Our Contemptuous Nation

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/02/opinion/sunday/political-polarization.html

An article that observes part of our problem in BOistan, but fails to really understand it. It is worth reading it. A quote ...

People often say that our problem in America today is incivility or intolerance. This is incorrect. Motive attribution asymmetry leads to something far worse: contempt, which is a noxious brew of anger and disgust. And not just contempt for other people’s ideas, but also for other people. In the words of the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, contempt is “the unsullied conviction of the worthlessness of another.”

 I argue that we did not experience this situation even close to fully until the Obama years. In the Obama years the "dominant party", the modern leftist Democrats, who I refer to as "The Party" (TP) experienced total control for the first time since at least the 1960's, if not "ever". Why?

Because prior to the 60's, the "Solid South" was all "Democrat", but those were conservative Democrats. Being anti-Christian, or as we see recently, anti-Semitic, let alone Socialist was beyond the pale. Sure, they often had big majorities in both houses and won the presidency by large margins, but those margins included many Democrats that were much more conservative than today's "moderate Republicans" ... they were Christian, pro-family, pro-life, pro-military, pro-business, pro-gun, strongly patriotic, hard working, etc

After the initial foray of using the Deep State to attack political enemies -- Watergate, the Democrats again had all the apparent cards, but Carter himself was at that time a fairly conservative Democrat, and many of the Democrat elected officials from the south were still conservative.

Post Reagan, they had two years that were a prelude to the BO years -- they had the presidency and both houses of congress, plus a left leaning judiciary, however, the Senate still honored the 60 vote filibuster, and even Bill Clinton at that point was aware that moving too far left would likely hobble his presidency. He attempted Hillarycare, and was rewarded for that attempt at government overreach with the loss of the House for the first time since 1954!

The election of BO in 2008 was a total loss of control of all levers of power by Republicans in a way that was unprecedented in American history. Because the left leaning SCOTUS was willing to legislate from the bench,  the power of Administrative / Deep State, plus the D party being universally far to the left of what even FDR or LBJ were, conservatives found themselves no longer living in "America", a country where even a strong political majority was limited by the Constitution, and the supposed jealousy of the houses of congress to prevent a president from usurping his authority.

BO was even allowed to use a "phone and a pen" to act as a monarch, and in fact, even usurped the long jealously guarded power of the House of Representatives to be the chamber with the "Power of the Purse".

While the election of Trump and both houses of congress in Republican hands in 2016 might seem similar, it quickly became obvious that it was not at all so, because the Deep / Administrative State, the Judiciary, the media, and the elites of BOistan immediately declared war on Trump and Republicans, seeking to overturn the election. The author of the article would like us to "disagree better" ... because the competition in the market of ideas is beneficial.

So what can each of us do to make things better? You might be tempted to say we need to find ways to disagree less, but that is incorrect. Disagreement is good because competition is good. Competition lies behind democracy in politics and markets in the economy, which — bounded by the rule of law and morality — bring about excellence. Just as in politics and economics, we need a robust “competition of ideas” — a.k.a. disagreement. Disagreement helps us innovate, improve and find the truth.

The author is completely correct in a rational, historical, enlightenment sense. I maintain however that he just doesn't understand that we now live in ... BOistan.

Take a look at today's campuses. Read a couple books like "The Coddling of the American Mind", "Political Tribes", or "The Suicide Of The West".  The idea that the free exchange of ideas in a "market of ideas" is a primary GOOD is an AMERICAN ideal based on Western civilization. BOistan does NOT share that vision! BO and the nation he created sees Western civilization as BAD ... in "Dreams from My Fathers" he explicitly sets out to "destroy the colonial powers", which WERE "Western civilization", and replace it with a 100% leftist tribalist, socialist, centrally controlled world state. THAT is the "the world" he declared himself to be a citizen of -- NOT "America"!

Why is MAGA so triggering to the left? Because as they say regularly, AMERICAN WAS NEVER GREAT! America was founded by white people who took it from native people and held slaves. It did not truly provide equal opportunity to all, and it certainly did not provide the goal of the left, equality of result! "America" as understood for over 200 years of it's history does NOT fit with the goals of the left, and one of the specific areas it does not fit is relative to competition of any sort as being "good". The left sees "rule by experts" as the proper solution, NOT some free market of anything ... certainly not ideas or products!

