Republicans on the couch. Do they have a death wish?

[gulliver]

There is something about the Republican pose that strikes me as suicidal. Why are they willing to let a "man" like George W. Bush have his finger on the button? Why are they willing to give their children to him to waste in a pointless blood sacrifice? Do they have, to borrow a phrase from Ragno and Radi's Hair, "supreme visions of lonely tombs?"

On the fundie side of House GOP, I think the fascination with the Book of Revelations speaks of an inner desire to die and kill. To me, it seems like an elaborate murder/suicide fantasy structured as an epic tragedy and sold as prophecy. The more fundies want to die, the more they hope for an Anti-Christ and end times. The Noah and Sodom/Gomorrah tales are similar. These spring from a fetishism of death which, in turn, springs from an incapacity for life.

Even among the middle-class, non-fundie Republicans I talk to there is a strain of murder/suicide. "Compassion" is now just a word to them. They are past feeling it. They think it is for suckers. They are in "live and let die" mode. And they are surprisingly willing to engage in "blood sacrifice." It's as if they think the mere spilling of American blood overseas somehow consecrates the war and redeems the destructive and foolish decisions that led to it.

They are resigned to terrorism and don't dare look it in the face to see if there is something that can be done about it that might actually work. They hide their faces from reason and disparage intellect. They are in despair, a pack of lemmings heading for the big leap and perhaps not so sorry to take their own children and the rest of us with them.

Is it just me? Are Republicans now the party of "F*ck it. Push the button?" Are the Republicans suffering from latent/manifest Jim Jones-ism?

[Zensea]

1. They are scared

When you are scared you act irrationally sometimes.
When you are scared, fear makes you see no way out.
Maybe they don't want to die, but can't see a way out of that type of paradigm.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. the answer to your question is

in the hate fest they called a Convention.


and yes the short answer is YES

[Flammable Materials]

3. "Who cares? We'll all be raptured soon." n/t

[StClone]

4. In a vacuum

While Clinton in office, they had such an easy undistracted time. There were more good jobs. Money went further and we had no real enemies or big wars.

Under such times where we find bliss the Conservative mind goes wacky and starts feeding on itself and saw evils growing. Republicans got Clinton impeached. In 2000 we elected Gore but they installed Bush. Selective and inaccurate bible interpretation then led them to neglect Jesus and read Armageddon into world events.

When 9-11 happened it gave their inept puppet nutter and his cabal a green light to put all extreme machinations into play that were fomenting during the Clinton Boom.

Wars, cutting taxes, killing government resulting is weakening infrastructure, class war by the paranoid rich on everyone else, military profiteering and jingoism. Since the end was near anyway why not act like it with God on our side?

[Nordic]

5. I like the way you think

I believe, based on my own close experience with fundamentalists and "conservatives" in my own family, that there is something seriously wrong with them on a psychological level.

[smirkymonkey]

6. I wonder if anybody has done a study about the extreme right

and the culture of death it creates - or longs for.

I think it may stem from a profound fear of life, evident in their rejection of sexuality, compassion, understanding, love, pleasure, etc. They seem to despise everthing that is truly alive, including nature.

I would be interested in hearing the psychological slant on this.

[Flammable Materials]

7. A Republican Death Cult drunk on Bully Juice.

To quote "Morning Sedition".

[Mr_Spock]

8. They are paranoid people

who need a "father figure" (like God or Bush) to tell them that everything is going to be OK so they can live their lives with minimal fear. They want to be told what to do so they don't have to think or make mistakes. Their biggest fear of liberals is our questioning of their paranoia - ie, "why are we killing people in Iraq". They have convinced themselves that it is right and making them safer, and it is angering to them that we dare to question this as they really relate to the "God's work" bullcrap that Dubya and the other fear-mongers promote.

In the end it's a sickening symbiotic relationship between leader and the led person that is described very well by the Straussian philosophy.

It is difficult to reclaim these lost souls as their fears prevent them from straying too far from their comfortable little existences. Many years of casual therapy in a work environment can eventually bring them a small glimpse of reality and perhaps they might venture out on their own someday and question things.

[Nordic]

9. don't even get me started on that!

the ones in my family are terrified of everything and see the devil in everything around them.

They believe Harry Potter books are the work of the devil.

They believe astrology is the work of the devil.

They believe dinosaur bones were put on earth by the devil.

They believe that if you meditate and do yoga, that Satan can at that point enter your mind.

They are terrified of thought itself. Don't think! No, no, no! Ask an authority figure what to think instead!

These are the fundies in my family. The right-wingers who aren't fundies are simply delusional.

Here's what I wrote to them the other day:

<<It's interesting to me how the republican party of today has become the "fantasy" party. The "let's pretend nothing's wrong" party.

Let's pretend the economy is good. Dick Cheney just said yesterday that "hey, a lot of people are making money on E-Bay!" Hey, there's no problem with the economy. We haven't lost a million net jobs since we've been in office. Believe it, because we're saying it! We never lie!

Let's pretend that outsourcing our entire manufacturing base to China and India is a good thing.

Let's pretend that deficits don't matter.

Let's pretend that homeless people aren't mentally ill, but instead are just "lazy" fucks who need to get a job.

Let's pretend that Pakistan is our ally.

Let's pretend that we don't need European allies. Why?

Because we're pretending that our military is all-powerful and the only reason we can't take over any country we want, including Iran, Syria, and North Korea, or France and Germany if we felt like it, is because of "liberal" politicians.

Let's pretend that corporations aren't running the major news outlets these days. Let's pretend that GE doesn't own NBC. Let's pretend GE won't benefit from the Iraq invasion, even though in their annual report they said it was worth 9 billion dollars to them.

Let's pretend that the president of Diebold never said he was prepared to deliver the election to George Bush and let's pretend that putting in easily-hacked electronic voting machines that leave no paper trail is "election reform".

Let's pretend we can say "Go Fuck yourself" on the floor of the Senate and legitimately claim to be the party of "family values".

Let's pretend that everything bad in the world was caused by Clinton, and if not by him, then by his WIFE.

Let's simply ignore the truth, make up our own version of it, then try to shove it down America's throat. Repeat. Repeat until people start to believe it.

It's called "cognitive dissonance" folks. >>

We're not talking now. They answered this with personal insults rather than any kind of arguments or defense.

[Mr_Spock]

10. Nice letter - I've given up on using reason to help these nutcases.

I'm looking at them as mentally ill from now on and I am going to use psychology to try to save them from their paranoid delusions. I think they are having trouble dealing with modern society and that is why you frequently hear about wanting to go back to when "times were simpler". 'Course they really like the misogyny and miss the slaves too.

[Nordic]

11. yeah, I ask the women if they're happy they can vote

since it was a "liberal" idea to have women vote.

Oh, and that 40 hour work week they take advantage of.

And the fact that children no longer work in factories in this country.

And that they can't die from cholera anymore from drinking the urban water supply.

But you're quite right, you cannot reason with these folks. They do NOT want ot hear facts, or arguments, or anything. It makes their heads explode, almost literally. They fly off the handle and simply start calling you names.

We are living in very strange times, times that I never thought I would live to see.