This is why the GOP have not been trustworthy for going on 40 years now:
I posted the above in a conservative United Methodist group. I found this morning that it had been taken down. It had received comments like this, from one person in particular:
Dale, this is mean spirited & pretty unremoved from UM doctrine (unless you’re somehow equating the Democrat party with the Church). I ask you to remove this post. It isn’t helpful for unity or discussion & will win NO ONE to your side; it will only enrage your opponents & strengthen their resolve.
He says to another poster who complained about me:
I’m hoping he reconsiders, and, rather than be a spokesperson for a US political party, instead chooses to discuss UM doctrine. He may decide instead to not be a serious person. I hope he chooses to be a pastor & theologian rather than just another angry political hack. One Trump is enough.
When you post something like this, you diminish your witness. You appear more like a political partisan than anyone conversant with United Methodist theology. You become a cartoon, and no one will take seriously your call for more attention to ecological concerns. There’s no reason to think you care about theology or the environment if it looks like you’re more concerned about Democrat vs Republican warfare.
Please don’t become a cartoon whom nobody takes seriously. Post about UM doctrine, not your own political opinions.
So this is considered “partisan” because it is seen as a critique of the party’s making environment a partisan issue, and working to convince their voter base that this is a dogma with which to fall in line? (Confession: It IS a critique, by virtue of what it says about them)
I went on to inform the commenter that I am NOT a Democrat, and have not been for about 8-9 years now. But such is the entrenchment of the political tribalism we are now seeing. It’s just assumed that sharp critique to one of these parties is coming from “the other side”, seemingly oblivious that there are things like “Theology” and “Bible” that might have something to say that it is far removed from today’s political tribalism. It “pre-dates” it by centuries.
I then wrote a longer post that I was composing in the Facebook post box, intending to post it to the group. I stopped myself (for now , anyway). But here it is:
It behooves any online administrator of a discussion to let people know if a post is going to be removed. Some participants may wish to save/copy some of their work in which they have invested a not insignificant amount of time and thought. It also seems right that a discussion ought to be had about where certain lines are that must not be crossed. Despite saying at the outset that “there are no boundaries” for this discussion, apparently there are. It seems that my most recent replies to the charge of “partisan politics” , where I clearly enunciated my ABSENCE of support for this Democratic party, thus dismantling the argument that a post I made was “partisan politics”, was not taken kindly, and apparently produced a pow-wow of some kind to get a post I made on the 28th removed. This lack of communication here is unacceptable behavior for any kind of quality online discussion. And it comes at a time when I produced a rather thorough debunking of the complaints about this post being politically partisan and therefore “mean-spirited”.
You see , folks, as hard as it apparetnly is for you to believe, I am NOT “Democrat”, and have not been since 2010-11, when I realized that this Democratic party is NOT walking the talk they produce. They have sided with the banks and Wall Street. It was clear that Obama did so (see Ron Suskind’s book “Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President”, which was a rather detailed account of the financial team Obama built around his Presidency, many of whom had significant roles in producing the financial meltdown of 2007-8 ) Also, Obama was NOT a leader in ecological response. He had to be confronted with massive resistance to get his attention. (This was where his biggest difference was from Trump: He was convincable and responsive to real signs of popular support/opposition. This present crop of GOP leaders and Trump, are not). But this is not exactly high praise and an expression of any kind of “loyalty” to the Democratic party. If proving this charge of “partisan politics” wrong is grounds for a post’s removal, then I don’t know what we have here.
And as for civility, <name withheld> said this:
“You appear more like a political partisan than anyone conversant with United Methodist theology. You become a cartoon, and no one will take seriously your call for more attention to ecological concerns. There’s no reason to think you care about theology or the environment if it looks like you’re more concerned about Democrat vs Republican warfare. “
I produced the above argument about my “history” of separation from the Democratic party, and replied to
<name withheld> concerning the above rather “mean-spirited” characterization that it is also a stain on HIS witness to show such politically-directed and assumptive judgment on how he views me (and on which , as I showed, he was DEAD WRONG), and to characterize my views as “cartoonish”.
So, I did, just now, decide to post a response to the removal of the original OP to the United Methodist mostly-conservative group (the tweet and comment with which I opened this post.
I don’t know what was the taboo I transgressed in a post I did a couple days ago and which brought quite a bit of protest from <name withheld>. Was it the critique of the GOP (which I found to be quite revealed in the very nature of the reality of the numbers set forth by https://t.co/BDdsHpm7og (Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight on Twitter. Politics, Economics, Science, Life, Sports), or was it my exposing the inanity of applying a “partisan” moniker to me , daring to critique the Holy GOP, which seems to automatically set off the tribal politics alarms? The post was removed just after** I gave an account of exactly why I no longer associate myself with the Democratic party.
** Not at all sure if it was my debunk of the “partisan” charge, or simply the original OP being construed as such that precipitated the removal
MY “disassociation from the Democratic party” actually happened BEFORE my “eco-conversion” (which “happened” in September 2014). It happened just after (perhaps during) the Occupy Movement, when I realized that the Obama administration was not the “advocate for the people” against Wall Street and the Big Banks that he proclaimed during his campaign in 2006-8. My reading of Ron Suskind’s “Confidence Men” was a whopper of a revelation that popped the bubble of hope that I had that Obama would be who he seemed to me to be saying he was going to be. The book revealed how his “Economic Advisor” team and Cabinet members were key actors in the financial recession of 2007 and 2008, and were AWOL during or even encouraging of the rampant irresponsible and criminal behavior of Wall Street and the Big Banks. From that point on, Obama continued to “settle in” to the Washington “Status Quo” he campaigned against, promising change. What we got was more of the same on Wall Street, a bailout, a complete pass given to the Big Banks, even when they were all expecting strong medicine when they were called to a big meeting by the Obama administration, and instead were given a “We got your backs” message. Obama increased illegal surveillance and was even more aggressive and condemning of whistle blowers than Bush W. had been. And Obama also bragged about his increasing drilling for oil, even while talking up his claims to be concerned about the ecological conditions. So, re-read the above, and know that there is much more that went on 2008-2016 that forever wasted any prior confidence I had in the Democratic party.
So, the charge of my posts and comments here having “partisan” motivation is not only untrue, it is ridiculous, if you know me at all.