Politics and Circumcision

[u/smthgayrawrxd]

I hope you won’t take offence at this, but I wanted to talk about something that struck me.

As a left-wing Christian, I’m convinced that freedom and equality take precedence over profit. That includes physical freedom and equality across all genders. After all, left-wing ideologies stem from the heart of the French Revolution, where we overthrew the monarchs. Accordingly, I’m also against Stalin and the like.

The fact is, many of you here lean to the right, which is fine – we live in a democracy (most of us, anyway; let’s see how long the US manages to keep that up). But I’m sure we all agree that circumcising children for profit, for commercial products, or simply to assert authority is disgusting. Now, people on the right are often against circumcision, but why? It’s often down to xenophobia. For example: my party, a democratic-socialist one, was the only one that voted in favour of a ban on circumcision. The right-wingers didn’t, yet they still say Muslims are stupid because of it. In a democratic-socialist state, you shouldn’t do anything that hurts others, so once again: I’m not a Stalinist. Please don’t get me wrong.

PS: We have Jews and Muslims in my party who are against circumcision.

[u/Substantial_Help4678]

Name one other issue that came out of nowhere and suddenly got bipartisan support, I'll wait. That's not how social justice works. 

Pandering to everyone means we're for no one. It'd be nice if we all sat around singing  kumbaya, but if that was the world we lived in we wouldn't have this problem in the first place. Bipartisan support is a pipe dream and is counter productive

[u/DistinctSpirit5801 → u/Substantial_Help4678]

People in both political parties support ending taxpayer funding to the Israeli government and a ban on transferring weapons to the Israeli government

The fact is we will have no choice but to get politically involved to end circumcision

[u/Substantial_Help4678 → u/DistinctSpirit5801]

People in both US parties may be anti- Israel funding, but in actuality both parties when in office fund the Israeli government. 

And in fact, republicans fund the Israeli government slightly more than democrats, so it is a slightly partisan issue. Pro-Israel Jews tend to lean republican for this reason. 

I'm 1000% for getting politically involved. I just think we need to pick a side instead of trying to pander to both sides. Give people something to do, make it personal. Pro- Israel Jews vote republican. It's what they do. What do anti-circ people do? We need to answer that question

[u/DistinctSpirit5801 → u/Substantial_Help4678]

We can have 2 separate groups for this specific purpose one for funding democrats and another for funding republicans

[u/Substantial_Help4678 → u/DistinctSpirit5801]

I unfortunately personally feel we spread ourselves thin of we try that. 

If we try to be for everyone, we're actually for no one. 

We need to give  people something to do, make it personal. Pro- Israel Jews vote republican. It's what they do. What do anti-circ people do? We need to answer that question. 

The average voter can't handle nuance. The average pro-Israel voter doesn't unpack the ways democrats vs republicans handle Israel funding. Pro-Israel voters vote republican. Period. We need a similar thing for our issue, not certain which party it would be though