Fairness X? Is that the core failing, a "belief" that society isn't fair and it should be more fair?
Is that corrosive and dangerous? Can it be rationally discussed and debated?
The FAR rights big thing is paranoia. Government as a threat. Plots and conspiracies.
Its the tolerance of that fringe by mainstream conservatives that I don't get... It poisons the rationale conservative arguement.
From Myerson today...link below which if you take the time to read illustrates many fine paranoid rants.
source:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/11/AR2011011105685.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
Is that corrosive and dangerous? Can it be rationally discussed and debated?
The FAR rights big thing is paranoia. Government as a threat. Plots and conspiracies.
Its the tolerance of that fringe by mainstream conservatives that I don't get... It poisons the rationale conservative arguement.
From Myerson today...link below which if you take the time to read illustrates many fine paranoid rants.
A fabricated specter of impending governmental totalitarianism haunts the right's dreams. One month after Barack Obama was inaugurated as president, Beck hosted a show that gamed out how militias in Southern and Western states might rise up against an oppressive government. The number of self-proclaimed right-wing militias tripled - from 42 to 127, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center - in 2009 (and that doesn't count those that are entirely underground).
As much of the right sees it, the government is planning to incarcerate its enemies (see Beck and Erickson, above), socialize the economy and take away everyone's guns. At the fringe, we have figures like Larry Pratt, executive director of the Gun Owners of America, who told a rally in Washington last April that, "We're in a war. The other side knows they are at war, because they started it. They are coming for our freedom, for our money, for our kids, for our property. They are coming for everything because they are a bunch of socialists."
But the imputation of lurking totalitarianism, alien ideologies, and subversion of liberties to liberals and moderates has become the default rhetoric of the right. Never mind that Obama is a Marxist, a Kenyan and an advocate of sharia law. Consider the plight of poor Fred Upton, the Republican congressman just installed as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, over considerable right-wing opposition. According to Beck, Upton is "all socialist," while Rush Limbaugh calls him the personification of "nannyism" and "statism." Upton's crime is that he supports more energy-efficient light bulbs. How that puts him in a league with Marx, Engels and Nanny McPhee, I will leave to subtler minds.
source:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/11/AR2011011105685.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
Last edited by rickyp on 12 Jan 2011, 9:12 am, edited 1 time in total.