Matt Yglesias has a very smart take on what the Beck-Bachmann-Hannity militia stuff is really about, in their minds:
People who believe in violent revolution and the murder of American soldiers and policemen generally, if on the left, appeal to basically anti-patriotic attitudes. Which is about what you would expect from advocates of the violent overthrow of the established political order. But the militia crowd exhibits much more the attitudes one would expect from a coup leader—a Franco or a Pinochet who’s actually appealing to the concepts of patriotism and nationalism as justification for violent revolution.
I suppose there are some different ways of characterizing the asymmetry, but the underlying issue seems to be that rule by conservatives is integral to the right’s conception of the United States of America. This is part of the rhetoric of the “heartland” and “real America”—a period of political victory by a coalition grounded in the coasts and Greater Chicago is a period in which America has ceased to be herself. Thus Michael Barone:
[T]he Republican Party is the party of people who are considered, by themselves and by others, as normal Americans — Northern white Protestants in the 19th century, married white Christians more recently — while the Democratic Party is the party of the out groups who are in some sense seen, by themselves and by others, as not normal — white Southerners and Catholic immigrants in the 19th century, blacks and white seculars more recently.Now Barone’s not about to go join a militia. But I think this is the basic mentality. The people on the outs are “normal” and the people running the show are “abnormal.” And while I wouldn’t use that language to describe the difference in the coalition, the basic description is right—most Americans are white and most Americans are Christian, and the Republican Party is overwhelmingly the party of white Christian America while the Democratic Party draws its support from a diverse array of non-white and non-Christian ethnic and sectarian groups. But the authentic America is seen as the white & Christian American, an entity in whose defense one can claim to rebel against the actual United States of America.
To put it simply, in the minds of many wingnuts, a right-wing insurrection would be a restoration. This probably explains why the right is generally more interested in the idea of armed insurrection than the left is (at least in the United States).
gex
The sad part is there are a whole lot of "normal white people" whose heritage used to be excluded from that group that participate in this kind of thinking. Even if these people "win" by getting rid of us "others" their insatiable need to find an "other" to demonize will eat itself. You Italians and Irish? You won’t be good enough anymore. God forbid you are of Eastern European descent.
JC
This frightens me very much for some reason. I’m overreacting, right?
MS-4
I just want those assholes to calm down a little bit for everyone’s sake.
cleek
some other slight differences:
when was the last time a Democratic Congressman called for armed rebellion?
when was the last time a liberal talk show host called for armed rebellion?
when was the last time a left-leaning terrorist blew up a federal building?
DougJ
I’m not sure you’re overreacting. I don’t think we’ll see an armed insurrection, but we may see some more Tim McVeigh-style domestic terrorism, which is frightening enough.
Bubblegum Tate
@cleek:
All correct, of course, and while this is an interesting intellectual exercise, it’s important not to lose sight of such facts.
But in keeping with the intellectual exercise, I think Yglesias is pretty much on the nose with this one. The sense I get from these right-wing paranoids is that they believe themselves to be the creators and defenders of "true" America; that they have been relegated to the fringes means, in their logic, that "true" America has been sidelined, the country is lost, and it must be taken back from these interlopers. Hence Beck’s crocodile tears about "I love my country…and I fear for it."
Zam
Back when I was working on a pipeline last year, the majority of my co-workers were white christian republicans. They kept trying to explain to me that the "Democrat" party was a party of nothing but minorities. They would then explain that this meant they were incapable of ruling, because they didn’t have one single broad aspect dominating the party.
MikeJ
1861?
srv
The Civil War never ended, they just changed the drapes.
We need to let these people go, the world can’t wait for them any longer.
Bill Teefy
Authentic America™ seems to be Mayberry where Andy Taylor grew up and not Mount Airy where Andy Griffith grew up.
One of those Andys and one of those places is "real" and the people who lived there were "normal" and the people who live there now are "normal"…if we use the term normal to connnote air-breathing humanoids.
It has been almost 20 years since I visited, Is the Snappy Lunch still open? I have a hankering for a pork-chop sandwich.
MikeJ
OT Dog news:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/sleuth/2009/04/easter_puppy_for_obama_girls.html
par4
These right-wing nuts can’t cope with the reality that their party is a myth.Larry Craig,Mark Foley,Jeff Gannon are the real faces of the modern conservative movement.The cognitive dissonance is driving some of them over the edge.
Joshua Norton
With the wingnutz it isn’t "patriotism" as much as it is "parrotism". They don’t know what the f*ck they’re talking about, just mindlessly repeating what someone else told them to say.
Steve V
What’s so annoying here, as in the 1990s, is that so little about American daily life will change as the result of a different party being in power. What’s so frustrating is the intense exaggeration of little nothings into alleged threats against the nation. In reality, no one’s going to take anybody’s guns away (and no weird gay agenda is going to be forced on anyone, etc.), and I can’t even believe the issue is as important to these people as they’re making it out to be. Most of these people are getting a tax cut, and you’d think that would be more important to them.
I’d say "oh well, what can you do" but something more has to be done. These people are going to hurt somebody. I just don’t know what to do. The layers of delusion are just so thick and resilient.
H. Tarlek
It’s The Suits vs. The Dungarees! Pick a side!
