The question was, “Why do Republicans hate Liberals?”
There was a video posted on FB that made the case that Conservatives are doing everything they can to keep us stupid.
My take is this: Conservatives are afraid. They are afraid of the “browning” of America, to start with, and that informs every decision or idea they have. Even their position on abortion has sprung from this fear…interesting that the Right didn’t take up the anti-choice mantle until “intellectuals” at conservative think tanks realized that it wasn’t the poor brown/black women who were having abortions, it was the more economically flush white women, and the poorer black and brown and white girls with black “baby-daddies” that were giving birth. …imagine how terrifying it was when they realized that the “browning” of America that they feared was happening even sooner than they anticipated!
It’s the same with education… I attended a very liberal university back in the day, and I had some VERY liberal professors. But we were well aware of their liberal views, and were encouraged to debate them if they didn’t make sense or if they offended us. The problem? Those progressive, inclusive values that are at the core of lefty social & political ideals are so much more appealing to young people who are encouraged to think for themselves, rather than adopt (swallow) an ideology that is built on suspicion, fear, rigid rule following, and bigotry.
So, how better to control the outcome of an education system that promotes the status quo than to control the amount and level of knowledge being shared? Than by making sure that the students all are required to learn the same, mandated syllabus, taught to the curriculum of conservative publishing houses that are the same publishers of the tests required by every primary school in the country? A curriculum that carries with it the threat to teachers and school boards in every district that if those students do not do well, that their careers may be in jeopardy, or worse, their districts threatened with the loss of funding public schools so desperately need? Is it any wonder that the families of those publishing giants are giddy with excitement over the appointment of Betsy DeVoss, a 50+ year-old woman who, at the time of her appointment, had never even stepped foot inside a public school? An extremely privileged white woman with no concept of doing anything that is “not for profit”, she champions the concept of charter schools…schools that are run by private organizations- with the cleverly disguised intention of making money for the shadow sponsors of those schools.
She and those who support her can do that by claiming that their schools are part of the public school system, because there is no tuition required for students to attend. They can do it because the charter schools take the money earmarked for public education in their communities and supported by federal dollars and divert it to the charters.
And what freedom that gives those “providers”! Without mandates from the local school boards, (who are elected to ensure the education of local students in some semblance of local community values) charter schools are free to choose their own curriculum, textbooks, rules of behavior, and focus in content and achievement. The big sell for those “new” schools is that they can supposedly enrich each student according to their individual needs by teaching to DIFFERENT tests…tests that are not required to fulfill even basic accountability standards and that over time, have consistently proven to be wretched failures (even according to the lax standards the schools set for themselves!) in order to be “better” than public school standards of achievement.
In the meantime, those “sponsoring” the schools are making money off the backs of the children attending those poorly functioning, non-accountable schools whose real goals are not providing a better education for students in order to ensure a well-informed citizenry, but instead, are providing money in the pockets of already wealthy sponsors. The schools for hyperactive children, the schools for African-centric focus, the schools for troubled teenagers, the schools for kids who only want to do their learning on a computer rather than in a classroom can claim to have the best interests of those children at heart.
… and yes, some of those schools actually are conceived in altruistic idealism, believing that some individual or corporation has a better way to teach… while actually creating a system more segregated than George Wallace’s Alabama in the 1960’s. Separating children by color, disability, religious intolerance, learning styles, etc. does nothing to encourage unity or acceptance of others; rather, it is a means of indoctrinating the children with a curriculum chosen by those wealthy (predominantly white) sponsors in accordance of their own conservative values.
Why?Because the earlier the children can be taught not to think, but to BEHAVE, the easier they are to CONTROL. And the more likely the (private, Christian, conservative, for profit) institutes of higher learning like Bob Jones University or Hillsdale College or Jerry Fallwell’s Liberty University (do we include the now-defunct and disgraced Trump University here as well?) will be truly accepted by the citizenry, despite their superstitious, Bible-centered, authoritarian worldview on issues crucial to preserve life on this planet. Away with the study of science and the relationship between human consumption and the destruction of natural resources needed to sustain life on this planet. Better to claim a (false) set of higher-ordered, theological explanations for the wealthy, industrial scions’ destructive actions and not have to defend them to properly educated, critically thinking people who call their decisions into question.
Decisions like allowing poisonous coal ash to flow into shallow water basins than to have to figure out how to clean it up. Decisions to build school campuses, parks, baseball, football, and soccer fields on top of leaching former hazardous waste sites in order to calm local residents into believing that the hazardous manufacturers are truly civic-minded philanthropists. Decisions to allow the filthiest fossil waste to be extruded from the earth and sent down a PIPE, through sacred Native lands and crucial clean-water reservoirs of potable drinking water for thousands of people, all in order to sell that filth to another country at billions of dollars in profit for corporations who pay their workers a barely-more-than-poverty wage and their executives millions of dollars EVERY YEAR for the privilege of….what? Maintaining a culture of advantage for those already wrapped in entitlement?
