Those of us on the Progressive side of the political/cultural war that is currently engaged in the US have opinions and beliefs that strongly oppose those on the “other side.” In the past I’ve referred to us as “oxygen breathers” and the other side as “nitrogen breathers” (AKA The Dark Forces of Evil.) It sounds like a cute framing issue, differencing the two sides by insinuating that they are a different life form, glibly suggesting that we are opposed by some sort of alien borg from another planet.

I take full credit for this. These people are different. They not only have different cultural views, they even have different views of the sanctity of life and the safety of all life forms on this planet.

They argue stridently that life begins at the moment two bits of protoplasm commingle inside a uterus, even before the zygote actually attaches itself to the uterine wall to begin the process of receiving sustenance in order to grow and mature into a human. Their argument logically extends to the ultimate statement: A woman’s uterus is not her property. It belongs to all mankind, and most specifically to the male who originally fertilized her. The Patriarchal Sperm must reign supreme on Earth. The argument extends that it is incumbent upon said female to abstain from any food or drug that might harm the Patriarchal zygote. It is sacred. Thus, no tobacco, alcohol, or any other ingestible or inhalable substance that could harm the zygote, its support system (the woman’s body) and I suppose, the mammary glands that must produce the milk to nurture the fetus after birth. (Would this mean implants are somehow wrong? Tsk, tsk.)

Surprisingly, these folks seem to lose all interest in the fetus once it has been brought into the world. They tolerate corrupted and adulterated foods, permitting the Bog Food Industry to put all sorts of chemical crap into our food supply so as to extend its shelf like. They tolerate Big Business despoiling our atmosphere, spewing carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, and many other poisons into the air we (and that sacred fetus) breathe. In fact, they more than tolerate it; they encourage it. The Bu$hCo maladministration has changed our environmental rules to permit more poisoning of the atmosphere. They’ve made it possible for Big Business to “buy” air pollution credits from other, more sanely operated firms. It seems obvious to me that they don’t need a healthy, oxygen rich atmosphere to exist.

Once the sacred fetus has been birthed they also don’t seem to care much about whether it can survive, even if the air we breathe and the food we eat doesn’t kill it. They’ve raped all the carefully built systems that will care for a child born into a poor or disadvantaged family. Not enough food to eat? Tough. Suck it up. I guess they want the children to forage, living off the treebark and grass that grows in our national parks. Oh, wait. The parks are being auctioned off to mining and timber interests at bargain prices.

We used to have a program that would help poor people get milk for their children. That’s gone. We had a program that gave aid and assistance to poor families to have heated homes in the winter. That’s been cut back, and more cruelly, at the time when oil products are the most expensive in history.

If that fetus somehow manages to survive long enough to be of school age, they’ve half-destroyed the school system, demanding that schools spend about half a year preparing for tests that will permit them to advance. Under the No Child Left Behind Program children are taught to parrot answers to a test, rather than actually learn a survival skill like critical thinking, which permits people to actually notice bullshit when it’s wafted at them. They’ve also switched around school funding, stripping as much as 40% in some school districts to support a “voucher system” to pay for children attending private schools. The fact that these voucher schools all happen to be ideologically and religiously in conformance with Bu$hCo’s aims seems to be a happy coincidence.

Bu$hCo and their adherents on the "other side" have turned logic upside down. Black is white, two plus two doesn't equal four, up is down. And two days later when the political climate changes, two plus two equals three, or five, or seven, or whatever is convenient at the moment.

Science is ignored, dissent suppressed, and personal privacy is of no consequence.

No, they’re different from us. Definitely not the same kind of people we are.