Important Tribal Genius, Wrong Country

How to Get Beyond Our Tribal Politics - WSJ:

As many of you know, I have a lot of respect for Jonathan Haidt (pronounced "height", but considering what he writes on, "hate" is funnier").

If you want a cliff notes version of some of his previous writing see here http://www.moosetracksblog.com/2014/11/a-righteous-haidter.html.

If you want to dig a little deeper, here is the cliff notes on another of his books http://www.moosetracksblog.com/2015/10/the-happiness-hypothesis-jonathan-haidt.html.

I consider Haidt to be a genius, but while he is a "fan" of wisdom, as an atheist he misses the largest spiritual truth in the universe, that the BEGINNING of wisdom is the fear of God. We are all prone to believe that our viewpoint is "special" -- unless we internalize at a deep level that we are special ONLY in deep relation to God, we are pretty much doomed to keep forgetting our place.

Thus Haidt, a more brilliant human than I will ever be, says the following ...

So are we doomed? Will the polarizing trends identified by Pew just keep going until the country splits in two? Maybe John Adams was right in 1814 when he wrote, “Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself.”

This has been a frightening year for many Americans. Questions about the durability, legitimacy and wisdom of our democracy have been raised, both here and abroad. But the true test of our democracy—and our love of country—will come on the day after the election. Starting next Wednesday, each of us must decide what kind of person we want to be and what kind of relationship we want to have with our politically estranged cousins.

Regular readers of this blog know that America WAS NOT founded as a "democracy" but rather as a CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC ... BOistan is very close to a "democracy", which is precisely why at least the 10-20% of us remaining that realize that are so concerned about being completely crushed by mob rule.  John Adams was correct when he said that "democracy never lasts long", as he was when he said: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other".

In general, I think the column is EXCELLENT -- I would, the only hope for my dwindling unwilling to be tribal tribe is that enough people of the dominant tribe are willing to follow this advice ...

Second, step back and think about your goals. In the long run, would you rather change people or hate them? If you actually want to persuade or otherwise influence people, you should know that it is nearly impossible to change people’s minds by arguing with them. When there is mutual antipathy, there is mutual motivated reasoning, defensiveness and hypocrisy. 

But anything that opens the heart opens the mind as well, so do what you can to cultivate personal relationships with those on the other side. Spend time together, and let the proximity recommended by Cicero strengthen ties. Familiarity does not breed contempt. Research shows that as things or people become familiar, we like them more.

So if you happen to read this and try spending time with a Burkean Christian that will do their very best to love you even if we disagree, I'm available. If you find yourself leaving groups, shunning friends and family, etc because they are "not of your tribe", then perhaps at least consideration of  Haidt (hate?) is in order?

The set of people that are like myself -- who understand that America was a Constitutional Republic and BOistan is not, is exceedingly small -- I'd guess less than 5% of the population. BO has usurped the most basic of separated powers in spending money on BOcare not approved by congress -- who sued him and it went to the DC court of appeals and BO LOST -- badly. Nobody cares. We are no longer a Constitutional Republic -- so no longer America. (that is just one example, there are a bunch)

The SCOTUS won't take the case because it would be 4 to 4, thus allowing the DC circuit ruling to stand and BO to be guilty of brazenly violating his Constitutional oath, getting caught and adjudicated against. A HUGE percentage of BOistan has no clue what I'm even talking about.

But BOistan does NOT have a Constitution that means anything, so he skates.

So Haidt is wrong on where he lives. If you care about IDEAS -- and if you were American, you had to, because America was founded on IDEAS, not race, religion, territory or ethnic identity, then it is already "the day after". America might well have survived physical destruction, but it could no more survive the loss of shared ideas, than Christianity could survive the loss of Christ being THE WORD, fully God and fully man -- born of a virgin, dying for our sins and rising from the dead. All the churches could be physically destroyed, but as long as THE TRUTH remains, Christianity will live on.

And so it was with America. It could only exist when a supermajority understood what it was.

So Christians, continue to do the best you possibly can to love those that call you names and hate you -- and pray for them, certainly for their souls, but I also think it is OK to pray that they will read Haidt and decide that they would rather "re-educate us" than kill us.

If Hillary wins as we expect, the best thing about that might be that those "re-education camps" will be a great place to lose A LOT of weight!

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