Being a non-violent anti-gun type, I can't encourage using "our second amendment rights" against these sorry excuses for human beings. But if I could banish them a la Superman II, I do think I would.
The only way to understand the frothing of the right and of the Tea Party is through a historical lens. Think about the South before the Civil War. Southerners weren't bad people. They'd just been raised not to "see" black people as equal human beings. It was not a philosophical choice they arrived at, it was a given in their reality. They questioned it no more than we question that a 12-year old shouldn't drive a car.
There was a lot of progress in the following century, but in this survey done about whether "negroes" should serve next to to whites in 1947, the results are appalling. A tiny minority supported the idea. (Thank God Truman ignored the majority and integrated the troops in 1948.) Even more shocking is the depth of their anti-semitism. Even after the horrors of the concentration camps, 86% of respondents agreed "There is nothing good about the Jews." 86%. This is "the greatest generation," the good guys we idolize as the embodiment of what is best about America. Nice, perhaps, to their wives and kids. Brave, certainly. But still racists and anti-semites. Not because they decided to be. It was just their unquestioned reality. There was nothing to challenge their perception until the Civil Rights movement changed it for them.
Now we have people who are so convinced they're not racists that they print up "Yup I'm a Racist" t-shirts listing 10 reasons "the government" calls them racist. Oh, I get it, they're being ironic! They think "we" on the left are so against the military, capitalism, safe borders, low taxes, free speech, guns, the bill of rights, and belief in Jesus Christ that we call them "racists" because we don't know how to refute their unassailable patriotic American and Christian convictions.
There really is no arguing with them, anymore than you could argue with a southerner in 1844 or a soldier in 1944. There is very little, if anything, that we can do or say to reach people who nod in agreement when Glenn Beck says Obama hates white people, or Rush blames the oil spill on environmentalists. They will keep believing what they need to believe, because seeing the world in its extraordinary complexity overwhelms them. So everything is dichotomized or simplified. America is good, Europe is bad. Christians are good, Muslims are bad. Guns are good, tree-huggers are bad. Black people whine too much and tend to freeload, and immigrants come here to steal our jobs and use social services. Homosexuals are icky and should stay in the closet. Low taxes are good and they don't cause deficits. There is no global warming. Universal health care is a socialist plot. And on and on and on.
I have a lot of objections to the way Obama has led, first and foremost his tendency to compromise first instead of at the end of a process of negotiation. I think the legislation he shepherded through--and there is a tremendous amount of it--is much weaker as a result. But it's clear that he always studies every single issue, and rarely makes any decision that isn't extremely well-informed. And for the right, this most sterling of qualities is exactly what they dislike the most.
Obama makes them feel stupid and they hate him for it. Bush was just like they were--uninformed, deciding with his "gut," black and white. Obama is not black, he's not white, he's both--the ultimate embodiment of a world that is a mixed and nuanced as he is. He continually challenges their need to be certain in this most uncertain of times, and the more uncomfortable they feel, the more they double down on their simplistic certainty.
I've pretty much concluded we just have to wait for history to swallow up these people as it marches in the same direction it's been going for the last two centuries. I expect when we finally have a Star Trekian society, genuinely color- blind and gender-neutral, then man will have to construct a race of trashy robots who are loud, stupid and vulgar, just so we can have someone to marginalize and make fun of. It could be that the need to think ourselves better than others is deeply embedded in human DNA.
Follow Mark Olmsted on Twitter: www.twitter.com/MarquisMarq
Like it or not, Beck and Palin are the flavor of the year. Why? Well, their ideas might appeal to the extremists of the conservative camp, but there is also a bit of truth in some of what they say. But also, because Obama is not the man who campaigned on all that Hopey/Changey in '08. Look at his approval ratings. Are you saying that OVER 50% of American citizens just don't understand him or are closet racists? Disingenuous at best.
I'm vehemently pro-gun. But I'm also pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, pro-weed, and a plethora of others which don't fit into your stereotype. Where do I fit in? I'll tell you where, right in the middle of the same people who listen to the Becks and Palins, but also have the capability to think themselves and not take 100% of what they say as gospel.
Nice try, but all you've done is show the same blatent intolerance of which you accuse others.
My contempt is for the hard-right 30% that watches Fox news and takes the charlatan bloviating of Limbaugh and Beck et al. as the gospel truth. Would that they viewed it as "entertainment."
Congrats to you that you don't fit into the category. If that's the case, then your defensiveness is misplaced.
"They will keep believing what they need to believe, because seeing the world in its extraordinary complexity overwhelms them."
A very telling statement indeed. Precisely the disingenuousness which promotes the divide between Libs and conservatives. Obama is great, and everyone else who doesn't like him is either not educated enough to understand the complexity of the world today, doesn't understand his agenda, or is a racist.
Let's get something straight...most logical thinking people can take the Becks and Limbaughs of the world for what they are...entertainers with an agenda. Would it be correct for me to say that Olbermann or Matthews who don't understand a more libertarian or conservative view are just uneducated people who are more concerned about their right to do bong hits on lunch break than COTUS rights? No.
But I couldn't fool you! You detected that I must actually despise myself and you saw through my elaborate subterfuge!
Why else could I possible object (so vitriolically, no less) to racism and anti-semitism except because I suffer from self-loathing?!
Do me one favor, Bambi. Run your little theory past your gay, HIV+, Jewish and black friends. What's that? You don't have any?
As for Mark, I've known him for years and I know very few people who are as comfortable in their own skin. Maybe you should take a look in the mirror. The sort of anger and negativity you express ususally masks some serious insecurities.
Freedom in economic arrangements is itself a component of freedom broadly understood, so economic freedom is an end in itself ... Economic freedom is also an indispensable means toward the achievement of political freedom. (something the left hates)
The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.--Justice Robert H. Jackson
(That naturally also includes the Second Amendment)
I think we should call out the left and pull a John Galt. The oil companies should cease all oil production PERIOD. See how long civilization lasts. There is ALWAYS going to be a need for chemical fuels. I am an engineer and won't bore you with details of classical thermodynamics, carnot and brayton engine cycles and and enthalpy and entropy--most of you have nowhere near the mathematics and physics to get it--but no battery, set of gears, flywheels and springs and solar panels will perform as an internal combustion engine can, and no plane will ever fly on solar power and batteries (except those little cutsie ones with the little bicycles attached carrying a guy and can list off all of 20 or 30 feet and travel at a speed of 15kts--but an airliner or fighter jet?--yeah, right!
continued---2
"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on the objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."
Neither can I.
Continued-------------------
As I think back to the election and afterwards, as well as the development of the loose coalition of teabaggin' folks, I'm trying to think of any that I've managed to convince to think otherwise. I honestly can't think of a one. Anyone I got to vote for Obama was genuinely uncertain about the pros and cons, and were open to alternative viewpoints. The teabaggers who are firmly entrenched in their beliefs won't change their ideas, although perhaps a devastating illness that brings them to the brink of bankruptcy might open their eyes a bit and get them to feel a little empathy. But I kind of doubt it. I've never seen a group so hell-bent on supporting those who oppress them. It's astounding.
Thanks for another great post!
I also like government the way the founders did---SMALL.
As for the soulless nonsense of objectivism, save your breath. I read Ayn Rand at 15 and even then could tell it was blathering narcissism devoid of any real spirituality or kindness.
As for the demonization of government, I respectfully disagree. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-olmsted/we-the-people_b_506312.html
I was going to start on the Democrats but I have to go and feed my son...
Lets see what the Father of the US Constitution says:
"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on the objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents." - James Madison