Wherein I rant about stuff that has been ranted about many times before
I’m sick and tired of the hypocrisy of the Republican Party. These politicians preach about how government is too big and intrudes too much into the everyday lives of average Americans through taxes, regulations and oppressive laws. They say we need to privatize utility companies, open up all business to the “free market” and allow the “natural order” of the world to take effect. People will be free to live their lives as they see fit and spend their money as they choose and as a result the world will be a better place.
Sounds good, but hold on a second. It’s not so clean cut, because if someone wants to get an abortion after being raped, those same Republicans want a law against that. If a teacher believes creationism is a crock of shit and chooses not to teach it, those Republicans want to step in and remove that teacher. If a journalist thinks she might sell some newspapers in the “free market” by publishing a few pictures of caskets coming off a plane from Iraq, those Republicans think the government needs to stop this in order to “protect Americans.” If two guys living down the street decide to get married, Republicans think we need to outlaw this in the name of morality. Be it stopping people from burning flags or smoking marijuana, the Republican’s idea of “reducing government” is a lie.
Today it’s stopping the American Medical Association from revoking the licenses from physicians who, refusing to perform abortions or dispense emergency contraception to patients, don’t refer those patients to a physician who will. The AMA has a code of ethics that includes referring patients to other physicians when a physician cannot or chooses not to treat a patient. This is not a secret and if you choose to be licensed by the AMA and practice medicine, you must adhere to this code. A vast majority of members of the AMA believe this is a just idea and support it. But, some Republicans don’t like this idea and now think the government needs to step in and bypass what a majority of doctors in American believe. Republicans want to reduce government regulation, but if regulation is needed to impose Christian values, well that’s different story.
I know all of this doesn’t come as news to most of you out there. We argue about the details of policy a lot, but it really comes down to the basic idea of freedom. I wouldn’t have such a problem with Republicans if they stuck to their ideas and became Libertarians. You want freedom. Okay, let’s have freedom. No taxes, no regulations, no trade restrictions. But that also means freedom to have an abortion, freedom to marry whom ever we want, freedom to smoke whatever we want and freedom to fire whom ever we want who doesn’t adhere to the policies of the job they were licensed to do.
Okay, I'm done.
posted by Bill Eseltine at Thursday, March 20, 2008
1 Comments:
Jeez dude. When I said to make a post I just meant put up a youtube or something.
No, seriously this is a very good post. Hypocrisy is absolutely infuriating. The kind that DOES get the most attention is the more lurid stuff, i.e. The louder someone complains about the evils of homosexuality and how gay people are a perversion and about how if we let them marry the next thing you know we'll have man on turtle marriage, etc. Anyway, the louder someone complains about this stuff the more likely it is that at some point they will be found trying to pick up underage gay hustlers (is "gay hustler" redundant? Is there a style guide for this sort of thing?).
What you're talking about is a little more subtle but much more important--the hypocrisy of political philosophy.
I think it comes down to the fact that the labels we use in this country are purely idiotic. The "conservatives" haven't been conservative in a long time and the "liberals" aren't anywhere near what a European country would consider leftist at all--they're just slightly more centrist conservatives (not to say that I agree with any of that "there's no difference between the parties" horseshit).
What bothers me about this is the fear of being caught in a "petty hypocrisy", flip-flopping. Politicians will stubbornly stick to positions that have been proved wrong or go through mental contortions trying to show that their current positions are consistent with their previous positions all to avoid being called a flip-flopper.
Have a good time at Spring Training. Drink a few for me.
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