The rest is politics - “The Taliban took over the country and it's much safer”

[HiggledyPiggledy33]

Just outraged at what I’ve just heard in the rest is politics.

They are discussing why aren’t we boycotting Afghanistan, and I can’t believe what Rory is saying.

“For the first time in over 20 years, you can travel safely through the country.”

Well maybe you can Rory, but I don’t think women can - is that fine? Throw half the population under the bus, as long as you’re OK.

“The Taliban have very repressive views on women, but they've also in other ways changed”
oh well that’s ok then.

“We're in a culture now where it really suits a lot of people, particularly on the far right, to emphasise Muslim countries where women are not treated correctly”
Women not being treated correctly is the problem. Once that’s sorted, let’s look at any sensitivity about muslims.

From The Rest Is Politics: Question Time: Assad’s People - Syria, Torture, and Justice, 9 Jan 2025

But that's not what jesus said. Argue that that should be the case all you want. But Vance's argument was that it was scripture. Which it very clearly isn't. Now, how you put that into practice in reality is a different question and one that Aquinus etc were trying to address. But it isnt scripture.

Incidentally Aquinus also thought rape was bad but less bad than masturbation because it wasn't an unnatural act (unlike masturbation). He also argued that prostitution/pimping could be justified since it effectively channeled men's list. The works of Aquinus are more complex than just that - he is an important thinker. But it's all an example of trying to pragmatically fit Christ's (very high expectations) into the real world. Fine to do that. Necessary even. But it's not what Jesus said. Actually you could argue it has more in common with utilitarian philosophy.

Men that chinstrokingly quote Aquinus/Augustine out of context to argue against what Jesus said and then call it Christianity are a piece of work.

Absolutely, there's lots of respected names in the UK GCsphere who've done a 180° turn on him.

Jesus is recorded as looking after his mother's interests while he was dying in agony, by asking John and Mary to look after each other: "When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home."

I dunno about a 180 deg turn, I think the number of people who thought he was a bad guy, and now think he's a good guy, is vanishingly small. But what I think has happened is that a fair few Americans who voted for him do think he's a POS, but still preferable to the alternative.

Politics makes strange bedfellows and even a stopped clock gives the right time twice a day.

I think he's bloody awful and never would have voted for him.

That may well be so. But it has nothing to do with the message of Jesus. This is why JC was a bit of a radical in his time. But Vance can be forgiven for not knowing this , or about the strong Social Justice strand of Catholic theology - given that he is a recent convert. They are often the most extreme and misguided of course. He might consider switching to the Tridentine Mass crowd like Mel Gibson?

But JD Vance simply said it was a Christian concept didn’t he? And there’s plenty of Christian writings and teachings to back that up.

Love all this...Vance suggests that there is a broadly Christian concept about caring for those nearest to you first and all of a sudden everyone is balls deep in theology to discredit it and Rory says it's safer for Afghans under the Taliban and there's a push to square the circle by creating a shield of cultural relativist bullshit to ignore the evidence a testimony of the lives of women and children. 🤣

i think this is quite insightful. it's probably why he's so relatively likeable for a politician - he isn't really one of them.

much more suited to academia really for a man of his abilities and background

You don't need to be "balls deep in theology" to see what Vance said was a lie though. "Love thy neighbour" is a very basic tenant of Christianity that most people are brought up knowing and the King James Bible is actually comparatively easy to read and lots of people own a copy. Contrary to what JDVance types say about the decline of the West/Christian values blah blah blah"

JD Vance was the one who leapt to Latin quotes from Italian theologians in an attempt to look clever and obscure the utter nonsense he was spouting. Its sophistry.

