Technically all Christians have a version of this. Though even in "Bible Churches" it is usually tempered by the second bit below, and processes of repentance and whatnot.

9 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10 not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. 11 But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister[c] but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people.

12 What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? 13 God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”

I Corinthians 5

15 “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. 16 But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ 17 If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

Matthew 18

As an aside, that Corinthians bit spells it out in plain-ass English that any "Christian" screaming at non-Christians about being gay, trans, or whatever either do not know their Bible or only use it when it supports the actions they already want to take.

As a second aside, it is kind of funny what one still remembers even after being out of the church for a couple decades.

Did you try shrinking the photos a bit? I narrowed the browser to shrink them and my phone camera picked up 11 of 12 of the ones in a grid.

I am a fan of a UBI (Universal Basic Income) but these limited CBI (Conditional Basic Income) trials are not really comparable to a long-term implementation of either version.

Taking a specific number of people and giving them cash is certainly going to improve their lives. Giving cash to everyone in a city or state, including new arrival, is asking for local inflation and a population explosion. If the area is empty and has abundant natural resources that can be converted into jobs it will probably work out, at least for a while. If it is a major city with most of the resources and land already in use, and there is not much demand for workers, then the program's budget is likely to be overrun fairly quickly.

This is not a UBI Universal Basic Income; this is a CBI Conditional Basic Income. The conditions are currently being selected and being homeless.

Also this program basically already exists. It is just TANF selected for homelessness instead low-income families with children.

Edit: Universal not Unconditional

Nuance.

Are you claiming children haven’t been abused because their parents found out they were LGBTQ?

Of course not, that would be nonsense.

I was just avoiding attributing anything like reason to the abusers. The choices of abuse victims are not typically the cause of abuse. The pieces of shit willing to abuse children don't need a particular reason to do it, and I am not interested in claiming something the victim did was the cause. Even if the abuse ramped up after coming out, it still sounds a bit like victim blaming any way I word it. Which in turn makes me wonder how many of them were already being abused.

Definitely some odd choices here. Condemns the main abuser to a life-time of penance and prayer and then totally dismisses any claims that the abuser's protege may have seen the abuse.

It does seem he eventually changed his tune, but not before seriously harming his credibility on the issue.

In April, the pope publicly acknowledged that he had erred in handling the situation, saying he had made "serious mistakes" — and summoning Chile's bishops to an emergency meeting in Rome. Francis said he had misjudged Barros and the events in Chile because he hadn't been given "truthful and balanced information."

In May, all of Chile's 31 active bishops offered to resign their posts, issuing a statement in which they asked forgiveness and apologized for "the grave errors and omissions that we committed."

https://www.npr.org/2018/06/11/618825779/pope-francis-accepts-resignations-of-3-bishops-over-chilean-abuse-scandal

Grand Qanon Party - aka Trumplicans

Probably because they want to avoid the children getting abused at home, or worse

Most abusers do not wait for some specific reason to start abusing. I would be interested to see data how many abused LGBT kids were never abused before they came out to their parents.

Edited in all of the above.

Hmm, I wonder what would happen in we’d apply this to past social issues…

This might be splitting hairs a bit, but it basically is what happened.

Edits in italics: For US women's suffrage they gained the right to vote in a number of cities, territories, and states then eventually gained the right to vote nationally.

Also when slaves were freed, they certainly did not become equal members of society the next day. It has however gotten significantly better over time.

If you want to push in a certain direction, you take a few steps forward, show people that the world did not burn down, and then take a few more steps forward.

No, that is called having an adult conversation where we acknowledge reality and then discuss how to fix it, or in this case how it is already being worked on.

This was a really interesting read, thank you for laying it out.

Are PDFs like that Direct Democracy common releases from the UK parties? It really spells things out, at least as far as I made it through before getting distracted.

There did seem to be a couple sections that I read that the data didn't seem to match what was being claimed. Particularly the section on the Broken Pendulum (Pages 8,9). The authors seem to claim that in 2001 and 2005 were unique in that the opposition party wasn't able to gain from losses in the government. If however you look at 1964 and 1983 they seem to be even more stark examples of the same. Seems like the pendulum was a general trend at best.

