Tag: Conservatives

By Their Very Nature, RW-ers Are Closed-Minded & Progressives Are Open-Minded

~ A L Katz ~ Leave a comment

“Both Sides Do It” thinking (and journalism) would want us to believe that that headline is biased and wrong because both sides are equally closed-minded and open-minded. The fact is both sides are different not just because they want to be different but because they actually think differently. There’s even science to back that up (both sides are not equally interested in science by the way — because both sides are not equally “open-minded” about new information).

Conservatives, as their name says, want to conserve. They’ll accept conserving the present but what they really want to conserve is the past. The future — and any change — terrifies them. Progressives, as their name says, want to progress into the future of course since no one wants to progress into the past. Progress demands an open mind because one knows one will face new challenges that old ways simply won’t be able to resolve.

Progressive thinking, by its nature, is inclusive. We see that the answers to our problems could spring from nearly anywhere — and anyone — if only we’d give all these minds the chance to develop. We see America’s diversity as its exceptionalism. We aren’t just the greatest experiment in human self government ever, we’re also the greatest experiment in human diversity where our cultural dynamism is born out of the rich gumbo of ideas and approaches that flow from the variety of cultures who came to this place in order to be part of the first experiment.

Conservative thinking cannot tolerate uncertainty. That’s why it tends to be deeply religious (instead of being more openly-minded and just plain spiritual). Conservatives want a power structure in place. They want the world as it was (when they were in absolute control) to be the world as it always WILL be — with them continuing to be absolutely in control). Never mind the fact that they are an ever-increasing minority. They are the “god of the gaps”.

It’s painfully ironic that our news media — regardless of the topic — always demands equal open-mindedness from both sides. Lacking any perspective, they start from the false premise that both sides are the same and behave the same. They assume that both sides start off equally stuck in their ways — as if “their ways” were exactly the same.

This is why we get a press that demands Elizabeth Warren explain how she’s going to pay for health CARE for all Americans while they shrug off Republicans insisting (without a lick of data) that their tax cuts to themselves will PAY for themselves. This is why we have a main stream news media that gives equal weight to lies and the Truth. This is why we have a news media that insists that Democrats are impeaching Trump for entirely political reasons.

No, you idiots, the Democrats impeached (and will impeach Trump again) because he violated his oath of office the instant he took it. The Rule Of Law either is or it isn’t — and the instant we allow a POTUS to violate his oath brazenly and with impunity, our entire system of self-government is in mortal peril.

The Democrats did not drive us to this Constitutional crisis, the Republicans did. The Republicans are acting political because their interest is political — they want to HOLD ONTO the political power they now have AT ALL COSTS. They’re so determined to hold onto power that they’re willing to cheat every which way they can. They’re willing to suppress every Democratic voter they can. Those are all political acts. The person having their vote suppressed is NOT acting politically, they’re the VICTIM OF A CRIME.

Same token — the Democrats, when they point to the myriad ways Donald Trump has violated his oath of office, broken the law and shredded the Constitution, they’re NOT reacting politically, they’re pointing to criminal acts. When Democrats cry foul — that election 2016 was neither free nor fair because RUSSIA decided its outcome (isn’t that what Mitch McConnell was protected by refusing to let President Obama tell America that our election was under assault?) — they’re not acting politically, they’re being PATRIOTIC.

They’re also speaking for the real victims of the crime, The American People. Our electoral choice was stolen from us — our Will. That’s the majority of Americans. The 3 million plus (who knows how many suppressed votes there were) who wanted what Hillary and the Democrats were selling, not what Trump, Mitch McConnell and the Russian-owned Republicans were selling.

Mitch McConnell epitomized conservative closed-mindedness by not even giving Merrick Garland a hearing. Democrats wouldn’t even think of doing such a thing. Because it’s now how Democrats — the Progressives among them especially — think.

