Conservative values in action
For all of the GOP's talk of the importance of "values" - most often "conservative values", "family values", "Judeo-Christian values" or even "conservative Judeo-Christian family values" - nothing provides a clearer illustration of the Republican party's true values than the actions and voting records of its elected officials.
On that basis, Republican demands to hammer the poorest and most downtrodden people in the state of California the hardest during the recent budget impasse speak volumes about such conservatives' true commitment to "Christian" values.
Out goes funding for drug treatment programmes, in come more new prison cells to house the addicts who now won't get treatment. Out goes redemption and forgiveness, in goes punishment and revenge.
The social safety net for the chronicly unemployed gets ever-thinner while Reaganesque charicatures of urban (read: minority) "welfare queens" are trotted out once again, largely for the emotional edification of angry white men listening to AM radio.
The environment (i.e., "God's Creation")? Screw it. It's probably only a few years until The Rapture anyway, so who cares?
And on and on and on.
Well, if Dawkins has somehow got it spectacularly wrong and there actually is a God who plans to recall en masse the morally righteous and pure of heart come the chosen hour, it sure looks like there are going to be a hell of a lot of disappointed Republicans "left behind" when it happens because of their rather un-Christ-like stance towards society's untouchables. From the poor to tax collectors (!), those who, according to the Bible, Jesus went out of his way to befriend and defend are the very people conservatives seem to hate most.
Come, Armageddon, come.
On that basis, Republican demands to hammer the poorest and most downtrodden people in the state of California the hardest during the recent budget impasse speak volumes about such conservatives' true commitment to "Christian" values.
Out goes funding for drug treatment programmes, in come more new prison cells to house the addicts who now won't get treatment. Out goes redemption and forgiveness, in goes punishment and revenge.
The social safety net for the chronicly unemployed gets ever-thinner while Reaganesque charicatures of urban (read: minority) "welfare queens" are trotted out once again, largely for the emotional edification of angry white men listening to AM radio.
The environment (i.e., "God's Creation")? Screw it. It's probably only a few years until The Rapture anyway, so who cares?
And on and on and on.
Well, if Dawkins has somehow got it spectacularly wrong and there actually is a God who plans to recall en masse the morally righteous and pure of heart come the chosen hour, it sure looks like there are going to be a hell of a lot of disappointed Republicans "left behind" when it happens because of their rather un-Christ-like stance towards society's untouchables. From the poor to tax collectors (!), those who, according to the Bible, Jesus went out of his way to befriend and defend are the very people conservatives seem to hate most.
Come, Armageddon, come.
Labels: conservative values, religion, Republicans
posted by Steve | 5:38 PM
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