Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Time For Reflection

This conservative writer says Atheists can be conservatives too:

It is often said, in defense of religion, that we all live parasitically off of its moral legacy, that we can only dismiss religion because we are protected by the work it has already done on our behalf. This claim has been debated ad nauseam since at least the middle of the 19th century. Suffice it to say that, to many of us, Western society has become more compassionate, humane, and respectful of rights as it has become more secular. Just compare the treatment of prisoners in the 14th century to today, an advance due to Enlightenment reformers. A secularist could as easily chide today’s religious religious conservatives for wrongly ignoring the heritage of the Enlightenment.

This one reflects, sadly, on his earlier blind allegiance to the Republican push for war:

I had a heretical thought for a conservative - that I have got to teach my kids that they must never, ever take Presidents and Generals at their word - that their government will send them to kill and die for noble-sounding rot - that they have to question authority.

This sort of soul searching is often mocked by the groups these writers most closely identify with though in the following example, the writer seems to not realize just who he his indicting:

It continues to amaze me how the Right so often bucks up admittedly fine, talented and intelligent young men as the would be sages of their age by giving their words such notoriety, when they are so lacking in deeds other than writing - read experience and genuine maturity. And I am not calling Rod Dreher a poseur within the context of his Conservatism, I am calling him that within the context of someone who pretended to have the strength, vision, experience, insight and wisdom to support a difficult war.

I couldn't have said it better myself (as we've noted before, some politicians served their country during their formative years, most in our current administration did not).

On the issue of reflection, these comments should not be that remarkable. When the party and platform you support has failed as miserably as it has, when the president you welcomed as a man of historical greatness is suffering some of the lowest approval ratings of any president in history, when the war you championed - to the point of calling fellow citizens traitors for their opposition - has by many accounts advanced Islamic terrorism beyond anything the terrorists could have done on their own, when your entire platform has been voted out of office by the American people, reflection is good thing.

All emphasis in the above quotes mine.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

it sure is scary to see that Bush is going to stay the path despite low approval for the war by the American public, the ISG report, the advise of Generals and the Nov. election. His stubborness can only be for sick political gains or due to delusions of his own holiness. The american public did its part and voted the GOP party and its platform of war out. Now its up to our Congress to follow the American people's mandate and end this war.