This is probably going to be a quick one because I don’t think I have to say much about it. This comes from a video over on Paulogia’s channel, where Seth Andrews makes a point at the very beginning and then it launches into a discussion.

Unfortunately, if you just change “Christian Nationalist” to “progressive” in his statement, it still means the same thing. So I’m going to link to the video below and will quote what Seth said, but it’s amazing just how self-unaware these people are. They’re all doing the exact same things!

First, here’s the video if you want to watch it. I’m going to quote the relevant parts, at least the parts relevant to what I’m talking about, afterwards.

Secondly, here’s the relevant part from Seth. It might help to just have it here to refer to:

Let me throw this out since we’re going to attempt more nuance. People have a difficult time with this, but the perpetrators of bad ideas can, at the same time and in the same space, be victims of bad ideas. And I am amazed at the resistance I get to that. When someone goes out and they’re a Christian Nationalist and they are, I don’t know, they’re doing and saying some really bad things. Many are not aware of the environment that they came out of, the conditioning, the indoctrination, the cocoon, the shell, the conspiracy stuff that is their normal. When did we lose the ability to say yeah, they’re doing great harm, but we also have to understand the antecedents, right? The things that came before that produced the agent of harm and see them also as victim.

I’ve made this case before, that, especially with, say, Catholic priests and apologists, that they are often victims of their religion, even though they are demonstrably doing harm. Catholic priests are stuck in an eternal cycle of unnatural celibacy, to the point that they are going to make use of whatever resources they have at hand, namely young children, to fulfill their natural sexual needs. A lot of Catholic apologists will shill for the church because they believe that its teachings are true, when all they are doing is funneling money right up the chain to the higher-ups who are living high on the hog. Are they victims? Absolutely. Should we feel bad for them? Often, no.

Sorry, but we need to hold people accountable for what they do, no matter where the bad ideas came from. There comes a point where you can’t keep pointing fingers and saying “it’s their fault!” No, it’s your fault. You need to be able to think for yourself and be responsible for your own actions.

But if you went ahead and just changed “Christian Nationalists” to “progressives” in Seth’s speech, it wouldn’t change the meaning at all, would it? Because yes, I think a lot of progressives are victims of the stupidity they’ve had fed into their heads from a young age. There is every bit as much childhood indoctrination on the far left as there is on the far right. You’ve got an entire educational system in the United States dedicated to implanting these left-wing ideas into every child that passes by. Are they victims? Yes! Should we hold them responsible for figuring out the mind poison in their heads and being better? Damn straight!

The problem on both sides is the same. Neither can see that the ideas in their heads that have been forced in there without their rational consent are bad ideas. They are harmful. They are destructive. They are not remotely realistic or coherent in objective reality. They take advantage of people’s natural needs and desires. They offer community, if only the victim will hand over their money and autonomy and intellectual honesty to the cause. It’s all inherently victimizing!

Yet none of them can see it that way because both sides are taught never to ask any questions. Never have doubt. Just believe because otherwise, you’re a bad person. These aren’t bad people, necessarily, they are just brainwashed. Can we stop pretending otherwise? I know that neither side will ever acknowledge that they are doing the exact same things they criticize because they don’t care! They ought to though and it’s time we started holding everyone accountable for the nonsense in their heads. It’s the only way that the world is going to improve. Otherwise, it’s going to be mind-poison all the way down and that can never be acceptable.