Sexual abuse happens in virtually every organization. The main issue is how it is dealt with. The catholic church has a long issue of dealing with issues internally, but this was definitely one that was not being handled correctly. Francis has made it clear that he is willing to face the issue head-on now that he has the power.

We do not have to turn a blind eye to their past mistakes, but we should also acknowledge what they are actually doing to work on those mistakes instead of spreading misinformation about them still hiding from it.

Options are definitely nice for those technical enough to understand and use them.

Though personally I am keeping an eye on Linux devices for my next upgrade.

Do I not want USB-C (for some weird reason)?

This is probably temporary until it is time to move past USB-C. Which will be a slower and more difficult process now that there are laws in place requiring it.

Same reason that people stick with Google.

After years in the eco-system it is obnoxious to swap, and the other main competitor isn't any better of a company to deal with.

My problem with your stance is that you seem very quick to jump at “bigoted hate speech from LGBTQ+ people”

Show me a Christian or conservative acting like a bigot in this post, community, or even instance and I will gladly call them out. I am sure a few are hiding somewhere around here but they are few and far between. I do understand that there are instances where it is more common from them, but I do not regularly visit those places.

admittedly, but understandably, quite vitriolic - responses to that trauma.

This is my main issue right here. None of this conversation would be happening u/I_Fart_Glitter had just acknowledged that u/gravitas_deficiency had spit out some vitriolic bigotry instead of defending. Their opinions may be understandable to you, but a public News forum is the wrong place to be spewing that kind of bigotry. If they gravitas has unresolved issues they need to get off their chest, there are plenty of appropriate forums for it.

This fear mongering is reinforced every single Sunday when they go to their church and get told these things directly by their leadership

This may be true for many Christians, but there are millions of American Christians that believe quite the opposite and would never tolerate that in a church.

I live in BFE Texas and there are ten Affirming Churches in the area; five of them are within about 45 minutes of me. As a comparison there are only two Cowboy Churches in the same area. Every major City I checked had several Affirming Churches.

https://www.gaychurch.org/find_a_church/

https://www.npr.org/2022/09/25/1124101216/trans-religious-leaders-say-scripture-should-inspire-inclusive-congregations

https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2023-07-06/one-in-five-united-methodist-congregations-in-the-us-have-left-the-denomination-over-lgbtq-conflicts

A belief system is much more mutable than intrinsic characteristics like gender identity, skin color, and sexuality

Belief is as fundamental to a person as sexuality or gender identity. Some people's beliefs, gender identity, and sexuality change several times through their lives, others stick with the one assumed at birth, and anywhere in between.

assume you simply misspoke and meant “gender identity”.

You are right, I meant transitioning gender identity, not "gender transition"

based only on the inherently Christian idea that your parents are the sole deciders in the welfare of their children

What? I am sure there are cultures and religions where something different would be the norm, but do any of them represent a significant chunk of the world's population? I did a bit of web-searching but can't seem to find anything remotely related to this. I am getting swamped with references to child welfare laws and related court cases.

what’s the transitional stance between “trans rights are human rights” and “we need to eradicate gender ideology from the public world”?

This is the first time I have gotten this deep into trans topics in a loooong time, but off the top of my head, I see two middle grounds between those stances.

"If you want to live your life as a different sex than you were assigned at birth, that is fine but don't expect everyone else to agree with or support that choice."

"Let adults live their lives as the sex they choose, but kids need to wait until they are out of high school if their parents refuse to accept it."

I am sure there are other middle grounds between those stances even if both sides are offended by them.

How might it impact them? That brings me to your direct question.

Who does trans identity affect other than the trans person?

Really? Is this just a setup to call me a bigot instead? Fine, I will express the opinions I have seen or heard from women who could probably be described as TERFs even if they don't see themselves as such, but only with a spoiler tag and a few caveats.

::: spoiler Trigger warning. These are not my personal feelings. If someone taking oppositional stances or undercutting your self-identity will hurt you, please do not click this.

Caveat: I am neither a woman nor trans, nor do I have daughters or sisters, nor have I ever had any close trans friends or family, only regular acquaintances, nor am I strongly opinionated about whether trans-women are actually women. I really do not have a leg to stand on when taking a stance around this issue.

