I’ve wondered of late, exactly what IS the common thread that runs through such disparate interests such as anti-immigration, Pro-NRA, anti-government, pro-corporatism, anti-healthcare reform, pro-white pride and anti-religious toleration that all come together under the banner of Evangelical Christian Right Republicans.
I think I’ve figured it out. It’s FEAR. Sheer, pants-pissing, blubbering, stark raving mad fear. Fear disguised as anger, dressed up as patriotism.
Fear of Hell, fear of other races, fear of crime, fear of government, fear of other religions, fear of differing points of view that challenge complacency, fear of not going along with the crowd, fear of dirty communist hippies that hate Walmart and Texaco and United Health (all of which keep them safe, entertained and fed in the manner to which they’ve become accustomed). A lifetime program of fear instilled by their parents at first, the baton passed on to the church second and then greedily assumed by talk radio and Fox news in adulthood.
Christians have been indoctrinated from birth that the End is Near, that nuclear Armageddon is just around the corner, that the Anti-Christ is going to use the gov’t to chip them with The Mark and damn their souls, or if they refuse, to drive them underground to starve until they’re found and publicly beheaded. Probably by Obama, these days.
They need guns, and lots of ’em. They need fences to keep the brown menace out. They need packaged foods and penicillin and crank flashlights and ammo to stockpile their compounds with, to bravely be a way station on the coming Christian Underground Railroad.
This sick and twisted fear fantasy, fueled by the “Left Behind” series of romance-novel-type-fear-porn and a steady diet of Rush, Beck, O’Reilly, Coulter and Savage has left them incapable of logical, rational thought. They pound Fear into them daily and then soothe their ego by calling them “Patriots”. When it comes down to it, this kind of religious extremism isn’t much different than what’s practiced by Islamic suicide bombers. Seventy-two virgins or the right hand of God, pick your reward for targeting whichever group of people your venerated teachers tell you to target. For Jihadists, it’s capitalist non-believers and for Christians it’s liberal, tree-hugging, black, gay abortionists.
These “tea-baggers”, this group of non-thinking sheeple here in America is extremely easy to direct by a few commentators on Fox News. Just a few weeks of repeated talking points, and whatever you want targeted, like health care reform, is nicely, squarely targeted. Wade through a crowd of “Patriots” and ask any one of them to describe what they’re fighting against, and you’ll get an incomprehensible mush-mouthed mix of “Uh, Communist-Fascist, uh, probably Marxist traitors on the Welfare line, you know, LIBERALS, having like, 5 or 6 babies and wanting my taxes for crack and free abortions!”. Throw in a few lines about Obama and his Muslim agenda and you’ve got the Modern American Evangelical Republican.
Compare the rhetoric of a typical Bush protestor from years past and you’ll hear mostly logical arguments about the erosion of our civil rights, illegal wars, the destruction of the environment, etc., and if you ask what they would like to see happen, they’ll most likely say they’d like to see the rule of law prevail, and abusers of the system face a fair trial and hopefully, spend a long time in jail as a deterrent to other would-be corporate dictators.
Ask a typical Obama protestor and you’ll hear a markedly more violent retribution. They’ll spit out their half-understood talking points they’ve been brainwashed with, and then immediately reach for a more final, physical answer. They’ll say the only right answer for such traitors is at the business end of a gun and a shovel. God would want it that way.
I think it all comes down to fear. Fear is not logical. Fear is in the base of your brain, the pit of your stomach and compressed, fire-stoked fear is very, very dangerous.
Just ask an abortion doctor or a black or gay man. They’ll tell you about that kind of danger.
