Patting the wrists, rolling the eyes.

[Spanky]

To my fellow Republicans - please forgive me but I just couldn't help myself.

Why I've Stopped Arguing with Social Conservatives

by Pat Sajak’s Alter Ego
Posted Mar 28, 2005

Every time I argue with a Social Conservative, I’m reminded of quarrels I used to have with my parents. The battles never seemed fair because my folks decided what the rules were and what was out of bounds. In addition, because they were parents, they could threaten me in ways I couldn’t threaten them, and they could say things I could never say.

Recently, for example, I was discussing the United Sates Supreme Court with one of my many Social Conservative friends out in Alabam when she said, without any discernable embarrassment, that all the courts that upheld the removing of Shiavo's feeding tube were “worse than Hitler.” Realizing she wasn’t alive during World War II and perhaps she may have been absent on those days when her schoolmates were studying Nazism, I reminded her of some of Hitler’s more egregious crimes against humanity, suggesting she may have overstated the case. She had not; these courts were worse. As I often did when my parents threatened to send me to my room, I let the conversation die.

Aside from being rhetorically hysterical -- and demeaning to the memory of those who suffered so terribly as a result of Hitler and the Nazis -- it served to remind me of how difficult it is to have serious discussions about politics or social issues with committed members of the Right. They tend to do things like accusing members of the left of sowing the seeds of hatred while, at the same time, comparing them to mass murderers. And they do this while completely missing the irony.

The moral superiority they bring to the table allows them to alter the playing field and the rules in their favor. They can say and do things the other side can’t because, after all, God is on their side and they have the corner on the morality market. If a Social Conservative -- one of the good guys -- complains about the content of music, films or television shows, it is OK that he wants to tell other people what to read or listen to or watch; he can be a censor because he knows what is good for the rest of us. However, a Liberal complains certain type of “hate speech” that incites people to commit racist violence then they are accused of enforcing Nazi like politically correct codes.

When liberals want to enforce standards of education from the state or Federal level, like the teaching of science in a Biology class instead of religion, they are accused of infringing on state rights. But, when a husband tries to follow his wife’s wishes as far as dying with respect, the want every branch of the government to intervene no matter what the law says. .

When Social Conservatives want to legislate what you can do with your own body or what you do in the privacy of your own home, that is fine, because they ensuring public morality. But when Liberals want to legislate to make car safers or the food you eat safer, or limit the power of special interests they are asking the Government to intrude where it does not belong. . The excesses of the Conservatives are to be excused because these folks operate from the higher moral ground and the benefit of the greater wisdom and intelligence gained from their closeness to God.

In a different Mid West conversation, I complained to another Conservative friend about some of the Right’s tone concerning the 2004 elections. I thought it insulting to hear those “blue state” voters caricatured as “the urban elite leftist masses, brain washed into stupification by CBSNews and all the Chardonnay and Brie that they consume”. My friend asked, “Well, don’t you think that people who live in the country, who are God fearing, and less exposed to all those crazy foreign ideas are better able to make informed choices?” It turns out it is superiority, not familiarity, which breeds contempt.

The rhetoric has become so super-heated that, sadly, I find myself having fewer and fewer political discussions these days. And while I miss the spirited give-and-take, when Supreme Court Justices become worse than Hitler and when those who vote a certain way do so because they’re idiots, it’s time to talk about the weather.