And so, you see, there is a fundamental psychic necessity for rightwingers to take every dark impulse they feel, and attibute it to their perceived enemies. This logic absolutely, rigidly prevents any possible awareness of when they are doing something that they accuse others of doing.

My question - which is cause and which is effect? Is projecting their own faults upon their purported enemies a tendency among RWA's or is it the projecting of faults that causes them to become RWA's in the first place?

My thoery of course is that the personality type is shuffled pretty well throughout the World's population but that the ambition of control that accompanies the personality causes them to rise to positions of importance and creates situations like today where the Iranian leader and the US leader are engaged in posturing and bluster which looks totally ridiculous to those of us who have yet to partake of the kool-aid. It would be low comedy, if the actual consequenses weren't so tragic for all involved.

Are you familiar with the phrase "concern troll"?

It refers to someone who agrees with the thrust of the site they're participating in but is so worried about protocol or accuracy or (the worst) worrying about the tone of what is said because the words could be used against the speaker that in the end they end up undermining the goals of the site in question. I offer that up FYI because it could explain some of the hostility you're encountering here.

I'm pretty well removed from what one might refer to as the American "street" living as I do 1400 miles from the mainland. But at least I have the courtesy to acknowlege the fact. The CNN talking head crew on the other hand doesn't have that excuse. It they wanted to know what the average American thought, they could find one, walk up to him (or her) and ask. I suspect that most people now realize that the refusal to even talk to someone is a sure path to ignorance. Even failing that, they certainly realize that our current dilemma was caused by willful ignorance.

Your Haaretz link is particularly telling. When the US is taking a harder line than Israel then you KNOW that something is being twisted beyond recognition.

Care to write back to ABC and explain to them that St. Thomas is in the US Virgin Islands!

I know that it would be a shame to let accuracy spoil a good story!

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=3015492&page=1

On one particularly memorable trip, the Clintons, just prior to news of the Monica Lewinsky scandal and the president's subsequent impeachment trial, escaped to St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

During the six-day trip, a French photographer shot candid images of the presidential couple dancing on the beach.

In her autobiography "Living History," Clinton described the incident: "One afternoon midway through the trip, Bill and I put on our bathing suits and ventured down the beach for a swim. Unbeknownst to us, a photographer from Agence France-Presse, the French wire service, was hiding in the bushes on a public beach across the bay. He must have had a powerful telephoto lens, because the next day a photo of us slow-dancing on the beach appeared in newspapers around the world."

we have been expanding "civilzation" at sword-point then gunpoint for thousands of years and have only developed the decency to feel bad about it in the last 200 or so, then it stands to reason that the mindset of manifast destiny would still animate our discussion and motivation.

Some of us however, have enough self-awareness to see this for what it is - a lame rationalization for our OWN barbarism.

If there are any conservative commentators that you would care to disavow and deny that they represent mainstream conservative thought, then by all means HAVE AT IT!!

I for one would love it if more conservatives would disavow dehumanization as a rhetorical tactic. I'd be even happier if they stopped advocating indiscrimate killing as an exercise regimen.

but your pal nabalzbbfr just likened human souls to healthy cells that are unfortunately adjacent to malignant ones. Yet he no doubt considers blastocysts to be sacred.

For just once I wish that self-identified Christians would read their own founding document and understand it.

So that shooter will seem reasonable in comparison. (He actually makes Dick Cheney seem reasonable in comparison!) And shooter is 100% right about one thing. RWA is indeed a euphemism for fascist.

but it still won't make muslim grocery store clerks in Minnesota scan packages of pork.

Or make babtist pharmacists dispence morning after pills at Walgreens either.

I suppose if your going to identify 1/3 of the world as "the enemy" then indiscrimante bombing and perpetual warfare makes sense. If you happen to trash your own army and completely sell out your ability to influence events in the world by mirroring the worst behavior of your enemies, well then so much the better. After all, the creator of universe is on our side...right? right?

They think their God is greater than ours, what do you think?

That there is only one God and that he loves us all.

Shooter fears that someone is going to force him to practice a religion he doesn't beleive in. (Rumor has it he lives in NJ so of course the danger is imminent.) For that reason he insists that anyone who engages in dialog with someone of that faith is capitualting and thus failing to protect him from that heineous fate. Furthermore since he feels this imminent threat in his bones , he is ready to advocate that we use all the weaponry at our disposal to prevent this from happening which as a practical matter means that we invade countries in the Middle East and kill anyone who responds to the intrusion by fighting back.

All with nothing more to justify it than a phantom Muslim under the bed.