Dear Editor
The rhetorical ying-yang between Paul Flentge and I reminds me of the class discussions I was lucky enough to monitor. In a classroom setting, a student will often offer a shaky generalization and classmates will refine the intuitive truth with respectful amendments and apropos examples. Learning ensues.
Flentge’s explanation of “moral proximity” fleshed out the contrast I drew between Republican personal and civic morality. Like the parable of the Good Samaritan, Paul’s “little girl” analogy was an alert to the horizon-narrowing push of our ethnocentrism.
Flentge was spot on when he called the unwillingness of Republicans to apply their personal sense of right and wrong to civic affairs “hypocritical,” but I prefer the phrase “philosophic flexibility” because it connotes the convenience underlying Conservative citizenship.
I see convenience when the once Compassionate Conservative begins to believe that cruelty is cool (Minneapolis Mainstreet executions); or when the astute, 98-year-old suspicion of Russia disappears overnight; or when pro-life supporters make a prince of promiscuity a role model. Accepting a variance in values is commonplace among political constituencies, but regularly accepting a polar opposite point of view is proof of successful Echo Chamber grooming.
Paul left town a year before the Roe decision came down, and he may not be aware of how easy one-issue voting has made rural citizenship. The abortion issue has created the Single Sin Citizen (SSC), who puts words above actions. Donald Trump’s resume of vow evaporation and predatory sexual deviance can be overlooked by the SSCs because the Epstein pal has paid lip service to their views on abortion.
Also in 1973, Republicans were ashamed to learn that Richard Nixon had created an internal “enemies list.” Now the “enemy within” is a common theme on the Right. The pro-life movement was instrumental in bringing about this dangerous, sinister demonization, and History will struggle with weighing the long-range positive or negative effects of the movement. The tipping point for Posterity may come in an obscure, but revelatory format, the anti-masking Letters to the Editor during COVID.
Every anti-masking letter I read in this paper and others, written by Conservatives whom we can presume to be pro-life, justified their anti- masking stance by claiming complete sovereignty over their bodies, which is the central principle underlying the Liberal argument for Choice.
I almost shouted, “Hypocrisy!” but the more I read, the more I realized that the writers did not know they were espousing a Liberal tenet. Then it hit me: Single Sin Citizens don’t have to bother with understanding the views of others. Putting ourselves in the other fella’s shoes reinforces and broadens the civilizing effect of our Christian morality, and Conservative civic convenience seems to discourage this positive inward process.
Finally, I believe that Religious Faith, at its most basic, is a recognition of something that cannot be objectively proven, and that’s exactly what belief in the 2020 stolen election lie requires. 21st-century conservatism demands too much from its followers. Caesar’s share is not enough for the Republican leader.
Sincerely,
Jesse Laurentius, Perryville