Sadly, those wealthy industrialists at the top of the economic pyramid, despite claims of wanting to create a well-informed, educated public, are LYING. Because a well-informed, educated public does not serve their best interests.
- What advantage would they have, for instance, in helping those on the lower levels of that social/economic pyramid gain a foothold into higher levels of society?
- Why should they want to share that higher level with a citizenry that will only question the motives or actions of the top-tier folks?
- Why risk sharing the economic “pie” (switching metaphors) with others when the understood goal is to achieve and maintain wealth, power, and social standing? Especially when those at the top of the pyramid (shifting back) can insure their ability to capture even MORE wealth?
- How best to eliminate those who might question the fairness or democracy in creating what is in essence a return to a feudal society?
- What if they could teach (indoctrinate) those menial laborers to behave, not question, and to accept what they are told and act accordingly?
- What could they do to insure that their white, wealthy, entitled progeny grow up believing in their ultimate superiority? That the reason for their wealth and preeminence is because it’s been ordained by a God who wants it that way?
- What if they believed that it is “God” who gave us “dominion over the Earth” and that means we can therefore do whatever we want to do with it? Because He would never allow us to do anything that He couldn’t fix, or that He didn’t want us to do, right?
Never mind how screwy that thinking is in an educated, scientific, rational sense…how is it that they are able to justify destroying so precious a gift -our Earth- from a God they believe will reward them with Paradise one day? Maybe because they are convinced that they are supposed to maintain their elevated status while they deplete and poison the earth in places they would never want to live anyway. These are the same folks who attempt to convince you that destroying the Earth and bringing on the “End Times” means that you (and they, of course) are the folks that are going to be lifted up in the Rapture while the rest of us are left to deal with the nightmarish turbulence brought on by our own weak faith or disrespect for the rules so obviously laid out by God’s chosen.
In essence, it boils down to one very simple, very basic motivation for everything… its about POWER. Power to make laws that create a society that reflects and rewards a superior status for those already in power; power to create a society of privilege in this, the real world, and in the fantasy of the next. It is about the power of belief in the righteousness of their own white, wealthy, entitled superiority that motivates their every decision.
There is a well-worn phrase that has grown in popularity and in our language over the decades, a phrase that has lost its value and has been transformed into a dog-whistling invective used to question the sanity of those it is used to describe… and that will probably be directed at the ideas presented here by those who disagree. But I will tell you that no, I am definitely NOT a “conspiracy nut”, nor am I buried in fear or suspicion. What I am is an educated, informed old woman who has studied the Right for decades, not in an attempt to discredit them but to try to UNDERSTAND them; and at 61 years old, this is where I’ve landed.
It is laughable to me to hear the constant chorus of accusations of “left wing mainstream media bias” by the Right regarding every aspect of a FREE society- the very FREE society that they proclaim to embrace! A left-wing bias in the media? Sure….because we all know how “liberal” the owners of the five multi-billion dollar conglomerates that own nearly every communications network in the Western Hemisphere are.
A “left-wing” bias in education? A bias they work so hard to “correct” by discrediting the educational systems that embrace the notions of free speech and critical thinking, offering instead educational institutions that encourage specific, well-defined doctrine. That leads then to a question that many of us on the Left have been asking the Right for years: that is, “What exactly do you consider Leftist/Progressive/Democratic? And why do you consider it a bad thing?”
The fear that drives the Right to squash the Progressive point of view is the fear that the Progressive worldview is so much easier and yes, FREE, than that of the Right. We Lefties know how much less complicated it is to NOT fear our neighbors. We know how much better it is to learn about other races, cultures, religions, and customs, instead of rejecting them or not having to spend so much energy on maintaining the illusion of our own “correctness” or godliness. You folks have a tendency to dismiss the concept of liberal “political correctness” with contempt, a foul derision directed toward those of us who consider the politeness of our language nothing more than GOOD MANNERS. You accuse the us of trying to “STEAL” institution of marriage by welcoming our gay brothers and sisters into its structure, and of WANTING to allow terrorists, rapists, and murderers into our country. We do know how exciting it is to explore scientific advances and wonder at the intricacies of the biological evolution of our world rather than being helpless bystanders believing that there is some old white man in the sky that is sending down telegraphic messages to a select group of people telling them what to do in this life, in this world, so they can have better seats at the table in the next one. But we aren’t “godless” because we are enthralled by science and the understanding of the natural world. Believing in God and believing in science, despite your efforts to make it so, are not mutually exclusive. I don’t know if there is a God as you believe in it, but I’m pretty sure your conviction that there IS one is probably not based on scientific discovery. And your reckless attempts to “Christianize” the United States and intimidate our leaders into an agenda you claim to have heard from the guy in the sky has done more to split our nation into simmering cliques of just-under-the-surface-antipathy toward others as any war has done. We don’t want to disregard or disrespect your god or your religion, we would just appreciate the same from you.
