Republican Dirty Tricks

The schizophrenia of being a modern conservative is enough to give normal people sharing the same air a perpetual knotted stomach. For example, the conservative penchant for proclaiming Jesus as their favorite “philosopher” while re-writing the story of the original liberal “community organizer” into some free-market capitalist crusader Hell-bent on teaching the lazy poor people to pull themselves up from their bootstraps.

The hypocrisy of today’s Cons turning the “Prince of Peace” into a vindictive, war-mongering, selfish, greed-centered, version of themselves is illustrated beautifully at Tea Party Jesus – where the literal words of today’s Christians are put in the mouth of Christ as evidence to the unbridled dishonesty and disingenuousness of Con philosophy.

Canadian-American economist, prolific author and proud progressive John Kenneth Galbraith put it correctly when he said,

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”

Not only are they in desperate need of moral justification, they are in on a constant mission for historical justification – even if that means they have to simply “make it up.”

The arch of history in positively evolving societies bends away from Con ideology and towards enlightened and vibrant democracy.
Our Founders, students of the liberal Enlightenment – the Age of Reason – were fighting the Con ideology when they created our republic. Although their were some foundered more Conservative than others – ones who believed that the “right” people (the rich) should lead and the rest of us should follow, they were fresh from being under the thumb of hundreds of years of generational aristocracies and hereditary rule. The Cons of their day were the Loyalists who wanted to remain under the thumb of the Monarchy.

Unfortunately for the current state of discourse in America, wearing a 3-pointed hat draped with teabags does not a historian make.

Glenn Beck is the most egregious culprit in attempting to rewrite history to suit his malignant narcissism.

Not only does Glenn Beck suffer from alcoholism, drug addiction and suicide ideation, and – as Lewis Black put it – “Nazi Tourettes” – he also suffers from regular breaks from reality.

Funny how someone so adept in sniffing out the scent of Nazism would revive that old Nazi propaganda, anti-Semitic canard, about the Jews killing his Lord and Savior, Jesus H Christ, Beck went on his radio program to attack Jewish Funds for Justice’s Simon Greer; saying putting “the common good” first “leads to death camps.”

For the sake of setting the record straight, let’s hear what our actual Founding Fathers had to say about “the common good.”

“In contriving any system of government, and fixing the several checks and controls of the constitution, every man ought to be supposed a knave, and to have no other end, in all his actions, but private interest. By this interest we must govern him, and by means of it make him co-operate to public good,” Alexander Hamilton “The Farmer Refuted.“

“The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust.” – James Madison from “Federalist No. 57“

“Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity and happiness of the people; and not for the profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men: Therefore the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity and happiness require it.” – John Adams “Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (1780) Article VII“

“During the contest of opinion through which we have past, the animation of discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers unused to think freely, and to speak and to write what they think; but this being now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the rules of the constitution all will of course arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good.” – Thomas Jefferson “First Inaugural Address“

Thanks Thom Hartmann for putting these quotes together.