The mystifying difference between people of clarity and conscience and the GOP reminds us of the meaning behind the word "values." They have prioritized other things ahead of morality, ethics, respect for the law and patriotism--party perhaps or self-interest.
They value the approval of their community or keeping their jobs more than they do undeniable truths. They value their fictions over those truths. It is a reminder that all values do not have the same value--not all perspectives are of equal merit. Some are misevaluations.
It is wrong to suggest these are just different value systems. Right and wrong exist. Not everything is relative. Dressing up bad values in the language usually associated with widely held values like religion or patriotism is a way to make them acceptable, to market them.
It does not actually increase the real value of the underlying ideas. It is like the purely conjured up, fake value attributed to some kinds of precious stones and metals--value associated not with any inherent real quality but with general acceptance of the idea...
...those things are worth more than rocks or pebbles you might find along a path in the park. You would hope that when people swore an oath to protect the Constitution all would do so with a similar view toward the principles underlying it. But that is not so.
Some cherry-pick words and terms, assign their own values to each, choose to honor some ideas but not others. The result is where we are now--two groups that are viewing the same facts in entirely different ways. But we mustn't fall into the false equivalency trap.
They are not the same even though the words they use to defend their positions sound similar. One set of values is correct. One is deeply misguided. That's not the moral relativism favored by many who speak of people having "their own truths." Because all that is nonsense.
There is one truth. There is one code that values what is right and what is wrong, that distinguishes between the real and deception, that places the interest of the country first. There is only one set of values that are consistent with those of the Founders.
Not that they were right about everything. Far from it. Far, far from it. But there are certain principles that must be inviolable for the Constitution to work. That is what @RepAdamSchiff was saying in his concluding remarks tonight.
If you don't distinguish truth from fiction, virtue from corruption, respect for the law from wanton pursuit of self-interest, then the words in the Constitution won't help, won't work any more, because they will have lost their meaning.
People like Trump and Barr and McConnell tell their supporters the sky is no longer blue and water is no longer wet because if they get them to accept any such falsehood they have opened the door depleting everything of meaning and thereby being able to set their own rules.
Thus what they are doing is not just defending a criminal, they are obliterating our system and replacing it with another with different values, that celebrates and promotes corruption and ultimately degrades not just our institutions but our entire society.
What is going on, what they are doing then, is not just offering a different view. It is pernicious. It is actually evil. It is an assault on the foundations of our lives and of what history taught our founders is required of a civilized nation.
So the case before the Senate is not about Donald Trump and who he is. It is about us, who we are and what we are likely to become.
