Forgive others their trespasses against us, who the hell does that? You might as well tell us to turn the other cheek. Oh wait a minute the good book does tell us that. Crazy man crazy, who actually turns the other cheek when somebody smacks them? Who buys another tv for the thief who steals their first one? What hero in the fistfight in the abandoned warehouse down by the river ever stands there to give the villain another poke at him while the theater audience cheers? Who admires such a person? Good book my ass.
As you can tell I am no theologian, but I don't remember from my days of sitting on a hard pew in itchy clothes while outside the birds sang and mellow breezes wafted against the dusty stained glass, where forgiving others was something you had to do to get through the pearly gates. I think the only thing you had to do was love Jesus, wasn't that what the reformation was all about?
We can't discuss where good or bad behavior is inborn or acquired unless we define what we mean by good and bad. I have been trying to do that for the last four or five posts, and it hasn't been easy, and I don't know how good a job I have done. Let's say that I believe altruism and utilitarianism is good. I don't recall that Beagles has moved from his position that good is stuff he likes and bad is stuff he doesn't like. I assume then that it is thus for everybody and that everybody has different things that they like or don't like and so Beagles is a moral relativist.
We are born with inclinations for both altruism (good) and selfishmess (bad), and our experience after birth can likewise bend us in both ways.
The Crips and the Bloods believe they are doing the right thing. They may realize that others think what they are doing is evil, but they don't think it is evil. Does anybody believe that good or evil will triumph over the other in the sense that one will defeat the other for all and good?
So I have been following the recent daily routine of blockbuster (Wolf calls them blockbuster) revelations followed by somebody barking denials followed by tweets denying the denials, and all the while that 35 percent of Americans who proudly call. themselves Trumpists have wavered not at all. And the thing is, all other stuff aside, he is such a repellent guy. He's rude, he's vain, he boasts, lies, and insults. If they are looking for a savior why don't they latch onto a nice polite guy? But you know all the politicians pretend to be nice polite guys, so that becomes a kind of phoniness. So Dump being out there with his faults for all to see, well they know he's not phony. So maybe that's his strength.
But many of these Trumpists were also big fans of Obama, and he's a nice guy.
Well maybe they liked both of them because they looked like guys who were going to change things. But then don't all politicians say they are going to change things? So fuck, I don't know.
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