Jeebus, the lengths Reds will go through to claim their Emperor is wearing clothes...
Jeebus, the lengths Reds will go through to claim their Emperor is wearing clothes...
... seriously?
Not really. Historically the self proclaimed Godly folks tend to be more conservative, yes, but the real Jesus is probably neither conservative nor liberal leaning... He can be both at the same time.Originally Posted by neanderthal
Christ may appear conservative to a conservative and liberal to a liberal.
Take both sanders and Hillary for example, both are liberal leaning but Bernie appeals more to the conservatives probably because he's more 'Christ like' than Hillary... Liberal label alone won't make one more Christ like...
Kim Jung orange who has the super power to look at the sun directly only attempted to be more Christ like by getting a baptism before inauguration... Which is better than nothing I guess...
If by "folks", you mean regular American citizens, I disagree. I am outraged by this blatant example of wasteful government spending, and I bet millions of other taxpayers are as well.
No more golf for the asshole-in-chief, says I. Over budget? Too bad. Learn to live like the people you represent!
This is more or less the attitude I'd expect from conservative leaning people. Growing up in Irvine, a bastion of conservative thinking, it's the attitude I was raised with.
What has happened, I believe, is two-fold:
1. The Republican party has been molded into the weird pseudo-Christian, pseudo-Libertarian party it is today. The people I grew up with did not identify with the values associated with the GOP today. The GOP is the party of equality (Lincoln), education (Eisenhower), healthcare (Nixon). the Republicans, historically, have done an assload of good. It's really only post-Nixon or Reagan that things went south.
2. Politics and society in general has become incredibly reactionary and polarized. Insane news cycles, politicized journalism, and instant communication mean people are bombarded 24x7 by thoughts and ideas that they must react to. The result of that is a combination of numbing and defensiveness. I hear it everywhere - even if your candidate does something stupid, you have to stand by him or her or be labeled as an apologist for the other side. It's ridiculous. If I say "Obama wasn't a great president" then someone invariably responds "So you wanted Kerry?" Fuck no I didn't want Kerry, but I wish Obama had been better. If I say, "I'm glad Trump aborted the TPP" then I'm pro-Trump. Fuck no. I just didn't think the TPP was a great idea. Love 'em or leave 'em should not apply to politics. Bad people can do good things, good people can do bad things. Having to blindly support a person just to stay on the team is utterly insane, but it's how we do things today. It is *the reason* why it's Fox News vs. Amazon Post - because if one of them says something nice about the other side, they lose readership. WTAF?
Ehhhhhh.
I'm using that.
To be fair to him, what I THINK he may have been trying to say is that in the US, people who claim to be mainstream "Christians"/believe in mainstream "Christianity" generally endorse and/or are readily associated with what are said to be
"conservative/libertarian" policies (if so, personally I think whether it is the latter co-opting the former, or the former adopting the latter is another matter). This is a view I have heard expressed mainly by non-Americans, namely that American "conservative" "Christians" love Guns and God and the Free Market because it's the Land of the Free and they always complain about the damn secular Govt/Feds overreaching taking away shit from We The People and ignoring One Nation Under God (insert a few more phrases here I guess?). Maybe it's an unfair view, but the fact is that this segment of society makes a lot of noise which creates this sort of impression, particularly amongst outsiders.
At the same time, what he is also probably trying to say is that Christ himself was probably more of a "liberal/socialist" (rather than a "conservative/libertarian"), since he gave free stuff to people and shit rather than telling people to become rich and make shitloads of $$$$ to buy healthcare, and sacrificed himself for people rather than telling them to build weapons and protect themselves.
Agreed 100%. It seemed pretty accurate and apparent to me. I've never met a "hardcore Christian" who identified as anything other than "hardcore conservative." These guys always seem to latch onto a particular side of the bible, ignoring all the help thy neighbor bits. I'm no expert, but I don't recall any portion of the Bible commenting on taxes or gun ownership, but whatever.
And therein lies the problem with the Republican Party in recent years...say between Reagan and Obama, but pre-Trump. Fiscal convservatives who are socially liberal and not heavily armed bible-pounders don't fit in anymore.
Maybe they never did.
IMLE, I don't think they really ever fit in - but by the same token they weren't summarily rejected. Today, it seems you have a choice between a group that represents business at all cost, straight whites, and personal sovereignty and a group that represents everything else. I think part of the Democrats' problem finding a message is that they have to cover environment, equal civil rights, social programs, fiscal conservatives, socialists, spirituality, atheism, business, anti-business, and weed. There is no party for "average people who want food and a roof." You gotta be a wackadoo Modern Republican Party or the Catchall Party.
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