There was a lot of press this week about Nelson Mandela’s death, and of course many political leaders praised his life at his passing. While I believe that honoring the life of someone whose political views are different from your own is completely acceptable, I find it repulsive when people try to usurp that person’s legacy as your own when they would in no way support your cause. Take for example Rick Santorum’s use of the Mandela legacy to equate the injustice of apartheid with that of Obamacare. Obviously he and his followers do not agree with the politics of Nelson Mandela, as proven by Ted Cruz’s ill fated attempt to claim Mandela as a “defender of liberty.” (While I do agree that Mandela was a defender of liberty, I doubt that he would have agreed with Cruz’s definition of the term). Cruz’s followers were quick to point out that the two have very little in common politically, as you can see by their fanatical tirade against Mandela in response to the senator’s praise of the man.
While I was disappointed with Cruz and Santorum’s behavior, this sort of reappropriation of liberal heroes is not uncommon among conservatives. One of my favorite examples of this is from a conservative blogger whose article on what he calls the Star Trek Conspiracy. Referencing two episodes of the series that espoused values that the author considers to be conservative, he says that the liberal owners of NBC wanted the show off the air due to its conservative leanings. Yes, you read that right; leftist NBC executives shut down Star Trek because they disagreed with the conservative values it taught the audience. Anyone who watched the show might be confused about what liberals might have wanted to cancel the show over, considering that the show was about the crew of a starship which travels the galaxy as explorers whose primary objectives are to further scientific study of the universe. The society they belong to is socialist, they believe in social equality (not only economically, but as it relates to gender and ethnicity as well); and, judging by the actions of Captain Kirk, they also believe in free love. Forgive me if I have a hard time swallowing the idea that it was liberals that would have had a hard time with the politics of Star Trek.
So why is it that conservatives take these icons of liberalism and recast them as their own? I believe that in many conservative’s minds the logic goes like this. Conservative = good; X = good; therefore, X = Conservative. I know that comes off as mocking and overly simplified, but it’s the only way that I can make sense of the facts. I think that this stems from the marriage of conservatism and religion in America; from youth the interconnectedness of God and conservative values are pushed into American minds until they become inseparable. In my opinion this is why you see so many people that not only dislike progressive leaders, but honestly believe them to be evil. Since conservative = good; liberal = evil, and any liberal ideals or leaders must also be evil. Since there are no good liberals, those that history has deemed to be good must have been conservatives.
There is a long list of examples that jump to mind of this conservative bias. John F. Kennedy was recently invoked as a conservative thinker by several right wing pundits. The article linked has several good debunkings of that idea, but my favorite is from his own words:
What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label "Liberal?" If by "Liberal" they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer's dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of "Liberal." But if by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."
Despite his liberalism, JFK was and is wildly popular, and is therefore conservative (or so republican logic dictates).
When I first saw the aforementioned article, it was linked in a post by Ole Olson on Google+ in which one commenter said “I’ll give you one line that proves he was conservative: ‘Ask not what your country can do for you; but what you can do for your country.’” I kind of loved that comment because of how perfectly it embodies the thought processes that make people come to such ridiculous conclusions. The idea that liberals only want to live off the government and conservatives are the providers for the country are directly contradicted by the facts; but even if they weren’t, the quotation used clearly wasn’t intended by JFK to espouse the values that conservatives want it to when put in context. As part of his speech he says “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich,” a thought that clearly does not belong to a modern conservative.
There are other famous examples of progressive leaders being invoked by conservatives, including Martin Luther King when Glenn Beck had the “Rally to Restore Honor.” The event was planned on the anniversary of the famous “I have a dream” speech given by Martin Luther King on the steps where it was originally given. Beck claimed this to be an accident of scheduling and he didn’t know about this “coincidence” until he started getting criticism for it. This didn’t stop him from heavily invoking the departed leader’s legacy while espousing beliefs and policies that in no way resemble King’s dream for America.
By far the most oft used historical figure that has been claimed unfairly by the right is one that really should be the one most used by the left. The religious right claims that their policies are heavily influenced by their religion, yet I see little of their policies in the teachings of Jesus. They believe in the death penalty and being tough on crime, where Jesus forgave the woman caught in adultery rather than sentence her to death as the law prescribed. They denounce taxation as an injustice, but when Jesus was asked if it was lawful to pay tribute to Caesar (the jews were taxed heavily by the Romans, and this was a sore point with them) he told them to render unto Caesar that which was Caesar's and unto God that which was God’s. Taxation wasn’t the grave injustice in Jesus’ eyes that his followers today seem to think it is. Worst of all the right puts the richest people in the country on a pedestal and vilify those in need. This directly contradicts the teachings and life of Jesus; the same man who told his followers that “...it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” (KJV Luke 18:25) when a rich man had declined to follow Jesus after being asked to sell all he had and give it to the poor.
Jesus’ life was spent healing the sick, feeding the poor, and denouncing those whose fake piety was often the cause of the suffering of those he helped. Show me a modern conservative who follows that example and I’ll show you a liberal.