JC
I think I was too young in the 90s to really know/care about crazy armed milita, black helicopter raving paranoid types mentioned in the post. I mean, sure, I remember Oklahoma City, but I thought that dude was just insane. I didn’ t realize anyone actually believed this stuff.
But now that these people are surfacing again, and I’m a little more aware of things than before, I’m getting freaked out.
SpotWeld
To be a little more complex. The militia movement is an attempt to restore things back to an idealized and mostly fictional version of America.
They’re creating a mythology of a American were thier "rugged individulist" heroes are worshipped and all the things preventing thier success in the real world (i.e. the liberal bias of reality) are gone.
And the real scary part is that it’s a feature of this system that they’ll fail.
Militia groups just don’t have the organization to operate without either ignoring huge contractictions in logic (tax deniers) are require a total subversion of will so that followers are willing to "suffer for the cause" (any relgious cult).
Person of Choler
Violent Revolution? Distinguished Professor of Education Ayers, call your old office.
You don’t need a Yglesias to know the way the wind blows.
Martian Buddy
And yet they could probably tell you how all "liberals" think.
gbear
So John, are you getting any less disinterested in guns?
I’ll repeat myself from yesterday. As a government employee who’s occasionally out in the sticks with a government car, and as an openly gay man (on my own time, ahem), these guys tend to worry me a lot. As an overweight old white man, I can ‘pass’ if I have too, but I don’t fake ‘wingnut’ very well.
SpotWeld
One thing that I think I’ve noticed is that the right-wing militia groups are pretty willing to strike (or at least complain) against moderate-right groups and institutions for "being tratiors" which somehow makes them worse than just being left-wing.
Sarcastro
You’re giving them too much credit.
To these guys, America is themselves writ large. These people are ignorant, thus America must be ignorant. These people are craven bullies, thus America must be a craven bully. They hate homos, ergo America must hate homos. Etc. Etc.
Incertus
Not to quibble too much, but Democrats are overwhelmingly Christian as well–they’re just not as openly hostile to non-Christian groups. The Republicans are hostile to those groups, thanks to the dominance of a particular group of Christians, so when Barone says Republicans look at the Democrats as "other" in terms of religion, he’s also making a theological statement of sorts, that some Christians are "normal" and others are not.
The Moar You Know
I suspect that the right thinks that Dems are subject to the "3/5 Compromise", and therefore, they won the last election fair and square.
Brachiator
You have largely nailed it. Conservative pundits kept pounding the fantasy that conservative values were the only rational values of the American people, and that the GOP was the only legitimate political party which represents American values. But when an overall majority of voters went for the Democrats, the GOP found itself hoist on its own petard, and now must resort to bizarre voter analyses "proving" the the majority of "real" Americans voted for McCain.
Of course, the larger implication of this delusion is that it only works if all designated others become second class citizens without the right to vote (this would, oddly enough, include all white women as well as as 18 – 26 year olds of all ethnicities).
If you had said that Republicans were largely mainline Protestant, you might have a point, but your distinctions here are over-broad and miss the mark. Most non-whites in this country are Christian, Republicans include Mormons, whom many fundamentalists would reject as fringe Christianity. Many Latinos are Catholic (and so, obviously Christian) and also conservative.
But ultimately, what Barone is tapping into something irrational or a perverse episode of The Twilight Zone, people who look in the mirror and see themselves as survivalists living in a log cabin circa 1823.
SpotWeld
@Incetus
You are touching on… one of the more contentious religious debates. It has to do with accpeting a plurality of ideas within a certain religious viewpoint.
For example, can someone who acts in accordance with Christian morality be considered moral despite not specifically beliving in a Christian God.
The framework set up for the Rebuplicans (which does not tolerate an "other") is that, no one must believe all Christian ideals to be accepted as moral.
Whereas the Democratic framwork suggested says that, yes a differeing "other" viewpoint is accepted (with some requirement of a minimum standard).
So, in short, yes. Even to Christians there are Christians who are not "normal" Christians because they do not conform to the specifics of a "normal" Christian framework of belief. (Just ask the Roman Catholics)
Zam
@Martian Buddy: Exactly! They informed me of all sorts of codes Pelosi was sending that I assume my parents just forgot to teach me.
Scott H
CNN’s Rick Sanchez is hot after Fox News on the issue right now.
Richard Bottoms
I fought these nuts for several years, Linda Thompson of the Unorganized Militia in Indiana being the one I bumped up against most often. I am also the person who called NBC/CBS/ABC news’s attention to G. Gordan Liddy’s comments about shooting ATF agents that dropped him in hot water years back.
Take them seriously.
There will be another Oklahoma City perpetrated by these fools.
They have money, arms, explosives and training. All that’s been lacking is the fomenting of the requisite rage that was damped down during the Bush years.
Enter Glenn Beck.
Zifnab
@gbear:
Try watching more King of the Hill. Also, if you can give yourself a concussion…
@JC:
Yes. For the same reasons that the guy in upstate Mississippi is afraid of another 9/11. Militias are loud and "exciting" so they get a lot of media attention. But take a look at Ruby Ridge or Waco or even the latest round of lone gunman shootings. These are incredibly rare occurrences that often happen in remote locales. The odds of you getting shot by a wacko wingnut aren’t much better than the odds of you becoming a victim of a jihad.
People are, ultimately, jumping at shadows.
