The Conservative Mind: America’s Right-Wing’s Ridiculous Anti-Marriage Equality Arguments
I’ve been working to try to understand the recent arguments America’s Right Wing has been trying to make against marriage equality. If you have been following the reports from Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the federal trial that will determine the constitutionality of Proposition 8, or have read, “Gay People Cannot Be Allowed To Marry Because Straight People Cannot Be Trusted?,” my piece detailing the, dare I say, “ridiculous” arguments America’s Right Wing is using against same-sex marriage, you’ll know what I’m talking about. But even well before Prop 8, America’s conservatives have been actively involved in maintaining second-class citizenship for gay and lesbian Americans.
Whether you have or you haven’t been following along, let me share with you (even more of) the reasons why I say America’s Right Wing’s anti-marriage equality arguments are, indeed, ridiculous.
“The Conservative Mind” is part one in our week-long series, “America’s Right-Wing’s Ridiculous Anti-Marriage Equality Arguments.” Come back tomorrow for part two, “Values” vs. Science.
Part One: Understanding The Conservative Mind
First, to understand the thinking of America’s Right Wing on issues like marriage equality, you have to realize their world view is comprised of two essential — albeit fallacious — concepts. First, those on the Right consider the world to be a “zero-sum game.” That is, if you win, I must lose. If you gain a dollar, I must lose a dollar. The concept of “win-win” is not possible to them.
To illustrate this, look at the Right Wing’s argument against, say, immigration. They fear immigrants and “illegals” because they think these people are taking jobs away from Americans. Well, they are not. And, in fact, often they are paying into a social security system that will never pay them back.
Or, “gay marriage” itself. (I like to put it in quotes now, just as the the Right Wing bigots do, but because to me, marriage is marriage. As Liz Feldman says, we don’t call it “gay lunch,” do we?) Conservatives somehow think “gay marriage” will devalue their own marriages. As if there were a limited number of marriage licenses, totaling a certain value, and the more licenses issued, the less valuable each one actually were.
Second, America’s Right Wing is emotionally allergic to change. Everything they fight against is “something new.” And both these concepts force them, biologically, to fear and to fight.
Conservatives cannot stand that America has its first black president. They cannot stand the idea that two men, or two women, could love each other and want to be married, or (horrors!) raise children. America’s Right Wing just cannot accept that people change, and society advances.
Look to their rallying cry: “We must take back our country!” In fact, the entire “Tea Party” (the militant, and ignorant, arm of the Republican Party) is a desperate attempt to, as they love to say “take America back” – but all the way to 1776. They love to quote (and mis-quote) the Founding Fathers. Like this “gem,” floating around the conservative threads on Twitter, a popular social networking site: “The beauty of the 2nd amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it,” and attributed to Thomas Jefferson. In fact, Jefferson never said it.
Just last week the Republican Party of Texas adopted a platform that brings back sodomy laws — which the Supreme Court invalidated in 2003 in Lawrence v. Texas. (Montana’s GOP just joined them.) To the Right’s way of thinking, anything that happened in the 20th Century must be bad, and in the 21st century, worse.
For conservatives, the choice is always this OR that.
Conservatives seem to always see decisions as, “I can have the ice cream OR I can have the apple pie.” Rarely do they think, “I can have the ice cream AND the apple pie.” Trust me, each, alone, is good, but together, they are great! Conservatives never seem to understand the idea that one plus one can equal three.
America’s Right Wing never seems to understand the concept of added value. Or, science.
Come back tomorrow for part two, “Values” vs. Science.
(image: kevindooley)
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President Donald Trump is promising mass pardons to White House staff, and has done so repeatedly, the Wall Street Journal reports.
“I’ll pardon everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval,” Trump said in a recent meeting, to laughs, the Journal reported, citing people familiar.
“That radius,” the Journal added, “appears to be expanding as the president repeats the line. Another person who met with Trump earlier this year said the president quipped about pardoning anyone who had come within 10 feet.”
Trump at one point said he would hold a news conference to announce the mass pardons.
“The president has repeatedly raised the specter of pardons with White House aides and other administration officials, particularly when staff have suggested they could face prosecution or congressional investigations over decisions, people familiar with the comments said,” the Journal reported.
The Journal did not state if the pardons would be blanket pardons, but reported that those familiar with his remarks “said they weren’t aware of specific pardons being offered to specific people for specific acts.”
