Scientists studying honeybees have learned a lot about how a swarm decides where to locate its hive. The decision is critical, because a wrong decision can leave the hive exposed to deadly winter weather; therefore, bees need an effective voting system that reliably and efficiently yields their optimal hive location. …
The conservative right loves to use the term “family values” as a token cover for their backward bigotry. Used in opposition to abortion, gay rights, or even the increase of women in the workplace, “family values” summons a particular image of the conservatives’ imaginary era of perfection and bliss.
Many people refer to this image as a real time, probably somewhere in the 1950’s; “the good old days” when men worked to support their families, women stayed happily in the home with the children, no one divorced, and no children ran off to live renegade alternative lifestyles tainted with wanton sodomy, teen pregnancy, or drug abuse.
We may have even heard older people reminisce about “the good old days” in terms that make the time seem authentically wonderful: “no one locked their doors”; “neighbors looked after each other”; “marriage meant something back then”; “it was a simpler time”, and so on.
Even if we don’t buy into the conservative agenda against basic equal rights, we may concede that the world has become a much more frightening, complicated place, and that a time period such as the allusive 1950’s seems preferable, even tantalizing.
Unfortunately, no amount of regressive activism on the part of Republicans can return us to a grander time, because those “good old days” simply never existed. I like comedian Lewis Black’s take on the shiny 1950’s ideal:
…“It was called the ‘50s. The wife cooked and raised the kids and sent the husband off to work, where
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In 2004, George Bush was reelected. We can debate endlessly over whether or not he stole that election, but it’s beside the point for this rant. Besides, four million popular votes seems like a big wad to steal.
What we need to figure out if we want to have any possibility of turning this misdirected ship around is WHY SO MANY PEOPLE VOTED FOR THE REPUBLICAN RIGHT? Not even just Republicans–there are decent Republicans that I would support (Arlan Spector comes to mind, as does a pre-2004 John McCain)–but the rabid fundie far right wing of the party, the wing that is destroying it and trying to turn this country into something like a theocracy.
So what was it?
The factor listed by most exit polls in Middle America was–is–Moral Values. Not in California or the Northeast corridor, but in the Heartland.
Moral Values.
I had thought for a long time that the issues driving Bush supporters floated between abortion, school prayer, and taxes. I’m now not so sure tax cuts are that important–these people have got to realize that if Bush continues his policies, at some point a huge bill is going to come due.
The furor over gay marriage in the last months of the campaign underscores the exit polls. Moral Values.
If I thought the votes were driven by the deep morality stemming from a Kantian apprehension of the nature of the right, the good, and the universalizable as determined by a focused application of the categorical …
I’d like to do another riff on the science and religion thing, so bear with me. I largely don’t bother going on about this issue anymore, except in those instances where there may be an audience of undecideds.
One of the things about Americans in small groups is that by and large we will listen and we will weigh what we hear before making up our minds. It comes down to the slickness of the rhetoric or the overwhelming honesty of an argument. That’s on us, we who bother to make such arguments. It helps to remember that we do this for those who haven’t made up their minds yet.
Evolution vs Creation Science. The arguments are settled, the science is in, there’s no real dispute except on the Culture War Front. Evangelicals simply don’t like the program. When the truth destroys a cherished myth, print the myth. An old newspaper adage from the 19th Century.
We’ve been having this crap now for a couple of decades at least, in Kansas back in the 90s, and the issue is well-enough known and the stakes thoroughly understood by enough folks on both sides that anyone moving to circumvent the Supreme Court decision (Edwards vs Aguillard, 1987) is doing so with the knowledge that they are being duplicitous. They have decided that, as they cannot win their case on the basis of fact and reason, and since they believe they are right and everyone who disagrees with them is wrong, any tactic …