More Miscellaneous Rambling
I'm glad the Reformation Theology on Tap lectures are over. I was dog-tired of reading about the Reformation, thinking about the Reformation, and practicing my lecture on the Reformation. There will be no video available, but there should be audio, which I'll upload to Youtube once it's available.
I've been listening to a lot of Thaddeus Russell's "Unregistered" podcast over the past few days. Goodness knows, I disagree with a lot of his opinions (probably 45% of them, if I had to pick a percentage), but I really like his approach. On November 7th, he had a discussion with comedian Moshe Kasher. I've listened to only thirty minutes of it, but it's pretty interesting. They both grew up on the Oakland-Berkeley border, children of flaming liberals (socialists . . . communists) who condemned all sorts of things, including racism. As part of the ideology, they didn't take steps to protect their kids from the black thugs who lived in their neighborhoods. It resulted in some disturbing attacks from thugs who would occasionally exact retribution from them for slavery. It was mostly juvenile (pre-pubescent) stuff, but in a way, that makes it even worse.
Notwithstanding, Kasher is apparently a non-extreme leftist to this day. At one point, he commented disapprovingly on people who rage against Muslims or welfare moms, noting that most of those people probably don't even know any Muslims or welfare moms. That strikes me as an odd criticism. Is his point that, if you actually knew a Muslim or welfare mom, you might have a personal experience with them . . . maybe even become friends . . . with the result that your views might soften or shift? Okay, but how does that increase one's objectivity? If my best friend is a Muslim, I'm going to have a subjective reason not to think clearly about the Muslim risk, not an objective one. It doesn't mean that Kasher doesn't have a point, but he and Russell both seemed oblivious to the problem with his point.
