Conservation
This humble blog hasn't weighed in on the passage of the South Dakota bill that essentially makes it a crime for a doctor to perform an abortion. Abortion law is not really my area of interest and, anyway, Digby's Hullabaloo has been Central Station for that debate (how the cat can write so well and so reasonably while, obviously, his rage level is set at "11" I'll never know).
Looking on as these religious radicals more and more aggressively overturn long established protections (like the right of a woman to her health), aggressively demanding "nuclear options" and for those who oppose them to "bring it on," it puts the current social climate and "culture war" into a particularly vivid perspective. They are trying to foment war against liberals...and by "liberals" I mean people who feel, whatever else, the State has a duty to NOT encroach on a person's right to a healthy life and the liberty to make decisions about their body, their lifestyle, and their political views (I won't even get into "happiness;" that's long been rejected by the mullahs at home and abroad).
It becomes increasingly evident that the sides have flipped. We "liberals" are now the "conservative" party in this county, We are trying to conserve the enormous but still incomplete gains in Civil Rights, Environmental Rights (the right for the environment to not be turned to shit), and Women's Rights (to name a few) made during the fifties, sixties and seventies. We are the conservatives trying to protect a more humane status quo.
That's why the standard blog troll attack that "the left has no new ideas" is so often a debate-ender. It's bullshit, of course -- universal health care, raising such things as CAFE standards to, hopefully, stave off for a few more decades our melting down the planet, and dealing with the threat of global terrorism in a way that doesn't actually increase the threat (to name a few), seem like pretty interesting ideas to me. But, truthfully, we're mostly so busy trying to save our old good ideas, it's a wonder we come up with new ones at all.
CORRECTED: It's CAFE standards, not CAFTA. Duh.
Looking on as these religious radicals more and more aggressively overturn long established protections (like the right of a woman to her health), aggressively demanding "nuclear options" and for those who oppose them to "bring it on," it puts the current social climate and "culture war" into a particularly vivid perspective. They are trying to foment war against liberals...and by "liberals" I mean people who feel, whatever else, the State has a duty to NOT encroach on a person's right to a healthy life and the liberty to make decisions about their body, their lifestyle, and their political views (I won't even get into "happiness;" that's long been rejected by the mullahs at home and abroad).
It becomes increasingly evident that the sides have flipped. We "liberals" are now the "conservative" party in this county, We are trying to conserve the enormous but still incomplete gains in Civil Rights, Environmental Rights (the right for the environment to not be turned to shit), and Women's Rights (to name a few) made during the fifties, sixties and seventies. We are the conservatives trying to protect a more humane status quo.
That's why the standard blog troll attack that "the left has no new ideas" is so often a debate-ender. It's bullshit, of course -- universal health care, raising such things as CAFE standards to, hopefully, stave off for a few more decades our melting down the planet, and dealing with the threat of global terrorism in a way that doesn't actually increase the threat (to name a few), seem like pretty interesting ideas to me. But, truthfully, we're mostly so busy trying to save our old good ideas, it's a wonder we come up with new ones at all.
CORRECTED: It's CAFE standards, not CAFTA. Duh.
posted by John at 8:07 PM
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