Conservative Values

This editorial Mike Finnigan posted on FB is the best read of the day. This graf in particular sums up what I see in the comments from my conservative "fan" club every time I post at the Detroit News.

Scarcely a generation ago, you wouldn’t have found many conservatives who would have sneered at compassion or tolerance or fundamental fairness, even if they disagreed with liberals on how these concepts might operate in the real world. Today, open contempt for these values is conservative boilerplate for Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, and even for the Republican Party itself, whose idea of cutting government is always cutting programs that help the weakest and least fortunate Americans and whose idea of compassion is caring about the tax burden of the wealthiest Americans. Beyond politics, these attitudes threaten to make this the first generation that promulgates an individualism untempered by common decency.

I'm not sure generation is the right word. The absence of even the tiniest shred of empathy percolates through all age groups in my world. As does the disdain for any fact-based evidence that would threaten the validity of their prejudices. Doesn't leave much hope for an honest debate ever again. But what really galls, is the duplicitous gasbags who are getting rich off of it.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]