what doesn't kill me...

Garret Keizer, in this month's Harper's:

The right talks about protecting life and tradition, but on some level...it is mostly interested in protecting pain. For two reasons.

The first is theological: the belief that pain holds the meaning of life.... This explains the conundrum so perplexing to the liberal mind: why hard-pressed people can vote against their own interests in support of someone like George W. Bush. How can they not see? In fact, they do see: they see from the same point of view that has led them to believe that the misery of their lives is the foundation of their integrity.