Even a glance at a conservative crowd versus a Progressive crowd tells you all you need to know about each crowd’s open-mindedness versus its closed-mindedness. A thousand words? No — a million words. More even.

Is there really a question?

Ask A Conservative — "What Exactly Do You Want To CONSERVE?" — Bet You Won't Like Their Answer

~ A L Katz ~ Leave a comment
A Progressive rally vs…

I know what Progressives want — it’s right in their name: progress. Progressives want to progress — into the future since you can’t progress into the present and you can’t progress into the past. THAT’S called “regress”.

It’s also called “conservatism”. Just as the Progressive Ideal is there in our name, so too is the conservative ideal memorialized in its name. Conservatives want to “CONSERVE”. Ah — but conserve WHAT?

Just as you can’t progress into the past, likewise you cannot conserve the future. You can however conserve the present — what is. And that — conserving what IS — usually goes hand in hand with conserving what WAS. Since it’s that component of what is (what remains from the past) that conservatives draw toward like mosquitoes to a porch light. They believe if they ferociously hold onto what still IS, they can, by force of will, turn back the clock to make what now “is” more like what “was”.

In the past. Because that’s what conservatives want to conserve — the past. The one where they got to call the shots. Those days sucked even when they were the present — unless you were white, male and Christian. If there’s a date in your average conservative’s mind — a landing spot in the past that’s the conservative idyll, it’d be the 50’s — the 1850’s — back when everyone knew their place.

I really do recommend you try it: ask a conservative what exactly THEY want to conserve. There’s entertainment to be had because when you frame it that way — making conservatives own what they really want to conserve — they get totally tongue-tied.

It’s hard to justify taking a whole country back to a time in its past that the majority want to learn from.

That’s the other thing conservatives want to conserve. The white Christian men who held power for so long (often illegally — by keeping others from voting) know damned well how small a piece of the actual electorate they are. They live in fear that one day, America’s left of center majority will shake off their citizenship seriously and show up at the polls every time there’s an election. They know — the more Americans vote, the worse it’s going to be for the future of the Republican Party & republicanism.

The more Americans vote, the harder it gets for conservatives to keep us living in the past.

It’s why, down deep, conservatives have no use for democracy. It’s bad for their health. Oh, the irony…

The Reason Both Sides Don’t “Do It” Is Because Both Sides Aren’t The Same

~ A L Katz ~ Leave a comment

Our news media insists (all evidence to the contrary) that the only difference between a Republican and a Democrat is the letter next to their name.

No, they’re not the same. Of course they’re not. Republicans, being conservatives, want to CONSERVE. Being as you can’t conserve the future, conservatives want to conserve the present but more exactly conservatives want to “conserve” the past. Just like their name says.

Progressives on the other hand want to (as THEIR name suggests) PROGRESS. Being as you can’t “progress” into the past — and you really can’t “progress into the present”, Progressives put their energies into getting as many people as possible to progress into the future — where we all belong.

So — both sides want diametrically different things. Whatever both sides might be doing, IT’S NOT THE SAME THING.

Come election time (if they could only put cheating aside), conservatives want to restrict voting as much as possible. The demographics are completely against them; the more that vote, the worse conservative chances are. That’s because the “glorious past” that conservatives dream of returning to is the 1850’s where everyone knew their place — men, women, white people and especially black people.

Democrats and Progressives, by contrast, want to bring as many Americans into the voting process as the possibly can. Why wouldn’t they? Democracy works best when it reflects as many voices as possible. Ever notice how Republican voter suppression efforts are never aimed at Republican voters? That’s not a coincidence.

By the same token, if the brown-skinned people fleeing Central American drug violence (that’s mostly our fault) were reliable Republican voters? They’d be limo’d across the border, handed a passport and be dropped off at the first employment office they came to. Complete with a credit card.

