LGBT and the US Conservative Movement

[strunkenwhite]

With mainline Protestants things are more different, as many of them have chosen the current social feelings and worked to conform and twist their Bible and doctrine to mainstream social liberalism, and to an extent the American USCCB has done something similar. However, I think you’d be hard pressed to say the adherents of TLM and evangelical Protestants have less in common with their religious beliefs with their predecessors than they do more. Slavery is so far the only thing you brought up, and it’s not like all the faiths in America were like “American slavery is totally great and there’s nothing wrong with mistreatment of slaves and you can do whatever you want!”

All of this also misses my point which isn’t that religion has remained unchanged but rather that the American people of the 18th and 19th century had vastly more in common in their values and beliefs and view of the world than Americans of the 21st century and that’s not good for the social cohesion of the nation, especially with an increasingly powerful federal government and vastly differing opinions on virtually everything the country should be and should look like and said voting forcing the other side to go along with what they detest.

It's not like all the faiths in America were united on slavery
But ... that's my point. Contemporary flavors of Christianity had stark differences from each other in that time period; to an even greater degree, I argue, than in this time period. Isn't that what we were arguing about? Not how different Christianity now is from Christianity then, but how big the differences are within Christianity now versus Christianity then. And remember, you've defined "Christianity then" as "all the European non-Jews in America".

Even with differentiation on slavery the cultural axioms and beliefs were quite similar. It was certainly more homogenous than it is now.

I don't see how "I think you’d be hard pressed to say the adherents of TLM and evangelical Protestants have less in common with their religious beliefs with their predecessors than they do more." has anything to do with that. But to be fair the way you constructed that sentence is very weird to me (in the second half) so it's possible I'm misreading it.

But anyway, if you were to concede that Christianity then had bigger internal differences than Christianity now you could still argue that society now has bigger internal differences than society then. Which, as I said before, I'm not convinced of, because slavery, and the technological differences between more urbanized areas and frontier areas, and other things. Perhaps the differences we have now are simply magnified in our perspective a la the narcissism of small differences.

 

[FriedCFour]

Contemporary flavors of Christianity had stark differences from each other in that time period; to an even greater degree, I argue, than in this time period. Isn't that what we were arguing about? Not how different Christianity now is from Christianity then, but how big the differences are within Christianity now versus Christianity then. And remember, you've defined "Christianity then" as "all the European non-Jews in America"

There were absolutely less differences than now. Slavery is biblical/non biblical isn’t that great of an issue compared to literally all else. I’d like any other example besides that, because I already outlined sexual morality and how vastly different that is now.

But anyway, if you were to concede that Christianity then had bigger internal differences than Christianity now you could still argue that society now has bigger internal differences than society then. Which, as I said before, I'm not convinced of, because slavery, and the technological differences between more urbanized areas and frontier areas, and other things. Perhaps the differences we have now are simply magnified in our perspective a la the narcissism of small differences.

The differences now are monumentally different now vs then, to the point where an evangelical Protestant now has more in common with a traditionalist Catholic than a mainline Protestant of the same denomination or similar legacy. I’ve already outlined differences here, can you provide a counterpoint that isn’t just slavery, because I can list an incredible amount of differences currently between not just two fringe groups but between essentially the two separate halves of much of American Protestantism.

 

[strunkenwhite]

There were absolutely less differences than now. Slavery is biblical/non biblical isn’t that great of an issue compared to literally all else. I’d like any other example besides that, because I already outlined sexual morality and how vastly different that is now.

I mentioned deism earlier. I have the impression that many denominations were increasingly emphasizing personal revelation, while the deists were at the same time completely eschewing it. That seems like a pretty critical and fundamental difference to me! What modern difference in doctrine is bigger than this that did not also exist back then?

 

[Prince Ire]

When was the last time American conservatives conserved anything?

Hell the fact that the New Right exists at all is proof of how much they've failed.

Why would you expect anything else? Conservatism as a political force in the US was broken in 1783. Everything since then has been an internal battle between classical liberals/libertarians and progressive liberals.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Why would you expect anything else? Conservatism as a political force in the US was broken in 1783. Everything since then has been an internal battle between classical liberals/libertarians and progressive liberals.

I don't

Hence why I think the GOP should die and be replaced by a proper right wing party.

 

[strunkenwhite]

Hence why I think the GOP should die and be replaced by a proper right wing party.

I think the odds of this happening in the next decade are better than they've been in over a century. IMO we'll probably know within 4 years whether it's going to happen.

 

[Zachowon]

At the time stamp, Rush explains what true conservaties in the US are, and what they see.

