A friend of mine who considers herself to be conservative commented on Facebook today that "'Conservative' Movies Make More Money Than 'Liberal' Movies" (based on http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/...). After a few back-and-forths, she stated that if conservative values are getting through to more people as a result of these movies, then she's all for this.
At this point, my patience snapped -- I've completely lost it over the very idea that contraception is now in political play, along with everything else -- and I composed the righteous rant below.
Just what are "conservative values" these days, anyway? As best as I can determine, "conservative values" right now amount to worship the wealthy, poverty means that you're a bad person, Muslims specifically and non-Christians in general are evil, women aren't allowed control over their own bodies, LGBT's are, well, whatever, everyone's completely on their own, and most importantly whatever's in the electoral interests of the Republican Party goes. I don't see any coherent message, much less any moral or ethical content beyond a literal interpretation of selective parts of the bible and a general ethos of every man for himself, other than that Barack Obama is the spawn of the devil and Democrats are demons.
I don't see any serious policy proposals from anyone but Jon Huntsman (Huntsman proposed, for example, imposing a fee on financial institutions that are deemed "too big to fail" as an advance premium against that possibility). And Huntsman is out of the race. Otherwise, it's all about "repeal Obamacare" and the like, with no indication of what they'd do beyond that. Ryan's vouchercare is just insane. Does he seriously expect that elderly people, many of whom are suffering from cognitive impairment (let's be realistic here -- and let's also be realistic about the fact that even people who are fully in command of their mental faculties are going to have a very hard time sorting through all the complexities), are going to be able to work out what their needs are and buy private medical insurance -- if companies are even going to be willing to sell it to them, which he isn't going to force them to do?
What passes for "foreign policy" is even worse. Other than Ron Paul and Huntsman, it's all about bombing or invading Iran (which would be just about the stupidest thing we could possibly do). Huntsman, who does have more than passing knowledge of the rest of the world, repeatedly reamed just about all of the other candidates a new one on this, but none of them seem to have listened.
Is this really what "conservative values" are? Or is there something I'm missing?
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I now feel a little bit better.
This friend of mine isn't a bad person at all. She's most certainly not a one percenter, has a warm heart, and goes well out of her way to help people in need. But it just completely frustrates me that otherwise sensible people fall for this nonsense!