Linky Friday: My God, What Is That Thing Edition

Andrew Donaldson

Born and raised in West Virginia, Andrew has since lived and traveled around the world several times over. Though frequently writing about politics out of a sense of duty and love of country, most of the time he would prefer discussions on history, culture, occasionally nerding on aviation, and his amateur foodie tendencies. He can usually be found misspelling/misusing words on Twitter @four4thefire and his food writing website Yonder and Home. Andrew is the host of Heard Tell podcast.

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27 Responses

  1. Brandon Berg says:

    I rarely have anything nice to say about Twitter, because it’s a global cesspit optimized for hot takes, but every now and then it creates a thing of extraordinary beauty.Report

  2. Oscar Gordon says:

    LF4: That Christian self-righteousness…Report

  3. LeeEsq says:

    LF4: That somebody thought it would be a good idea to write and speak this speaks volumes. I guess we have to give him props for having the bravery to say what he really believes but this essay is going to do more harm to Christianity than good.Report

  4. Pinky says:

    LF1: If there’s one thing I’ve learned from anime, it’s that the Japanese are terrified of getting sick. I’ve seen whole episodes dedicated to the crisis of someone having a fever.

    They’re currently listed as having 6,449 cases per 1M people, with 118 deaths per 1M people. That puts them at rates one-quarter of the worldwide rates. Their current 7-day average of deaths is under 20 people on a downward trend. Their current 7-day average of new cases is at the barest of upward trends, still less than a third of their two peaks. (They peaked around 6k per day in January and again in May, and they’re currently around 1.7k.)

    Also worth noting: they hate foreigners.Report

    • Brandon Berg in reply to Pinky says:

      As in the US, there’s a large subset that just doesn’t give a fish and continues to pack into crowded bars and restaurants, which is why it keeps coming back instead of getting locally eradicated as it nearly was after the first wave.Report

    • Pinky in reply to Pinky says:

      Ick. I just read over my comment, and I should have been clearer that the death and new cases rates were 7-day average of deaths and new cases per day, not per week.Report

  5. Pinky says:

    LF4 – I’d be tempted to write a detailed response to this piece, but the relationship of the government of Canada, the Catholic Church, and the first nations is well beyond my expertise.

    To the point about the graves, I haven’t followed the story at all, but I don’t know what specific allegations have been made. The article is right that there are graveyards everywhere, and they don’t constitute proof of wrongdoing.

    To the broader point about conversion, I think he messes up his message badly (and that’s being charitable). There’s a means-and-ends argument that should be spelled out clearly. This would be my take:
    1) Conversion is a good end.
    2) A good end doesn’t justify bad means.
    3) Good means or good ends may have bad consequences, but as long as they weren’t the intended goal, they can be permissible depending on their magnitude and the availability of other means or ends.

    I think the author probably agrees on all three, but it sounds like he’d remove the parts in the brackets below:
    1) Conversion is a good end.
    2) [A good end doesn’t justify bad means.]
    3) Good means or good ends may have bad consequences, but as long as they weren’t the intended goal, they can be permissible [depending on their magnitude and the availability of other means or ends[.Report

    • Brandon Berg in reply to Pinky says:

      There seems to be some question about how reliable the GPR is at detecting underground graves, and in particular how likely false positives are. I’ve been following the Kamloops story to see if there were any updates on exhumation to actually confirm the existence of the bodies, and haven’t seen anything yet.

      Maybe it just takes time. I don’t know. What I did notice is that there were a lot of comments by people involved setting up a justification for quietly closing the door on this story if it turns out that the identified sites were false positives or not indigenous people (the larger site was a communal graveyard before it was a residential school, so it’s unclear how many of the bodies were students). Things like how ultimately everything is going to be up to the indigenous people, and they’re the ones who get to decide how much, if any, of the findings to publicly disclose.

      Having been an atheist since before it was cool, I have no love for the Catholic Church, or for the Canadian government, but I know that in the current zeitgeist a lot of people were pretty thirsty for a story like this, and publicly questioning it would be career suicide, so the claims almost certainly were not subjected to much scrutiny.

      I wouldn’t bet a lot of money either way. I don’t think it’s beyond the realm of possibility that the schools tried to cover up deaths caused by poor living conditions. I’m not saying it was definitely all or even mostly false positives, just noting the possibility, and that if it is, the way we’ll know is that the story will be quietly dropped, not loudly retracted.

      As evidence that this absolutely is the the way things are done, I will point out that the Canadian government spent $100 million on an inquiry into the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls issue, resulting in a thousand-page report that has no statistics on or discussion of who the perpetrators are, despite the fact that murders of indigenous women in Canada have a nearly 90% closure rate.Report

  6. Jaybird says:

    LF7 is a huge problem.

    We will regret this rot.Report

  7. LF4 “Kill them all, and let God sort them out” the author proclaimed as he pleasured himself pondering the enormity of his piety….Report

  8. Chip Daniels says:

    LF4:
    I generally have no ill will towards the Christian churches. In fact, I have generally positive attitudes towards them, and acknowledge that the majority of their adherents are kind and loving people who struggle to live the doctrines.

    There is also this type.

