The Conservative Mind

It not easy being from the middle.  You would like to think that one takes ideas from both sides of the isle and use what is best to form a more perfect union.  But just like that phrase itself, working toward a more perfect union is become more and more difficult.


It is no secret that we are a more polarized electorate than in any time in recent history.  With that polarization comes ideology that is to one extreme or another.  Don't get me wrong, the liberals have their own set of crazies out there.  I understand that we are not all going to live in a Utopian society where everyone gets along and shares everything.  There is no such thing as money and somehow magically everyone gets what they need.  I also don't think that we are going back to riding on horses as a primary mode of transportation any time soon and unicorn transportation is just not going to happen.


But the real craziness comes from the right.  If there ever was decorum in a debate the right has thrown that all out the window.  After reading several right wing articles recently they begin their discourse by saying that liberals refuse to use facts while debating; this before even making a point themselves.  It's difficult to begin a debate before one side even makes a statement.  To attack the credibility of any possible statement opposing point made by your opponent before it is stated violates all the rules of common decency and discourse.  That gets to the crux of why the right is dangerous.  The conservative mind doesn't want to take a stand and they don't want the other side to attempt to debate.


The second aspect of the conservative mind is treating the rest of us as if there is no context to their thesis.  They accuse the left of one or another obscure failure or another while not acknowledging that their side often created the mess.  For example, former Vice President Dick Cheney likes to point out every misstep by President Obama while he himself created the hole our current administration is digging out from.  One of our own generals finally called out Mr. Cheney by saying that he has no right to speak as the architect of one of the worst foreign policies in modern times.  Conservatives refuse to recognize that it takes a lot longer to pull out of a war than it takes to declare one.  They refuse to understand that it takes a lot longer to recover from an economy that has gone bad than to watch it, as the previous administration had done, sink into the worst recession since the great depression.


In a matter of fact, Barack Obama's entire administration has been largely defined by having to dig out of the crater that the last administration had created.  Yet conservative commentators like Bill O'Reilly asked within 90 days of the Obama administration taking office why he was unable to turn the economy around.  O'Reilly, no idiot just knows that his viewership is.


The conservative mind pretends to care about America and the economy but in reality has found the one weakness in our form of government.  It takes two, sometimes three branches of our government for something to happen.  If you are in charge of one of those branches of government and decide to do nothing, nothing happens.  We don't have opposition in this country by the conservatives, we have a party that simply refuses to participate.  So if you have been out of work or are just sympathetic to those who have been, our recovery, which almost no one thinks is happening too quickly is largely the byproduct of those who refuse to act.


The conservative mind can't share credit.  The Affordable Health Care Act was by and large the product of the conservative mind.  In a matter of fact is was  conceived by a conservative think thank and implemented by a conservative governor in a liberal state.  You would not know that by the way they have treated it when presented by a black liberal president.  If it is not their idea it is bad for America.  There lies the truth:  If the conservatives don't do it, than there is no merit to it.


The conservative mind claims to be all for personal freedoms and capitalism until it goes against what they believe.  They have been trying to tell women what to do with their bodies for generations.  Ignorant statements by one governor or senator or congressman too numerous to recount would propose the clock be set back on woman's health nearly a half century.  They believe in free market capitalism until it goes bad for them and then they are all for bailing themselves out.  They are firmly against welfare claiming that those who are down on their luck should simply pull themselves up by their bootstraps until it is their corporate buddies who need a handout.  It is then just good business and political preservation.  The latest fraud perpetrated by the right is that they are trying to sell us on accepting that conservative religious freedoms are being trampled and therefore others' personal freedoms can be placed in jeopardized.  There will be much more to come on that one. 


So if you can't get health care, thank a conservative.  If you are a woman and cannot get access to the services you require, thank a conservative.  If you are desperately trying to find a job and your unemployment benefits run out, thank a conservative.  If you are wondering why a stimulus package cannot be passed like it had been in all other previous modern day administrations, republican or democrat, thank a conservative.  If you want more of the same, vote republican this fall.