it's really hard to explain to people who don't live here how incredibly jarring it was to see the events unfold yesterday, not just because the events themselves were shocking, but because it completely upends the entire psychic geography of this place

fortress DC is, it turns out, a complete myth. and one that for the last 20 years we've been increasingly asked to put up with for... no reason at all?
and the response to this is going to be to double-down. to believe in the myth even harder! to give up more under the promise that that's what's needed
I biked through the capitol complex and past the white house everyday for 5 years. yesterday, with totally insane confidence, I said to my wife 'oh, those assholes will get fucked up if they mess with USCP. Those guys don't fuck around!'
because they don't fuck around... to a random bicyclist who strays slightly off the approved path. Or to someone with a bottle opener on their keychain. Or one of the million other reasons people who live here are routinely and pointlessly harassed
and you put up with it because 1) you have to (they're the guys with the guns!) and 2) because you buy into the belief that they do the petty shit because they're so locked in, so ready for anything, so mission-focused, so blah blah blah
but no, I guess not. They wilted. They do the petty shit because it's easy. And they don't do the hard shit because either they couldn't or didn't want to
so, that's where we are. It sucks. and because they wilted, the answer will be to get harder. to fortress up even more. to claw back even more space until the myth that more space is what's needed to Keep Us Safe
I'm sad and I'm shaken and I'm filled with apoplectic rage. So yeah, that's that.

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Imagine if Christians actually had to live according to their Bibles.


Imagine if Christians actually sacrificed themselves for the good of those they considered their enemies, with no thought of any recompense or reward, but only to honor the essential humanity of all people.

Imagine if Christians sold all their possessions and gave it to the poor.

Imagine if they relentlessly stood up for the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner.

Imagine if they worshipped a God whose response to political power was to reject it.

Or cancelled all debt owed them?

Imagine if the primary orientation of Christians was what others needed, not what they deserved.

Imagine Christians with no interest in protecting what they had.

Imagine Christians who made room for other beliefs, and honored the truths they found there.

Imagine Christians who saved their forgiveness and mercy for others, rather than saving it for themselves.

Whose empathy went first to the abused, not the abuser.

Who didn't see tax as theft; who didn't need to control distribution of public good to the deserving.

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