Miscellaneous
Introduction I was born a white male. That’s my Political Original Sin. Original Sin in the Bible is depicted as the sin that we have all inherited from Adam and Eve in the Garden. Even God cannot rewrite history and erase what Adam and Eve did; according to the Bible, the only way that Original Sin can be erased is through salvation from Jesus Christ. My Political Original Sin apparently cannot be erased; as a white male, I will always be guilty. And I didn’t even get an apple out of the deal. That is the subject of today’s 10-minute episode. Continuing Without going into theology, biblical original sin explains why we have a sinful nature, and what we can do about it. Belief in the only person, past or present, who has never sinned. All the rest of us sin; one example is the confession of the Apostle Paul, the man who wrote about half of the New Testament. “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all.” The most prolific author in the New Testament called himself the greatest sinner of all. That’s easy to understand; all of us compare our inner selves to everyone else’s outer self. That makes for a humbling--and false--comparison. But at least he had a way out--salvation. But for those of us born into political original sin, there is no way out. Much of today’s politics is based on creating victimhood and identifying victims. And if you are going to have victims, you need to point out who made them victims. Pause for the truth: No one can be a victim without their permission. You can be victimized without giving permission, but you cannot be a victim without your consent. Here’s an example: Someone can cheat you blind, ruining you financially; you have been victimized. That’s on them. But if you are going to be a victim, think and live like one, that’s on you. Okay, back to today’s political thinking. Much of the political apparatus needs victims, ideally permanent victims, to justify their political rhetoric and spending plans. Any argument in support of a class of people being permanent victims needs--must have--a permanent class of victim-making oppressors. What could be better than inventing political original sin? This “sin” must be tied to immutable characteristics--characteristics that the people nailed with this sin cannot change. Once having done that, make sure that the “sinners” can’t get off the hook; no salvation for them, eh? BTW, there may be other congenital characteristics that qualify one for this type of original sin, for example having the ill grace to have been born into wealth, but we will focus on just being male and white. The white male original sin, we are told, always leads to real-world sins like racism and sexism. Political original sin leads to being racist, sexist, and other heinous actions and beliefs--I call those “ists”. And once an ist, always an ist. If we claim that we don’t have any knowledge of being either racist or sexist, our accusers point to the jury of the world, saying, “See, this is a perfect example of unconscious racism and sexism.” The argument seems to go that if I don’t know that I am either of those things, that’s proof that I am. And this doublethink quickly gets even more convoluted. If I identify “ist” behaviour in my past, and apologize, that is seen as proof that I was and still am an ist. And the apology will never be accepted, simply repeated as proof of my admitted transgressions, and never, ever forgiven or forgotten. And what if I take the next step of not only denying any ist behavior, but show honest and consistent anti-ist behavior. That gets pounced on thusly, “See, that’s what they all say!” More proof that I am an ist. And speaking of not being victims, we need to stand up against dangerous and false attacks like this--lest we become victims ourselves. How do we do that? Application and acceptance of reason will destroy my accusers' entire foundation for political origin...