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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   32319 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023

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Back when the US had military conscription, did any significant fraction of Christian churches in the US protest against it? WW1, WW2, the Korean War, the Vietnam War... all of these were wars of choice for the US. We can argue about the morality of the US participation in these wars and whether conscription was justified, but we can just as well argue about the morality of covid lockdowns.

Would the church protest if the US government brought back conscription for the sake of fighting some war of choice?

If Christendom does not protest against its own sons, and the sons of others, being conscripted into wars of choice, then I do not see why it would protest against the much milder infringement on freedom posed by covid lockdowns.

The US catholic bishops were pretty strongly opposed to the Iraq war and one can assume that’d be a better predictor of their future behavior than Vietnam.

That is interesting to find out about. Are Catholics in the US generally more anti-war than Protestants are?

Catholic religious leadership is typically more outspoken and less beholden to a particular party than Protestants are(see also abortion), and has a long history of being opposed to wars of choice(Vietnam opposition had a lot of priests in prominent positions).

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