Monday, May 14, 2012

Not right. Wrong.



Yesterday I wrote a blog about the Governor of Arizona signing a horrible piece of legislation into law that would allow employers to question their female employees about the taking of contraceptives.

This constitutional debacle will be played out before us in the courts, no doubt, but it did raise the hackles of one reader in Arizona, who accused this blog of being a left-wing propaganda machine.

I want to set the record straight. The outcry from this blog about this horrendous act by the Arizona lawmakers is not a leftist idea.  It is rooted in Jeffersonian conservative ideals. It is all about keeping government intrusion out of our private lives. Ironically, in this case, the government didn’t have the balls to do it themselves, instead they empowered business to act as their agent. So not only is this act unconstitutional, it is cowardly as well. For all their bombastic speeches, the ultra-right are bullies. They rule with fear and inside are cowardly bastards.

I can only imagine Thomas Jefferson arguing against such a heinous act by using the argument that the privacy of an individual’s life trumps anything the state may think it has the right to know- religion be damned. This veiled attempted at yet one more step of demagoguery in the Arizona desert is a sign that ultra-conservatives are massing to police America in a theocracy that would rule your life and mine by means of religious order and ideals. Think the Taliban, if you want an example of what this legislation leads to.

I have no argument with the 10 Commandments. But in a country where there is supposed to be no organized state-supported religion, the advent of theological laws used in conjunction with state laws, starts walking a very slippery slope. At what point do we start telling everyone they HAVE to attend a religious service on Sunday? At what point do we force Jews and Muslims (Mormons for that matter) to convert to mainstream Christianity? It is an easy step from requiring you to answer questions about your private life by employers who wish to know why you are taking the medications you have in your medicine chest, to a full-scale blanket of laws that would affect your daily life in all areas. Does your employer have the right to know that you take Viagra–that you have a problem keeping it up on your own? Does your government have the authority to give away your right of privacy?

Is there no stopping these zealots?  These people have been waging war on individual freedoms for at least the last forty years that I can remember. And at the same time, they cry the loudest in their own media about being persecuted and having their own freedoms trampled on by the “liberal press and the “hostile government.”  Barry Goldwater, himself an Arizona Republican, warned us of the religious right and their destructive mentality. He warned his own party – the GOP– not to get in bed with these people for it would bring a downfall on the true ideals that conservatives believe in.

These people want to get into your personal life. That is their plan. They want to impose on your life, their ideals and morals. They want to tell you how you will lead your personal life and they will stop at nothing to see that their narrow worldview is turned into law one way or the other. This is not evangelism. It is fascism.

No, this is not a liberal notion.  This is an American notion. These people are dangerous and stand against the conservative values of Thomas Jefferson – freedom for the individual and freedom from government interference in our lives. I guess that makes me a Conservative of the highest order then. And that is a truly weird thought for this old liberal.

Let us hope and pray that the courts will have the backbone to stand up and face this crowd of morons in the desert and tell them, enough is enough. It doesn’t spread from here. I just hope it is not too late. (Kansas, Indiana, Texas and Tennessee are not too far behind.)

So to my friend in Arizona, my answer is pure and straightforward. Your Republican legislature screwed up. It became the very thing you didn’t want from government.  It became an overreaching, despot in your life.  Good luck. Now you’ve got to live with it.




           

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