Oh, boo hoo sob sob.

[fpb]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/30/rules-for-conservative-radicals/
Apparently "conservative blogs" are getting too many visits from opposing trolls and feel under pressure.
Well, boo hoo poor you.
Point one: you have delete and ban buttons? Use them. Point two, and rather more important: if you go public with a viewpoint that you know others will dislike, don't be surprised when they do. In other words, seek the battle, don't complain of the wounds.

Comments

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

I think the article descended into actual self-parody right around here:

The answer is obvious. The right, for the most part, embraces basic Judeo-Christian ideals and would not promote nor defend the propaganda techniques that were perfected in godless communist and socialist regimes...

I can't help but think of the propaganda and outright lies which are currently circulating among conservatives regarding Obama's ineligibility for office.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I think that is a pathology, and as such, a bit beyond mere foolishness. David Horowitz, who is certainly no conservative, spoke of "Obama derangement syndrome", and I think he has it right. These people want to believe that Obama literally does not belong in their world, and so their psychotic imaginations fasten upon his birth. He is not an American - get it? A pathology whose power to disguise reality is particularly potent in a nation of immigrants.

[blue-sky-day.livejournal.com]

David Horowitz, who is certainly no conservative

Well, he certainly considers himself to be such. Was this deliberate or a typo on your part?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

It was a typo. I meant no Obama-ite.

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

Speaking as someone who's been quite close to the phenomenon because someone close to me has been caught up in it (among other things, sending me regular emails about it until I finally asked them to stop...), it isn't just that (although there are some people for whom it is clearly the case). Knowing this person fairly well, I wouldn't say that they are quite so concerned with whether Obama is a "real American" per se, so much as whether Obama might have lied about being eligible for the office of President.

I think this has a great deal to do with a conservative echo chamber which is increasingly cutting itself off from the outside world. I can show this person, for instance, a copy of Obama's birth announcement from the local Hawaii paper, only for it to be disregarded because it so radically disagrees with what all this person's other trusted sources are saying. They're too polite to say anything, but as far as I can tell they seem to believe that I've been tricked by "liberals" posting forgeries and don't really listen to me anymore. Past a certain point this sort of thing becomes self-perpetuating.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Well, I would say that the "conservative echo chamber" you describe (and with which I am agonizingly familiar - witness for instance their utter unwillingness to let the facts get in the way of their notions about "socialized medicine") is just the collective version of the individual pathology I describe. There are collective as well as individual pathologies of the mind, after all.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

BTW, I'm reading Paul Krugman's _Conscience of a Liberal_, and he says that when Truman tried instituting single-payer national health care, the opposition was partly from the AMA (old news to me, though not to my friends) (American Medical Association, the doctor's guild) but also in large part from Southern politicians -- afraid that such a system would mean having to desegregate their hospitals. It's not the South of the time was entirely opposed to egalitarian measures -- being desperately poor, they weren't, and supported parts of the New Deal, and the 2005 movement to privatize Social Security supposedly ran into Southern opposition -- but it had its limits.

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

Speaking personally, I'm not really keen on single-payer, versus having the state provide coverage while still allowing people the option of private insurance.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Canada's system reportedly interferes with private alternatives; I'm not sure that's true of Australia's Medicare, or what Truman proposed; certainly isn't true of our current Medicare. I think of single-payer as meaning a national insurance with tax funding instead of premiums, but most "socialized medicine" countries allow private alternatives or supplemental insurance.

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

I guess I'd misunderstood the term; thanks.

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

One bit of nice news: I just received an email from the person in question -- they say they see my point. Not that they entirely agree with me (which is fine), but they seem to be developing a more healthy and balanced variety of skepticism, which is the main thing I would hope for.