{"id":27577,"date":"2011-03-23T08:12:06","date_gmt":"2011-03-23T14:12:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=27577"},"modified":"2011-03-24T08:12:51","modified_gmt":"2011-03-24T14:12:51","slug":"do-conservatives-care-about-the-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2011\/03\/do-conservatives-care-about-the-truth\/","title":{"rendered":"Do conservatives care about the truth?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_17326\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignright\" style=\"max-width: 270px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-17326  \" title=\"Palin, Sarah\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/Palin-Sarah.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"270\" height=\"246\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Remember Sarah Palin saying her hero Ronald Reagan went to college in Eureka, Calif.? Not true. (Photo by Heath Haussamen)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>In 1976, President Gerald Ford, seeking re-election, campaigned on his vast and diverse experience against the one-term Georgia Governor, Jimmy Carter. In their second debate, on foreign policy, Ford made and repeated <a href=\"http:\/\/www.time.com\/time\/magazine\/article\/0,9171,946700,00.html\" target=\"_blank\">a mistake that discredited his competence<\/a>. Flatly contradicting Cold War facts, Ford stated, \u201cThere is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford Administration.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Answering a follow-up question, Ford specified that \u201cEach of these countries (Poland, among others) is independent, autonomous; it has its own territorial integrity.\u201d In the opinion of many, this blunder, following his unpopular pardon of resigned President Nixon, cost Ford the election.<\/p>\n<p>Ford was a moderate, not a conservative, Republican. Today\u2019s Republican or Tea Party conservatives are more fact-free or fact-defiant, but less accountable for what would have been damaging gaffs years ago. Some accept or create fictions to support not only specific policies, but also a general re-orientation of American government. So their disregard of the truth becomes a habit of mind evident in matters large and small.<\/p>\n<p>Consider the examples of prominent fabulators:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Sarah Palin, who declared that, pursuing opportunity in the west, her hero Ronald Reagan went to college in Eureka, Calif., when, in fact, he <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2010\/06\/29\/sarah-palin-eureka-colleg_n_629183.html\" target=\"_blank\">graduated from Eureka College, in Illinois<\/a>, and only later went west. Wink, wink.<\/li>\n<li>Michelle Bachman, who celebrated Concord, N.H., as the birthplace of the American Revolution \u2013 never mind that \u201cthe shot heard round the world\u201d was fired at Concord, Mass. She then <a href=\"http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/s\/yblog_theticket\/20110313\/pl_yblog_theticket\/michele-bachmann-makes-an-embarrassing-flub-in-nh\" target=\"_blank\">blamed her mistake on Obama\u2019s teleprompter<\/a>. Cute.<\/li>\n<li>Mike Huckabee, who, claiming to know something about Obama\u2019s early influences, detailed <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2011\/03\/01\/mike-huckabee-obama-kenya-_n_829912.html\" target=\"_blank\">a Kenyan upbringing<\/a> by his father and grandfather, although Obama met his grandfather never, met his father once, and visited Kenya only as an adult. Oops.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It is easy to dismiss Palin and Bachman as bobble-heads who appeal to other bobble-heads. It is harder to dismiss Huckabee, who presents himself as an honorable, religious man, but who tells lies and then tells more lies to cover them up.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_27578\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignright\" style=\"max-width: 120px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-27578\" title=\"Hays, Michael L\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Hays-Michael-L.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"120\" height=\"160\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Michael L. Hays<\/p><\/div>\n<h3>Local counterparts<\/h3>\n<p>Such conservative falsifiers have their local counterparts. Recently, Jim Harbison, a political activist in Las Cruces, recently forwarded an e-mail from one Richard Harper, of New Media Markets, to Debra White, who was recently defeated for a seat on the New Mexico House of Representatives. In turn, Debra forwarded it to others and me.<\/p>\n<p>The e-mail contained a picture and commentary. <a href=\"http:\/\/hillphoto.photoshelter.com\/gallery-image\/Politics\/G0000tJTGRx0YKCs\/I0000EgpEpbsoDOE\" target=\"_blank\">The picture<\/a> showed legislators playing card games, reading Facebook, or getting sports scores during a floor debate. The commentary decried their failures on various issues, their short workweeks, and their large salaries:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cThis picture is worth a trillion $$\u00a0\u2028\u2028House Minority Leader\u00a0Lawrence F. Cafero Jr., R-Norwalk, pictured standing, far \u2028right, speaks while colleagues Rep. Barbara Lambert, D-Milford and Rep. Jack F. Hennessy, D-Bridgeport, play solitaire Monday night as the House convened to \u2028vote on a\u00a0new budget. (AP)\u2028The guy sitting in the row in front of these two&#8230;.he\u2019s on Facebook, and the guy behind Hennessy is checking out the baseball scores.