Thursday, February 02, 2006

 

Why are right-wingers so pissed off?

Seriously. I don't get it. Why are right-wingers so mad?

Conservatives have a reason to be upset -- because except for being the hawkiest of all hawks, President Bush is no conservative. Not really.

Liberals have reasons to be pissed. They're virtually out of power.

But why are the righty-rights so pissy?

Read a few of their blogs. All they do is bitch. Listen to a little talk radio, if you have the stomach for it. Same thing. Read righty newspaper columnists. Same deal. Even George Will, whom I read regularly and respect, showed his ass this week.

What gives?

The Republicans control of all three branches of the federal government, and they've damn near got a lock on the Supreme Court for the next generation.

I haven't checked, but I think "God's Own Party" -- hoo hoo -- still has most of the governorships.

Mainstream Christianity is in decline. Conservative Christianity is on the rise.

The righties have even made real inroads into the media, what with Faux News and blogdom.

They've got not, one, but TWO wars on -- plus they've convinced most of the country to surrender concerns over civil rights out of fear of a third "war" -- a war on terrorism that will never effing end, which means it's not a "war" in any sense that most people understand.

But, give 'em that, too: They've got THREE wars on.

And they'e still not happy.

What is it? Do they want the rest of us to just get on our knees and kiss their ass, too?

--ER

Comments:
An intriguing question. I second your notion that there exists much acrimony amongst the Right. Why, indeed?

For some, could it be that they exist best and best understand themselves in terms of opposition to some enemy? When the Commie Bogeyman declined, they had to find the Terrorist Bogeyman (although, thanks to Castro and South America, they're still pretty riled about stinkin' commies).

And perhaps the more enemies they find (abortionists! gays! LIEberals!!), the better they feel about themselves?

Understand that I'm not a licensed psychologist, although I do play one in the Blogosphere.
 
Could be.

I think they really do want everyone who doesn't just bend over for them to come around and kiss their ass. So to speak.

They want righty-right hegemony.
 
Oh, re: "And perhaps the more enemies they find (abortionists! gays! LIEberals!!), the better they feel about themselves?"

I don't think they all feel good about themselves. In fact, I think that might be the deal.

I think they feel guilty because they know that:

1., they're making rhe Baby Jesus cry*, and

2., they're in power in Washington and things have gotten worse, WAY worse, as far as spending and corruption than it was last time the Dems had the reins.

*Phrase popularized by Don Imus. I mean it as smart-alecky way of saying they're falling far, far, FAR short of the standards most of them try to force on everyone else. Wait, "falling short" implies that they're trying! Not.
 
Could be because of all the attacks on the President, including calling him a liar, and a lawbreaker, none of which are true.

Or maybe because the left is getting away with all those accusations supported by the loyal leftist members of the media.
 
ER said:
"What is it? Do they want the rest of us to just get on our knees and kiss their ass, too?"

Absolutely!
It is all about power and powerlessness. What they are really mad about is that they are not God. They know what is right and how the universe should be, but they can't quite get everyone to conform. Thus they take on the persona of the Angery Jehovah. Or the Angery Allah in other instances.
For these people there is never enough. Not enough power, not enough submission, not enough praise, not enough acquiencence, not enough love, note enough hate.
The are like the William Blake drawing of a little figure of man before a very large bearded God saying: More! Sometimes they are even mad at God because He doesn't quite get it, like they do.
Instead of the neo-cons, I think we should call them the neo-oligarchist.
They are mad because they are not GOD! They do not rule the earth!

This is what we get for treating mental health problems on a out-patient basis.
 
Second the good doctor's comments and add the following: I think what they really want is to FORCE those of us who don't believe what they believe to think what they think to conform ABSOLUTELY with their thoughts and beliefs. Reference your post of yesterday or the day before regarding the Southern Baptists and the removal of all dissent from the flock. (Great story in today's Washington Post, by the way, about John Danforth, former senator from Missouri, about how mainstream Republicans have been marginalized by the Christian right and how, dammit, he wants his party back.) We are going to believe, or else it will be crammed down our throats bite by bite.

There does not seem to be room for individuality of thought, conscience, belief in their world. And this is the thing I find possibly the most frightening of all.
 
I think the acrimony arises from frustration and exasperation. They have a very strong, legalistic belief system. They see things in only black or white. On or off. Right or wrong. There is no gray area, there is no room for questioning or possibility of a legitimate alternative to the structured beliefs they hold so tightly.

