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We're All Right (And The Culture War Is Terrible)

Again, to the extent that family separation is happening at all, it should not be happening. If a progressive says this, they're right. Let me repeat: if a progressive says this, they're right. What you, O "Conservative," must decide is whether you want to feel superior, or whether you want to build a society worth living in. I'm 38 now. My rage against the Democrats and their galling hypocrisies is far spent. I had my twenties and half my thirties to be angry to little effect. What "whataboutism" does is blind us to the holes in our anthropology. We can't learn whilst scoring points.

If I turn to "liberal" issues, it's because they're in front of me. I don't need to repeat things I've already said. No effort to stop prison rape, or to save spotted owls, or curb carbon emissions, either explicitly or implicitly, signifies that I have changed my position on anything else. Take a moment to actually digest that.

I supported an unjust and horribly destructive war, war crimes, and other inhumanities in the effort to give the Democrats the finger. And in so doing, I didn't learn anything. I wonder what we might learn today, if we stop giving people the finger for being wrong about something.

In fact, no-fault divorce is just as bad as whatever outrages ICE or ORR has perpetrated at the border. It's true. It's also true that we'll be long dead before convincing Obama or Pelosi of this, most likely. In the end, though, if the progressives are right, they're right. Most of the chatter about "reclaiming" the social doctrine from the "Left" is an articulation of exactly which critiques from the Left will be ignored.

I can't lie to you and say that I have perfected some kind of Wise Moderate stance; I haven't. A friend pointed out that political culture drove our votes more than political issues, and that's been true for a while. I'm only hammering the Right now because I don't like its political culture. It doesn't feel like "home" anymore. If I could say it without sanctimony, I might say nowhere does.

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