By the heavy hammer of Thor, I don't even know where to begin.
Our kids can celebrate Christmas, with resistance from exactly nobody (this factoid to be filed in the category of "Duh"). What some of you might not know: they can also pray in schools. In fact, their right to pray in school is Constitutionally protected and upheld by the courts. School-sponsored prayer, in public school, has been banned. Timmy can go off and pray anytime he wants to, but his teacher cannot force everyone to recite the Lord's Prayer - and vive la difference. Not, however, according to Rick Perry. According to the Governor, if Timmy so much as folds his hands, his teacher is required by the Obama Administration to pry them apart (probably with red-hot pliers).
This is but the latest in a long line of similar misrepresentations, symptomatic of a Conservative stranglehold on the language of political debate in America. This stranglehold represents a simple strategy: control the language of debate in order to control all possible outcomes of the debate. One tactic that falls under this strategic heading is to conflate religious freedom and religious oppression.
Protecting the rights of some people to express their beliefs does not necessarily mean denying those same rights to other people; religious freedom is not a zero-sum game. If you confront that notion head-on, doesn't it seem a bit self-explanatory? Religious freedom means...religious freedom. Perry wants you to believe it means catering to everyone else, to the detriment of all American Christendom. He has to sell it to you that way; otherwise, he'd get no traction on this issue.
See, most people aren't against "religious freedom." This ad is aimed at the majority of the American voting public, and we believe in our collective heart of hearts in the singular principle of the most freedom possible for the most people possible. We may quibble at times over what that means (yep, Civil War, Women's Suffrage, Civil Rights Movement = "quibbles"), but we are a nation of epicureans, irrespective of political leaning.
Witness the beauty of selecting a Christian holiday with secular appeal: we support religious freedom, but nobody wants to be against Christmas. That stirs up images of imprisoning the fat guy in the red suit for the diabolical crime of bringing annual joy to rosy-cheeked younglings. Even people who have never and will never celebrate Christmas don't want that. But here comes the Texan Governor, telling you that our sitting President wants exactly that. It's almost transparent in its childishness, once you look at it straight on: "Barack Obama hates Santa Claus." Yet it is also a move of political jujitsu worthy of a true Master: "Freedom for Them Means Oppression for Us."
Freedom is Oppression. Geez. Darkseid called; he wants his playbook back.
The whole thing is disingenuous, especially since it's election season. Y'know, that special time in America when the GOP goes out of its way and off-message in order to be as inclusive as possible to all the
This is not new. Remember the debate on affirmative action? It didn't give rise to the phrase "reverse racism," but it certainly made efficient use thereof. The tactic: conflate racial equality with racism. Affirmative action seeks to redress the structural inequalities inherent in a nation that granted citizenship to Black Americans 90 years after almost everyone else - guaranteed their civil rights 100 years after that - and still doesn't educate, employ or pay them equally. But put that central objective through this Conservative spin cycle, and you come out with: "Affirmative action denies opportunities to hard-working Americans." ("Hard-working" == White, and therefore =/= Black.) Here's another Master-level move: making the message "Equality for Them Diminishes Us" not sound virulently racist.
I think you get the point. Freedom is Oppression, Equality is Racism, Up is Down, Black is White. It's got to be the most offensive weapon in the Conservative arsenal - if it's not, please tell me what is so that I can go into a gamma-irradiated rage over that instead.
"...Obama's war on religion..." it's Obama's war because Rick Perry is running against Barack Obama - but if this debate was a person, it'd be putting off retirement yet another five years and wishing someone would fund Social Security after all. This debate is older than Barack Obama - the first legal challenge to school-sponsored prayer was brought in New York in 1959. Our President is a hale and hearty 50.
"...liberal attacks on our religious heritage." What, exactly, is "our" religious heritage? Yes, yes, the Pilgrims and the Puritans - who, by the way, fled persecution, got here, immediately turned around and started persecutin' folks. What about the long history of the Jews in America, which also has its origins in the Colonial era - does that count? I'm thinking, not to Rick Perry. Anything he could mean by "our religious heritage" must be like a horrible, horrible Magic Eye painting: the longer you look at it, the more it resolves itself into an image of intolerance and ignorance. The Founding Fathers, whatever their flaws, expressly did not wish a national religion - however you interpret the principle of separation of church and state, it meant at least that much. If liberals are attacking Rick Perry's apparent intention to institute legal protections for Christianity that do not exist for other religions, then they have legal and historic basis for doing so.
"Faith made America strong. It can make her strong again." And we're back to Freedom is Oppression, but with a new twist. See now, how people who are not Christian don't even get to lay claim to the possession of faith? Add another one to the pile: "Religion (That is not Our Religion) is Faithlessness." This at least has the benefit of being an ancient hypocrisy, but I think even the most dogmatic adherents to every major world religion would agree that their counterparts believe in something. Many of them believe in something that is not substantiated by verifiable evidence. I think that qualifies as "faith," Governor.
Whew. Done.
So that's deconstruction by Dash Stryker, Polemics 'R' Us. Here's the bottom line: we have got to stop letting Conservatives control the dialogue. Rick Perry's "Strong" ad is nothing more than an exemplar, a reductio ad nauseam of the entire political debate in the United States. Who decided that the antithesis of "pro-choice" was "pro-life?" When did "liberal" become an acceptable insult? The language is unacceptable; we accept it anyway, because we have to use something in our arguments. It's like the kid along the parade route tried to convince everyone of the Emperor's nudity by saying "His clothes are silver, not gold!" That's about how effective liberal politicians will remain unless they wrest control of the dialogue back from
Rick Perry is a smirking buffoon, trotted out to draw our fire while the real bad guys run out and activate the political minefield ahead of us. His tactics are not new; they are not his. They belong to Barry Goldwater and his ideological heirs. It's past time we stopped objecting to the message, and started objecting to the very ground upon which the message rests.
I said, "Save us, George Lakoff!" We really need Bruno Gianelli.
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