My Visit to the Dark Side
So I had an interesting conversation with a committed Democrat, not my Dad, this weekend. You see, it's different talking to a "modern" Democrat than to the FDR/Truman Democrat represented by my father. Because Dad remains loyal to his party because he believes they remain true to the old populist ideals of the 40's and 50's, and tries not to see the radicalism of today's Democrat party.
Conversations with "modern" Democrats, as with this weekend, seem always to be in social situations that involve a group of people standing around, so I mostly keep my mouth shut or maybe ask a leading question here and there, as my goal is to learn more about how the dark side thinks rather than engage them in fruitless debate.
So in this case, the speaker was, of course, first and foremost a Bush hater. That he buys the lines about Bush being a liar about the reasons for going to war in Iraq about enriching his buddies at Halliburton was immediately evident and tiresome for me, because part of the Democrat mindset is that a Republican president is inherently evil and could never have any redeeming qualities.
Naturally, he went on to admit to having a "better Red than Dead" attitude over the years, which he said he felt fortunate it never came to that. And to my complete lack of surprise, he offered without prompting that he is an atheist and really can't stand evangelical Christians - especially Baptists.
So this guy fits the template perfectly: An atheist, attracted to socialist ideals, pacifist, and not unfriendly toward communism. He thinks Republican and right-wing campaigns against moral issues such as abortion and gay marriage are ginned up to keep the religious right on the reservation. He himself doesn't really care about those issues, even though he supports his party's views on them, because of course, he doesn't view them from a moral perspective. Because to him, morality is relative and situational, not a black-and-white absolute that closed-minded religious fanatics believe.
The only areas I found I could agree with him, or at least understand his point of view, were economic. There was a discussion of Wal-Mart, and their ever-increasing mistreatement of thier workforce. If true (and I never accept things as true without researching for myself), I would agree that Wal-Mart's practices of firing people for discussing union organizing, coming down with an expensive illness, or just having 10 years with the company and maxing out on the salary scale, is reprehensible. His point is that even though there are laws on the books against these types of practices, the Bush administration chooses not to enforce those laws, or at least mires the cases in so much bureaucratic red tape that the complaints go nowhere.
Generally, I also agreed with a general discussion that the Bush administration favors big business. That has seemed pretty evident to me for some time, as someone who believes government should give special treatment to no individual or organization. We see its results in the current energy prices, the outsourcing and offshoring of American jobs, and the outrageous trade deficits with China. None of these issues are even acknowledged by our president as things that merit any review or adjustment in policy, and illegal immigration ties very closely into the pattern.
The conversation was enlightening, not that I learned a great deal of new information about the left-wing mentality, but that it reinforced my own strongly-held beliefs on what the role of government should be. Of course, that old label for my beliefs still holds true - I'm an economic moderate and a social conservative. Always have been, and always will be.
Maybe all of those who see things my way should unite and form a new political party. The Common Sense Party - not very catchy, but it says it all.
Conversations with "modern" Democrats, as with this weekend, seem always to be in social situations that involve a group of people standing around, so I mostly keep my mouth shut or maybe ask a leading question here and there, as my goal is to learn more about how the dark side thinks rather than engage them in fruitless debate.
So in this case, the speaker was, of course, first and foremost a Bush hater. That he buys the lines about Bush being a liar about the reasons for going to war in Iraq about enriching his buddies at Halliburton was immediately evident and tiresome for me, because part of the Democrat mindset is that a Republican president is inherently evil and could never have any redeeming qualities.
Naturally, he went on to admit to having a "better Red than Dead" attitude over the years, which he said he felt fortunate it never came to that. And to my complete lack of surprise, he offered without prompting that he is an atheist and really can't stand evangelical Christians - especially Baptists.
So this guy fits the template perfectly: An atheist, attracted to socialist ideals, pacifist, and not unfriendly toward communism. He thinks Republican and right-wing campaigns against moral issues such as abortion and gay marriage are ginned up to keep the religious right on the reservation. He himself doesn't really care about those issues, even though he supports his party's views on them, because of course, he doesn't view them from a moral perspective. Because to him, morality is relative and situational, not a black-and-white absolute that closed-minded religious fanatics believe.
The only areas I found I could agree with him, or at least understand his point of view, were economic. There was a discussion of Wal-Mart, and their ever-increasing mistreatement of thier workforce. If true (and I never accept things as true without researching for myself), I would agree that Wal-Mart's practices of firing people for discussing union organizing, coming down with an expensive illness, or just having 10 years with the company and maxing out on the salary scale, is reprehensible. His point is that even though there are laws on the books against these types of practices, the Bush administration chooses not to enforce those laws, or at least mires the cases in so much bureaucratic red tape that the complaints go nowhere.
Generally, I also agreed with a general discussion that the Bush administration favors big business. That has seemed pretty evident to me for some time, as someone who believes government should give special treatment to no individual or organization. We see its results in the current energy prices, the outsourcing and offshoring of American jobs, and the outrageous trade deficits with China. None of these issues are even acknowledged by our president as things that merit any review or adjustment in policy, and illegal immigration ties very closely into the pattern.
The conversation was enlightening, not that I learned a great deal of new information about the left-wing mentality, but that it reinforced my own strongly-held beliefs on what the role of government should be. Of course, that old label for my beliefs still holds true - I'm an economic moderate and a social conservative. Always have been, and always will be.
Maybe all of those who see things my way should unite and form a new political party. The Common Sense Party - not very catchy, but it says it all.
posted by Dan S. at 6:45 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home