Pi Day Was All About Circles and Walls

I spent a great part of Friday, March 14 thinking about and replying to the latest salvo of anti-Obama posts from friends enamored with a video in which Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) asks rhetorical questions to attack and condemn President Obama for doing what Presidents before him have done in much greater numbers - that is to issue executive orders.

Despite an abundance historical precedent, Rep. Gowdy claims it is somehow unconstitutional for this President to issue an executive order because while he was a senator, Mr. Obama had questioned the executive orders issued by George W. Bush.

Rep. Gowdy is also involved in conducting investigations into the thoroughly debunked claim that the IRS targeted only conservative groups for investigation, and he uses this forum to pursue the same attack on the President.

There is a word in the English language which best describes the treatment afforded those called to testify before the so-called investigatory committees Rep. Gowdy and other house Republicans are using, at taxpayer expense, to posture and bloviate ever since Barack Obama was elected. That word is hectoring, and Rep. Gowdy has become its latest poster child.

hectorverbwe remembered being hectored by Sue's big brother on the playground: bully,    intimidate, browbeat, harass, torment, plague; coerce, strong-arm;    threaten, menace; informal bulldoze.Gowdy's disingenuous and sanctimonious theatrics are enough to make me puke, yet his boorish behavior is seen as heroic by my conservative friends.

How, I wonder, can my well-meaning, educated friends be so blind to the double standard they now use to evaluate this President? But I already know the answer, and it is appropriate that it came to me on "pi day" because it's all about circles.

The difference between conservatives and liberals lies in the size of the circles they draw around those whom they consider to be part or their group, tribe, family - yes, even their world - and therefore deserve the benefits which such inclusion affords.

Historically, liberal circles have tended to be large, flexible and capable of expanding to encompass a growing panoply of groups and individuals with diverse cultural traditions. Differences of opinion arising within these circles function as opportunities to learn and grow, and disagreements are seen as nothing more than scuffles between siblings learning to get along with one another.

Conservative circles are quite different. They tend to be small, rigid, and continuously in need of reinforcement to keep out any person or group thought be "other" than those already inside. Differences of opinion are not permitted to arise in these circles lest the circle itself break apart and expose the inhabitants to foreign contamination. Disagreements within the group become wars in which only one side can survive. The ongoing struggle between mainstream and Tea Party Republicans for control of the party is a case in point.

As a result, when and where liberals control a segment of government, they tend to pass laws which expand rights. In addition, novel ideas and approaches to solving problems are allowed to percolate up from the bottom of the populace.

When conservatives control a segment of government they tend to enact laws which restrict and exclude rather than to enhance and include, and they do so all the while claiming that they are promoting freedom and opportunity. All problems are approached in a top-down manner where the powerful dictate not only what will be allowed but also what the people must believe about those laws.

Across America, states with Republican governors and legislatures are currently enacting draconian election laws designed to exclude voters and limit their opportunity to cast ballots. And in the House of Representatives, fifty votes have been held to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which expanded the healthcare circle to include more people among those who can afford healthcare insurance for themselves and their families.

Robert Frost described the conservative mentality in his poem Mending Wall.

So, the hectoring continues as the needs of the people and the problems facing our nation go unaddressed in order for conservative "leaders" to shore up the sacred, rigid, fragile, and completely artificial circular walls they have drawn around themselves and the rest of their frightened, and diminishing tribe.

Meanwhile, if Dante's Inferno is at all accurate, somewhere in one of the deepest circles of Hell the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy gleefully follows the inquisitions conducted by Trey Gowdy and others. As he slow-roasts, demons baste him with reports that his methodology has survived his demise, moved from the Senate to the House of Representatives, and remains a vital component of the GOP's modus operandi.