rant rant ranty rant

If you've known me long enough, I may have vented at you about the American right's lack of principles. They show this mostly through their language: if they were to say "We're reactionaries who think gays and minorities are inferior and we want to rewrite the world to reflect a mythical period of moral perfection from the late 50s," I could respect them, but instead they claim to be conservative. They're the ones with solid, unshakeable principles; it's us lily-livered, egghead, elitist, intellectual, bleeding-heart liberals who change our beliefs at the drop of a hat in pursuit of our true goal of a bloated government freeing everyone from the need to work.

(Or something. I'm not really clear. Right-wingers are often mumbling about socialism and "statism" and how leftists want to grow government at all costs. In their world, it seems the Department of Defense is not a government agency, and "I think everyone should have food, shelter, and health care, and the government has critical and sometimes limited roles to play in making that happen" is not a clear enough declaration of belief. Too many commas, maybe.)

Anyway, here's two juicy examples.

• The Republican war on the constitution. This is just the stuff Republicans want to repeal or change; it'd be another long list to talk about the stuff they perverted and degraded during Bush II's reign of destruction. (To be fair, Obama isn't pulling enough of it back, but at least we've returned to paying lip service.)
• Homophobe fan club Focus on the Family applauds the Wisconsin Attorney General for refusing to defend domestic partnerships, then a year later (to the day) excoriates the California Attorney General for refusing to defend Proposition 8.

As a bonus feature, a Talking Points Memo reader sent them this:

Why, oh why do conservatives over and over again demonstrate little to no empathy for their fellow man until they themselves are humbled? And even then... their empathy is limited only to those in their own predicament.

Take Dick Cheney (please). This man is quite tolerant of homosexuality (for a Republican), because he has a gay daughter. But in every other way, he is almost the definition of a hard-liner in both foreign and domestic affairs: pro SS privatization; anti-social safety net; and pro-torture.

Rush Limbaugh is infamous for the harsh things he said about drug users... until he was discovered to be one himself. Perhaps now he has the good sense not to talk about drug enforcement... but does anyone believe that Rush's experience and expensive rehab made him in any other way a gentler, more considerate person?

And now there's Duke Cunningham [sent to prison for corruption] who has suddenly become a bleeding-heart on prison conditions and the criminal justice system.

The full post uses more confrontational language than I would choose (I often feel like that's really saying something) but doesn't have a bad point.