Calouste
A right-wing insurrection in the United States will make the Bophuthatswana coup of 1994 look like a miracle of organization. There will probably more infighting between the militias than there will be figthing against outsiders, and of course the police and National Guard in the US is somewhat better armed than the Bophuthatswana Defence Force.
gbear
@Zifnab:
Good advice. I’ll start working on it.
That might actually solve a lot of problems…
schrodinger's cat
What I would like to know is where were these people when Bush was the President?
Zifnab
@schrodinger’s cat: Voting for him. Duh.
SpotWeld
Teabagging
geg6
I used to hang around on a reality tv message board that had a large contingent of these nuts. There was an OT message board where we’d talk about anything at all and politics was always a contentious issue there. I had huge arguments with people who would continuously argue with me about America being a "Christian nation," specifically a type of Christianity that was pretty much what you’d see in an evangelical church or a very conservative Christian sect. And though I’d always concede that, yes, most Americans are Christian and always have been, the Founding Fathers had a rather interesting mix of religious beliefs that puts to lie the idea that America was founded on Christianity. It struck me how irrational, ignorant, and insane these people were when several of them insisted with great vehemence on the pious religiosity of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. I was floored by the venom they threw my way and their complete and utter ability to ignore irrefutable evidence that they were absolutely wrong.
Needless to say, I have been banned from that message board because they have a rule that you can’t throw scorn on other posters’ posts, regardless of how stupid and fact-free they may be. Unless, of course, you’re a Republican. The dimwits I argued with and who were continually calling me a traitor and a liar and un-American are still merrily posting there, as ignorant and stupid as ever. As with everything else in this world, IOKIYAR.
Ricky Bobby
And y’all thought the Civil War was over!
Silly libruls.
guest omen
i’m reminded of a book by chris hedges: war is a force that give us meaning.
excerpt: "The communal march against an enemy generates a warm, unfamiliar bond with our neighbors, our community, our nation, wiping out unsettling undercurrents of alienation and dislocation,"
these fantasy wannabe insurgents have empty lives.
Woody
I think you’re right:
The Right-loon fucktards (who object to that label for some reason), as the Roman Catholics of a previous Empire, think of themselves as a "counter-Reformation."
They’re all about restoring their hegemony–which includes being able, once again, to call an African-American a "ni**er"–for example…
It’s their previous raciast perqs that they most want to restore…
Xanthippas
I think it’s important to distinguish between patriotism and nationalism, especially the authoritarian, mostly white, xenophobic nationalism that the most virulent right-wingers tend to indulge in. I don’t think there’s really any one accepted definition of "patriotism", and certainly patriotism by itself can be good or bad depending on whether it’s something like an uplifting call to national service, or a knee-jerk defense of national wrong-doing. But the focus of nationalism is of course the nation, the "nation" in this case being the white, conservative Americans who regard themselves as the "real" Americans. And yes, they regard the victory of Obama and liberal Democrats as a usurpation of American values. Our political system is strong enough so that it imposes respect a respect for the democratic process on the vast majority of right-wingers, but without a doubt there are those who will take up arms if they regard it as necessary (e.g., Tim McVeigh.)
demkat620
@JC: I don’t think so. It scares me too.
Fencedude
@geg6:
This is why I’m glad that the main place I hang out online that isn’t a political blog has a very, very strict "no politics or religion" policy.
Michael
The notion of feeding the vague and unfocused rage of individuals prone to the deliberate ignorance and prejudice of the religious rightists was the whole premise of John Whitehead’s "Second American Revolution", a crapwork published in 1982 or 1983 (I have it, at home, inadvertently liberated from my law school library way back when).
Whitehead was a major Dominionist figure back in the day, having had a lot to do with the framework the Coalition on Revival.
Ignore the dogwhistles at your own peril. There are quite a few "plants" around, particularly in the judiciary – George Will was blasting their dogwhistle the other day in order to try to get some of the fine non-activist Conservative jurists to get rid of some of these awful new programs that are just hidden crusades to pay money to undeserving, shiftless Negroes.
SpotWeld
..perhaps this can all be summarized by the fact that only the right wing seems to have the need for the term "Real Americans"?
guest omen
@schrodinger’s cat:
they’re like the japanese soldier hiding in the woods years after ww2 was over. they’ve just now burrowed out of their y2k bunkers and realized we have a new president.
AdrianLesher
To call those who want to subvert democracy and the bill of rights "patriots" is a textbook example of buying into your opponents propagandistic use of language. The same goes for buying into the idea that somehow the Republican party is composed of people who are more "normal" than those in the Democratic party.
guest omen
@Fencedude:
what else is there?
tammanycall
Democrats stick up for the little guy (or at least that’s what we aspire to do.)
Wapiti
There will be another Oklahoma City perpetrated by these fools.
Or another anthrax attack on the US Capitol?
geg6
@guest omen:
On that particular board?
Puppies and pudding skins.
What they were eating for lunch.
The great need to have parking spaces for people with children only.
And how many posts they’ve racked up as mileage.
Seriously.
** Atanarjuat **
@Richard Bottoms:
I agree with Richard that these conspiracy-minded militia nuts should be taken seriously — and not merely laughed at — but we should still bear in mind that among right-wingers, the people that would actually take up arms against the government represent a very, very tiny minority.