 

[FriedCFour]

[

I mentioned deism earlier. I have the impression that many denominations were increasingly emphasizing personal revelation, while the deists were at the same time completely eschewing it. That seems like a pretty critical and fundamental difference to me! What modern difference in doctrine is bigger than this that did not also exist back then?

Deism was confined to a small number of wealthy elite Colonists. They are massively over represented in the Founding Fathers as such but also only make up a fraction of them. It had a somewhat stronger impact on the constitution but little to none on the social fabric. We can’t really know how many Deists there were because it wasn’t even a census question, but it may very well have totaled around the same as the number of Jews in America at the founding, which was less than 3,000, or significantly lower. It also wasn’t something preached in any way or pushed for in any way, it was something that people typically arrived to after they read a lot of Locke and associated figures.

Here’s a quote from Jefferson on his religious disposition.

“[T]he Christian religion when divested of the rags in which they [the clergy] have inveloped it, and brought to the original purity & simplicity of its benevolent institutor, is a religion of all others most friendly to liberty, science, & the freest expression of the human mind,”. So the Deist position was mostly that what the Bible holds in its ethical and moral framework is good, God exists, but there is little to no of the “supernatural” elements otherwise. What we have now within the American religious spectrum are strong runs of atheism which very often say religion is in fact one of the greatest evils or is at the very least detrimental to us, along with vastly more religious faiths, a much larger number of of people who say they are agnostic and spiritual, etc. I have no idea how you can see the current religious social framework as less homogenous than that of America’s founding.

 

[Urabrask Revealed]

you become a massive hypocrite.

I'm fine with that. Fairness for my side, but not theirs.

Hypocrisy is a tool I'm willing to use because it is very effective and our enemies already use our own principles against us.
You can whine about us using it against them when we have won.

 

[Abhorsen]

I'm fine with that. Fairness for my side, but not theirs.

Hypocrisy is a tool I'm willing to use because it is very effective and our enemies already use our own principles against us.
You can whine about us using it against them when we have won.

So you're basically just like them, but in reverse then. There's no difference between you two, and I hate both of the positions pretty equally.

 

[Rocinante]

I'm fine with that. Fairness for my side, but not theirs.

Hypocrisy is a tool I'm willing to use because it is very effective and our enemies already use our own principles against us.
You can whine about us using it against them when we have won.

"Destroy free speech to protect free speech!"

Doesn't fly.

Hey guess what. If you're against free speech, I'm against you. Regardless what side of the political aisle you're on. If you think you need to become the enemy to win...well then I want you to lose, too, and for the same reasons.

 

[FriedCFour]

So you're basically just like them, but in reverse then. There's no difference between you two, and I hate both of the positions pretty equally.

This kind of “both same” ridiculousness leads you to believe that there is no difference between Feudal Europe and Stalinist Russia, the Roman Empire and the Germanic tribes. “Anyone who restricts liberty is all the same!” Means that the only two political positions are Libertarianism and then literally all other ideology period.

Hey guess what. If you're against free speech, I'm against you. Regardless what side of the political aisle you're on. If you think you need to become the enemy to win...well then I want you to lose, too, and for the same reasons.

There’s definitely a running thing that needs to die utterly that “if we use the government they might use it against us in the future!” But I don’t think freedom of speech is that, though I’d probably differ from you in that I see porn closer to (worse than) the opioid epidemic than I do a question of speech. It’s overall good to have that protection. However, if allowing something in society to propagate and spread means that it ultimately killed everything you wanted America to be, made it something utterly unlike what you want, overall detrimental to you personally, would you allow that thing to continue to propagate on principle even if you held the power to stop it?

 

[Abhorsen]

This kind of “both same” ridiculousness leads you to believe that there is no difference between Feudal Europe and Stalinist Russia, the Roman Empire and the Germanic tribes. “Anyone who restricts liberty is all the same!” Means that the only two political positions are Libertarianism and then literally all other ideology period.

First, when did I say that those examples are the same? Those have no relation to what I'm saying at all. And even going by freedom of speech levels, they aren't the same.

What is the same is the end result of following what @Urabrask Revealed wants versus a woke leftist, just with different types of speech restricted, but still just as limiting.

There’s definitely a running thing that needs to die utterly that “if we use the government they might use it against us in the future!” But I don’t think freedom of speech is that, though I’d probably differ from you in that I see porn closer to (worse than) the opioid epidemic than I do a question of speech. It’s overall good to have that protection. However, if allowing something in society to propagate and spread means that it ultimately killed everything you wanted America to be, made it something utterly unlike what you want, overall detrimental to you personally, would you allow that thing to continue to propagate on principle even if you held the power to stop it?

Yes, because a) limiting speech backfires, and b) there's no such thing as propogating info that would ruin the US. Speech restrictions result in what is being limited being popular. Germany, with all its limitations on Nazi Propaganda, has a worse problem with Nazis than the US does with Nazis and Klukkers combined, for example.

