Perusing a Freepi thread on Jill Carroll linked by Atrios, I am struck not only by their callous, unthinking brutality — you expect that, when you dip a toe into that particular sewer — but by their cowardice. Here, check this out:
That is what I don’t get about the left and their opposition to the Patriot Act and the NSA surveillance. Without these sorts of measures, there is a real possibility that the world could soon turn Islamic. Then all of their “civil rights” would be gone for good. I’m not saying that is likely but it could happen if we are not vigilant.
This particular poster has a tenuous enough grasp on reality to understand that the scenario he envisions may not be “likely”, but that’s still some serious paranoia — to somehow get from point (a), the threat of terrorism and the possibility of further attacks on American soil, to point (b), an Islamic States of America, in which your so-called “civil liberties” are spat upon by swarthy men with head scarves.
It’s a wonder these people can function in the world, given how they must quiver with fright at every unexpected noise.
January 31st, 2006 at 9:49 am
The guy is clearly a delusional and paranoid moron. In his pea-brain, a rag-tag bunch of “deadenders” and Saddam-loyalists in “their last throes” can hold off 150,000 equipped American GIs with weapons manufactured by contents found under their kitchen sink; but somehow, as if by magic and Allah, reverse the scenario and American national defense and civilian militias would roll over and be on their knees praying to Mecca at the moment a subway gets bombed. Yup, dat a good reason to give up personal freedoms and liberties, very reasonable likelihood, yup.
January 31st, 2006 at 9:52 am
I think it’s far more telling how many freeple suspect she’s somehow complicit or deserving of being kidnapped. Sick and deranged.
January 31st, 2006 at 9:54 am
I find the fear of “them” to be prevalent in so many of the wingnuts I know (especially those related to me). “They” want to destroy America with their gay marriages. “They” are illegally crossing the borders in Arizona, Texas, and California to take “our” jobs. “They” pollute our childrens’ minds with all that filth on TV, in the movies, and in music. “They” go to Harvard and Yale and think they’re so much better than us with their fancy edumacations. “They” hate us for our freedom (and our response is to take our freedoms away so they won’t hate us, I guess). Gawd, I love Comments Week.
January 31st, 2006 at 10:04 am
I work with a guy who thinks like this. He’s impossible to reason with. The only time I managed to give him pause is when I asked him if he’d feel comfortable with President Hillary Clinton having all these imperial powers.
January 31st, 2006 at 10:04 am
You want to know what they really fear? That the Rapture IS NOT an
exit strategy.
January 31st, 2006 at 10:32 am
Billy Bob Tweed, no doubt you’re inspired by one of our greatest, true Amurrican TV producers, Stephan J. Cannell. Gives a whole new meaning to the A-Team, now the Allah-Team.
Well, I’ll be a sonuva Bush! Comment thingees on TMW. Yee-haw!
January 31st, 2006 at 10:44 am
I think you write this off too easily. Who among us hasn’t said, hey, maybe I should give up my scotch, bacon and porn and devote myself to radical fundamentalist Islam? Today the hipsters in Williamsburg are drinking Heinekens and going to alternative comedy shows; tomorrow, it could be wearing burkas and memorizing the Q’uran.
January 31st, 2006 at 10:46 am
What I think is really interesting here is the fact that apparently wiretapping helps prevent Islam? So the War On Terror ™ is really a war on … Islam?
I know that I was personally considering a conversion to Islam, until I found out about the NSA wiretapping program. Now I say hell no, Imam! I’m keeping my secrets safe with Jesus!
January 31st, 2006 at 11:22 am
I know a few people like that…they don’t leave the house unless they’re armed.
January 31st, 2006 at 11:31 am
Note the quotes around “civil liberties.”
Yawn. Yes, this country is on the verge of becoming an *Islamic* theocracy. Boy, if anybody does take our civil rights, it’ll certainly be Radical Muslims. Why, they’re only five judges away from controlling the Supreme Court! And 51 seats from running the Senate! And one election from the presidency! Run for the hills! Run!!!!
January 31st, 2006 at 12:07 pm
Following a similar train of thought as Jim W and Rik, but did anyone else notice the possessive noun before “civil rights?” Civil rights are theirs, meaning the left’s. It’s odd, to me, that somehow civil liberties and rights are the province of one side of the American political spectrum but not the other.
I mean, I understand the strawman argument of depicting liberals as alarmist bedwetters (which is really funny when one considers the rationales given for the President of the United States flagrantly violating the Constitution. funny like a heart attack), and they become “our” civil rights because we view the world in a fundamentally skewed and batshit insane way. Still, one would think that our right to hold a conversation is theirs too. Unless they truly don’t care about our fundamental civil rights and are willing to justify anything in the (tragically erroneous) hope that it will make their own lives safe and sound. I sincerely doubt this is true.
I too am related to people with the same “THEM!” mentality, and I have to remind them that I’m the same person who used to cry during E.T. and can be readily reached by cell phone, and am really nothing to be afraid of. We’re making progress. Um. With difficulty.
