…the discussion about it violated Godwin’s law.
But you know what? This isn’t an analogy. This is a direct comparison.
Let’s look at a quote here:
“If you can think of [these people], think of them as termites eating away at the foundations of your home each and every day. See, that’s what they do every day. See, we can’t afford to let them keep doing that. We can’t just go home and forget about and pick up the torch three days from now or four days from now. We have to be involved each and every day if we’re going to stop all that.”
Now look at this quote:
“[these people] in every century, in every people, was and remained a foreign body, a destroyer of real and ideal values, a denier of any upward progress, a plague for body and soul. [They] sneak in through deceit and treachery, trickery and slyness, murder and assault, understanding how to establish [themselves].”
The first is Michael Reagan – the adopted son of the treasonous, terrorist-appeasing, Iranian arms-for-hostages trader Ronald Reagan (yes, that Reagan, the 40th President of the USA) – discussing “Liberals” on Jan 31 of 2012.
The second is Hermann Esser describing the Jewish Problem in an essay written in 1939.
(With thanks to Crooks and Liars)
Enough is enough. Where are the sane conservatives? Hmm? These assholes have an entire television network, numerous radio networks across the USA, and spew their bile 24/7 on the national airwaves. My tax money goes to pay for the infrastructure that these people use to call for my extermination.
Now, I’m pretty accustomed to that. Being an atheist, I’ve gotten used to being reviled and told I should be exterminated already. Jerry Falwell, Billy Graham, Rick Warren, even Pat Robertson had a pretty vile attitude towards atheists. That didn’t bother me so much, because those guys were all dumb shits and too busy self-aggrandizing and playing with their fairy in the sky to actually get anything done. Their followers were low-IQ simpletons who weren’t capable of organizing themselves into a cohesive force.
But this is different. This is something else.
This time it’s because I am a liberal. No bones about it. I choose the side that morality points to and that math dictates. This generally results in a liberal frame of mind – do good by people and do good by as many as you can. And this time, these folks are organized. They have national media, they have hatred, and they have a “cause.”
And these people are building up to an extermination campaign.
Think that’s too strong? Oh yeah, could never happen, pooh pooh, too many safeguards against that, you say.
It’s been one year since a crazy conservative walked into a political rally and shot 19 people, killing six.
It’s been three months since four men were arrested prior to their bombing a set of Federal buildings inspired by the book Absolved.
Six months since Anders Brevik killed 85 children after penning a 1,500 page Christian Conservative manifesto.
It’s been a year since a right-wing terrorist in Spokane attempted to bomb a MLK-day parade.
It’s been eighteen months since Byron Williams had a long shootout in Oakland after opening fire on a policeman while en route to perform a massacre at the Tides Foundation, whom he considered a bed of liberals.
It’s been nineteen months since Mark Krause was arrested for an attempt to bomb a Democratic senate primary runoff polling station.
It has been twenty since the father-son “sovereign citizen” team of Jerry and Joe Kane killed two police officers and wounded two others before being killed themselves.
It’s been about four years since David Adkisson first caught my attention on this topic with his attempted massacre of a Unitarian congregation in 2008.
There are dozens of other cases that have occurred in just the last few years. More if you go back further. Do I need to remind anyone that Timothy McVeigh was a right-wing militiaman?
It’s well past time we stopped pretending “conservatism” is some sort of healthy ideology. It is a terrorist ideology. It is a fascist ideology. It is an eliminationist ideology. It is not driven by fact, but by rage, anger, and hatred.
And it must be stopped.
Funny thing is that it wasn’t always this way. I have considered myself a conservative in the past, because I fell for the bullshit line that conservatism was about common sense. It isn’t. In fact, I remember to this day the exact moment when I realized that conservatism was off its nut. I was listening to Rush Limbaugh in my car in 1996 on the way to work, and I heard the five words that made me realize just how totally vacuous the movement was:
“Scientists, what do they know?”
Since then, things have grown worse – much, much worse. Murderously worse. What began as simplistic stupidity has metastasized into an industry of hate, a machine of propaganda, and a merchant of terror.
Do you, dear reader, consider yourself a conservative? Do you watch Fox News (the company that stands proud of its right to lie to you in the guise of news)? Do you regularly read Drudge?
Why do you? What do you gain? Are you truly that full of hate?
And more importantly, why should anyone consider you a safe member of society?
Anyone with a shred of human decency would be speaking out against this stuff. Would be divorcing themselves from these hateful organizations. Would heap shame and scorn on anyone remaining a follower of that disgusting ideology.
Would be phoning up every radio and TV station in reach to point out that their hatred won’t be tolerated any longer. Would be begging their elected representatives to reinstate the Fairness in Broadcasting regulations.
The right wing has become a monster, and unless we stand up and start making public examples out of its followers, they will only become more deluded, violent, and ultimately destructive of us and our country.
You can start. Today.
UPDATE:
The Southern Poverty Law Center has a good article on the topic as well.
Another good run-down on the topic. (h/t Buck)