Just_A_Guy

As is attacking Saints who are acting in a particular way specifically because of said letter. (Not trying to suggest that you’re doing this, by the way!) Also: I think the reasoning and rhetoric at this link is slightly . . . grating and I may quibble with the way he uses a couple of sources/anecdotes; but I think I agree with most of it in substance and it’s worth reading.

In defense of attacking the far left: Progressivism, by its nature, is in a constant state of transition where today’s “far left” is tomorrow’s mainstream. Things that Barack Obama would never have dared to openly support in 2008–gay marriage and the gay cake wars, fully nationalized/socialized healthcare, retreat from “the good war” in Afghanistan, taxation of conservative-leaning secular and religious nonprofit organizations, universal basic income, and critical race theory and reparations—are mainstream Democratic positions today. Traditionally, the left goes more to the left; and the right also goes more to the left. Extremists are the advancing vanguard of the left and the retreating rearguard of the right; the one is a threat, the other is mostly irrelevant.

I don’t follow Shapiro religiously; but from what I’ve seen he seems to have been a fairly consistent voice of reason and doesn’t seem particularly interested in throwing bones to the QAnon crowd in order to keep them in the fold—which is more than can be said for much of the elected GOP officials at the national level.

Now that you’ve reminded me of the exchange, and on a more serious note—your correspondent also mentioned the Q movement; and I think a lot of the disenchantment comes from a sort of break with reality that has occurred in the GOP over the last four years. A traditional method of political discourse has been “this is the explanation for what you see”. And the explanation might be anywhere from 10-90% BS, but it at least acknowledged what we the people were actually seeing. Over the last five years, it has become mainstream amongst conservatives to buy into people who say “what you see [whether it be crowd sizes, video of me saying something I swear I didn’t say, or tabulated electoral results] is not reality [not just “reality taken out of context”, but completely fake], and it’s because of Bad People, and I’m the only one who’s enough of a manly man to really fight the Bad People.” Now, granted, that didn’t happen in a vacuum; and we’re currently seeing the progressive incumbent President pull the same “who are you gonna believe? Me, or your own lyin’ eyes?!?” bit vis a vis, inter alia, Afghanistan. But in a democratic republic, making your lies too obvious, has consequences. Insulting the voters’ intelligence, has consequences. Detaching from reality, has consequences.

Well, in that case . . . Who doesn’t love a little Moon River?

You defending the artistic virtues of Barry Manilow is not “talking”.

Hmm. My brain could just be going, but I don’t think I remember seeing that.

Because if it were sincere, it suggests that I’m wrong. And I’m never wrong.

I’m also seeing reports claiming Biden, as a senator, opposed attempts to rescue South Vietnamese allies when Saigon fell. If that’s true, then it’s hard not to wonder whether Biden actually enjoys this stuff.

Thanks for clarifying. 🙂

The mission objectives, I think, should have been limited to destroying their ability to make war/coordinate terror attacks against us. The US can win wars just fine, as long as we don’t get bogged down in the minutia of what has to happen amongst the populace after we’ve won. But these days we tend to get too invested in winning the hearts and minds of the people, and hoping that in time they might become a western-style democracy. Trump was right to want us out of there. I’m inclined to think Biden was right for carrying Trump’s policies out to what we all knew was their logical conclusion. (I’m not buying Biden’s line that Trump’s actions tied his hands—he owns this as much as Trump does—but let’s not pretend that the Inauguration Day status quo was sustainable.) But Biden’s abject failure to protect the Afghanis who threw in their lot with us, provide for the orderly evacuation of them and their loved ones, and keep enough US forces on hand to maintain stability in Kabul until that happened, is nothing short of evil; and I frankly suspect he didn’t want them coming here because, like earlier generations of Cuban and Vietnamese and Eastern European refugees, they’d be an inconveniently local and politically potent reminder of what happens when you give free rein to the ambitions of people who reject western-Enlightenment ideals.

It seems to me, though, that when you have two groups of people with sincere beliefs that dictate mutually incompatible courses of action and you’re ultimately going to have to choose one course of action over the other—you have to start looking at the evidence underlying those beliefs. There is evidence suggesting that masks are *somewhat* effective in inhibiting the spread of viral diseases. They’re not foolproof, but they help. I am not aware of any evidence suggesting that two hours of mask-wearing while performing largely sedentary activities, causes any physiological harm at all. Zero. Zilch. Nada. I’m all for bearing one another’s burdens and not creating unnecessary stumbling blocks; but having everyone else bend over backwards so that the shrillest or least-rational voices don’t have to compromise at all is no way to run a church (or any other human institution).

Out of curiosity (and apologies if you’ve discussed this elsewhere)— —Which vaccine(s) are you waiting for?

As a parental defender, and then again as an attorney for DCFS, I’ve had parents I was either representing or suing commit suicide while their cases were pending; and I’ve grappled with the possibility/probability that in some scenario, if I’d handled my business differently, that person would still be alive. You get used to it. And in this hypothetical case—it’s not like someone sought a court order compelling Sister Smith to come to church against her own wishes. We make concessions for each other as part of our covenant to bear each other’s burdens (masks, sanitizer, vaccinations, distancing, etc); but at some point, people have to assume primary responsibility over their own health.

Because I’m basically on tap to teach or sit in for two-deep leadership if a Sunday School teacher no-shows. (We could combine classes, I suppose, but our classrooms are already full enough to render “social distancing” nothing more than a bad joke.)