You don't need to be a Christian. You are entitled to think Christianity is funny even. But wanting to use "Christianity" as an excuse to do shitty things, and then accusing other people of being "balls deep in theology" when they object just makes you look stupid/childish. And Vance et al are the ones who complain about the "decline of Christian values" and how "America is founded on Jedeo-Christian blah blah"

"Plenty of Christian writings and teachings" like what???? Please find me the passage in the bible where Jesus told his followers to put themselves/their family before strangers. Or to put their own tribe before others. There are a lot of quotes along the lines of "charity begins at home" you could find from other writers. That is trying to find the best practical way people can be Christians in their daily lives. But find me the passage in the new testament that would support Vances claim that it is a "Christian concept"

Otherwise I can claim visiting a whorehouse is a "Christian concept" with "plenty of Christian writings to back it up" because Aquinus said whoring should not be banned. Its not just about Christianity. Its straight up deliberately lies - like saying black is white etc etc.

Is that the best you can find? The 10 commandments include "love thy father and mother". Jesus didn't come intending to smash the bonds between parents and their children or remove the 10 commandments. But he said that the MOST important commandment is love thy neighbour as thyself and when asked who your neighbour is he said it was everyone. That is completely compatible with caring about his own mother - and Mary has a special place in Christianity anyway. None of this is advanced theology or something that requires a "really high IQ". You can search further in the New Testament for something that contradicts this but you won't find anything

Matthew 15 New International Version

1Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, 2“Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”

3Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? 4For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ a and ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’ b 5But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is ‘devoted to God,’ 6they are not to ‘honor their father or mother’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:

8“ ‘These people honor me with their lips,

but their hearts are far from me.

9They worship me in vain;

their teachings are merely human rules.’

@biscuitandcake do you really not put your own family before neighbours, or indeed people living on the other side of the world whom you don’t even know?

I was not making a theological point, just showing an example of Jesus referring to his mother as it had been suggested that he had not been recorded as doing so. Of course it wasn't incompatible with loving one's neighbour.

Just as a matter of ethics, and not as something specific to Christianity, I think that we do have a particular responsibility to our families. This is obvious when it comes to parents' responsibility for their children, but also applies to children's responsibility for their parents in old age, among many other examples. None of that means that Christians should not see strangers as their neighbours.

Of course. You could argue that that is because its much easier to judge the needs of my family before the needs of people I don't know, and because its easier to help them. Hence "charity begins at home". However, I am also more genuinely upset when something happens on my street than when it happens on the other side of the world. I also sometimes lie and when I was younger once I shoplifted. However those last three things (caring much less about people far away from me, lieing, shoplifting) can't be justified based on the bible. Thats me that did that, not Jesus. Vance etc seem to have the idea "we are Christians, therefore what we do/think want to achieve must be Christian" which is back to front reasoning.
I am not even arguing the "love thy neighbour" thing is rational, or common sense. There are a lot of arguments against it and pagan belief/the ancient Greek and Roman belief systems had a different moral code. You can also say from an evolutionary perspective it isn't viable. Lots of Christians also find it really hard to love thy neighbour anyway. Its not natural. Thats all fine. Its fine to say its not a good rule for life if you want. But Vance saying that the message of Christianity is basically the same as Dawkin's selfish ape theory is silly. People correcting him on X aren't necessarily doing it because they are the "liberal elite" or "think they are smarter than him". They are correcting him because what he says is incorrect.

Its "I want to eat my flat mates tub of ice cream" versus "Jesus would want me to eat this tub of icecream" (religous right) versus "it is essential for the future of civilisation that I eat this icecream" (Musk etc). I'd much rather hang with people who do whatever the hell they want but own it, rather than people who justify doing what they want by tying it to religion/the greater good (have you ever noticed how what is Christian/for the greater good always seems to line up exactly with what Vance/Musk really want to do anyway. Very strange...

And people ask me "So Janes, when did you first question your relationship with organised religion?"

@biscuitandcake "Please find me the passage in the bible where Jesus told his followers to put themselves/their family before strangers. Or to put their own tribe before others."
What about when he tells the Samaritan woman that ministering to her would be stealing from Jewish people? Granted, he does then go on to minister to her but he's pretty rude about it. More or less calls her a dog.
BUT I'm trying not to get drawn into the specifics of the exegesis and all, because isn't it clear that the apparently theological debate is actually about, as @illinivich pointed out, the "nowheres" versus the "somewheres." Not a sudden interest among the great unwashed in the finer points of biblical exegesis. That's why so many TwiX users, and some posters here, feel so happy to see Vance "win" against Stewart. The somewheres feel belittled and looked down on by the anywheres, and here's one of our boys socking it to them.
Also, the Euthephro would be a better starting point for a debating duty vs impartiality than the gospels.

