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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 16, 2025

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While I don't believe Cruz is stupid (based on his background, he is probably one of the most intelligent members of the current batch of leadership amongst the American right, although to be frank I think there are some genuinely not very smart people amongst them so perhaps I'm being too charitable due to who I'm comparing him with), the one thing that I genuinely thought was pretty 'stupid' in this interview was his inability to engage with the issue of whether the polity of Israel in 2025 is the same Israel referred to in the Bible. His arguments elsewhere were not particularly 'stupid', they were just occasionally dishonest or misleading, but in this one instance he seemed to be genuinely confused as to how two things that have the same name and are somewhat similar in 'type' couldn't be the same thing.

Also, even one accepts that there is a Christian duty to support the Jewish People, and that supporting the modern state of Israel is an extension of that duty, does that really require one to enthusiastically approve of every single act of depraved lunacy that comes belching out of the Israeli military-intelligence complex? Especially when those acts stand a high chance of getting regular Israelis and Jews killed. I’ve never seen anyone seriously suggest that supporting America means having to happily support the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, Operation Northwoods, or dosing random businessmen and hookers with LSD.