I am satisfied that both are, to some degree, “effective”; though not 100% so. I do not think that they will succeed at eradicating the pandemic (maybe they would if *everyone* did them, but not everyone’s going to do them, so whatevs); and I am thinking that at some point we’re just going to have to live with this and go about our lives. I was vaccinated in March-April; I largely stopped wearing masks in public about a month or so ago and probably won’t start wearing them again while shopping or working (unless I’m in a work-mandated meeting; but mostly I’m just holed up in my office all day). I’m still kind of fanatical about hand sanitizer. But for the time being—I’m my ward’s Sunday School president, staying home isn’t an option, and given the new counsel I feel like I need to set a good example; so I did wear a mask to church today. I was rather surprised that I was one of maybe ten people to do so, and only one other member of the ward council was doing it. I mean, I can get Church members being “lukewarm” on masks generally; but to walk into a church meeting and cavalierly, visibly not be doing something the prophet unambiguously asked us to do in the venue where, more than any other, he unequivocally has the prerogative to ask us to do it— —Well, I trust folks have their reasons; but I confess I have a hard time understanding it.

I appreciate the different take on Abraham, and the ideas of him having failed to rely on God when he left Canaan or when he described his wife as his sister are food for thought. But I would push back a bit on your exegesis of Galatians 4. The Greek idiom that is translated as “after the flesh” or “of the flesh” here (and in Romans 9) refers to children who were born through natural processes (as opposed to, say, adoption). Similarly the Net Bible’s note to Gal 4:29, after a reference to Isaac’s being “born according to the Spirit”, provides a variant reading as “born by the Spirit’s power”. The primary dichotomy Paul is setting up isn’t that Ishmael was conceived illicitly versus Isaac’s being conceived lawfully; it’s that Ishmael was conceived in the ordinary way whereas Isaac was conceived miraculously (because Sarah was well past child-bearing age). (Certainly a subtext here is that Ishmael, as son of a concubine/slave, didn’t enjoy the same inheritance rights as Isaac, who was born of a free woman and lawful wife; but that doesn’t impute wrongdoing to Abraham, as concubinage was routine in patriarchal times and was actually contemplated within Mosaic law).

The subjects/speakers here need to be carefully traced. Yes, Lehi is speaking to his son Joseph here; but he claims he is directly quoting from older statements originating with the earlier Joseph, son of Jacob/Israel. Verses 12-13 constitute God’s words to Joseph (son of Jacob); verses 14-15 (after a brief transitional phrase from Lehi) constitute Joseph (son of Jacob) editorializing about and expanding on those words. The LDS Church, AFAIK, has never suggested that Joseph Smith was of the tribe of Manasseh or that he was descended from Joseph son of Lehi; the official teaching has always been that he was of Ephraim and of non-Lehite ancestry.

“Murder” is kind of a cultural construct. It has been argued that under Mosaic law, given the history between Nephi and Laban, what Nephi did was not technically “murder”.

One thing I’ve seen several secular articles remark upon, is the fact that LDS congregations are geographically based and members don’t get to ward-hop to a congregation whose society they find more congenial. I think maybe that’s given us an ethos of “stay where you are and make it work” that varies from the broader “find somewhere that works for you” culture; and in areas with a low density of Church members, it means that you’re probably more likely to have regular associations and friendships with people who are experientially/economically/ politically/professionally/racially different than yourself.

The primary issue isn't being incapable of understanding why people commit certain sins, but rather writing that person off entirely as unrelatable, dumb, or as a low-caliber human I have no interest in associating with. I need to be better at separating the sin from the person and keeping in mind we all are natural men capable of committing the same sins. Are you talking about general social associations? Or are you thinking specifically of people within your family/ecclesiastical ministry? I don’t think we are under any sort of obligation to be willing to unreservedly, perpetually associate with everyone. Sometimes we have to write people off/cut them out of our lives, either because we have higher priorities or for the sake of our own mental health. We belong to a church that excommunicates people, for goodness’ sake! But the key is why we do it—it shouldn’t be a function of what the person did; or even why they did what they did. IMHO it should be a function of the person’s attitude about their past, whether they are committed to doing better in the future, and a balancing of their anticipated degree of “neediness” versus our own personal/emotional resources to cope with those needs. If the problem really is that because of a person’s past actions I simply can’t fully embrace their humanity (which was an issue with me as a criminal defense/bankruptcy lawyer, and continues to be an issue even as I’ve transitioned into more of a prosecutorial role)—I think the best two things one can do are a) try to learn more about mental health issues and brain physiology, and especially the impact of trauma on cognitive patterns; and b) just try to spend more time with people having those kinds of problems and try to relate to them as peers rather than as saviors (it’s one thing to munificently ladle out soup at a homeless shelter; it’s another thing to spend your break sitting down and striking up a conversation with the guy eating his dinner and learning his story and genuinely getting to know him).

The Carter’s’ twelve-year-old son Billy supposedly was also barred from entering a boat until his mother put a girl’s hat on his head (the story eventually morphed into JJ Astor having put the hat on his head saying “now he’s a girl and can go”). Social stigma about being a man who had survived the sinking certainly didn’t help anyone’s marriage; but I think Butler tends to play fast and loose with his psychoanalysis of various passengers and crewmen (I believe he’s the source of the “catatonic Captain Smith” nonsense that’s gotten so much play over the last twenty years). IIRC, both the Carters and Bishops had significant marital issues that were unrelated to the Titanic (perennial philandering by Carter, and alcoholism by Bishop). (I imagine that one of the joys of having happened to be on the Titanic, is that at some point an erstwhile community of historians ferrets out and publishes every intimate detail of your life!)

IIRC Daniel Buckley freely acknowledged that he had gotten into a lifeboat with a woman’s shawl covering his head. But he was a third class passenger and had no reputation to protect; so the Hearst papers left him alone.

Not that Jack Phillips. The other one.

Jack Phillips begs to differ . . .