The GOP talks about Judeo/Christian, conservative values. But they never say what they are
“Successful con men are treated with considerable respect in the South. A good slice of the settler population of that region were men who'd been given a choice between being shipped off to the New World in leg-irons and spending the rest of their lives in English prisons.” — Hunter S. Thompson
Mike Pence is one of those dyed-in-the-wool, Christian paleoconservatives who have received some positive reviews from liberals because he did his job on 1/6/21. But those liberals should not for one moment think that because Pence did one thing right in his political life, they should applaud him. Consider this. During his first run for Congress in 2001, Pence announced on his campaign website that politicians and the media had overstated the negative health impact of cigarettes.
“Time for a quick reality check. Despite the hysteria from the political class and the media, smoking doesn't kill.”
He has kept up his assault on health and truth ever since. During his term as Indiana’s Governor, he defunded Planned Parenthood clinics — even the ones that did not perform abortions. During an explosion of HIV cases in 2014, he refused to lift the ban, even though the PP clinics were often the only local HIV test centers. He added to the death toll by vociferously opposing needle exchange programs even though the outbreak was tied directly to intravenous drug use.
And just in case you doubt his bona fides when he endorsed the non-Trump GOP candidate for Arizona Governor, he offered absolute, right-wing boilerplate,
"As Arizona Democrats pursue the reckless Biden-Harris agenda, Karrin Taylor Robson is the only candidate for Governor that will keep Arizona's border secure and streets safe, empower parents and create great schools, and promote conservative values."
Which raises the question, what does Pence mean by “conservative values”? Or, for that matter, what do Republicans mean they say “Judeo/Christian values”? And how are they different from Muslim values, Hindu values, or even atheist values? A rational thinker could argue that atheistic values are morally superior to conservative Christian values.
Atheists live by the golden rule — but without God-inspired exceptions. I have no idea how denying two adults the right to wed because they are of the same sex or different races is a “value”? Seems more like bigotry — which surely cannot be a “value” anywhere? The same applies to contraception. How is ensuring that more babies are born into poverty and deprivation a value? It is not as if the planet is about to run out of people.
The conservative Christian will argue that the citizen can avoid pre-marital pregnancies by delaying sex until marriage. Two thoughts. One, what about people who are married and cannot afford another child? Two, God gave the young a sex drive. And I do not mean a flicker. I mean a raging need to have sex. If I were the perfect Designer and thought pre-marital sex was a sin, I would have designed people to not feel lust until after they had exchanged wedding vows.
As an atheist I say have at it, but make sure it is consensual and take comprehensive sex-ed classes. Which, of course, conservatives call “immoral” because in Bibleland, ignorance about fundamental biological processes is another “value”.
Atheists also value education. Fundamentalists do not. Bowdlerizing history, literature, and science texts because you are trying to hide the sins of your forebearers - or because you are squeamish about reality - is not a value. It is a sin. In the process, these moralists deny minorities the truth of their antecedents. And demonize the LGBTQ+ community. It takes a sadist to think spitting on people because of an innate facet of their makeup is a value.
Another so-called value for the right-wing is “life”. They insist they are for it. But banning abortions is not a pro-life position because women suffering unwanted pregnancies will get them anyway, even at the risk of their own lives. And OB/GYNs cannot give pregnant women, who are suffering potential miscarriages or other complications the care they need because they are scared the state will criminally charge them.
Liberal values vis-à-vis pregnancy are more moral. They believe in sex-ed, contraception, and social programs that support single women and poor families — ensuring that far more pregnancies are wanted.
This brings us to conservative “family values”. They believe that the husband is the boss. And God created his wife to stay at home polishing his slippers and filling his pipe - while submitting to his procreative urge at his convenience. The hypocrisy is that, even if this female enslavement were somehow the 'way things should be', Republican economic policy makes the arrangement impossible for many.
GOP tax slashing from Ronald “trickle-down” Reagan until the present has showered wealth on the rich while the poor sink further into an economic morass. Republican anti-unionism has depressed wages. Their refusal to be serious about health costs results in medical debt bankrupting Americans. They slash education aid while a university education costs the same as a small house. And these same people think that poor women are in a position to forego an income.
Further, the domestic subjugation of women is a feature of fundamentalist Islam. So logic demands that some (all?) Christian values are indistinguishable from Sharia Law.
Then there are the evangelical values that are the diametric opposite of Jesus' values. These sanctimonious gits hate prostitutes, immigrants, and criminals. Jesus did not. He palled around with the dregs of society and celebrated the Samaritans (think Mexicans of the Middle East).
And what of the “Prosperity Gospel”? Like all expedient Christians, the money-grubbers use opaque biblical verses to justify their avarice and/or bigotry. In the case of these greedy bastards, they use scripture to con the elderly out of their social security checks. And the poor out of their meager stash of spare cash. And their marketing techniques and strong-arm tactics would make a loan shark blush. "Send us money - or you are going to hell."
Underpinning this value system is hate and fear. And it is what propelled a man with no values to the presidency. In his inauguration speech, Trump played the base like a fiddle,
“Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities, rusted out factories, scattered like tombstones across the across the landscape of our nation, an education system flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge, and the crime, and the gangs, and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential. This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.”
And the religious right lapped it up. And ever since, conservatives have revered this Satan in a cheap suit as the fountainhead of conservative values.