A foolish consistency

Recently, I rode a chairlift up a mountain with a woman I hardly knew. That itself might be interesting, were I single and irresponsible but, gratefully, I confess that I am neither (well, maybe I am irresponsible, but that fact has not left me single).

Nearly the second I began my uphill journey, my chairmate launched into a criticism of President George Bush.

"The plain fact is that he is a very stupid man. And his only interest is in appeasing the big corporations who run this country," she said with the boldness of an oracle.

I held my tongue and listened as she went from one Bush weakness to the next. Then, once we disembarked at the lift's terminus, the woman switched from corporate greed to the right-to-die.

"This whole Schiavo thing is just absurd. What is this President thinking? He's obsessed with just one person, bringing the whole government to a stop because one person's on her deathbed. What about straightening out the Iraq War, or Social Security? Why does he care so much about one person when he doesn't seem to care about whole groups of hurting people, like our soldiers?"

I politely interjected that only a few weeks ago Democrats were insisting that Social Security was fine.

"Why should the president fuss over something that isn't broken?" I asked. "Or did it break a few days ago?"

She looked at me bemusedly.

"And besides," I added, "I love it that President Bush and Congress are obsessed with one person. That's what this country is about: it's about the individual over the collective, and how the two must be kept in harmony through law. What a great country, where one individual could have her name mentioned in Congress! Wouldn't you want that for yourself? I know I do. I WANT to live in a place where people care about just one person, especially that person who is the weakest among us."

The woman replied with a surprising statement.

"That's a very interesting take on it, but I don't buy it."

At that, we skied off in separate directions.

I share this for no other reason than to illustrate a disturbing, nattering consistency. It is that consistency which is always inconsistent: it is like a predictable anomaly.

Perhaps I can make myself clearer by pointing out the obvious: My chairlift companion at the very beginning of our ride berated President Bush for caring solely about big groups of people - corporations. Moments later she was lynching him because he cared solely about one person.

Isn't that amazing?

That corporations are composed of individuals - that most corporations consist of individual Americans - is somehow irrelevant to the progressive critic of the Bush Administration, like the woman with whom I spoke. There is apparently something intrinsically nefarious to the 'corporation'. Something un-American and illiberal.

But alas there is nothing wrong (at least to the progressive) with the corporations of state, like soldiers; or the groups of poor people or those disenfranchised by Social Security cuts. No, these kinds of corporate needs are OK, even lovely, to the liberal mind. To that mind, it is bad for the President to care about large groups, unless they are the right groups. And it is bad if he cares about one woman, unless she is the right kind of woman (preferrably a woman who needs an abortion but can't get one). THAT kind of woman should bring a government to a stop.

Thus the foolish consistency of liberalism is to be found on a ski hill in southern New Hampshire. Such foolishness consistently reproaches the President of the United States with arguments that are anything but consistent.

Welcome to the cold desert of the real.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

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