Both sides don’t lock children up in cages — and then justify it. Both sides don’t betray allies as easily as they breathe. Both sides don’t take money from the poor and middle class to give to the rich. Both sides aren’t actively trying to destroy our environment out of pure stupid greed. Both sides don’t seek to dismantle the whole federal government. Both sides don’t conspire with hostile foreign powers to circumvent the will of the American People.

Both sides do not commit treason to maintain political power.

Only ONE side does that — Republicans. It’s just how they’re wired.

Don’t Blame Conservatives For Being Troglodytes – Fear Of The New Is Hard-Wired Into Them

~ A L Katz ~ Leave a comment

It’s not a mystery what any self-proclaimed “conservative” wants.  As their name says, they want to “conserve”.  The question – what do they want to conserve?

You can take “the future” right off the table.  You can’t conserve what doesn’t exist. 

Not only do Conservatives not want to “conserve” the future, they’d like to avoid it altogether if they can.  They don’t want to know about it and they don’t want to think about it.  They definitely don’t want to prepare themselves for it – because then they’d have to think about it.  And if they had to think about the future, they’d have to change.

And THAT ain’t happening.

Progressives – for comparison’s sake – want to “progress” – just as their name says.  Considering as you can’t “progress” into the past (that would be “regress), Progressives not only think about the future, they actively pursue strategies to deal with it.  But, I digress…

Conservatives have no interest in the future.  Their interest in the present is as a bulwark against the future.  Whatever change has already occurred – their first choice is to roll it back if they can.  If circumstances make that too complicated, conservatives are willing to cut their losses and move on.  But wherever progress has made inroads, conservatives see a long-term project.  Whether it’s abortion, immigration or LGBTQ rights, though conservatives may act as if they’ve accepted reality, they will continue to plot against it. 

So – if Conservatives can’t conserve the future and grudgingly conserve the present, that must mean what they REALLY want to “conserve” is THE PAST.

And THAT is the crux of the matter.  What Conservatives want to conserve is what was.  Not necessarily what REALLY was, but how they imagine “it was”.  Keep in mind – these are all White, Christian Men (mostly) that we’re talking about.  The “then” they so desperately want to conserve is a “then” where THEY had all the power & money.  The “then” Conservatives want to conserve is a time when THEY had total cultural and political hegemony.

The 1950’s were nicer and all but the time frame American Conservatives really have in mind is the 1850’s – antebellum America when everyone not European White knew their place.

If you sat most American Conservatives down on Tara’s front porch, had Prissy fanning the sweat from their brow while Mammy put a cool mint julep in their hand, those Conservatives would feel right at home.  They’d wonder why anyone would want to change this.  And then they’d put their feet up.

“Conservative Thinking” Is An Oxymoron

~ A L Katz ~ Leave a comment

What’s in a name? Everything. I’m a Progressive. I prefer the term “Progressive” because it’s more descriptive than “liberal” which (being less descriptive) can be twisted around to mean even its opposite. As a “Progressive”, my political philosophy is all about progress and progressing into the future.

Conservatives, by the same token, want to CONSERVE exactly as their name says. Considering as the future doesn’t exist, you can’t want to “conserve” it. So, what conservatives want to conserve is the present but, really, the past. To most conservatives, the present is already unacceptable.

Whereas progressives set their minds to creatively solving future problems, innovating wherever necessary, conservatives set their minds to taking us backward in time — to a time when white men ruled without fear of being questioned. We’re talking the 50’s — the 1850’s.

You don’t have to think to want to make that happen. If you could think to begin with, you’d see the impossibility of the task. But it’s not about what is, it’s about what “should be” in the conservative’s mind. And, to them, what should be is a world where they rule with total cultural and political hegemony.

It’s hardly a coincidence that, in America, conservative thinking is deeply racist. Conservatives have convinced themselves that THEY are “American Exceptionalism”. Talk about bullshit. The United States was the first country ever to be a product of immigration instead of long-term tribal occupancy. White men may have made up the rule-making class but that wasn’t because others weren’t interested. White men made the rules. White men benefited more than any other group from those rules.

