----- Original Message ----- From: "Dave Land" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, November 04, 2004 1:38 AM Subject: The Magic Ingredient?
> Folks, > > The secret weapon of the neo-conservative movement is > self-righteousness. > > Pick a /behavioral/ minority, label them immoral, and whip up the > "moral majority" with Bible verses that seem to justify their > marginalization. > > It fueled the extraordinarily high number of voters citing "Moral > Values" as the top issue informing their election choices, especially > where referenda to ban gay marriage passed. "We're RIGHT, dad-gummit, > and don't you liberals give us any lip, either!" > > The Republican party has long brilliantly played on the all-too-human > desire to think ourselves better than others. They pick issues that > justify pitting a self-righteous majority against a minority that is > labeled "morally corrupt," so that the rest can cluck their tongues and > wag their heads and feel superior. Which, of course, is a significant sin in the Bible. With all due respect, I see irony here. Let us suppose that we are just as likely as our more Evangelical breatheren to be self righteous, fool ourselves, etc. This doesn't mean that we shouldn't have the courage of our convictions; we should. It does mean that we need to be in dialog when we can...particularly with the overwhelming majority who are willing to use the political process instead of violence to get what they want. (I'm thinking about the difference in a reasonable reaction to those who fly planes into buildings vs. those who support different candidates.) > In the Reagan era, it was "single mothers" and "welfare queens." I well > remember my mother-in-law proudly trumpeting the fact that they had > eight children, but *they* never had to ask anyone for a hand-out. You > could practically smell the self-satisfaction. I don't know about your mother-in-law, but for many folks who struggled to get by, a measure of their sucess was that they could, through belt tightening, be self reliant. They did take pride in achieving that goal. Further, it is reasonable to think that the drastic rise of children born to single mothers represents a step away from that attitude. At the very least, a significant portion of that number includes fathers who do not take the support of their children as a primary responsiblity. Did I support Reagan's views? No, I did not and do not. I abhored and abhor the simplistic explainations for why people are on welfare. However, I'm also opposed to simplistic explainations for people who are bothered by it. Among other things, it decreases the chance for dialog; with two camps who accuse each other of being sinners. > Next, it was abortion, an easy segue from single moms and welfare > queens. Again, as most women have not had an abortion, they counted on > and found a self-righteous majority who could be easily manipulated > into thinking themselves superior to women they portrayed as shiftless, > selfish baby-killers. And the beauty part for them was that they could > wrap it in carefully-selected (generally misleading) Bible verses, to > make anyone with a different opinion into a sinner. Hmm, you mean that it is impossible to reasonably use "love your neighbor as yourself" to deduce that you are morally oblidged to make killing your neighbor illegal? > Now we have bans on gay marriage. With unambiguous-sounding > anti-homosexual "proof texts" in both the Old and New Testaments, and > with an easily-marginalized target group, it's a slam-dunk. Because > homosexuality is biologically determined, it is practically impossible > for straights to imagine wanting have homosexual relations. It is > literally unnatural for the straight majority, which makes it that much > easier for them to dismiss homosexuals as morally corrupt. Easy to feel > superior to what must be a bunch of hedonistic perverts. I don't think that the opposition to gay marriage is really that. Many people see the family as the foundation of society; the foundation of their own lives. To have an unelected court redefine this definition strikes at the bedrock upon which they base their lives. Look, I favor the shift...I favor gay marriages. But, I also listen to those who oppose them, trying to understand their viewpoint. I try to find common ground and argue from there. > So what now for Democrats? Maybe play the game. Peter Gomes, in the Good Book, has some very worthwhile observations. He thinks that social movements lost their traction when they moved from being concerned with morality to being concerned with politics, interests, and entitlements. They stopped arguing from common ground at that point. In a sense, recent movements have been infected with post modernism...where right and wrong are merely tools of political self interest. I can usually enter into dialog with my more conservative brothers and sisters and speak to them in a manner that they here what I am saying. I also work very hard to hear what they are saying. I see a vast difference between what I hear and the descriptions of their viewpoints that I see on this list. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
