Over at Addicting Info, Wendy Gittleson has come up with ten questions to ask your conservative friends. They are good questions, and frankly, I don't think conservatives can come up with good answers to those questions without denying their own political philosophy. Here are the questions:
1. Why is it that when people hoard things, they are a scourge on society and when they hoard money, they are job creators? In fact, aren’t the people that buy things the true job creators?
2. Both the 10 Commandments and the Seven Deadly Sins have no mention of being gay or having abortions. Greed, though, seems to be a biggie. Why do conservatives seem to get that backwards?
3. At what point did getting sick become a moral failing?
4. In what way are people who buy and sell paper making a more significant contribution to society than teachers, nurses, firefighters, police officers, mail carriers, artists, etc.?
5. When did the right to unlimited profit become greater than the general welfare of the people?
6. Why don’t people realize that there’s no such thing as a “self made man?” Even the most successful and ethical people can thank their parents, their teachers, their siblings, their employees, their customers, the government, their contractors, etc. Without them, they would be nothing. The unethical might want to work on their apologies.
7. Why is physical labor less important than sitting behind a desk?
8. Why should people who inherit their money not pay taxes and people who earn their money be taxed at the highest rate?
9. At what point did we start judging people based on the size of their checkbook rather than the size of the heart?
10. How has being a conservative helped you?
Excellent questions, and ones which I and my husband ask our neighborhood conservatives all the time. Instead of thinking, they just respond with knee-jerk accusations of persecution by us elitist atheist liberal tree-huggin' namby-pambies. Getting these people to actually force thoughts through the rusty channels and misfiring circuits of their brains is the real challenge.
ReplyDeleteAs a nurse, I am particularly bothered by the conservative religious attitude toward the sick and the poor. How many cognitive contortions do they have to go through to reconcile their views with what their supposed Savior said? I like to point out how they bitch about the bank bailouts while all the time supporting corporate greed and whining about how "socialist" universal healthcare would bankrupt us. With the amount given to the banks, the U.S. government could have provided lifelong healthcare for every man, woman, and child alive in the US today. Hell, the bonuses the bank CEOs are paying themselves could have paid for universal healthcare for years. How is it that they still have the money to pay these criminal CEOs? How do we have money for banks but not for individuals who have ballooning mortgages, healthcare bills, flat or declining wages, or no jobs?