One more quick word about implications of @USAGSessions#zerotolerance policy & how high level policy can affect parenting & childrearing, this one unrelated immigration:
A couple of weeks ago, my 8th grade daughter came home from school & told me about assembly they had about sexting. She's public school kid & school does this kind of thing from time to time.
But she's upset this time, really shaken by it. I was taken off guard too b/c school usually warns parents ahead of time. So she & sit down to talk.
The upshot is that regional US Attorney came to warn kids that if they get caught sexting, b/c of #zerotolerance she no longer has freedom to prosecute it as anything other than child porn.
My daughter isn't upset by topic per se. She knows sexting is wrong. She *knows* it's a problem. But she's just been in a room of 12, 13, 14yos who've been threatened w/ incarceration & being listed as a sex offender.
(Aside: All while @USAGSessions' boss is a man who made $ off pornography & strip clubs. Parenting is weird & tough in the Trump era.)
Of course, we need to deal w/ sexting, but policies that cannot take individual circumstances into account (including age) are policies that will destroy the weakest & most vulnerable.
My daughter's take away: "Kids who are already doing stuff never listen to these kind of threats. The only ones who listen are the kids who are trying to do what's right & it just scares them & makes them nervous."
I tell that story to make point that policy decisions filter down. You may feel removed from them... until suddenly you're not.
As a Xian parent, I take it in stride to a degree. We're always walking through some cultural challenge w/ our kids. What's surprised me is that the current cultural challenges strike at the heart of Xian concepts of mercy & grace.
Trying to pass on Xian worldview to my kids has meant actively resisting "law & order" language as well as ethnonationalism. The challenges come from both right & left.
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Like many in US, I've been watching the #KavanaughHearings closely. I don't know what happened or didn't happen 36 years, but I do know what I'm seeing now & quite frankly, it's not good.
As a conservative woman, I've spent the last couple of weeks agitated, uncomfortable, & confused. I couldn't put my finger on it. I support both survivors & due process, but something's been off.
Yesterday, I finally found words for my agitation & then I read this article this morning & it confirmed what I've been struggling with. washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/styl…
@DanielM89245832@SHoddeMiller@KSPrior@lkoturner For starters, evangelicalism prioritizes individual experience of God & faith. But marriage & sex are inherently communal acts. So evangelicals define marriage as 2 people (man & woman) in covenant & prioritize nuclear family.
@DanielM89245832@SHoddeMiller@KSPrior@lkoturner But marriage is something much larger. It is something that two individuals enter into, not simply w/ each other but w/ the entire community. They are married to each other, but their marriage is linked to every other person around them.
@DanielM89245832@SHoddeMiller@KSPrior@lkoturner Also, evangelicals tend to de-emphasize our physical life on this earth. But marriage is designed for this life & *these* bodies. It is not primarily an esoteric, mystical union. It has very earthy goals that will not continue into heaven.
At least this is the logic that Paul uses in calling husbands to love their wives--care for them the way you care for your own body. Care for them the way Christ cares for his body.
Purity culture works on a completely different logic. It calls you to hate & distrust your body.
So politics & controversy aside, to what extent do Gorsuch & Kavanaugh picks represent the old power/new power tension?
Trump is decidedly new power & has been shut out of old power structures his whole life. Gorsuch & Kavanaugh graduated from same prep school & Ivy Leagues.
So you've a decidedly new power president nominating old power judges. Was *this* the true exchange of 2016 election?
Do not underestimate the significance of the elite context in which the alleged events occurred.
These teens were being prepped for high power positions from childhood. The path to #SCOTUS takes a lifetime & that's part of the reason it's difficult to entertain these claims.
But access to that kind of wealth & privilege comes w/ its own challenges and responsibilities.
Good morning, ladies & gents! It's Monday. So let's *ease* into the week w/ some thoughts about Christine Blasey Ford's accusations against #SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh:
(FTR, you're watching restraint at work here... waiting until Monday 8:45am EDT instead of posting yesterday when Ford came forward. Sabbath, people.)
1. W/ all the hot takes swirling right now, I'm situating these thoughts in context of Xian ethics through lens of redemption.