Photo via @IAmJohnAles/Twitter
October 5, 2021, 2:04 pm
Actor John Ales stirred up some trouble on Twitter Monday by asking conservatives outright to explain how their values are at all good in terms of how they help people. While some conservatives have clearly given up pretending like they care a single iota about anyone other than themselves and maybe their children, many others, particularly the Christian right, have attempted to maintain that they are dedicated to helping the poor and downtrodden like Jesus told them to.
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In practice, however, it’s difficult to understand how cutting social programs and having the police throw away the meager belongings of the homeless while cutting taxes on the ultra-rich accomplishes this. So, Ales asked.
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Unfortunately but predictably, Ales did not get much of an answer to his question, noting in a follow-up tweet that he “ain’t hearing anything new and helpful” from them. Indeed, real answers from actual conservatives are a bit hard to find among all the sarcastic (or just entirely accurate) responses from non-conservatives, in spite of the fact that, as one noted, right-wingers seem eager to flood every other tweet Ales makes.
Others who were formerly conservative or were raised in conservative families offered some insights into what they were told were conservative values, but found that when they tried to live by these guidelines, they were called liberals or quickly realized that nobody on the right practiced what they preached. Those who have observed the political right in the U.S. are often of the opinion that the only people they help are themselves and the rich, hoping someday to be the rich, or that they don’t help anyone at all and never have.
Among the few actual conservative answers, words like “simplicity” and “stoicism” were offered, which are not so much what people typically think of today as “values.” Additional, stoicism refers to a school of philosophy that stresses the importance of study and helping one another and blames fear-based judgment for much of the misery in the world. Others pointed to the idea of small government, ignoring all the times that they cheered on big government interference in private lives such as abortion restrictions.
But the sarcastic responses are a lot more fun, so here’s a collection of our favorites:
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They’re good for rich people and they protect against imaginary bogeymen. So, translation: they do not.
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Joshua (@mr_sosotris) October 4, 2021
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Good (helpful) conservative values are marriage, giving children a healthy family structure, strong work ethic, & high integrity rooted in community (for some that means church) sharing holidays & dinner together
None of that has to do with politics, though.
— FYIKitty
(@mdbbrooks) October 4, 2021
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They give bitter people a reason to hate happy people.
— Sydfish (@Sydfish) October 4, 2021
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Sure they’re good at helping people but only a select few. That’s the whole problem with conservative values. It is only working for a targeted audience.
—
𝕽𝖆𝖈𝖍𝖊𝖑
(@Rachel1964Alva) October 4, 2021
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*First Published: October 5, 2021, 2:04 pm
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