Kevin Drum gets it and succinctly presents it:
When the subject has anything to do with sex, the right in America is the party of moral absolutes. We know what's right, we know what's wrong, and even if there's a price to pay we can't shirk our responsibility to set a proper example and do the right thing.
But when the subject is torture, suddenly it's all about carefully weighing the costs and benefits. Having an honest debate about how far we should go to protect ourselves. Understanding the context of what happened. It's just not possible to flatly say that waterboarding and sleep deprivation and stress positions are barbarisms unfit for use by a civilized country. It's much more complex than that.
Funny how that works, isn't it?
Moreover, when it is about being pro-life, it is about abortion only. It has nothing to do with health care reform, adoption, social services, poverty, etc. When it is about the economy, it is only about keeping those markets free that actually help GOP prospects and investments such as oil, pharmaceuticals, and insurance. The trickle down never really gets to the small business or helps workers who have no representation against corporate powers other than unions. The right to carry and conceal firearms is absolute even though most people probably would handle a weapon improperly if they found a need to draw it in a situation of intense anxiety, pressure, and danger.
It is the most conflicted, irrational, and dishonest political posture that continues to tell us that it represents conservatism. Yet it is a base that continues to represent only the most wealthy of entrepreneurs who got there by chewing up someone beneath them. Why do I make that assertion? It is the nature of capitalism without restraint.
Before we fear monger Marx as the source of fascism and 20th century communism, we must read him for what he actually wrote. His passion was for the exploitation of the worker on the backs of whom the rich rode their way to prosperity. It was sparked by the torrid working conditions of Manchester factories. It is the story of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle before immigrant labor reform – labor on which the modern economy was built and without whom prosperity would never have come to pass. For Marx, the Manifesto was a turning of the tables where moral social responsibility for the person working next to you was as important as the fruits of your own labor. If those basic principles of a synthesis of social balance and mutual regard and obligation to the other are wrong, then who really wants to be right?
HT: Daily Dish
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