A time for action, a time for guts

Conservatives are pretty satisfied with themselves that they make sense of the world's complexity using deeply-felt principles. Though the principles may differ according to society and time, a conservative viewpoint is essentially a faith in timeless truths, whatever they may be. Down yonder in America, the modern conservative believes in the inviolable pillars of God, freedom and family. There are others, but these three are the source and wellspring for any politician who identifies him or herself as a conservative. This is why they don't give a shit about reason or morality. This is why they would rather private insurance companies "compete in the market," unobstructed by pesky outsiders who would force them to not bankrupt people for receiving health care.

It was impressive to watch the conservative men in Congress carefully sift Obama's words today, parsing their precise meaning at the moment when the illegitimate president's melodious phrases alighted on their hair-infested, aged ear canals (for correct ear maintenance please see a previous post.) Particularly impressive are the men who sit on the Republican side of that venerable American chamber, it inspires to gaze at their imperviousness to anything which is not their own fanatical dogma. "What are these old men thinking?" I wondered. Is it really just a matter of politics that some old white men see 30 million living without access to a doctor as a problem, while other old white men do not? That some old white men believe illness should not leave one destitute while others merely shrug before offering a silent prayer to the divine forces of the market? What accounts for this rigid dichotomy, when both sides see and interpret the same "facts" from profoundly different worldviews? Suddenly I realized what was really going on: Conservatives don't need to think, they've got their trusty principles and gut feelings to rely on.

What's even more amazing is that these unthinking politicians can instantly, using their own guts, intuit the gut feelings of their unthinking constituents! A terrific trick! Masters in the art of human extispicy, these old men don't even need to view the entrails of a dead constituent, but can gather meaning from them while the specimen still lives! And so they sat and did not clap, nay, they did not smile. They sat silently, convening with the viscera of those whose God, freedom and family they swore to uphold. "What's that left kidney of middle-aged homemaker and mother of five, Nancy Swarthmesson?" a veteran congressman asks (with his bladder, incidentally.) Her spleen whispered: "Obama's a red menace... beware his creeping socialism." Her gall bladder murmured: "His words cannot hide his fascist intentions... his way leads to death camps and Nazism." Her small intestines rasped: "We must stop him! Stop him soon, before his murderous government kills us all, God forbid!" Gathering the collected wisdom of Nancy's organs, her humble representative, that humble conservative, is at once insulated from the subtle persuasiveness of conciliatory argumentation. No, he will not support this communist affront.