I was going to walk away, but I do feel like I want to clear up one misconception. (After this I actually am going to leave this conversation.)
When I describe MO, I am describing it as a hashkafa. I believe that if you are going to take on the identity of a group, you may as well take on the hashkafa, or to be honest you’re being robbed (unless you have a different hashkafa, I suppose). Anyone can be lax, anyone can be chilled, anyone can pick and choose- I know chassidish, yeshivish, MO, Chabad, etc people who do all of these things. It is only when I see MO DEFINED by its laxity that I speak up. When there is no reference to the fact that it is an actual hashkafa and not just a get-out-of-jail-free card. After all, even if you were to define MO by a spectrum of mitzvos kept (which I would think is a mistake, to be honest, as there are other factors), the unifying factor would be the hashkafa. And that’s what I’m trying to emphasize here- that MO doesn’t MEAN laxity, that there is more to it. It can include those who are lax in the name of MO- I’m aware that this is a large sociological category in MO- but it is not only this (and, of course, many of these people do subscribe to the hashkafa as well). It can also include those who have different standards than yeshivish and chassidish people based on the advice of their rabbanim, it can also include people who from the outside look identical to your average yeshivish person, and it can include people in between.
But as what I’m saying doesn’t seem to be helping matters much, I’ll leave this here and withdraw.