Thinking about it more, impartiality made society more just for poorer people in the 19th century. But capitalism makes us all fungible, and the dehumanising effects of that are mitigated by duty and particularity. So in the 21st century the idea of impartiality, or the politics of impartiality, now works in the interests of the most priviledged.

I'm almost an ex-listener, but I don't find it as compelling listening as I used to.

I prefer the much less arrogant centrist Dads, The Two Matts from the New European. They're still centrist Dads, but Matt D'Ancona is pretty gender critical. And neither of them is arrogant.

Why can't we have Emily Maitlis and some other woman journalist - why all these bluddy men?

I can't listen to TRIP anymore. They're both so out of touch and think they're so much cleverer than they are (particularly Campbell).

I listened to an episode where they were talking about the assisted dying bill and Campbell said he was in favour but that he'd heard an MP "make a very interesting argument about how this could actually be abused". He was talking about it like some kind of fascinating new insight. How on earth can you claim to be some kind of political mastermind and have never thought about the arguments against euthanasia?! You learn this shit at GCSE.

The way they talk about women is also maddening. AC constantly wanging on about listening to his wife and daughter. How about you actually listen to some women who are experts in their field or is that too threatening? The Afghanistan thing was the final straw for me.

To revert briefly on the theological question, Jesus' central message, his 'new commandment' to add to the basic two (about God and parents) on which the ten are based was LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOUR AS YOURSELF.

Not more than yourself. Not better than yourself. Not instead of yourself. As yourself. No ambiguity. Sounds very easy, is very hard, and can only be done if you let yourself admit that you have to start by loving yourself, and working out how you do that.

@biscuitandcake thank you for your thoughtful answer - very interesting. I guess I hadn’t thought of it from that perspective. My take was that JD Vance was referencing the value that Christians ascribe to the family ; rather than suggesting you should care less about others that your family should be your priority in life.

@mantaraya I couldn’t agree more, I just cannot listen to TRIP because on so many occasions they simply don’t know what they are talking about. I think they are very poor generally on US politics and when they start holding forth on something like “The Voice “ referendum in Australia then it really is school project territory.

I listen to podcasts everyday and always seek out those who are interviewing actual experts on the matter at hand.

There's a helpful passage on Jesus's attitude towards families on the Church of England site (www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2022-06/jesus_and_family_in_the_gospels.pdf):

Within the Gospels, those called to be disciples also appear to be called to imitate Jesus’ own separation from his family. A relationship with Jesus will bring division at the heart of family relationships.

Jesus frequently calls his disciples away from their families to follow him and separation from family is a central aspect of discipleship (Mark 10:21; Matt. 8:22; Luke 9:59-62). They must, Jesus says, love him more than family (Matt. 10:37). When Jesus calls his disciples James and John, they immediately leave their father Zebedee in a boat and their family business to follow Jesus (Mark 1:16-20/Matt. 4:18-22). When a disciple wants to return home to bury his father, Jesus tells him to ‘let the dead bury their own dead’ (Matt. 8:18-22). When another wants to say farewell to those in their home, Jesus says no (Luke 9:60).

Jesus speaks frequently in Matthew’s gospel of the division that following him will entail, where ‘brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child’ (Matt. 10:21) because he, Jesus, has ‘come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-inlaw against her mother-in-law’ for ‘whoever loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of me’ (Matt. 10:35-37). When Jesus’ family tries to restrain him because they think he has ‘lost his mind’, he asks the crowd around him: ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ and then suggests that his family is not his blood relations but rather those who hear God’s word and do it (Mark 3.31-35/Matt. 12.48-50).