Another caveat: These are areas where the belief of what a trans person actually is controls the perspective. If you think a trans-woman is a woman, full stop, then this doesn't make any sense at all. If you believe that a trans-woman is a man that prefers to live as a woman then it does, so in an effort to answer your question, I am going to frame it from that perspective.

A final caveat, from my admittedly limited perspective these particular issues only typically apply to trans-women and not usually trans-men. Though I am sure there are some exceptions to that.

First, the first woman X. I happened to have a conversation with a relatively young lady that went on a rant about Biden naming Rachel Levine as the first woman 4 star general of the Public Health Services Human Corps. She made quite the impassioned rant that it was undercutting women everywhere to call a "biological male" the first woman anything.

Second, women's sports. The Riley Gaines and Lia Thomas thing last year was hard to miss. The main point of women's sports seems to be related to fields where men absolutely dominate the standings. Though there are definitely some women's leagues for certain things where I can't see how it would matter. As I understand it, many men's leagues around the world have no rule against women, it is just exceptionally rare that a woman is selected for them. The NHL for example has had exactly one female player and it was for an exhibition game back in the 90s. Should leagues be based off of physical size like boxing? Or should there be a testosterone check? No idea, but some people assigned female at birth definitely think it affects them.

Third, the old bathroom example. Men are feared in our society. Every one of us is viewed as a potential rapist. Women feel exceptionally uncomfortable in certain situations where a man is present or might be. It isn't right, but it is the way things are. As long as bathrooms exist in their current form, some women, and some parents of young girls, are not going to be okay with people they see as men using the one for ladies.

:::

That’s what afraid_of_zombies has been saying all this time.

Then they have a funny way of expressing it. It sounds a lot more like they were defending a bigoted statement by saying someone can't be bigoted against people from religions they find disgusting.

There is a difference between attacking someone who chooses a disgusting belief system and bigotry.

https://lemmy.world/comment/4026429

Edit: added people from

tl;dr Maybe. It mostly depends on your wording and actions. Christians are not one group or thing anymore than Europeans or LGBT people are. They are a collection of highly varied peoples that can't even agree on the number of books in the bible or whether Jesus was man, god, or both.

If someone says or implies "all Christians" are this or that negative thing it moves closer to yes rather than maybe. If someone is accuses a person of being something for no other reason than a group they belong to, then the accuser is probably a bigot.

,

,

This wall of text is an eyesore, so I added bold to your words and Italics to other quotes to help with readability. My words have neither.

would you say I’m a bigot?

If you personally dislike them, but you don't let it affect the way you treat them, I really wouldn't care one way or another.

As far as I am concerned, fear and hatred of the unknown and different are as human and natural as love and lust. It is what people do with those emotions that matter.

If someone's lust encourages them to date and eventually spend their life with someone they are attracted to that is a good expression. If someone's lust encourages them to violet the privacy of or assault someone then that is a bad expression.

Fear of the unknown and different is similar. If it encourages someone to learn more about different peoples, foods, or animals, then it is a good expression. If it encourages them to disparage or commit acts of violence against them then that is a bad expression.

I’m curious what you consider hate speed or bigotry against christians.

a person who is intolerant or hateful toward people whose race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, etc., is different from the person's own.

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/bigot

hate speech, speech or expression that denigrates a person or persons on the basis of (alleged) membership in a social group identified by attributes such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, age, physical or mental disability, and others.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/hate-speech

I see bigotry and hate speech as more words and actions than opinions. What does an opinion matter if it is not expressed through word or deed? Is someone really intolerant if they tolerate someone in all areas except their own mind?

Mostly it comes down to treating any group, Christians in this case, as if they are the same and are each responsible for the acts of all the others.

If I dislike all christians that follow the bible/their gods commands and believe in their gods benevolence,

Protestants, Catholics, and Eastern Orthodoxy don't even agree on the number of books in the bible. If you haven't run into the idea of the Apocrypha you may find it interesting.

