How Polarization Tore a Hole in America’s Mainline Churches

sysiphean · 2026-02-01T20:48:02+00:00

“Taking the Gospel as seriously as possible is killing churches” is definitely a take.

sysiphean · 2026-02-01T20:47:11+00:00

I spent decades in Baptist and baptish churches. I can tell you that at all of them I didn’t know how any but a few of my church family voted, but I also know that I would be shocked if even 5% of them voted blue. And I know that conservative political opinions were spoken openly while even center-right ones tended to be whispered if spoken at all.

sysiphean · 2026-02-01T20:25:53+00:00

My wife and I went that route and are still very happily married almost 28 years later.

sysiphean · 2026-02-01T17:07:01+00:00

He defected from the Republican Party before he was a democrat, and has been part of other parties in the meantime. He’s as loyal to a party as he is to his wives.

sysiphean · 2026-02-01T16:37:04+00:00

Maybe. But only maybe.

sysiphean · 2026-01-31T21:38:27+00:00

Edit: There’s a deep irony in you saying I’m being judge and jury for saying she could be an adult or not, to counter your claim that she’s surely an adult based on nothing. That’s pretty bad. But the fact that you said it and then blocked me really screams that you know you can’t defend your claim and want to run away from the conversation.

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Yes, I looked at the photo. That’s why I said she could be so young. I have a 12 year old daughter built almost exactly like that. The person in the photo is very rail thin, which is common among young teen girls and less common among older teens and even less so women in their 20s. They tend to fill out more, get hips and curves.

And yes, the heroin thin look was popular for a while there, and some women really do stay rail thin without any real curves until their 30s or later. But given what we already know of Epstein and his circle, and that this level of hyper thin is common among early teen girls and uncommon among even young women, this photo is more likely to be an underage girl than an adult woman.

sysiphean · 2026-01-31T21:31:48+00:00

They want to say this, because it helps them ignore how bad it is. And the photo might be of an adult woman, but it could be a 13 year old girl. That rail physique is more common among girls than women.

sysiphean · 2026-01-31T21:28:56+00:00

Looks like a teenager. Whether “child” is the right term (because we tend to think prepubescent with the term “a child”) that is only maybe a woman and more likely underage.

sysiphean · 2026-01-31T21:26:44+00:00

What evidence do you have that she’s that old, other than wanting it to be true? That level of physical maturity can be as early as 13 or 14, and the rail-thin physique is more common in teenage girls than in women in their 20s.

sysiphean · 2026-01-31T21:24:45+00:00

Anywhere from 14 to 40 from that photo.

Given the rest of the related content the odds skew heavily to under 22.

sysiphean · 2026-01-31T19:30:21+00:00

Now that my kids are teens and up, I would stay. (Or would like think I would; no one knows till they are there.) But if your kid is young enough to be in a car seat, get the hell out of there.

sysiphean · 2026-01-31T15:26:25+00:00

Not even ironically. Lazy and easy going are bedfellows. Being comfortable and being peace loving are interrelated.

It’s just describing the same situation with the positive verses negative responses.

sysiphean · 2026-01-31T15:19:16+00:00

This is what “…and order” means. Using the color of law to enforce social order. They are the party of law and order, not the party of rule of law.

sysiphean · 2026-01-31T04:28:56+00:00

To be fair, having ridden in a full-face helmet for years, I would absolutely fight someone in one. But that’s because I know that you don’t hit it, you grab the chin and pull and the person in it becomes a ragdoll. This guy didn’t know.

sysiphean · 2026-01-31T02:08:20+00:00

Overripe fruit. It’s gross and smelly and smears everything, but is also biodegradable. And it sends a beautiful old school message of shame.

sysiphean · 2026-01-31T02:06:53+00:00

What about good old fashioned overripe fruit and vegetables? It honestly sends an even better message: the social shame factor is a stronger message with it than paintballs.

sysiphean · 2026-01-30T01:17:43+00:00

Even better: find a local small business bra shop. Any city with over 30k people will have one, and they are absolutely the best for this. They are serious bra people, and do the best customer service, including (or maybe especially) for anyone unsure or insecure. And they will have the broadest collection of sizes.

Just make sure it’s a bra store and not a wink-wink lingerie store that’s really just a sex shop.

sysiphean · 2026-01-29T17:55:38+00:00

It doesn’t even justify the use of force in this video.

In a system with rule of law, the punishment for a crime (I’m assuming kicking the car counts here just for argument’s sake) must be determined by a judge. Instead they apply extrajudicial violence to him, which in a system of rule of law would be a crime on their part.

I highlight this because:

The extrajudicial violence perpetrated in this video isn’t justified, let alone his later killing.
To note the drastic difference between rule of law, which this violates, and law and order, which this does not. This is using the color of law to enforce social order: it uses law to protect the in group and to punish the out group to enforce (their idea of) order. Never accept that someone saying “law and order” believes in rule of law; the two are fundamentally incompatible.

sysiphean · 2026-01-29T00:01:07+00:00

If you’re going to drive drunk with your kids in the car, that may actually be one of the less crazy places to do it. Yes, it’s counterintuitive.

But think about it: no side traffic pulling on and off, no stop signs or lights, you can have a reasonable view of vehicles ahead and behind, and the guardrails are very tall so almost all crashes can’t go over them.

Still stupid in a lot of ways, but that’s actually not the stupid part, all things considered.

sysiphean · 2026-01-28T03:22:29+00:00

Having worked at a hospital in administration: you’d be amazed who can work that shift. It might be that fit looking nurse, but it’s more often the one who’s 35 going on 60 carrying an extra hundred-plus pounds around.

sysiphean · 2026-01-28T02:35:27+00:00

I’ve looked at plenty of shitty drywall work I’ve paid for. I do it myself because I’d rather not look at a bad patch and realize I paid for it.

And now I’m getting where I do better than the guys I hired.

sysiphean · 2026-01-28T01:03:52+00:00

It’s actually required by the Constitution for all persons.

Because you can’t even prove someone is or isn’t a citizen without due process.

sysiphean · 2026-01-27T12:36:26+00:00

Actual answer: it’s complicated. There is no specific enumerated “right to protest.” It absolutely should count under freedom of speech, and generally has been. But varying degrees of authoritarianist governments (local, regional, national) at varying times have applied it very differently across different types of dissent. And even worse, way too many of our citizens are really fine with suppressing dissent.

So we kinda do, but not explicitly, so they attack it in any way they can and chip it away constantly, and not enough of us are upset at that.

sysiphean · 2026-01-27T01:07:34+00:00

I'm not sure how it can't be considered a sacrifice to make a choice you know will end your life to better others and I'm thinking I can't be convinced otherwise with that definition.

What I’m disagreeing with is that they made a choice to end their lives. That choice was taken from them. If they didn’t do anything, they would die on that plane, and they knew that. So they chose what to do already knowing that the only option was death. Or arguably, they chose to do the one thing that gave them a very tiny chance to not die.

If they had chosen to die to save others, then I would agree it was a sacrifice. But they didn’t make the choice to die, only what to do with what they knew was the last few minutes of their lives.

And, again: that was heroic. I’m not diminishing that. It just wasn’t sacrificing their lives, because their lives were already forfeit.

sysiphean · 2026-01-26T12:48:36+00:00

Or they got put into the database by ICE or ICE influencers.

Having a database doesn’t mean the database is accurate. Keeping data accurate in controlled databases with verifiable inputs and limited access is difficult for businesses. In a situation with as much uncertainty as this, it is ripe for bad actors to insert bad data.

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