winguts and reality

coincidentally, driftglass has a great post on the nature of reality on the same day that Hunter discusses the same thing. (I dont read Hunter, but drifty loves him)

first, driftglass:

"So to people that value prostration and loyalty to the Dear Leader above all else, what is the measure of “Right and Wrong” and “True and False”?

And doesn’t that question, when phrased clearly, almost answer itself?

To such as these, who measure the “rightness” of their position by how deeply they kneel, The Truth must always be whatever the Dear leader says it is. And the “Right” is bottomless fealty to the Dear Leader no matter what he says. No matter how much he lies.

Without their Master telling them what the think, the Republican is lost and rudderless, and there is no fate more terrifying to them than to be cast adrift and confused with no whip-hand to kiss and no boot to lick.

It’s not that they hate facts or science or reality per se, it is that they are chattel, and the measure of a good dog is not whether it can do differential calculus, it’s how blindly faithful it is. If the Dear Leader says “facts” are good on Monday, and that the “facts” – like yellow cake in Niger – support the Dear Leader, then All Hail the Factual.

But when the “facts” turn out to be lies on Tuesday and Dear Leader’s story turns out to have been bullshit…well then facts are Bad and people who toss them around are Traitors. And never once in their minds to they even notice the glaring contradiction, because never once did they ever care in the slightest about the facts themselves."

and now Hunter:

"In general, liberals value journalism, or facts, and conservatives value punditry, or opinions. Far-right conservatives are indeed obsessed with the press, because they see the reporting of facts as being inherently "liberal".
[snip]
Take this further, and you will see the very nature of the elitist beast that plagues conservatives and threatens to steal their children in the night. Scientists are liberal; the education system in this country is liberal; government agencies are liberal; journalism is liberal; historians are liberal; lawyers are liberal; the medical community is liberal, etc. Everywhere, in every profession that requires a broad span of actual real-world knowledge, the bogeyman of liberalism exists. Is it because those professions are truly liberal, or is it because knowledge itself is considered, by the right, liberal?

I could easily make the argument that science, journalism, and every reputable university campus in this nation is liberal, and is explicitly self-selectingly liberal at that. I could argue that intelligence, itself, is linked to liberalism, if I wanted to be a snot about it -- there is evidence to back the claim. But I could certainly, and without much argument, argue that universities and other institutions of learning may trend "liberal", and their resulting adherents seen as "liberal", simply because liberalism is a natural state of seeking progress and the basic advancement of known facts about the world.
[snip]
Where the right sees liberalism on all sides, the rest of us merely see facts.
[snip]
To put it bluntly, the Right values brilliant liars far more than pedestrian facts. It's a movement that, from science to religion to journalism to government, is "faith based" to the point of proudly dismissing any inconvenient realities around them."

im not sure that ive captured the essence of their arguments - but they both make great arguments.

it would be interesting to see how some intellectually honest wingnut (if they exist) would respond to that argument.

in that context, you might remember that i posted an email exchange with a guy called Bob@PatriotsVoice.Org a while back - a complete nutjob who emailed me for one reason or other - and i tried to have a 'conversation' with him (mostly snark that heis apparently impervious to)

i emailed him the other day - here is the exchange:
me

" hi bob - havent spoken to you for a while. hope you are well.
these are heady times - im not sure what to make of fitzgerald and his latest claims - what do you think?"

looking at my server logs - i think he went to wotisitgood4 again, and then over to Operation Milestone Millstone - and then he replied to my email:

"Subject: Your Fucked Mind
In my opinion you are nuts. It is none of your damned business what our volunteer professional soldiers are doing in Iraq. It is their lives you are pissing all over. They are giving their lives for something THEY believe in, while you shit on their graves. Fuck off. You want my opinion, that is it.
Wake up and get some intelligence, morals and ethics, if possible. If you want to change your stupid ways and thoughts I will try to help you. Other than that forget you know me."

touchy, no? nothing like reaching out to the other side and all that.

i couldnt resist - i replied:

wow bob.

im not quite sure to make of all that.

im not pissing anywhere - i sure as hell wish your soldiers werent dying.

im not sure what the comment is about my ethics and intelligence.

i wish the war would end - so if thats bad ethics, then sure...

he replied:

"We are in a war to protect your butt, and to protect Australia which I assume you give a damn about. Freedom isn't free. It has to be paid for in blood. You seem an air head that can play intellectual games with people's lives.

Our soldiers are every one volunteers and professional. And no one has any
right to mess with them. They don't want your blessing, or your sympathies,
or your wishing they were home.

They have a job to do, and you are in the way and damaging to their morale.
That is why your morals and ethics are no good. If you want to suck up to
the commies and liberals that are enemies to both Australia and America then
suck up to them and stop trying to pretend you are doing anything else.

It is your phoniness that is most annoying. Get on one side or another and stay there.

That is what to make of all this.

If you were intelligent you wouldn't be dinging our war effort. People who talk like you in time of war were shot in times past."

i havent replied, yet - im sure he could be mined for more material. but my point is that he sure seems to be the perfect embodiment of wingnuttia that i really wish was actually just a caricature - and he sure seems to support the argument that driftglass and hunter lay out. i hate to extrapolate from a single data-point, but thats all ive got.

to paraphrase, 'freedom has to be paid in blood and therefore its great that america invaded iraq' - he isnt even arguing for the freedom of iraqis here, mind you - and there's no acknowledgement that invading iraq makes us all less 'free', and that lots of people were killed in the interim, and that the invasion and occupation makes us all more vulnerable. i could go on - but its just shooting fish in a barrel. the point is that drifty and hunter seem to be accurate in these recent posts (to be sure, these posts dont cover any new ground) - redvoters are simply fucking crazy - and logic doesnt matter.

the good news is that redvoters seem to be dropping like flies - they arent constitutionally crazed at the core. as ive suggested repeatedly, as they wake up they dont switch from rabid Blinky supporters to tepid Blinky supporters - there is no middle. once the rabid redfolk see the light, we can only hope (and evidence seems to suggest) they demonstrate the traits of ex-smokers.