The No True Scotsman Fallacy is on display this week in the American right, as they seize up in a burst of rage against the DHS report saying that returning Iraq veterans could be recruited into white supremacist organizations with a dangerous agenda. You can read more about the report here.
Anyway, the right wing bubble is beginning to come to terms with the fact that even after decades of slavish worship of all things military, the actual enlisted personnel and officers that make up the military don't resemble their bizarre views. On one hand, you've got the fact that the military itself and its employees in particular stick up for all sorts of liberal things. The Secretary of Defense supports cuts to expensive military programs. Many soldiers aren't even white Christian men. Some of them run for office on such outrageous platforms as national health care and ending the war in Iraq. And I've heard that a majority of soldiers (PDF) don't care or support gays and lesbians being allowed to serve openly.
So that's one side of the problem. But alongside the liberals, a large number of American soldiers believe hateful things, and are linked to the white supremacist movement. Why is it a large number? Well, there are over 2 million active or reserve troops in the Armed Forces. Even if we're talking 0.1%, we're talking about 2000 people. It's a big organization and there are going to be a large number of people involved who believe and do all sorts of things, good or bad. But in any case, there is specific and clear evidence of this. It's an old story, now, but when there's Aryan Nations graffiti in Baghdad, you can bet it didn't come from the Kurds. (Though the Iran gets its name from Aryan, but few citizens in the Islamic Republic, you know, cast their lot in with the Christian Identity Movement)
In any case, the wingnuts are pushed back against a wall because their beloved organization, the United State Military, turns out to be this big heterogenous group of people that can run against them from the left and commit horrible acts from the right (Timothy McVeigh, of course, being a prime example of a right-wing terrorist with military experience.) So what's the solution? It's the No True Scotsman fallacy. Here's the example from Wikipedia:
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Imagine Hamish McDonald, a Scotsman, sitting down with his Glasgow Morning Herald and seeing an article about how the "Brighton Sex Maniac Strikes Again." Hamish is shocked and declares that "No Scotsman would do such a thing." The next day he sits down to read his Glasgow Morning Herald again and this time finds an article about an Aberdeen man whose brutal actions make the Brighton sex maniac seem almost gentlemanly. This fact shows that Hamish was wrong in his opinion but is he going to admit this? Not likely. This time he says, "No true Scotsman would do such a thing."
This one's easy to do, and fun too: you just assert that any liberal war veteran isn't a TRUE veteran. And of course, the right-wing terrorist types aren't true veterans either! And with those simple steps, the GOP/wingnut fringe no longer needs to keep its bloviatings on the military linked to reality.
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