A typical white, Christian conservative answer to immigration is to build a wall on the Southern border. Stone age technology to keep people out. Conservative thinking doesn’t care about the root cause of people leaving where they are to come to America. It only cares that they’re here and, so, devises cruel scare tactics to encourage them to leave.

White, Christian conservative thinking doesn’t concern itself with the violence at home that sent all these refugees fleeing north. It doesn’t care that the drug violence terrorizing them was born on the streets of America — Los Angeles especially. Conservative thinking, most of all, wants to moralize on your ass. They want to tell you how superior they are to you.

They’re simply not capable of “Doing Unto Others”. They’re not capable of caring enough. They’re not capable, frankly, of even thinking it.

America’s Love Affair With “Stupid”, Part III: When Democrats Get Stupid, There’s Nothing Stupider…

~ A L Katz ~ Leave a comment

Not a revelation: smart people are as capable of profound stupidity as the profoundly stupid.

The instant even an Einstein-level genius begins to view the world with limited or diminished perspective, it’s just a matter of time before they turn as deeply, utterly, right-down-to-his-tighty-whities stupid as Texas’ Louie Gohmert — the (certifiably) Stupidest Man In Congress. When discussing “stupid”, it’s important to define one’s terms.

As a “baseline” for stupid — “stupid” we can all agree is 1) genuinely stupid and 2) quantifiably stupid — Louie Gohmert is (in my humble opinion) The Gold Standard. So — when I say Democrats are capable of profound stupidity, I’m saying Democrats have it in them to be stupider than Louie Gohmert — stupider than the stupidest man in Congress.

But, I’m not here just to call people stupid (as much fun as it is). I’m here to explain WHY they’re stupid. I want to help after all. Louie Gohmert is stupid because stupid is baked in to his genetics. In the human gene pool, Louie and his kin are all “floaters” in the shallow end — turds someone squeezed out because they regularly shit where they eat and sleep. Unfortunately for us, it’s now too late to clear out the pool, empty it of floaters, and give it a good scrub before refilling.

Louie epitomizes conservative stupidity. It has zero intellectual curiosity. Everything a Louie-Conservative knows (or needs to know, it says) comes from the bible. Never mind that had that works’ authors (the bible is a compendium of multiple texts written by multiple people then edited and assembled into the form we know now by other multiple people) operated from a very limited knowledge base. They thought everything in the cosmos revolved around the earth (they were wrong). They thought magic caused and cured disease (they were wrong). They thought the whole world and everything in it was right there where they lived — that no other “continents” existed filled with millions of humans with vastly different experiences from theirs (they were wrong about that, too). Louie-Conservatives holds up this religious text as the basis for all history, science and cosmology.

So — a Louie-Conservative will take the genetic stupidity he starts with and add heaps of experiential stupidity. Rather than open his eyes or, better yet, his mind, a Louie-Conservative will dig in his heels, insisting that these ancient texts, like their authors were “divinely inspired”. They were transmitting the literal “words o’ god”. That’s what every author things, stupid…

Conservative stupid is because it will do everything in its power to live in the past — and living in the past (say it with me) IS STUPID.

Democrats get stupid in the exact opposite way. In a sense, Democrats get stupid because we so very much want to live in the future. While conservatives long to live in a past where their tribe dominates (everyone in power needs to look and sound just like them), Progressives (Democrats) want to live in a future where no tribe dominates. That’s a terrific ideal but might not be as doable as Progressives think. Certainly not now the way homo sapiens are “configured”.

Democrats want to think the best of people. Because they want the pool to be as diverse as possible, they allow a tremendous amount of variability in terms of who can join the pool. Progress can’t happen any other way. There are inherent risks because people aren’t uniformly good. Some of us are greedy. Some of us are really greedy.

Greed is a whole other kind of stupid. Everyone is capable of greed.