READ MORE: White House Fires Back After President’s Doctor Is Asked to Test Trump’s Mental Fitness
The report also noted that Trump has often seriously pursued actions he initially had joked about.
“It seems like he previewed many times his intent to use the pardon power to bail out those who carry out his agenda faithfully,” Liz Oyer, a former Trump Justice Department pardon attorney told the Journal. She also “said the offers could spur Cabinet officials and administration officials to behave more aggressively.”
While Trump did not pardon White House or other officials in conjunction with the events of January 6, 2021, on his first day back in office he did issue sweeping pardons to roughly 1,500 of those who were at the Capitol that day and later arrested.
READ MORE: ‘Only Reason They Are Alive’: Trump Again Threatens Iran in Unhinged Truth Social Post
Image via Reuters
The White House is fighting back after a prominent House Democrat demanded that the Physician to the President test Donald Trump’s mental fitness, citing the president’s recent remarks.
“At a time when our country is at war—especially when the war was initiated by the President without congressional declaration or consent—the American people must be able to trust that the Commander-in-Chief has the mental capacity to discharge the essential duties of his office,” Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin wrote to the President’s Physician, Captain Sean P. Barbabella, D.O., in a letter published by Punchbowl News.
“I therefore request that you conduct a comprehensive cognitive assessment of President Donald Trump, provide those results to Congress, and make yourself available to brief Congress on your findings.”
Congressman Raskin noted that experts “have repeatedly warned that the President has been exhibiting signs consistent with dementia and cognitive decline.”
“And, in recent days, the country has watched President Trump’s public statements and outbursts turn increasingly incoherent, volatile, profane, deranged, and threatening. His apparently deteriorating condition has caused tremendous alarm across the nation (and political spectrum) about the President’s cognitive function and continuing mental fitness for the office of President, and prompted concerns about the President’s well-being.”
Raskin noted that during the Biden presidency, Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer called President Biden’s mental acuity “one of the greatest scandals in our nation’s history,” and subpoenaed the White House Physician.
He also noted that during that time, Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan declared that a president who is not cognitively fit, “isn’t fit for office.”
Raskin offered some examples, including Trump’s recent message to Iran, which the Congressman described as combining “vulgarity and profanity, unprecedented threats of mass civilian destruction, and a sarcastic invocation of Islam on Easter morning—a bizarre display that shocked tens of millions of Americans and astonished observers across the political spectrum.”
Trump had written: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F——’ Strait, you crazy b——, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”
The New York Times had described Trump’s remarks as a “blistering threat” that “would have stood out on any day, much less on what most Christians consider the holiest day of the year.”
Raskin is insisting that Dr. Barbabella conduct “a comprehensive neuropsychological assessment of the President, including a formal cognitive screening instrument, and publicly release the results.”
Also, it asks him to provide “a detailed report on the President’s current mental and physical health status, including any medications he is currently taking and their potential,” and make himself available for a briefing under oath.
The White House wasted no time in responding, telling Courthouse News’ Benjamin S. Weiss: “Lightweight Jamie Raskin is a stupid person’s idea of a smart person.”
“President Trump’s sharpness, unmatched energy, and historic accessibility stand in stark contrast to what we saw during the past four years when Democrats like Raskin intentionally covered up Joe Biden’s serious mental and physical decline from the American people,” the White House added.
Image via Reuters
Ahead of diplomatic talks starting Saturday, President Donald Trump once again threatened Iran with violence as critics charge his tenuous cease-fire has fallen apart.
“As Vice President JD Vance was heading to Pakistan on Friday for peace talks with Iran, a senior Iranian official laid out new conditions for the negotiations, adding even more uncertainty about the durability of the cease-fire and whether the two sides could reach a long-term deal,” The New York Times reports, noting that President Trump “warned Tehran not to overplay its hand.”
“The Iranians don’t seem to realize they have no cards, other than a short term extortion of the World by using International Waterways,” the President wrote on Truth Social.
“The only reason they are alive today is to negotiate!” he declared.
His remarks seemed to echo his highly-criticized comments earlier this week:
“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”
On April 1, Trump wrote, “we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!!”
Some ridiculed the president.
“Completely controlling the Strait of Hormuz and charging ships a $2 million toll to pass through seem to be a couple of pretty good cards,” noted attorney Adam Cohen.
Reason’s Matthew Petti added, “You might say that Iran’s only cards are…a strait flush.”
Image via Reuters
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