Angry

This post at Andrew Sullivan got me thinking, and maybe I've said this before, but it's something that can't be said often enough.

I'm really angry, and I'm angry because I'm disappointed. I believe in America, even though I recognize its frailties and its missteps. America is a dream. It always has been, for just about everyone, and some of us have had the chance to live in it.

I'm angry and disappointed because I see our elected officials and our public spokesmen screwing everything up again and again, every chance they have, not from principles, not even from misguided idealism, but because they want to hold on to power. I figured that out a while ago, so the latest stories about how they're playing their base just confirm it.

Somehow, and maybe I'll figure out just how before I'm finished here, the sentiments expressed in this quote from Barry Goldwater fit:

I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in 'A,' 'B,' 'C,' and 'D.' Just who do they think they are?

Especially when contrasted to something like this from Joseph Farah, the editor of WingNutDaily:

Do you believe God will honor an administration that behaves this way? Do you believe God will continue to protect a country that flagrantly disregards His laws? Do you believe God will be mocked like this without consequences? Do you believe God will bless a party that acts so duplicitously?

Personally, I think the gods are waiting for us to figure it out for ourselves. They're not real big on interfering, at least in my experience. They don't want to get involved, and why should they? It's our problem.

OK -- The Christianists make me angry because I think, in case you haven't noticed, that they are fundamentally and overtly anti-American. They deny our basic principles as a nation, and belittle every attempt to make us a nation. They're small, mean-spirited people, and I don't have a lot of patience with that.

I believe in the system. I don't believe it's a perfect system -- there's too much evidence otherwise, especially right now -- but I believe that in general, it does work for the common good, as long as we can keep it from being subverted by people like the current Republican party.

But we used to understand that we have to compromise. That's the only way to make it work. We can't all just run around doing whatever we want because we have to live together and we don't all agree on what's appropriate or permissible. So we talk about it and arrive at something that's workable, if not ideal from any particular point of view. (Unless, like me, you think that "workable" is pretty close to "ideal." I suppose that leaves me open to charges of lowered expectations, but I'm pretty easy to get along with.)

Maybe it's because I see things from a perspective slightly different that most of my fellows. I'm always aware in the irony implicit in things like this -- two quotes from Andrew Sullivan's posts:

"He leads in a way that the good Lord tells him is best for our country," - Marine General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Donald Rumsfeld.

and

"One day I will be asked whether I have been in touch with someone who told me we would win, and I will respond: 'Yes, I have been in touch with God'," - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

It's a travesty on both parts. "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

I think one thing that makes me angry (here comes the connection) is the use of "morality" as a marketing tool. There is a place for morality in the public life of this country, but not the so-called "morality" of the Christianists of no conscience. We have a public morality; its basic rules are set out in our Declaration of Independence and in our Constitution, and that's good enough for me. We don't need some church telling us to behave ourselves -- if they can't teach their members to treat others with respect and generosity, what the hell are they in business for? this, from Digby, is part of what I mean:

As I look at all these issues that have come to the forefront in the last few years, I'm struck by how dumb it is to let the Republicans claim the mantle of values and morality. People who believe that torture is ok or that it's better to let blastocysts be thrown away rather than use them to save living breathing human beings are immoral. If they want to play politics on that field, I say bring it on.

This ties in with more self-serving crap from the Catholic hierarchy:

Setting its tone early in the text by reminding the flock that all "are created in the image and likeness of God and thus possess an innate human dignity that must be acknowledged and respected," the document asserts that "Those who would minister in the name of the Church must in no way contribute to... injustice" against homosexuals -- with the subsequent caveat that "it is not unjust... to limit the bond of marriage to the union of a woman and a man" nor to "oppose granting to homosexual couples benefits that in justice should belong to marriage alone," i.e. civil unions.

They haven't abandoned the canard that homosexual behavior is "intrinsically disordered," but they now are doing a little dance on the theme that the "inclination" is not intrinsically diordered. No one but a Catholic theologian could come up with doubletalk like that. I'm with Goldwater on this one: who the hell do they think they are? An institution that can wink at the abuse of children tells me that I am "intrinsically disordered" because I act on what to me are natural impulses toward expressing love toward another adult? What a load of crap.

Lest there be any doubt, look at the history: the Church has never been averse to holding political power, which makes its sincerity as an institution devoted to the teachings of Jesus suspect -- "Render unto Caesar. . . ."

What I can't believe is that Republican strategists are so open about their rationale, while religious "leaders" are flogging Morality as a means to power. Shouldn't someone be running for office based on something besides holding onto power? Anyone?

I have a message for the Bushes and the Falwells and the Bendicts:

You killed my dreams. That, I can't forgive.