Abortion, Just to Take an Example.

This is a huge topic and debate, right?  It's a national battle.  At its worst, some of the anti-abortion contingent attack and even kill people, including doctors, who contribute to the availability of abortion, and perform them.

It's unimaginable that anyone doesn't know that Reps/cons are the primary drivers of the anti-abortion crusade.  It's probably worth noting that Reps/cons prefer not to describe themselves as anti-abortion.  We'll come back to this, but they prefer to describe themselves as "pro-life."

There are in theory two reasons to oppose abortion.  One is being broadly "pro-life" (favoring life over death), and the other is a specific reason to be "pro-life," which is that someone's personally held religious beliefs are interpreted as meaning that a pregnancy should not be ended, and a fetus, let's say, should not be killed.

If someone is "pro-life," which they could be for any reason, then they oppose ending lives.  This is theoretically straightforward.  And it could be acceptable, and something to which to give serious consideration, by any or all of us, if it were, in fact, straightforward.  But Reps/cons are not consistently and reliably "pro-life."  The Catholic church (which has very considerable blood on its hands) tends to oppose capital punishment today, but most Reps/cons don't.  They don't mind one bit executing convicts.  It satisfies them.  It appears more or less to please them.  If a convict has, let's say, killed someone, we're not getting the victim back.  All we can do is kill someone else.

Likewise, Reps/cons are very reliably opposed to legislation that would limit guns (the availability of them, the types of them that are available, or even having to register them).  Guns really only have one value: they can be used to kill someone or something, and they increasingly commonly are.  The last statistic I heard was that there were 40 "mass shootings" in January, 2023.  That's more than one (1.3) a day, for a whole month, and mass shooting is defined either by the deaths of three or more people per shooting, or at least four people shot, and either killed or injured.  That's a lot of lives Reps/cons, who prefer to call themselves "pro-life," are militant about sacrificing.  Thinking of Reps/cons as "pro-life" is like "herding cats."  It just doesn't work.  It can't be done.

Of course, for Reps/cons, it doesn't have to work.  It's out of their hands.  They cite the "Second Amendment," which they tell themselves gives them an "uninfringed" right to have guns.  The "Second Amendment" has nothing to do with guns.  It never mentions them.  The "Second Amendment" is about national security (keeping the Union secure from outside aggression, and keeping the states secure from over-reach by the federal government), and the way this security is operationalized, according to the words of the "Second Amendment," is by facilitating militias.  In that interest, "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms [could] not be infringed."  "Arms" in the late 18th C meant muskets.  "Arms," for the purpose of satisfying the "Second Amendment" today, includes grenades, bazookas, flame-throwers, tanks, fighter jets, aircraft carriers, surface-to-air missiles, submarines, and nuclear weapons.  That's what we would need to be effective members of a militia (the one and only stated purpose of the "Second Amendment") today.  Except every one of those armaments is illegal for civilians to possess today, and no one, including Reps/cons, argues that they should be legal for civilian possession.  Reps/cons, and everyone else, agree that the "Second Amendment" has no modern meaning, but they constantly cite it anyway, as a theoretical support for whatever they want.  (And in case you might be interested, but the cost of weaponry like that is prohibitive for you, not to worry.  Federalist Paper #29 says the federal government should give you those "Arms.")

But what about the other argument: that being anti-abortion (the whole "pro-life" thing is a scam and a joke) is a reflection of personal understanding and interpretation of religious tenets?  There are two problems here.  One is that the Pilgrims came to the New World to escape religious persecution, and the US Constitution guarantees separation of church and state.  So you can personally believe what you want (you think there's such a thing as "god," you think Jesus was the son of "god" and the messiah, you think Mohammed was the prophet of "god/allah," you think Haile Selassi was the "second coming," or whatever), but that's your personal belief, and the Pilgrims, and the US Constitution, will tell you that's not to be imposed on anyone else.  When I was in college (not lately), you would occasionally see a bumper sticker that said "If You Don't Believe in Abortion, Don't Have One."  And if you're a Rep/con, many of whom tell themselves they're "originalists," you would adhere to that philosophy.  But they don't.  They want "small government" until they want a government massive and oppressive enough to control everyone else's life, to make other people behave as they themselves wish to behave.  The other problem is that there are (at least) several religions, and more interpretations and styles of observance than there are religions, and it's really not possible over a broad population to say that "religion" wants anything that people -- even its own adherents -- are willing to give.  There are plenty of people who would say they think there's such a thing as "god," and they generally adhere to some religion, but they experienced an unwanted pregnancy, against which they thought they had protected themselves, and they get abortions.  The whole religious reason for being anti-abortion can fall apart really fast.

So I know I'm provocative when I say that Reps/cons are hypocrites, dishonest, or both.  I'm completely sure that kind of rhetoric from me is experienced as very insulting.  But I'm still waiting for someone to tell me I'm wrong, and to show me where I'm wrong.