> their voters prioritize making people they don't like suffer over their own comfort.
> That probably doesn't seem rational but remember loads of these people think the Bible is a true story.
Those are the (sizeable) subset who are obsessed with a literal interpretation of the Old Testament rather than the turn-the-other-cheek teachings of Christ, who is little more than a totem for these fundamentalists.
Arguably there is less harm in believing that Christ's ministry was historical than believing that Sodom and Gomorrah were historical.
"Two thousand years ago there was this dude saying 'Be excellent to one another'" is certainly less dangerous, but to be fair the same dude described in the Bible does likewise say:
"I have not come to bring peace, but a sword."
Which like, you don't need to twist that very hard to get to a place where you're going around "bringing the sword" to people who you think need it...
The Old Testament is big on genocide though, "We should definitely murder these children" has a lot more justification at the start of the book, or if you're batshit and think that stuff about Revelation, right at the end is a concrete prediction of future events then maybe that too.
That might be the noble aspiration that lives only inside their head, while outwardly the sentiment seems to look more like "make the government harmful so we can justify making it smaller."
Which would be laudable if that was what is actually happening. In practice it looks more like DOGE: setting every part of the government you don't understand or emotionally dislike on fire. Meanwhile, large corporate sponsors are allowed to do immeasurable harm without any oversight whatsoever.
Last I checked, corporations can't even exist without government blessing them into existence. If you have a problem with corporations, maybe you should dig into the root of that matter.
As I understand it the key Republican discovery was that their voters prioritize making people they don't like suffer over their own comfort.
That probably doesn't seem rational but remember loads of these people think the Bible is a true story.
> their voters prioritize making people they don't like suffer over their own comfort.
> That probably doesn't seem rational but remember loads of these people think the Bible is a true story.
Those are the (sizeable) subset who are obsessed with a literal interpretation of the Old Testament rather than the turn-the-other-cheek teachings of Christ, who is little more than a totem for these fundamentalists.
Arguably there is less harm in believing that Christ's ministry was historical than believing that Sodom and Gomorrah were historical.
"Two thousand years ago there was this dude saying 'Be excellent to one another'" is certainly less dangerous, but to be fair the same dude described in the Bible does likewise say:
"I have not come to bring peace, but a sword."
Which like, you don't need to twist that very hard to get to a place where you're going around "bringing the sword" to people who you think need it...
The Old Testament is big on genocide though, "We should definitely murder these children" has a lot more justification at the start of the book, or if you're batshit and think that stuff about Revelation, right at the end is a concrete prediction of future events then maybe that too.
I think the actual sentiment is closer to "first, do no harm" (a.k.a. the precautionary principle) which is not nearly as bizarre!
That might be the noble aspiration that lives only inside their head, while outwardly the sentiment seems to look more like "make the government harmful so we can justify making it smaller."
Which would be laudable if that was what is actually happening. In practice it looks more like DOGE: setting every part of the government you don't understand or emotionally dislike on fire. Meanwhile, large corporate sponsors are allowed to do immeasurable harm without any oversight whatsoever.
Last I checked, corporations can't even exist without government blessing them into existence. If you have a problem with corporations, maybe you should dig into the root of that matter.
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