Fantasyland

[Rohirrim]

Great article by Frank Rich in New York magazine captures the Wonderland inhabited by America's Right Wing. What amazes me is that they don't see it. They've learned absolutely nothing from this election. Like most fundamentalists, when challenged by reality they simply double-down on their faith based lunacy. As the writer points out, the Right leads this ominous new movement of "intellectual nihilism," selling to the American people that there is no such thing as facts, or science, or truth, and if such things do exist, they are at minimum, suspicious, and at worst, meaningless.

Fact checking doesn't matter. The truth doesn't matter. Remember Bush and Cheney's absolute disdain for truth? Now it's been encoded into the Right's basic operating principles. Romney had no compunction about telling out and out lies that were easily, and often, disproved as soon as he uttered them. I hate to bring up the Nazis, it's so cliched, but hey, does anybody see a correlation here? Walter Sobchak was wrong when he said, "No, Donny, these men are nihilists, there's nothing to be afraid of." There is something to be afraid of. How do you govern when almost half of the electorate disdains reality?

Noonan’s revealing summation of her thought process was this: “Is it possible this whole thing is playing out before our eyes and we’re not really noticing because we’re too busy looking at data on paper instead of what’s in front of us? Maybe that’s the real distortion of the polls this year: They left us discounting the world around us.” Thus is the post-fact worldview of today’s GOP boiled down to its essence. It assumes that any “data on paper” must be distorted, and yet doesn’t look at what is in front of its very own eyes either. Otherwise, Noonan might have wondered if the neighborhood in Florida with Romney signs, not Obama ones, was not representative of either Florida or the country but was instead a white enclave. Otherwise, Noonan’s fellow conservative honchos might not have taken until November 6, 2012, to recognize that you can’t alienate every minority group in the country (blacks, Latinos, Asian-Americans, gays)—not to mention the majority group, women—and hope to win a national election. It’s not as if these rapidly changing demographics have been classified information. Bill O’Reilly’s astonished Election Night revelation that “the white Establishment is now the minority” was almost pathetic in its tardiness. Next to him, Rove, and Noonan, even Pat Buchanan was ahead of the curve.

The rude jolt administered by the election does not mean that the GOP will now depart from its faith-based view of reality—though it will surely heed Laura Ingraham’s post-election call for changing “the language of dealing with Latinos.” (Presumably Marco Rubio—¡se habla español!—will lead the karaoke.) No sooner did Obama win reelection than Charles Krauthammer laid down the new party line for denying reality, asserting that the president had “no mandate” despite his large victory in the Electoral College and his clear-cut margin in the popular vote (a victory not achieved by modern presidents as varied as JFK in 1960 and George W. Bush in 2000). Two days after the election, Rove was already blaming the defeat in part on “the anonymous New York Times headline writer” who supposedly twisted Romney’s suicidal stand on the auto-industry bailout and the “hotel employee with a cell-phone camera” who had the gall to capture Romney’s candid take on the “47 percent.”
http://nymag.com/news/frank-rich/gop-denial-2012-11/

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Does anyone really believe these people are going to suddenly and magically change who they are between now and 2016?

I just can't see it.

[Rohirrim]

Originally Posted by L.A. BRONCOS FAN

Does anyone really believe these people are going to suddenly and magically change who they are between now and 2016?

I just can't see it.

Hell, they've already gotten out the mortar and blocks and are hard at work building back up their fantasy wall.

[Odysseus]

Originally Posted by L.A. BRONCOS FAN

Does anyone really believe these people are going to suddenly and magically change who they are between now and 2016?

I just can't see it.

It would require a rare type of honesty that is unheard of in politics.

[houghtam]

Originally Posted by Odysseus

It would require a rare type of honesty that is unheard of in politics.

Not to beat a dead horse, but...this is yet another reason religion needs to stay out of politics.

Religion doesn't rely on facts, it relies on faith. If your own life is governed by a world view that your view is the only view that can ever be right, and that world view is based on something that is impossible to verify, it stands to reason (there's that pesky word again) that not only you will reject anything that goes against your world view, but that you will view indisputable facts with skepticism at the very least, but more than likely with hostility.

This is why we saw people put to death for having the gall to suggest that the earth was flat and not the center of the universe. This is why people bomb abortion clinics because someone who may lose their life as a result of a pregnancy has the nerve to make the difficult decision of ridding themselves of a collection of cells that one day has the potential to become a child, but at the cost of her own life. This is why women get stoned to death for having the audacity to educate themselves about the world around them. This is why people suggest that someone be "re-educated" when they give in to that shameful vice of lust and fall in lust with someone of their same gender. Or is it love?

It is why when people hear "Latino" they think "Illegal". It is why when people hear "woman" they think "vagina". It is why when people hear "gay" they think "fag".

It is also why when people hear China, or Russia, or the Middle East, or Korea, or Europe, or Mexico, or ****ing Canada, they think "enemy".

My view is right. There can be no other. It isn't even "if you aren't with me, you're against me", it's "if you aren't me, you're against me".

Unfortunately, at least for our lifetimes, we are resigned to the ignorance, stupidity and downright evil that religion has wrought upon the human race since the beginning of time. But things are looking up. Religious participation is down in the United States. Religious identification is down in the United States. And we are a free society with a government that, at its core, is conducive to secularism. It is my hope, and my feeling that my children, or at the very least their children, will benefit from a truly secular society in their lifetimes. Any work I do in the meantime to further the goals of the secular movement in the US, I will consider my gift to my descendants. It may not be a gift such as those who have fought in the defense of our country over the generations, but the result will hopefully be the same: true freedom.

[sisterhellfyre]

Houghtam, all I can say is "wow." Your post is dead-on accurate, and I agree with every word (aside from not having kids of my own). Thanks!

[Arkie]

It's a myth that people believed the Earth was flat, so I doubt anybody was put to death for suggesting it's round.

[houghtam]

Originally Posted by Arkie

It's a myth that people believed the Earth was flat, so I doubt anybody was put to death for suggesting it's round.

And that makes the point less valid how?

[Arkie]

Originally Posted by houghtam

And that makes the point less valid how?

It's just a common misconception that people thought the Earth was flat. I agree with most of what you said. I definitively believe in separation of church and state.

[Jetmeck]

Unfortunately we didn't have a 75/25% election. It is going to take a WWF style beat down for these clowns to even CONSIDER their beliefs are wrong.

We won convincingly but it wasn't enough to convince the right that they need to rethink their beliefs on women, religion and helping mainly the rich.