Eden Hill Journal

Ramblings and memories of an amateur wordsmith and philosopher

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Location: Maine, United States

Thursday, September 22, 2005

Admitting

You know, something just dawned on me. Yeah, big surprise, right? But a puzzle had been bothering me for quite some time and finally just now it dawned on me what is going on. I still don't understand the deeper reasons why this is happening, but it certainly is happening. Maybe it satisfies the need on the right for parental authority and thus for the need to keep it hidden from the authoritative parent. I suppose the breakthrough for me in realizing this originated with my reading of the book Moral Politics where it is pointed out that conservatives think of both politics and religion within the framework of an authoritative parent.
Growing up under an authoritative parent, children learn that if they want the same liberties that other more fortunate children enjoy, they can enjoy those liberties but they have a dire need to not admit it to their parents. They instinctively know that the problem isn't enjoying what is forbidden, the problem happens when they admit to their parents what they are enjoying. That's when the shit hits the fan.
Living under that model as adults, conservatives instinctively know that it is when you admit to your unsavory behavior, that is when you will be held accountable. You need to keep that sort of thing secret. Does anybody recall Lynne Cheney's reaction to John Kerry mentioning the homosexuality of the Cheneys' daughter in one of the debates? Kerry was asking Bush to admit to Ms. Cheney's homosexuality. Lynne reacted as though Kerry had broken the rules of engagement. In conservative circles, the rule is that you can be gay, you just can't admit to being gay. You need to stay in the closet with your dirty laundry. You shouldn't expose the public to that dirt.
Unfortunately, that same problem with it being OK to do it but not OK to admit it extends beyond homosexuality. For instance:
It is OK for US soldiers to torture war prisoners but it is not OK to admit the torture. You won't get punished unless you get caught doing it and if you were the first to admit doing it, you will be the first one punished.
It is OK to lie about weapons of mass destruction as a justification for war, but it is not OK to admit to the lie. Even if it is crystal clear that you lied, and that you are continuing to lie about other nations, you will not be held accountable as long as you don't admit to being a liar.
It is OK to botch relief efforts in a natural disaster, but it is not OK to admit specific instances of where you and your fellow federal authorities botched it. If you admit your errors, you will get canned.
Until today I knew this was how things worked in the Bush Administration, but I didn't really know why it worked that way. Now that I can see it from the perspective of a child living under an authoritative parent who needs to be kept in the dark, I understand. Still, one thing baffles me about this. If God is all-seeing as it is claimed that He is, and if God is the authoritative Father that the Christian Right makes Him out to be, then how does a conservative hide his closet behavior from God? In fact, that's such a mystery to me that I actually question whether conservatives think of God as all-seeing at all. Maybe that explains why the Christian Right sees the Bible as the written "Will of God" who died on the cross and then went to Heaven?
Such Christians say that we are to "hate the sin but love the sinner." To me, that's like "Support the Troops" or such things. It's an oxymoron, a contradiction. If you support the troops at war, you support what the troops are doing. You could give a shit really about the troops. The troops are just people you don't know who could die tomorrow and you'd never know it. You support the war. Same thing with sin. If you love the sinner, you love a person whose choice in life is to sin. That is a reflection of who you know yourself to be, a person who loves to sin. It isn't the sinner you love, it is sin itself. We all love our forbidden pleasures.
But just how we can believe that God doesn't see what we do in the closet... Man, that one is beyond me to understand. Admit who you are and what you enjoy. God already knows it. Air out your closet and do the laundry. And for all you people who need authoritative parents, authoritative governments, and authoritative gods, grow up.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

You have so much hate inside you.

Do you hate yourself? Or just others around you? Or those who are different from you?

It's interesting that you seem to see yourself and your political side as the only moral elements in this nation anymore.

You need to seek out professional help .

6:28 AM, September 24, 2005  
Blogger Bill said...

Wow. On a hate index of 1 to 10, rate me and then rate Rush Limbaugh. Let's see how you define hate...

8:46 AM, September 24, 2005  

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