Branded!

I just garnered yet another label: ‘Fiscal Conservative’. Who’da thunk?

Allow me to digress for a moment. First of all, I consider myself to be pretty moderate. I perceive the policies and other stuff I agree with to be in line with plain, old common sense.
Things like:
Educating everyone equally—assuming we want an egalitarian nation that allows people to 1] live lives that aren’t filled with quiet [or not-so-quiet] desperation and 2] actually contribute to the greater good.
And, what's more, I'm willing to pay for this quality education for all. I believe it will more than pay for itself in the long run. To that end, I've never voted against a tax that would help the schools and our teachers.

Allowing other people to live their own lives without a lot of interference from me [or the government or anyone else, for that matter.] That includes GLBT’s, people [including women and the sick and the elderly] who want control of their own bodies, people who disagree with you and/or me and/or even the most “socially conservative” among us.
If people don’t scratch up my karma, I promise not to run over their dogma.

Including immigrants in our population IN our population. Not placing them on the fringes and threatening to deport them if they step out of line by asking to have their humanity acknowledged.

Living a personal life that is, by and large, pretty frugal. Don’t get me wrong—I live pretty comfortably, too. I don’t deny myself anything I actually need. I don’t even deny myself most of those things I want. But I’m not a huge consumer of high-end goods. I don’t shop as a panacea for boredom, buying anything that catches my momentary interest to bring home and add to a growing pile of stuff I’ll never use.

And, on a related issue, protecting the environment—even if the humans living in the same region as an endangered species or wetland or natural wonder or forest or coastline are inconvenienced. We are, after all, PART of the environment —not its Lord and Master— an acknowledgment we ignore at our own peril.
I think that that truism is becoming more and more stark as time goes on.

Apparently, though, from what I’ve been reading, these views put me to the far-left-of-left—almost a Commie-Pinko-Librul.
xxx
But, this morning, I heard a piece on the radio that coupled the word “moral” with the little passion play we all witnessed this week of multimillionaires carrying their tin cups to Washington D.C. in their private jets.
The idea that this was an immoral act seemed to be a novel one to the talking heads on that [NPR] radio show. I wonder what those deep-thinkers get paid. If they’da asked me, I coulda told em that that was a profoundly immoral act.
Just as what AIG and the other banking institutions have been doing with the $300 billion they've received is immoral.

And, at last, Congress earned my seal of approval when it spanked the hands of the Big 3 and sent them to bed without supper. At least Congress learned from its latest mistakes.

[fwiw, I do believe we should bail out the Big 3—but on terms and with well-thought-out conditions. Multi-million dollar salaries, bonuses and private jets not included.]
If that makes me a Fiscal Conservative, I guess it’s a label I can live with.

My point here is this:
FINALLY our pundits and politicians are waking up to the fact that morality doesn’t consist of going to church, keeping your pants zipped when appropriate, wrapping yourself in the Flag and brandishing the Cross at election-time and trying to force everyone out there to agree with your own narrow views. There are broader, more inclusive views that are moral—and it’s time Congress realized it.
xxx
And, one more thought on the matter:
If I read, just one more time, that these tolerant viewpoints are held exclusively by the young, I'm going to vomit or scream or both.
I'm almost 61 years old, for God's sake! And I'm sick to death of being labeled Conservative and/or a Bible Thumper on that criterion alone!
I've held these views ever since I learned to think for myself—which was a while ago— like, ummm, high school, for what it's worth.