(What follows is my reply to a Christian conservative friend - a Trump cultist - who posted a song titled "Love Conquers All.")
Love conquers all.
Can't you just feel Trump's love - reaching out to everyone, to the poor, to people in need of affordable healthcare, to people of all faiths... and people of no faith.
Can't you feel him reaching out across the aisle, to the good and bad alike. As all "good Christians know," Donald Trump is the epitomization of everything Jesus says in the 5th chapter of Matthew
38 “The law of Moses says, ‘If a man gouges out another’s eye, he must pay with his own eye. If a tooth gets knocked out, knock out the tooth[e] of the one who did it.’
39 But I say: Don’t resist violence! If you are slapped on one cheek, turn the other too.
41 And whoever compels you to go a mile, go with him two. 42 Give to those who ask, and don’t turn away from those who want to borrow.
43 “There is a saying, ‘Love your friends and hate your enemies.’ 44 But I say: Love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! 45 In that way you will be acting as true sons of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust too.
46 If you love only those who love you, what good is that? Even scoundrels do that much.
47 If you are friendly only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even the heathen do that.
48 But you are to be perfect/complete/whole/holy, even as your Father in heaven is perfect/complete/whole/holy.
In the back of our correspondence is an unspoken truth.
You are compelled to see yourself as absolutely right -- in every situation.
And you convince yourself that you are absolutely right by believing that God is totally on your side and approves everything you say-and-do if only you invoke God, Scripture, or Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior.
Backed by the presumed validation of "one of these three" you are convinced that you are divinely obligated to pontificate just as certainly as the pope when he speaks ex cathedra (something he has only done twice since the 19th century "Doctrine of Infallibility" was put in place by the First Vatican Council).
I, on the other hand, am not an absolutist.
I see shades of gray - or what I prefer to call "many more colors than black and white."
Consider.
I can -- and I have -- detailed my misgivings and criticisms of Obama, the Clintons, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, the pro-Choice movement.
You name it. I will critique it.
But I see no reason to go too far down this rabbit hole.
Indeed, Reason obliges us not to go too far down.
You, however, need to be an absolutist.
You MUST be an absolutist.
You are convinced -- absolutely convinced -- that you have no choice in the matter.
In conservative Christian terminology, I believe you are "convicted." (And, yes, you seem to be serving a life sentence.)
"God said it. I believe it. That settles it."
However...
There is this Inconvenient Truth. And it is persistently inconvenient, and persistently true.
If you do not resort to the convenient justifications and self-exculpations of "Fake News," "Hoax," "Satanic Corruption," "Deep State," "Liberal Bias" or "QAnon-is-the-5th-Gospel-and-would-never-lie-to-us," there is the unsettling fact that Donald Trump is so encrusted in moral, political and economic slime that maybe -- just maybe -- he's not the "born again convert" y'all claim, and maybe -- just maybe -- his record on everything from birtherism, to his denial of whoring, to the efficacy of chloroquine as a COVID treatment, to the ineffectiveness of mask-wearing, is not God's Truth.
Here.
Do this Reality Check.
Why is Trump himself not being treated with hydroxychloroquine?
***
Sure, you are going to get three pro-Birth judges.
But if they limit (or eliminate) Roe v. Wad (as you would like), there is a raft of evidence that the abortion rate will then GO UP, not down - especially if y'all stick to your insistence that The Pill is a form of abortion.
"5 Pro Life Votes: The Supremes can Overturn Roe Now"
It is not my intention to argue that abortion is a good thing.
Very often -- perhaps it would be true to say that "almost always" - I think abortion is a bad thing.
But on balance, I think access to legal, safe abortion - certainly during the first trimester - is part of a psycho-social-economic-and-healthcare matrix that in many societies makes abortion LESS FRQUENT, not more frequent.
Abortion Rates Often Go Down When Countries Make It Legal Whereas Countries With Stricter Abortion Laws Can Have Higher Abortion Rates
https://newsfrombarbaria.blogspot.com/2020/08/abortion-rates-often-go-down-when.html
Reprise: "So Banning Guns Won't Prevent Gun Violence But Banning Abortion Prevents Abortion"
"Abortion"
Then there is the matter of the sucky sexuality in-and-around Donald Trump. (Yes, I know Karen... Donald deserves a mulligan... just like Larry Nassar deserves weekend passes to all girls' Gymnastics Camps.)
Take a look.
And be sure to post your defense.
"Fox News Paid $4 Million To Cover Up Sexual Harassment Allegations Against Donald Trump Jr's Lover, Kimberly Guilfoyle"
While you're at it, I'd like to hear your defense for being a staunch champion for the world's foremost advocate of "the root of all evil."
"The Love Of Money Is The Root Of All Evil" - An Open Invitation To Christian Conservatives
I'd also like to hear you argue against the views of American generals -- chosen by Trump himself as some of his "best people" -- views that essentially accuse Malignant Messiah of treason and consorting with the enemy.
"U.S. Generals' Views Of Trump"
"General James Mattis Describes Trump As A Near-Nazi Turncoat-Enemy Of The American People"
Finally...
Instead of converting our disputes into efforts to refute me as an agent of Satan who is going to Hell (if I don't mend my ways by re-making myself in your image) how about acknowledging that maybe both of us -- as the fallible creatures we are -- probably embody elements of right and wrong?
Sadly, you can't "go there."
You MUST see yourself as absolutely right, just as you MUST see me as en route to Eternal Damnation.
As for Donald Trump...
Lots of people are telling me: "There has rarely -- if ever -- been a human being who is so consistently right (and true) about EVERYTHING."
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