In everything -- from defending torture to eschewing diplomacy to regularly engaging in Orwellian contradiction to its unctuous servility to radical religion to its blatant corporate cronyism to its obvious disdain for intellect -- the Republican Party shows few signs of being a viable political organization and every sign of being a condition, one which causes creeping, mean-spirited dementia; a virus which attacks the conscience and renders it inert; an infection which causes even the most sensible persons to engage in such behavior that, as though trapped within a robotically compliant body, they must watch in mute horror as they utter sentiments similar to those spoken by superstitious inn keepers from the year 1738.
How else to explain their relentlessly antisocial behavior? It's like the George Romero cult classic film The Crazies, where a military plane carrying a biological weapon crashes outside a town and spills its chemical cargo into the water supply, creating a population of violent psychotics. Except in this case the infection seems less of an accident. It's just one more way for people hell bent on power to get what they want.
The Obama administration, with all its attendant political maneuvering, essential in the labyrinthine process of governing, still stands in stark relief to the jaw dropping actions of the former president and his fatal phalanx of smug enablers, each with a twinkle in his or her eye, amused as they must have been that their tripe was going down people's throats like whiskey-laced honey.
It's the failed policies which were given full reign during the Bush plague that just won't die, that in fact continue to percolate in the dissonant words of people like Bachmann and Boehner, Hannity and Kristol; the diminished yet still intent on power Dick Cheney, breeching the surface like a chewed-up narwhal (apologies to narwhals) to spit spume (Brit Hume?); the bleat and the bloat of the dissolute Limbaugh; the SMERSH-like Fox News, whose every move is a reflection of its cynical core, profanely poisoning its vierwership which is so starved for satisfaction that they would even accept it from such obvious con artists.
It's maddening to know that while the world watches, the greatest and most successful socio-political experiment in democracy in history continues to have its trajectory altered by persistent know-nothings who care more for themselves than for any of the people they purport to represent.
True, the virus has been isolated for now but it is still frighteningly contagious. Even cornered it continues to mutate, making harrowing and contradictory turns, and always attacking, attacking, attacking.
Combatting this disease will take time and care. Truth, transparency and common sense, along with an empowered and educated public can make all the difference. We must work for a cure.
The discussion can be continued here.
What is the name of your ideology and what are its characteristics? What is advocated in your ideology?
There are about 200 countries in the world. Most of them are democracies. Please indicate which democracies have a successful and thriving libertarian society.
I am amazed at the high number of libertarian ditto heads who claim to be independent thinkers. Their number is increasing by the day.
They are a party of winners. Of movers and shakers, progressive, caring about their constituents, and working tirelessly to get things done.
Ross Perot pulled many from the Republican party and empowered more Independents, as many as 20% in the 1992 election. Perot noticed the Republican Party's shift away from conservatism and convinced enough not to vote Bush 41 for a second term.
As the number of neocons, social conservatives and fundamentalists grew in the GOP, more conservatives were driven away. Bush came on the scene in 2000 and after 8 failed years, he nearly demolished the GOP. Many still in the GOP are angry but Bush is gone and they misdirect their anger to President Obama.
Now the main vocalists of the GOP are social conservatives, fundamentalists and libertarians. All three groups have ideologies that oppose the interests of this nation's majority. They idolize the wrong people such as Limbaugh, Beck, O'Reilly, Hannity, and Palin just to name a few. Unfortunately, these false idols spur the GOP's anger with propaganda, debunked associations, and psycho dramas.
I also think that it is well past time that some of our more astute psychologists start investigating the role of projection and guru-worship as an evolutionary selector. It seems pretty clear that conservatism is some sort of evolutionary check on the dominant impulsiveness of our species. But somehow, the small percentage of attitudinal conservatives required to provide the evolutionary check has swung out of control. At any rate, there must be some evolutionary justification for the psychological attitude of conservatism, because it clearly is a widespread pathology. It seems to be guruism with no required actual contact with the guru. Raw, primal self-identification with the guru/model also clearly produces a radical self-alienation. If I am Rush Limbaugh, or if I donate the attitudinal part of my personailty to him by "dittoing" him, then I am not myself.
No wonder conservatives cannot distinguish between their own characteristics and those of someone "outside". They have forgotten who they are. Anybody have any information about psychological work related to the disorder known as conservatism? Links, please?
It's all fear. Fear that Obama will take away their guns, fear that our rights will be taken away (as opposed to giving them away to Bush). Then, the Rethug pundits jump on that bandwagon for one simple reason: people pay when they are afraid. There's nothing too complex in this. Evolutionary psychology isn't really. People are driven by their basist human instinct. We all have regulators (called the ego) and social regulators (the superego). People's instinctual motives are taken advantage by the greedy fear mongers.
Really, conservatives, why would you want to dirty your hands with politics? Look what happens. You make compromises. You give things up for which you get nothing in return. You voted for Reagan, hoping he would outlaw abortion. Did he? You will not be able to change politics. Instead, they will change you. Why not withdraw from the repugnant squalor of politics and cultivate your own pristine privacy? Wouldn't it be great to have clean hands for a change?