Various numbers below (formatting edited for readability):

The canon of

the Protestant Bible totals 66 books—39 Old Testament (OT) and 27 New Testament (NT);

the Catholic Bible numbers 73 books (46 OT, 27 NT),

and Greek and Russian Orthodox, 79 (52 OT, 27 NT)

(Ethiopian Orthodox, 81—54 OT, 27 NT).

https://www.biblegateway.com/blog/2022/04/why-are-protestant-catholic-and-orthodox-bibles-different/

Lest you think that it is only the old testament that is debated here is info about the New testament in Martin Luther's Bible:

Though he included the Letter to the Hebrews, the letters of James and Jude and Revelation in his Bible translation, he put them into a separate grouping and questioned their legitimacy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antilegomena#Reformation

Not sure why this 2 day old comment just showed up in my inbox, but have a response anyways.

Also an upvote for a well-worded response.

but at a certain point, patience is lost when it feels like people are just ignoring reality and continuing to not just participate in, but support institutions that have created a lot of harm for people.

I can appreciate their frustrations. I have certainly felt plenty of my own and dropped a slur or two particularly at politicians.

Some of my issue is directly related to how they express those frustrations in a public forum, but what really tweaks my tail is how overwhelming the support is for those responses.

I ignored them at first, but at some point I need to either address them or drop Lemmy, which at this point means dropping the last bit of social media that I am using. Places like Lemmy and Reddit help me stay informed, so I figured I would try pointing it out some before dropping social media again for a couple more years.

The Equal Rights Amendment is definitely another one of those real oddities of American politics.

Supported by the GOP and Southern Democrats until the 80s, opposed by Northern Democrats and Labor Unions for most of the same time period. Now generally supported by Democrats and opposed by Republicans. Both supported and opposed by various feminist groups at the same and different times.

The UK Conservative party is very much aligned with the US Republicans. They share the same think groups. The parallels with tactics are very stark.

Is this a relatively new thing? I was under the impression that the UK conservative party was fairly different than US conservatives. I had heard that Johnson was a bit of a johnson himself, but assumed things went back to "normal" with his ousting.

It is the little things in life that make you smile. Education can be a dangerous thing, I will be inspecting my food for a few days.

It seems that you are a man of not just culture but wisdom as well.

Seems like Hitler had more of an issue with the political power of the church instead of their beliefs and even tried making his own Protestant sect.

I fully concede this point. I had only read the bit about Nazis being secular recently while looking up something and clearly did not do enough supporting research before repeating it.

The shift happened in spite of religion, not because of it.

No objection here.

I see you didn’t even try to respond to how Christians were the main opposition to any and every single push for civil rights.

You seem to be stuck on this idea that I think Christians are the real progressives or something. I have not in any way said or tried to imply any such thing. Just that the majority have been moving toward the middle nearly your entire lifetime.

If we sat back and placated them like you believe we should

You should definitely stick to things I actually said, not easy to win stances that I do not hold.

I have made it pretty clear from the beginning that we should stand up to bigoted hateful speech regardless where it comes from. Since you seem to have missed it: That includes Christians, but it also includes LGBT members, and anyone in-between or outside of them.

Pretending that a third of the world all believes the same thing because of certain groups among them is a problem. Treating them all like shit, for something other members of their faith believe, is a reflection on the person treating another human like shit not on their target.

And yet, when you ask about trans identity, they’ll show what they really believe.

Trans identity is a complex issue. One that affects more than just trans people. Surely it will shift in some way over time, though I would not want to even try to guess in what direction at this point. People go nucking futs when it comes to their kids, and in my opinion the Trans community lost some PR ground when it came out that schools were intentionally hiding students who were transitioning gender identities from their parents. Edit in Italics

If you want to make progress on trans issues, I would suggest that the LGBT community take a transitional stance and then move again in the future, rather than losing their minds because they cannot force the whole population to share their views all at once.

This is a tried and true tactic when it comes to gay rights. When Clinton passed, "Don't ask, don't tell" it was a highly controversial pro-gay stance. If he had tried to push the military to where we are today there is no telling how the US would have reacted, but it would not have been good.

Added it to my lists.

Fair warning, History of Rome was his first podcast and it took some episodes to get rolling. I would say the first 10-15 are slower and of a bit lower quality. It starts getting better as he gets more experience and better equipment.