Sorry for the long ass comment; one mustn’t take advantage of such generoisty that is comments week.
January 31st, 2006 at 12:34 pm
The Free Republic are the 21st Century’s breed of the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. Their blind devotion to evil is what allows evil to rule.
January 31st, 2006 at 12:42 pm
“The fact that she wasn’t ecexuted last week tells me that she is among friends.”
Why do people like this exist?
January 31st, 2006 at 12:59 pm
Well just look at Kosovo. We didn’t tap phones and steal library records, now there’s Serbian Nationalists all over the United States. It’s just terrible. I’m trying to take Jaden and Dakota to soccer practice in the Durango and I can’t even stop for a double half-caf vente mochachino without some Serbian Nationalist accosting me in the parking lot. It seems like all you ever hear these days is “Damn those ethnic Albanians,” and “Milosevic is innocent.” Man, I wish we had tapped those phones when we had a chance.
January 31st, 2006 at 1:01 pm
When am I going to stop being surprised? Everyone else has. No one else is still shocked by that kind of sheer callousness and brutish spite, except, it seems, me. I guess I just have a bottomless shock capacity. No matter how many times I dip a morbidly fascinated toe into Freeperland, I never get used to it, and feel my jaw hit the desktop every time.
It is incredible to me that there is enough of this element in our modern USA to control the fate of the entire world. I guess I’ve lived a very sheltered life, never having encountered creatures like these.
Of course, life is complicated. Perhaps the most damning part is knowing that all these creepezoids are probably loving fathers and husbands. Jeez….
January 31st, 2006 at 1:28 pm
Count me in among those who are morbidly fascinated by the fear of “THEM!” so prevalent among our right wing acquaintances and relatives.
“…but did anyone else notice the possessive noun before “civil rights?” Civil rights are theirs, meaning the left’s.”
On a more sinister note, I believe it was Digby who noticed recently that the freepers are always envisioning us as the ones who will eventually lose our heads when we are taken over by armies of jihadists, and boy, won’t we be sorry then! Somehow, they don’t imagine themselves meeting that fate. It’s almost impossible to avoid the conclusion that visions of leftists being executed occupy a lot of mental space for them - perhaps it’s fortunate that they still need to imagine radical Muslims as our executioners, lacking the ability to face up to their own desire to fill that role.
January 31st, 2006 at 1:33 pm
I see this as yet another instance of a familiar brain-glitch; the instant flop-over, a.k.a. the heaven-or-hell fallacy. It goes something like this; “if the universe does not conform precisely to all my positive preconceptions, then it will instead conform precisely to all my negative preconceptions.”
I call this a brain-glitch because I see it everywhere, and I therefore suspect it to be an inbuilt flaw in the human operating system. It is based upon human vanity; for it assumes that the universe cares about you, one way or the other. It is also based on cowardice, as Tom correctly noted; for it responds to even the slightest setback with panic. And it is based on lack of imagination; for it cannot conceive of the muddy middle that nature usually inhabits.
Therefore moral courage requires both imagination and humility.
January 31st, 2006 at 1:50 pm
Be not afraid. Dems in ‘06.
January 31st, 2006 at 1:50 pm
well, it goes almost without saying , as you well know, that this is the reason we will soon have a police state; it is what the majority of americans will say tehy want, as they cower in fear….
January 31st, 2006 at 2:19 pm
What they REALLY fear is hummous. Why? You can even get hummous on a bagel for chrissake!
January 31st, 2006 at 4:41 pm
That’s exactly how the cold war occurred for me when I was in - what? - second grade. I remember feeling pretty scared that, one day, the Russians would conquer us, steal our liberties, and I wouldn’t be allowed to worship Jesus anymore. Looking back, the fear feels pretty juvenille. No kidding, I’m puzzled that there is such a large mass of grownups who are still so bought into these scenarios.
January 31st, 2006 at 8:42 pm
Their fear appears to be driven by a belief that Islam is somehow a contagious disease, and that if nothing is done will spread to the whole world.
I also note that they make no distinction between the terrorists/hostage takers and the other freaking 99.9% of the Iraqi population.
BTW, hooray for comments!
January 31st, 2006 at 9:40 pm
Interesting, and ironic. One of my fears of a COMPLETE Republican takeover of the country is the collapse of the separation of church/state. This COULD bring an Islamic state, it certainly opens the door.
February 2nd, 2006 at 2:16 pm
Why this exclusive fear of the right facing an islamic state? Imagine the Bible becoming the literal foundation of jurisdiction…
“The man who shows contempt for the judge or for the priest who stands ministering there to the LORD your God must be put to death.” (Deuteronomy 17:12)
“If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, ‘Let us go and worship other gods’ (gods that neither you nor your fathers have known, gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity. Do not spare him or shield him. You must certainly put him to death.” (Deuteronomy 13:6-9)
“All who would not seek the LORD, the God of Israel, were to be put to death, whether small or great, man or woman.” (2 Chronicles 15:13)
I don’t know the Quaran… but *that’s* what I call a high bid! Gives a whole new meaning to ‘Fear of God’…