It would be wonderful for this territory to return to Western civilization and values, but while the author of the column, and even the authors of may of the books above may believe that "reasonable people" will look at their arguments and agree, I maintain that if you look at Ilhan Omar or Ocasio Cortez and their level of popularity, you see that the mood of the left is NOT toward any return to what Western civilization was based on, but rather to continue the path started by BO -- to see it's continued destruction.

The intent of today's left, which clearly includes the entire Deep / Administrative State at the Federal, State and Local levels (all unionized employees), the universities, the major corporations (Google, Amazon, Apple, etc), the vast bulk of the legal system and the media is a centrally controlled totalitarian state that explicitly prevents any form of disagreement, and immediately labels such disagreement "hate speech". MAGA itself is considered "hate speech" in many quarters.

It would be wonderful if we could talk our way out of this by "disagreeing better", however a short look at the current trends of the Democrat congress ... all out war on the president, including attacking and jailing anyone associated with him including family, failure to censure anti-semitism, and promises to pack the SCOTUS to destroy the main thing gained democratically in the last election -- I think you will agree that the way this is headed is not a "talking" or "voting" war.

TP has made VERY clear that they only honor elections that are in their favor, and they seek to overturn those that are not. They don't want to talk, they don't want to vote! They want to WIN and RULE! ... and it their eyes, it is simply for our own good ... we irredeemable deporeables!

Outrage Industrial Complex

https://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/hybridcivil/

What is one source of anti-tribes in America? "The Outrage Industrial Complex";

The sources of motive attribution asymmetry are easy to identify: divisive politicians, screaming heads on television, hateful columnists, angry campus activists and seemingly everything on the contempt machines of social media. This “outrage industrial complex” works by catering to just one ideological side, creating a species of addiction by feeding our desire to believe that we are completely right and that the other side is made up of knaves and fools. It strokes our own biases while affirming our worst assumptions about those who disagree with us.

Contempt and hatred as a a source of profit. Be warned!

Less Important Politics, Less Political Violence

https://reason.com/archives/2018/10/30/make-politics-less-important?fbclid=IwAR2P70A5QtV_Z9JYiWUJLVMKC3r4wXl0UdmN8BQjlwg0MfPB-DCpKkmMVns

As the reach of government has grown ever larger, it's ability to have huge effects, both positive and negative on peoples lives has grown exponentially. Worse, government must be adminstered by HUMANS who are absolutely as capable of being self centered, tribal, greedy, vindictive, etc as anyone else -- and possibly more, since their work and personal lives are lived in massive beauracracies located in cities that are the seats of political power, thus very aware of the side in the "more or less government" debate.

As the article states ...

Officials can be vindictive creatures, eager to use the power of the state to penalize those whose lifestyles, economic activity, and political affiliations they dislike. Tax power was long ago turned to such misuse, probably because tax collectors had authority to intrude into people's lives before other government employees gained such clout. "My father may have been the originator of the concept of employing the IRS as a weapon of political retribution," Elliott Roosevelt observed of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Obama used "The Chicago Way"  ... "reward your friends, punish your enemies". This is ALWAYS one of the ways that people in power will operate -- and the more power we give them, the more it is worth fighting, up to and including violence to get "your side" in power!

The Tribes Of The Rich and White

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/opinion/politics-race-white-tribalism.html

David Brooks is what counts as a "conservative" at the NY Times ... he voted for Obama twice, so he is a rich white leftist in terms of his article, a "Progressive Activist".

The report, “Hidden Tribes,” breaks Americans into seven groups, from left to right, with names like Traditional Liberals, Moderates, Politically Disengaged and so on. It won’t surprise you to learn that the most active groups are on the extremes — Progressive Activists on the left (8 percent of Americans) and Devoted Conservatives on the right (6 percent).

These two groups are the richest of all the groups. They are the whitest of the groups. Their members have among the highest education levels, and they report high levels of personal security.

His biggest takeaway from this particluar survey is:

You could say that tribalism is the fruit of privilege. People with more stresses in their lives necessarily pay less attention to politics. People with college degrees are more likely to describe their ideology as central to their identity. They are much more likely to derive moral meaning from their label, more likely to affiliate with a herd based on their label and more likely to vote on the party line.

Brooks the intellectual seems to miss that tribalism is NATURAL, it is wired into ALL of us. He could read Amy Chua, "Political Tribes and the Fall of Nations" to get a better handle on that.

