Updated below.
As I was saying, conservatives of a certain authoritarian bent are all for increasing the power of the police whenever they get their hackles up over something or some dark-skinned, hairy, sexually active and therefore threatening, or impertinently young person frightens them or wounds their vanity.
I haven't seen it brought up in any of the discussions of what John Roberts' appointment to the Supreme Court will mean for the country, but I assume that a lot of conservatives still want to see just about every ruling of the Warren and Burger courts that limited the power of the police overturned.
No more coddling criminals. No more bad guys getting off on legal technicalities. The lawyers need to get out of the way and let the cops do their jobs. Hang 'em all and hang 'em high.
These type of conservatives aren't worried about the consequences of letting armies of Dirty Harrys and Buford Pussers loose upon the land because, like I said, they think they own the cops.
Dirty Harry works for them and a good employee knows better than to hassle the boss.
Now I expect that outside of a few small towns there aren't many cops who feel owned. And I've known some cops whose days were made when some rich snot or some rich snot's kid crossed their paths in a car going 80 in a 40 mph zone.
And there are still plenty of conservatives with a Libertarian streak who understand that the more power you give to the police the more likely it is that you will find yourself a target of that power, and the more laws you pass the more likely you are to find yourself on the wrong side of the law someday.
But let's focus on that sizeable contingent of Law and Order conservatives who would be satisfied to see half their fellow citizens hauled off in chains and who are also of the familiar "One phone call and I'll have your badge" type.
These folks don't worry about an out of control police force. But it's not just because they think the cops would never dare turn on them. They also believe that the only way to attract the wrong kind of attention from the police is to commit a crime and they know that they themselves never commit crimes.
And they don't. Most of them. Most of them, like most Americans, are fairly law-abiding.
But when they do break the law or when---as is more likely, because it's true, most of them are honest and diligent citizens---one of their kind breaks the law, they tend not to see what's been done as a breaking of the law. They don't believe they or people like them can be criminals.
"Criminals are others. Criminals are part of the great NOT US. And since we are not criminals, by definition, we cannot commit crimes."
Actions that look to the rest of us very much like crimes, because they are, they see as mistakes, misunderstandings, follies, personal failures of nerve, strength, or thought that ought to be condemned but forgiven and never prosecuted.
They have the same attitude toward sin.
I don't think this is particularly conservative of them. I think it's human. I think we're all pretty quick to excuse in ourselves and in our loved ones and friends, and anyone who reminds us of ourselves, our loved ones, or friends, follies and sins we are just as quick to condemn in others.
The difference between those conservatives and the rest of us, not just those of us who are liberals but other conservatives too, is that we understand that other people might not see things in the same light as we do and that they are not obligated to try.
When the teacher calls us in to talk about our kid's screw-up, we know all the mitigating circumstances. We know our kid is a good kid. We know how hard he's been trying. We know he's sorry. And in our hearts we think that should be enough for the teacher too.
But we understand why the teacher insists that the kid still deserves detention or earned that D minus.
And when the cop pulls us over, we know that we are good drivers, we never go more than five miles over the speed limit, we didn't do it now, the radar gun's miscalibrated, but even if it's not we'll never do it again, and the only reason we did this time is that our mind wandered for just a minute because we were busy worrying about our kid's latest screw-up in school, and all that should be enough for the cop.
But we understand that the cop was right to stop a car that was a positive menace to traffic, regardless of the saint behind the wheel.
We don't say, "I pay your salary!" and "I'll have your badge for this!" We don't demand to see the principal and then the superintendent when the principal sides with the teacher.
We internalize the opinion of the cop, of the teacher, the judge, the neighbors, and even if we don't feel guilty, we feel ashamed.
But they don't. Other people's opinions don't matter to them.
"What we do is not for the likes of you riff-raff to pass judgment upon."
Please, listen here. I'm not saying all conservatives are like this. And I'm certainly not claiming no liberals are. I know plenty of similarly self-entitled liberals whose consciences are conveniently armored like this, whose vanity always trumps other people's opprobrium.
