Liberal “wing nuts” love to hate Laurie Higgins because she brings them to the end of their intellectual capacity. With her articles about the Illinois governor’s race this fall, Higgins has now added a batch of Republicans to her “fan club.”
Let’s start off with a fun example from one of her new fans. In response to one of Higgins articles, someone named “Chris” posted a comment (to save time, let’s assume Chris is a he).
Chris said:
Some people continue to believe that the coercive power of the state ought to be used to shore up their paranoid insecurity by imposing their religious beliefs on the wider population.
Wow, where to start — so much ignorance in one sentence. Where has Chris been? Has he not noticed that since at least the late 1960s the radical political left has been using the “coercive power of the state” through legislation and the courts to impose their religious beliefs on the wider population?
They cannot tolerate the dizzying diversity of ideas, cultures, lifestyles, and religious beliefs that have come to surround them and they want to make it stop. They will never again be comfortable inside a representative government, but that doesn’t mean they won’t keep trying to impose their will.
Wow, Chris is really a hip cool modern guy. Too bad modern Chris is unaware of how discredited multiculturalism is — and that it’s the perfect way to plant, grown, and harvest cultural decline. Chris may have missed the melting pot history of the United States. Chris needs to look up the word “melting.”
They are doomed to fail and whatever political party comes to lean on them will remain hobbled. They are the key reason that the GOP over the past twenty years lost its strongholds in New York, CT, Illinois and California. As long as they keep hovering around they are going to poison the party’s message.
Ah, yes, doomed. Why Chris thinks the GOP’s messaging failure regarding the “economic issues” is somehow different from the “cultural issues” isn’t clear to me — but it’s a safe bet that Chris hasn’t been paying close enough attention to see that government has grown with support of that multicultural public.
There are still options for these folks. There are places like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan that continue to place a high premium on the state’s role in guaranteeing public morality. It might be tough to live there. The food can be very spicy, the languages are challenging, and they use a different name for God, but at least it’s an option.
Chris is so clever, isn’t he? So making school children learn that there is nothing wrong with all kinds of depraved sexual behavior isn’t the state taking a role in public morality. Right. Forcing business owners to act against their religious convictions regarding marriage is the state being neutral. Right. Hmmm…maybe Chris isn’t so clever after all.
Better yet, they could buy a nice quiet plot of land somewhere in Ohio or Pennsylvania. Get a wagon and a horse and starting living the righteous life in a century where you might be more comfortable. They get to live a life of unchallenged self-righteous arrogance. The culture at large gets to begin adapting to 21st century global capitalism. Everyone wins.
Chris is an expert on self-righteous arrogance so there’s not much to say on this one except that the standard of living in the Judeo-Christian West is what it is because its foundation was laid by men who recognized the importance of virtue.
Vote for Rauner, vote for Quinn. Who cares. Please just get out of the way so the rest of us can start trying to build a future for our children.
Here is Laurie Higgin’s terrific response to “Chris”:
Surely you jest, Chris. You think it’s social conservatives who are self-righteous and arrogant? Not “progressives” who have usurped public education for their ideological purposes? Not “progressive” teachers who censor conservative resources with carefree abandon? Not homosexual activists who are jettisoning the only marital criterion that has endured cross-culturally and throughout history? Not LGBT activists who are insisting that males should be able to use women’s bathrooms and vice versa?
Not “progressives” like Chai Feldblum who believe that the “sexual rights” of homosexuals will and should trump religious rights?
Not “moderate” Republicans who call conservative Republicans “wingnuts,” and “silly, blathering, idiots”? Not “moderate” Republicans who scold conservatives for being single-issue voters while wailing that all that matters is the economy?
Do you actually think that the belief that marriage has an inherent nature central to which is sexual complementarity is analogous to radical Islamic beliefs about sexuality and marriage?
You said in essence that conservatives want the government to “guarantee public morality.” I’m not sure where you got that except from claims I’ve made regarding marriage or public schools. If you believe government has no role in regulating marriage, then you must be comfortable with the legalization of both plural unions and incestuous unions. I mean, you surely wouldn’t want to arrogantly and self-righteously impose any antiquated notions of marriage and sexuality on others through marriage laws. Your moral and political universe in which radical autonomy and sexual self-determination supersede any notions of the public good logically render laws prohibiting two brothers or five people of assorted and fluid genders from marrying not merely archaic but offensive.
Folks, pay close attention to Chris’ arguments here because unless we start speaking out boldly and taking counter-cultural action, this is the future of the Republican Party.
Elsewhere, another commenter had this to say about Laurie’s writing:
I will not punish my children with a vote for Quinn. That’s just evil. If Rauner loses, our children lose.
I want my loving, living, breathing children to stay in Illinois.
Please vote for Bruce Rauner and Evelyn Sanguinetti. I want to know my grandchildren. Rauner is our children’s best chance at having a job and raising a family here in Illinois.
Here is Laurie Higgins’ response:
The children who are really losing are those who are killed before they can breathe their first breaths, and those who are purchased by homosexuals. Rauner couldn’t care less about either.
Diana Rauner assured Illinois voters that “there is no way Bruce will let anything happen to our reproductive rights.” That reveals he is a man lacking in wisdom and integrity.
Jobs mean nothing to those killed in the womb. Diana Rauner’s comment reveals that he would actively protect the “right” to kill the unborn.
Rauner is a duplicitous, single-issue candidate. Oh, wait, I forgot, Rauner helped bring Common Core Standards to IL.
I’ve heard ad nauseaum the fiscal marvels Republicans believe Rauner can achieve in IL. I haven’t yet heard what ideological effect they think he will have within the party on the issues of life, marriage, or religious liberty.
Another commenter had this to say:
The Democrats NEVER talk like this. None of them voted for McCain or Romney and they have had the Presidency for two terms and appointed most of the Judges now. …
The Operating Engineers who hate and fear Rauner (ask yourself why) gave big money to the Libertarian. Why? They unequivocally support Quinn.
Here’s Higgins’ response:
Democrats don’t need to talk like this, because they don’t have a poisonous faction within the party working diligently to overturn critical swaths of the party platform.
Maybe I missed it, but I can’t recall the Democratic equivalent of Tom Cross’s campaign ad or Diana Rauner’s interview.
I can’t recall the Democratic equivalent of Mark Kirk who campaigned on his endorsement by Planned Parenthood.
I can’t recall the Democratic equivalent of the Log Cabin Republicans–you know a group within the Democratic Party working to protect marriage.
Let’s continue this in our next post…