How does a non elected body get such power?

It is a great question.

I find the diversion between UK law and US law interesting.

Same here. I occasionally dive into something random about UK law and am blown away.

I have to own up to be an bit of a history geek.

If I had some better history teachers at a young age, I think I would have been also.

I found the History of Rome podcast by Mike Duncan a few years back and binged the entire thing twice, as well as his Revolutions podcast. Been having a hard time finding other things that engaged me as much. I do like most anything by Dan Carlin but there is a lot less depth to it.

top ignoring and turning away the victims of your priest’s rape and abuse

Same list as I dropped on your other post. Took like 30 seconds in a web-search to call that claim into serious doubt. Also, I searched for him turning away sexual abuse victims and found nothing.

Monday’s meeting between Francis and the six victims of church sexual abuse was not the first such meeting between a pontiff and survivors, but it was the first of Francis’ papacy.

2014 - https://www.cnn.com/2014/07/07/world/pope-clerical-sex-abuse/

“God weeps” for the sexual abuse of children, Pope Francis said Sunday in Philadelphia, after meeting with victims of sexual abuse.

2015 - https://www.cnn.com/2015/09/27/us/pope-francis-sex-abuse-victims/index.html

Pope Francis said he regularly meets with victims of sexual abuse on Fridays, and that while the percentage of priests who abuse is relatively low, even one is too many.

2018 - https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/37774/pope-francis-regularly-meets-with-abuse-victims-on-fridays

In the evening of the same day, Pope Francis held an audience with Portugese victims of sexual abuse by the Catholic Church.

2023 - https://www.foxnews.com/world/pope-francis-holds-private-meetings-sex-abuse-victims-ukrainian-pilgrims

Every time the pope has turned them away and refused to even acknowledge their existence

Where did you hear that? These articles seem to say the opposite.

Monday’s meeting between Francis and the six victims of church sexual abuse was not the first such meeting between a pontiff and survivors, but it was the first of Francis’ papacy.

2014 - https://www.cnn.com/2014/07/07/world/pope-clerical-sex-abuse/

“God weeps” for the sexual abuse of children, Pope Francis said Sunday in Philadelphia, after meeting with victims of sexual abuse.

2015 - https://www.cnn.com/2015/09/27/us/pope-francis-sex-abuse-victims/index.html

Pope Francis said he regularly meets with victims of sexual abuse on Fridays, and that while the percentage of priests who abuse is relatively low, even one is too many.

2018 - https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/37774/pope-francis-regularly-meets-with-abuse-victims-on-fridays

In the evening of the same day, Pope Francis held an audience with Portugese victims of sexual abuse by the Catholic Church.

2023 - https://www.foxnews.com/world/pope-francis-holds-private-meetings-sex-abuse-victims-ukrainian-pilgrims

Huh, dang I guess you’re right.

You probably should have just stopped that first paragraph right there.

There was no reason to make crazy ass claims that only a fart-for-brains would believe, then spend the time smacking them down. If you really don't think the opinion of the average Christian has changed towards LGBT folks, then you haven't been paying attention. Please feel free to check any numbers anywhere and see that roughly half of US Christians are fine with homosexuality now. Compared to 30, 40, 50, 100 years ago, this is a huge shift.

It’d also be insane if the “secular Nazi ideology” was actually heavily Christian

If you wanted to claim that a lot of Christians joined the Nazis, that is one thing, but the ideology itself is incompatible with Christianity.

From the same wikipedia article that you linked:

Nazi ideology could not accept an autonomous establishment whose legitimacy did not spring from the government. It desired the subordination of the church to the state.[38] Although the broader membership of the Nazi Party after 1933 came to include many Catholics and Protestants, aggressive anti-Church radicals like Joseph Goebbels, Alfred Rosenberg, Martin Bormann, and Heinrich Himmler saw the Kirchenkampf campaign against the Churches as a priority concern, and anti-Church and anticlerical sentiments were strong among grassroots party activists.[39]

Hitler's Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, saw an "insoluble opposition" between the Christian and Nazi world views.[39] The Führer angered the churches by appointing Alfred Rosenberg as official Nazi ideologist in 1934.[40] Heinrich Himmler saw the main task of his SS organization to be that of acting as the vanguard in overcoming Christianity and restoring a "Germanic" way of living.[41] Hitler's chosen deputy, Martin Bormann, advised Nazi officials in 1941 that "National Socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable."[40]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Nazi_Germany#Nazi_attitudes_towards_Christianity

Much of it seems to be a matter of what we think Lemmy and the communities are for.

