Roy Moore and the Truth about Conservatives

The voters of the State of Alabama are about to send Roy Moore, one of the most hate-filled right wing scum in the country, to the United States Senate.  And lest you point out to me that his Democratic opponent (to whose campaign I contributed) is only running a couple of points behind him, let me remind you that we have seen this before, and in our hearts we all know that the Republican party will engage in whatever combination of vote fraud and massively funded smear campaigns it take to retain this seat.  So. I want to focus on a particular episode in the life of this malignant person, featured today in an article at Talking Points Memo:

"Roy Moore Led Charge Against Removing Segregation From Alabama Constitution 

Democrats and Republicans led by then-Gov. Bob Riley (R) worked together on an amendment to remove language in the state constitution mandating “separate schools for white and colored children” ...The changes were purely symbolic — all of the state constitutional language had already been struck down by state and federal courts — but civil rights and business leaders saw it as a way to heal old wounds and make the state more attractive to big business."

And here is the actual text, that unbelievably remains in the Alabama Constitution to this day:

“Separate schools shall be provided for white and colored children, and no child of either race shall be permitted to attend a school of the other race.”

Any person who supports that has permanently relegated himself to the lowest moral stratum in the world, but that is not what I really want to talk about here; but rather the basis on which this campaign was carried out:

“This amendment is a wolf in sheep’s clothing and the people of Alabama should be aware of it,” Moore told the Birmingham News in 2004, warning it would “open the door to an enormous tax increase” — one of many broadsides he issued...Moore and hardline conservatives pounced to argue the removal of that language would allow for a backdoor tax increase by judges who would see it as granting a constitutional right to an education...

His argument worked. The statewide measure failed by about 2,000 votes, out of 1.4 million cast. Every subsequent attempt to remove the language since that initial failure has failed, most recently in 2012."

I bring this up to reinforce something that I have been saying for at least thirty years.  American Conservatism is about one thing and one thing only: Cut My Taxes.  That is all they really give a damn about.  Oh sure, they hate them some Blacks and Latinos, but that's really all because they need to tell themselves that these are subhumans, who can legitimately be deprived of every benefit of society in order to leave more for white people.  It's the same thing with every other right wing issue.  They are against anything to do with global warming because to them, the couple hundred dollars they might have to pay in taxes or the cost of government regulation of polluters is overwhelmingly more important than leaving a livable world to their children and grandchildren, who, despite all their screaming about "family values," they do not really give a damn about.  The notion that every child deserves a decent education, not just their own, or that people deserve to live in good health, are railed against with spittle flecked hatred for the same reason: it might cost them a few dollars to have a decent society, so to hell with it.  The same is true with any claim that people have a right to live free from air and water poisoned by the even greater greed of the rich.  And thus with every other issue; all of the racism and bitterness and religious railing is in service of nothing but one emotion: greed.  Cut my taxes! That is all it is really about, and they have totally given in to that greed since the time they elected the Republican moral leader Ronald Reagan to license them to lie themselves into somehow believing that this avarice is consistent with the words of their lord Jesus.


CUT MY TAXES!  That is all there is to the great "moral" crusade of the Republicans; all the religion, all the family values...every bit of it is nothing but a cover for their refusal to allow even the thought that helping other people is a necessary or even desirable thing to do.  CUT MY TAXES!  That's all there is, but for these hate filled, greed maddened people, it's enough.