{"id":29107,"date":"2026-10-06T16:30:44","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T23:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/?p=29107"},"modified":"2026-10-21T16:31:31","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T23:31:31","slug":"perhaps-zealots-should-be-driven-out-of-public-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2026\/10\/06\/perhaps-zealots-should-be-driven-out-of-public-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Perhaps Zealots *Should* Be Driven Out of Public Life"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>About the drops in crime and conservative fears, two items;<\/li>\n<li>A Christian influencer says he met Jesus, who&#8217;s a hunk;<\/li>\n<li>The weird thinking of Samuel Alito about what he thinks is &#8220;religious liberty&#8221;.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"center\">&#8211; &#8211; &#8211;<\/div>\n<p>In spite of conservative fears, crime is dropping. A recurring theme.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2026\/09\/26\/multimedia\/26nat-crime-midterms-zctj\/26nat-crime-midterms-zctj-jumbo.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=avif\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>NY Times, 30 Sep 2026<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/09\/30\/us\/politics\/crime-midterm-elections-north-carolina.html?unlocked_article_code=1.G1E.y9I4.iusrlY2zLQGB&amp;smid=url-share\">\u2018It\u2019s Not an Issue\u2019: Crime as a G.O.P. Line of Attack Loses Traction<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;Across the country, especially in the North Carolina Senate race, Republicans have charged opponents with being soft on crime, even as crime rates plummet.&#8221; [gift link]<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A central line of attack in the waning weeks of the 2026 midterms comes straight out of the tried and true Republican playbook: Democrats are soft on crime.<\/p>\n<p>But as crime rates plummet across the country, it\u2019s been a hard case to make. In Michigan and Georgia, North Carolina and Texas, Republicans have struggled to pull voters back to the violence and disorder that followed the onset of Covid-19.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\\\\<\/p>\n<p>But we can always scare conservatives with talk about crime.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.axios.com\/dORVKLAJqZJeFpaElzU47jyAtyw=\/1920x1080\/smart\/2025\/03\/19\/190612-1742411172967.jpg?w=1920\" width=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Axios, today<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/local\/chicago\/2026\/10\/06\/trump-chicago-crime-homicides-decline-pritzker-johnson-national-guard\">Trump says Chicago crime is worsening as homicides decline<\/a> (via <strong>JMG<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.joemygod.com\/2026\/10\/demented-liar-lies-about-crime-rate-in-chicago\/\">Demented Liar Lies About Crime Rate In Chicago<\/a>)<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>President Trump is again raising the prospect of federal intervention in Chicago, saying the city is suffering an \u201cunprecedented\u201d crime wave that\u2019s \u201cgetting worse by the day.\u201d Trump\u2019s renewed focus on Chicago comes as the city is on pace to record even fewer homicides than last year, when killings fell to their lowest level in 60 years.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Trump is lying, of course, as always; he&#8217;s riling up his base. But he&#8217;s tapping into a bias in human nature &#8212; to think the worst of everything, to be afraid. And I&#8217;ve said this before: if there were only *one* violent crime in the nation on any given day, conservative media would promote it as a story about how liberals are soft on crime, or whatever. Conservatives do not understand rates.<\/p>\n<p>\\\\<\/p>\n<p>No, he didn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!OlJG!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2cb2e56c-3dee-4109-b95f-a8fba65eee65_1200x670.png\" width=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Friendly Atheist, Hemant Mehta, today<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.friendlyatheist.com\/p\/a-christian-influencer-says-he-went\">A Christian influencer says he went to Heaven and met a testosterone-fueled Jesus<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;Gabe Poirot says he met a fiery, muscular, intolerant Jesus. Fox News is helping amplify the story.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>If you believe this, you are living in a fantasy world.<\/p>\n<p>\\\\<\/p>\n<p>There is something weird here about conservative thinking.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.joemygod.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/SamuelAlito2026-1-660x330.png\" width=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>JMG,<\/strong> via <strong>ABC News<\/strong>, <strong>today:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.joemygod.com\/2026\/10\/alito-calls-obergefell-ruling-perhaps-the-decisive-point-in-our-nations-turn-against-religious-liberty\/\">Alito Calls 2015 Obergefell Ruling \u201cPerhaps Decisive Point In Our Nation\u2019s Turn Against Religious Liberty\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, the devout Catholic conservative who has long warned of animus against religion in America, says in a new book that he believes the court\u2019s landmark decision extending marriage rights to same-sex couples was \u201cperhaps the decisive point in our nation\u2019s turn against religious liberty.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I can&#8217;t parse this. How does he believe extending marriage rights to same-sex couple is *against* religious liberty? Does he think that unless his own religion is imposed upon everyone, his religious liberty is constrained?<\/p>\n<p>Consider this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cIn dissent from that ruling,\u201d he said in the 2018 address, \u201cI expressed my worry that equating the expression of certain views with bigotry \u2014 or, if you like, with dignitary harm \u2014 would drive believers out of public life.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Squinting&#8230; so he&#8217;s concerned that laws that respect the dignity of all human beings, all that stuff about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, about all men being created equal, would *drive believers out of public life*? And that&#8217;s why such laws are against religious liberty??<\/p>\n<p>Actually, that would be a good thing. We need fewer zealots (religious or otherwise) in public life, and more reality-based rationalists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>About the drops in crime and conservative fears, two items; A Christian influencer says he met Jesus, who&#8217;s a hunk; The weird thinking of Samuel Alito about what he thinks is &#8220;religious liberty&#8221;. &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; In spite of conservative &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2026\/10\/06\/perhaps-zealots-should-be-driven-out-of-public-life\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,16,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservatives","category-culture","category-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29107"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29112,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29107\/revisions\/29112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}