In my mind, c/News and c/Politics should be group spaces where people of all stripes can express view points in well-reasoned, civil, ways. I have no problem with little corners of the federation that cater to the hurt and angry, my issue is when it spills out into the more public spaces. I will readily acknowledge some of that opinion comes from a stance that does not seem all that popular on Lemmy.

When I first heard about the fediverse, I was excited that the echo chambers would be broken open. I thought everyone could have their radical little corners, but that there would be open communities that we could all meet in and discuss issues in a reasonable way.

When I joined an instance with a "democratic" experiment going on, I quickly realized that my view that it was awesome to federate with everyone was a relative minority; many people there thought it was more awesome to be able to defederate from those whose opinions they never wanted to see. Fortunately, their community found something of a middle ground, but it was still quite the disappointment to me.

I definitely agree that FPTP is a weak voting system, though I think the US is a lot further away from it than the UK. There are a few places that have rank choice, but it doesn't seem to be gaining much popularity nationally.

There does not seem to be any trusted bodies where people can turn to for an honest opinion on truth.

This is definitely a huge problem. There used to be some non-partisan bodies that could be trusted like the Congressional Budget Office, but the ones I am aware of have lost most or all relevance over the last 15-20 years. Independent oversight might be nice, but I suspect that there will be a constant battle of infiltration against those entities.

a lot of ultimate power positions like SCOTUS need a much wider oversight committee.

I agree that SCOTUS is a problem, though I am not sure oversight is the right answer. I think a constitutional amendment or two is in order regarding them; probably further limiting when or how they take court cases, and more importantly not allowing new precedents to be set when the court cannot even agree with itself. At the very least a 6-3 vote should be required for precedent but even better would be 9-0. If they cannot even agree amongst themselves whether something is constitutional at the time of a specific case, then setting new "constitutional" rules or rights anyways is foolishness. They could continue to take and decide cases by 5-4 majorities on an individual basis but those resolutions should be specific to those cases and make no declaration of being more.

In my mind, SCOTUS has always has been a problem. When I look at history, it seems to me, as often as not, SCOTUS has inserted itself into highly contentious issues and driven a legalistic wedge through the nation by picking sides in issues where there is no clear popular opinion.

Also, the thing that people see as SCOTUS' prime responsibility, judicial review, is not actually mentioned in the constitution, it was co-opted by them shortly after our current constitution was signed. In the same case that they declared the constitution was not just a statement of ideals, but in fact a legal document, they also ignored that legal document and declared their right to unilaterally strike down the nation's laws. Marbury v Madison In my mind, it is disgusting that the same body that functions as the interpreter of the constitution felt free to disregard it when it suited them, from its very beginning.

Besides its overwhelming impact on US history, the reason for the Marbury v Madison itself is an interesting insight into how contentious US politics has always been.

The biggest problem of all politics though has to be corruption. Politicians should not be able to earn money from secondary sources.

I could not agree with this more if I tried. It is absolutely disgusting to see how many US politicians become rich while in office.

Not all republicans are bad. But the longer the good ones wait to take the bull by the horns, the harder it will be.

Thank you for the clarification.

We have exactly the same problem with the house of Lords.

As a side note, I have always found the House of Lord's to be an interesting if problematic institution.

Leveson Inquiry 2.0

I tried to read through the wiki about this, but I suspect that my own free press bias was getting in the way of what I was actually reading. I will need to sit down sometime and look more into when I have time to process it all.

The “paradox of tolerance” is people justifying attacking people. This myth does nothing but ensure there’s no way back for people who have drifted out of bounds - it’s a recipe for radicalizing people.

The vast majority of Christians have spent your entire life moving more towards the middle. Yet, all you see is the ground that hasn't been covered yet. When you push them (not me) back and pretend that they should be judged by the actions of their ancestors instead of their own actions, you make it that much more challenging to have them stay in-bounds, or move back in if they have gone astray.

