Sunday, March 13, 2011

Nostalgic for a past that never existed

Conservatives used to wax nostalgic for the1950s, a quiet, industrious society in which women knew their place and black people were invisible or didn't last long if they didn't say their best Jim Crow yassuh.  But at least those reactionary conservatives could remember what they wanted to return to.

At least, that fantasy golden age was real.  Not that golden in many ways, but it did exist, and the conservatives of the time following could remember it.

Today's teabaggers pine for a time and a country that never existed.  Michele Bachmann's dislocation of the birthplace of the American Revolution is the least of it.  She just shows herself to be ignorant, and isn't that part of her attraction for the teabag reactionaries?  For her idiocrat ilk to own the Revolution, she needs to move it from undeserving blue Massachusetts to (formerly) red New Hampshire. VoilĂ .

This wasn't just a slip of the Bachmann's shrill and blistering tongue.  She said it more than once.  It was part of her prepared remarks even if it never reached her teleprompter or her paper text. 

Wingnut commenters everywhere defend Bachmann by claiming equivalence with Barack Obama's 57 state slip.  Since they obviously reason poorly, it's not surprising that they would falsely equate a slip of the tongue with persistent ignorance.  They themselves are too ignorant to tell the difference.

Teapublicans pine for a world of their own devising.  They create memories out of their dreams and claim for them truth.

  • The Founders were conservatives.
  • America is a Christian nation.
  • The Constitution frames a federal government only slightly stronger than the Articles of Confederation did.  (What's the Articles of Confederation, 'twingers ask...)
  • The Founders worked to abolish slavery (another Bachmann special).
  • Most slaves lived happily in bondage.
  • The Civil War was a war of northern aggression.
  • The Robber Barons were nice men who employed millions and should have been praised, not prosecuted.
  • The League of Nations was a terrible idea.  Actually, they've never even heard of the League of Nations.
  • The Great Depression was caused by lazy, no-account spongers.  No wait, that's the Great Recession.
  • Anyway, nothing FDR did (other than getting us into WWII) helped the economy.
  • Vietnam was a righteous war.
  • The 1960s were a horrible time in which everything worsened.
  • Richard Nixon was framed.
  • Ronald Reagan never raised taxes.
  • Star Wars can work.
  • Who needs the State Department?  We've got DoD.
  • Social Security is demographically doomed (even though one of Reagan's tax increases solved the problem in advance!).
  • The Iraq war was righteous.  Is righteous.  After all, they attacked us on 9/11 and they had WMD.
  • It's o.k. to turn any Islamic country into a glass parking lot if they say something we don't like.  Collateral damage to the innocent?  Deal with it bitches.  The U.S. is exceptional.
  • Torture is good when we do it, an act of war when they do it.
  • Due process is for babies, and we don't need no stinking habeas corpus.
  • Obamacare is free (and socialist).
  • Despite consistent and incredible successes, environmental law is destroying the economy.
  • Science is a conspiracy to turn the world oppressive and socialist.
  • White people, especially men, are massively discriminated against in our society.
  • Sharia is coming.
  • No other country has anything to teach us, now or ever.
  • The free market can exist and it can solve every problem of resource allocation perfectly.
  • Rich people deserve ... everything.
The Teahadists long for a world in which they can believe all these absurdities (and more) without elitist liberals pointing out their errors.  Never mind that they've worked over the media so that their most ridiculous claims get treated equally to actual facts.  They are looking for a world in which we have to hear their bullshit but in which our counters to it infringe their free speech rights.

They're ahistorical morons.  And they're winning.

No comments: