Slaves & Women

Taking my cat, Bacchus, for his midnight walk, gives me time to contemplate the world we are stuck in and some of its unwritten laws. Last night it occurred to me that one of the fundamental laws of the universe is that social conservatives are always wrong.

They were wrong when they opposed the emancipation of slaves. They somehow even convinced all the poor farm boys that it was a good idea to go get shot so the rich people could keep their slaves.

They were wrong when they opposed the idea of publicly supported schools for everyone. The thought of poor people learning to read and write was very disturbing to them.

They were wrong when they opposed letting women vote. Women had never been allowed to vote so they assumed that nothing good could come of changing the way things were done.

They were wrong when they outlawed alcohol. Social conservatives have always held to the simple minded idea that they know better than everyone else what is good for us and that people can be forced to adopt their values and opinions.

They were wrong when they opposed the Social Security system. Apparently they believe that millions of homeless old people is nothing anyone needs to be concerned about.

They were wrong when they opposed the Voting Rights Act. Removing impediments to minority voters meant that a black person might actually have as much of a voice in government as they did. This was completely unacceptable to them.

They are wrong to oppose the Equal Rights Amendment. Their reasons for opposing equal rights for everyone regardless of gender are as twisted and illogical as their justification for slavery and everything else.

They are wrong to deny evolution. All the evidence is overwhelming and unanimously accepted by all serious students of the subject. Yet they insist that their peculiar religious myths be taught in science classes. God and evolution are not mutually exclusive!

They are wrong to deny the existence of global warming. Again the evidence is overwhelming, yet they are easily persuaded by oil company propaganda to ignore all the facts.

The future will show that they are wrong to have opposed gay marriages. Their arguments against gay marriage provide good entertainment, but no sense at all to the impartial observer. None of their fears have been realized in places that recognize gay marriages.

The future will show that they are wrong to oppose stem cell research. Most social conservatives would embrace the use of a stem cell procedure if it would save their lives but apparently not if it was someone else's life.

The future will also show that they were wrong to legalize the sale of machine guns. There is a 100% correlation between guns and gun killings and the killings are only partly due to criminals. Countries with no guns have no gun killings while most countries with guns have very high numbers of per capita killings. Machine guns are not even used for personal protection.

Conclusion: Social Conservatives are always wrong.

We really need a third party of fiscal conservatives and social liberals.