Hunting The Muse

Right Wing Thinking

(via DailyKos)

During the more than half century of my life, we have seen an unprecedented decay in our American culture, a decay that has eroded the foundations of our collective values and moral standards of conduct. Our sense of personal responsibility has declined dramatically, just as the role and responsibility of the federal government have increased. 

The changing culture blurred the sharp contrast between right and wrong and created a new standard of conduct: "If it feels good, do it." and "If you've got a problem, blame somebody else. Individuals are not responsible for their actions," the new culture has said. "We are all victims of forces beyond our control.” We have gone from a culture of sacrifice and saving to a culture obsessed with grabbing all the gusto. We went from accepting responsibility to assigning blame.

That's from George W. Bush's pre-election book. Just a good example of some of the double-talk thinking that you see over on the right side of the aisle. Since when does "If it feels good, do it." equate "If you've got a problem, blame somebody else"? In that crazy world, the very concept of sacrificing has its own honor, independent of the circumstances of what is being sacrificed. Anyway, if this is an example of Bush's thoughtfulness, he's missing a few synapses. He doesn't even attempt to offer evidence - he "proves" his allegations by offering more allegations.

And in this article, Senator Rick Santorum shows his pretzel thinking about free will. In reference to "homosexual urges":

"And we have many temptations to do things we shouldn't do. That doesn't mean we have to give in to those temptations. I have temptations, as we all do, all the time, to do things we shouldn't do.

"Whether we have that disposition because of environmental factors, genetic factors, whatever, it doesn't mean you have to submit. We are people of free will and free choices.

So, free will is valid when it means the ability to choose not to make certain choices, but not when it means to actually make those choices. Got it, Rick.

This is incidentally one thing that has always bugged me about the whole homosexual "instinct/choice" debate. Is homosexuality genetic and/or part of someone's innate nature, or is it a choice? It's another example of a question being framed badly, of a false choice. The answer is neither and both. People make choices that are right for themselves. It's the intersection between instinct and conscious choice that makes us human. Yes, we make choices when we act, and we are responsible for those choices. But those choices are suggested by internal desires and urges we have, the source of which are impossible to isolate. We all have different natures, and we have the ability to choose to act against our nature or in a manner that aligns with our nature. Men like Santorum deny the very concept of internal nature, in favor of following codes that are asserted onto us from the outside.

Posted by Curt at July 18, 2003 03:08 AM