So....a lot of progressives get really opinionated over this James Talerico guy. And I feel like it's almost become a progressive litmus test to like him over Jasmine Crockett. While I'm open to discussions on whether he's better than Crockett (tbf I haven't fully explored this topic but I'm on team crockett on vibes alone), honestly, you're just not gonna convince me that James Talerico is the bees knees. You're just not.
It's the in your face Christian worldview. I know I got a rather derisive comment saying "just say you're a 2012 reddit atheist and move on" and to be fair...*points to the blog name*, but yeah, I don't take very kindly to religion being front and center in one's political life. As I see it, religion influences morality, and influences politics. How can you have a solid, respectable exegesis of the political situation we are in if your worldview begins with a religion full of dubious names and an authoritarian morality that holds us back? Even if I acknowledge progressive Christians exist, I still believe that Christianity is gonna kneecap that progressivism, and lead to strange ideas around, say, the concept of work ethic, and property, and the origins of the universe, humanity, and civilization. It's gonna lead to weird hangups in morality that cause weird contradictions and brainworms in one's worldview. Even if Talerico and I come to the same conclusions, we often do so for radically different reasons, and that can lead to problematic implications in the details of how these ideas are proposed.
Take, for example, his debate on Jubilee where he had that debate with conservatives and was arguing using their logic against him. I cringed at him arguing the ideas from a right wing point of view on work and work ethic, and how there really aren't people committing fraud or whatever. For me, the ideological difference between right and left goes deeper than that. I dont think we should worry a ton about people who "dont deserve" aid getting aid at all (outside of the prospect of illegal immigrants getting aid) because I disagree with the whole moral perspective that there is deserving vs undeserving, because that originates out of christian morality that I dont agree with. I believe that a UBI should be a right of all citizens. Period. That healthcare should be a right of all citizens. Education, housing, ditto. Period. End of discussion. It's nice he argues to defend flawed johnson era welfare state programs against the social darwinists who want nothing at all, but i just dont vibe with him here. I'm sorry, I dont.
It's the same issue I had with HRC who put her faith front and center too. I dont want someone who is "double minded", as they would say, and unstable in all their ways. Either you're hot or your cold, if you're lukewarm i'll spit you out of my mouth! Blah blah blah. Ya know. I dont want these mealy mouthed answers on social issues of "I find this morally wrong but..." There is no but, it makes you look wildly inconsistent and unreliable when you add "buts." Either youre pro choice or you're not. Either youre pro gay marriage or you're not. I dont wanna hear "well according to my faith its a sin but i believe people should be allowed to do it anyway because *add half hearted defense here that makes no sense*. No. Crap or get off the pot. I dont trust candidates who are half way in this Christian world and half in the real one.
And some people are saying its good he can relate to those people and it makes him electable. Maybe so but that doesnt mean I LIKE him, and way to make the HRC 2016 argument all over again. We cant have a candidate with actual convictions, we have to have someone who defends some watered down version of left wing ideas through our opponent's moral system. I dont like to operate that way. I want someone who is unapologetically humanist and who actually argues their ideas based on reason, evidence, and a secular moral view. Sorry not sorry.
I understand that 2012 era reddit atheism has lost its popularity over the years. But that was my gateway to the left, and that's how I structure my ideological worldview. And I believe that with the decline of reddit atheism, the left lost something, which is why it struggles in this modern era of politics. It lost its intellectual high ground. It lost its punchiness, its ability to troll. It's ability to actually take on the right from a position of moral and intellectual superiority.
I know one of the people I argued with that caused this conversation argued he's progressive because he argues left wing points from a position of empathy, but we live in a society that highly prioritizes individualism and rational self interest. No one cares about that, and while the left might have some weird version of moral superiority based on empathy, that's ALL it has any more. It's lost its intellectualism. It lost its actual values, its philosophy. It's just a hugbox of feels over reals. And I've been highly critical of the empathy hugboxers over the years because of this. Because they're just a bunch of annoying self righteous people and no one fricking cares.
I keep telling lefties this and they dont get it. When I was on the right, I was a values voter. I'm STILL a values voter, I just changed what those values are. I get it, it's Texas. It's "god's country." If we need some moderate good old christian boy to win that seat, well, we do what we gotta do. Not like we have a good choice. But that doesnt mean i LIKE the guy. it means i tolerate the guy.
I get it, my politics are, at this point, from a different era. They're pre 2016 politics. I get that that's foreign in this new environment. But back then, we were winning, and the right was losing. And honestly, that's how I see politics. It just is. And I'm not gonna change. I just dont relate to some modern liberals and progressives, and I dont see eye to eye with them on worldview, morals or values. I'm off doing my own thing. But it IS my own thing, I own it, and if people dont like it, tough. I dont necessarily like others who do something different either. And that's where I'm gonna leave this. Sorry, not sorry.
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