In that case you may prefer a website that’s less text heavy.

It’s America, so in the modern day it’s mostly relegated to shit like reading the phone book or if lucky reading incredibly long relevant things. But we’ve had fist fights and duels as a result of congressional conflict.

Its root is in physical intimidation before battle yes, but on the floor of parliament it’s clearly intended as an act of cultural display of resistance, not one of “do as we say or we will hurt you”.

The modern suit comes from military uniforms. Hell, they have a guy with a mace when parliament is in session. This military imagery has come to the authority of the democratic process and appears at least throughout the anglosphere, but it’s using military imagery to do so.

Just as the colonizer uses military imagery to represent the authority and tradition of institutions, the colonized may use their own military imagery to represent opposition to colonial acts.

I totally get where you’re coming from, and I agree Christianity did snuff out a lot of that, but not necessarily the way you may be thinking of it. Christianity was a face, tool, and motivation of empire, and empire seeks to standardize culture for the sake of stability. Christianity has deeply powerful cultural performances too. There are traditional catholic rituals that by their nature as a force of colonizing power and as part of globally dominant cultures (and as part of our own cultures) we see differently from this.

This haka was powerful and beautiful, and part of that is by its own merit, but part is that it is people and culture resisting colonial power.

Also, the modern era has been immensely destructive to culture and ritual except where it is intentionally preserved. While it would be easy to pin it on Christianity and the protestant reformation, the reality is that it’s also caused by the formation of nations (the unification of Italy for example created a shared culture between Venice and Rome for the first time since the fall of the western empire), the advent of mass travel and communication, the rise of industrialized lifestyles, and the shift from generation after generation living in the same spot to the normalization of living somewhat far from your family, all of which combined to more or less radically weaken local cultures.

Also like, it’s fucking Aoteroa. In colonial nations one must be prepared for indigenous members of their government to perform cultural acts of resistance when the colonist faction of the government gets up to some shit.

From the other side of the world I saw her actions powerful and warranted. Though I do come from a country with a history of far less reasonable displays of dissatisfaction in our legislature.

Yeah it’s the difference between discipline working and discipline not working ime

That sucks. Though now I’m dealing with a doctor who’s on my ass about socially drinking on weekends, which is a new form of shifty to me

They killed my mom. I won’t forgive them for that

A former senator and secretary of state counts as extremely qualified by most standards

I get how this happens. Everyone is all on board when it’s all talk or they’re Monday morning quarterbacking, but when they’re involved and they’re acting then it’s real to them. What had been hyperbolic spiraling and chaos from a distance with plausiblity of intents is now watching a man actively break the law as they assist.

That’s not to excuse it. They did and do harm. But this is the second time he’s been president and this keeps happening and he churns through people like this.

Maybe he just misses Nixon

The problem of evil is that many of the worst things in history were done by people who believed they were acting morally. The witch hunts, the crusades, the inquisition, and large portions of the genocide of the Americas were done in part with a belief that it was moral. Part of a good understanding of morality is self reflection to understand that one can twist themselves into evil. It’s why I think your calls for compassion here are valuable.

I’m angry at Fetterman, and I’d be fucking pissed if he was my senator. I don’t know if I think he’s outright evil. But I do know that to label a human as good or evil is valuable but risky. It helps us form accountability and to rally each other, but it also leads us to assign people as wholly good or wholly bad when all people have immense complexity to our motivations, beliefs, and actions.

It could also be someone who believed it was bad until seeing it from the inside

Hell, by the time you’re a bishop the catholic church will put you in any allied country they feel like and if there’s nowhere else to go the Vatican can house you for life. The pope is basically a citizen of catholicism.

It was Peter theil who got Vance his seat, not Ohio catholics. Ohio isn’t a swing state anymore

And it should be noted that behind the confessional seal a respected figure, speaking with the authority of religion tells these people to stop. Catholics don’t throw forgiveness around willy nilly, it’s called penance for a reason, they demand change. Does it happen? Usually not. But there is social value in confession of faults and sins and being told that one can and is expected to do better

They don’t, but the neofascist movement loves the aesthetic of catholicism. Its why Vance converted. In fact I’d say that pointing to Vance and Biden as the two sides of modern American catholicism is a reasonable framing (we’re gonna ignore the catholic workers because though their deeds are great, their numbers are few).

I’m not catholic anymore but I’m getting real sick of people who converted because they like the vibes the religion had in the fucking 1500s.

That’s not new, that’s how most communes work. Check out examples like Twin oaks

I’ve seen 5’4" middle aged women and I’m not surprised one was the most vicious soldier you’ve met. 40 years of demanding to be taken seriously make one tough