As the battle for America’s political soul rages on, I’ve noticed one thing about the conservative movement (at least among those conservatives in the media) that really didn’t hit me until recently, with the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States. From Rush Limbaugh’s declaration that he wants the President to fail, because of his fear of what Obama’s policies will do to the country; to their opposition of gay marriage, out of fear for the “sanctity of marriage”; to their fierce opposition to the closing of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, out of fear that terror suspects will be released into the general population; to their fear of calling waterboarding what it is (torture), to their opposition to an assault weapons ban, out of fear that the government will take away our right to bear arms. The recurring theme to all of their opposing positions is fear; I’ve just realized that conservatives are a bunch of sissies.

There’s no mistake that the Republican Party in America had been able to hold onto power in Washington for so many years by feeding the American people a steady diet of fear and paranoia. The mantra of “we are the only ones who can protect you from those who want to hurt you” has been a powerful weapon for the right wing in America, especially since 9/11; the Republican talking point that they “kept us safe” in the seven plus years since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon has been a persuasive argument for the right, until of course you consider that 9/11 could have been prevented if anyone in the Bush White House had been paying attention, and that more Americans died under Bush / Cheney at the hands of terrorists than in any other time in American history. What I find interesting – and shocking – is that in their quest to hold onto their influence in the American political debate, they are revealing a remarkable amount of cowardice. Simply put: the majority of conservatives are chicken-shit.

Especially on the issues of national security – long seen to be an area dominated by Republicans – once rational arguments have given way to sheer paranoia, denial and outright fear. Take the conservative talking point that if Gitmo is closed and terror suspects are brought to the US, the american people will somehow be in grave danger. Forget the fact that the US houses some of the worlds most dangerous criminals like Charles Manson, the Unabomber and domestic terrorists Eric Rudolph and Timothy McVeigh and numerous foreign terrorists; America has some of the worlds most well fortified maximum security prisons, facilities that no one to date has escaped from. The notion that these places cannot hold suspected terrorists is not only ridiculous, it’s an insult to the thousands of men and women who work for the US prison system, as it says they’re not capable of doing their jobs. Even more than that, such sentiment reeks of cowardice.

You cannot, in my opinion, boast about how pro-America, “we kick ass”, shoot-first-ask-questions-later you are, but at the same time be afraid of the gay or lesbian couple who wants to marry, the person who hasn’t even been convicted of a crime going to a Supermax prison, or the state legislature who wants to ban the sale of weapons that were solely designed to kill people. You cannot be pro military, but at the same time support a war that was unnecessary and morally wrong, thus putting the lives and livelihoods of our military and their families at constant risk.

Granted, not all conservatives are cowards; recently, a conservative radio personality named Erich “Mancow” Muller subjected himself to waterboarding in order to “prove” that is wasn’t torture. Not only did he change his stance on the issue after going through it himself, saying that it was “absolutely torture”, he said that if he were waterboarded under interrogation he would have said anything to make the torture stop. The courage he showed by being waterboarded in order to back up his claim and his ability to admit he was wrong are traits that, sadly, the average American conservative are sorely lacking these days.

I guess having a spine doesn’t generally belong to conservative ideology.