But it happens that there are strains in conservative thought that produces more people who think like this---the social Darwinism that allows the lucky and the ruthless to flaunt their material success as evidence of their moral superiority, the snobbery that admires power, wealth, and social status above all other qualities, the weird self-congratulatory religion that does such a good job of forgiving that it actually excuses the sin in the act of its being committed---and that this type of people are the kind of conservatives running the Republican Party right now.
It's true. The evidence of their moral vanity and moral blindness is everywhere, most comically in their insistence that William Bennett didn't disgrace himself with his gambling, Rush Limbaugh isn't a junkie, Tom DeLay isn't a thief and a thug (an opinion I don't believe DeLay shares. He seems to me to be another kind of moral cripple, the kind who knows himself to be crooked but thinks everybody else is crooked too, so what is he doing that's so bad in comparison?), and Karl Rove isn't a creep, a liar, and a villain.
"Gamblers are poor people spending the grocery money on lottery tickets. Junkies are black and Hispanic and shoot up in alleys and crack houses. Crooked politicians are Democrats."
It's evidenced most strangely in the outrage that followed Kerry's mentioning Mary Cheney's lesbianism in the debates.
"Mary is not a lesbian. Lesbians are weird and sick. They hate men. They're ugly. Lesbians are something else, something other, something you are."
And it shows itself most horrifically and sickeningly in the excuse-making for what's happened at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib.
The moral calculus decent people measure their behavior by is this:
Some acts are sins. People who commit those acts are sinners. I have commited one of those acts. I am a sinner.
These conservatives probably think they use the same measure. But they don't, because they start with the belief that it is impossible for them to commit those bad acts because bad acts are what others do. Crime is the act of others. Sin is the moral failure of others.
So their personal moral calculus winds up looking like this:
Good people do good things. Bad people do bad things and bad people are the others. I am one of the good people. Therefore the things I do must be good.
This is why if Jesus were around today and a woman taken in adultery ran to him for protection and he said to the crowd, Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone, forty-six Republican adulterers would bean her with rocks.
Cheating on your spouse is something Democrats do.
And it's also why now that the cops have finally pulled Karl Rove over, the Republicans are gearing up to smear, slander, and discredit Patrick Fitzgerald and ride him out of town on a rail if they can.
They pay his salary, after all. They'll have his badge for this. They own him!
They think.
Follow that thought to the Mourner's Bench update: Shakespeare's Sister has put her finger on something that bothered me about what I said about their religion in this post---the missing concept of being Born Again.
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"This is why if Jesus were around today and a woman taken in adultery ran to him for protection and he said to the crowd, Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone, forty-six Republican adulterers would bean her with rocks."
Man, you nailed that sucker good. Get out your copy of Unforgiven and see if Big Whiskey and Sheriff Daggett don't resemble what we have today. Funny that it took someone like Eastwood to make this parable.
Posted by: Exiled in NJ | Thursday, July 28, 2005 at 08:12 AM
Mannion, excellent piece. (I started leaving a comment, which turned into a whole post.) Good to have you back.
Posted by: Shakespeare's Sister | Thursday, July 28, 2005 at 12:15 PM
I saw somewhere once, and I wish I could remember where because I think it is right and I wish I could give credit where credit is due, that the difference between that particular brand of conservatism and our particular brand of liberalism is that they think of things like "crime" and "terrorism" as *identities*, whereas we think of them as *actions*. So they think that unfettered police power won't affect them (or any of the "good" people) because they "aren't criminals." Whereas we fear that it most certainly could, or will, affect us (or other "good" people) because we realize that "criminal" is behavior, not identity--and that moreover, criminal behavior is defined by the state, and as the definitions change (e.g., protesting is now criminal behavior), well...
Posted by: bitchphd | Thursday, July 28, 2005 at 12:50 PM
Toss in the Puritan concept of "grace" as well. I just read Shakespeare's Sister, and I think that some of these kinds of conservatives see themselves as "born again," whereas others see themselves as straight-up "born." I learned about Puritanism in high school, and it freaked me out because grace trumped good deeds when it came to getting into heaven. These people who see "others" as bad also feel that they possess grace - so they are off the hook. Whereas mud sticks to the rest of us.