When you compare the Christian Religion that two-thirds of the US shares, to the secular Nazi Ideology, and claim they have blood on their hands, you push them towards radicalization.

When people that support your stance go out-of-bounds themselves, and aren't called on it they make it that much harder to show the way back in-bounds to the opposition that have strayed.

Apologies, my intention wasn't to imply you meant Authoritarianism is the main problem, but rather that I thought polarization was. Guess that is what I get for using part of someone else's comment instead of writing my own.

I see your point. Trump is a lying, liar, who lies. The problem is America has mostly shifted from voting for someone to voting against someone. Trump vs Clinton was an unpopularity contest that America lost, and maybe the world too.

There are undeniably die hard trump supporters out there, but many people that voted for him in the last two elections, and who will likely vote for him again, aren't really supporters of his, they are more against Biden and Democrats.

Between their hatred for the Democrats and the fact that "we got him this time" was turned into a meme four years ago, there are a good portion of Republicans that have started to treat anything negative about Trump as another attack to be dismissed. Even when they see a video of his own words, it is dismissed as taken out of context, a misquote, a deep fake, whatever works for them. However anything seemingly positive is laid at his feet.

The biggest problem at this point is attack ads and court cases just further convince the die hard supporters that he really is trying to "drain the swamp" and all the attacks are the response of the swamp. The individual issues that ridiculously pile up for a neutral observer are all just proof of his righteousness in their minds.

Have you seen a version of this article where anti-trump conservatives had to stop running ads against Trump because they were helping him or doing nothing? https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/anti-trump-super-pac-says-attack-ads-are-backfiring/ar-AA1hsIwq

Trump is definitely a problem, but he's also a symptom of the larger problem of polarization. In the past, moderates were able to keep things in balance, but right now being a moderate is nearly a crime to both wings. Republicans tend to call them "RINOs" and Democrats tend to call them "basically Republicans".

I think even if we eliminate Trump, someone will quickly follow in his steps, and I am not convinced that it will necessarily be a Republican. Too many power-hungry people from across the spectrum have now seen that America is ripe for the taking by a certain kind of charismatic figure.

The only way to slow this down in my mind is to begin building a bridge between the two sides. As a start we need to first and foremost stop forcing centrists to choose a side. Then we need to find a few things we still agree on, before moving on to more challenging issues. If we cannot even find a few issues we agree with the other side, then we at least need to find some issues where the extremes agree with the moderates and build from there. If we cannot even do that then it probably about time to figure out whether we are going for French style political purges or a Roman style first princeps.

If we are throwing out the rule of law anyways them I am voting for the Governator! I am mostly kidding.

and I have to use my position to prevent more of it?

I lost you here. What position? Prevent more of what?

Also, sorry if this turned out a bit on the rambling side, I should have waited until morning to write this.

More strawmen, more name-calling.

Just find a mirror, then the conversation will be the same as the one in your head.

That is a great idea, but no. He was living in another part of the country from them at the time of the initial attack. The article was written in that area.

Once again, thank you for the well-reasoned comment.

I have to say, much of this sounds very similar to something I might have said while trying to convince someone that there is some nuance to the Christian Right. The rest of if though is still worth thinking over some more for sure. Especially the bit about how this space is a bit tailored towards leftist view points. Maybe I am expecting too much in a place where people should be able to throw an off the cuff "goddam repubtards" without being called on it.

Still, I think some of the comments really do push that boundary; including OC's immediate accusation of some generic Christian being the murder.

Your point seems to be that people should not generalise an opinion on a large group of people.

That is indeed my exact point.

But you fail to ask the question of when passivism becomes guilty by failing to act.

That is actually one of my main concerns with the direction lemmy is heading. At some point when the bias becomes extreme enough we need to start calling out those that are crossing the line. If it seems like I am not pointing enough at the extremes of the republican side, it is only because their voices are few and far-between on Lemmy. Typically when I find them, they are already buried in down-votes and comments. I usually a downvote to the pile, upvote a few other comments, and then move on.

Germany was held accountable for the atrocities of the holocaust. They moved on. They educate in schools in an attempt to prevent this from reoccurring.