The moment greed-stupidity enters, all bets are off. Greed-stupidity trumps everything and all other stupidity becomes instantly irrelevant. Greed stupidity is the most willful. It will sacrifice everything at the altar of Greed right down to its own future — like Abraham sacrificing his beloved Isaac just because the voice in his head told him to. The Nature of Democrat-Stupid is we’re terrible at recognizing Greed-Stupid.

Democrats get stupid when they give the benefit of the doubt to Greed-Stupid because they can’t adjudge Greed-Stupid’s true motives. Then Democrats get nuts when Greed-Stupid changes the rules — or flat out ignores them — because all Greed-Stupid cares about is holding onto power (and money) — so they can maintain their Conservative-Stupid hold over everyone — the majority of people.

In bending over backwards to be fair, Democrats initiate the process of their own destruction. Stupid, right? The problem? It’s as baked in as a Conservative’s stupidity.

As the French would say, Voila la probleme.

Is there a cure for stupid? It’s a fair question. I’m afraid the answer’s unsatisfying: no. Homo sapiens are incredibly clever. Industrious. We’re great problem-solvers — maybe the best among sentient beings on earth (though we have no way of really knowing — lots of other sentient beings are good at solving problems). But we’re self-destructive in myriad ways — starting with our knack for over-production. There are far, far too many of us on the planet. We’ve destroyed 90% of all the other creatures we’ve encountered. Destroyed them or made their habitat unlivable, take your pick. They disappeared regardless.

We’re facing a massive, genuinely existential crisis caused by our own greed and short-sightedness. But, in part because there are so many of us and because we’re so diverse, it’s impossible for us to collectively help ourselves quickly if at all. And even if we could collectively help ourselves, because variation is baked in — and because so much of that variation is motivated by greed — we’re doomed from the start.

It’s a fact — homo sapiens will be no more durable on this planet than the dinosaurs. We’re just as doomed to distinction. The one big difference? Dinosaurs had no hand in their own destruction. The cosmos did that courtesy of a massive meteor strike.

In our case — we have only ourselves to blame.

Boy, is that stupid.

Conservatism Is A Disease – It Says So Right In Its Name…

~ A L Katz ~ Leave a comment

Though the word “liberal” has a long history, it’s too malleable, too easily redirected in the current vernacular where words have been unmoored from their meanings. That’s what LYING does. I prefer the word “PROGRESSIVE” to describe my politics because, in a culture where getting people to read a goddamned tweet is a challenge, billboarding your meaning is just plain more efficient communication.

We don’t have to guess what progressive politics want to accomplish: PROGRESS.

By the same token, we don’t have to guess what “CONSERVATIVE” politics want to accomplish. It’s right there in the name: conservative politics want to conserve WHAT IS or, more often — what WAS. Conservatives want to live in the past. They want to resist change — progress — any & every way they can. Progress is their kryptonite.

Why?

Well,m who ARE conservatives in America (and most of Europe)? They’re white people who want to CONSERVE the white world they came from. Our multi-ethnic, multi-racial world (where women have an equal say) is completely antithetical to them. They want to shove all the toothpaste back into the tube. As if anyone could.

But this is really the world conservatism wants to drag us back to — an empty toothpaste tube — recognizable but empty with absolutely no future (except perhaps as garbage). In order to accomplish this end — regress — conservatives need to step in progress’s path. Being a minority position — an increasingly minority position — conservatism has resorted to outright treason (on top of gerrymandering and voter suppression) to maintain its weakening grip on power. When electoral politics no longer work for you, what else are ya gonna do?

Conservatism — once the supposed bastion for lovers of the Rule Of Law — is now where liars and con men go to piss on the Rule Of Law instead. The Rule Of Law, conservatives now see is a roadmap to their own extinction. So — like a virus, conservatism now seeks to infect America — like a virus — bent on turning us into it. Conservatives will now try to shove their DNA back into America like toothpaste that will never ever get back into the tube.

It’s all well and good for the toothpaste. Our problem is we’re the tube.