Tomorrow and Tuesday are forecast to be the coldest days here in the South in over a decade, with wind-chill temperatures well below zero, and I have to work outside both days. A Facebook acquaintance of mine keeps saying that she's going to spend the day in bed under covers while hubby goes to work, and seems oblivious to the privilege her wealth and lifestyle provides. It would certainly be nice if I could afford to lie in bed all day tomorrow, and have someone go to work for me.
According to psychologist Jonathan Haidt, an important and distinguishing moral value of conservatives is loyalty and allegiance to one's own group. This certainly explains a lot of their over-the-top flag waving and love-it-or-leave-it brand of patriotism. But increasingly, I've come to wonder whom they consider to be "their own." All their talk about the "real Americans" and "true patriots" (in other words, people who vote like them) suggests that their sense of allegiance might be to a fairly small demographic, and not the whole of the country they claim to so love. Even beyond Mitt Romney's obvious contempt for the "47 percent" of Americans, they seem more than willing to disenfranchise and place economic burdens on those Americans not in their immediate cultural-racial, socio-economic stratum.
There's nothing like working in sub-freezing temperatures to turn this old proletariat into a raging Bolshevik, is there? I'll be out there tomorrow out of economic necessity to be sure, but in solidarity with all of the utility workers, toll-booth attendants, traffic cops, farmers, surface miners, and other working-class heroes who have to brave the cold.
Of course, if things go well for me, I should be able to spend all day Thursday in bed.
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