Investigate such groups, certainly, and arrest those who are actually organizing a major act of violence that can result in the death of civilians and law enforcement officers. But please, don’t tar all conservatives with the bellicose idiocy of a few overheated survivalists.
-A
Corner Stone
"STRIKETHISWORDVotingSTRIKETHISWORD Worshipping for him. Duh.
Fizzixt.
ETA – I can’t get a strikethrough to work to save my eternal ass.
AnotherBruce
It’s interesting that the right wing has defined "normal" so narrowly that to meet their definition of normal, one has to be an extremist.
JDM
Like that motherfucker Franco in 1936.
Fencedude
@guest omen:
Anime
Betsy
@SpotWeld:
This is what makes me feel less like I’m wasting my life teaching U.S. history. If I can make one person (who would otherwise think like this) understand that our history is both messy and complicated, I will have made some marginal contribution to the world.
Now, whether I am capable of that is another matter entirely…
Corner Stone
@cleek
In addition to your good questions I am always struck by the way the two parties act when out of power.
When Clinton was prez we had the UN conspiracies, black helicopters, he was a murderer, etc. Now that Obama’s prez we get the whole "taking guns", "gutting military", "making us less safe" !thanks Dick!
Then, when GWB was prez we had the Democrats basically screaming about all the things we thought Bush was secretly doing. The difference is, at least to me, GWB *actually* was fraking doing all those things!
Betsy
@geg6:
On that particular board?
Puppies and pudding skins.
What they were eating for lunch.
At first I thought you were suggesting that they ate puppies and pudding skins for lunch.
sweetpea
if the left had gone so apeshit at any time over the last 8 years (let alone after the chimp had only been in office for 10 weeks), can you imagine how bush/cheney would’ve dealt with it? (mysterious disappearances? untimely deaths?).
stewart was brilliant last night, not least of all because he was right.
sweetpea
if the left had gone so apeshit at any time over the last 8 years (let alone after the chimp had only been in office for 10 weeks), can you imagine how bush/cheney would’ve dealt with it? (mysterious disappearances? untimely deaths?).
stewart was brilliant last night.
geg6
Well, as the GOS said today…
I think that pretty much says what I think about the whole lot of nutbags on the right. Tea bag away, doods.
Gus
Apostates are always worse than heathens.
Xanthippas
I do try to be fair, but it’s hard when I hear the survivalists repeating the same stuff I find on "mainstream" right-wing blogs that are linked to by "mainstream" conservative publications like the Weekly Standard or the National Review.
jake 4 that 1
So the people who think the Jews are secretly running the world have expanded their scope a little bit. Uh … hooray, progress?
Yep. These clowns think that if they just got rid of the filthy [fill in the blanks] their lives will be perfect. They’d never in a million years suspect that would just mean the rich would only have their faces to grind.
sweetpea
@sweetpea:
crap. technopeasantry strikes again. apologies for being redundantly redundant.
kay
They always frame it that way. It’s part and parcel of the arrogance.
They’re always "restoring" something or other.
I once had a conservative lawyer tell me "if you knew how this country was supposed to work, you wouldn’t recognize it". He’s pining away for something he never knew. For something his great-grandfather never knew.
Arrogance, and a complete inability to tell the difference between a theory and reality.
JK
Glenn Beck is a nail-biting, bed-wetting, pacifier sucking, sissy.
His show is a super sized, putrid, steaming pile of excrement and a bottomless cesspool of lies.
Somewhere there’s a straitjacket with Beck’s name on it.
Fox News is the most intellectually dishonest and morally bankrupt news organization in America.
Fox News is waging a scorched Earth campaign against truth, facts, logic, reason, critical thinking, rationality, and decency.
Fox News is the most powerful name in lies, half-truths, rumor, gossip, innuendo, misquoting, obfuscation, polarization, demonization, and reporting news out of context.
jrg
Or a shooting rampage in a church, or shooting cops when they show up at your door. Is anyone going to call the right wing on this shit? Or are we going to keep ignoring conservative commentators that are continually clamoring for war against the U.S. government (and thuh liburuls).
I’m not saying we should silence the violent, anti-American sentiments on the right (they have their free speech, after all), I just think that Republicans should be forced by the media to address these concerns.
But as was pointed out above, the left is just as guilty because Bill Ayers blew up a statue in the 1960s, and served with Obama on the board of a community organization 30 years after the charges against him were dropped.
AnneLaurie
And, on the negative obverse of their all-encompassing projectionism: ‘These people’ are only kept from a 24/7 career of murder, rape, pillage, and kitten-skullfvcking by fear of what the authorities would do to them or their neighbors would say about them. Ergo, we Lie-brals would immediately start murdering, raping, pillaging, and kitten-abusing if we didn’t have TEH FEAR to keep us in line. And since (the ‘Real Americans’ tell each other) we not-Real-As are much much worse & more sinful than the RealMurkins, their blued-eyed old white god only knows what horrors would be visited if the authorities don’t keep racheting up the security shackles!
** Atanarjuat **
@jrg:
How does the shooting spree in Binghamton figure into this calling "the right wing on this shit?"
-A
The Moar You Know
After all, conservatives would never dream of tarring liberals with the acts of William Ayers and Jane Fonda. Right?
jrg
Pittsburgh, troll.
gbear
You’re not stupid enough to get away with that one.
