In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
B in the great post below about an Oregonian example of power corrupting mentions a comment I made in response to his post about conservative hypocrisy.
At the time the comment was just a stream of consciousness rambling and was meant to be tongue in cheek. Reading it over it sadly isn't that far off the mark, so I thought I'd elevate it up to the main page:
Conservatives and the need for law and societal stigma
I'm beginning to feel that liberals really don't understand conservatives. Yes some times conservatives are projecting, but sometimes, from their point of view, they are exactly right.
They condemn liberals because liberals try to reduce the stigma of divorce. Now, conservatives say "people will just get a divorce when they feel like it." Liberals just think that is insane but for conservatives it may be accurate. It is stigma and laws that keep a conservative in line. Nothing else.
Conservatives want many religious mores to become law. Why? Because if they are not law the conservatives will break them. Thus you have the religious moral conservative drunks gambling away their child's college money at a sleazy casino. "but... sniff... if only things like that were illegal. Then I wouldn't do it."
The whole "Personal Responsibility" line is the greatest projection in political history. Liberals are saying "make it legal, if you don't like it don't do it." Conservatives say "I don't like it, make it illegal." But what they don't say, but in their hearts they know it to be true, "I don't like it, make it illegal, make it stigmatized or I will do it."
Even when things are fine and decent, but their teachings have hang ups about it (say like homosexuality), the conservatives get angy and liberals get confused. When the right fights against gay marriage and says things like "it'll lead to people marrying animals." Liberals look at them like they are insane. But the religious right is very concerned, like most homophobes they are insecure of their sexuality, and want to keep homosexuality stigmitized (and better yet, wouldn't it be great if it was illegal) so they can keep themselves on the straight and narrow (as they see it). They are so self-unaware, so without personal control (relying on social, religious, and legal control) that as far as they know they themselves might marry dogs.
Hypocracy is the sin to teens, when they are filled with rightious power. Hypocracy to adult conservatives is a way of life; it is because they are fearful of themselves. They say we are above animals but in their dark hearts they think of themselves as horribly base, needing laws and peer pressure to keep them inline.
Its all so horribly sad.
- rob 9:59 AM - [PermaLink] -
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