Thank you, David F., Chris & Yuyutsu,

Yes, maybe as David implies, we should exercise some compassion and empathy with everybody up to a point.

For example, we should try to understand how and why Trump says what he says from what may be his point of view before he conclude that he doesn't have a clue what to do about the coming COVID-19 catastrophe, that it's not strictly his fault, he's just an idiot in a high-intelligence job, thanks to his low-intelligence electoral base.

After all, it must be no blessing to be given great wealth and then thrust into the public limelight all of your life, including your own TV program, then a Presidential campaign which - miracle of miracles ! - you win. And then find yourself incredibly out of your depth - that stark knowledge that you don't really know what the hell is going on but have to pretend that you're well in front of it all. Of what, you can't fathom. So you go with - as a six-year-old would - whatever sounds nicest. And get rid of people who don't sound all that nicest. Like that Eyetalian guy, Fauci.

So let's have some compassion, empathy even, for Trumpf. As a born-moron, he's condemned to have a high profile, but like Chauncey Gardener, he's doing his best. Perhaps we all need life-channel-changers.

Perhaps every culture, every thought-pattern, is valid in its own terms, no matter how vile it may seem to others.

Joe

Dear runner,

The Marxist states were not secular. Secular states have separation of religion and government. They are neutral toward religion and do not try to stamp it out as the Marxists do. The first secular unit of government with separation of religion and government written into law was the Rhode Island colony headed by Roger Williams, a Baptist minister.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Williams

From Barry’s “Roger Williams and The Creation of the American Soul”

"The Bay's leaders, both lay and clergy, firmly believed that the state must enforce all of God's laws, and to do so the state had to prevent error in religion. This conviction they held fast to, for their souls and all the souls in Massachusetts plantation depended upon it.

Williams recognized that putting the state to that service required humans to interpret God's law. His views were not fully formed-how Massachusetts dealt with him would itself influence their formulation-but he believed that humans, being imperfect, would inevitably err in applying God's law. Hence, he concluded that a society built on the principles that Massachusetts espoused could at best only lead to hypocrisy, for he believed that forced worship "stinks in God's nostrils." At worst it would lead to a corruption not of the state which was already corrupt, but of the church, as it befouled itself with the state's errors. His understandings were edging him toward a belief he would later call "Soul Libertie." pp. 3-4

Secularism and Marxism are opposed to each other and should not be confused with each other.

Joe,

I like your summary.

Dear Foxy,

Please forgive me, I meant to include you in my praise of those other blokes, of common sense, compassion and decency.

Maybe we need to re-emphasise that civil discussion requires consideration of other points of view, because only when we can consider objections to our own points of view, can we think seriously about them and modify or strengthen - or change - our own viewpoints. We learn nothing by constantly listening to only our own viewpoints.

Maybe we should strive to confront, pay attention to, an opposing point of view every day on some pet subject, and to weigh up its validity. That may mean that we modify our own viewpoint, but it may also mean that we have to consider factors that we weren't aware of, and that we may have to learn much that is unsettling.

Love,

Joe

'Secularism and Marxism are opposed to each other and should not be confused with each other.'

a pity you are not a university lecturer David. You are obviously blind to the deranged violence endorsed by the state and professors against Trump and his supporters. The secularist have certainly displayed only hate violence, deceit and a rejection of democracy for 3 years or more. They rate alongside ISIS as the most bigoted hateful people I know of. Looks like they could well get what's coming their way.

Joe,

I wrote something very similar to your sentiments
expressed here in one of my earlier posts to this
discussion - that a healthy vital society is not one
in which we all agree and that our political conversation
must shift away from the mass, infantile finger-pointing that
now pervades it.

However, it is important to pull up people who are certain
that they possess the absolute truth. This kind of certainty
is what leads to repression, bigotry, racism, and fanaticism.
We need to take the responsibility to strive to dispel myths,
ignorance and conspiracy theories and misinformation.