Oxymoron Alert: “False Hope”

I first heard this one during the 2006 campaign cycle, when the ‘pubs were fighting stem cell research with all they had. By the way, where was that moral indignation this cycle? Prediction: within two years of this date, Republicans will have gone from Position A: opposing embryonic stem cell research as an immoral end to human life, to Position B: bragging about how much federal funding they have gotten for embryonic stem cell research.

This is an example of what I like to call the CPC, or "conservative policy cycle," where they resist progress for as long as they can, and then when an idea gains widespread public acceptance, they switch to being supporters and pray no one notices. See no-fault divorce, Medicare, Medicaid and the U.S. Department of Education, inter alia. I’ll do a whole post on this eventually. But I digress.

In 2006, the line the GOP used to attack people like television star Michael J. Fox, who filled an auditorium at Drake University for Democrats, and could not have been a more gracious and serious-minded human being, was that they were spreading something called “false hope.”

I think this means that because cures for illnesses like Parkinson’s may be 15 years off, current sufferers and their families shouldn’t vote for the Democrats, because there was no short term gain for those people. I know that’s hard to get your mind around, but its really just the me-first attitude of the folks who want their taxes cut applied to life threatening illnesses. Needless to say, it made no sense and the GOP got crushed in that election.

Undeterred, the ‘pubs saw the Obama signs that read “Hope” earlier this year and lost their ever-loving minds. Obama himself made jokes about being a “hopemonger.” But these folks started accusing Obama of spreading “false hope.” (This was post-“he’s a Muslim” and pre-“He’s a Socialist.” Try to keep up.)

So, here’s a little fortune cookie of wisdom for my ‘pub friends. Here, sir, the people rule. If the people hope for something, and then get together to vote for it, and then their representatives make it happen, there is nothing “false” about that process.

In America, there are no false hopes.

Do I need to post a pic of the American flag on the moon or do you think they will get the concept?