Conservative Logic

A while back a blogger named evangelicalperspective took issue with my review of Al Franken’s book. I followed the comment link back to his blog, and read some of his thoughts on Franken:

He [Franken] got on the air and complained that evangelicals are not talking about Saipan and forced abortion.....
It seems that the situation in Saipan is related to sweat-shop laborers. Funny we don't hear him complaining about the same thing in PROC (Communist China). Could it be because someone is making money off the women in Saipan and the China situation is simply their form of "contraception", so to speak.

Now, the difference to me seems obvious. Saipan is a US protectorate under US jurisdiction. China is a hostile foreign government. We have control over what we do. We have no control over what a foreign government does.

This seems to be a concept Right wingers have a hard time grasping. Another example was in the GR Press tonight under an editorial by Cal Thomas. You can go read the whole thing here, but here’s some quotes:

Taking note of the differences between the way the United States and terrorists fight, Rumsfeld said, "…one side puts their men and women at risk in uniform and obeys the laws of war, while the other side uses them against us." We have seen that in the world's reaction to Guantanamo Bay prison and Abu Ghraib. Terrorists use torture and murder and no court of public opinion or judicial entity holds them accountable. The rare instance of abuse by American soldiers is punished.

Rumsfeld elaborated on the difference between the two sides: "One side does all it can to avoid civilian casualties, while the other side uses civilians as shields, and then skillfully orchestrates a public outcry when the other side accidentally kills civilians in their midst. One side is held to exacting standards of near perfection; the other side is held to no standards and no accountability at all."

If you follow right wing pundits, you can see this over and over again: “Everyone’s complaining about abuse by US prison guards in Abu Ghraib. Where’s the outrage over Saddam Hussein and his rape rooms?” “Why isn’t the press condemning Al-Quada instead of the civilian massacres by US soldiers?”

Remember this quote by Senator John Inofe? "I'm probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment"and then later
"I am also outraged that we have so many humanitarian do-gooders right now crawling all over these prisons looking for human rights violations while our troops, our heroes, are fighting and dying."

Or in the current Israel-Lebanon conflict: “Why do liberals expect the United States to intervene here, but they didn’t want us to get involved in the Iraq War?” Or, "Why is everyone condemning Israel? How come no one condemns the terrorist organizations?" Um...first of all everyone condemns the terrorist organizations. In fact it's ridiculous that we even need to say it. Secondly the United States supplies Israel with most of their weapons, and so the opinion of the US President carries a lot of weight.

If the religious right seriously followed their own ideology, you would think they would remove the plank from their own eye first. But instead the attitude seems to be the opposite. “America. Hey, if some other country or terrorist organization somewhere is worse than us, then just shut up!” Or, "America! Just be thankful we aren't like the terrorists!" Ah, those conservatives. Creating a country we can really be proud of.

Lets try this attitude out on key conservative issues, and see how it sounds.

Taxes: Conservatives are always complaining about high taxes. But don’t they know the taxes are much higher in Canada? And you never hear them complaining about that, do you? Why is that? Is it just because Conservatives hate America?

Abortion: The per capita abortion rate in Japan is much higher than in the US. But how come anti-abortion protesters never picket the Japanese embassy? When you see them, they are always protesting US abortion clinics? Is it that they don’t really object to abortion, they just don’t want American woman to have choices?

Sex on TV: Conservatives always complain about sex and violence on American TV, but its much worse in Europe. How come you never hear them complain about sex and violence on European TV?

........You see how stupid that is? Knock it off guys.

Useless Wikipedia Fact
The following have been specifically stated as being no longer eligible for a Darwin Award, as they are too common:
Smoking in an oxygen tent
Being hit by a train or automobile
Climbing into zoo cages
Falling off a precipice while posing or urinating (spitting is perilously close to being added to this list)
Urinating onto electrified wires, subway rails, etc.
Certain forms of carelessness with flammable liquids
Plain alcohol poisoning. Alcohol consumption, on the other hand, plays a key role in many Darwin Awards.
Deliberate and willful acts; doing it on purpose steps from Darwin Award to insanity or plain suicide.
Mobile phone accidents in general (although there are exceptions to this rule)

Link of the Day
Through my surfing of the web, I've discovered another Boer Bennink blogger:
http://mariandenver.blogspot.com/ Who's, uh, apparently in Denver.