parents.
Given enough time say, 30 years, you may find a substantial number of these graduates filling seats on your licensing boards, in positions of influence and authority on your professional organizations, and working for other influential institutions. These folk tend to give academia far more weight than it might deserves so it's not difficult to see how academia influences their customers long after the grad ceremony lights are turned off.
How Does That Affect Me?
As long as academia is teaching students how to critically think, as long as open discussion of differing ideas and dialogue amongst students is happening, as long as the peer-review process remains pure, and as long as there are no outside financial influences adversely affecting a true academic zeitgeist, then we all win. All professions win.
But that's not what's been happening for 20+ years now and you know it! If a truly inclusive academic discussion is happening then the intellectually honest output will travel downstream and affect our professions in the most honorable of ways. If on the other hand that conversation is corrupted then the academic output will be corrupt. That toxic ideology will flow downstream, through the pipeline towards willful implementation and we get the convoluted thinking that pervades our professions in 2024.
Convince me otherwise.
Which Rights Will You Give Up?
In our professional system of systems (SoS), to borrow a phrase, the system that produces our next generation of professionals one of the more obvious areas of conflict is what Professor Chuck Romig and others are calling "conscience protections". (Listen to our interview with Professor Romig on this topic.) Those are the actual defenses that exist around our religious liberties.
If you haven't noticed, they are under attack from all corners of our SoS. As counselors, Christian counselors to be specific, we are being asked to check our beliefs and our rights to live those beliefs, at the door. It's ok to affirm and force twisted sexual beliefs on anyone you choose to, including your next adolescent client, but heaven forbid they become aware of your Christian status!
The Logical Conclusion
That's the bigger picture and I suppose it's obvious already that the answer to the original question, "which profession is being asked to give up it's personal rights in order to continue practicing?" is, all of them. And the educational institutions (not all, but way, way too many) we entrust with the education of our kids and young adults are to blame for this very un-American way of thinking.
The medical, dental, psychiatric, mental health fields, they're all being told that being Christian is a bad thing. You're chided to put aside your beliefs and affirm whatever mental illness walks through your front door in the name of some horribly misguided attempt to create an "equality of outcome".
Our SoS is broken. No amount of debate at the street level will fix the problem. Winning this battle of the minds will require a war on two fronts; a battle to overhaul and fix the SoS (or replace it with an alternative economy), and a never-ending debate of professional practice ideas following the Greek model of argument. In that model all participants and their ideas are allowed to mix it up and the best ideas win, free of shame, censorship, and cancellation. Only then will we all win.
Got Something to Say?
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About the Author
Phillip's background has blessed him with a variety of interests, skills, and tools to get things done. He spent 25 years in the printing and marketing industry before meeting Kathleen Mills in 2015. They quickly figured out that they made a pretty good business team and, owing to Kathleen's story, embarked upon a mission that would see the creation of PracticeMentors.us and eventually the Association for Mental Health Professionals.
