Exposing Hypocrisy

We have finally reached a turning point in how far the right will be allowed to go. Plenty of libertarian Republicans are going to jump ship on this one. Democrats who think we need to move to the center should take note. Most Americans, including progressives like me, are way to the right of George Bush on this one. We are libertarians on issues of government in out private decisions. We should take this very personal tragedy, now that the Religious Extremeists on the Right have politicized it (thanks in no small part to Terry Schiavo's parents), and we should beat them over the head with it every day.

And when Terri Schiavo finally dies, we should remind people, every day, how plenty of other things Bush and his Orwellian friends have done are just like what they're doing with Schiavo.

Nothing has exposed the extreme right of the Republican party like the Terri Schiavo case. They have butted in where they are not legally allowed to be. They have tried to force their religious views on someone they didn't give a damn about force feeding when she really needed it, 15 years ago, when her eating disorder killed her. Ironically, now it seems Terri's parents got into this fight when they weren't allowed any of the money awarded to take care of her. These hypocrites have smeared and slandered Micheal Schiavo every chance they could, blaming him for her eating disorder, accusing him of abusing her, saying he just wanted the money, and other lies, in order to win an argument they couldn't win by telling the truth.

This case has exposed a typical right wing tactic of lying when the facts don't match their argument. George Bush lied about his tax cuts, WMD, terrorism, and way too many other things, while wimpy Democrats hemmed and hawed. Now we have an actual court case full of documents which directly contradicts the bullshit right on the facts of the case. We can use their lies about the Schiavo case to illustrate how they lie any time they find actual fact inconvenient, like in today's story that the Bushies covered up evidence in order to make the EPA ruling on mercury more business friendly (as if it were good for businesses to poison the fetuses that Bush wants to protect in his culture of life).

Why are people on my side of this argument trying to be so nice? Would Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter or Bill O'Reilly be nice to us if the tables were turned? Of course not. If we want working class social libertarians to vote for us (and I maintain that this will get us a substantial amount of Republican converts in the west and south) we have to be tough. If people hear Rush Limbaugh and vote Republican, then we need to speak in a language they understand. We need to be as harsh, nasty, vile, and vitriolic as Rush is. But we will have the added advantage of not having to lie.

George Bush, Buttinsky-in-Chief, did something that he wouldn't do right before 9-11. When the anti-terrorism people in his administration were running around with their hair on fire, sending memos warning that Al Qaeda was about to do something big, he stayed on vacation. Actually taking part in a high level meeting on terrorism wasn't important enough for Bush then, but signing an intrusive piece of legislation that ignores years of adjucation, specialists, and decisions of fair minded people who have looked at every aspect of this case, as they are supposed to by law, GW Bush flew back from his Texas vacation to sign yet another piece of big brother legislation. Ironically, the law he signed was the exact opposite of one he signed as Governor of Texas in 1999. His hypocisy has never been so obvious.

Instead of trying bowing down to the enourmous swing state power of the religious right, Democrats should be creating new swing states (Arizona, Colorado, Montana) by standing up to this sanctimonious fascism.

Now, as the "Reverend" James Dobson (focus on your own damn family) calls for legislation that would force EVRYONE to be kept alive, even if you have a living will demanding the opposite, the right is finally going pull some Republicans too far. We need to be there when they snap back to their senses. We can continue the Clintonian effort of smaller, smarter government, something the Neo-Con Bush Republicans have lost in their frenzy of pandering to an ever smaller block of fundamentalist voters.

This isn't about God, or a culture of life (from Bush, who executed how many retarded, born-again, under-age, and possibly innocent people in Texas?). It's about fascist control of our everyday lives, for the sake of HMO and drug company profits. The James Dobsons of this debate are just unfortunate cases of extremeists using the electoral college politics of swing states to force their minority views on the rest of us, who want no part of it. The George Bush's of this debate are up to something much more sinister.