Lot of people on here seem to assume that the US military is basically as bad as US police when it comes to “being totally dominated by frothing MAGA freaks.”
This is absolutely NOT the case.
people forget that the military specifically targets poor kids for recruitment, using benefits/stability as a big draw, and therefore you have a lot of people in the military who would not otherwise choose to be there
and of course there are people who will moralize that decision by saying that folks don’t have a right to live comfortably through that route, but I just also don’t believe that folks born into situations they cannot control should be forced to suffer to ensure their morality remains pure
yeah there’s quite a bit of “leftism” that doesn’t seem to be built on the idea of community, and I don’t like that at all! and I think that’s why fuck ups are deemed “unacceptable” by some
like i have many bad things to say about organized church and the catholic church in specific but the idea that sin is universal and that concrete actions can redeem it is one that is often lost in leftist spaces imo
Yeah the idea that everyone makes mistakes and moral compromises is something leftism occasionally makes lip service to (no ethical consumption under capitalism!) but there's a lot of "no but this thing *you* did is beyond redemption" purity test shit.
I do think in the modern world, a lot of folks have closed off the possibility of repentance & forgiveness. Mess up once? you're doomed, you can never do anything to redeem yourself. Which is also why some folks like me agonize so much over "ethical purity" even when there's no real ethical choice.
Like, it's not the balance of actions, it's that one time you messed up (or didn't know that the milkshake duck was a milkshake duck) that gets you in trouble.
Especially like - these aren't people you know. It's someone who you only know from their online drama. Forgiveness doesn't have any meaning because they don't exist for you outside their sin.
I've been heckled at a leftist reading group for pointing out that the only mentions of "grace" on marxists dot org are the activists and writers Grace Carlson and Grace Lee Boggs, lol. IMO the issue is that many left thinkers are raised to trust suspicion over generosity.
... saw something recently about the insufferable people who, to quote from memory, believe it's more important to do nothing wrong than to do something right...
Forgiveness is in inherent tradeoff with deterrence and retribution - and as a society we often mask our bloodthirst for retribution with deterrence (e.g.: "I am scared of them being emboldened if we don't make an example of them") when deep down it's just bloodthirst.
Agree. I think it's more accurate to say those leftist spaces are evangelical: you need to accept [fill in the political position] as your personal savior.
I did not have this day as my Defend Some of the Ideas of the Catholic Church day, but I would defend the idea of change and redemption to my last breath.
To be human is to fuck up. To be human is to learn. To be human is (hopefully) on some bright day to fuck up a little less.
To an extent, I think we're most like the chaotic era in the early reformation when people just kept bursting into churches waving a Bible and claiming to have found something that reversed everything they had been doing. It's not the doctrine itself, it's the anarchism of it.
Like, with the evaporation of Papal authority, the Anglicans were left trying to hold onto their position with a tradition which suddenly was found to be mutable. Plus they had accidentally gotten everyone reading the Bible, which will make you insane if you're not careful.
So think less about the particular theories of Calvinist theology, and more about the era that spawned Quakers, Ranters, Muggletonians, Fifth Monarchists, puritans, Congregationalists, Diggers, Levelers, and god knows who else.
They kind of lost me at 7yo when they said unbaptised babies went to limbo. Turned 55 last month so it wasn't THAT long ago. They bled a lot of their congregation due to the molestations, the anti LGBTQ, & suffering purifies you deal. A lot of the helpers ran & found other areas which lost them $.
I think it's a consequence of online movements. It's hard to for some people to really accept the people in the computer as being human, with human foibles, so when something does happen the people must be monsters who have been hiding it all along (which is easy to do online, and bad actors do do.)
There's no religion in my family going back generations, but I'm culturally Jewish enough that the basic premise of "you fucked up, you make reparations" is what makes sense to me.
The Protestant thing of "faith without works is the only way to go" baffles me and is a lot of the problem
It’s also why “leftist” politicians are abandoned by the left as soon as they’re elected. Governing is compromise even under the most ideal of circumstances and that is treason.
The only politicians continuously supported by the left are incapable of using their power.
Oooo as someone who grew up with a perfectionist parent I promise that instilling the fear of doing anything wrong in a person is the best way to guarantee that this person will go through their life getting absolutely nothing done. They will be too terrified of fucking up to do anything.
Biden’s domestic agenda, the best by FAR in my lifetime, is canceled by the sin of the Gaza War. He and everyone who supports him must be punished for that sin with a Trump return.
I think this vibe is endemic to the entirety of left of center politics to varying degrees.
Think about Biden trying to fact check Trump in the debate.
For whatever reason many believe it’s more important to be right than to be effective.
A certain irony is a lot of right callousness can be seen as a similar impulse to avoid aiding evil people.
Since avoiding this is so vital, helping based purely on need is bad as nothing stops it from going to evil-they need charity only to go to the trusted: church members, relatives and so on.
Agreed. There's just no pleasing leftists who are more obsessed with purity. It's better to work with those who are more open to forming pragmatic coalitions.
