I have a friend who says that the Religious right's control of the GOP is a myth and a conspiracy theory. That is much harder for me to swallow when I read that John McCain chose someone who the religious right absolutely loves and has been lobbying for for months. Richard Land, James Dobson and the entire Council for National Policy crowd loves this pick. Or that those same religious conservatives were threatening a revolt if McCain chose a moderate.
Steves asked a perfectly reasonable question about addressing ID questions that come up in class, and Palin has clearly presented her answer in this kind of "first amendment context." But I think Palin's response also speaks to broader problems in our political dialogue and the relationship between church and state and knowledge and faith--and even this election. I just read about McCain hiring the same slime merchant who slimed him kind of cemented it. Add that to the Palin VP choice, and you see McCain is returning to the Bush playbook. He is appealing to the same religious base who has, in my opinion, ruined the Republican party. He is appealing to people like Dobson and Richard Land who cared little for torture issues, but everything about abortion and gays. Cared little if the economy struggled, but wanted to make sure that gay people weren't marrying. Cared nothing about programs to clean up the environment, but wanted to make sure that sex ed included no instructions about sex--just abstinence. No teaching kids how to use condoms correctly. That is the base that Palin brings in to play. And I have no clue why Republicans who watched the last 8 years would want to revisit that. In other words, anyone who makes James Dobson happy, should make the Republican party rationals nervous.
Palin's response to the ID question made evolution and science something you have opinions about. How do you feel about evolution? We might as well ask people's opinion on gravity. "Do you feel that gravity is a force or is it something else?" Yet that is where religious conservatives come at science and knowledge. And it isn't just science. Just last week, had a conversation with a very conservative religious person about our history. They had an email about our "godly heritage" and knew for a fact that our country was "founded on Biblical principles." How do they know? This is a smart person, don't get me wrong, but has not read a history book since college, if then. We are a Godly nation because that "feels right" and has to be true. The details of history are irrelevant, and people like me who study the past are wrong. Just as my zoology neighbors are wrong about evolution. Sure, they study it every day of their lives in their labs and experiments. But Sarah Palin and her constituency can tell them they are welcome to their "opinion," but they don't "believe" in evolution.
This has infiltrated so many of our policies. As polar bears swim for their lives in the warming arctic ocean, the people making policy decisions about climate change simply ignored those experts who warned them of global catastrophe. Why? Because of some version of "faith based politics." Sarah Palin doesn't "believe" that global warming is man made. I am not doubting her intelligence, but has she read the studies? Has she looked at the evidence and the models? Or does she simply "not believe" it to be true? How important is her "belief" here? Why do "beliefs" trump studies and scientific models, which might be flawed, but at least are out of the realm of pure "instinct" or what we want to be true. Facts and data should matter, even if what they tell us is limited.
Abstinence only became the law of the land, practically, and has been shown to fail in study after study. Rational people would stop that, but those who base their policies on what they "feel" and "believe" don't. And they haven't. Palin herself advocates abstinence only even though she has a very personal example of it not working. What is worse, many of those taught in abstinence only classes are exposed to stds and dangerous situations. They aren't better off. It actually endangers kids.
This, by the way, is not a shot at their intelligence. I have no doubt that Sarah Palin is a very smart lady. My problem is not with their smarts, but how they understand knowledge. Here in Oklahoma, the same religious legislator who said that gay people were a bigger threat than terrorism, pushed a bill through our state house (governor vetoed it) that might (depending on how it was interpreted) made it illegal for teachers to count a student wrong for answering according to their heart felt beliefs. Can't force a student to learn evolution, if their belief says otherwise. I honestly wonder if there will be a day when I have to somehow address historical concerns that God created the constitution, and if I dissent, I run into trouble. If I challenge basic ideas about American Exceptionalism I would run afoul of those who "believe" that God created our nation. My historical knowledge against their religious "beliefs." In a discussion about religion and theology, we are all in the same boat. But when studying history or science, their beliefs are not terribly relevant.
