It’s Methadone treatment for conservative Christians who want to go on supporting Trump while taking no responsibility for their choice.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m all in favor of the way the ASP siphons voters away who would, virtually all of them, otherwise vote for Trump in the false conviction that they were being “pro-life”. The more conservative Christians who would otherwise certainly “hold their nose and vote for Trump” instead waste their energy not doing active evil, the better.
But make no mistake, burying your talent in the ground is only good in comparison to using it to help destroy democracy, murder people, commit treason, and defend rape. It is to do nothing, when you could actually have a positive impact in destroying the deadliest regime in the history of the United States.
And the rhetorical habit of the ASP is always to indulge the pernicious lie that “Both Sides are the Same”: a lie that has one effect and one only, to legitimate and defend the grave evil being done by the MAGA cult while doing everything in its power to disable the one and only party with a shot at stopping that gravely evil and deadly Cult.
While we are one the subject, don’t be seduced by the lie that we can “vote for the lesser of two evils”. We cannot vote for lesser evils. What we can and must do is vote to lessen evil. Voting for the ASP achieves absolutely nothing. Voting to support Dems at every level, local, state, and federal is the one and only way, in the real world, to lessen the vastly graver evil being done by the MAGA Cult. And, of course, voting only scratches the surface of our responsibility to the common good.
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7 Responses
Except the white-billionaire owned Democratic party is NOT the so-called “lesser” evil. They’ve demonstrated this throughout DECADES, Mark. Their interest is not to lessen evil at all, but to further and even DEEPEN evils by hiding behind the pretty rhetoric of democracy and equality (see war criminal president Barack Obama as a prime example of this). They only use their more their brazen Republican counterparts as a useful political foil for their own benefit, and this same tactic is also used by the GOP. As nonwhite people have screamed at US white people for pretty much forever, the Democrats are just the more EFFECTIVE evil. So yes, both sides ARE the same, which is exactly why the Democrats have spectacularly failed (and don’t want) to provide an effective bulwark against what we’re seeing right now. They counting on you and (mostly white) others to continue to refuse to build any meaningful alternatives. For this reason, you’re also part of the same cult that you criticize: the cult of “American exceptionalism”.
You don’t have a PARTY problem, Mark, and this isn’t some usual “liberal vs. conservative” white talking point. And the ASP (i.e., the party of embarrassed, US white folk who don’t even want to take Chesterton’s critiques of capitalism seriously enough) isn’t the solution, either. Your problem, once again, is your COUNTRY, founded on racist, genocidal principles (“freedom for ME, the amazing, white property owner, not for thee, you dirty, ‘negro-indian'”) and capitalism (which is contrary to the universal destination of goods)*. The US as you know (and knew) it is ALREADY dead, and you’re fighting for something that you CANNOT save. It’s now time to demand a transformation (both in the US and worldwide) for the Kingdom, which is already here and will be fully realized in Christ at the end of time. You talked about the importance of the Church LISTENING to the poor and most vulnerable. Please start actually LISTENING to people from non-white communities (both inside and outside the US) about this matter, because we’ve only been surviving YOUR “brilliant”, “American” system for centuries.
*By the way, the “American” hero whose birthday we celebrated the other day, the great MLK, Jr., made these profound and prophetic insights, especially before his ultimately murder (in fact, he planned to deliver the sermon “Why America May Go to Hell” around the same time he was murdered.) Unfortunately, you’re the white moderate he was talking about.
https://wallstreetonparade.com/2016/10/wikileaks-bombshell-emails-show-citigroup-had-major-role-in-shaping-and-staffing-obamas-first-term/
We aren’t safe with either party. Barrack Obama campaigned under the slogan “Change”. He did anything but. He lined the pockets of his donors.
Nobody cares about the little guy. The proof is everywhere. I feel dirty after voting for Harris /Waltz. They wouldn’t have stood up to China or the Davos billionaires or the gutting and the looting of our country or a health care system that enriches itself by making us sick. The worship of mammon is at an all time high, and it’s It’s been a free for all under both parties. May God correct them, and may we all be converted before we die.
Pretty much all of this is 100% correct, just need to say that China is NOT the boogeyman here. Don’t fall for that US imperialist propaganda-scapegoating nonsense. This “country” got away with that during the days of the Soviets. They can’t get away with that anymore. China, like all nations (and men) has their good and not good aspects, but they’re not the hegemon of the world, and the call is ultimately coming from INSIDE the house. Stopping the head of this “structure of sin” starts at home.
Yes, our elected leaders have had no problem with the trade imbalance with China. This approach is known as “watch what I do, don’t listen to what I say.”
This is why traditionally Democratic states turned to Trump. They believed he cared.
China still persecutes Christians. Why do they do it?
China is not your enemy. The US economy is not suffering because “CHINA!”; the USians are doing it all to themselves with their own horrific economic system (capitalism), which places private property above all.
As far as Christian persecution, you’re no more persecuted in China (which doesn’t even try to claim to be a Christian-based country in the first place) than you are in the US. You’re actually can’t even practice your own Catholic faith in the US, unless you think being confined to practicing the faith ONLY inside of Church walls or the PRIVATE “comfort” of your own home counts as religious “freedom”. The imperial US state and society dictates to you all the time what they will and won’t tolerate about the Catholic faith. Just ask the Chicago priests who were denied by Trump’s goons to provide the Eucharist to migrants snatched by ICE, or the Catholics who were repressed by Biden’s goons for protesting the genocide of Palestinians (including Palestinian Catholics).
We’re back to Hudge and Gudge, aren’t we?
“US imperialist propaganda-scapegoating nonsense”. Yep. Inventing a bogeyman to scapegoat is essential to the game. Over and over again, we attend this Kabuki theatre and give it credibility with our cheers and jeers.
This theatre keeps happening because many (white) Catholics still won’t give up their ideological allegiance to a fallen, man-made project and document (the Declaration/Constitution). MY country! WE’RE the good guys! Soviets! Iranians! Chinese! EVIL! DICTATORS!!!
Look, if Catholics simply fully lived out their own faith as prescribed by the Church, this wouldn’t need to happen. They would take the good (okay, the “founding” documents talked about some good things like democracy and equality, we like that), reject the bad (the smug, sneering hypocrisy of the “Founders” who didn’t even really care about poor white people, much less the rest of the mostly non-white world), and simply jump ship when the cracks and holes in the (fallen, man-made) project become damaged beyond repair. (Which is perfectly okay of course, since we live in the world, not of it.) They would also be much more gracious to other societies and applaud their merits even as they (constructively and charitably) critique their flaws. And they finally wouldn’t be suckers of nasty US lies and propaganda about the rest of the world.
Instead of that, many (white) Catholics have settled with being Yankee Doodle Caesar’s best friend instead, pledging allegiance to (slave-owner and Indigenous peoples-slaughterer “Founding Father”) George Washington instead to Christ. Sorry, but there are no more Soviets to blame, and one can no longer hide behind Church condemnations of atheistic communism (which, ironically, also came with heaping condemnations of super-duper Christian Western societies for their many grave evils, but “Americans” weren’t listening). Nor can the blame be heaped on only one aspect of US society [insert political party piñata of choice here]. It’s time to recognize the whole building is on fire.