You know it's gonna be . . .

In today's Arizona Republic's Viewpoint section there was an interesting article by Richard Nilsen titled Reaction to world is fulcrum of politics. His analysis of the fundamental difference between conservatives and liberals, while perhaps over simplified, is very astute, but I think it missed one vital aspect. While I agree that the actions and reactions of conservatives and liberals are governed to a greater or lesser extent by their fear or acceptance of change, I think an even more fundamental catalyst is the differing concepts of family.


I would argue that most people have an instinctual drive to protect and provide for themselves, and then their family. The concepts of tribe or nation are, to me, just extensions of family. The other members of the tribe or nation are third or fourth cousins kind of thing. Whether or not a person's concept of family is derived through nurture or nature is for other, much brighter people to decide, but I would not be surprised if it was a combination of the two.

Anyway, it has been my experience that conservatives have very restrictive concepts of family. Things like universal health care and education are an anathema to them because they are busy providing for their family, and don't have time to worry about outsiders. The more conservative the person is the smaller, more strictly defined their family, and by extension tribe. To me this is why Hitler was unable to form deep, lasting relationships. As perhaps the most conservative person to ever live his family was limited to him, and his tribe to a mythical race of supermen he would create. He would be a god, and gods are always conservative. It is interesting to note that Hitler was trying to recreate. He was not trying to change but to strip away the thousands of years of corruptive changes that had debased the perfect beings of the past.

Conversely, liberals seem to have a rather more inclusive concept of family, which is why they are usually more willing to devote personal or national assets to providing things like health care, or less restricted entry into the country. The liberal must protect and provide for his brothers, his family; and he has a very large family.

And so we elect them again and again . . .

Several months ago the Democratic Party of Arizona sent me an email asking what I would like to see in the Democratic Platform for this election.

My short answer was: A backbone.

I would like to see our nation's leader have the strength of character to stand up to the Religious Right and tell them it is none of their business who or what someone believes in, if at all. Furthermore, they are free to practice their religion only so long as it does not conflict with the freedom and welfare of others. Just as freedom of speech does not include the freedom to yell "fire" in a crowded building, freedom of religion does not include the freedom to exploit or abuse others, or to force others to follow the dictates of their beliefs.

I would like to see them take the firm stance that marriage is a civil contract. It is a public declaration that two people have formed a partnership to deal with the day to day issues of survival, give assistance to each other during times of hardship, and share the responsibilities of raising any children that may result. As such it doesn't matter if the partners are a man and a woman, two men, two women or any combination of the above. As long as both, or all, partners have entered the agreement freely and knowingly without being coerced or forced to do so then they are married. If you wish to bring religion into it that is your and your partner's decision, and those complications are of your own devising and have nothing to do with me.

I would like to see the Democrats finally have the courage to declare that in a nation as rich as the United States there is no justifiable reason every man, woman and child is not provided with the best medical treatment in existence. For a fraction of what we have spent getting our youth killed in Iraq we could have given every citizen, or alien, state of the art medical aide. (In the long run it would have even saved the nation billions of dollars by preventing hundreds of thousands of conditions from becoming even worse, and therefore more costly, or perhaps even occurring at all.)

I would like to see the Democrats finally state publicly and without apology that all of the hysteria over illegal aliens is nothing more than disgustingly shameful bigotry and racism. Unless you are 100% Native American or First Nation you or your family probably got here without a visa. Whenever the immigration authorities, or our publicity addicted sheriff, make a sweep rounding up the 'illegals' they are caught working in restaurants, construction sites or doing some other bottom rung job no 'citizen' would take. They are working. The drug dealers and thieves responsible for our high crime rate are our own, home grown product. The woman with six children from six different fathers draining our welfare system is a citizen and not one of those filthy wetbacks.

There's more. So much more.

秋風や石積んだ馬の動かざる

Autumn wind/A horse loaded with stones/Doesn't move