Posted by: Pepper | Thursday, July 28, 2005 at 01:09 PM
Once again, Lance, an excellent post. Kudos, sir.
Posted by: SAP | Thursday, July 28, 2005 at 04:21 PM
there may also be a Calvinist aspect - since they are already saved, the unconditionally elect, they are free to commit any sin.
Posted by: Doug K | Thursday, July 28, 2005 at 06:34 PM
great post, lance.
now folks, i ask you -- who among you with a certain amount of intelligence and courage would believe that jesus's death on the cross was for the redemption of mankind's sins, and those who don't accept that fact are heretical sinners/sinning heretics?
this is why i'm not a christian, altho i am a deist.
Posted by: harry near indy | Thursday, July 28, 2005 at 07:02 PM
Pepper, Doug, the concept of grace and the Calvinism are part and parcel, as the Puritans were Calvinists, and I think you're both right. This is what I was trying to get at when I said that their religion excuses them in the very act of committing a sin. I didn't do it. Thanks for following up.
Doctor B, I wish you could remember where you read it too, because it sounds as though whoever wrote it said it better and more succinctly than I did. Also, Blue Girl has a quote from Viscount LaCart on certain religious conservatives' attitude toward authority, which says, basically, they don't really have a sense of right and wrong, they practice an obedience to an authority they trust to tell them what's right and what's wrong. At the moment the authorities they trust run the state, as you point out, and those authorities are telling them all kinds of lies.
Posted by: Lance | Friday, July 29, 2005 at 09:21 AM
What disturbs me most with religious conservatives is their willingness to criminalize what they disagree with - that is, what they casually (if I can say that since there's usually spittal flying when they get going) categorize as sin. Fornication, homosexuality, drugs (medical marijuana), etc. If they don't like it no law shall be passed to decriminalize or - God forbid - APPROVE such behavior. People can't be left to decide things for themselves nor may they live in peace. They deserve not peace. Verily, they shall be eternally damned (but in the meantime we'll give 'em as much shit as we can right here on earth). Damned Heathens!
Posted by: Kevin Wolf | Friday, July 29, 2005 at 08:50 PM
I enjoyed visiting a website that had something coherent to read. I have recently made it back into politics, with more fervor than ever. The culmination of my research into the conservative social structurs is a rather simple response to culture.
I believe past and present evidence supports my claim that although some of the reasons previously listed above are in fact correct, the true answer is that most conservatives refuse to embrace a new culture. Particularly, one that listens to anyone but them and obeys most laws. In the past, most children went to church, school, and the occasional picknick. This is not ture of the so called X-Generation. They seem to prefer to go to work or just be at home with their families.
The truth of the matter lies with how certain agendas are being formed in our society today, I personally believe the mems Dawkins described is appropriate for an answer. It used to be that concerned citizens got together to talk about issues, now it is much easier to log on and find your answer on any website of your choice. Examine the debate over pornography on the internet, rather simple in nature, but complex in form. Religious conservatives claimed they would clean up the internet and make it safe for children to use, but look at the language they used to describe these sites. The important question was never raised until the last minute, which was one of parental accountability. My argument is one which states that if the religious movement that touts personal responsibility would actually be responsible, most of these issue would be policed by themselves.
If one is to believe that ninety-six percent of americans are Christians, then one could easily postulate that of that ninety-six percent, what is the relative percentage of those that espouse the same views at Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and James Dobson. My guess is that it is not very many.
Posted by: Chris | Sunday, December 18, 2005 at 12:49 AM
I grew up in the South, and so I have a to-the-bone appreciation of what Lance is talking about....I think it's really impossible for someone for the Rest Of The United States to have much more than a mental apprehension of this. Or as it is said about abortion, 'If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament'.
My line is about Born-Again fundies that they have a Get-Out-Of-Sin-Free card.
More comments at:
http://www.sdean.net/pol/GodNotEvangelical.htm
Posted by: Stewart Dean | Monday, December 19, 2005 at 12:28 PM