It gets very tiring trying to defend The Truth (as they see it). They learned a Code somehow, and that's that. Those who don't accept and embrace that Code are wrong. The end. And even worse, if they can't convince the Wrong about the errors of their ways, they have to step up The Enforcement of The Code.

And so the acrimony ramps up. The frustration increases as others say "Wait a minute, that's not right." The more challenges, the more they must defend and enforce.

Unfortunately, this type of belief system is so rigid that there's no way out once they're backed into that corner. Like a tree that can't bend with the wind, they will snap, eventually, under the pressures of the real world.
 
It's really a stretch for you to have something to bitch about some days. So in a pinch you just make something up. That's why Mr. Bush says he likes to read history and not newpapers and magazines, it's all made up.
 
The lefty's have gone and done it now. The cartoon of the soilder with no arms or legs make you all look like the losers you really are. And while on the subject Hillary made the same mistake Gore made in the debate by rolling her eyes every time the camera was on here during the state speech. She's toast now.
 
Since you brought it up. Go ahead and kiss my ass now because I'm burning my democrat card and getting a new righty right card.
It took awhile but I'm ashamed to be know as a democrat.
 
Ya know, it IS cheap to make fun of people when they misspeak, because we all do it. They're verbal typos. But this is just ridiculous:

Bush Explains Medicare Drug Bill -- Verbatim Quote

WOMAN IN AUDIENCE: 'I don't really understand. How is it the new plan
going to fix the problem?'
> >
> > Verbatim response: PRESIDENT BUSH:
> >
> > 'Because the -- all which is on the table begins to address the big cost > > drivers. For example, how benefits are calculated, for example, is on >the
> > table. Whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price > > increases. There's a series of parts of the formula that are being >considered.
> > And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those >--
> > changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get
> > what has been promised more likely to be -- or closer delivered to that>has
> > been promised. Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. >Look,
> > there's a series of things that cause the -- like, for example, benefits >are
> > calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase >of > > prices. Some have suggested that we calculate -- the benefits will rise >based
> > upon inflation, supposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would >help > > solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast >benefits
> > grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those -- if that
> > growth is affected, it will help on the red.'

He should've just said, "It's very complicated. I'm no expoert. That's why I have experts working on it. But I will make it clear as soon as we've worked out all the details."

Yeah, he'da got some shit for saying something like that, but most people would've accepted it. Instead, he boldly went where he souldn'ta oughta, and he sounded like a dope.
 
Anon 11:48 are you saying newspapers and magazines are all made up or history is all made up?

Anon 11:54 what cartoon? Could you enlighten us a bit more? Not all of listen to Talk Radio all day.

Anon 11:59 I know your full of bullshit, the Democrats aren't organized enough to issue "cards".
 
ER now that is a cheap shot, don't you know that his body language, facial expressions, and articulate hand movements filled in much of the meaning that was left out of the actual verbage?
 
lol
I have in the past thought highly of drlobjo but the longer he frequents this place the more he sounds like me and Mr. Bush. Hell if you guy's had anything better to do you wouldn't be here in the first place. I know you like to gripe and moan so on a slow day I stir the mix. lol
 
Are the righty-rights not THESE rights??

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/01/AR2006020101597.html

different Anon
 
Anon 12:42 said,
"Hell if you guy's had anything better to do you wouldn't be here in the first place."

Damn good point, I'm going outside and enjoy this 70 degree "winters" day we are having here.
 
different Anon, I don't understand the question.
 
Did somebody actually pull out the old "liberal bias media" card? Wow. I hope you Swiffered all the dust off that relic before you used it.

The media is as Righty-Right as it can be. How else can you explain that Oprah's evisceration of James Frey put to shame all the newsmen who have allowed Bush, Chaney, Rumsfeld and McClellan to lie without consequence?

But if you want to know why the Righty-Right are so angry it's because they have nothing else. They sold off their integrity to get power. They auctioned off the moral high ground to any politician smart enough to know pretending to care about "the dangers" of gay rights or free speech will get them a free pass on corruption and being dumbasses.

So they're angry. It's the only thing they haven't given away in exchange for making this country worse and worse and worse every day for anybody who struggles between paychecks or has the gall to say something that sounds like it comes from any book other than the Bible.*

*(They're also blasted when they do use the Bible to show that Jesus probably wouldn't have wanted us to go to war.)
 
