Bits and pieces of this diary clipped from a piece originally posted on Motley Moose.
This is really just a rant, but I’m sick and tired of reading about Republicans and morality, as if they have some sort of divine right to claim the use of the term. Rarely has there been such a collection of immoral bastards, but they’re touted by many as the party of “values.” Whose values? We tend to think of morality as being what is good and right. It can also be defined as conformity to conventional and generally accepted rules of right conduct. So society determines that – and yet, a party which opposes things that much of our society supports gets to pretend to be some kind of paragon of virtue (in spite of all the scandals and lying and and and…). And often gets away with it to boot.
Only about 15 percent of Americans believe that abortion should be illegal in all cases, yet pro-forced birth Republicans pretend to speak for what is right and moral in regard to reproductive rights, and some people seemingly concede the point. They represent clearly, in my view, immoral viewpoints on a plethora of topics and issues, and yet somehow it’s Democrats and liberals who are more frequently perceived as having loose morals? Republicans generally support revoking a woman’s right to choose what happens to her own body, promoting or overlooking institutionalized racism, cutting spending for public works and programs that help disadvantaged people, opposing fair pay, preventing LGBT marriage and equality, dissolving unions, privatizing pretty much everything, preventing a large percentage of the population from having access to health care, letting corporations run wild at the expense of the public, maintaining and in some cases even strengthening the death penalty…
So why do Republicans get to claim the high ground morally, despite sinking so low in everything from policy to tactics? Is it just that they’re better at controlling the narrative?
Something sets me off on this topic almost every day, but here’s what did it this morning. From Des Moines:
Five Republican presidential prospects Monday professed before an influential audience of Iowa evangelical conservatives how religious faith ought to blend with public life.
But some of the five potential candidates who spoke to the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition's spring kickoff event in Waukee balanced their calls for a more conservative moral code with appeals for unity across the conservative spectrum in trying to solve the nation's vexing economic problems.
Des Moines Register
“Conservative moral code” – isn’t that phrase a little oxymoronic? Certainly the policy positions being used to sway evangelical voters are moronic:
They include issues that resonated with the audience at the evangelical, theater-style suburban church: reinstating policies banning federal spending on international organizations that provide abortions and allowing doctors and nurses to refuse as a matter of conscience to perform abortions.
[. . .]
Gingrich and Pawlenty drew on the Declaration of Independence to support their arguments that government service and religious faith have been intertwined since the nation's inception.
[. . .]
Pawlenty also hit the themes of opposing abortion rights and gay marriage, a particularly hot issue among conservatives in Iowa, where the state supreme court struck down a statutory gay-marriage ban in 2009.
Des Moines Register
This is just a huge pet peeve (well, more than that really) of mine, that the party of bigotry and sexism is viewed by so many as the party of good morals. To my eyes, they represent a very morally deviant mindset. It seems to me that if the GOP can be seen as morally superior by much of this society, then this country has a pretty perverted sense of morality in some cases.
Maybe it is just a matter of the way Republicans seem to consistently seize and control the narrative. Just the way they convince people that Democrats are slack and weak on national security, they manage to convinced dull-minded individuals that they are out to defend good “values.”
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, former Govs. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and Buddy Roemer of Louisiana, and radio talk-show host and former politician Herman Cain touched on hot-button social issues during Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition's presidential forum Monday, Politico reported.
[. . .]
"If you turn your backs on the pro-family, pro-life constituency," national Faith and Freedom Coalition head Ralph Reed said, "you will be consigned to permanent minority status."
Gingrich, the biggest name at the event, ripped President Obama, saying the president is indebted to the "secular, socialist left" and that a change must come.
UPI
Pro-life and pro-family? It’s pro-forced birth, and only pro-life from conception till birth, at which point the child and the family can screw off and be on their own, regardless of circumstances. The fact that people believe their lying tripe is ignorance piled upon ignorance, and “immoral” to the extreme. Frustrating as all hell, and I’m sick of this garbage.
I was really looking forward to watching the Republicans duke it out during the upcoming primaries -- lying, smears, sleazy tactics and all. But on second thought, I'm not sure I can stand to watch that collection of pasty assholes fight over who has got the more conservative moral values.
/rant