Despite the slogans about progress, the upshot of the new administration is as deeply reactionary as anything that Bush conjured up. Despite all the hype and hope, what is offered is nothing new. It amounts to the robber state and the regimentation of society, a plan that will kill off prosperity and the conditions that allow for it.
The Republicans are right to fight this tendency, it represents a radical attack on all things truly American. Worse, by playing with the printing presses, the policy tendency here is also deeply dangerous. It could destroy the dollar, igniting a hyperinflation no one will be able to control once it starts. One wishes that the Republicans had been so principled when their president was in charge!
As long as people can blot out the hypocrisy, there will be people who flock to organizations, particularly political, such as the current Republican party. How else can Oliver North go on national television and criticize the current administrations foreign policies? How else can Newt Gingrich speak about the sanctity of marriage? How else can John Ensign lie to Chris Matthews' face about what John McCain actually said about torture? How else can Sarah Palin be a role model? How else can the party of greed also be the party of bible-thumpers? How else can they label people "Islamo-fascists", then try to justify torture?
The GOP has to be the party of the non-intellectual. Anyone who reads cannot help but see the hypocrisy. But don't misunderstand, I am not talking about the Republican Party pre-Reagan. I am talking about the current party that pulled religion into politics, thus creating this dichotomous entity that constantly contradicts itself.
A night course in basic civics.
An intense three months, no-holds barred, twice-a-week therapy session with a past-life regression workshop to uncover the unresolved issues.
A two-week cruise on a "gays only" cruise line. (first three days locked in cabin closet-final eleven days dancing, laughing and closet-free tears of relief.)
A 6 month full gear grunt soldier tour in Iraq or Afghanistan.
An exorcism.
A basic science book.
There's more...but those would top my list.
And there will be a test afterwards . . .
strange magic. You got a . . .
strange magic. You got a . . .
strange magic. You got a . . .
strange magic.
I see the Republicans (the extremes) as an angry hostile wounded wild animal to keep a distance from. I also see another group, the Independents as the elephant in the room. Independents have more voters than Democrats or Republicans but so little representation in government. This can't last forever.
The solution to the Republicans will also solve the problem of the Independents. Eliminate the party system that gives the traditional 2 parties far more advantages and opportunities than the others. When other parties have more opportunities to exist, more voters will be represented, and more voters will vote. The 2 party system in recent decades has been unable to satisfy the needs of this great nation's public and businesses.
How will this solve the Republican problem? The paleocons, neocons, social conservatives, fundamentalists and libertarians that compromise the GOP will be free to form their own party and find their own niche in our political spectrum or perish.
To find their own niche would be to perish, as they are in the process of doing now.
This happens in other democracies that have the parliamentary system. I am not advocating changing to that. I am just advocating multiple parties within our existing political framework.
They also tampered the hiring process of new employees screening out non Republican applicants. Monica Goodling at the Justice Department run by Alberto Gonzales, went further. She disregarded this nation's laws and screened applicants according to religion and sexual orientation. Think about it. This country was founded on the principle of freedom including freedom of religion and Monica Goodling kept a significant number of qualified employees out of the Justice Department because they weren't her kind of people.
About forgetting the middle class? What do you think Ronald Reagan did when he sent many middle class jobs overseas and made Wall St. richer? George Bush did the same.
Both parties. Corrupt. First step to fixing this is admitting the problem.
You all have much more common ground with the tea party folks than you realize. You can either back up into your party corner and fight it out to no end with republicans, or you can step forward and work with us to fix this trainwreck.
I don't think you can make a good case that any of the Democrats went along on torture, unless by going along, you mean that they didn't actively try to defy the machinations of the executive branch under Bush. Nonetheless, regardless of who did or didn't go along, these policies were Republican and conservative policies, thought up, justified, and put into effect by conservative Republicans in the face of a loud and presistent warning outcry that they were dangerous and bound to fail. Conservatives went ahead and did what they wanted to anyway. They get the blame, because the Frankenstein monster is their creation. I understand why conservatives want to pretend that nobody is less responsible than they are, but it's only a comforting illusion.
Conservatives made the mess, as they always make a mess. It's just that, this time, their mess was more spectacular than ususal.
Self awareness within a social context!
Empathy. Big infusions of empathy.
And depth. Lots and lots of depth.
how to instill these attributes? Regress 'em all back to childhood, and employ a legion of soft breasted, caring mother types who's job it is to nurture each and every one of em until: they no longer need to pull the wings off flies; love to play with 'kitty;' and learn to share their candy.
Otherwise, i really see no hope for the Utopian day when we are not subjected daily to the constant, specious, and bombastic vituperations of the indignant and morally self-righteous; where public discourse of the day is a DISCUSSION of merit, and MODERATED considerations, and not something of a spectacle reminiscent of bad mannered, out control adolescents lobbing such salient gems as 'I know you are but what am i,' and 'because i said so.'