Rats, Rationalizing, and Rationalism

The title above isn't a sneer at rationalism, but simply wordplay pivoting on a recent and very intense background conversation via email, which wrapped up a few days ago.

Our email exchange grew out of reaction to my vote against Hillary Clinton this past November (I touched on this in last Sunday's posting). What it boiled down to, in sum, was a clash between faith – Catholic Christian faith – and rationalism.

I contend the clash was needless, that there is no clash. Like any heavily-invested dialog, with and without the heavy artillery, I think we both turned away with an armload of things to think about further – I know I did. And I'd like to look at them a bit more here, as I continue to ponder the words and outlook of this dear friend. (Since it's just me writing here, I'll quote my friend indirectly only.)

Below are the first couple of many points / questions / suggestions / assertions… all of which, again, I'm still pondering. More of these will follow:

Anti-abortionism as a self-righteous crusade: Merriam-Webster defines "self-righteous", in part, as "narrow-mindedly moralistic" (and then "moralistic", in part, as "expressive of a narrow moral attitude").

Subjectively, these terms are disparaging, and semantically weighted toward the negative. There's a clear sense conveyed that the person/outlook receiving this disparagement is on the wrong side of a good/bad dichotomy. Okay; so, what's the contrast? What's in the other balance-pan?

If it's narrow-minded to contend that the killing of a not-yet-born human is wrong, evil, and as a practice must be ended… then the wiser / good-side position is that it's okay – ?

I'm not even going to jump into that side-debate, where volumes have been written, and so much has been heatedly said for decades.

Correction: I'll stick my toe in for a moment, though. Today, it's legal in the US to abort a pregnancy throughout its full nine-month span, up to just before the baby's born (though it's increasingly hard to find a medical person willing to perform this during pregnancy's later months).

What about five minutes after the baby's born, has had its umbilical cord cut, and is breathing on its own? Is it okay if someone strangles/shoots/dismembers the baby then? It has a right to life, correct? And didn't five minutes ago? What's made the difference?

If abortion is no more than a matter of a woman's "right"… what about the younger woman in her uterus? She has no rights? And… it's okay to tear the younger woman apart and sell the pieces?

Skip it; further toes are getting into the water.

I'm also not going to view the word "crusade" as bait for a whole further discussion. You show me the insanity of the Fourth Crusade, and the cruelty of the Children's Crusade, and I'll pull your eyes over to the achievements of the First… and we can both roll our eyes at the self-serving agendas that ultimately hijacked and betrayed the intent of Urban II. Pass.

Anti-abortionism as a political wedge-issue: my friend points out very strongly that the Right/conservatism lures in potential supporters and voters by giving lip-service to their anti-abortion views, and that they in fact care nothing for life, nor for any person or issue that doesn't benefit the big corporate complex / high echelon.

I suppose I could file this under the "All Generalizations Are False" banner – but in fact I largely agree with this point. This is why I stressed to my family, as well as to this dear friend, that in voting against Hillary and the Democratic ticket, I haven't turned Conservative. While I've largely come to find that conservatives agree with me on some issues, I absolutely haven't thrown my support their way.

To momentarily put on my shallow Characterization / Wide-Tarbrush cap: generally, the American conservative is glowingly positive toward the NRA (and I am resolutely, adamantly against them); s/he favors lower taxes (which ends up cutting funds for education and healthcare); and s/he is all for deregulating large corporations (enriching the stockholders… especially those with a lot of stock) – and these three are just for starters.

I am all about none of these things.

Having typed that, let's take my cap back off.

I stand with my friend on this overall issue: I don't trust politicians – it really does seem to me that almost none of them are driven by altruism, by a selfless desire to help. Or in those instances where they may well have started out wanting to (pardon the simplistic, treacly cliché) make the community, and the world, a better place, they quickly detoured toward exclusively selfish interests. Their loyalty is almost entirely toward their biggest donors, and their thickest-pocketed lobbyist associates.

The contention against me is that I swallowed the Right's wink/nod to the social issues that matter most to me today, and have willingly empowered them to proceed unhindered with their real agenda of dismantling the country while clutching more and more power to themselves, and plowing over the rest of us. (These are my words; this isn't an indirect quote – but largely is his thrust on this point.)

Well, I disagree. My eyes were wide open as I marked my ballot (legally, Donald; do you hear me?); it's my nose that was pinched shut. I'll repeat what I've said earlier: there was no one to vote for; so I had to vote against. Sitting out an election today is irresponsible.

I'm ticked (yet unsurprised) that Trump has already gutted the EPA – yet I'm also relieved that his administration does indeed look to be working hard to directly overturn Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, as well as defunding Planned Parenthood.

Trump is unlikely to be a two-term president, at least gazing ahead from here, and so is unlikely to wreck the country (although my friend greatly disagrees with that – which I'll get to in a later posting). I say this because the Republicans have embraced him only loosely, and the grassroots strength of the opposition against him and his party and the Right in general… is so strong, and growing yet stronger, that they may even be able to engineer a turnover in Congressional majority in two years. That would be fine by me – let's just get our children out of harm's reach first, and for good.