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Well, we used to do more. Now many of these things have been curtailed or ended.
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A whites-only community in Arkansas looking to start a franchise in Missouri
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ViaCrucis
Confessional Lutheran
- Oct 2, 2011
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I believe strongly that I am to love my enemy, so as St. Paul writes if I see my enemy hungry or thirsty, I give them food and drink. My compassion doesn't stop at only those who return love for love; but even those whose response to love is hate--to love those who hate me.
But what that doesn't mean is that I excuse white supremacy itself as though it is acceptable. If I see a white supremacist starving, then I give them food--even if that runs contrary to my own "instincts"; to overcome my impulses which say I should only offer kindness to the kind, or only show mercy to the merciful. It's why the ancient fathers of the Church often spoke of the appropriate way of responding to their Roman persecutors with compassion; but that compassion does not mean the failure to call evil evil; forgiveness is not forgetfulness nor excusing the wrong that has been done; turning the other cheek is not compliance with evil, but an active rejection of evil without furthering evil or reciprocating evil with evil.
What I'm seeing in this thread however isn't showing mercy to the merciless, or kindness to the unkind; but a moral complicity that seems far more concerned with the desires of the belligerent than the needs of the suffering. If I see the strong bullying the weak, do I believe I am to love both the bully and the bullied? Yes; but the difference is that my love for the bullied is to compel me to act on behalf of the bullied; not defending the bully--whereas my love of the bully is not complicity with their action but to not reciprocate evil with evil--I am morally obligated to intervene on the side of the weak; even as I refuse to become evil toward the evil. I must call evil what it is, and speak and act in such a way that conviction isn't meaningless, while defending the weak, calling the strong to repentance and grief over their actions, with the ultimate desire to see peace and reconciliation. But peace and reconciliation cannot exist where the strong bully the weak without consequence; nor can I be a servant of peace if I fail to speak against evil and injustice, and to call evil evil. "Can't we all just get along?" Is meaningless unless the one who does evil ceases to do evil; there can be no peace while the aggressor continues to be aggressive; while the victim continues to be a victim.
So while I believe in peace, in reconciliation, in mercy, and forgiveness--even toward the worst; it can never be a complicity that amounts to collaboration with evil.
But this thread is full of just that: Complicity. Saying that one must tolerate the intolerable; to "live and let live" with those whose entire paradigm is one in which other human beings are less-than and who, if granted power to do it, would see the subjugation and eradication of others. This isn't hyperbole, that is what white supremacy of this caliber looks like--that is the mental space in which persons such as this inhabit. This isn't the neighbor who holds evil thoughts but keeps them tucked away and hidden (though that too is bad), this is pride and hate mixed to create an environment of hate that breeds violence. And even if we permit that it is their right to be evil as long as they do not act or actually do that which is evil and result in material harm; that does not provide a moral excuse.
I can love the white supremacist; but I should not tolerate the white supremacist, excuse the white supremacist, or justify that they should be white supremacists. I do not believe that white supremacists ought to exist, even as I do not believe the murderer should exist, the rapist, or the one who preys on children; not meaning the termination of their life; but rather the termination of what they do, how they think, and their entire disfigured and grotesque view of the world and how they engage the world producing and creating harm and perpetual evil. The white supremacist should not exist, because none ought be one.
And if one suggests that to claim "no one ought to be a white supremacist" is of a kind of intolerance equal or of like-kind to those same white supremacists who say "no one ought to be black" or "no one ought to be a Jew" then that is itself white supremacy, evil, and intolerable. It is not like for like; one is not a white supremacist because that is what they are in their humanity--but in their rejection of their own humanity. I believe that to hate other human beings is a fundamental rejection of one's own humanity; it is a self-dehumanization. There are theological reasons for why I believe this, namely the idea of the Image of God; but even if one wishes to speak purely in a pragmatic sense--such things are injurious to the ordinary course of building human communities in which, by necessity, we must get along because we survive together, rather than alone. I believe that society-building and mutual survival are good, but as a religious person I think it is also much bigger than that.
-CryptoLutheran
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I cannot understand the hatred of people who are racists. No one is superior to the other. I have nothing further to add.
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Tropical Wilds
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You’re blaming witches and pagans for the formation of the KKK…? What do you mean “who am I?”
Oh no, I would never claim that I’m the only one who knows the problem. I think several of us are seeing the problem *just* fine.
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MrMoe
Part-Time Breatharian
The empathy doesn’t just go away, so it’s still empathy too.
Gad Saad uses the phrase suicidal empathy as a catch-all term to describe when people have the overwhelming desire to be a good person at the detriment of theirs and others safety or wellbeing. This woman’s story would fall under that.
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Bradskii
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
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I shall just note that you didn't answer the question. But I'll also note that no sane person would allow someone to destroy their house and kill their wife and children just to take out one bad guy. On the other hand, if it's someone else's decision then fire up that rocket launcher boys! You're now the proud owner of a pile of rubble. Thoughts and prayers for your wife and kids.
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MrMoe
Part-Time Breatharian
That’s a lot of platitudes but little in the way of explaining what the actual issue is or how to solve it. Surely a bunch of racist, antisemites self segregated away from society where they will have little to no interaction with the people they supposedly dislike is a good thing. This seems like a problem solving itself.
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