McCain could have reinvented the Republican party and brought back in the Sarah Eisenhowers, but he chose to bring in the Sarah Palins. He could have pushed the religious radicals out of the party and taken so many from the center (the old Republicans and conservative Democrats) that Obama would have had to run far left to even have a chance, and then he would have aced himself out of the race. The McCain who ran in 2000 had the credibility to openly reject the politics of the far right. But he chose to go to Falwell and beg his forgiveness. He then started his run for the far right, cementing that with the nomination of Sarah Palin. He didn't have to do this. But he chose to do this. And if he wins, the people who took the Republicans to the disaster that was the Bush presidency are right back in it. And those of us who watched with horror, are wondering again, where the rational Republicans are? Karl Rove told Bush after 2000 that the middle didn't matter. All that mattered was the base. Which might be fine for winning an election by a slim margin, but as we have seen, it sucks for governing. One of McCain's campaign people said that issues didn't matter. We are in two wars, facing huge economic issues, but McCain doesn't think that issues matter. It is all about what people "feel" about their candidates. So we can count on the same people who savaged McCain in South Carolina, to savage Obama on the orders of John McCain.
That is why this all matters to me.
6 comments:
Good post, and I especially like this phrasing:
He is appealing to the same religious base who has, in my opinion, ruined the Republican party.
I think "ruined" is an appropriate word. Looking back to 1992, if I had been an age to think about politics, there were issues I could have agreed with the Republican platform on, over against the Democratic platform. That isn't true today. While there are certainly areas I differ from the Democratic platform, I can't think of a single area where I agree with Republican party leaders. How did they become so univocally foolish? (Though since McCain doesn't even care about the Republican platform, maybe their platform is irrelevant.)
I remember reading in Fast Food Nation how when Coke changed the flavor of their main product, thinking that people's true attraction to their beverage was image and brand loyalty, their customer base revolted. Yet in only, what--12 years? 16?, when Republicans have become something so radically different from their more sensible selves two decades ago, entire regions of loyal conservatives seem not to have noticed. It's as though all this talk of principles and values is only a smokescreen for blind authoritarian loyalty. And as for their leaders, they seem to have misread Matt 10.16b as "Be shrewd as doves and innocent as snakes"--they're as easily manipulated as they manipulate those who trust them.
And yet because I don't vote for McCain, I'm the one who's sick in the head and in the heart. Sorry for the rant. I need to have less contact with my family.
Excellent points. Thanks for taking the time to elaborate on some aspects of our previous discussion. Though my science background is very weak (I haven't had a 'hard science' class since high school), I am not anti-science. I don't that that ID should be part of a science curriculum. Palin should also be questioned as to what role she thinks that ID should have in the classroom. I certainly wouldn't support a system where proponents of ID could receive credit for answering a biology question with an ID answer.
Cared nothing about programs to clean up the environment
This just isn't true, nor is the assertion that she doesn't care about climate change. Her statement that she "doesn't know if climate change is man made" is interpreted to mean that she anti-environment. On the contrary, she took initiative to get more information and ordered the creation of the Climate Change Sub-Cabinet to advise her on this issue. Their efforts seem fairly elaborate, though I haven't really had the time to research it. We don't have anything like that in the Blue state of Michigan, despite having the auto industry, which is no small contributor to emissions.
Leighton, that is why we are here. You can rant here anytime you want, and if that needs to be in a guest post, you just let me know! :) Seriously.
I too often look back at traditional conservatism and see much to respect. Perhaps Bush has taught me that more than anything. I always respected my brother's take that governments were a huge potential and historical threat to freedom. While I thought then and think now, that he ignored the role that multi-national corporations, or that religious zeal could play in that, I respect that fear of government power. As I have suggested, our hatred for government is destructive, but that has never meant that I thought we should have a blind love of government. Governmental power should be approached skeptically and with a watchful citizenry.
None of that seems to characterize the modern conservatives.
Steves, I think you took my line about environmental cleanup out of context. It was attached to Dobson and Land, and I think that criticism still stands. I recognize, and should have made more clear, that Palin has some good stances on the environment, but had read that she believes that climate change is not man-made. I never said, though I didn't make it clear, that she believes that climate change is a problem. I see that. But I think my larger point about how she approaches knowledge as something she feels and believes still stands.
That make sense?
I feel like it isn't just the Republican party which has been damaged, it is the Church. We have been seduced by wealth and power, and put our faith in guns and bombs rather than God. It appears to me that we have forgotten the gentle Shepherd from Nazareth, and happily marched to war and torture with hardly a thought to peace or loving our enemies.
While being totally consumed with gays and abortions, we have forgotten those prisoners in our own gulags, and the thirsty world looking for Grace. Politics has stripped compassion from the Church, and we have given up our soul, our birthright for a meal next to the President. Lord, have mercy.
"Salvation is exactly this - the two-fold love of God and of your neighbor."
-Amma Syncletica
Monk, great point. James Madison once said: "And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together."
That is the part that the religious right misses--the harm they seem to call on their own faith tradition.
That make sense?
Yes, thanks.
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