    And unfortunately, we are closer to being ruled (not governed) by the likes of Declan Leary than Dorothy Day or Mother Teresa.
    There is a shockingly large group of Americans who want something like this, to be ruled by an iron fist of piety which will use its power to exact vengeance on their long list of grievances.

    Think about how this essay came about, at one of the more influential magazines of American conservatism. There were editors, publishers, boards who all signed off on this essay, and all secure in the belief that this would be received well by its readership.

    And they aren’t wrong. That thunderous silence you hear is the tacit acquiescence of fellow conservatives and co-religionists who feel as he does.

    The response is what is so dispiriting, even the criticisms! Because there is an implied agreement that this represents a legitimate point of view, something debatable and contested, within the Overton Window.

    “Children, allowed to suffer and die, but souls converted- Acceptable, or not?” Is not the sort of debate that a modern civilized nation ought to be having, but having it we are.Report

    • Pinky in reply to Chip Daniels says:

      I often point out that The American Conservative and its writers aren’t influential within conservatism.Report

      • CJColucci in reply to Pinky says:

        Yes. You do. But that doesn’t make it so.Report

        • Pinky in reply to CJColucci says:

          I can only speak from personal experience. I’ve been trying to find a good ranking of website popularity, but the pickings are surprisingly slim (or way out-of-date). I found this one from 2018 that doesn’t list The American Conservative in its top 20, but I don’t know the quality of the sourcing.

          http://mediashift.org/2018/01/nine-insights-right-wing-website-traffic/

          As I’ve said before, my personal read is that The American Conservative is a site visited by non-conservatives who want to know what conservatives are thinking, so I’d mentally factor down the total number of hits to determine its influence within conservative circles, but I can’t find good data to start with.Report

          • CJColucci in reply to Pinky says:

            They have a magazine, too. I’ve actually read it now and then. Like NR, which, I think, most folks would consider an influential conservative outlet. I’m not sure how much “influence” either outlet has on actual, practicing conservatives, though.
            Maybe it would be more fruitful to point to evidence not of “influence,” but of whether the ideas represented in AC or NR, or whatever other outlet one identifies as “influential” or “representative,” differ from each other, or from the day-to-day views of practicing conservatives.Report

            • Pinky in reply to CJColucci says:

              Well, this is a bit of a cheap shot on my part, but as I asked Chip, where’s the evidence that the opinion in this article is being widely discussed and agreed with?

              ETA: With a circulation of 5,000 of course you’ve read it! Who hasn’t? That’s more than a thousand copies! Five times more, in fact!Report

              • CJColucci in reply to Pinky says:

                I haven’t been following the issue, and don’t have an opinion on who has an opinion on it.

                I should hope the opinion expressed isn’t widely shared, but I know a fair number of people who think just the way the AC author does, whether they got it from a little magazine or have just always been like that.

                The AC author thought his piece would resonate with someone. Probably the sort of people I have long known who share that general world view. He may be optimistic about how many people will read it or care that he, specifically, said it, but he is probably not wrong that a significant constituency for that general world view exists, and would think what he thinks if they thought at all — about which he may also be optimistic.Report

              • Pinky in reply to CJColucci says:

                The AC author likely thought it would get clicks.

                As an exercise, could you tell me what opinion you think the author holds that you’ve encountered fairly often before?Report

              • CJColucci in reply to Pinky says:

                I get enough exercise, thanks.Report

              • Pinky in reply to CJColucci says:

                Then here’s a chance to show off how fit you are. Come on! You’re read the article; I’m not asking for much more than a paraphrase, as long as you think it captures what both the author and a fair amount of other people think. If the thoughts are that common you should be able to do this in a couple of seconds, and if they’re that reprehensible you’d be performing a mitzvah.Report

              • CJColucci in reply to Pinky says:

                My mother always told me not to be a show-off. Don’t insult my mother’s memory.Report

              • Pinky in reply to CJColucci says:

                To be clear, I don’t think you can do it. I think you’re misinterpreting the article and likely misinterpreting or exaggerating your other encounters, or defining them as similar in such a broad way as to be meaningless. I’m going to stop badgering you – I’m nearly at 50% of all comments on this thread, and that’s never good – but if you don’t prove me wrong I have to assume that you can’t do it.Report

              • CJColucci in reply to Pinky says:

                Assume away. With the usual consequences. You can bellow Debate Me Bro all you want. I’m not interested.Report

      • Chip Daniels in reply to Pinky says:

        Is Rep. Lauren Boebert influential? Governor Abbot? Jerry Falwell Jr.? Senator Cruz? Josh Mandel?

        These people, and many more besides, are the thunderous silence I mentioned.

        Christian nationalism is now the de facto party line in Republican circles.Report

        • Pinky in reply to Chip Daniels says:

          Well, um, well…Kamala Harris and Danny DeVito didn’t denounce an article that a bunch of liberals never read!

          ETA: Nothing says American nationalism like an article about Canada!

          ETA: Since everyone is reactive on the internet, can you tell me who is talking about this article positively?Report

        • JS in reply to Chip Daniels says:

          “Christian nationalism is now the de facto party line in Republican circles”

          White Christian nationalism, to be specific. Mostly Protestant. Catholics are…tolerated.Report