A Call to Sacrifice

One thing that struck me regarding the Christian Right is the willingness to sacrifice material wellbeing for ideology. To the Religious Right, if a "godly" man is elected, that's sufficient reward to make up for the loss of jobs, health insurance, a son in Iraq, or any other earthly treasure. The reasons for this willingness to sacrifice are manifold, but the most striking is that if you can still give up something, you're not really poor. Paradoxically, giving makes you richer, so if the argument is properly (cynically) framed, the sacrifice both furthers the goal of the manipulator and binds you more firmly to the cause.

We need to capture that spirit for progressive causes. My earlier post about buying progressive is one possible context. If a progressive company is not the cheapest, the difference can be seen as a sacrifice, to allow the progressive company to have progressive policies for compensation, health insurance and other positive goals. The small difference between the progressive an regressive companies (if there's really any material difference) can be seen as a sacrifice worth the making.