American Solidarity Party platform

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

There's a lot that I like. I don't like that it seems to be still litigating Obergefell, and parts of the 'Civil Rights' section in general are a little too close to boilerplate Pencean 'religious freedom means never having to say you're sorry' sentiments for me. I don't like the initiative/referendum/recall thing. The name of the party is creepy, although I see and respect that it's supposed to be in reference to Solidarność. I love the Consistent Life Ethic stuff at the top, everything from 'Economic Participation' to 'Stewardship of the Environment' inclusive, and everything from 'Public Services' on down with the exception of some general leeriness around the implications of some of the stuff in 'Education'. FP.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Unironically use 'Judeo-Christian'.

Ooh, good point. Blech.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Unironically use 'Judeo-Christian'.

Ooh, good point. Blech.

I thought this is some sort of American thing, don't you use that often?

Yes, and it's terrible, reductive, and historically illiterate when we do.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Others who see more differences than similarities take offense to the term.

That's not really why I take exception to it. I take exception to it because it strikes me as a construct onto which specific denominations (or Christianity in general) can deflect responsibility. Its origin as a term had only the best intentions.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Left-wing theocracy is still theocracy.  No thanks.

1. Oh, you.
2. Maybe if this general sort of ideology--community-based, change-averse but still fairness-oriented, pragmatic in its theoretical underpinnings, unafraid of being called 'moralistic' as if that's somehow a bad thing--was allowed some sort of constituency in one of the major parties you wouldn't have Chesterbelloc acolytes like these people and creeps like realisticidealist presenting themselves as its representatives. There are at least as many Americans, especially Hispanics and lower-status Asians, who think roughly along these lines as there are SOCIALLY LIBERAL BUT FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE affluent suburbanites.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

HP because I've come to the conclusion that Hillary Clinton to Bernie Sanders IS the acceptable Overton Window. Absolutely nothing to the right if her or to the left of him is acceptable in any way. Actually come to think of it that sums up "all liberal all the time" pretty well...

jesus christ

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I actually really don't think this general way of thinking about the world is limited to Christians, or to people with unacceptably revanchist views on LGBT issues (which, yes, anything short of considering Obergefell settled law and the only proper solution for a pluralistic society regardless of one's own feelings would fall under), or to Christians with unacceptably revanchist views on LGBT issues. That was part of my point.

In general though, and this is something of a side note, I don't like the increasingly common viewpoint that any expression of moral views on this issue that dissents from the developing consensus is equivalently unacceptable to advocating continued or renewed legal discrimination, even though those 'moral views' are repellent and a major sticking point with Catholicism to me as well--I don't like it because for me, neither LGBT people nor conservative Catholics are 'some strange other but rather people I actually know, socialize with, and have in my family'. In the case of a party like this, if they'd just put something about respecting Obergefell as settled law in the platform I'd both have somewhat more sympathy for the rest of the 'religious freedom' argument that they're making and, in general, be perhaps more forceful in defending my initial decision to vote FP.

Your last sentence is true but cherry-picks my description to make your point.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Your last sentence is true but cherry-picks my description to make your point.

It wasn't cherry picking per se. It was more about reflecting perhaps that we've had Dixiecrats. We had Prohibition. We've had Charles Coughlin. We've had the 'moral majority'. America doesn't wear 'Christian socialism' or 'Christian Democracy' particularly well (to be fair neither did Europe) in part because of it's particular brand of breakfast cereal Christianity. And the pulpits too seem more concerned with petty moralism and external 'threats' than social justice matters.

http://www.pewforum.org/2016/08/08/many-americans-hear-politics-from-the-pulpit/

Honestly? Good point. Not one I like to admit, but good point.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

A Christian democratic party proposing to compete in a multiparty political system in which both main parties are ostensibly secular and only one has any appreciable religiously-motivated faction is not 'theocracy'.