\u2028These are the folks that couldn\u2019t get the budget out by Oct. 1, and are about to \u2028control your health care, cap and trade, and the list goes on and on. \u2028Should we buy them larger screen computers &#8211; or &#8211;\u00a0a ticket home, permanently?\u2028This is one of their\u00a03-DAY WORK WEEKS\u00a0that we all pay for (salary is about \u2028$179,000 per year).\u2028KEEP THIS GOING! DON\u2019T LET IT STOP WITH YOU!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>A quick and easy check on the Internet disclosed the following information. These representatives serve in the state of Connecticut, not Washington, D.C. I doubt that they work only three days a week when the legislature is in session. They get paid $28,000 per year, not $179,000 (sic: $174,000). They do not vote on federal legislation. They do not vote on the federal budget, which starts on 1 October; health care; cap and trade; or anything else implied by \u201cthe list (which) goes on and on.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Neither Harbison nor White checked the facts before spreading falsehoods compatible with their conservative inclinations. But they are not alone; others go farther, not just by repeating, but by deliberately misrepresenting, the facts to serve their political agenda.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>On the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lcsun-news.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Las Cruces Sun-News website<\/a> on March 12, anonymous conservative commentator \u201cDAV\u201d selected parts of both the text and history of the Fourteenth Amendment to lie that it denies citizenship to children born to illegal immigrants. He omitted its first sentence: \u201cAll persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.\u201d He omitted subsequent court decisions that apply the amendment to all people born in this country.<\/p>\n<p>Typically, conservative DAV follows the Constitution only so far as it suits him.<\/p>\n<h3>The price of freedom<\/h3>\n<p>I have not discovered a new truth; politicians often abuse truth. However, of late, conservatives are guilty of most distortions, most remarkably about American history and its constituent documents. The proofs of their ignorance of, indifference to, or perversion of the truth are repeated misrepresentations of fact and repeated refusals to admit them. Truth is one of the things that conservatives do not care to conserve.<\/p>\n<p>American democracy is another. Conservative contempt for truth subverts \u2013 and, I think, is intended to subvert \u2013 it. Conservatives know \u2013 I worry that other Americans do not know or care \u2013 that a robust democracy requires the consent of a citizenry informed, not misinformed, in its political decision-making.<\/p>\n<p>For, despite the conservatives assault on truth, far too many Americans no longer regard its abuse as a disqualification for public office. A shrug of the shoulders and a \u201cwhatever\u201d presage the demise of democracy.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas Jefferson declared, \u201cThe price of freedom is eternal vigilance.\u201d That price citizens must pay, and, if they value democracy and its freedom, they must realize that that price is not cheap and easy.<\/p>\n<p>They must realize that vigilance requires smarts more than strength. They must care more for the truth than do those who betray the truth and would betray their freedom. They must themselves respect truth and face the facts of the matters that affect their lives. And they must hold others accountable for their falsehoods by ensuring that they suffer Ford\u2019s fate \u2013 rejection and defeat.<\/p>\n<p><em>Michael L.\u00a0Hays\u00a0(Ph.D., English) is a retired consultant in defense,\u00a0energy and environment;\u00a0former high school\u00a0and college teacher; and continuing civic activist. His bi-monthly Saturday column appears in the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.lcsun-news.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Las Cruces Sun-News<\/a>; his bi-monthly blog,\u00a0First Impressions\u00a0&amp; Second Thoughts, appears on the intervening Saturdays at\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/firstimpressionssecondthoughts.blogspot.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">firstimpressionssecondthoughts.blogspot.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some Republican or Tea Party conservatives accept or create fictions to support not only specific policies, but also a general re-orientation of American government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":829,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,198],"tags":[194,199,116],"class_list":["post-27577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-hays-columns","tag-republican-party","tag-tea-party","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/829"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27577\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}