Sacred Republican Cows in Presidential Debate

Below you will find my round about recap of last night’s first Republican presidential debate. What you won’t find, however, is my blow-by-blow summation and refutation of the various “ideas” on display.

Over the next year, there’ll be lots of time to point out the various inanities and high-jinx that pass for presidential politics in the United States, but for now, let’s take a step back and survey the field.

Last night was all about tending to the various sacred cows of the right. It’s probably unnecessary to point it out, but “sacred cow” in the American vernacular refers to the sacred cows of Hinduism: the cows that, no matter how problematic it is to maintain them, are not to be used for burger patties.

These cows are protected so that the “right” cows can be properly sacrificed at their divinely appointed time. It’s an irony that the very animals that are protected for religious reasons, are protected only so they can later be sacrificed in some gruesome and more painful manner than a typical slaughtered beast.

This illustrates the vehemently pro-Israel thinking on the right. Israel must be preserved, in their minds, because it will be the site of the final battle with the forces of Satan. It does not trouble them over-much that the world will perish with that battle because it’s God’s will that it be so. 

This sacrifice will happen at the divinely appointed time, and the knife which performs it will merely be the instrument of God. It’s not personal. In other words, Israel must be protected before it can be righteously destroyed.

For less religiously-minded conservatives, however, the preservation of Israel is tied to the realpolitik of people like Henry Kissinger and Dick Cheney, and the calculation that a nation requires secure access to national resources in order to flourish. These two wings of the Republican party are an uneasy marriage between dogma and opportunism, but a marriage all the same.

That’s just one example. In practice the “sacred cow” can be any idea that can’t be touched, any idea that can’t be violated under any circumstance.

It’s appropriate, however, that the term has a religious root. Like most religious dogmas, the “sacred cow” must be taken on faith. Of course every ideology has its sacred cows--their own dumb meandering ruminations that drain intellectual resources without reward--but the Republican herd is particularly dense.

Last night all the predictably dull cows were on display.

• The incompetence of government, and the primacy of private enterprise.

• Unqualified American supremacy, and its impending doom.

• Obama’s radical left-wing politics, and the wisdom of the people.

Sacred cows all. And every single one of them protected from the facts. The facts which reveal each of them is just another thick-headed bovine--another stupid cow, not special, not sacred. 

Unfortunately, these cows will never be slaughtered. Not this presidential election, and not the next.

They are strangling public debate in this country--using up all of the natural resources, and leaving nothing behind.

I’ll get back to wrestling with them soon enough, but right now it’s worth it to stop, and look, and remark on how many there are, and how much space they take up.