The Long Arc of the Moral Universe

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”--MLK

The older I get, the more I wonder about this. Yes, things are much better for many people. Poor people are still poor, but hey, according to uber-right Heritage Foundation, it's not so bad because they have refrigerators now! Way to bend that arc, boys!

Remember this King of Ironies: the motel where MLK was assassinated (while in Memphis fighting for union garbage collectors) is just blocks from the Peabody hotel where a bunch of ducks live in the Penthouse.

The GOP has all hands on deck trying to bend that arc back in the direction of rich white people. They stick their pry bar of fact-denial under the big arc, rest it on the fulcrum of hate and bigotry, hook up their elephants, and pull with all their might.

When faced with the fact that 45,000 people per year die because they don't have health insurance, they send out Senator 1% from Arizona, or former Senator Shitlube, to claim that it's not a lack of health care that kills them, but something else. Maybe they died because they chose to be poor. Or, in Santorum's case, maybe he thinks they're all gay and deserve to die for choosing that lifestyle. Or something.

"Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think."--MLK

I can only imagine the headache Santorum gave himself when he tried to explain that he really said "blah people" instead of "black people." (So much for the Blah vote.) But then, Republicans, and apparently some Democrats and Independents, don't give a damn about the black vote. In fact, the southern strategy dictates that they get out there and blow those dog whistles just as loudly as they can if they want to get the vote that matters down south. Their continued battle against the Civil Rights Act might not get much traction outside the Paul campaign, but the GOP's war against the 1965 Voting Rights Act continues to this day, because their winning strategy is made up of two parts: get racist whites out to vote, and keep black people home. LBJ had some great things to say about this when he was getting the Voting Rights Act passed, as Charles P. Pierce pointed out in this awesome piece: On Our National Holiday, America's Everlasting War.

Race has popped up in the campaign this year. Newt Gingrich tripped over it while talking about food stamps and let's not even deal with the preposterous lie that Rick Santorum told about how he really said "blah people." Both of them were talking in gussied-up code, and they professed to be mystified as to how anyone could possibly think such a thing. And, of course, race has been a central theme (never a subtext; don't even try to make that case) in the irrational hatred directed at the current occupant of the White House. And it's not possible to read Lyndon's great speech — in which he called out  "every device of which human ingenuity is capable, has been used to deny this right" — and not think of all the smart little clerks all over the country with their smart little voter-ID laws who are so damned mystified as to why people are so upset.

Nobody is trying to bend that arc back more than Ron "Hate Whitey Day" Paul. The fact that a major candidate for President can get a large chunk of primary votes based on a philosophy that would allow states to return to Jim Crow and force women to give birth should be a shock, but it is not. A huge chunk of Republicans want to return to the 1950's, when women stayed home, even New Yorkers hated a black football hero (until he proved how well he could play), fire-hoses and dogs kept black people in their place, and wire clothes-hangers doubled as surgical tools. The only difference between Ron Paul and the whitest man to run for President in a long time is that Romney's religion was officially racist until 1978, while Paul maintains that just because he would let states return to their racist days doesn't mean he's a bigot.

On this point, I wonder what President Paul would do when Mississippi passes a law outlawing interracial marriage again, or when Texas passed a new anti-sodomy law despite the Supreme Court's ruling on Lawrence v. Texas...

Meanwhile, our extremely successful President faces a desertion from a bunch of lefties who, despite having handed GW Bush his "victory" in 2000 by voting for Ralph Nader in Florida and New Hampshire, apparently think there's no difference between Obama and Mitt Romney (who's foreign policy team is a who's who of Dick Cheney's war mongering friends).

Exactly how does one bend the long moral arc of the universe toward justice when a bunch of people who don't know what Strategic Voting means just stop pushing on our own lever, and let the GOP win?

Ron Paul, Mr. Inconsistency

In this ABC story, Ron Paul Takes Swipes at GOP Rivals, Says Michele Bachmann ‘Hates Muslims’, Paul throws out this, in reference to getting rid of federal drug laws:

"Paul added that the federal government should “protect the right to do with our own body what we want.”"

Right. Exactly what Leno's young audience wanted to hear. But, square that with his statement that abortion is "the most important issue of our age." He says abortion is violent murder. But then he says he'd leave the issue up to the individual states.

Paul said the Supreme Court of the United States should have never heard Roe v. Wade, the case that legalized abortion, and said that social issues -- including abortion, school prayer and marriage -- should be handled by the states and not by the federal courts.

So, Mr. Consistency thinks the Federal government should  “protect the right to do with our own body what we want” unless you're in a state that agrees with him that abortion is murder, in which case women will be strapped down or thrown in a cage and forced to have a baby they don't want. Unless, of course, they can afford a trip to a state that doesn't want to force women to have babies they don't want, which is fine with Paul, because rich people will be free to do just about anything they want in his libertarian utopia where being rich gives you more rights than being poor does. And, supposedly, abortion wouldn't be murder in California or New York if those states said it wasn't. Or something.

The main reason so many young people love Dr. Paul is because they think he would legalize drugs. This is not Dr. Paul's position. He clearly states that he only wants the Federal government out of the regulation of our own bodies business. But he's perfectly fine with states taking away your right to do with your own body what you want. His statement, then, that the federal government should protect a right (to do with our own body what we want), is completely disingenuous because he has clearly said before that the states have every right to dictate what we can do with our own bodies.

Consider the Lawrence case decided by the Supreme Court in June. The Court determined that Texas had no right to establish its own standards for private sexual conduct, because gay sodomy is somehow protected under the 14th amendment "right to privacy". Ridiculous as sodomy laws may be, there clearly is no right to privacy nor sodomy found anywhere in the Constitution. There are, however, states' rights – rights plainly affirmed in the Ninth and Tenth amendments. Under those amendments, the State of Texas has the right to decide for itself how to regulate social matters like sex, using its own local standards.

The Lawrence case was a clear case of the Federal Government, in this case the Judicial branch, protecting "the right to do with our own body what we want." This is precisely what Dr. Paul said the federal government should protect. And yet, Dr. Paul says that there is "no right to privacy" found anywhere in the constitution. So, where, exactly, is Dr. Paul's "right to do with our own body what we want"? Is this just some right he made up? Or is it in the constitution somewhere and he's just not telling us where? Or is he just full of shit, like every other Republican on earth?