Can Right Wingers Be Cured Of Their Illness?

[DistressedAmerican]

They assert that homosexuals can be "cured" of their "liefstyle choice". It is certainly extremely debateable that being gay is in fact a choice.

On the other hand, being a right wing douchebag is most certainly a choice. I strongly doubt the existence of a "wing-nut gene". That leaves me thinking that some of these asshats could be "cured" of their evil lifestyle choice.

Can't we set up some programs? Summer camps? Something? :shrug:

[Ghost in the Machine]

1. Death cures lots of things....

you know... like AIDS, starvation... :sarcasm:

[C_U_L8R]

2. They can always take their rapture pills

and beam up to the mothership

[Crazy Dave]

3. Something like that guy does on 30 Days

Let some rw asshole live with a poor family for 30 days and go hungry for a couple of nights after paying the rent and not having any money afterwards. Then one of the kids gets sick and not only can the family not afford to take off work, they can't afford to take the kid to a doctor with no health insurance, they don't even have the money for over the counter medicines. Then the father comes home with even more bad news. After not working for over two years then finally getting a job for $8 an hour, his company shut the doors and moved overseas. Everybody's hungry, getting sick, emotions are stressed, etc.
Then you look on the news and see that even a poor communist dictatorship like Cuba even has free health care followed by GW telling you how much better off we are here in the states because we're allowed to bitch in public about NOT having government health care.

Could any RW asshole live in those conditions with no safety net, no way out for a month and still have the same narrow-mindedness?

[unpossibles]

8. this is the best solution - more of education than a cure

although it probably would not work on all of them - some of them are so closed-minded and non-empathetic that they would probably just stab their fellow humans and eat them, or something similar. At the very least, they would probably leave the experience and be even more hard-nosed.

Sorry, I am feeling very cynical right now.

[Crazy Dave]

10. I haven't watched the series yet....

...I've only seen "Supersize Me", but the next show is going to be about a "Minuteman" going to live with a family of (illegal...I hate that association) immigrants for a month. I really want to see that episode and see if it shows that guy anything about demonizing people that are trying to feed their families.

[DemonFighterLives]

4. Not a cure as we know it for the 29% of dead enders

They will need severe deprogramming in detention facilities. They will need to be taught right from wrong as a child again.
:dem:

[Crazy Dave]

6. Make them actually read those bibles they carry around

Because no RW christian even comes close to practicing the teachings in the bible like caring and giving to the poor and the mis-fortunate. Shunning greed and excessive wealth, the part where it says if you help your fellow man you help God and likewise if you harm your fellow man you also harm the lord. Currently the answer you always get is "God helps those who help themselves" but I seriously doubt that's written in any scriptures.

[DemonFighterLives]

7. Well then they need to go back to Sunday School as part

of their reprogramming.
Greed has taken them.

[Joe_VB]

5. Simple answer......No..........eot

[movie_girl99]

9. according to my rw fundie brother, liberalism is a sickness

needles to say we don't speak.

[unpossibles]

12. exactly

to them we are the ones who need "cured"

to be honest, the talk of curing anyone of some belief or thought is bothersome and reeks of eugenics at best. I do think education is the best "cure" - let them still make up their own minds, but we really need a more responsible media.

[T Wolf]

11. There is no hope for them....

Other than a sledgehammer upside the head. And even that would not drive the insanity out. But it would lessen the damage they do.

[knitter4democracy]

13. Yup. My hubby's living proof.

He grew up an evangelical Christian Republican. His parents still are. In some ways today, he's more liberal than I am, which is saying something.

You know what did it? Med school. When he saw how our crappy medical system treats good people, hard-working people, he got sick to his stomach and started questioning everything. Residency clinched it. He went further to the left during his time in residency, even though many of the attendings and a couple of the other residents were Republicans in a somewhat conservative town.

Make them all work in hospitals for almost no pay or no pay at all and wipe noses and butts and listen to people and see the pain of the average American. It'll make them question things. They may refuse to change, some do, but it'll make them think.

[noonwitch]

14. Work in Children's Services will make one more compassionate

It might not make a conservative into a liberal, but it will make anyone develop compassion and understanding for messed-up kids and for a lot of their parents, although it took me a while to develop the latter. I was 22 when I started-it was difficult for me to identify with parents, then.

[knitter4democracy]

16. I'd agree with that.

When you see the logical result of Republican policies . . . it's hard to vote for them again.

[mwb970]

15. It's partly because of all the false things they believe.

(Also the true things they refuse to believe, but that's for another post.)

A recent poll shows that 50% of Americans believe we found WMDs in Iraq, up from 36% a year ago. This is demonstrably false and has been reported and acknowledged as such for years, and yet more and more people believe it anyway. Why?

Another poll shows that over 70% of our troops in Iraq believe that their mission is to "pay Saddam back for 9/11". This makes no sense at all, as Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, as has been reported and acknowledged for years. Where are they getting this idea?

False beliefs like these lead inevitably to judgments and plans that are "out of sync" with the unsympathetic real world, where the beliefs are simply false.

It seems to me that educating the True Believers somehow is more appropriate than "curing" them. But since they choose to listen only to those they already agree with, the falsehood-believing process is self-perpetuating and very hard to break.