MY NEW HERO
Judge Richard Posner
Judge Richard Posner, a conservative on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, has long been one of the nation’s most respected and admired legal thinkers on the right. But in an interview with NPR, he expressed exasperation at the modern Republican Party, and confessed that he has become “less conservative” as a result. Posner expressed admiration for President Ronald Reagan and the economist Milton Friedman, two pillars of conservatism. But over the past 10 years, Posner said, “there’s been a real deterioration in conservative thinking. And that has to lead people to re-examine and modify their thinking.”…. “I’ve become less conservative since the Republican Party started becoming goofy,” he said [emphasis added].
Most reasonable observers taking a look at today’s Republican Party would understandably use words like “crackpots” and “lunatics.” When a confirmed Liberal like myself does something like that, I get attacked as a partisan hack. So be it; we all know what opinions are like, right? When a fellow Conservative uses pejoratives like “crackpots” and “lunatics,” you begin to think that maybe, just maybe, there are reasonable, lucid Conservatives inhabiting today’s GOP. ‘Course, they’re an unusually timid minority, but they’re certainly out there.
Judge Richard Posner deserves to be lionized, because Conservatives aren’t exactly renowned for swimming upstream. Most, if they’re of such a mind, keep their frustrations to themselves, ceding the stage to the “crackpots” and “lunatics,” of which there seems to be no shortage. Whether we’re talking about Paultards or teabaggers, Louie Gohmert or Herman Cain, it certainly appears the inmates are running the asylum. How else could you explain a party that operates from the heartless, compassion-deprived, anti-democratic position that today’s GOP seems to occupy? Racism, sexism, intolerance, homophobia- all these and many more mean-spirited qualities seem to be defining characteristics of today’s Conservatives. Somehow they’ve managed to convince themselves that waging war on women, homosexuals, minorities, and non-Christians is a recipe for electoral success.
Hey, when you have billionaires funding propaganda and attack ads, you can pretty much do whatever you want…right??
Judge Posner is a voice of reason in the wilderness. Of course, he’ll be pilloried by foaming-at-the-mouth Conservatives who believe that compromise and reason is for losers and Liberals. It almost goes without saying that they’ve forgotten the true meaning of Conservatism…if they ever really understood it to begin with.
Today’s GOP is populated by leaders and voices devoid of compassion and devoted to supporting the interests and doing the bidding of the 1%. THAT’S a reasoned and rational alternative to Liberalism? In whose universe?
If your ideology can be characterized with words like racism, ignorance, homophobia, propaganda, heartlessness, self-interest, sexism, and intolerance…you must be a Conservative Republican.
