Monday, May 5, 2014

How to Tell a Conservative: A Guide for Liberals

I heard the other day about the concept of an Ideological Turing Test, that is, an attempt by a conservative to write an essay from the liberal point of view such that the liberal could not tell that it was written by a conservative and vice versa. It got me to thinking: so much of what I hear from liberals about what conservatives are and what they believe ring a bell with be. Not even a little one.
So, I took it upon myself, as an intellectual exercise, to figure out a way to describe conservatives such that I might understand how liberals see me and those with similar views. As such, this isn't really a guide FOR liberals as an attempt to create a guide BY liberals.

So, right off the title is either a lie, or a deliberate misrepresentation, which is fairly liberal in and of itself. I'm off to a good start.

So, here we go:

You may have noticed in your perusal of thr daily news that there is a group of people in this nation who go by the sobriquet "Conservative." You may also have noticed that their thoughts and ideas are not like those of normal people like you and I. Some of them hide it better, but in the end, they are all filled with hate and Koch-fueled rage. This is a guide to better identify them, so you can avoid interacting with them as much as possible, that their ideas may wither on the vine and die without spreading the sick seed of fascism.

1). Conservatives Hate Women.

A conservative may claim to love women, but in reality, they make every attempt to subjugate them. Even conservative women hate women, though it must be noted that they are not really women so much as incubators for the babies the patriarchy demands from them. This is apparent from the fact that so many of them are forced to remain at home and raise children, rather than seeking the fulfillment that a professional career would offer them.

Occasionally one will escape from their sequester in the seraglio and conservatives will point to them as "proof" that they don't really hate women, usually by fawning over them and showering them with undeserved praise. They are usually of little to no real accomplishment, and can be easily identify as either insane, like Michelle "Crazy Eyes" Bachmann, or stupid, like Sarah "I Can See Russia From My House" Palin.

2). Conservatives Hate Minorities.

This is easily noted by the fact that they feel obligated to parade a few token minorites in front of the rest of us in order to try to persuade us that they are not racist. They fawn over a few "celebrity minorities" just like they fawn over the few women that agree with them. Look at the way they "showcase" Mia Love, Bobby Jindal, Nikki Haley, Herman Cain and Allen West, just to name a few. Like a few Uncle Toms is a convincing argument against their racism.

The truth is, every policy they promote hurts minorities more than any other group. They want to get rid of food stamps, which will take food out of the mouths of minority children. They want to institute Voter ID to combat non-existent voter fraud, which will hurt minorities who will be unable to afford the card. They want to stop immigration, which will hurt minorities all around the world who are yearning to breathe free.

They even want to racially profile air travellers, in a quixotic quest to promote, they say, "national security." What they really want is an opportunity to harass people with skin colors other than white.

3). Conservatives Hate Children

You wouldn't think this, with the way they make their women spawn, but they do: They want to stop healthcare programs like SCHIP and close down public schools so that they can get kids into their religious schools and indoctrinate them with taxpayer funds. Sure there are a few bad apples in the public school system, but should we through the whole barrel out because of those?

Of course, they will claim they don't hate children and point to their "pro-life" position. But really, that's so obviously a front for their desire to control women it's not even funny. I mean, with all the childrens' programs they want to shut down, why should we believe they care any more about fetuses than about the kids that have already been born?

And really, you would think that with as many kids as they pump out, they would be more willing to pay for the programs needed to raise and support them. But that brings us to something conservatives hate most of all.

4). Conservatives Hate Government.

For all the lip service they pay to the Constitution, you would think they would just LOVE the government it set up. But that would be incorrect. Conservatives want nothing more than to whittle away at government funding until there's nothing left but the military and the border patrol. They seem incapable of seeing all the good things the government can do, like providing universal healthcare and making sure all of our kids eat healthy meals.

Heck, the government took us to the moon and back, didn't it?

As the richest, most powerful nation in the world, don't we have a duty to make sure eeryone has their fair share? Shouldn't everyone have access to healthcare? Shouldn't everyone have an equal opportunity? Those are all things we need government for, and they are all things conservatives would take away, simply to satisfy their need to tear down what smarter, wiser people have built up. It's a nasty urge, resulting in nasty words and deeds from, frankly, nasty people.