** Atanarjuat **
@jrg:
That’s not an answer, jrg, and nor is the lame name-calling.
I knew you meant the Pittsburgh shooting when you wrote, "shooting cops when they show up at your door." My question is with regard to your wanting to "call the right wing on this shit."
I want to know how the tragic shooting spree in Binghamton figures into this concern you’ve expressed.
Thanks.
-A
NonWonderDog
@Corner Stone:
Use <s></s> instead of <strike></strike>.
<del></del> works too.
** Atanarjuat **
@gbear:
"Get away" with what, gbear? Please be specific.
-A
JK
The militia members are the biggest, dumbest losers in our society.
Their brains are mush, thus enabling them to be controlled by rabble rousers like Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh, Malkin, and Bachmann
jrg
Atanarjuat, I’m not going to waste my day explaining to you that not all shootings are politically motivated.
JK
Before Obama’s first term is over, Fox News will have plenty of blood on its hands for all the incendiary, apocolyptic, end of days rhetoric spewed over its airwaves which will lead some whack jobs to go postal and kill innocent civilians.
Betsy
@sweetpea:
My favorite line from last night’s Daily Show:
"Guys? I think you might be confusing tyranny with losing."
asiangrrlMN
I am not scared of experiencing the violence and hatred personally, but I am afraid that something on the lines of the Oklahoma bombing will happen again. I hated Bush and everything he stood for, but I wouldn’t have seriously entertained thoughts of harming him or any of his entourage, even Dick Cheney.
jake 4 that 1 hit the nail on the head. Most on the extreme right have to define themselves by who and what they are not, therefore, anyone who is what they are not needs to be eradicated. Fear, loathing, and hatred of the other seems to be what drives them. The old way is crumbling, and the new way doesn’t look very appealing to them. What is the alternative?
After 9/11 happened, I stopped talking about my views on the flag and patriotism for a few years. It didn’t feel safe to me. Now, I just worry that the disenfranchised right will increase the sporadic spree killings they have done in the past.
Betsy, that was a great line. In fact, Jon’s whole rant against Hannity and his ilk was worthwhile.
** Atanarjuat **
@jrg:
jrg, so you’re saying that the only shootings that you’d like to "call the right wing on this shit" for are the ones that are somehow politically motivated? So, you’re further implying that the shooting in Binghamton wasn’t politically motivated?
Please, help me out there. I’m having trouble following the consistency presented on which shootings are worthy of calling "the ring wing on this shit."
My apologies, however, if you think explaining what you know that is so glaringly obvious to be a matter of wasting your day.
-A
The Moar You Know
@asiangrrlMN: So am I, but I suspect the next one will be far more lethal. These folks have learned a lot over the last decade and a half.
As of this morning, there have been nine spree killings in the last thirty days. Two of those were committed by right-wingers for explicitly political reasons.
Steve V
Whether or not the Binghamton shooting was politically motivated (I don’t think it was), it wasn’t fomented by a gallery of public personalities and interest groups. The militia crazies are being fomented, and that’s the problem. Sure it’s protected by the first amendment, but it’s also deserving of condemnation and rejection. Unfortunately, I fear there aren’t a lot of public conservatives out there who are *not* involved in encouraging these crazies.
Gus
Guess again.
someguy
When I think about conservatives and their long run in power over the last 30 years, I’m reminded of Justice Holmes’ wise words, "three generations of cretins is enough."
binzinerator
Yglesias hints at what the root is, without godwinning it.
And this
nails some key features of the F-word that guys like Roger Griffin have noted, such as palingenesis. Neiwert‘s got a summary of Griffin and others, and notes some of the characteristics that keep repeating: re-birth (palingenesis), ultranationalism, populism, anti-liberalism, and revolution.
Griffin says it’s palingenesis and ultra-nationalism that makes fascism different from other revolutionary ideologies.
When David Duke ran as a republican I knew where the GOP and conservatism in general was headed in this country.
You can see it spill out in many ways. Goldberg’s revisionist book was a classic example of the Rightwing projectionism. The wingnuts know where their movement is headed. They’ve known for quite a while. That’s why guys like Glenn Beck and Limbaugh are wealthy and very visible and have large followings. They’re the fringe going mainstream conservative. Or rather, conservatism is going far right fringe.
BDeevDad
Stewart had the best lines last night.
Zifnab
Oh. For a moment I thought they were hypothesizing the origins of Governor Moosehunter You Betcha Also.
celticdragon
zifnab:
Um, not really. Being "read" as gay, transgendered or whatever can be exceedingly dangerous in some locations, and I have been forced to flee for my life more then once while in Indiana when threatened with immediate injury for looking out of place at a bus stop. I am getting a CCW for my state of North Carolina, because I can’t assume that the next time I will be allowed to flee, or I may be unable to if my young son or my spouse is with me.
Leelee for Obama
"better for all the world…" was also part of that decision. I was horrified the first time I heard it, but in this context, I understand it better. The good of the many sublimates the good of the few.
These folks are frightening with their armed insurrection rhetoric. My sister lives just 45 minutes from OKC, and she had friends hurt and killed that day. I went to the site in 1998, and it hurt like hell to see it. I’m a New Yorker, and I was not able to go to Ground Zero, but I think OKC had much the same effect.
