In response to a piece in the Independent by Johann Hari: Johann Hari: Republicans, religion and the triumph of unreason
There are three things that stick out to me from this piece:
- The right seems more bent on opposing Obama than supporting their own self interest. How does this happen? I feel that I am a liberal who pretty much opposed most of what Bush supported but I don’t think I was so blinded to oppose even the things that made good sense and I could agree with. I mean, I didn’t support the war but I do believe that the world is a better place without Saddam Hussein. But that’s only one thing. The Right here seems bat-crazy. I have a hard time understanding it. Actually, I think it goes back to Reagan. I can even remember my middle-school self feeling that the “defeat” of communism in the late 80s allowed a somewhat unfair rhetoric to emerge. It went like this: communism and socialism does not work and Democracy and Capitalism does (and, by the way, communism is inherently evil). So, to the Reagan-loving right (he is their God) this feeling lives on. Never mind that “socialism” could keep you healthy and fight against the profit-driven insurance companies. It’s supposedly Wrong.
- Arianna Huffington’s quote is pretty right on. She said, “It is as though, at the height of the civil rights movement, you thought you had to bring together Martin Luther King and George Wallace and make them agree. It’s not how change happens.” There is a perceived inherent virtue in bi-partisanship in Washington. Why is this? What should people whom others think are incorrect have their say? Especially when one party has the executive and both houses of congress? This seems like an opportunityto make change happen. Why waste this opportunity in the effort to find consensus?
- The one paragraph on faith is such an over-arching statement that it would warrant an article of its own. I don’t think that the author should have included this in the article becauseit is such a major generalization and he simply wants to discredit all people of faith. Wow. Nice try though.