Spectrum vs. Binary: a Discussion on Conflict with Ideas and Not Sex, by GuerrillaLogistician
Reference – 17C
By GuerrillaLogistician
@glogistician on X.com
Dominic was raring to go as he joined up with the other partisans. Months before he joined up with the local contras, his sincere liberal brother had been snatched up in raids and branded a traitor to the community. Jose was no traitor at all to the cause of these people. He had even supported them even to the point of ignoring complete falsities. Everyone on the left knew that there was a spectrum of conflict and to respect other people’s practices when it came to fighting the fascist coalition that sucked America’s soul away. According to Jose, he didn’t endorse violence, but he would support human rights in any way possible within the confines of what he thought was just. He had told Dominic this many times as they argued politics over the years, and Dominic pointed out how awful some of the extremists on the left were. Jose would always counter with, he was not endorseing violence, but he would stand against the evil these people were fighting. They were always just a little too over the top for Jose, though, and he made it clear he wasn’t a man of violence, even if some were. Jose would say it was just a small group even when Jose went to the same protests early in the day, and by the evening, violence and “ACAB” was being yelled as bricks flew. By then, Jose was home and would read the Bible with his family, and while he didn’t support the police, he didn’t think they were all bad.
Dominic and Jose ultimately thought they were both good Catholics, although Jose had been attending a Methodist Church for several years. While Dominic was in the army, he would regularly clash with his brother’s political beliefs when he came home on leave. Eventually though the arguments got to a point, Dominic decided not to come home as much and save for a small area of land away from the city he grew up in. Everything from comments like systemic racism to gender-affirming care caused a conflict that Dominic could never understand. Things changed for both of them over the last year, with violence increasing and Dominic leaving the army for a higher-paying job and less political nonsense. He had no real reason to go home anymore, especially after his parents had passed away. His parents had left the small family home to Jose, Which, honestly, Dominic didn’t mind because he didn’t see Jose really pulling out of his rut in life and acquiring his own home. Not that it was easy for Dominic to get a home either, but he figured with his savings and forward-thinking, he’d be in a better position over the years. Even though he ideologically opposed his brother, he still loved him very much and understood his brother would take care of the family home they both cherished.
As the social structures broke down, though, Dominic knew what side of the conflict he would end up on and moved to a more rural town. The better-paying job didn’t hurt in deciding to move away from the city he called home. In fact, the location suited Dominic, and the smaller town meant he really knew and became friends with his neighbors. He was far more comfortable with the community and the church he was going to now. Although not Catholic, it was nondenominational, and he felt they had a better pulse on the world than his former Catholic upbringing. He felt like the degeneracy of the United States was about to blow up in their face, even though his brother thought it was fascism that was going to destroy it. Jose protested and marched, and Dominic was pretty sure that if you weren’t a true believer in God, no matter how messed up his beliefs may be, he would have fallen into a much more aggressive group, possibly Antifa. Jose was never one to engage in violence, but Dominic didn’t know his brother as much anymore.
So it became quite a shock to get a call from his neighbor saying that his brother had been snatched up and the house had been sacked along with other Christian houses in his subdivision. The neighbor, a childhood friend, had wanted to move away like Dominic but hadn’t gotten a break in life and still lived with his parents. News broadcasts had begun to push out the narrative that locals were fed up with fascist sympathizers after a trans child was found dead in a home near where Dominic and Jose lived as children. Their parents had put up a fairly large cross outside their house when the two were kids, and it had only been taken down after both their father and mother had passed. Even though the sun-bleached paint left the echo of the cross on the building’s front wall, Jose hadn’t wanted to be known primarily for his faith and routinely flew the new flavor of pride flag on the family home. Come to find out from the neighbor, the child in question had committed suicide after being bullied, apparently. The narrative, however, was that Christians had murdered this child.
Dominic had gone through several steps to meet up with the local resistance population after the faithful phone call, realizing he had waited too long to really get involved and push against the madness. He should have