Marble Composition

That's Some Malady You Got There

From Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone:

...The problem not only with fundamentalist Christians but with Republicans in general is not that they act on blind faith, without thinking. The problem is that they are incorrigible doubters with an insatiable appetite for Evidence. What they get off on is not Believing, but in having their beliefs tested. That's why their conversations and their media are so completely dominated by implacable bogeymen: marrying gays, liberals, the ACLU, Sean Penn, Europeans and so on. Their faith both in God and in their political convictions is too weak to survive without an unceasing string of real and imaginary confrontations with those people -- and for those confrontations, they are constantly assembling evidence and facts to make their case.

But here's the twist. They are not looking for facts with which to defeat opponents. They are looking for facts that ensure them an ever-expanding roster of opponents. They can be correct facts, incorrect facts, irrelevant facts, it doesn't matter. The point is not to win the argument, the point is to make sure the argument never stops. Permanent war isn't a policy imposed from above; it's an emotional imperative that rises from the bottom. In a way, it actually helps if the fact is dubious or untrue (like the Swift-boat business), because that guarantees an argument. You're arguing the particulars, where you're right, while they're arguing the underlying generalities, where they are.

And from Billmon, in regard to the whole mini-kerfluffle about Comedy Central deciding not to air a cartoon image of the Prophet Mohammed on South Park:

(What is it with fanatics and cartoons lately? If one group isn't going bat shit over the ones they consider sacrilegious, the other group is going bat shit over the absence of the ones the first group considers sacrilegious.)

Porky Pig: Can't we all just get along?

This isn't just crazy, it's clinically complusive – as in wash your hands 50 times a day and ALWAYS arrange your lima beans in a straight line before you eat them compulsive. And whereas the enraged cartoon protestors of the Islamic world are moved by an ancient belief system that predates modern rationality, our fanatics are supposed to be members of an enlightened Western culture that is far above such primitive behavior – or at least, so they keep telling us.

Instead, the conservative movement – particularly its "social conservative" wing – is starting to resemble the thumbnail definition of monomania: i.e. the process of thinking more and more about less and less. [emphasis mine]

I'm almost tempted to say the movement is displaying some of the classic symptoms of autism, but that would be a grave insult to autistic people, who after all are often extremely intelligent and capable of doing amazing mathematical calculations in their heads, making it possible for them to win large sums of money at blackjack. Whereas the average conservative these days seems to have trouble understanding that 2+2 does not, in fact, equal 5.

Let's go back to Matt for a minute:

Once you grasp this fact, you're a long way to understanding what the Hannitys and Limbaughs figured out long ago: These people will swallow anything you feed them, so long as it leaves them with a demon to wrestle with in their dreams.

It sure explains quite a bit, doesn't it? I would quickly add to that list media people like Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, and Michelle Malkin. The people that swallow the messages they receive from hucksters like these even have a name these days: Authortarian Cultists. That label rightfully applies to the whiners that deliver the message as well. Thomas Frank -- in his amazing book, What's the Matter with Kansas -- has coined the term Plen-T-Plaint, referring to how these media types never stop complaining. The moniker being bandied about in Left Blogostan these days is Whiney Ass Titty Babies.

This kind of societal weirdness is a of sort I never thought would inhabit the American psyche, but there it is. It seems to go something like this: we're from the Right, and we're the only ones that know how to protect this country properly, but if you dare criticize us, we'll move all our shit into the basement and howl at the drain pipes until you stop, but that's because we're so scared, but you Lefties and Democrats certainly aren't the ones who can protect us.

Here what I'll call it: Vengeful Lunacy.

posted by FuzzFinger @ 4/18/2006 05:19:00 PM