Someone from that side of the spectrum had better stand up and tell these "insurrectionists" that they will be in for a world of misery if they do not stop. Real horror will occur, and they will be pariahs in their own world.
Corner Stone
@NonWnderDog @ 75
I swear I’ve tried all those. The strikethrough looks fine in preview but when it’s submitted it loses the formatting.
I can’t help it! I’m just a formatting freak!
GSD
Guns don’t kill people, registered gun owners do.
-GSD
BC
The irony of this talk from conservatives about "New World Order" is that the only time anyone in the US govt used it was — George H. W. Bush, after the fall of communism. This was projected onto Clinton after 1992 and is now projected onto Obama – but it was a GOP construct, not Democratic. The black helicopters and jackbooted FEMA troopers were talked about after Ruby Ridge – another George H.W. Bush undertaking – then projected to Clinton after Waco (where 4 government law enforcement officers were killed before the siege, remember). I have a very good friend in Tennessee who told me he would vote Democratic on the issues, but couldn’t be in a coalition with the "blacks and gays." I think a number of self-described conservatives also agree with Democrats on issues, but just can’t see themselves being in a coalition with feminists, black and brown people, and gays.
DanSmoot'sGhost
@** Atanarjuat **:
Let me remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.
Mnemosyne
@jrg:
Yeah, explain that, jrg! Anyone can see that politics have nothing to do with politically motivated shootings. That would be like claiming that sex causes babies when they’re two completely unrelated things that have no connection whatsoever.
binzinerator
@DougJ:
I’ve been pretty certain of this since a week after the Iraq invasion, when the WMDs became unimportant but not for the reasons some may think. I knew it would come about not because of the colossal lie and failure of the right, but because of the reaction of a large part of America. Not because of any backlash from what the right did, but because of what too many people didn’t do. They didn’t reject it. They didn’t for the most part even voice a disagreement. Hell they never even asked questions.
WMDs? What WMDs? Change the subject and half of America did not care. Plain as day was our society and our government taking a big fucking step to the fringe right. Torture? Wiretapping? No due process? Hyper nationalism and militarism? (Support the Troops. Let’s kick their ass and take their gas. Blackwater.) You were called un-American and a traitor if you opposed this shit!
This kind of thinking or the passive acceptance of such thinking by so many told me we were going to see our american pseudo-fascism of the early Bush years edge closer and closer to the real thing. And I knew that sooner or later (and I thought it would be much later) the right’s narrative of how the world really is would become untenable to enough people– up is down only lasts so long — and that would precipitate the stupid dumbasses who really really believed that shit into doubling down. And we’ve seen that doubling down behavior more than amply demonstrated by the Right over the past 8 years.
It’s political ideology as religion. They just got handed all kinds of proof their republican jesus doesn’t exist, and the ones that still believe their mumbo-jumbo are the crazies who will insist it’s really a divine test of their faith in disguise. It’s also part of their test to ‘restore’ their divinity to its rightful place. And they can do it, they are certain, if they get rid of the elements of society that are debasing and holding back the true way, the true way that will shine pure and strong to everyone when ‘traditional values’ are restored.
This is what this rebirth shit is about.
I am uneasy these times are shaping up to be a rhyme of 1930s in more than one way.
binzinerator
@Leelee for Obama:
If there were people from that side who wanted to do that we would have heard ‘stop’ a long time ago. If lying us into a war wouldn’t do it, if the expose of torture wouldn’t do it, if government spying on millions of US citizens wouldn’t do it, if snatching someone off the street and throwing them in a secret prison for years without charges, counsel or evidence wouldn’t do it, you cannot hold much hope that ‘insurrectionists’ whose beliefs and agenda they are sympathetic to are going to be the catalyst to do it.
Chuck Butcher
Since people like Barone make a mean natured bloody handed conservative out of a radical liberal like Christ and worship that and make some lame limp wristed conservatives out of the American Revolutionaries and identify with that rather than the fire brand radicals they were you get stupid results. American Christians is scarcely historically accurate as a description of the Party of Barone.
As for their normality on their part…
I am heavily armed for a good reason and a particularly leftist reason – beyond just flat liking the things and I find it easy to scoff at my fellow lefists who find parts of the BOR disposable on the basis of their perceived security while others are sacrosanct despite the other side’s insistance they aren’t. I’m less than impressed by hypocrisy on whatever side.
Cris
Rather than irony, this (and the other points in your post) points out the complexity of the situation. We label the militia fringe as "right wing" but that doesn’t mean they are a bunch of loyal Republicans. As far as they’re concerned, the mainstream GOP is as wrapped up in the grand Zionist (or whatever) conspiracy as the Democrats. They just happen to have more sympathizers among the GOP.
Richard Bottoms
The problem isn’t there’s some vast militia force that can truly face down the federal government, it’s that Republics with a certain thirst for power will quite happily play to the farthest right wing of the party to get votes and money.
Once the next McVeigh is in custody the GOP will develop amnesia again about their part in bringing the violence about.
Fuckers.
bvac
@BC:
Didn’t Hulk Hogan use it frequently in the mid 90’s? And didn’t he at one point consider running for president? HMMMM?
