It is no secret to anyone not on the extreme right in this country that they are waging a war in this country on anyone who does not meet their extreme beliefs.
I originally posted this blog on the online blog from one of my hometown papers. Just a little background, this paper serves roughly 10,000 people in Southwest Nebraska. I knew that the vast majority of those that would read my blog would fit into this category. I also knew that they would take several if not most of the tactics I mentioned in the blog in attempting to tear me down.
They did not let me down. The interesting point here is that I have challenged every one of them to prove me wrong. They have yet to do it, one poster in particular continues to demand that I prove myself (though the obvious point was made that the posters were making the points for me). It has been a fun week since I put up that blog. Now I bring it to the friendly masses of DailyKos. Enjoy.
There is currently a war on America unfolding before our eyes and it is a lot closer than we want to pretend to know. This war on America though has been going on a lot longer than 2001. No, this war began, in earnest, in the 1980s when the right decided it was okay to question the patriotism of anyone that did not agree or kow-tow to their absolute way of thinking.
It was slow to start at first, after all they were still waging the "Cold War" with the Soviet Union. Then, when the Soviet Union collapsed due to several republics (including the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, which included Moscow) decided to opt out of the compact that held the Soviet Union together, the right had to find a new enemy (of course do not tell anyone on the right what actually happened, they still believe that Ronald Reagan single handedly destroyed the Soviet Union).
There were several countries out there (even some communist ones) that the right could have chosen from. Inexplicably they turned their sights inward and began a war on their fellow Americans. The drumbeats for war were getting louder and louder as the 90s drew on, and then the right fired it's first shot when they impeached Bill Clinton. Even though it was highly unpopular (Clinton's popularity grew during the impeachment while the Republican's popularity plummeted) and they did not have the votes to actually convict they soldiered on putting America on the back-burner while they went after a sitting president.
We fast forward to the 2000 election when the right got the President they wanted (even though he actually lost the popular election) in George W. Bush. The country was now fully divided. Then, on September 11, 2001 America was attacked by al Queda and for one brief bright shining moment all of America joined together with a common enemy. The right, however, who already had a war of it's own going could not be bothered by a new war and they squandered that unifying moment in order to better vilify and repudiate anyone who did not cow-tow to what they wanted.
The right began chipping away at American's rights (mostly privacy) in the name of protection. The government listening in on your phone calls? Get over it we are protecting you. American citizens who do not look American being treated as terrorists or at least suspected terrorists? Get over it we are protecting you.
Then a mysterious thing happened. A Democratic candidate won the White House with the largest margin since the Reagan years. Was the right gracious in their loss? Of course not, they cried and yelled at a grand conspiracy of voter tampering all across the United States. Remember these are the same people that told people to shut up after the Supreme Court appointed George W. Bush president. Somehow a man being elected president despite losing the popular vote is perfectly fine, but a man wining the presidency by almost 10 million votes means that something fishy had to have happened. Lest we forget the right is the same group that is still upset that two members of the New Black Panther Party were not charged with voter intimidation because they stood outside of a mostly black polling station.
All of a sudden all those "protections" they kept telling us to ignore or get used to were now a problem. It is really ironic to listen to the same people that, throughout the 00s, told us that in order to be protected from the boogey man we had to give up some basic right now harping that they are having to give up rights just to fly on a plane.
Let us get down the brass tacks here. The right is waging a war on anyone in America they deem to not be of their mindset. They invented a war on Christmas and war on Christians though there is none. They complained loudly at people saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" as though it was a new phenomenon. It is not, people have been saying "Happy Holidays" for over fifty year.
The right loves scaring people. If they believe that by scaring someone that person will support them they will. Why do you think some of the same people on the right that have been trying to get rid of Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid since the beginning all of a sudden were trying to convince the elderly that they were trying to protect those programs during the health care debate, then turned around and immediately started trying to destroy those same programs?
The right needs people to be in a constant state of fear. This is why President Obama has been called a socialist, Nazi, communist, and totalitarian (sometimes all at the same time). People fear those words and if you can paint the President from the opposite party as even one of them you are victorious (especially if it has no basis in fact).
The right also can not stand history and will attempt to change it at every opportunity in order to paint themselves in a better light.
The right does not deal in fact, they deal in hate-mongering, personal attacks, fear mongering, flat out making crap up.
They consider poor people to be lazy and the scourge of this great country of theirs. They consider people out of work (whether by choice or not) to be lazy and welfare queens (whether or not the unemployed person is on welfare or unemployment). Can you imagine what today's right would have said about the unemployed during the Great Depression? They consider that giving to people that are less fortunate than them to be social justice and socialism. The consider anyone not an absolute devout Christian (of the protestant variety) to be sinners. The profess to love Jesus and his word but at the same time consider many of His acts to be social justice and socialism.
You will always know someone from the right by asking simple questions. The most basic question is anything about America, they will always answer with some variety of "my country" instead of "our country". They really do consider this to be their country and if the rest of us do not subscribe to their way of thinking their will be hell to pay.
They will belittle you for your thoughts all the while claiming that you are the one belittling. They will personally attack you for your beliefs and then not understand what was wrong with what they said. They will call you names and question your intelligence or sexuality. They will make fun of your weaknesses especially if they have the same weakness. They will, in a word, dehumanize you in order to win a debate. When they apologize, they are apologizing for getting caught not for what they have said or done and will issue the famous non-apology apology where they apologize that you were offended.
They believe liberalism to be a mental disease or disorder, makes you wonder what they consider moderates to be.
Above all the believe they are always right and any admission to being wrong to being a huge sign of weakness. They will, from time to time, admit to a mistake but only as long as that admission does not prove their overall point wrong, if it does they will continue arguing the wrong point ad nauseum.
Those on the right, when faced with actually having to challenge a person that doesn't agree with them but actually having nothing to challenge will (if that person is a man) will continually question that person's manhood, over and over again.
Those on the right will also demand that those that do not agree with them, when making claims, demand that the person prove their points. This, of course, comes directly after the person has challenged those on the right to prove them wrong. The point here being they can not prove the person wrong so they in turn demand that the person prove their point, so those on the right do not actually have to do anything.
They do not care about the truth, because the truth only gets in the way of what they are trying to do
They will stop at nothing to get and keep power and eventually they will turn on themselves. Power hungry people always do.
Will this lead to a War of Aggression by the Right? Highly unlikely they will likely collapse under their own weight, much like the Soviet Union did.