On page 40-41 she does a good job of quickly covering the basic science that we already know -- "our brains are hardwired to identify, value, and individualize in-group members, while outgroup members are processed as interchangeable members of a general social category". 

"Humans aren't just a little tribal. We're VERY tribal and it distorts the way we think and feel". 

"The key to ethnic identity is that it is built around the idea of shared blood; ... For most human beings, the family is primal".

The BASIS that we select our tribe may vary, but there are really only two hopes for rising above tribalism, religion or education. Brooks is saying that "education fails" ... although he likely doesn't know what he has said. His second big takeaway is ...

My second big takeaway from the report is that ideas really do drive history. Progressive Activists and Devoted Conservatives organize around coherent philosophical narratives. These narratives aren’t visions of a just society. They are narratives of menace — about who needs to be exorcised from society. 

Historically, FAITH drove Western history, specifically, Christian faith. I'd argue that it is still faith driving history -- it is just that the tribal faith of both the rich white segments he talks about is no longer a transcendent religious faith grounded in classic historical and SHARED cultural heritage. As he says in his own roundabout way, the "Progressive Activists" want to destroy what is left of "America", and the "Devoted Conservatives" want to preserve it -- so they don't get along.

What he fails to notice is that without Christianity, all the other groups are tribal as well -- their tribe choice may not be as "well thought out" as Brooks seems to think, but that just shows he doesn't understand tribalism. Tribalism **IS** for humans, it is WIRED IN, like sweet/sour, hot/cold, pretty/ugly ... it is "pre-thought", it is emotional / spiritual.

What the "better" educated are able to do is more clearly ARTICULATE their tribalism in an attempt to call it "correct thinking about the world".

Lie To Me ... Again

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/10/24/kornackis_fractured_fairy_tale_of_the_gop_138439.html

Kinda got to watch this first to get the mood right!

Some of the reason for the current animosity between left and right is simple propaganda -- false, but incendiary, as the aged calumny of "Nixon's Southern Strategy" as racist, and a continuation of this theme through Reagan.

In his new book, MSNBC political correspondent Steve Kornacki attempts to put the current state of America’s uncivil politics in historical context. He does so, naturally, by blaming Republicans. To get a sense of how objective he is in his outlook -- and rigorous in his research -- the reader only need know that Kornacki repeats the same untruth about Reagan that Hillary Clinton put in in her tedious 512-page alibi published last year. Clinton and Kornacki both wrote that Reagan kicked off his 1980 campaign at the Neshoba County Fair in Philadelphia, Miss.

Nixon's "Southern Strategy" was the realization that since Republicans had finally beaten back Jim Crow in the South  (R Senate 27 yes, 6 no Vs D 46 yes, 21 no, with similar in the House), the South would likely vote with the party that most aligned with their values outside of Jim Crow -- in 100 years, they had somewhat fogiven Republicans for winning the Civil War, or as they refer to it still sometimes, "The War of Northern Agression". 

The article covers well how easily disproved the Reagan racist start to his campaign charge is, as well as covering how uneccessary it is to read a tribal book on tribalism that in keeping with it's own motif says "the other tribe did it!". 

Trump Is An Average American

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-real-reason-they-hate-trump-1540148467?fbclid=IwAR1UqPJecmUHVDb8B_h0bcT8DJtWJ606oAIFVJ9y7SQFLybFW9BMR8Me5Ls

Great article, just go read it. In our hearts, we all know we are filthy rotten sinners -- the issue is usually just "about what explicitly". For the average joe, we have our vices, our bad language, we didn't do our homework or well in school, we might be lazy, etc; For the elites, we know we are snobs, we revel in our pride, yet secretly know how naked we are no matter our degrees, wealth, supposed sophistication. As Earnst Becker put it in "Denial of Death"...

“On the highest throne in the world, man sits on his arse. Usually this epigram makes people laugh because it seems to reclaim the world from artificial pride and snobbery and to bring things back to egalitarian values. But if we push the observation even further and say men sit not only on their arse, but over a warm and fuming pile of their own excrement - the joke is no longer funny. The tragedy of man’s dualism, his ludicrous situation, becomes too real.”

Here is a teaser from the article ... just go read it!

