Conservatives Are On the Wrong Side of History

A conservative is, by definition one who wants to stick to the old ways of doing things and opposes change. The long arc of history is toward more freedom, more liberty and more equality. The conservatives have always been on the wrong side of history in the fight for change and greater human rights and equality.

In the 1860's, the conservatives opposed freeing the slaves. The Republican Party of the 1860’s was a liberal party, calling for protective tariffs, freeing the slaves and a progressive income tax where the rich paid more. The Democratic Party was the party of “NO” back then. History has proven that the conservatives were wrong.

The right of women to vote didn't happen until 1920 and was bitterly opposed by conservatives. Some conservatives are still fighting against basic voting rights for women; for instance, Sean Hannity sits on the advisory board of the male supremacist Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND), founded by Fox News contributor Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson who famously said, “allowing women to vote was one of the greatest mistakes America ever made”. The struggle for full equal rights for women in the employment and reproductive areas still goes on and is opposed by most of today's conservatives.

Conservatives opposed the minimum wage, child labor laws, the 8 hour work day and sick leave that was established by the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. Conservative warned that the minimum wage and labor standards would collapse the economy; sound familiar?  Conservatives are still trying to undo the minimum wage and oppose increases to keep up with inflation. Conservatives were wrong then and they are wrong now.

Conservatives by definition tend to oppose change and while every change is not necessarily for the better, consider the overall progress of civilization over the thousands of years and consider where we would be if the conservatives had succeeded in keeping us stuck in a brutal past. History has proven that the conservatives were wrong.

If you liked my post, consider visiting my web store where I sell white noise machines and other unusual products for the home.

Facts Don't Count When it Comes to Religion

These two pictures say a lot about how intractable religious beliefs can be.

The Disappearing Middle Class

The head of Papa John's Pizza was recently caught whining about how Obamacare is going to make him provide healthcare to his employees and that it would cost 14 cents per pizza to do so. 14 cents! I guess no one will ever buy another pizza if it cost 14 cents more. Seriously, if it only cost 14 cents per pizza to provide healthcare to your employees, then why in the heck has he not been doing so all along? I think we all know the answer to that question; greed. Today's workers have almost no bargaining power, if a worker attempts to hold out for better pay or benefits, they simply get fired and another waiting applicant fills the job.

Did you know that 50 years ago General Motors was the largest employer in the U.S. and their average wage was about $50/hour in today's dollars? Now our largest employer is Walmart with an average wage of $8.18 per hour. Is it any wonder that the middle class is disappearing to be replaced by full time workers who are below the poverty line? This needs to be corrected, hard working full time employees should not be working for poverty wages in America. These things tend to move like a pendulum and swing from one extreme to the other; back in 1962, GM workers were probably making too much and now today's Walmart workers are clearly making too little.

Here's a possible solution to how we can swing the pendulum back toward the middle. If the minimum wage had kept up with inflation, it would now be close to $12 per hour. We should raise the minimum wage to $12 and apply a cost of living adjustment to it (like we do with Social Security) so that it keeps up with inflation. Sure it will mean that we pay a few cents more for plastic doodads at Walmart but that seems to be as good a bargain as 14 cents per pizza.

Life in a Bubble

We all, left or right, have a tendency toward being blind to facts that disagree with our opinions, the best way to avoid this is to obtain our information from a variety of competing sources. Those living in a pure partisan bubble are doomed to succumb to a distorted view of reality derived from one-sided sources of information. We all do this to a degree but the right wing has raised this to an art form. As proof, look at how almost all right wing pundits were absolutely certain of a Romney landslide. The math clearly indicated an Obama win yet these people with few exceptions said the polls were wrong because they were done by liberals and didn't match up with their “facts”. Turns out, the average of the polls were almost exactly correct, clearly those right wing “facts” were not in line with reality.

Have you noticed how someone on the right makes up an assertion against Obama and then many others take up that idea and use each other as “sources” in a kind of circular self-reinforcing storm? The original assertion may be completely untrue yet many come to believe it; A few examples: Obama wasn't born in Kenya, Obama isn't a socialist, Obama has never taken anyone's guns, Obama isn't a Muslim, the Bureau of Labor Statistics didn't make up the job numbers last month, rape does result in many pregnancies, FEMA is not building concentration camps to house right wingers after they take away their guns, evolution is real, instituting moderate re-regulation on Wall Street is not communism, there were no death panels and climate change is not a hoax.

