Neo-Bircher apocalyptic politics harms the people who embrace it

[muriel_volestrangler]

Fred Clark, on how the far right, anti-UN or pro-apocalypse (frequently both at the same time) conspiracy theories turn people into bitter, fear-filled haters:

Here, instead, is a news item from yesterday that underscores the sad influence of the Left Behind novels and their whole silly form of fright-peddling: “Texas to Tea Party: No, the Alamo Won’t Fall Under U.N. Control.”
...
• “She’s railing against immigration reform, citing her belief that it will lead to an identification system indicative of biblical End Times.”
...
• “Melissa Wilson, wife of state Rep. Kenneth Wilson (R), told the committee earlier this month that she was certain that gun records had been shared with the federal government as a part of a United Nations initiative called Agenda 21, which some conservatives believe is a conspiracy to ‘transform America from the land of the free, to the land of the collective’ through ‘a mind-control’ tactic called the Delphi technique.”
...
• “Among the dire warnings these commissioners heard during the process were allusions to the Oath Keepers’ oft-stated belief that the NDAA creates the legal pretext for federal authorities to begin rounding up right-wing citizens and placing them in concentration camps, or that they might begin labeling tea party leaders ‘enemy combatants’ and start assassinating them.”

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2013/11/01/neo-bircher-apocalyptic-politics-harms-the-people-who-embrace-it/

The worrying thing is that it's not just random Facebookers with idiotic fears and conspiracies; it's council members and state representatives getting sucked into the paranoia.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

1. rounding up right wing loonies and putting them in a mental hospital

for therapy

[gopiscrap]

3. one could only wish.

[pscot]

2. Paranoia provides a definite focus

to life, but then so does heroin addiction.