Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For December 9, 2020

 Nov 26

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost commenting on the Supreme Court ruling striking down Covid-19 restrictions on places of worship in NY state. This appeared in Heidelblog.

The problem with comparing the number of people shopping at a large store, which could see hundreds of shoppers in a day, with the number of people allowed in a church or synagogue for the specific time period of a scheduled worship service is that those hundreds of people in a store at not there at the same time for specific times of more than 15 minutes per day. In contrast to that,  the number of people at a church assembly is talking about the number of people at a church service for specific time periods such as a half an hour or more in a given room. Here we should note that, according to the CDC, it is the prolonged, 15 minutes or more, close proximity to possibly infected people that increases the spread of the virus. And that the risk of such prolonged close proximity increases when those in such proximity don't wear masks.

To the extent that we don't follow the guidelines for wearing masks and practicing social distancing in order to reduce the chances of infecting others with whom we actually come in close contact with is comparable to how being sexually unfaithful to our spouses increases the probability that we will pass along an STD to all with whom we are intimate.

If what Jesus said in John 4 about the true worship of God is done in spirit and in truth rather than being confined to the specific location of Jerusalem, why should we be so offended by the number of people who can attend a worship service in order to combat the current pandemic? For unlike factor work, the worship of God doesn't require us to be at any church or synagogue. And that is especially true when houses of worship show their services online where people can virtually attend them from home.

Learning not to compare apples to oranges might make churches less offended and more cooperative in both orchestrating worship services  while contributing what they can to stopping the spread of the virus.

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Dec 8

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost that quotes a portion of a Ronald Radosh article that opposes calling Angela Davis a hero. This was posted in the Heidelblog.

Blogpost quote is from
    https://arcdigital.media/the-angela-davis-moment-4ac103c3063d

The article referenced on Angela Davis shows an authoritarian mindset in that there is black-white world view of those mentioned. The labeling demonstrates this world view. Angela Davis is commie lover, the Black Panthers are called 'murderous,' and John Lewis and others with are saints even though he was not viewed by all as a good guy as demonstrated by his multiple arrests. Neither Nixon nor the FBI were cited for their crimes and they were mentioned. According to that article, there are the good guys and the bad guys. And the bad guys are portrayed as having no redeeming characteristics.

For example, people like Davis and John Lewis opposed the racism of the Jim Crow era. So Davis admired Soviet Union Communism, which is far from saying that it was her 'greatest love as Radosh claims,  for a while and supported some people and groups she should not have. She did oppose the structural and personal racism that was at the heart of Jim Crow and still wants to correct links between racism  and our economic system. Martin Luther King Jr. also saw links between racism and our economic system. In fact, he saw racism as being inseparably linked to the exploitive economic system of his time. The complaint that Davis advocated intersectionalism should be viewed as being positive for she saw the connections between the various groups being discriminated against well before others.

If Davis still advocates revolution and radicalism today, perhaps we should engage in an honest assessment of where both society as well as ourselves are. For currently we still have systemic racism and we employ an economic system that has seen an almost uninterrupted growth in wealth and income disparity between the economic classes and the races. Discrimination against Blacks can be seen in law enforcement, the criminal justice system, elections, the business community and employment, and so on.

And perhaps to further exemplify the black-white thinking of the article, it described Angela Davis's acquittal of conspiracy to commit murder as being suspect. But there is no mention of the questionable actions by Nixon or J. Edgar Hoover's FBI.

The Black Panthers started with personally monitoring  police interactions with Blacks in response to the police killing of a Black teenager. But they also started social programs that helped people in the community. And the Black Panthers were violently assaulted by law enforcement.

And yet, little is said about the atrocities of racism  which all of them were battling. And that indicates a taking for granted the approaches employed by Lewis and the SCLC for granted. By taking those responses for granted, one eventually minimizes the brutal harshness of racism during the Jim Crow era. And all of that is what the article that Clark cites does.