As more and more states pass laws targeting “pornographic material” in books and online, they are repeatedly running up against a problem: The Bible has not just a few passages that could be considered indecent
It’s not a broad generalization at all. It’s a widespread pattern of hypocritical and contradictory conservative outrage, statements, and laws.
- “I should be able to teach kids about the Bible in school, but you can’t teach them about Yoga”
- “we can’t have vulgar language, oh unless it’s from our religious book”
- “I can’t make a cake for you because you’re gay and that’s against my religion. What do you mean you won’t make a Christian cake? That’s religious discrimination!”
- “Happy holidays!??! Happy holidays??! You monster, how dare you wage war on Christmas! We have religious liberty in this country! What do you mean that protects other religions? There’s only one God and one religion!”
- “It’s totally fine that the polling places in large democratic areas have hours long waits so long as my polling places are quick and easy”
- “it’s totally fine that a county with 10,000 people has the same number of ballot drop boxes as a country with 3,000,000 people”
- “marriage is between a man and woman … and may include 17 divorces; they gays can’t have it”
- “we need to teach kids (i.e., indoctrinate them in the ways of) Jesus not this woke (black history, trans, etc)”
- “let’s let white kids off with a slap on the wrist while we throw a black kid in jail for smoking a plant”
- “I can’t believe a president could have such a scandal in the white house as to have had an affair with an assistant! We need to impeach! No, I don’t think extorting an ally for information about an opponent is worthy of an impeachment! Trying to overthrow a legitimate presidental victor with a procedural trick? Nah that’s not worth an impeachment either! Oh but hey, this Biden guy’s son who lost one of his parents and a sibling in a car crash, that lost his brother to cancer, that has a drug problem, called his dad while he was in business meetings to show off… so you know his dad definitely was up to something! We’ve got to impeach him over that! What do you mean that was before he was even president and that’s completely unprecedented?”
- “We should totally lock her up for those emails! What do you mean the guy screaming that’s son and law did the exact same thing?”
- “We’re sorry we can’t appoint a supreme court justice just before the election! Psych! We totally can if it’s nominated by OUR president!”
- “We need law and order in this country! What do you mean Trump broke the law? Nah, I’m not hearing it; this is clearly a partisan witch hunt and the majority conservative staff of the FBI is out to get conservatives! Oh but we’ll DEFINITELY weaponize the federal government and go after our political rivals full steam if we get the presidency in 2024”
- “I believe abortion is amoral, that’s why I hid the fact that my ex/current lovers have had one”
- “I believe homosexuality is amoral, that’s why I am one in the closet”
- “we’re going to be the party of health care, but don’t watch as we strip you of your federal protections for your health care”
- “we’re the party of the little man, but don’t watch as we cut taxes for the rich (and you but make sure that expires under the next term (probably while the Democrats are in power)”
- “the national debt is an outage! Oh let’s spend as much as Obama did in half the time! Oh Biden is in power again, spending is out of control!”
- “the problem isn’t guns it’s mental health, but we’re not going to do anything about that either! Must be because the kids aren’t in church, the gays, video games, or hey look over there, a squirrel!”
- “climate change? Nah. It’s not real. Okay maybe it is, but it doesn’t matter because look at China! Oh we could make a dent and get the ball rolling? Well, it’s too late anyways, we should’ve been building nuclear plants! What do you mean I just made that up? Clearly I’ve been trying to solve this via nuclear the whole time, and it’s not another dog whistle! Oh and btw all of my top presidential candidates say they don’t believe in man made climate change! But yeah, totally serious about this issue!!”
… and that’s just off the top of my head. If you’re a conservative, wake up, your party is a mess.
Yeah… I agree. None of that makes selective enforcement the core of conservative laws.
I’d argue it does, conservative lawmaking has consistently operated with a distinct understanding (and execution) that shows “this applies to them not us.” I’d love for conservative law makers to do what they say and say what they mean. However, they won’t and thus can’t build a coalition that gets them elected by being honest about their policy goals.
Conservative law making in the US has become at its core “outrage politics” (and that depends on selectively enforcing ideals, policies, and laws/antagonizing part of the population). I don’t make generalizations lightly, but this is the core and fundamental piece holding the Republican party together, and it’s an awful state of affairs.
This can be further demonstrated by Vivek Ramaswamy climbing in the polls despite, as Chris Christie put it, “sounding like ChatGPT.”
I agree those are bad examples.
Better examples:
Phillando Castile. All for gun rights until a black man is shot while legally owning a gun. One could run down the list of black people (and children) who have been murdered by the police because they “thought there was a gun”. Guns are legal and they’re quite vocal about supporting the right to bear arms (but only if you look white).
Jan 6. All for upholding law and order and obeying the police until they don’t get what they want. They lied about the cities in this country being destroyed during the Floyd uprisings as if America was gone.
All of the anti-trans laws passed are to “protect children” and yet they have not gone after any of the abuse scandals in churches or law enforcement.
Build the wall. Enforced only against black and brown people at the southern border.
How about holding the supreme court seat for a year?
We could continue but I’ll just boil it down with a pithy quote: there are those who the law must protect but does not bind and there are those that the law must bind but not protect. That is the conservative idea. Go read the only moral abortion is my abortion with that statement in mind and it’ll make sense.
Spoiler: he’ll completely ignore this comment and just continue to go on saying that all criticisms of conservatives are baseless and unproductive
He didn’t say that, he criticized generalizing conservatives. I know conservatives who don’t care to block books from school libraries, or block trans students from going to bathrooms in their identified gender- or most of the other “culture war” arguments.
I’ll be honest, the point was less for him and more for lurkers, that might not pay as much attention and might benefit from an outline. I gave up on changing the mind of the person I’m replying to on the internet a long time ago (if it happens great!) … but I want to challenge and cut through the “noise” for the casual observer.
Don’t put words in my mouth or accuse my of something you made up in your mind.
Broadly speaking though, it’s true. Do you have counter examples to offer?
A counter example of what? A conservative law that doesn’t have selective enforcement at its core?
Sort of, but also, Christianity is a death cult that enables child molesters and promotes hate, so there is not much room for subtly. It is also profoundly lacking in any basis of reality and frankly teaches deranged ideas that harm children’s ability to make rational judgments about reality.
Also a church is the worst kind of echo chamber.
