Asymmetry
Well good, we’ve got that cleared up: all the potential Democratic presidential candidates are religious, there’s not an atheist in the bunch. That’s a relief, isn’t it? And a surprise? Atheists being so thick on the ground in US politics, especially at the national level.
The assumptions behind the news article reporting on this shocker are rather strange, however. Or at least, if not strange in the context of US politics, still, strange in other contexts one can think of. There is this remark, for instance:
Each of the Democrats vying for the right to challenge Bush next year has reaffirmed his or her faith, refusing to cede spirituality to the Republicans.
So, they refuse to cede spirituality, but they’re perfectly content to cede skepticism, secularism, atheism. Why is that? Well one obvious answer of course is that there are more religious people than non-religious ones in the US, and people seeking votes naturally want more rather than fewer. But is that all? Is there not an underlying assumption that ‘spirituality’ (whatever that is) is a good and virtuous thing and therefore must not be ‘ceded’ to the other party? Or am I imagining things.
And then of course there’s the permanent irritation of the way Democrats are always in such a sweat never to ‘cede’ anything to Republicans, and it hardly ever works the other way around. Again, why is that? Why do Dems never worry about ‘ceding’ anything to the left? Why do Republicans never worry about ‘ceding’ anything to Democrats? Why is it almost always just the Democrats who have to follow the Republicans’ lead? This is not just an artifact of the recent takeover of every conceivable political office by Republicans, either, Democrats have been doing it at least since the ’50s. Lyndon Johnson had deep misgivings about sending troops to Vietnam in the summer of 1964, for instance, but he did it anyway because otherwise Goldwater would be able to portray him as weak on the Commies. And it’s always like that. Democrats are always afraid of being seen as ‘too’ lefty, Republicans are hardly ever afraid of being seen as ‘too’ righty. I suppose that could be because Republican ideas are inherently better ideas, but, somehow, I don’t quite think so…
No, actually it is because Republican ideas are better.
Ah. Well that clears that up.
That would include the ideas about the meritoriousness of having ‘faith’ and the viciousness of not having it, would it?
While I don’t necessarily disagree with your statements on faith, the idea that Democrats are afraid of being too lefty while the obverse does not hold for Republicans is absurd. On any number of issues it is the Republicans who cave to PC: Illegal immigration, racial preferences for the “correct” race, aka “affirmative action”, entitlement spending, the refusal to name militant Islam as the enemy. On all of these issues the wrong views get one branded a hater and a racist. But I will agree that the Dems stand on religious faith is pure hypocricy.
Hm. But I was talking about the public, rhetorical level. About Democrats talking about ‘refusing to cede X to the Republicans.’ It doesn’t seem to me that I hear Republicans saying things like that – am I wrong?
And most of the issues you mention aren’t really ‘PC’ in a simple sense. Affirmative action yes, but the others, not really. Are all Republicans, for instance, keen to cut military pensions? Those are entitlement spending, and I think some Republicans would be quite reluctant to cut them. And illegal immigration, especially, doesn’t fit the pattern. Many, many Republicans are very keen on immigration, think we should have open borders, etc – the Wall Street Journal, for one. Cheap labor – cheap, biddable, difficult to unionize labor. And some leftists are against high (legal or illegal) immigration for the same reason.
But I take your point, that the right is leery of saying or doing certain things. But it does seem to me they phrase it differently.