I am not a political analyst. Nor am I a games theorist, although I come from a family full of them. But there seems to be a pattern in the odd funding battles currently being fought by Federal House Republicans.
Defunding Planned Parenthood is a high profile battle that seems pretty silly. For 1/6 the price of a single stealth bomber, Planned Parenthood provides birth control, pap smears, breast exams, STD treatments and other health services to millions of the poor and unenfranchised for a year. No tax money has gone for abortions since the 1970’s, so this service is not actually the issue.
Well, unwanted children help keep prisons full. Or become likely infantry assets (cannon fodder). They also keep the crime rate up, allowing the Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt crowd a tighter control over individual rights.
Also, knowledge is power. Planned Parenthood works hard to try to educate young people on how to get out of the young-breeder cycle and build more fulfilling lives. If conservatives could just get this unregulated source of pure information away from the young, then church indoctrination would provide the Quiverfull of Christian soldiers at the voting booths.
Defunding Public Broadcasting is a less publicized issue. They argue that NPR and PBS may have been a necessary part of the dial back when there were three networks. But now there are hundreds! So who needs just one more paid for by taxes?
Well, in the old days, there was one non-commercial educational network on the dial: PBS. Now, with hundreds of stations to choose from, there is one non-commercial educational network on the dial: PBS. Why is this a problem to conservatives?
Well, the cities are a lost cause. With inescapable multiculturalism, a high rate of college education, and exposure to a wide variety of influences and media, cities tend toward a liberal bias. Knowledge does that. But out in the boondocks, the only fly in the otherwise completely conservative Christian ointment is the centrist (“bleeding heart liberal”) influence of Public Broadcasting. If they could only get rid of that, they’d control all the channels.
Conclusion: Republican Policy is Ignorance is Bliss: Cut programs accordingly.
Dan-
Seems to be another expression of the right's long-standing anti-intellectual bias. When you have a party which features some of their dimmest bulbs (e.g. Sarah Palin) as their brightest lights, these types of funding priorities are inevitable.
So, via recent discussion with my father, he argued that military bases and intervention worldwide was necessary as it is biblically foretold.
I cannot help but wonder if this is the teachings they receive in church, and that users Bush and his military regime were heralded as hastening the day of our Lord.
It seems to me that he articulated perfectly the conservative rhetoric: why bother with diplomacy and infrastructure and economy and the poor? Why bother bringing our troops home? World turmoil is biblical so there is nothing we can do about it.
I love my father, but I am not afraid to call a far right indoctrinating bluff when I see it…
TheThinkingMan: You'll find Max Blumenthal's behind-the-scenes video interesting. He taps into the conservative right's hair-trigger urge to go to war, to preserve Israel, to allow these right-wing Christians access to heaven. This excellent video is a few years old, and it's before right wing convention organizers starting taking more measures to make sure that Blumenthal was not allowed into their conventions. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-blumenthal/rapt…
This is a recurrent theme on the right- see also Bush's apparent belief that he was fulfilling the biblical prophecy of Gog & Magog by invading Iraq.
I wish we lived in the kind of society that did not rely on the words of shepherds from thousands of years ago when it comes to foreign policy, or any policy, for that matter.
Why, after all this, anyone should wonder at the necessity to keep religion out of government baffles me.