Left, Right, and Centered

Conservatism In America June 30, 2010

Be afraid, be very very afraid.  My blogmate likes to talk about how he used to be a liberal Democrat but got out when the party was hijacked by lunatics (or words to that effect).  He might like to have you believe that American conservatism is now the province of serious intellectual thinkers like George Will and Victor David Hanson, representing the legacy of William F. Buckley.  Nonsense.  American conservatism’s shining light is Sarah Palin and their intellectual spine is composed of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Bill O’Reilly.  The golden boys are Rand Paul and Scott Brown.  The party of Lincoln has devolved into the Tea Party.  Conservatism in America, circa 2010, is thinly veiled racism, xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny, violent rhetoric, and repeated intimations of armed insurrection.  It’d be funny if it wasn’t getting terrifying.  Check this out: KTAR.com – Political Ad: Lady with a gun Play the video…the one of the candidate emptying the clip of an automatic assault rifle: “Pamela Gorman, Conservative Christian…and a pretty fair shot”.  That’s what passes for conservative discourse in 2010, and these are the representatives they’re trying to send to Congress.  Not convinced?  Check this one: Ruth Marcus: Unhinged on the Right – Truthdig Play the Rick Barber video, the one that compares the health care reform bill to Nazi death camps and American slavery, the one that starts with an antique pistol sitting on his desk.  What do you suppose all this gun imagery is about?  No implied threat, right?  This is the money quote from the Ruth Marcus piece:

Another, and the reason it is worth paying attention to Barber, is: emblematic. Emblematic of the dangerous take-back-our-country rhetoric that is spread on the conservative airwaves and fueling the tea partyers. Barber may be on the outer edges of this movement but he is not alone there, and he is a predictable outgrowth of it.

If you haven’t spent any time listening to conservative talk radio, you will probably be surprised by the white-hot vehemence of the commentary. The concern and disagreement—over health care legislation, over bank bailouts, over debt—are understandable; the slippery-slope fears of descent into socialism/totalitarianism are incomprehensible. Last I looked, our checks and balances seemed pretty firmly anchored. 

Yet it does not take much to imagine the leap from bellicose talk to action for those who sincerely believe that the country they love is being wrested from them. They are delusional but passionate, and they are whipped daily by the Limbaughs and Hannitys and Becks into a frenzy of fear. 

Sarah Palin accuses the media of overreacting to her “don’t retreat—reload” approach. But it is hardly surprising when Sharron Angle, the Nevada Republican nominee for Senate, then warns that “If this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies.” Or when Ohio Republican John Boehner, the House minority leader, accuses Democrats of “snuffing out the America that I grew up in,” and warns, “There’s a political rebellion brewing, and I don’t think we’ve seen anything like it since 1776.”

You don’t suppose this has anything to do with a black president being in office, do you?  These people like to pick and choose their Constitutional amendments, just like they like to pick and choose bible verses to support any particularly onerous position they happen to support.  They like the second amendment, but aren’t so crazy about the first or the fourth.  They warn of Sodom and Gomorrah, but they don’t much like the admonition to turn the other cheek.  These people worry me.  Just like the jihadists, they’ve got god on their side.  Be afraid, be very very afraid.

BW