My crazy family: the sad reality of Republican politics

You know that funny nostalgic feeling you get when you think about some of the naive things you thought as a kid, like how you believed in the existence of Santa and the Easter Bunny? I get that feeling now when I think about how I used to revere my parents for their logical, intelligent approach to politics and religion.

I really used to hold them up as an example of how religious parents can be reasonable, open-minded, and tolerant. And then I left home. Traveled. Met people from a lot of different places. Realized that a fervent belief in the correctness of one's beliefs doesn't, by default, make those beliefs correct. Started to see how little tolerance and open-mindedness my parents actually exhibited.

Actually, it wasn't until the months leading up to the presidential election that I fully realized how wrong I'd always been about my parents. To be precise, I lost my childlike naivete the day my mother looked me straight in the eye and said, "Obama is a socialist, just like Hitler."

First of all, Hitler wasn't a socialist. Hitler got rid of labor unions and gave a ton of power to business owners who had to do what he said to keep that power. That's not socialism. That's fascism.

Second, the real inference of the statement is that somehow Hitler was or became a mass murdering fuckhead because he (supposedly) was socialist, and that since Obama (supposedly) is a socialist, too, he's likely to become a mass murdering fuckhead as well. Or, phrased in less heavy-handed way, socialism is evil because everything you can associate with Hitler is evil, so Obama is evil, too. If that isn't obviously absurd to you, read it again. If that still doesn't smell like a ton of bullshit to you, brush up on your logic and history, and then read it again.

Third, socialism comes in a lot of different varieties, and nothing Obama has sought to implement is any more socialist than many of the government programs we already support. There seems to be a real lack of understanding of what socialism really is in this country, and evidently my parents are no exception.

I thought my parents would have been able to see the vast lack of logic in their statement. They're college educated people. Unlike a lot of Americans, they read on a regular basis -- and real non-fiction books, not crap like Twilight. Sure, they're conservative Republican Christians who listen to Rush Limbaugh and such (and Dad is a preacher to boot), but I always thought they were the kind who could smell bullshit when it was thrown at them.

Turns out I was wrong.

Needless to say, it's been a very long year and a half.

It's frustrating to see them spouting half-truths and outright fabrications as if they were absolute truth, knowing that they're completely uninterested in the real truth. And, even worse, knowing that they got these "facts" from some neoconservative pundit on the radio who they believe without question.

The most recent "WTF!?!" moment came during a discussion about my increasing interest in eating more organic foods. I've been paying more attention lately to what I buy at the grocery store, and just recently took my first grocery trip to a local natural foods market. I was explaining to them that the reason I'm committing myself to a more organic diet isn't so much the nutritional quality of the food itself, but the effects of the methods used in producing the food. After all, huge factory farms, especially those outside the U.S. that provide us with meat, are in large part to blame for things like the swine flu, not to mention the impact of chemical pesticides on the environment and the increasingly troublesome production of genetically modified crops.

I remember during my high school years, when the pressure to recycle and plant trees and "save the earth" was ramping up, that my parents patently refused to worry about it. I read Silent Spring in high school mostly because my parents claimed that it was a propaganda piece full of lies. Even then, I understood where their objection came from: religion. If Jesus is going to return, and if the good Christians are going to be raptured before the earth REALLY gets bad, then there is no need to worry about saving the earth ourselves. If you really truly believe modern protestant interpretations of the Bible, there's no way we'll be allowed to destroy the earth before Jesus comes back to save it.

What I couldn't understand even then (when I actually shared their basic beliefs) was why it made sense to carelessly use up the earth's resources when we were admonished to be careful what we did to our bodies. If your body is a temple given to you by god that you're supposed to take care of even though you won't actually have to worry about its condition in the afterlife, why does the same philosophy not apply to the earth we live on?

Ironically, my parents are now far more diligent about recycling than I am, and we don't even have a curbside recycling program here. They actually collect all their plastic, paper, cardboard, and aluminum; rinse, sort, and bag it all; and haul it themselves to the recycling center. Yet the idea of supporting smaller organic farming operations instead of huge factory farms seems to offend their sensibilities in some way.

Initially, when I was talking about what I'd bought at the natural foods market, their response was that they just weren't convinced that eating organic or less prepared food would make me healthier or cause me to live longer than they would, but that if it made me feel better to spend the extra money it was fine. (Condescend much?) My sister actually said she liked processed foods with chemical additives. Then again, my sister just likes to do everything opposite of what I do now, which is ironic considering how when we shared an apartment by ourselves she copied my every interest.