The difference between citizens who hate Mr. Trump and those who can live with him—whether they love or merely tolerate him—comes down to their views of the typical American: the farmer, factory hand, auto mechanic, machinist, teamster, shop owner, clerk, software engineer, infantryman, truck driver, housewife. The leftist intellectuals I know say they dislike such people insofar as they tend to be conservative Republicans.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama know their real sins. They know how appalling such people are, with their stupid guns and loathsome churches. They have no money or permanent grievances to make them interesting and no Twitter followers to speak of. They skip Davos every year and watch Fox News. Not even the very best has the dazzling brilliance of a Chuck Schumer, not to mention a Michelle Obama. In truth they are dumb as sheep.

In short, the elites seek to convince many "typical Americans", largely those who dearly want to be "moral" in the sense of "popular elite approval", that being "holier than Trump" is a great way to signal their "virtue". They may or may not be practicing Christians, and they may or may not have any understanding of what it means to be  "moral" in the sense of what the liveral elite tell them is "moral", but they feel that by claiming to hate Trump, they have some sort of "superiority".

The coastal elites and elite mainstream however have nothing but contempt for them anyway -- but naturally, they know if they can defeat "Trump", they are defeating the only remaining strain of what was "typical America" -- people that understood that the Constitution meant LIMITED government, not an all encomassing adminstrative or deep state.

To many who retain some allegiance to the America that was, it also meant family, community, and the worship of God who was MUCH higher than government -- and of course much much higher than Trump and all temporary holders of the imperfect position of President -- as BO, W, and Slick Willie were before him.

 And best of all, the article is by David Gelertner!

Can Tribalists Be Sane?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/02/opinion/the-american-civil-war-part-ii.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

I've always found Thomas Friedman to have a rather "flat" view of the world -- he has been driving in the left ditch for so long that anything but the view from that ditch seems "insane" to him. I found this paragraph to be completely telling ...

This also feels worse than the divisions over Vietnam and civil rights because there were three huge forces holding us together back then that are missing today: a growing middle class, the Cold War and a sane Republican Party.

Well, no ... The NY Times of that day thought Goldwater was definitely INsane, and naturally they were happy -- they held giant majorities in Congress, had the White House, and a SCOTUS that was headed to make baby killing a liberal sacrament! They didn't like Republicans then either -- they were just certain that the left was WINNING as they have been up to Trump! (with a little time for self-reflection under Reagan, and then Gingerich)

As the article makes clear, "The Party" (TP-D) feels strongly that the only viable "solution" is unconditional surrender of anyone that doesn't align with their views 100%. To whit, the comment on Kavenaugh:

And nothing is sacred. Brett Kavanaugh defended himself the other day with the kind of nasty partisan attacks and ugly conspiracy theories that you’d expect only from a talk radio host — never from a would-be justice of the Supreme Court. Who can expect fairness from him now?

Even the generally far left "Politifact" finds the supposedly "worst" of the Kavenaugh statement to be very questionable as being as "politically biased" as the NY Times, TP, and the general TP media want to make it to be. "What goes around DOES eventually come around" -- it is a matter of faith in pretty much all religions, karma in Bhuddism, reap what you sow" in Christianity.

Maybe the most ironic thing though is that since we have religious wiring in our brains, it is actually impossible for humans to have "nothing sacred". Throw out God, and the positions of your own tribe become "sacred" ... so he is wrong on that as well.

So we have become Tribal, and who is to blame? Surprise surprise, only the "right"!

It would be easy to blame both sides equally for this shift, noted Ornstein, but it is just not true. After the end of the Cold War, he said, “tribal politics were introduced by Newt Gingrich when he came to Congress 40 years ago,” and then perfected by Mitch McConnell during the Barack Obama presidency, when McConnell declared his intention to use his G.O.P. Senate caucus to make Obama fail as a strategy for getting Republicans back in power.

 Yea, right. Watergate was tribal, the attacks on Reagan were tribal, Borking was tribal, Clarence Thomas confirmation was tribal, Plame was tribal and Kavenaugh as well as the whole "resistance" is totally transparently tribal.

It may be accurate to say that Newt gave the D's some pause when congress went back to Republican hands for the first time in 50 years in '94, but only in the mind of the left is the opposition winning an election something that has to be treated as a social crisis!

BTW, McConnell made his statement during the runup to the 2010 midterms, NOT "at the start of BO's first term as D's, BO himself and the media (but I repeat myself) continually lie to us about. When you are the dominant party, lying is quite effective, since most people don't catch you at it. Good thing we aren't hearing any D's or media talk about trying to make Trump a failure if they can win the midterms, right? That would be the same as McConnel's supposed egregious tribal sin! Talk about #fakemedia!

