LynAlden on Nostr: People often assume that whoever their god is, that it is standing with them ...

People often assume that whoever their god is, that it is standing with them specifically. In the US, they often separate this view along party lines.

Conservatives to some extent imagine Jesus standing with them on the border with a rifle protecting Christendom against anarchy. Even if many of those immigrants are ::checks notes:: also Christians. If a "woke" bishop calls for compassion on immigrants and is not a fan of the twice-divorced President who can't name his favorite bible chapter and forgot to put his hand on the bible when being sworn in, she's somehow the baddie rather than him, even among Christians.

Progressives to some extent imagine Jesus walking around in Gaza or Haiti or Sudan attending to the least advantaged among us. He shuns the empire and tends to them. And yet, while Jesus called for pacifism and was a rhetorical saint among chill speakers, many of them find a way to mentally turn extremists into heroes. Anything the underdog society does against the dominant society is justified. Even if it's violent toward civilians. In our media rebels are cool, but in reality they often like to kill the gays or the civilians, so it gets awkward pretty fast rather than being like the cool Star Wars rebels vs the Empire.

I find myself in a weird camp that almost nobody is onboard with.

I'm like, "Yes, we actually need to secure our borders. We need to be more scrutinizing for our society's sake. We need slower, higher-end immigration. And we actually need to enforce the rule of law for theft on the streets."

But also,

"No, I don't think Jesus of Nazareth as depicted in text would be onboard with this border view. He'd view us like Rome. Let's not re-imagine him as onboard with this. We're rooting for ourselves; he'd root for the underdogs."

I'm too woke for the conservatives and too based for the progressives.

The US was involved with multiple coups in Latin America. We ran the reserve currency and tried to bend them to our will with their dollar-denominated debt 40 years ago by spiking the value of that debt. Some of them went into retarded socialism and rekt themselves throughout that time period too; it's not all our fault. But it's some of our fault.

And then we militarily entered the Middle East. We made deals with them, funded them against the Soviets, and then turned against them. We've invaded them at like a 100:1 ratio vs them invading us with one major incidence (9/11). And as much as I am a fan of Jews as a people (as someone who grew up in Northeastern USA where Jews are relatively dense, I'd happily have them settle all around here), Israel is a state is colonial; our western powers displaced Gazans to make it and have been fighting that reality ever since.

We're Rome. And like Rome, we think we are justified. And along those lines, we're probably partially right, and probably partially wrong.

When you take a view, imagine every possible view opposing it.

And as the US dominates as neo-Rome, I think we will realize how distant we are from Jesus the hippie.