Monday, September 14, 2009

What are the crazies thinking?

"While liberal scribes earnestly prattle on about the necessity for good policy in the face of global warming and peak oil and blah-blah-blah, the authors of the right have long since abandoned this outdated "reality-based" model. The reader's heart is captured, after all, not by an adherence to the murky truths of the known world, but by the ecstatic possibilities of the imagined." Steve Almond in Salon.com September 12, 2009, in an article entitled Glenn Beck is the future of literary fiction.

This article summarized a few right wing based best sellers, listed rather inaccurately as 'non-fiction', which purport to warn us about our current dangerous political direction. Their hysteria based claims, it may be feared, could convince some like minded nuts of their claims. Yet I found it somewhat comforting that these fiction based rantings were so obviously - well, fictional. Such thinking, I thought, is not dissimilar to an expose' of an animal hoarder who in the midst of dozens of untamed and unkempt animals running wild and terrified through a feces and garbage filed home insists that the animals are loved and well cared for.

The Lord said, "The poor you shall have always with you." It appears that we can also say with similar certainty, "The crazies you shall have always with you." Just watch closely for those who are armed and do not try to reason with them. Best, I think, to simply nod sympathetically and walk quietly away.

3 comments:

  1. Why is it that a person who disagrees with your opinion is called a crazy?
    I happen to like to hear both sides of the argument, and I know that the left and right will have their most extreme point of view shouted the loudest. Have you listened to the left radio goofballs? They are just as loud and just as "crazy". You isolate people when you say that they are dumb or crazy if they do not agree with you.
    This is how wars are started. So often people will say that the other point of view is mean or evil, while they themselves are spewing hate.
    Are you sure that there are not some arguments made by your oposition that make sense?
    If you say no to that then I challenge your integrity.
    There are some evil people out there, but the truth is that there are more that are just wrong. So when you make your oponent out to be evil you really reflect badly on yourself.

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  2. Sorry, David, you truly misunderstand. I can have reasoned and interesting discussions with people who disagree with me, but I will not and cannot discuss anything with people who lie - which, unfortunately, the Republican party has decided is their best strategy. I have always respected true conservatives, such as George Will, William F. Buckley, Barry Goldwater and others. Too many so called conservatives today are not, unfortunately, making honest policy arguments based on facts and interpretations of facts. There are risks in both liberal and conservative policies, but risks defined by misrepresentations are not legitimate risks and discussion with these folks is a waste of time - and I consider the folks who keep repeating proven and substantiated untruths in support of their far right agendas to be crazies.

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  3. I agree whole heartedly. I am appalled at the lack of integrity on both sides. I love to debate ideas but refuse to engage in the hate filled dialogue that seems to permeate the web these days.
    Maybe some day we will have true statesmen in office, but probably not until we have term limits.
    Nice chatting with you.

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