The roots of Tribalism go back at least to the early 1900s, when "progressiveism", scientism and historicism took over from Christian escatology as the "right side of history", and the idea of respecting a written Constitution became dangerously reactionary from the POV of  "Progressives".

As this secular faith become the power based faith of the intelligencia, things like "love your neighbor", "the golden rule", "love your enemies", "the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God" were replaced by faith in science and the doctrine above. Once Christianity was a transcendent faith shared by something like 80-90% of the population -- simple belief in the Golden Rule would have ruled out the Kavenaugh debacle. Nobody would want what was done to Kavenaugh to be done to themselves or those they love.

Oh, you think they were concerned about Ford? Notice the news lately?

There is still a spark of remaining Christian values on the right, but yes, Trump is certainly evidence that tribalism is winning on the right as well as the left. In human terms, tribalism is VERY sane -- it is completely natural. Do all you can so that your tribe wins and if possible exterminate the other tribe -- they are "evil and insane" after all!

Chrisianity on the other hand is "crazy" in human terms -- love even your enemies is positively INhuman! In fact, as we are finding out now, even kindness to your neighbor if they are not completely of your tribe is insane to the human mind. Might is right, your tribe is always right, and the OTHER tribe is completely insane -- that is human "wisdom" as preached by Friedman.

"Sanity" is definitely in the eye of the beholder -- in the tribal world, Friedman is correct that "Republicans are insane" from his POV. Clearly Trump finds Democrats to be insane. As we descend away from the transcendent truth of Christianity, sanity will be defined in human tribal terms and the only way to be "sane" and survive as a tribe is to WIN BABY WIN!

Welcome to the world without Christ -- a world where the other side can be given no quarter and must be destroyed -- as Hillary says:

“You cannot be civil with a political party,” she explained, “that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about.” She added that if Democrats retake a house of Congress, well, then, “that’s when civility can start again.

I suspect that Friedman agrees -- as long as the left is in power, they will be certain to operate with THEIR brand of "civility"! TRIBAL "civilty" -- we win, and we exterminate you if we can. Perfectly sane in the natural world, "Red in tooth and claw" (Tennyson)

Who trusted God was love indeed

And love Creation's final law

Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw

With ravine, shriek'd against his creed

A Tribal FBI

http://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/397902-opinion-one-fbi-text-message-in-russia-probe-should-alarm-every-american

"The Hill" is generally rated as a centrist news outlet, and I generally agree with that. I find this article well worth the read -- my standard for bias is always "what would be happening if it was the other side we were talking about?". I believe that is entirely impossible -- the Deep / Administrative State would NEVER be looking at "Russian Meddling" at all if Hillary had been elected. The certainly didn't investigate  BO promising the Russians "more flexibility after the election" accidentially on camera. Hard to beat that for "evidence of collusion" ... whereas with Trump we are coming up on TWO YEARS with NO EVIDENCE of any collusion. Funny, usually you have a PROSECUTOR, special or otherwise, when you have solid evidence of a crime. Oh wait, Trump was elected -- to the Deep State, that IS a crime!

So the FBI agents who helped drive the Russia collusion narrative — as well as Rosenstein’s decision to appoint Mueller — apparently knew all along that the evidence was going to lead to “nothing” and, yet, they proceeded because they thought there was still a possibility of impeachment. 

Impeachment is a political outcome. The only logical conclusion, then, that congressional investigators can make is that political bias led these agents to press an investigation forward to achieve the political outcome of impeachment, even though their professional training told them it had “no big there there.” 

And that, by definition, is political bias in action. 

How concerned you are by this conduct is almost certainly affected by your love or hatred for Trump. But put yourself for a second in the hot seat of an investigation by the same FBI cast of characters: You are under investigation for a crime the agents don’t think occurred, but the investigation still advances because the desired outcome is to get you fired from your job. 

Is that an FBI you can live with?

The reason the left is unconcerned is because they are certain that THEY don't have to live with that FBI ... only people that have moderate to conservative views that become too prominent in the judgement of somebody with power on the left have to deal with that sort of Deep / Administrative State attack.

