Earlier today, while I was at the gym I read an article that deeply disturbed me. I often find myself to be as Bill Maher says “In the bubble” but not the conservative one he always speaks about, the liberal bubble. The bubble where you think, come on, can anyone seriously buy the latest load of bull the right is serving. I often say the only thing I share with most conservative is my faith, even though my faith doesn’t prevent me from respecting another person from having a different one, but reading Randy LoBasso’s article “Elephants in the Room: 10 Things I Saw, Heard & Learned at the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference, Wherein conservatives descended upon Camp Hill, Pa., for a GOP love fest.” I realized, like the separation of church and state makes Rick Santorum queasy, a herd of 800 self-righteous elephants in a room would have made me more than just a tad queasy. And by the way, am I the only one who almost always falls into the trap of Godwin’s Law when I see the term “Leadership Conference”.
Reading through the 10 items in the article, I could feel my blood boiling. Of course I understand why conservatives dislike unions. I mean telling someone who claims everything is about liberty that you have to consider the needs of your workers as well as your shareholders is never popular in that crowd. I hope I’m not the only one who has a little chuckle when the right claims they are only looking out for the taxpayers, you know by forcing the taxpayers who work for them to take lower wages, less benefits in order to save taxpayers money while increasing business profits. I mean you are always free to get a second, or third job, but don’t expect my bottom line to be affected by the needs of your family. This rant could go on forever, but let me get back to my favorite one of Mr. LoBasso’s list; number 3 “The Imperfect Union”.
Mr. LoBasso states how Pennsbury School Board VP Simon Campbell, another one of these great conservatives whose idea of liberty doesn’t extend to labor, was especially up in arms during his speech. When explaining how conservatives need to “stop being so nice about unions” a sheer understatement, if you follow the labor policy of conservatives throughout the nation, he stated:
““I mean, what we need to be doing is remembering [that we have a] God-given right to liberty. When George Washington was going across the Delaware, he wasn’t saying, ‘You know, King, freedom’s a good idea and I’ve got a bunch of statistics to prove it.’ No. He was like, ‘Freedom’s a good idea and I’ve got a gun to prove it.” (http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/news-and-opinion/cover-story/144432635.html?page=1&comments=1&showAll=)
Guns to prove it, we all know how far conservatives will go to protect our gun carrying fellow citizens to use their firearms. One only has to look at the recent killing in Sanford, Florida of Trayvon Martin, whose freedom to life was taken from him because someone felt threatened by a black teen in a hoodie walking through his neighborhood armed with skittles and an ice tea. That’s all we need, more people in the country to prove how much they love freedom with their guns.
Besides that one point, the article does go through some pure comedy of how the right actually thinks. I mean anywhere that Newt Gingrich, Hermann Cain, Rick Santorum and Grover Norquist, or as I like to call him the man who Republicans have pledged your vote to, can be taken seriously in a room is definitely not a place for me. I mean don’t get me wrong, I’m not a delusional liberal who does not understand where they are coming from. I try to put myself in the mindset of conservatives when I think about certain issues, so I know what I am going up against. However, watching the news lately, writing about these issues and trying to get more involved I am just exhausted defending myself and those whose cause I take up from the right. I mean when all you have is the three G’s of Conservatism (God, Guns and Gays) to drive the platform because you have no answer but “The Market, The Market, THE MARKET” for the economy what do you expect.
I love irony and satire; it’s probably why I find conservatives so interesting. But, I’m tired of defending myself from the self-righteousness of Conservatism. I know compassion is as foreign as the meaning of Religious Liberty to them, but I am losing my faith that Conservatives will ever become more than Orthodox Christian Nationalists, terrified of any change to their precious system of control. However, that is for a later article.
Randy LoBasso’s article can be found at http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/news-and-opinion/cover-story/144432635.html?page=1&comments=1&showAll=
