There's a lot that's wrong-headed in the recent Integralist hit-piece, but the conclusion has really stuck in my craw. This sort of political vision of "just be faithful and things will work out alright" is the epitome of tin-eared nonsense.

First, more generally, this is basically the prosperity gospel. It's replacing Joel Olsteen's transactional model of "devotion and charity = wealth" with "devotion and charity = problems taken care of." If only you prayed and were more charitable, your lives would be better.

There's a true insight there, but it's unrealistic as presented. Some (many) problems require a systemic solution. Having generous good ole boys in one's parish ain't going to solve those. Devotion and charity must be exercised in a systemic fashion, corporately.

And sometimes, it's a corporate exercise of devotion and charity needed to deal with seemingly individual problems. Don't think because a problem looks local, it requires only local help.

Let me get more specific.

I'm wheelchair bound. Can't lift more than half-a-pound. Shouldn't overexercise. You can imagine the kind of complications that can arise from that situation. But I'm not in need of 24-hour nursing. I can feed myself, but can't cook. Can't bathe, but can go to the restroom fine.

My primary caregivers are my parents - my 60 year old father and 55 year old mother. We are blessed to have found an attendant willing to work for the few hours of physically intense caregiving - the bathing and dressing bit.

I'm not in the hole. But I know how close I am to it. Finding attendants is difficult. It's not a matter of finding good ole boys at the parish. It's difficult, intimate work, but very simple, unskilled work (at least for my situation - those needing nursing are different).

And when the attendant needs off, its my parents who bear the load - even just one day of bathing and dressing full grown man is difficult for a 55 year old woman. I have a younger brother out of state, trying to start a family and guilt-ridden over having "left us".

All I need is one of these pieces to fall out and the whole edifice that is my life can come tumbling down. I hope that's clear. I live only steps away from falling into the hole.

The problems I have - thankfully more or less solved for the moment - are not solvable by simple acts of kindness. It would require someone (someones, really) of heroic virtue, the kind we literally raise to the altars, to take this on out of personal kindness.

However, the problems can be dealt with in a systemic fashion. We can shape a society that fosters caregiving. We can ensure good work is found with one's family. We can develop stronger local bonds.

We can DO this. But it requires WE do it. We can't just think it'll happen.

How do WE do it? Through society. And when society is actively guided to a goal, we usually call that a State. If we don't have that type of guidance, we're not doing anything. We're presuming things will work out. That they'll just happen if we be good.

And if we're left thinking that - that if I just pray hard enough, my mother does enough work at the Church, and Dad tithes properly, the right people to take care of me will show up in my life - that's called presumption. Presumption is a sin.

And that's what Patterson's "Republican Virtue" is amounting to. Presuming things will be okay if we just stop worrying about systemic issue. And you know what, it will be okay. For the strong. But for the weak among us, well, better hope those strong folk have heroic virtue.

This is not abstract reflection on political theory for the likes of me. It's being able to see a path that cares corporately for weak and poor a like, and then being told by the strong (or the lucky) that I don't need to worry, one of them will just happen to help me.

For me, this is why conservatism as we know it, is bankrupt. At base it's pure will to power with a veneer of homestyle living. The ideology, and by extension those who unthinkingly parrot it, don't care about me or those like me. They care about the strong being strong.

FTR, I'm very pro-strength. But strength is made perfect in service. It's hard to admit I'm the second half of that formula, not the first, but that's the glory God gave me and it's taking me time to learn to love it. https://twitter.com/tomasdiaz88/status/1137060168393535489?s=20