Last night I wrote a comment in the open thread about how conservatives stumbled through a portal from another dimension, where their bizzaro-reality actually exists. Trickle-down Economics actually worked and people only had sex for procreative purposes. I was writing it on the fly, and lost my train of thought and just decided to end the story half way through.
I want to elaborate further on the thinking behind that comment. I'm consistently blown away by the cognitive dissonance and prideful ignorance on display when I read conservative comments on Facebook, blogs and news sites. For the past few days, I've been feeling a rant building up and I need to let fly with some free-range truth. I'm still writing on the fly, but I'm not going to quit halfway through :P
Conservatives' view of reality (our reality, since Republicanland Narnia doesn't actually exist) is entirely based on fiction. Their economic policies, their social agenda, environmental concerns, everything. They are completely divorced from reality.
Trek to the far side of the orange squiggly to read more.
Paul Ryan, the newly minted VP pick and, arguably, the "brain" of the national Republicans at-large, has publicly admitted that his ideology, his political point of view, is based on the writings of Ayn Rand, a Soviet expat whose life experiences (hello, Soviet expat) gave her a particularly rosey view of capitalism and business leaders. John Galt, the hero of "Atlas Shrugged", is a paragon of mankind who beams sunshine and rainbows when he smiles, and he shits puppies that smell like bakery-fresh cinnamon rolls. Ayn Rand's businessman heroes can do no wrong, but everyone else is always out to tear them down. Because evilness or something.
Capitalism is a fine thing, taken in moderation. But so is Socialism. Ideally, we would like to exist somewhere in between the two. Somewhere where an innovator like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates can succeed wildly, and where conmen like Ken Lay and Jamie Dimon can't ruin peoples' lives. If an economy is a kid sitting at a table, Capitalism demands that he eat as many Twinkies as possible as fast as he can. Socialism on the other hand, demands that the kid eat only nutrient paste, and only at the appropriate time, determined well in advance. I would argue that the ideal system is one where the economy-child indulges in Twinkies occasionally, but also eats his vegetables, because a diet of just Twinkies will kill you, and a tightly-regimented diet of just nutrient paste will make you dead inside.
The point is, capitalism is not inherently good. If riches fell from the heavens, and no one wanted for anything, we would not need capitalism. It's just an economic system made up by people. It's one of many types of engines that move society forward. But to keep the engine running at peak efficiency, businesses need regulating (put that Twinkie down!). Businessmen are not defaultly paragons of their community. A lot of them are sleazeballs, and they need to be watched. But those intellectual observations are lost on people who dedicate their professional lives to the hyperbolic musings of a fiction writer like Ayn Rand, to whom capitalists can do no wrong.
Her fiction is poorly thought out, her characters are about as deep as a mud puddle, and her I-got-mine-so-screw-you, altruism-is-bad world view is completely antithetical to living in civilized society. I would question the morality and intelligence of anyone over the age of 13 who still professed such views. That the public figurehead of an entire political party (Ryan) does so is mind boggling. Approximately half of the voting public follows a man who is inspired by the fictional writing of an amoral sociopath. That should set off alarm bells in everyone's head.
Speaking of morals, conservatives love to profess their committment to "Christian values" and, presumably, the Bible. Now, I'm sure there are Christians among us, reading and agreeing with and writing our liberal comments here on dkos, but can we all agree or at least consider the possibility that the Bible is not a factually accurate retelling of history? It's fiction... a collection of metaphors and fables like those told by Aesop or Plato. There is nothing metaphysical or supernatural about the universe. There is no Heaven, there is no Hell. Noah never got on a boat with two of every species of animal on Earth. A person's sexual preference is not inherently evil or sinful. Eating lobster and wearing a polyester-cotton blend t-shirt aren't either.
Jesus was a fine fellow with great ideas, even if he was just a guy. He said to feed and clothe the poor, tend to the sick and infirmed, turn the other cheek rather than seek vengeance, etc. But why is it that the most vocal of his professed followers, the conservatives, ignore the most basic of his teachings? Take a look back at what I wrote about Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand and Jesus are diametrically opposed. If Ayn Rand and Jesus lived at the same time, Ayn Rand would punch Jesus in the face! Yet conservatives profess to follow both!
The truth is, conservatives don't care much for Jesus. They're hypocrites. They say "fuck the poor" and "sick? die quickly." And boy do they love to seek vengeance. When was the last time a conservative turned the other cheek? Has a conservative ever turned the other cheek? They love Deuteronomy and that other junk though. They gobble that stuff up. Who even wrote that stuff? It doesn't matter, because it's not the word of God, so can we stop blindly following it like it is? God's not going to scoop you up because Benjamin Netanyahu conquered Jerusalem. Jerusalem's just a place, built out of metal and stone, that has belonged to many different groups over time. It has no special significance beyond that. So can we stop blindly supporting Israeli manifest destiny and Israeli apartheid?
Can we stop basing our decisions on millennia-old writings which are based on a translation of a translation of a translation and borne of a time when people were fundamentally ignorant of mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, astronomy, geology, etc.? We don't dance around for rain because it pleases Osiris... why does Jehovah get special treatment, Rick Perry? If we want to avoid devastating droughts, it's up to us to be the caretakers of our environment and our resources. There are no supreme beings to do it for us.
The sooner we stop coloring our views with superstition and stop treating fiction like fact, the sooner we can see our real problems more clearly, and intelligently, logically, begin to solve them.
I'll leave you with a bit of levity that sums up my thoughts a bit more succinctly.