Posted on www.truthdig.com

Posted on Oct 7, 2007

By Will Durst

Last week, a clandestine cadre of controlling conservative Christian captains (bunch of right-wing religious nut jobs is what I’m getting at) threatened to run from the GOP like ducks from an alligator the size of a Buick if any infidel they don’t anoint is nominated for president. And yes, a specific former New York City mayor was mentioned. Funny you should ask.

At a meeting in Salt Lake City (where else—you thought Vegas maybe?) Heaven’s Soldiers collectively decided they would rather support a burned-beyond-recognition, duckbill platypus with wire-coat-hanger hands than a certain Mr. Rudolph Giuliani. Apparently the Mayor of 9/11 is not the answer to their prayers.

Oh, they have their reasons. Giuliani’s serial inclination to appear at fundraisers in drag, resulting in his being photographed wearing a dress more often than Hillary Clinton, could be one. His brazen courting of the pro-choice, pro-gay rights, pro-gun control wing of the Republican Party might be another. The fact that the Rudy clan, including both ex-wives (two too many), are campaigning for other people doesn’t help much either. A bit of a sticky wicket that: trying to swing Independents with your Family Value bona fides when your own family hates you. With megaphones. more »

You may have noticed that conservatives like attacking programs such as…free health-care, public education, ending corporate welfare, taxation, and any proactive governance as the evil “Big Government.” The old phrase, “government is the problem, not the solution” is spewed forth like the word of God in an attempt to create so-called freedom through the market.

There’s just one problem with this: conservatives don’t practice it. Neither side does; a large government is far more convenient, something we can’t live without today. What we have now isn’t a battle over whether we should have a small government or a big government, but what KIND of big government we should have. What I see as the political/philosophical debate of our day is if we should have a government which invests in people, or one that invests in bombs.

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