Nothing monumental in this diary. I've just been doing a lot of cogitating on the hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance that define modern "conservatism."* So I thought I'd make a little list of the most blatant ways the right wing doesn't really believe its own (supposed) principles.
This diary is intended as a forum for Kossacks to add their own examples. I'll get us started, but I look forward to seeing what the community can contribute.
Follow me below the fold.
*I've put "conservativism" in quotes because they aren't really conservatives -- they're pro-corporate, fanatical, statist authoritarians. A much different animal.
If "conservatives" weren't hypocrites:
- they wouldn't claim government is "evil" and/or never works while at the same time trying to limit the rights of defendants facing criminal prosecution -- probably the most stark occasion when the power of government attempts to impair individual liberty.
- they wouldn't argue for "small government" while trying to expand the power of the state to snoop, search, spy and seize.
- they wouldn't argue for "small government" while trying to pump more and more money into the "defense" budget.
- they wouldn't claim to be for "free enterprise" and against government "hand-outs" and then argue against cutting weapons systems on the ground that so many jobs depend on defense contracting.
- they wouldn't be "pro-life" yet against generous government funding of child health care, day care and all the other social expenditures that actually help real, live children (and their mothers, whom they want to damn to child-bearing after an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy).
- they wouldn't decry liberals' supposed ethical relativism while supporting capital punishment, support that has to shrug off the absolute certainty that some innocents will be wrongfully convicted and executed.
- they wouldn't claim to be anti-communist while simultaneously opposing all attempts to limit trade with China on human rights grounds.
- they wouldn't decry Obama's health care reform as "socialism" and "un-American" while claiming to be all for preserving Medicare.
- they wouldn't claim they're for "freedom" and "liberty" while working so hard to limit the freedom and liberty of gays and lesbians to marry whomever they want.
- they wouldn't claim to be for the "little guy" and "small business" while promoting policies that are heaven-sent for mega-corporations.
- they wouldn't claim to support religious freedom while insisting that we're a "Christian nation" and our government should govern according to (their favored interpretation of) the Bible.