Why the Right Gets It Wrong

Just running down the alphabet, I can describe the right-wing conservatives and corporations running our country: authoritarian, bullying, closed-minded, demanding, entitled, farcical, gutless, hypocritical, inconsistent, jarring, kowtowing, lame, mean-spirited, nasty, oppressive, power-hungry, quixotic, radical, sanctimonious, tyrannical, unconvincing, vicious, weak, xenophobic, yellow-bellied and over-zealous.

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To hear these carriers of the torch of truth tell it, truth is a matter of black and white. They would have you think it is a "for-us-or-against-us world," as George W. Bush asserts. But life is not that way. We don't have to go beyond the president's so-called "war on terror" to find an example: consider our two-faced dealings with Saudi Arabia. Condi Rice and Donald Rumsfeld say the Saudis are "with us," but do not admit they are "with us" because we line their pockets with energy dollars.

The right wing gets it wrong because they rely on expediency - getting what they want, when they want it. There is no honest searching for truth because, to them, truth is variable. For instance, Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., has stood by President Bush for five years on stem-cell research, insisting it is an immoral trade-off of killing a baby in order to save an old fogey from Parkinson's. Last week, Frist redefined stem cells and embryos. I am sure his change of heart was driven by some nefarious scheme to put more money in the coffers of the pharmaceutical or medical industry.

This sort of expediency explains why the right wing is so inconsistent. For ambassador to the United Nations, they are willing to install a bigot who despises the body. For Supreme Court justice, they support a man who has argued vociferously for stripping the Supreme Court of jurisdiction to hear cases arising under the 14th Amendment. And before he was a Supreme Court justice, Clarence Thomas was installed by conservatives as head of the Equal Opportunity Commission - this despite the fact that, judging from his decisions, Justice Thomas abhors equal opportunity.

This illogic and hypocrisy extends even to the naming of many recent laws. A 1,400 page document that strips law-abiding Americans of basic rights guaranteed under the Bill of Rights is called the "USA Patriot Act," so that those who challenge their loss of liberty will be unpatriotic by definition. Legislation that gives power companies authority to pollute the air is called "Clear Skies." And what is in the "energy" bill? Billions in subsidies to the oil and gas industries at a time of record profits - and almost nothing to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

The right gets it wrong because they are authoritarian. There is no compromising or balancing of ends with means; it's "my way or the highway." In every disagreement, they bully their way to victory. And like the good children of authoritarian parents, the right's followers respond with unwavering loyalty to the demands of their leaders, even when those leaders act against interests of their country.

To be fair, the left enables this waste of time and money by failing to choose their battles. Like all good victims, we let the bullies push our buttons. Before we know it, we have been bloodied and bruised fighting a fight that we should have skipped in the first place. Consider the quest for records from Vice President Dick Cheney's so-called "energy panel." A third-year law student could have read the regulation cited by public interest organizations and found that Cheney's chewing the fat with the oil companies was not a "record" they could secure by lawsuit.

For the right, life is all about power - the end game of authoritarianism. There is no god but their God, no truth but their truth. The Federalist Society, an organization of right-wing zealot attorneys, is embedded deep in the Justice Department and the federal court system. They contend that they alone can channel the intent of the founding fathers in the Constitution.

The right is wrong on just about every issue of the day. Sensible Americans, few though we may be, had better figure out a way to disarm the ideological bullies and return reason and pragmatism to government and American life