They Fooled Me Once
I confess. I voted Republican. Once. For Ronald Reagan. In 1984. I was part of the pro-life cause back then. I thought Reagan was “our man.” I disliked Reagan in 1980, but by 1984, the pro-life cause had picked up steam. Not only that, but in 1984 it felt good to be an American. The economy hadn’t tanked, the Olympics were held in Los Angeles and the U.S. picked up a ton of gold medals, and the impossible happened: for the first and only time in my seven years in Los Angeles, traffic actually flowed and moved for two whole weeks!
By 1988, I knew I’d been duped. Reagan had had eight years in office, he appointed three—that’s right, three—justices to the Supreme Court: Sandra Day O’Connor, Antonin Scalia, and Anthony Kennedy. He also appointed Willaim Rhenquist, previoiusly an Associate Justice, to Chief Justice. I couldn’t help but notice that Roe v. Wade was still on the books. These “good, conservative justices” did little or nothing about abortion. Not only that, but the Republican Congress did less. One of Reagan’s nominees, U.S. Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork was downright scary and deserved to be “Borked” by the Senate. Now it was 1988, and then Vice President George H.W. Bush was running for president.
George H.W. Bush used the same pro-life rhetoric, but had even fewer Evangelical, Bible-believing credentials than Reagan. Reagan at least belonged to an approved church (Bel Air Presbyterian). Bush Sr. was an Episcopalian. He did have the same conservative agenda—Reaganomics anyone?—that had landed us in a huge deficit. Bush Sr. was running a nasty campaign full of mud-slinging and short on “Christian compassion.” I told myself Bush Sr. was using the pro-life issue to get the evangelical vote, and I voted for Dukakis. Bush Sr. appointed two Justices: Clarence Thomas and David Souter. In retrospect, he did even less than Reagan for the unborn. I never voted for a Republican again.
Fast forward to 2004. By that time, George Bush Jr.—along with the leaders of the religious right—had completely shattered whatever “evangelical” faith that was left to me. Bush Jr. and his dour-faced band of thugs, headed by Karl Rove and Dick Cheney, were the antithesis of Christianity as I understood it. I have never seen such war-mongering, money-grubbing cronyism in my life, and the fundamentalists and evangelicals ate it all up like it was cotton candy!
Fortunately, I had my Jewish upbringing to fall back on. I already joined a local synagogue where the values—and much of the politics—actually followed the values of the Torah that I hold dear. My evangelical-born-and-raised wife could no longer identify as an evengelical either. She had become a progressive political activist and volunteer for the Democrats. In July of that year, we launched a website called “Believers Against Bush” (now defunct).
In launching that website, we discovered that under Bill Clinton—pro-choice Bill Clinton—the number of abortions actually decreased in the United States! Now I would say that my wife and I are both pro-life and pro-choice. Pro life, because every human life born or unborn is—or should be precious. Pro-choice because abortion is a necessary evil, an option that needs to be safe and legal because women’s lives are precious as well.
I call this blog “Already Fooled Once…” because of the ancient Chinese proverb:
Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.
I was fooled once on a single issue. I’ve not been fooled again. Can you say the same? Please look for my next post as well as a rewrite of an essay I wrote four years ago on abortion as the great evangelical smokescreen.
—JB aka Already Fooled Once
Tags: Politics, pro-choice, Pro-life, Republican Smokescreen
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September 9, 2008 at 11:40 pm
Only fooled once? Wish I could say the same thing! Seems like I have taken the bait many times since I have been of voting age, and there are so many votes I wish I could now retract . . .
Your larger point should resonate with anyone who does not want to see the United States devolve into the long arm of the (rather unorthodox and flimsy) fundamentalist law. McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate has slaked the Dobson electorate’s insatiable appetite for vapid politicians who at least, by god, preach that life begins at conception. Never mind stepping all over the Sermon on the Mount . . .
Or did I miss the part about “Blessed are the Annie Oakleys, for they shall get their gun”?
Having grown up in the thicket of fundamentalist behavior and mind control, I can comment with experience that the political agendas of the organized religious right conflict deeply with the entire gamut of the message of the man who asked his followers to “sell everything and follow me.”
But that is no longer the key issue, not in this election or otherwise. Doctrinal tweaking of the Gospel According to What Suits Me is as old as the faith itself. People of faith must understand that they have both the option and the calling to evaluate the candidates’ visions for America and determine which is truly in the best interest of all Americans, never mind which candidate does a better job convincing us he or she is the prayerful person in the pew.
All this talk of “values” is itself a smokescreen. What are the “values” of a nation in which good education and healthcare are market-driven and parceled out accordingly? What are the “values” involved in rallying the so-called People of God around the flag of keeping legal relational status a privilege for those who happen to be opposite-gender? And where the hell have our “values” gone when one of our own is ridiculed and raked over the coals for suggesting that we just might be “citizens of the world” in the long run?
Perhaps this IS an election about values. I sure hope so. I just hope every single American voter takes stock, takes a good look at our neighbors within and without, and takes into account the devastating track down which Republican leadership has led us in the past eight years. Only then will I feel safe that we won’t be fooled again.
Glad to be your first commenter! Godspeed–
September 9, 2008 at 11:41 pm
Could not have said it better myself. Thank you for writing this, for publishing this blog!
September 19, 2008 at 5:46 am
I would be glad to boycott the products advertised on those bellicose, balm bas tic, blow hard, right wing, radio shows if I had a list. Let’s mobilize and shut these bums up. There is a great deal of anger out there for these greedy self serving anti-intellectual bastards.