Our country's strength is the competing marketplace of ideas, and if we can't even agree on basic facts, that marketplace ceases to function; that is what we have witnessed for the last four years. In the election, reality has just smacked the Republicans upside the head and because they swim in a soup of self created “facts”, they were the only ones who didn't see it coming. We watched them on election night on Fox News as they stumbled around completely shell-shocked. Romney was so certain, he hadn't even prepared a concession speech! Obama had a concession speech because he knew the math said he had about a 10% chance of losing. So which of those two is grounded in reality? Maybe this election will serve as a wake up call for Republicans to rejoin the real world of real facts and stop getting their “facts” only from biased sources like Fox News, talk radio and right wing blogs. America would be much better off if we can have an honest debate in a free marketplace of ideas using facts arising from reality.

Thank you, American Voters

Congratulations America, you chose....wisely.

Some on the left are disappointed in Obama because he is just a moderate but look on the bright side, we are not going to get rid of Medicare, we are not going to put more Scalias on the Supreme court, we are not going to give a 20% tax cut to millionaires and pay for it on the backs of the poor, we are not going to reinstate “Don't Ask, Don't Tell”, we are not going to enshrine discrimination in the Constitution to keep gays from marrying, we are not going to force women to get permission from their boss if they want to get birth control through their health insurance, we are not going to redefine rape, we are not going to spend an extra $2 trillion on the military that even the military says is not needed, we are not going to cut back on aid for education, we are not getting rid of universal healthcare, we are not going to get rid of the Dream Act, we are not going to self deport, we are not going to start a trade war with China, we are not going to have John Bolton as our Secretary of State, we are not going to have Dick Cheney back as foreign policy adviser, we are not going to reassemble almost the entire Bush team of neocons and financial geniuses that left this country in shambles and from which we are just now recovering.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, American voters.

Heckava Job Romney

Wow, Bush's former FEMA director, Michael (heckava job Brownie) Brown is criticizing Obama for acting too quickly in his Hurricane Sandy response. I guess he thinks Obama should sit on his hands for 3 days before responding like he did in the aftermath of Katrina. This calls to mind the consequences of putting people, who hate government and don't want it to work effectively, in charge of government. Isn't it a self fulfilling prophesy to put people in control of the government who proclaim that government is the problem? Isn't that like hiring a manager to run your business who doesn't believe in your business? Who would ever do that?

So Romney thinks we should get rid of FEMA and put it in the hands of a private for profit business. Really!? So after a disaster, with people hungry, thirsty and homeless, instead of giving those people food, water and temporary shelter so they can get back on their feet, we would have private businesses come in and exploit them for profit which would just compound their problems. The whole idea of profiting off desperate people is completely wrongheaded. George Bush taught us the painful lessons of putting someone in charge of our government who has a contempt for government and his FEMA director, Michael Brown, was a perfect example.

Pro-Life is Mostly About Sex

Watching these GOP men slipping up and getting caught expressing their true hateful views on women, abortion and rape, calls to mind a pivotal event in my life that started me toward a path away from right wing ideology. In my early-teens, I was at church and the pastor went into a spittle flecked, red faced, vein bulging rage about abortion. He wasn't concerned with the life of the fetus, he was enraged that a woman could sin and then escape God's punishment by getting an abortion. Back then the anti-choice people hadn't become skilled at playing the “I'm so concerned for the life of the fetus” game. I watched over the years as the pro-life crowd has evolved the “I'm so concerned for life” strategy. It turns out to be an effective strategy, since it is a valid position if one really does care about life. But you know, you can tell if their concern for life is real or fake by whether their concern for the fetus ends at birth and whether or not they support life in other instances. How many times do you see these GOP politicians rant and rave about the life of the fetus but when it comes to helping out young single mothers with education, child care and enriched early childhood development, they couldn't care less?
There is a tried and true method that prevents almost all abortions without infringing on the rights of women. If the GOP was truly concerned about the life of the fetus and stopping almost all abortions, they would support responsible early sex education and easy free access to birth control. This has worked everywhere it has been tried and results in an abortion rate close to zero after subtracting for those abortions that are medically necessary. For example, see the Netherlands where they have the lowest abortion and teen pregnancy rates in the world. Contrast this to abstinence only states that have the highest teen pregnancy rates in the country. The Republican opposition to sex education and easy access to birth control is telling, it comes back to the attitude of my pastor all those years ago, the real concern is not about fetuses or life, it is about women having sex and not paying the consequences. That is what gets these GOP men into such a lather.