"But is there anything that conservatives love?" you ask. Of course, there is. Those things just happen to be destructive to peace and order and the American way of life.

1). Conservatives Love Guns.

Though it is blatantly obvious that the Second Amendment refers to a COLLECTIVE right to bear arms, conservatives insist that it is an INDIVIDUAL right. They want unfettered access to any sort of guns for anyone who wants one. Of course this ends badly. We end up with school shootings and massacres in office buildings where peaceful people should be able to work safely.

They claim that they NEED assault rifles to protect them against tyranny, but seriously? Do they really think the U.S. government is tyrannical? (Hint: the answer starts with a 'y' and ends with an 'e-s.') And despite this foolish notion, they expect that a few of them with assault weapons will be able to stand up to the full force of the U.S. military.

Seriously, the rash of gun violence in our inner cities should prove to them that we need to get rid of firearms and just let the police take care of the bad guys.

2). Conservatives Love War.

This is pretty apparent from the way they rushed this nation into Iraq and Afghanistan and then proceeded to turn them into quagmires so deep that only a brilliant, dedicated Progressive could get us out. It's obvious from the way they treat the prisoners of war in places like Guantanamo Bay that they also really get a thrill from torturing people of color. It seems like they're always rushing into long protracted wars against Asians and Arabs. The only white country they've supported a shooting war against in the last hundred years was Germany. All the rest have been against smaller nations populated by people with darker skin. Racists.

And obviously, they get us into these wars to support another one of their great loves.

3). Conservatives Love Money.

Whether they are starting wars to support their pet defense contractors or hoarding it away wher it can't be used to take care of the less fortunate, conservatives are greedy, selfish people who wouldn't spend a dime to get help their own brother out. Are we, or are we not, called to be our brothers' keepers? It's obvious Progressives think so, hence the support for programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, Food Stamps and the Affordable Care Act. Conservatives want their money and don't want to share it with anyone else.

And worse, they use their vast wealth to make MORE wealth and to elect public officials who will pay them off through corporate welfare and favorable laws, like the Koch Brothers do. This pay-to-play system is a hallmark of conservative billionaires. They think their money entitles them to more speech than everyone else. They even bend the laws to give corporations the same rights as people.

Greed is greed and it is a founding principle of the conservative movement.

4). Conservatives Love Religion.

Yes, conservatives love religion. That doesn't mean they're religious, or that they follow the dictates of their professed faiths, but that they like to use their doctrines to hammer everyone else into compliance. A good example of this would be their homophobia in opposing gay marriage. Really? Does their God approve of discrimination and hate? Or are they just trying to impose their own views on others via the vehicle of the church?

And not only do they tend to favor just one religion, Christianity, they are pretty selective about which flavor of Christianity is acceptable. I mean, the Catholics hate the Methodists hate the Presbyterians hate the Episcoplians hate the Lutherans and on and on and on. And EVERYONE hates the Mormons. So much for brotherly love!

In the end, religion is just a way for conservatives to spread their poisoned beliefs and intolerance without thinking they should be called in it.

In the end, it's obvious that conservatives are not who they claim to be: They are mean-spirited, petty, intolerant people who really have no place in the political discourse of this nation. If you can spot them, you can stop them. The best way is by shaming them and calling them out in front of everyone, so that the whole world will know exactly what they are. Make sure they are shunned, so their sickness has no opportunity to spread. And though this may seem a bit intolerant, we should remember that the only thing we can't tolerate is inolerance, itself.

NOTE: There was actually an article that set me off on this, I forget what or where. There was a reference to the Holocaust, and I believe it was some liberal somewhere comparing their current "plight" to the Holocaust, because, you know, Conservatives Are Nazis and shall be painted as such at every opportunity. What I do remember is this sequence popping up in my mind: How do you know if some one is a conservative? They speak approvingly of the Holocaust. This matched with the idea of an ideological Turing test just made sense. I had to leave the original inspiration out, though, because it was too over the top, even for a liberal. Well, MOST liberals anyway...

2 comments:

  1. We also love the Spanish Inquisition, which is something rather unexpected, so your omission of it is excusable.

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    Replies
    1. Darn it, I KNEW you were going to say that!

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