Progressive people accept that there are things we don’t understand, but that it isn’t our job to reject the things we cant explain, and it isn’t yours either. Some people like Rap music and some like Country. Does that make one better than the other? Of course not. And the presence of both around the ether doesn’t “make” a Rapper into a cowboy, no matter how many times he listens to it. Some people like cats, others prefer dogs. Is one better than the other? No. But no matter how much time a cat plays with her brother dog, the cat will NEVER turn into a dog. Or vice versa. But…do either of those things have anything to do with how you live your life? You will never turn into a dog, either, no matter how much you love him or toss the frisbee or sleep with him at the foot of your bed. You can control the circumstances around his behavior, the place he sleeps, the medicine he takes in order to stay healthy, but you will never be a dog, and he will never be a cat.
The skin of some people is white and others have brown or maybe really brown skin; does that make one better than another? No. Our nation’s history has imparted that false sense of superiority in the souls of many white people, but there is no one group better than another….there are merely differences.
Some people are good in school and there are others who are not; some people are able to move without help and others depend on braces or chairs or caregivers in order to be mobile. Because their ability to learn or move or speak is different from most does not make them less of a whole human being. Or better or worse than you or me. And no matter how much time you spend with a disabled person, no matter how much time you spend caring for him/her, or helping them bathe or eat or get in and out of bed, that person cannot ever turn you into a similarly disabled human being.
There are boys who like to kiss boys, and girls who like to kiss girls. Why? Who knows. What is it that draws you to your husband or wife? I’m not sure there’s ever been a definitive answer to those questions. But as people who profess to love “freedom” and equality for all, it is not our job to decide that there is one way of living that is “right” for an entire population, and one that is wrong. A progressive people realize that it IS our job to recognize those differences without condemnation or abuse, because there is room for everyone in this life who does not wish to hurt others. That it’s ok for that black family to the right and the Mexican family to the left and the Asian family across the street and the Muslim family on the corner to share a street, a neighborhood, a workspace, a school, and a planet with us, despite the warnings of the ostensibly “liberal media” suggesting that those neighbors are probably conspiring to murder you in your sleep or attempting to replace Democracy with Sharia Law while you aren’t watching.
Unless you have been taught to THINK, not simply react, your world will continue to get smaller and smaller, your fears will continue to grow and evolve according to those in control, and the end of the world as we know it will arrive faster and with less pomp and circumstance than you’ve been promised.
There will be no “rapturous” end to life on this planet; it will be just as ugly and predictable as any critically-thinking, fact-based prognosticating scientist will tell you.
It will not come as a surprise, or as a result of menacing, interplanetary warriors, or because of the white guy in the sky.
It just might come, however, because of the accelerated demolition of the things we humans require to survive. Poisoning the air makes it more difficult to breathe. Chemicals infused into our food supply has often been shown to make us sicker and more susceptible to various cancers or immune disorders. Turning our rivers and ponds into toilets for industries to dump their poisonous waste, or attempting to change the ways of mother nature and strip the oxygen-supplying greenery from the planet or dam the rivers that keep us alive will devastate humanity. We’ve seen it. And assuming that those things will not touch you because you have a superior place in society or because you have enough money to buy clean water or a physician who will cure you of the illnesses we create is not only arrogant, it is stupid.
And as I understand it, wasting the gifts of life and love doesn’t exactly fit God’s plan. Neither is hating your neighbor, or hoarding your money, or assuming you are better or smarter or more precious or important than anyone else. But that is the foundation for the policies put forth by the Conservative movement, and it’s what has divided civilizations since time began. And those are the things that we Liberal/Progressive/Democrats have been trying to tell you.
We don’t want your guns….we just want to not get shot. We don’t want to take your money, we just want you to contribute to the pot like everyone else. We don’t want to stop you from being “Christian”, we just want you to practice what it is you claim to be. We don’t want murderous, dangerous criminals to invade our borders and not be able to know who they are, we just want to welcome those who are trying to escape those murderous thugs, protect their families and live a good life without fear.
Every great movement in history has been about doing things for “the common good”. Jesus said to love even your enemies. Ghandi said assigning people to a life of poverty or misery, not allowing an ascension to a better life, no matter how righteous, was wrong. Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandella and Martin Luther King fought against the oppression of one race of people by another, and all of them paid a high price for that fight. One of our greatest modern Presidents, John F. Kennedy, wrote what I think is the best description of what it means to be a Liberal, and is the way I’ve tried to live my life, the way I’ve tried to raise my children, the way I’ve attempted to treat everyone I meet.
Kennedy’s Elegant Quote in Defense of Liberals and Liberalism
- What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label, “Liberal’? If by ‘Liberal’ they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer’s dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of ‘Liberal.’ But, if by a ‘Liberal,’ they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people – their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties – someone who believes that we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a ‘Liberal,’ then I’m proud to say that I’m a ‘Liberal.’
John F. Kennedy
Accepting the New York State Liberal Party 1960 Presidential Nomination
The Commodore Hotel, New York, NY.
September 14, 1960
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