It’s quite fascinating how the American political right has in so many ways become the party of limited rights.

I don’t believe in abortion so YOU can’t have one.
These people can get married, but these cannot.
These people have the right to habeas and due process, these do not.

Couple this penchant for limiting individual freedom with an increasingly authoritarian worldview and you begin to get something unrecognizable to Americans of my generation.

It was always an article of faith that a decline of American-style democratic values would have to come from within, but I continue to be appalled at how blatant they are about it, and how much support they actually receive…

mikey

This isn’t so much about opposing rights as it is about the joy of violence. The defining factor in a killing like this is the killer’s desire to kill–the search for a justification to enact his lust is likely what led him to his politics, not vice-versa. He could just as easily have joined the Army and become one of those guys you really don’t want in your squad, the one who runs down puppies and eventually progresses to ear collecting. The Right is the only political home for monsters in Kansas today, but that’s an historical-geographical anomaly. 20 years earlier and 1000 miles west could have put the killer on an anti-whaling ship, for all we know.
What we do know is that America’s conservatives will never regain their capacity for reason if we drive them to identify with and cleave unto their monsters. The persuasive line needs to be “look what horror this madman has inflicted on your identity”, not “your identity has become monstrous”.

Since I wasn’t actually commenting upon the murderous act but rather the prevailing ideology of the American political right, I don’t really have a lot to say about your comment. I don’t think that crimes, be they bribe taking, perjury or murder, tend to have a powerful ideological component. If I was going to hazard a guess, I would think that this killer’s motivation was substantially more theological than political, although any speculation is just as likely to be wrong as any other.

My point went to the larger political ideology of the American right today, and how anomalous it is to find an erstwhile mainstream American political party embracing, as an overarching part of it’s platform, a set of policies explicitly structured around the premise that in many areas Americans have TOO MANY rights, and those rights and liberties need to be curtailed, either for all or for an identifiable subset of the population.

Has there ever been a successful American political movement built around a decrease in freedom and the institution of a more interventionist, authoritarian government? These policies, from limitations on the first and fourth amendments to attacks on the separation of church and state and all points in between, seem to come from a distinctly different place than the America I grew up in. I find this blatant attack on what I have always understood to be uniquely American values to be appalling, and disheartening in the extreme. And I can’t decide if I should be proud and pleased that so many Americans have rejected this base dismantling of individual liberties, or if I should be soul-sickened by the number of my fellows embracing it…

mikey

What we do know is that America’s conservatives will never regain their capacity for reason if we drive them to identify with and cleave unto their monsters.

Except that is what they want to do. The ones that are left at any rate.

I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying. If you mean to say that all people in America still identifying as conservatives or Republicans or Rightists or whatnot are irredeemable and/or monsters themselves then I must vehemently disagree. The gap between the small Palin for President group and the encompassing McCain for President group is enormous, and in that gap are a lot of persuadable people who we can quite easily chase into the arms of madness. I honestly don’t want any more moderate Democrats, but as long as the Republicans need to defend the rights of domestic terrorists in order to remain politically relevant we don’t have the luxury of smacking the moderates around.
But what, honestly, do you base your assertion on? Because, properly funded, it doesn’t really take a huge proportion of a population to start an insurgency, and while I can tell you anecdotally that it’s not just conservatives stockpiling ammo, there’s sure a hell of a lot of ammo stockpiling going on right now in this country. If you’ve got evidence that 45%(or even half of that) of this nation is irrevocably wedded to a vision of blood and fire I need to know right fucking now I am not in a good geography for that.

Frankly, I’m not sure where “ammo stockpiling” has any bearing on a political disagreement. If conservatives can offer a case for better governance, so be it. But the previous administration was not the poster child for good governance OR good decision making. And so the other party is in power. That’s as should be.

But the question arises in the brutal, authoritarian, anti-civil liberties wing of the republican party that currently is formulating what amounts to policy for their platform, what political advantage do they seek, or are they merely appealing to those of you who “stockpile ammunition” and hope to overturn the people’s will by force of arms? Because I suspect, tragic thought that might be, the outcome will not be what you so fervently hope it might be…

mikey

I should have been more clear. I am talking about the BillO, Boss Limbaugh(and Sean Hannity .. Glenn Beck … and on) listeners/viewers. They can’t be reasoned with. Those are the ones that are out buying guns like there is no tomorrow .. or calling Obama Socialist .. and all the rest