... or to "hate fags" ...

... or to be mean to women and children ...

... or to be selfish ...

... or to be overly judgmental ...

Thanks, Dr. Pants.
 
. . . for anybody who struggles between paychecks. . . Did Dr. Pants really pull out the "all Republicans are rich" card?

As I understand the question, ER wants to know why the rank-and-file are upset (not the elected officials). Quite honestly it's becuase we haven't gotten what we were promised. Then, when the chance for change came, we were offered an even worse fate (Kerry). The current crop of Rebulican 'leaders' (as a whole) embrace very few tenets of true conservatism. Most of what they say is pure rhetoric. Shoot, even Alito broke with the more conservative members of the Supreme Court when given his first opportunity.

The Dems are infamous for not having a strategy. The Repubs have one, but once you scratch the surface you can see many of the same problems that the other side of the aisle has. They're just better at putting a new coat of paint over it.
 
I think Toper answered my question, perhaps without knowing he did.

different Anon
 
Ah. Got it.

This IS a happy day for them.

It'll last until someone who opposes them, and who is IN THE MINORITY, dares to open their mouth.
 
God still pissed;
Twisters hit N.O.
 
Maybe that's it, ER: The Right is pissed because their god is pissed. They serve an angry and violent god and thus they follow in that god's steps.

(or is their god following in their steps...? You know what they say: The god of the capitalists will be a capitalist, the god of the warriors will be a warrior, and so on.)
 
I think real, literal conservatives are permanently pissed becuase nothing stands still, nothing goes back to the way it was, and change is so uncontrollable that you'll never get exactly the end result you want even when you've made the decisions.

And purists are pissed becuase politics will ALWAYS be the art of compromise; in America the middle ground is still generally the high ground in the battle, because the middle encompasses everything except the little tiny one dimensional points on either end.

And I'd like to believe everyone except the most Trotsky-ruthless of the conservatives regret the body counts, the wiretapping, the airport searches, the out-of-whack government finances and everything else the view as being what national security requires now, and because, as REM and I discussed a while back, given their assumptions, there doesn't seem a place where victory is achieved, the war is over, and all that can change back to a more free country.
 
TStock, I understood every word of that. Good points, too.
 
Tstockman I've been trying to recruit members to the radical middle of the road society: The John Spruce Society. Want to be a member?
 
Thanks, and DrL - love to join, as long as I only have to average out to moderate, with a few extreme positions on either wing.
 
seems there's an anonymous asshole on every blog....

KEvron
 
Well, yes, KEv, but those are discrete sets, "assholes" AND "anonymi."

Not all of one are equal to all of the other. Just mostly.
 
TStockmann said...
"Thanks, and DrL - love to join, as long as I only have to average out to moderate, with a few extreme positions on either wing."

Ts you qualify exactly. In that there are only two members as of today (me and thee) I appoint you Vice President of the American John Spruce Society.
 
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
 
I think it boils down to the right feeling very threatened. Not as "the right," but as individuals. Combine that sense of threat with the American allergy to admitting vulnerability, and an aggressive candidate who blames all problems on "social elites" is going to look waaaay more attractive than an empathetic candidate who talks about the actual things that are creating people's vulnerability.
 
Ken Mehlman, pitiful excuse for a GOP mouthpiece:

WASHINGTON (Feb. 5) - Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a potential presidential contender in 2008, "seems to have a lot of anger" and voters usually do not send angry candidates to the White House, the Republican Party chairman said Sunday.

"When you think of the level of anger, I'm not sure it's what Americans want," said Ken Mehlman, head of the Republican National Committee.

Mehlman cited the New York senator's remarks on Martin Luther King Day in which she called the Bush administration "one of the worst" in history and compared the Republican-controlled House to a plantation where opposing voices are silenced.

"I don't think the American people, if you look historically, elect angry candidates. And whether it's the comments about the plantation or the worst administration in history, Hillary Clinton seems to have a lot of anger," Mehlman told ABC's "This Week."

When contacted for a response, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said, "If the president and the White House spent half as much time worrying about the runaway deficit and the broken Medicare system as they do about Hillary ..."

Oh, never mind. Like that's gonna happen.

Truth will out. Hill's not demonstrating anger -- although she IS angry, I'm sure -- she's just right.
 
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