FLAIT

This blog has shown what the Republican "Party" and its conservative movement has become. But you don't have to take my word for it because there were three recent incidents, all during Republican Presidential primary debates, in which the right told us exactly who they are.

The first one was when moderator Brian Williams brought up the 234 executions (now 236, at least as of a couple of weeks ago) that have taken place in Texas while Rick Perry has been governor. It received a round of applause from the audience.

Even if you support capital punishment, executions are nothing to be proud of. Actually, it's an embarrassment. But the right doesn't know any better. So that sick, blood-thirsty applause is rooted in deep, deep ignorance; and the Middle Ages.

But the reaction is also rooted in political pettiness. Since liberals oppose the death penalty, conservatives not only have to disagree with them, but poke them in the eye when given the chance. And that's what the applause was also all about. Take that you soft on crime liberals!

The second incident was when moderator Wolf Blitzer brought up a hypothetical 30-year old who came down with a costly illness but didn't have health insurance (which is not all that hypothetical). Ron Paul responded by saying that not having insurance was about "freedom," and government "can't take care of everybody." That too was applauded. But when Mr. Blitzer follow-up by asking if we should just "let him die," members of the audience shouted "yes!"

What a disgrace. And remember, these audiences are pro-life and oppose "death panels." Go figure.

But of course that was the reaction because liberals want all Americans to have universal health coverage, and the only way for that to happen is with "big government" "socialism." And arrogant, sanctimonious conservative Republicans must oppose that (or else, they fear, they'd be proven wrong when "big government" "socialist" universal health care worked). So it was another opportunity to poke liberals in the eye (Republicans crack me up. They're always bitching and moaning about their "tax dollars going to the welfare state." But I guess as far as Mr. Paul is concerned, he has no problem that his tax dollars - not to mention higher insurance costs, deductibles and co-pays - are going to pay for the "freedom-loving" "anti-government" uninsured when they turn up at the emergency room. Yup, sounds like more Republican logic to me!).

Conservatives have poked liberals in the eye before. It happened in 2010 when they mocked Al Gore and global warming during a snowstorm. And it happened at the 2008 Republican convention when the delegates chanted "drill, baby, drill." Of course they did because they knew it would tick off liberals.

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos and I are reading each others minds:

If you're fortunate, you were until this moment unaware that there was once such a thing as the Rush Limbaugh television show. If you are so unlucky as to have seen an episode, you may remember a charming segment devoted to cutting down trees. Not harvesting timber or splitting firewood, mind you, just knocking over trees. In this repeating bit, cameras focused on some little pine or oak, often bearing a sign with a message to "tree huggers" or a personal note for Al Gore. Then, with a roar of chain saws and a nice cloud of two-stroke smoke, the tree was dispatched.

Killing a tree for no visible purpose never failed to generate guffaws from Limbaugh and his audience. Perhaps they pictured liberals as shivering in front of their televisions, biting their lips in horror as the poor-widdle-twee went boom. Perhaps they thought it made Al cry. Whatever they visualized, the point of the nightly tree-felling was clear: they ran the bit not because they thought it helped anyone, but because they thought it would be painful to those who cared about the environment. It was the video equivalent of pulling the wings off flies...

They don't shout "drill, baby, drill" because they think it will make gas cheaper. They don't create signs in which cap and trade (a program designed by Republicans of a different era) is bracketed by a hammer and sickle because they think capturing carbon will cost jobs. They do it because they think it will piss you off. They do it even when they know what they're doing is causing real and lasting damage. They do it because hurting liberals is more important than doing the right thing. Hell, as far as today's GOP is concerned, hurting liberals is the definition of doing the right thing. If you like it, they're against it, even if "it" is breathable air, clean water, or a climate not racing toward irrevocable harm. They've generalized the idea that liberals are pro-livable planet. So Republicans have given screwing the Earth a priority position on their to-do list. (Bold mine, underline his.)

This is how the right mobilizes their base on contentious, partisan issues. Take the country's sick obsession with guns, for example. It's built on nothing but "buy a gun and tick off the 'gun grabbing' liberals" (all three of them there aren't any). It would be like a woman getting pregnant for the purpose of getting an abortion just to tick off the pro-lifers.

So in a matter of a just few seconds, the right not only gave the country a clear indication as to their level of their intellect, but their level of maturity as well; because as these reactions showed, they will politicize everything, out of spite. Of course they do, they have to since they're unable to engage in a mature, intelligent, reasoned, factual debate about anything, including guns and health care. So the only way they can "win" an argument, is to create enough noise, and make up enough lies, not to lose it. And with a massive propaganda machine that orchestrates a bellicose and hypocritical (also here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here) get-out-in-front attack offense, they don't.

How can we possibly address the country's problems seriously and practically with a movement that cheers executions and wants someone without insurance to just die? Is that the mentality we want addressing the country's complicated problems behind the country's (pugnacious right-wing dominated) political system? Is that the sentiment, objectives and values we want the country to have? Of course not, that's not what America's about. At least it wasn't until the right got control of it.

This isn't about the death penalty and health care. It's about the audience reactions. They've given us great insight as to how much the right cares about their country and fellow citizens. Americans should be embarrassed, and angered, at such a sickening display of ignorance, selfishness and immaturity. America's supposed to be smarter then that. A lot smarter. But the right has proven that wrong. They should be ashamed of themselves. But they're not because in a third debate, a gay soldier who asked a question via YouTube received a smattering of boos. And like the two previous incidents, it wasn't denounced by any of the three Republican candidates. And that's all you need to know about the Republican "Party" Cult.

December 27 insert:

Other examples of this immature right-wing pettiness are "Freedom Fries" and "Freedom toast," and the delegates at the 2004 Republican convention mocking John Kerry and his Vietnam purple heart by putting band-aids on their faces. But there was a political strategy behind those instances: to make France look like they were wrong for not taking part in the Iraq war, and to make George Bush's (non-existent) war record look better then Kerry's.

This sort of "na-na-na-na-na" behavior is more commonly seen in kindergarten. But it's designed to distract, divert attention and defuse an issue in which the right is on weak ground. It's the conservative talk radio type attitude where the "Party" can call a Democrat (or their enemy of the hour) a name, and with the help of Fox "News," get their base to join in. And that's important; because when base conservatives are frothing at the mouth and go on the attack (mock or ridicule), it will never occur to them that they're on the wrong side of the issue.

Guns are a great example. Gun owners are whipped into such a brainwashed, paranoid frenzy, as if guns are the cure to cancer and any talk to the contrary - or haven forbid, gun control...if there was any talk of gun control - is bad and shouted down as un-American.

Getting the followers involved in "the cause" and keeping them busy is how cults stay intact.