Excerpt
Extremist conservatives, which are most conservatives, run on fear, lies and intimidation. They fear of all kinds of things and are ripe for Republicans and those who try to manipulate them to use them as forces of intimidation by exploiting their fear and ignorance for their own political ends. Like Berlin in 1939.
As was apparent during the town hall meetings and the tea party protests, the most recent of which was the anti-healthcare reform protest in Washington, it is always the people who talk loudest, make the biggest noise, and are the most aggressive who are the most ignorant.
They show off guns at town hall meetings, carry Hitler signs and swastikas and talk big (as long as they are in a crowd) because, too afraid to look at their own failures and inadequacies, and the failures they supported, and dissatisfied with their own lives, they look for scapegoats. They think of themselves as the true Americans and its their values that are the true American values. Which of course is not only untrue, it's the opposite that's true.
Their attitudes, behavior and tactics are more closely related to fascism than anything American. Remember,it was the chairman of the New Hampshire Republican party a few years ago, who went to prison for jamming the phone lines of Democratic party volunteers offering rides to the polls on election day. This man and his party,and the Republicans who worked for him in order to win an election any way possible, trashed the memory of every soldier ever killed in battle since what they were trying to stop is what each gave his or her life for.
But like fascists always do, extremist conservatives wrap themselves in the flag and the constitution, half of which most of them would junk if they could and claim their great love and respect for the troops. Except they have no love for the things the troops risk their lives to defend.
John Boehner, addressing the tea party crowd in Washington last week tried to wrap himself in the constitution and got tangled up in it when he quoted from the Declaration of Independence thinking it was the preamble to the constitution. Proving for all to see that the Republican minority leader didn't know what was in either document. Which was okay because neither did the crowd he was speaking to.
The writer Sinclair Lewis wrote in 1935 that if fascism ever came to America it would come "wrapped in the flag and carrying the Bible". Samuel Johnson said that "patriotism was the last refuge of a scoundrel." One look at the tea party conservatives and town hall mobs and the congressional Republicans who embrace and exploit them and you can see what Lewis and Johnson were talking about. The fascism disguised as patriotism is everywhere.
Extremist conservatives think of themselves as the great arbiters of what everyone should do and believe. And yet most of them are the people who are most ignorant when it comes to understanding the issues and the facts.
They think its their values everyone should adhere to, yet few of them are content to just live their values which obviously aren't making them happy. Instead they have to try and force them down everyone else's throat to in order to validate them. There is no arguing that the values, held, expressed and implemented by a conservative president and a conservative congress did more damage to the United States in eight years than the Soviet Union could do in 50. And we are still dealing with it.
Conservatives claim to stand on principles but when these principles were violated for 8 years by George W. Bush they said nothing. Because what they are really all about is politics and power.Which is something else that makes them Ugly Americans.
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