So, the SCOTUS sided with Hobby Lobby

[DeistPaladin]

You must need to be really faithful to be an american conservative of the republican type.

Not so much faithful as deluded and able to intellectually turn on a dime as directed by your leaders, sometimes completely contradicting everything you argued passionately for last year, last month, or even yesterday.

Did you ever read George Orwell's "1984"?

I remember one scene from the book where "Oceana" (the nation of the protagonist) changed sides in a war, from fighting Eurasia to fighting East Asia. All the war propaganda posters were taken down and replaced with ones on the war against East Asia. A man was described giving a speech on the treachery of Eurasia and, mid-speech, suddenly changed to condemning the treachery of East Asia and praising our new ally, Eurasia. When it was done, Oceana had ALWAYS been at war with East Asia. There was never a time when East Asia was Oceana's ally against Eurasia. The past had been erased and re-written. Everyone seemed to quietly go along with the new narrative.

I remember my reaction reading it and thinking it was so farcical. There's simply no way anyone would really act that way. It was, I assumed, satire to drive home a point of the power of propaganda and its use in dictatorships.

For the last 20 years, I've seen this exact behavior among my fellow Americans who remain in the GOP despite how it has become a madhouse. Consider just a few examples:

1. How we treat our president.
During the Clinton administration, the standard on scandals was "even the appearance of impropriety" which usually meant any crackpot conspiracy theory was enough to call for endless outrage and justify a long line of congressional investigations to get to the bottom of what always turned out to be nothing. The fact that we were at war in Bosnia was of no concern because "we owe it to our troops to maintain the integrity of our government."

Then W Bush comes into office and everything changes. Now the standard is "questioning the president during a time of war is treason". Questioning the president was disloyalty. Accusing the president of lying us into a war was dismissed as "shrill". Impeachment wasn't even discussed. We suddenly owed our president "deference" even when no respect was earned (and it surely wasn't with W Bush).

Then Obama comes into the White House and without missing a beat, we're back to "even the appearance of impropriety", whether we're at war or no.

2. Tax cuts for the wealthy
You'd think after 8 years of getting everything they demanded, the GOP's policies would be completely discredited given the total disaster we endured at the end of the W Bush administration. Yet here we are, still debating tax cuts and deregulation as the means to stimulate the economy, as if these things hadn't been tried and proven to fail.

3. Deficits
The GOP runs up huge debt under Reagan and HW Bush without a care. After all, "Reagan taught us that deficits don't matter".

Then Clinton comes into office and it's "OMG! Where did this debt come from? Quick, slash and burn everything." And, under pressure from the GOP, Clinton abandoned his campaign promises and did it and we were on track to paying down the debt.

Then W Bush runs against the surplus, "that's not the government's money" and pledges to give it all away in tax cuts. Then W Bush runs up huge deficits again and we're back to "deficits don't matter".

The Obama comes into office and we're back to "OMG! Where did all this debt come from? Quick, slash and burn everything."

4. Iraq
Cheney gets on the air on Meet the Press and boasts how we're pulling our troops out of Iraq according to a treaty signed with the new regime. Iraq has been a success story and don't we liberals feel silly for ever doubting it could be done.

Then the castle of sand the GOP built collapses and Obama is blamed for pulling out the troops and declaring victory too soon, showing weakness in our over-hasty pullout.

The list just goes on and on. Do these people even listen to themselves or have any ability to remember what happened more than a year ago?