POLJUNK

From Wikipedia:

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

— Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels

Ah, what a waste of bandwidth. Even if it were "fair and balanced" as it were, they really need to get some writers who don't write entries that read like a C-minus short answer question.

For a good laugh, try the entry on "Fox News." And before they change it, try "Brazil." Trust me.

Looks like I spoke too soon, they already deleted the "Brazil" entry, which read: "Brazil- a lie propagated by godless hedonist liberals." Heh.

When I first heard about the Conservapedia, I thought, "I've got to write a piece on this!" After perusing the Conservapedia, though, I found it so lacking in substance that it made writing about it fairly difficult. Hell, maybe that's the real story...

I have no problem with conservatives--whether they be of the libertarian stripe or the orthodox religion stripe. They have been here since the beginning of the country and they have the right to their views--many of which are quite sound and should be seriously considered.

What I do have a problem with are that vocal subspecies of pop conservative. These twats wake up EVERY DAY saying "How can I hate liberals more effectively?" EVERY DAY they look out and see a world ruined by liberalism.

"What I do have a problem with are that vocal subspecies of pop conservative. These twats wake up EVERY DAY saying "How can I hate liberals more effectively?" EVERY DAY they look out and see a world ruined by liberalism."

Seconded. I used to be a daily listener to the G. Gordon Liddy show because, despite his sometimes maniacal leanings, he was RESPECTFUL to other opinions and regularly had liberals on his show for reasoned and civil debate. I still love Liddy for that. Oh, and he was hilarious, which never hurts.

The conservative movement in America has been busy constructing a parallel reality (see Fox News, The Washington Times, Conservapedia, etc.) to suit its agenda when inconveient facts get in the way. Rather than adjust their agenda accordingly, they have come to prefer to reshape the world as they see it to fit their pre-existing agenda.

This can't be good for anybody, especially conservatives, as their collective agenda becomes increasingly based on assumptions, wishful thinking, and outright fantasy (see Iraq).

There was a time when I simply regarded conservatives as having views different from my own in many cases, but I regarded those views as legitimate in and of themselves. These days, I just regard the conservative movement as full of shit.

On a gut level I'm inclined to agree with you Jude, except that if you look at it from a conservative's perspective, they're taking back a world that was lost to them after the disillusionment of the 60s-70s when the Left seemed to take hold of the universities and the media. That claim is to some extent true (very true, to them)--though in my opinion much more complicated, and less radical, than it appears.

This "fantasy" works both ways. What happened in the Libby case? Not the prosecuting of anyone for the leak of a CIA agent--though that WAS the CIA's reason to ask for the investigation and the reason the DoJ took it up.

No, they got Libby on Clintonesque technicality. And it was reported as though it "shook the administration to the core."

I'm sure I don't want to be Libby right now. And I'm sure the jury was "correct" in their decision.

I'm also pretty sure Armitage, pretty much on record as no fan of this administration or its war, was not under orders to offhandedly leak gossip to bring down Wilson to a reporter (Novak, who also was not a fan of the Iraq War). To break the law and jeopardize your career for guys you can't stand--that's too much to ask me to believe.

At worst the admin. exploited the Armitage leak. Yes it is craven but you could probably find similar craveness in every administration. But I'll bet good money it did not "shake the administration to the core." Even though there's a tremendous amount of wishful thinking that it has.

We're just like them with Clinton: We want the administration to pay for SOMETHING but we couldn't do it at the polls and we can't get them on anything substantial regarding the war. So Libby will have to do, just like perjuring about a b.j. would have to do.

I think the difference being the context under which the witness perjured himself. One was a civil case inflamed by political hitmen and involving a personal matter that had NOTHING to do with the function of the job.

The other was a series (not just one, mind you) of lies that derailed what may have been a much bigger and serious investigation had the investigation not been impeded by said lies. This was not a case of forgetting, it was Libby mis-remembering with great detail events that were the focus of his life for months. Otherwise known as lies. Lying under oath is against the law, no? What's good for Clinton is good for Libby.

B,

I think there’s an attitude held by many conservatives that anything that is not explicitly conservative is, by default, anti-conservative or liberal. Hence their wanting to redefine everything.