It isn't only the idea of prosecuting someone for something that you know to be "nothing". It is breaking down any shred of privacy for those that stray from adherence to the rule of TP  ... this from NPR on the push to try to break the confidentiality of an interpreter between Trump and Putin:

CHANG: So with that in mind, could an interpreter be legally compelled to tell what was said during a conversation where he or she acted as the interpreter? 

OLSEN: You know, I am not a lawyer, but I will say that compelling an interpreter to do so in general is not a good idea. 

CHANG: Why don't you think it would be a good idea? 

OLSEN: Because it would undermine any confidence that people would have in interpreters. Whoever the statesmen or whoever the interlocutors may be, they have to have trust that that interpreter is not going to share the information that comes from a confidential encounter whether it is at the level of heads of state or it is in a medical clinic.

And of course, it isn't just "interpreters" -- for the left, the idea that anyone not a member of "The Party" (TP-D), or wholly in agreement with them, would have ANY sort of confidentiality ... for example, the breaking of  "attorney client privilege" ... here we  have the LA Times waxing hopeful that they have FINALLY "gotten the goods" on Trump through breaking into his attorneys office and taking what they wanted.

Tired old things like "rights" demanded that the rights apply to ALL! "But Trump" actually means that NOBODY has rights ... at least not ones that they can actually count on. Sure, TODAY, the left is total control of the Administrative / Deep State, most of the media, education, lawers / judges, the wealthy ... in general "the elite" ... so people of the left feel that using ANY method to attack Trump is fully justified BECAUSE TRUMP!

However, if you follow some of the links, the practice of using any means to attack even the sort of evil people that contributed to Scott Walker in WI  is becoming more and more common as covered here.

We are now DAILY, (and sometimes multiple times a day) reminded that for the Deep / Administrative State there are NO RULES! Certainly NPR and the left in general believes that the BIG RULE is that they are in POWER, so the "no rules" will only affect TRUMP! or those who foolishly voted for him or defend him!

Without transcendent beliefs and agreed to rules (like a written Constitution), POWER becomes the only operative rule -- and that is a big truth in BOistan!

Red Hen Pharisee

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2018/06/23/why-a-small-town-restaurant-owner-asked-sarah-huckabee-sanders-to-leave-and-would-do-it-again/?utm_term=.9090a7c6dea2

Having grown up in a fundamentalist Baptist church, I can assure you there is no limit to what level virtue signalling can be taken to -- not long enought hair for women, no pants siuits, no movies, no TV, teens not allowed to swim "mixed" (boys and girls in the pool), no dancing ... the list is totally endless, and each new virtue requires stong signalling and "separation". We can't associate with THOSE people!

Thus, BOistan reaches the point were the Press Secretary for the duly elected president of this failed state is denied service, because, well ... "virtue".

“I’m not a huge fan of confrontation,” Wilkinson said. “I have a business, and I want the business to thrive. This feels like the moment in our democracy when people have to make uncomfortable actions and decisions to uphold their morals.”

I've just started on what looks like an excellent book by Jonah Goldberg, "The Suicide of the West" ... which makes the point that we all know -- absent some shared transcendent values / morals, "morals" are purely situational and tribal. "Our morals" are the morals that our tribe says are important -- and the most powerful tribe gets to lord their "morals" over others. Kick them out of their restaurants even.

The nice thing about Biblical Morals was that they were written down and static -- you were not allowed to shit on your neighbor tomorrow because they "voted for Trump", or even if they happened to be his Press Secretary. In fact, you were supposed to not only TOLERATE them, but treat them with LOVE! Wow, what a far cry from throwing them out of your restaurant to show your virtue.

We are ALL driven by our human pride to want to trumpet our "virtue", which Christ declares to be "filthy rags". He spends WAY more time, and is WAY more direct in his condemnation of the pride of the Scribes and Pharisees than he is of common fornicators, adulterers, drunks, etc.

PRIDE is the killer because you are likely to proffer your sin in the Washington Post as virtue, and they are likely to agree with you -- "I passed judgement on my neighbor and threw them out of my business and I'm not only PROUD to have done it, YOU OUGHT to do the same thing too!"

And so it goes ... then someone has to blow up her little business to "make a statement", followed by more and ever escalating hatred and violence.

We once rose above tribalism, honored differences of opinion ... even REALLY nasty ones like slavery yes/no. We rose above tribalism on the Grace of God, and now we fight -- with the elites who are certain that tribalism is a virtue.