DarcyPennell
It is still open (as of last year) but the older gentleman cooking pork chops in the front window is no longer there. The pork chops are still good but I don’t know, it’s not the same without him.
bago
Yeah. Any asshole who wants to try and excuse mass murders for their right-wing views can talk perfectly clearly. After they have met my fist of course. At least as many times as my friends were shot. It’s not like beating people within an inch of their life was federal policy or anything.
shep
"This probably explains why the right is generally more interested in the idea of armed insurrection than the left is (at least in the United States)."
Or, the right are just a bunch of overaggressive, authoritarian thugs.
someguy
BS. They’re the heart and soul of the party. Good thing the party is primarily a pack of chickenhawks, otherwise it’d be real dangerous on a big scale.
Church Lady
Lately, the more I read so many of the comments here, the more I’m convinced many of you are the mirror image of the "wingnuts" you so rabidly condemn. If you want to read about conspiracy theories, hell, just read the comments here.
Do any of you even know any conservatives? I do – a lot of them, and they are friends of mine. I’m referred to by many, jokingly, as their "liberal friend", because I tend to vote democratic, but none has ever told me that I am unpatriotic or unAmerican or insinuated in any way that I am to be looked down upon for my personal political beliefs. We take the time to talk together about what is important to us and when we disagree it is with civility. None of them are anything at all like what you so eagerly denigrate.
Most, but not all, are churchgoers, but never obnoxious about it and none try to push their religion on others. None of them care whether or not you worship the same God that they do, or if you worship at all. Every single one of them does volunteer work in the community, doing things such as tutoring at inner city schools, working at the food bank, serving meals at soup kitchens, raising money for programs that benefit at risk children, volunteering for Big Brothers and Sisters, volunteering at Hope House (a daycare center specifically for children affected by HIV – the first in the country), serving on the Landmarks Commission, and delivering meals to homebound senior citizens, just to name some of the things my friends do.
Even though many of them are gun owners, none have expressed a desire to take up arms for a coup against the new Democratic majority. The thought of it would make them laugh. They don’t sit around worrying about minorities (some of them ARE minorities) and the only view on immigration I’ve ever heard any express was wanting to secure the border but allow those already here to work their way towards legalization. What they do care about is limited government, reasonable taxes, and what they think is an appropriate amout of defense against the threats we face as a nation. None are anxious to peek into your bedroom and have a live and let live attitude towards your sexual orientation and your beliefs.
These are the conservatives and self-identified Republicans that I know, with very, very few exceptions. I’m just sorry that you don’t know and don’t have friends like that and, IMHO, you are the poorer for it. To be exposed to only your particular mind-set, living in an echo chamber similar to what you so often accuse them of doing, and have an inability to listen to an opinion that differs from yours without being angry about it, makes you no better than those you refer to as "wingnuts" and "villagers".
shep
Actually, Church Lady – if I may call you that – that perfectly describes my “conservative”, Republican friends as well, except for one thing: they get angry hearing liberal opinion (which is no doubt why they self-censor to their FOX – Clear Channel “echo-chamber”). I’ve been living cheerily (if not happily) with “conservative” opinion every day for at least 30 f*cking years (they finally even got NPR) but my “conservative” friends haven’t a clue (nor do they care to know) what real liberals have to say about almost anything. The other important difference being that they believe absolutely batsh*t crazy things that can be easily disproved if you don’t embargo all sources of empirical truth to get your reality from professional liars like Sean Hannity. Really, you’re projecting.
DougJ
I know plenty of conservatives. I specifically said Beck-Bachmann-Hannity to make it clear I didn’t mean all conservatives by any means!
Church Lady
@DougJ:
While you might differentiate (on occassion, when it suits you), most here don’t. Unfortunately, to many commenters, Conservative = Republican (a/k/a Rethuglican, Fucktard, Villager, Wingnutter, etc.) = Right Wing = Dangerous = Militia Member = ALL ONE AND THE SAME.
Mnemosyne
You do realize that we don’t only exist online, right? You know that we all have lives and friends and families outside of this website and outside of the internet?
It’s funny how you’re taking an extremely one-sided view of all of us and assuming that we’re all exactly the same when we’re off-line as we are here, or when we’re on non-political websites and then accusing us of … taking a one-sided view of everything and looking at people as stereotypes.
What kind of conversation were you expecting on a political website?
r€nato
I know several conservatives and every last one of them is a brainwashed Fox News Channel drone, incapable of having a serious debate about issues. It’s all "Barney Fag", "Clinton did it!", "ACORN!", "global warming is a lie because Al Gore is a big fat poopyhead who said he invented the internet!" and so on.
I don’t watch Fox News Channel ordinarily but I can tell you what sort of fear and loathing they’ve been pushing lately simply by having a conversation about current events with one of my right-wing family members or acquaintances.
AhabTRuler
I am not entirely certain what you are describing, but it isn’t the actions and stated goals of the Republican Party of the last 20 years. You may be describing people who identify as Republican, but they are fiscals hanging on for the low cap gains taxes.
Of course you do. Also.
DougJ
Yes, that’s my experience too.
But I did want to make it clear that I don’t think most of them are dangerous.
kay
Eric Holder has now explained his eminently reasonable position to Katie Couric.
He simply said, at his confirmation, that assault weapons restrictions would be "constitutional and good from a law enforcement perspective". Both of those things, incidentally, are true.
