We Must Counter This Rightist "Argument" [View All]

We cannot get complacent. A potential weakness that I see rightists trying to exploit is what they refer to as "values." We are allfamiliar with the Bill Bennett ploy of cloaking oneself in self proclaimed virtures. It is an attempt to claim moral high ground in order to evade logic and reason, since even they know they cannot rightfully lay claim to logic and reason. They want to lay claim to logic and reason and they will never admit their failure, but deep down they know that they have failed on that particular front.

The pinnacle of their self proclaimed virtue ploy was, of course, the Terri Schiavo crisis. Obviously this one was a bridge too far. This one failed even among many fire eating rightists. But the right is not deterred. As we sit here, kicking their asses, they insideously persist in trying to stake out their high ground. At the top of their "values" is their position on abortion and this is an easy one to put out there. They frame the issue as "killing babies." It is amoral to kill babies, period.

Well, is it moral to increase our population when it is clear that we are destroying our environment? Is it moral to bring unwanted children into the world, as they want to do, and then tell them tough shit for you if you can't overcome the poverty and abuse that you were born into?

Who has the "moral superiority" here? I don't think they do but they clearly have the easier argument and as we all know this can be their spearhead for other alleged values.

Specifically, taxes. To them taxes are anathema to freedom and as we all know they have done tremendous damage under the banner of "cutting taxes and preserving freedom."

Then they have this pernicious anti-government "value," and there's just enough truth in this "value" to make it convincing. Again, they have the easier "argument." It's easy to hate the IRS. It's easy to hate taxes. And now with the spending increases, well, this could be a potential problem and we need to counter their "supply side" bullshit better than we have done in the past.

I am a big, big Paul Krugman fan but I'm not sure whether he's being particularly helpful. Nor am I sure whether he's not. After all, allowing debate is something we have on the dead ender Republicans. However listening to Pat Buchanan this morning did shake me up a little and prompted me to raise this issue here. I am not surprised that Buchanan's strategy would be to stake out this "superior" position regarding their alleged fiscal conservatism in order to capitalize on that if Obama failed. I was, however, a little rattled about how brazenly he articulated this.

We all know what's going to happen. Any way it turns out they, the self-proclaimed morally superior crowd, will claim that Obama failed. Either way we will be reduced because we will have to call them what they are: filthy, disgusting liars.

We have time to prepare and we have strategic advantages. I believe we will prevail but best to be prepared. What can we do now in preparation?