In principle, I agree with this, but in practice it seems to be having questionable long-term results. The rise of the extreme right seems as prevalent there as it is in the US. Though some of that may just be overreporting because of the general interest in Germany when it comes to right-wing extremism.

What is happening in the US with republicans can only persist if people support them, and polling suggests there is support there.

I think this issue is a bit more complex than that. I think it has to do as much or more with people being forced to support the side they feel less negative towards even if they don't really agree with that side. Here is an interesting if imperfect analogy I read relating to it:

Since the main topic is apparently too hot of a take, I’ll take pineapple on a pizza for example (Perhaps I’m getting into even hotter waters). Free of external influence (i.e. memes), I think most people will eat it without much thought. Some might like it, some might not, and I doubt it’s all that controversial–likely less than anchovies. If you don’t like it, you just don’t have to eat it.

But if one extreme said we must ban pineapples from all pizzas, and the other end of the extreme said we must put pineapple on all pizzas, we have a very different scenario. I myself enjoy Hawaiian pizza and find pineapples to be a fine topping. But I certainly don’t want to eat only pineapple pizzas all the time. So, I’d look at both extremes and side with no pineapples ever. That seems better of the two options. I can no longer be a centrist because the idea of having only pineapple pizza seems horrible. But I don’t really eat whole pizzas by myself, I eat it with others. And if others are such great lovers of pineapple pizza, I’d be influenced to side with the other extreme of always having pineapple due to peers.

I want to highlight that both of these extremes are authoritarian. One forces you to eat pineapple. The other forces you to not eat pineapple. Neither are true libertarian choices. They are forced viewpoints one forces on the other. That’s what forces people to have such strong negative emotion towards it. No one wants to be forced into things. This is important and I’ll come back to this later.

Excerpt from https://lemmy.world/comment/3742406 from /u/Grumpy@sh.itjust.works

Thank you for the clarification.

I have read that multiple times. I just think it is a shite theory.

I eventually need to put it in my own words, but /u/theneverfox@pawb.social's post is pretty good for now: (emphasis added)

There’s no paradox in tolerance. Tolerance means you accept everyone existing within the societal contract - period. Doesn’t matter if they’re Republican, a racist, or anything else

Behavior out of bounds should be fought appropriately. If someone uses words to express racism, call them a disgusting asshole. If a bunch of neonazis organize for an act of violence, confront it with violence. Respond appropriately.

Conversely, if a racist can be around people of other races without acting racist, accept them in the group to reinforce their rehabilitation. If someone with braindead opinions bites their tongue and keeps it to themselves, tolerate them.

There’s no paradox - there’s acceptable behavior and unacceptable behavior. If anyone, displays only acceptable behavior, you tolerate them - full stop. If anyone goes out of bounds, you respond appropriately to correct the behavior - full stop.

The “paradox of tolerance” is people justifying attacking people. This myth does nothing but ensure there’s no way back for people who have drifted out of bounds - it’s a recipe for radicalizing people.

I’m genuinely convinced the “paradox of tolerance” is a psyops designed to fracture society by breeding extremists… If there’s no tolerance when they behave and no way back, what do you think is going to happen? Either their beliefs that they’re under attack get constantly reinforced and they get further pushed out of bounds, or we kill them all before they destroy our society

There has to be a way back, or the only way forward is ideological purges

https://lemmy.world/comment/3754441

Agreed. I certainly appreciate the direct honesty.

Looks like they are both bigots from here.

Yeah, party affiliation is way more important than who a person is or how they live their life!

Expression of Religion is a choice. Belief in religion is often more fundamental to who a person is.

once they can get their own fucking house in order

This is the fundamental problem right here. There is no house. There are neighborhoods worth of houses. Some of them not even next to each other. Some of them share outdated morale codes. Some of them have moral codes you and I could both respect. They are no more in control of each other than we are of them.

It is one of the definite weaknesses of all the separate denominations. If there was only one Christian group, we could try to talk with the Pope and the other Patriarchs and potentially have them all heard the group in the same direction.

Just think of the Westboro Baptists, so shameful that even the KKK denounced them on their home page a few years back.