He is, after all, the "top cop", so rational people would expect him to take a law enforcement perspective, and that’s what he did. It’s not at all unusual, in a prosecutor.
I wish he had not explained it. I’m tired of kowtowing to this nonsense.
But, maybe his explanation will lower the temperature.
It’s a crying shame that we have to keep dumbing it down. This is not good for the country. It’s not a debate. It’s hysteria.
AhabTSp'nker
I think that depends entirely on what one considers as dangerous. However, I don’t believe that most Republicans are violently dangerous.
I do think that the current goals of the national Republican party are extraordinarily dangerous for the health, if not the safety, of the country.
rikyrah
These are homegrown TERRORISTS…why shy away from saying what they are?
TenguPhule
Then you have been blessed to know good people who support the wrong party.
Some of us are not so lucky.
asiangrrlMN
I do know conservatives in real, and they do want to restrict what other people can and can’t do. Beyond what others have said, I would just like to add, Church Lady, that there is a difference between being the liberal of your conservative set and being an actual, you know, progressive. I find your tone to be condescending and, quite frankly, cloistered. See, I have been told to go back to China. I have been told that I couldn’t have been born in MN because there are no Asians there. I have been told it’s people like me that are taking the real Americans’ jobs. I have seen how society is skewed towards certain demographics, and quite frankly, I have seen our rights erode on a daily basis for the last eight years.
I used to fly frequently, and I would be ‘randomly’ searched every single time. It didn’t matter that I dressed nicely and covered my tats. I have had ‘gook’ spraypainted on my car. I have been called a chink, and a jap, and all sorts of lovely names.
For the most part, those of us on the left do not believe in an armed revolution against our fellow citizens. When we were in the minority, I don’t recall our pundits calling for us to take arms and overthrow the government. Most of the politically-motivated shootings are done by rightwing so-called Christians who happen to be white supremacists as well.
It is in this context that I say that it’s far more likely that the next Oklahoma bomber is going to be a white male, rightwing, and most likely a self-proclaimed Christian–and this is not being nutty or part of ‘the village’. Maybe you need to take the log out of your own eye first before condemning someone else.
P.S. Yeah, like the tolerant Christians who want to outlaw gay marriage–such as the ones who pushed Prop 8 in California. Or the one who told a Hindu friend of mine that she was going to hell. My niece told me the same thing (in a nice way). Yeah. Very tolerant. Local Christians questioning Keith Ellison for swearing in on the Koran–his book of belief. I could go on, but the casual intolerance of religion as a whole depresses me.
gwangung
Then…YOU’RE NOT LISTENING.
That’s a very insulting thing to say to people who are wishing for more moderate Republican leadership, who want something sane from the opposition party and who want some real, workable solutions in politics.
You have the gall to complain that the commenters are stereotyping Republicans. When all the public statements from Republican leaders, when the public face of conservatism is out and out insanity, WHY THE HELL AREN’T YOU BOOTING THE RASCALS OUT AND GETTING THINGS DONE THE WAY YOU SAY REAL CONSERVATIVES SHOULD BE DOING THINGS??????
Perhaps they aren’t as unrepresentative of conservatism as you say they are. By your actions, you’re certainly not making much of move to get someone more representative into places of influence and power. Or making that known in the media and places of power.
You say that conservatives really aren’t the wingnuts commenters around think they are? Then prove it. Get political power and use it on the local and national stage as it should be. If you can’t…then maybe your thesis is wrong and the wingnuts really ARE what conservatism is all about.
someguy
There’s no detectable presence of reasonable conservativsm for the same reason the unicorns aren’t registering to race Belmont. I think AsiangrrlMN’s experience are pretty much representative of where the vast majority of conservatives are. That there may be one or two that aren’t completely insane and you happen to know them is probably as relevant as the fact that occasionally, a chimp can be taught to ask for a banana in sign language. There’s no place for the wingers in the public square any longer.
Cassidy in Iraq
@Church Lady: Then the majority need to stand up and be counted and not allow the loudmouth brain droppings of the minority to dictate the national dialogue. If Republicans don’t want to be associated with the mental diahrrea of Michelle Bachman, then how about they vote her out of office. How about the "majority" condemn the shenanigans of the crazy set.
Monkeys will fly out my ass first. Republicans, one and all, have earned their scorn. If they are too cowardly to speak up, then they have earned it just as much as the crazies.
Steve V
@Church Lady:
Sure reasonable conservatives exist, of course, but they are being ill-served by their political leaders and conservative opinion makers. Is there anywhere an average, decent conservative can go to read conservative opinion that is NOT bemoaning the onset of socia lism or fas cism (and arguing with a straight face that Obama is a greater threat to civil liberties than Bush was), or fearmongering about ACORN, or blaming the financial crisis on Fannie and Freddie, or arguing that cutting taxes is essentially a "free lunch" that will increase government revenues? And how much of this drek do they believe?
Whether or not the average citizen, conservative or liberal, is going to be moved by the incitement of Fox et al. is not really the point of this discussion, I think. The point I take from it is that the incitement is there and it’s making the marginal, rabid opposition more dangerous.
Cris
Honey, I live in western Montana: I not only know many, many conservatives, I know some genuine Constitutionalist militia supporters. And in general, I find them intelligent, articulate, and generous on a personal level. But that doesn’t mean I think they’re right.