“You have no idea what anyone here has “contributed”, and the sanctimony you display while you deride others for the same is laughable.” [Captain Walker, post 169]
You’re absolutely right that I’ve no direct knowledge.
But I can bet the odds, after having accumulated at least a little knowledge of how people behave. I spent years grubbing about in the the trenches, we might say. The metaphorical trenches, mind you; for a long time, I labored behind the scenes to help those who were required to enter real trenches, improving their equipment and their training. Those practitioners are the reason the nation stands; they hold all of the rest of us (including moralizers) in their hands.
As a self-appointed moralizer, you claim complete, final, and absolute knowledge of everything - or at least the things that matter (according to you). All your protestations and assertions are but to say, “I know more than you do, so my moral code is better, and therefore I own an unlimited right to tell you lesser mortals what to do. You have an unlimited responsibility to obey. And you are not even permitted to question my diktats - if you dare, you will be banished from the community.”
My ego isn’t quite expansive enough to allow me to aspire to such sweeping authority. Most of my professional life, I was required to concern myself with somewhat less exalted and rather more grubby realities.
Many examples could be given, but here’s a simple one: if a space rock falls from orbit and hits you on the head, the results will be serious. Nothing in your moral code will save you.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/08/opinion/teachers-guns-schools.html
Another example I stumbled across minutes ago.
My surmise is that most forum members will look on this as an illustration of flaws in Left/Progressive worldviews.
I consider it a wider-ranging admonition: about how unwise it might be, to trust our security - our very fate - to self-appointed moralizers. And to the chattering classes in general.
Draw your own conclusions.