This is most obvious in the right’s views on foreign policy; either one supports Bush 100 percent, or one is a traitor. Ergo, daily news reports of car bombs in Iraq are inherently liberal because they “reinforce” the idea that Bush’s adventure in Iraq is not the slam-dunk it was promised to be. Never mind that the horrific reports are simply reports of the day’s events. The idea then follows that the Main Stream Media (MSM) is liberal. (I always found this odd since the MSM is about as corporate as any business in America and, in my opinion, is actually fairly conservative itself, but that’s a whole separate discussion…) The MSM is also full of reports of how life has changed for the better and how Iraqi civilians are making the best of their situations (going to school, playing sports, opening businesses, etc.), but the right tends to ignore those stories because they counter the argument that the MSM is biased. Never mind that most of the MSM deliberately avoided asking any tough questions in the days leading up to the war for fear of being branded unpatriotic.

This brings us to the crux of the problem. Using the example of Bush’s Iraq war, conservatives view negative information about Bush’s war effort as deliberate attacks on Bush and the conservative movement as a whole when they would much better serve themselves and the conservative movement by critically analyzing the negative information and adjusting policy accordingly. This has been a central problem with the Iraq war from square one. Before the invasion, anybody who even suggested that there might be post-invasion security issues were literally laughed out of the war planning meetngs. Ultimately, the Bushies denied themselves opportunities to examine every angle of their strategies. But then, it seems to me that critical thinking is practically forbidden in many conservative circles. I’ve come to view this as a by-product of religious fundamentalism – if one simply believes that all of life’s answers are in the Holy Book and God will take care of the rest, then there isn’t much room for critical thought processes that court the danger of rendering long-held beliefs questionable.

In short, I think that this trend of redefining things to suit preconceived ideas about how the world works is self-defeating. I agree with your sentiment that conservatives feel like they’re gaining something back and sticking it to the liberal, secular world, but what are they gaining? If the conservative movement has effectivley shunned reality in exchange for feel-good, then how effective can any policy that they develop really be? I think the conservative movement, as we have known it for the last twenty years or so is about to implode. It’s become a house of cards.

Thanks for your thoughtful comments.

"I’ve come to view this as a by-product of religious fundamentalism – if one simply believes that all of life’s answers are in the Holy Book and God will take care of the rest, then there isn’t much room for critical thought processes that court the danger of rendering long-held beliefs questionable."

Of course, there are plenty of Conservatives who are not religious (fundamental, or otherwise) who are equally averse to critical thought. Rummy, Cheney, et al. None of them are known to be fundamental Christians and yet seem to be completely devoid of critical analysis.

On the flip side, there ARE rational, thoughtful Christian dundamentalists out there. In fact, the National Association of Evangelicals just endorsed an anti-torture statement that is sure to ruffle some Bushies.

Quite right you are, Derek. By "by-product of religious fundamentalism" I didn't mean that all adherents to this sort of thinking were necessarily religious, in the traditional sense, themselves. Rather, that the aversion to critical thinking that I find pervasive on the (religious) right has a commonality with the right's approach to it's general world-views. Basically, it seems that one is never to question the fundamental assumptions as to do so renders one treasonous, blasphemous, etc.

Perhaps "by-product was a poor choice of words.

When it comes to the Iraq War, I'll be honest--I've certainly heard better ideas--but I've also heard worse. Now, I'm not sure why Afghanistan couldn't have been our terrorist flypaper, or why Iran wouldn't have been better served by our, ahem, pre-emptive intervention, but I think there's something to be said for maintaining a regional presence, drawing the enemy to you, and applying diplomatic pressure from a position of military strength. And the fact that Iraqis proudly voted in numbers that put our country to shame moved me deeply (though I also recognize the somewhat artificial conditions necessary for that vote).

When it comes to war planning...I don't think you can match anyone for sheer incompetence and reckless feckless hubris. I mean, where do I start?

So I am less outraged by the moral dimension of the Iraq War than by the incompetent foreign policy dimension.

And it occurred to me while reading both your comments, that BOTH SIDES are nostalgic for the other party of say 30-40 years ago. The Republicans are nostalgic for Cold War democrats like Moynihan. And we're nostalgic for the pre-Reagan Revolution so-called "country club" Republicans typified by GHW Bush--social-libertarian, fiscally responsible foreign policy realists.

Recall that before this time, fundamentalists, evangelicals, and religious conservatives did not hew to one party.

It was the excesses (or perceived excesses) of the Left in the 60s-70s, which became the (perceived) cultural norm, that made them ripe for Reagan's plucking and exploitation.

In order to fight their Pharisees we have to recognize our own.