A Breakthrough
Since starting this blog early last month, I have been wrestling with the paramount theme that underlies the campaign for the office of the President of the United States this year: conservatism vs. liberalism. In some early posts, I looked at the definition of a conservative and then the definition of a liberal. I lurched through an examination of the recent opinion of the Supreme Court on the Second Amendment, then bounced around to other topics concerning religion, politics, and fundamentalism. After starting to read Eric Hoffer’s book, “The True Believer”, I looked at the role of the individual in this difficult conundrum where people consistently vote against their own best interests. I finally started to make some headway in understanding what the truth of the matter was when I found Robert Altemeyer’s site. Then, I found a complementary idea called Social Dominance Orientation, which is part of Social Dominance Theory. From there, I found a review of John Dean’s book, Conservatives Without a Conscience which pointed me to a wonderful series of essays by Paul Rosenberg on the relationship between conservatism and authoritarianism. There are five essays in the series:
Conservatism As Identity Politics – Intro
Conservatism As Identity Politics – Part 2
Right Wing Authoritarianism and Conservative Identity Politics
Social Dominance Orientation and Conservative Identity Politics
How Racism Changes Form – Conservatism As Identity Politics
I had said to friends some time ago that President Bush and his neo-conservative associates were not conservatives; that I didn’t know what they were, but they weren’t what I thought of when I thought of conservatives. Now, armed with the research and studying that I have done, I can see what they are: Authoritarians. The campaign of John McCain and Sarah Palin, seeking to continue the failed policies of the last twenty-eight years, has driven me to understand, finally, what is going on in my country. I am no longer ashamed to state, with firm conviction, that I am a liberal. I’m proud to be a liberal and there are plenty of Christians and Republicans who are also proud liberals. The authoritarian right has invaded and infected the Republican party and is engaged in a vicious campaign to undermine the foundations of this once great country. They have promoted hatred, division, selfishness, racism, sexism, intolerance, mean-spiritedness, anti-intellectualism, dogmatism, bigotry and a host of other evil personality traits that are anathema to the founding principles of this country. The Rush Limbaughs and Sean Hannitys of the world have sullied the word “liberal” in a classic smear campaign (see the Laird Wilcox site and this post). It is time for all of us, liberals and conservatives, Democrats, Libertarians, Republicans, Progressives, and every other stripe of liberal, to take back our country from those who want to take us back to the world that existed before the age of Feudalism. It is as simple as that.
Labels are for products not people. I want to know what a person thinks, what they believe is important, what they are willing to do to fix what needs fixing, and throw out what needs throwing out. Quite frankly, I am disgusted with the whole damn mess.
Who do we think we are? Our leaders parade around like peacocks “spreading” Democracy, when we don’t even have it ourselves, and never have! This country is a Democratic Republic.
It has always been racist, it has always educated according to what the powers that be wanted us to learn, we have always supported “violence”: in our sports, our entertainment, our PC/Xbox/???games, our men, our boys, even our girls, and of course in war, now even pre-emptive war! What the heck is that????
Oh, and lest we not forget, this whole nuclear, (NOT NUCULAR GEORGE!), threat out there in the world, hey guys, it’s US!
Yeah, the rest of the world wants nukes because the most powerful country in the world, (we think) has ’em and, oh yeah, we use ’em too! That’s right, don’t mess with us, we did it twice, we can do it again!!!
How about we get rid of OUR nukes and see how much things calm down? I mean come on, you’re a third world country, Dumbya is President, he’s having his own little war party killing off our people, their people, anyone who gets in the way, and he’s crazy, and he’s got the red button and he’s not afraid to use it! Yeah, I’d be tempted to nuke up if there was a way to just get the Dumbya’s of the world.
We need to forget everything that has gone before and sit down and say, “This isn’t working, how can we fix it, and where do we start?” Is there a political system in this country that is not corrupt? Can there be a political system that is not corrupt?
There is no longer any room for them and us. It is we! Throughout the World it is WE!
Do you know what I most admire about Barrack Obama? It’s a very small thing really, in the scheme of things, except to John McCain, it makes him furious! The thing that makes him a whole new kind of politician is he will sit down to talk with an “Evil World Leader” with no preconditions! My God, what a concept. Let’s see, we got problems, we need to work them out, so do we just sit down and try to work it out, or what? No, no, no, no! First you have to do this and this and this, or we will embargo your ass, cut off supply routes, ad nauseum! Yeah! That’s the way to problem solve! As my oldest son would say, “Well, DUH!, Ma!”
A man who thinks differently and doesn’t have the experience of a McCain or just about anybody else, is exactly what we need. Someone with a mind of his own and a habit of communicating.
Uh oh, this could work! Careful now, we might just all get along someday and then what would happen to the power people, they would have to do the right thing! Sounds good to me!
Whoa, was I on a rant or what! SBT
One Planet! One People! One Peace!
You go, girl!!!
I’d like to clarify an issue that could be brought up by this series of posts. I dislike the word “fundamentalist” because it has a lot of negative connotations. I prefer the word “authoritarian” and I would like to add that authoritarians can be found from one end of the spectrum to the other. Yes, that means that there are left authoritarians and right authoritarians. We all have a tendency towards authoritarianism but when we have authoritarians at the helm, as we do now, and they are actively promoting their agenda and encouraging their believers to climb aboard, again, as they are now doing, those actions imperil the foundations of this country.
Neo-conservative is a label and I dislike labels. SDO and RWA, theories that I have referred to about the authoritarian personality, have been used for a number of years, with good predictive results, by a large number of psychologists. They would predict, with accuracy, that neo-conservatives are, indeed authoritarians, but so are religious extremists, of any belief system. I’m interested in the authoritarian personality and its’ impact on democracy, not in labels and political parties.
I’ve long bemoaned how the labels “liberal”, “progressive” and now even “elite” are so maligned. And yes, these Neocons are not true conservatives…Authoritarians is indeed a good description.
Many thoughtful Republicans are speaking out against the erosion of their party by what David Brooks calls a cancer on the party. Others are cringing at what they see as socialism with the bailing out of the banks.
We used to call them Fundamentalists. Authoritarians is a good word too. Neocons. A New con.