Here's something to think about on this Labor Day weekend of 2020.
One way of discerning between liberal and conservative values in America is to ask this question: is violence against property more......or less?..... demanding of police protection than violence against persons? This should not be a difficult ask.
Liberals will instantly say persons are more valuable than property. Conservatives may have to stop and think about it awhile.
Of course conservatives know the socially acceptable and politically correct answer. But in their minds, especially if they have invested heavily in property and in profits, the idea of sacrificing them for people rather than sacrificing people and their human rights (uh, to earn a fair and just wage for their labors) for the sake of their own rights to property and profit seems, well, unAmerican. By history (the word "slavery" ring a bell?) that was true.
And then there was Jesus.
Let's consider Matthew 21:12, Mark 11:15, Luke 19:45, and John 2:15. Jesus turned over the property of the religious profiteers in the Temple courtyard!! Maybe even damaged it in the process!! Am I wrong? Yet, he never laid a hand on the people themselves. May have chased them away with a whip, if we take John's word over that of the synoptic writers.
But Jesus ...... yes, the Christ of so-called conservative Christian evangelicals .... valued people above property. Sacrificed property to protect people. Treasured human rights above property rights.
And so?
So for us to do otherwise should for us as Americans seem, well, unChristian. By history (the word "slavery" ring a bell?) that was true.