Friday, February 10, 2012
Untwisting an axis
Today's mini-furore over the contraception provisions of Obamacare shows a very slight return toward the natural alignment of parties and ideologies.
Popes in the 20th Century have consistently favored more 'socialistic' economic views, with the state protecting the poor against the rampaging rich. Popes have also consistently favored protecting life in all conditions. They've gone beyond proper Christian moral logic in recent years as they reject the death penalty, but before that change their position on all aspects of human existence was fully consistent with Christ. He founded a church of the oppressed, not a church of the elite. Anyone who is endangered by the wealthy and the powerful should be protected by his church; and that includes helpless unborn infants who are endangered by their more powerful mothers.
In Europe, Catholic political parties (usually called Christian Democrats) have run along the same lines, and still do.
American politics also followed the same lines until 1973. FDR held most of the Catholic voters because he was truly on the side of the poor, firmly restraining the vultures of Wall Street. Republicans held Protestant voters by supporting the vultures. In those years most of the big vultures were Presbyterian, and other Protestants felt their interests aligned with the vultures. (Evangelicals weren't a significant faction at that time.)
In 1968 the two parties switched part of their message, for reasons that didn't make much sense. Democrats picked up the value set of the old rich, which is also the value set of the criminal class at the bottom and the hippie children of the bourgeoisie.
Republicans then picked up the value set of the bourgeoisie, which included most Catholics.
At the same time, the parties retained their original economic positions. On economics, D was still nominally aligned with the working class and R with the old rich.
Roe v Wade in 1973 hardened up this strange twist. Catholics and Evangelicals, whose economic interests should have been D, moved to R. Presbyterians and similar anti-Christian Protestants, whose economic interests should have been R, moved to D. The richest of the rich are now Jews, who learned to be Democrats when they were mainly poor; they stayed with D but switched from economic loyalty to values loyalty.
And there we've stood ever since. Neither party has a consistent set of values, so American politics has degenerated into pure team-cheering and meaningless random slogans, attempting to swing those few hundred Floridians whose votes actually count. Nobody else exists.
There have always been a few members of Congress who stayed with the old consistent lines, making them 'incomprehensible mavericks' as seen from the conventional twisted view. Ron Paul is a pre-1968 Republican, favoring the economic interests AND the hippieshit values of the super-rich. Marcy Kaptur (and several other Rust Belt types) are close to pre-1968 Dems, favoring the economic interests AND the strict values of working class Romans.
= = = = =
If NPR's analysis of Obama's backdown is valid, he's acting out of respect for the more socialistic Dorothy Day-style impulses of Catholics. If so, this little halfway compromise could start to untwist the large contradiction. ¶ 5:23 PM
Popes in the 20th Century have consistently favored more 'socialistic' economic views, with the state protecting the poor against the rampaging rich. Popes have also consistently favored protecting life in all conditions. They've gone beyond proper Christian moral logic in recent years as they reject the death penalty, but before that change their position on all aspects of human existence was fully consistent with Christ. He founded a church of the oppressed, not a church of the elite. Anyone who is endangered by the wealthy and the powerful should be protected by his church; and that includes helpless unborn infants who are endangered by their more powerful mothers.
In Europe, Catholic political parties (usually called Christian Democrats) have run along the same lines, and still do.
American politics also followed the same lines until 1973. FDR held most of the Catholic voters because he was truly on the side of the poor, firmly restraining the vultures of Wall Street. Republicans held Protestant voters by supporting the vultures. In those years most of the big vultures were Presbyterian, and other Protestants felt their interests aligned with the vultures. (Evangelicals weren't a significant faction at that time.)
In 1968 the two parties switched part of their message, for reasons that didn't make much sense. Democrats picked up the value set of the old rich, which is also the value set of the criminal class at the bottom and the hippie children of the bourgeoisie.
Republicans then picked up the value set of the bourgeoisie, which included most Catholics.
At the same time, the parties retained their original economic positions. On economics, D was still nominally aligned with the working class and R with the old rich.
Roe v Wade in 1973 hardened up this strange twist. Catholics and Evangelicals, whose economic interests should have been D, moved to R. Presbyterians and similar anti-Christian Protestants, whose economic interests should have been R, moved to D. The richest of the rich are now Jews, who learned to be Democrats when they were mainly poor; they stayed with D but switched from economic loyalty to values loyalty.
And there we've stood ever since. Neither party has a consistent set of values, so American politics has degenerated into pure team-cheering and meaningless random slogans, attempting to swing those few hundred Floridians whose votes actually count. Nobody else exists.
There have always been a few members of Congress who stayed with the old consistent lines, making them 'incomprehensible mavericks' as seen from the conventional twisted view. Ron Paul is a pre-1968 Republican, favoring the economic interests AND the hippieshit values of the super-rich. Marcy Kaptur (and several other Rust Belt types) are close to pre-1968 Dems, favoring the economic interests AND the strict values of working class Romans.
= = = = =
If NPR's analysis of Obama's backdown is valid, he's acting out of respect for the more socialistic Dorothy Day-style impulses of Catholics. If so, this little halfway compromise could start to untwist the large contradiction. ¶ 5:23 PM