But I digress.

When I explained that it was less about nutritional differences and more about supporting more sustainable farming methods, their response wasn't any less negative. In fact, my parents proceeded to "inform" me that there is actually a negative impact to all this environmental responsibility. Their example? They claimed that since DDT was banned, the threat of malaria in third world countries has increased exponentially and, because nobody can use DDT, millions of people are dying. Furthermore, they claimed that science has proved that DDT is harmless and doesn't kill birds and other animals, and that it's basically the fault of Rachel Carson that all these unfortunate people are being forced to die.

*digs out from under load of bullshit*

My initial response was that I was skeptical of the claim that DDT was harmless and that I'd have to do some research myself before I bought that kind of claim. And, luckily, that was the end of the discussion. They rolled their eyes at me and I rolled my eyes at them, and we continued eating lunch.

When I got home I did some poking around and, indeed, most of their claims are complete crap.

First of all, DDT is not banned for use in fighting malaria and, in fact, because the World Health Organization has recommended that DDT be used to kill mosquitoes in areas where malaria is rampant, many third world countries have long used programs wherein they go into houses and spray the surfaces directly with DDT. So any claim that the ban on DDT is causing all manner of malaria deaths is patently false.

Second, all reputable scientific data points to DDT being a carcinogen. Not only that, but it has profoundly negative effects on birds and aquatic life forms, and is blamed for the near-extinction of not only the bald eagle but also several other bird species. Even the World Health Organization, despite approving the use of DDT to combat malaria, recommends that its use eventually be phased out.

The saddest part is that I strongly suspect that they would persist in their belief that the world would be better off if we went back to dumping tons of DDT all over the place even if I printed out a metric ton of evidence to the contrary for them to see. I did mention to my mother that I'd done some poking around and that the use of DDT to combat malaria has been the status quo in many African countries for a long time now. Her response? "Well, maybe they're spraying NOW." As if Rush Limbaugh talking about it would suddenly prompt the powers that be to give Africa DDT. I told her that no, DDT has never been banned for killing malaria-spreading mosquitoes, only for agricultural use. She pursed her lips, I left, and I'd bet a million bucks she never looked any further into the issue.

It would be one thing if they just held opposing ideas. If they simply believed that it's worth the environmental and long-term health risk of spraying DDT in order to prevent malaria deaths, fine. If they simply believed that it's not worth putting extra tax burden on people to provide increased health care availability or to attempt to boost the economy, fine. What bothers me is that they believe these things because they've "picked a side," and anything fed to them by those who are on that same side is swallowed and regurgitated without a second thought. Not only do they not seem to be interested in fact-checking, they actually believe that any evidence contradicting what they've been told must be fabricated. Their side is good, everyone else is evil, and to question that belief is dangerous.

I talk to some people online who assume that these opinions must be the exception, not the norm, even among Republicans. Well, not so:

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=8FD5BC44-18FE-70B2-A8F16FA9CBA5781E

63 percent of Republicans believe Obama is a socialist
24 percent said Obama wants “the terrorists to win”
31 percent agreed with the statement that Obama is “a racist who hates white people”
36 percent of respondents do not believe the president was born in this country
21 percent think the liberal advocacy group ACORN stole the election for Obama
23 percent want their state to secede from the union
51 percent of those polled believe sex education should not be taught in schools
77 percent want creationism taught in schools
31 percent want contraception outlawed
34 percent believe birth control is “abortion”

If we want to start drawing parallels between modern politicians and Nazi Germany, I say let's start with a discussion of scare-tactic propaganda.

It's one thing to stand up for what you believe in, and a far different thing to stand up for what somebody tells you to believe in without questioning. What happened to independent thought? What happened to freedom as an American ideal?

I'd ask what happened to my parents, but I don't think they've changed. I remember back in high school standing next to them in pro-life demonstrations. I remember the discussions around the dinner table. The only thing that's changed is that the hysteria has increased (and I've since come to my senses). The basic idea, though, is exactly the same. And that saddens me, not just because I thought my parents capable of engaging in a logical debate about actual issues without throwing around insanely illogical half-truths and propagandist bullshit, but because I can't just dismiss them as part of a radical fringe. It's not some exaggerated caricature of "crazy Republican America" the "liberal media" has latched onto in an effort to discredit otherwise logical mainstream conservative viewpoints. No, it's very real. And I'm living in the middle of it.