Conservatives are an interesting group. Whoever they are or whatever party name they bear – the Vatican, Republicans, Muslim Brotherhood, the National Rifle Association in the US - the same dynamics operate. Lust for control and power, misrepresenting themselves, disregard for the people they supposedly represent, reliance on dogmatism, success in conning those they rule for a while, and absolute inability to see when they've pushed it too far and have hit the losing streak.
Oh, and the desire to keep women down and out of their power. Granted some are a lot more rabid than others, but it’s just a matter of degrees, really. The essential thing is a shared fundamental disregard for democracy and the sacredness of the individual and their right to the use of their own mind and body. The funny thing about conservatives is that they’re paranoid about their enemies and always think they’re better than and different to other conservatives. For example, I’m sure Republicans would be outraged to be compared to the Muslim Brotherhood and vice versa.
Catholics would shoot me for saying members of the Vatican – which includes the pope – are in principle not much different from the National Rifle Association. And the NRA members would hotly defend themselves perhaps, saying they don’t protect child rapists.
In a way, though, they’re all control freaks with big PR engines, living in a culture of immunity. Control lust drives them. In some it’s rabid, vocal, and even physically violent; in others it’s more sophisticated and a whole lot more sinister and difficult to eradicate. The people who know how to use their brains and have independence of mind should be the ones running the world, but even when one becomes a leader, like Pope John Paul I or Barack Obama, either they’re gotten rid of or they don’t get the support they need to do as much as they could. It’s frustrating to watch.
People who are more or less in control of their minds often just want to get on with their lives. And although eventually that control lust casts its long shadow over them and they’re forced to act, by then it’s such an uphill battle. It’s a shame, because these heroes who rise up in our midst like living miracles don’t get the support they deserve and we don’t get the full benefit of what their leadership with our support could bring us all.
But it seems to be the nature of the human beast. The aggressor is always the control freak. I guess the important thing is that at some point Liberals do wake up and start asserting their rights, using their power for good, participating more actively in politics.
So, liberal Egyptians will vote the Muslim Brotherhood out of power. Americans will vote conservative Republicans – especially those backed by organizations like the NRA - out of Congress. Catholics will eventually get vocal about a cabal of bishops voting in pope after pope who does nothing about the bishops who protected pedophile priests and about corruption in the Vatican and the disempowerment of women that Catholicism promotes.
It’ll happen. And nobody’s going to keep women down. We’re destined to progress, all of us.