 

[FriedCFour]

First, when did I say that those examples are the same? Those have no relation to what I'm saying at all. And even going by freedom of speech levels, they aren't the same.

What is the same is the end result of following what @Urabrask Revealed wants versus a woke leftist, just with different types of speech restricted, but still just as limiting.

Which means that they aren’t the same because they limit entirely different things with entirely different principles in mind for entirely different purposes and different levels of free speech, ie, he is different from a woke leftist.

Yes, because a) limiting speech backfires, and b) there's no such thing as propogating info that would ruin the US. Speech restrictions result in what is being limited being popular. Germany, with all its limitations on Nazi Propaganda, has a worse problem with Nazis than the US does with Nazis and Klukkers combined, for example.

That’s not true lol. Look at China right now, it’s hardly super popular there. Or the UK, they have next to nothing on even the basic right wing. What I am saying also goes well beyond just speech.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

If you like freedom of speech as a principle, you must oppose blasphemy laws, or you become a massive hypocrite . So if you back this, then complain that youtube or twitter is censoring so and so, I'll just laugh at you.

If one holds to the argument that, "You don't have a right to not be offended", blasphemy laws go against that infinitely more than so-called "cancel culture" does, because all blasphemy is from a legal perspective is, "Religious people are offended."

 

[FriedCFour]

If one holds to the argument that, "You don't have a right to not be offended", blasphemy laws go against that infinitely more than so-called "cancel culture" does, because all blasphemy is from a legal perspective is, "Religious people are offended."

It would be that you’d have some sort of state religion that cannot be opposed publicly, not “religious people are offended.” Cancel culture also isn’t about right to not be offended, it’s that minorities of all stripes, women and their allies can’t be offended, with varying degrees of value of offense depending on how they fall on the hierarchy of importance. If you hold that one does matter and the other doesn’t, there’s not really a contradiction there.

 

[DocSolarisReich]

"Free Speech" is a useless abstraction. Whose speech? What speech? When? Where? To whom?

If "Free Speech" is taken at face value it becomes a suicide pact.

Of course this gets into the uselessness of even speaking about abstract 'rights'.

Instead of talking about muh "Freedom of Speech" Rightists should be making a moral argument that they have a positive "Duty to Speak the Truth".

 

[Abhorsen]

Which means that they aren’t the same because they limit entirely different things with entirely different principles in mind for entirely different purposes and different levels of free speech, ie, he is different from a woke leftist.

Somebody can't understand basic analogies. Restricting speech is wrong. Places that restrict speech end up doing the same stupid things for slightly different sounding reasons that are really the same: "I don't like that, and I can't refute it, so ban it"

That’s not true lol. Look at China right now, it’s hardly super popular there. Or the UK, they have next to nothing on even the basic right wing. What I am saying also goes well beyond just speech.

China isn't specifically suppressing Nazis though. When the UK did it, it caused a lot of support for Count Dankula, and now he makes good money off of youtube instead of being a nobody. And in the US, the censorship of social media has redpilled many a person. So yeah, wrong on all counts.

"Free Speech" is a useless abstraction. Whose speech? What speech? When? Where? To whom?

If "Free Speech" is taken at face value it becomes a suicide pact.

Of course this gets into the uselessness of even speaking about abstract 'rights'.

Instead of talking about muh "Freedom of Speech" Rightists should be making a moral argument that they have a positive "Duty to Speak the Truth".

No, it's really not a useless abstraction, despite you asking questions which have been well answered by many philosophers and supreme court cases. Without free speech, you'd be getting arrested for hateful language.

 

[DocSolarisReich]

No, it's really not a useless abstraction, despite you asking questions which have been well answered by many philosophers and supreme court cases. Without free speech, you'd be getting arrested for hateful language.

Yes it really is. An Abstraction that Human society got along quite handily without for thousands of years before 'enlightened' moderns invented it whole cloth to justify sacrilege, blasphemy, and treason against throne and altar.

 

[Abhorsen]

If one holds to the argument that, "You don't have a right to not be offended", blasphemy laws go against that infinitely more than so-called "cancel culture" does, because all blasphemy is from a legal perspective is, "Religious people are offended."

Eh, cancel culture is basically blasphemy laws without the religion.

Yes it really is. An Abstraction that Human society got along quite handily without for thousands of years before 'enlightened' moderns invented it whole cloth to justify sacrilege, blasphemy, and treason against throne and altar.

Yeah, those are all things that people have a right to do. Unless you just blindly enjoy worshipping whoever's in power, you might want to think about free speech, and how it protects your ability to say anti-American things (which all of those things are) without getting arrested.