Conservative Values

I've touched on this idea several times in passing over the past few years, but Digby highlights it:

We on the left are being chastized daily for being terrorist sympathizers. Former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton are said to be on the other side. Any criticism of the government is Unamerican. And all of this is based upon the idea that liberals are rejecting Western values and putting ourselves in league with Islamic fundamentalists. This is literally nonsensical.

In point of fact, the argument could much more easily be made that it is the other way around. It grows more and more likely that the right, who wholeheartedly supported the war and are currently supporting the political handling of the occupation, deposed a totalitarian dictator to install a repressive fundamentalist theocracy in its place. I fail to see how that advances the cause of our country or western civilization. Indeed, it is a betrayal of everything we stand for.

If you actually look at the philosophies here, the Christianists in America and the Islamists in the Middle East are quite obviously sympathizers. The real values demonstrated by our own right wing fit neatly with those espoused by the militant wing of Islam: authoritarianism, intolerance, distrust of reason, demonization of outsiders, militarism -- you can just go right down the list.

Either, of course, would be appalled to be confronted with something like that. The only thing that saves the rest of us from real problems is that they hate each other worse than they hate us.

Footnote:

This, also from Digby, raises another question: these are the people who are passing themselves off as "values voters." What kind of values are they talking about? Is this how they raise their kids?