Brownies

Although I recognize television is a huge time waster, I really enjoy watching it. Don't judge me. I bet if Karl Marx had lived in the twenty first century he would have named "media" the opiate of the masses. When one watches a lot of TV, they're bound to see a few commercials. I can still see some guy walking down the street eating peanut butter and bumping into a ladder where some other guy is eating chocolate. You got your chocolate in my peanut butter! You got peanut butter on my chocolate! Wait a minute, chocolate and peanut butter taste great together. Why didn't we come up with this a long time ago? Ah, compromise; Is there anything you can't accomplish? Secular progressives want "conservatives" to compromise on everything and for many years I believed compromise could resolve most political conflict. I don't believe that anymore.

Don't get me wrong, certain situations, such as mixing chocolate with peanut butter or reconciling competing needs for and potential uses of public areas/properties, call for compromise to work its healing magic. Basically, compromise works great when used within the actual parameters of government as set forth in the U.S. Constitution. Morals and values, however, do not fall into this category. An object lesson, which was mostly lost on me in my youth, has since become immensely valuable to me as an adult and will hopefully serve to illustrate my point.

One evening our youth activity involved baking brownies. We mixed up the dry ingredients, added eggs, milk, all the usual stuff. As we prepared to pour our concoction into the baking pan our leader said, "hold on a minute. I think you guys forgot one of the ingredients." Now I'm not a huge chocolate fan, but I do love brownies and we certainly did not want to risk ruining brownie bliss by leaving some crucial ingredient out. All eyes turned to the little plastic baggie in our leader's hand.....A baggie of dog poop. "Surely a little bit wouldn't hurt," he suggested; Yeah right. Kids are dumb, but not that dumb. No one wanted to add ANY poop to the batter. That night we learned we were the brownies. We might tell ourselves that one little lie is no big deal, just one puff on a cigarette can't hurt much or a bit of language and nudity won't detract from an otherwise uplifting movie, but that lie, cigarette, language or nudity is dog poop.

A large part of the secular progressive agenda (despite their claims to the contrary) challenges traditional morals and values or promotes lifestyle choices that, when chosen, severely impact those morals and values; Positions such as unfettered abortion, gay marriage, restorative justice for child predators and sex education that stops at free condoms for everyone in middle school. As I briefly mentioned in my last post, I do not believe government in general, and specifically the federal government, should have any part in dictating morals any more than they should dictate religion. Nonetheless, left wing activism has consistently politicized moral issues for over forty years. Pandora not only opened the lid but ripped it right off the hinges. Imagine the outcry if the federal government dictated that prayer was an essential component of broader prosperity, better health and greater fulfillment in life. Yet secular progressives find nothing wrong with government dictating the same thing about mandatory availability of the morning after pill.

Back to poo. One ubiquitous part of almost any secular progressive analysis of opposing arguments includes an accusation of right wing or conservative "extremism", quickly followed by an appeal to adopt a more "moderate" stance. They're reasonable. They understand the importance of emotions and empathy. They don't expect "right wing extremists" to change all at once, just reciprocate and be a little more reasonable. Be a "moderate"--which is code for "compromise". Put a little poo in your brownies. I doubt you'll even taste it.

I feel abortion most easily exemplifies how social brownies get tainted with compromise. In the beginning abortion is illegal. Soon, opponents are asked to be reasonable and accept some extenuating circumstances such as rape, incest and risk to the mother's life. Next, reasonable means abortion for simply not wanting the pregnancy or, perhaps, in lieu of the condom that dude didn't wear the other night when that one chick was, like, soooooo drunk. Then reasonable becomes not even informing parents that their fourteen year-old daughter is about to undergo a medical procedure with massive psychological and life altering ramifications. Now, Sweden legalizes abortion for something as petty and selfish as the baby's gender and anyone who thinks that is not reasonable is now a "right wing extremist".

Obviously it is up to each individual to decide for themselves how much poop they like in their brownies. Well.......obvious to anyone who doesn't buy into a secular progressive nanny state, but come on! In the first place, where is the compromise on the part of secular progressives? In the second place, what is a "moderate" view on abortion anyway? Just abort part of the baby? When it comes to morals and values, the problem with "moderate" is that such concessions don't really satisfy secular progressive demands. They don't want to be reasonable about abortion; they just want to wear out and erode the opposition until they get exactly what they wanted in the first place with absolutely no concessions on their part. They are the uncompromising extremists. They want completely unrestricted abortion for anyone at anytime for any reason and will not relent in any way until they achieve that goal. A new concession only leads to another demand. All too soon there is hardly any brownie left in the turd getting crammed down the right wing "extremist's" throat.

The call for compromise and moderation never abates. President Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. She believes a judge should base decisions on empathy. "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life." Classic secular progressive mentality (see Moralless Airs of Moral Superiority). Bill Donohue, head of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, says he will, "quietly root for her." Rush Limbaugh, radio talk show host (and in my opinion, tedious ideologue), suggested, "I can see a possibility of supporting this nomination if I could be convinced she does have a sensibility towards life." Both men appear capable of ignoring her track record of being overturned regularly and her self proclaimed liberalism because she might, just might, be secretly pro life. Again, compromise, be reasonable, find moderate ground. Maybe Sotomayor was right about certain groups arriving at better conclusions than others (sarcasm). As for me, I think this is an example of sprinkling a little brownie into the poo batter. I've eaten my fill of secular progressive poop. I want my brownies untainted. Mmmmm, brownies do sound really yummy right now. I think there might be some vanilla ice cream in the freezer.