Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For October 28, 2020

 Oct 20

To Gene Veith and his blogpost that that some progressive views are shared by views used that produced slavery. This appeared in the Cranach blog on Patheos.

This is more scapegoating nonconservatives for our problems. Such is gaslighting. The above mentioned factors do not produce an adequate basis for slavery. And, in fact, it falsely describes Critical Race Theory (CRT) in terms of its view of race. Please note the following from a CRT website (see https://www.dismantlingracism.org/racism-defined.html ):


Race is a social and political concept, not a scientific one


AND


All European immigrants did not and do not become white at the same time (Irish, Italians, Jews). Becoming white involves giving up parts of your original culture in order to get the advantages and privileges of belonging to the white group.

Now consider what was written above:


The second element that makes slavery possible is classifying human beings into immutable, separate, and hierarchical groups. Slaveholders in the 18th and 19th centuries believed that people who are Black must be slaves on account of their race. This group and racial essentialism, says Dr. Mitchell, has come back in critical race theory. Again, this is inverted from slavery, as “Whites” are considered morally inferior to “Blacks,” but sorting out people according to the group they belong to and assigning benefits and harms accordingly is the kind of thinking that gave us slavery.

If classifying humans into separate hierarchical groups is a part of slavery, then who, according to the first two quotes, is doing the classifying? Actually racial classification has been practiced in America from its very beginning. To shift all of the blame for classifying people according to race and for slavery on to progressive tenets is to scapegoat progressives for today's problems AND to imply that our nation's founding fathers had more beliefs in common with today's progressives than with anyone else. And just think all of those good solid Christian leaders who supported white supremacy and race-based slavery have more in common with today's progressives than today's conservatives. But weren't those early Christian leaders considered to be conservatives by today's conservatives?

By only focusing on possible progressive ties to slavery, Veith is doing something horrendous: he is demonizing another group. This isn't the only article in which he has found fault only with progressives for what is wrong. It is a constant practice for him and what he is dong furthers the ideological divide in this nation. But worse than that, he is stepping into the role of the pharisee from the parable of the two men praying.

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Oct 26

To Grayson Gilbert and his blogpost that real Christians cannot support the Democratic Party. This appeared in The Chorus In The Chaos blog on Patheos.

Besides bearing false witness by the inadequate attempt to reduce the Democratic Party Platform to abortion and sex, the reduction of pro-life to the abortion issue is also problematic. So I will revise a comment here what I just posted on another Christian blog that was saying something similar to the above article:

One cannot reduce pro-life to being implying that there is no life after birth. But personal experience begs to differ.

Again, one can't support the either negligent or deliberate poisoning of our environment either through the release of toxic pollution which threatens life now or uncheck greenhouse gases that that threatens life in the future and hold a firm commitment to Christian ideals.

One can't support the elimination of social safety nets that help mitigate some of the conditions that lead women to get abortions and hold a firm commitment to Christian ideals.

One can't support an economic system that continues to increase the income and wealth disparities between the classes and hold a firm commitment to Christian ideals.

One can't support policies that makes access to health care unattainable to millions of people, especially during a pandemic, and hold a firm commitment to Christian ideals.

One can't automatically support our foreign interventions knowing that the violence we either practice or support abroad kills people, even the unborn, and hold a firm commitment to Christian ideals.

One can't cage immigrants who are escaping poverty and/or violence in their own nations because they showed bad legal form and hold a firm commitment to Christian ideals

So neither political party is asking people to hold a firm commitment to Christian ideals. Any attempt to say otherwise is nothing more than to audition for the role of the Pharisee in the parable of the two men praying. And all of that is especially true for a political party whose members tend to deny the systemic racism that has existed in our nation from the beginning.

And again, because the above description of the Democratic Party is based on reduction, and I could add misrepresentation, , the issue of bearing false witness comes into play here. And I am speaking as someone who oppose the Democratic Party because of its conservative approach to policies. I am speaking as one who, in terms of voting registration, is a socialist and a Christian Fundamentalist.