Paper Muskrat

Frank Rich goes on about the violent, crazed loonies on the right. That is, the crazed elected officials who represent the right's crazed violent loons. All well & good, but he misses the right's legitimization of "fear" as a basis for any & all anti-social behavior or activity.

In a 1996 floor speech, Coburn conceded that “terrorism obviously poses a serious threat,” but then went on to explain that the nation had worse threats to worry about: “There is a far greater fear that is present in this country, and that is fear of our own government.” As his remarks on “Meet the Press” last week demonstrated, the subsequent intervention of 9/11 has not changed his worldview.

No one denies the pathetically authentic fear that the low-information (a lovely & polite euphemism for cretinous & ignorant) voters have been expressing in nationally-televised temper tantrums. It's the legitimacy of their fear that should be in question.

If the mean, manipulative eight-yr. old down the block has told a gullible five-yr. old that there are monsters under the bed waiting to kill his grandmother, the responsible parent doesn't (To the best of our limited knowledge: We are neither a parental unit nor responsible.) confirm this bit of terrorism, add that the monsters are even worse than Jason down the street said, & offer a gun for the gullible child to put under his pillow. Yet that's just what the (always self-described) adult, responsible legislators to the gullible five yr.-olds among us have done.

Not that surprising, of course. Obviously someone like Coburn is, to be charitable, a low-information Senator, & may be as authentically but unreasonably scared as any of his constituents are about any socialist boogie-men under his bed, & is scared of losing his own cushy gov't. gig. The way anti-gov't. legislators go on & on & on (& on & on & on & on) about the very gov't. they are supposed to be in charge of indicates they must feel as powerless & inadequate (Compensation, it's called, when when pin-dicked losers run for office.) as their tantrum-throwing supporters do.

Now we need only wait for a figure from the right to project their emotional troubles in a leftward direction w/ the "Liberals are all about feelings. The right is logical & composed of grown-ups," canard. (We especially like it when they say, "We're the 'grown-ups,'" because anyone over about ten who uses "grown-up" instead of "adult" is pretty childish.)

Honestly, if these people were "human," they'd use their minds instead of acting like cockroaches when the light is turned on in the kitchen, or a band of baboons hurling poop. There's no hope for discourse, discussion, reason, facts or anything else w/ them. Why can't we just squash them like cockroaches already, & make a brave new world order of decent people?