"Only now is the child finally divested of all that he has been. His origins are become remote as is his destiny and not again in all the world's turning will there be terrains so wild and barbarous to try whether the stuff of creation may be shaped to man's will or whether his own heart is not another kind of clay."
— Cormac McCarthy (Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West)
I'll be straight: the difference between the left and the right has never been mere policy. We and they are not comrades in an argument over how to best provide. The left and the right fundamentally disagree on what people are worth.
We believe human life has a fundamental value.
They do not.
We have a foundation on which we can build our moral values. Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Atheist, Pagan, Zoroastrian, WHATEVER WE MAY BE, we come to the same conclusions on the important of human compassion, equality, and dignity, because we each believe that human life is worth something, and we've taken the time to think about what that means
They are nihilists.
Remember that. When a Republican politician comes out and suggests tax cuts for the rich and slashing medical care for the poor, it's because he thinks human life is worthless. Doesn't matter what holy books he reads. Thinks human life isn't worth a damn. He looks at human suffering, and he just doesn't give a shit.
When some pundit sneers, "liberal," what he's sneering is the fundamental value of human life.
Carry that with you. Behind the politics is a fundamental philosophical war being waged on human decency itself, and its being waged by those who perceive they have something to gain from the utter degradation of human life.
That's what it means to work for less and less as the highest ups make more and more. You don't deserve more because you couldn't take it.
That's what it means when there's a war on health coverage. Human life ain't worth saving.
That's what they do when they throw people in private jails for smoking marijuana to be used as slave labor.
That's what they do when they throw people in jail without trial or jury, when they torture and maim the minds of those already deprived of their physical freedom
That's what they advocate when they want to throw the LGBT community to the hyenas, from the time they're children in our schools to the workplace and beyond.
The Kochs and their little social club employ a whole industry whose sole purpose is to obfuscate the meaning of their agenda, by portraying their vision for our country, and our world, as technical solutions to technical problems, rather than a concerted agenda to make us cheap, marketable things. Our counterattack should now, as always, be our impeccable moral fiber. We all need to remember this. Our language, our politics, our conversations, need be laden with the rich chorus of our values. People who vote republican, these are our brothers, cousins, neighbors, coworkers. These people are fundamentally all-right. This is a fight for their salvation as well as ours, a fight for America's soul, and it's one we need to win. They already believe what we believe: that human life is worth something. We're all footsoldiers in this war, and no messianic figure can win it for us.
The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.
-J.R.R Tolkien